OK, two rants in two days.

The local news is on, or at least it was until I shut it off in disgust.  Over the past two half hour cycles, they have spent about 20 minutes of reporting time talking about a study they’ve ‘found’ that shows that over the past few decades, the ‘rich’ have gotten richer, while the ‘poor’ haven’t had quite as much income growth*.  They then drag in one of the local ‘Occupy Something’ people, complete with carefully sculpted fauxhawk, expensive raingear, and a somewhat cultured Bluegrass accent to tell us how unfair it is that those who work are getting a vast amount more than those who don’t.

Look, life’s not fair.  Never was, at least since our ancestors figured out that the biggest ape got most of the bananas and the cutest mate.  You might as well complain that the small, agriculturally unproductive area of  downtown Louisville is getting rain when the vast majority of the area is not as wet but has much more acreage.  The mark of a good person is that you don’t accept that unfairness as an excuse, and try to find a way to overcome it.

The ‘rich’, few of whom inherited the bulk of their wealth, have gotten off of their butts and created that wealth that the hipster on the TV is whining about.  Maybe they started a business and through hard work, ingenuity, and a good dose of luck were able to get rich doing it.  Maybe they gave someone else money to do that, and now they are enjoying the fruits of that investment.  Either way, because they invested a chunk of their lives in trying to do something, they’re wealthier than they were before, and more people are not among the ‘poor’ due to their efforts.

Yeah, the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are.  Anyone want to admit that it’s not because of their race, or their family tree, or their political connections that they got that way?  My guess is that most of them got that way because they got up every day, worked themselves to death, and got to bed late after putting everything they had into their job or their business.

My family isn’t rich when compared to the truly wealthy, but I know how I got to where I am.  I’ve worked hard every day since I can remember, I’ve gotten an education in something that can pay to feed my children, and I’ve never taken a thin dime from the government that I didn’t earn.  I may not be wealthy by our standards, but I’ve seen both obscene, ill-gotten wealth and crushing poverty, and this isn’t either of those.

This is a case of those who are not very well off when compared to their fellow Americans whining because they’re only 1000 times richer than the truly poor around the world.  No American goes hungry because there is no food for those who cannot afford to buy it.  Maybe you’re not eating steak and potatoes every night, but you’re not having to sit and watch your children slowly starve to death.  No American goes without better health care than the middle class in most of the rest of the industrial world gets because they can’t afford health insurance.  Maybe you don’t get the latest treatments or fanciest procedures, but they’ll keep your butt alive.  No American child goes without at least a rudimentary education so long as their parents give a damn and make sure they study.

My point is that I’m tired of hearing people whine.  If I had the power, I’d take each and every one of these class-baiting twits to the real world and let them see what poverty really looks like.  I’d show them people who come from huts made out of garbage who are working their tails off to get out of that hut.  I’d show them women who have to carry weapons every day, not so they don’t have their purse stolen, but so that they’re not kidnapped and raped.  I’d show them graveyards full of the people who tried to make things better, but were rewarded with a bullet in the head for their trouble.

Then I’d show them the poorest of the poor here in America, a place that gives away free food, shelter, clothing, education, medical help, and just about anything else a person needs in order to not only stay alive, but to thrive and become a producing member of society if they would only care enough to do it.

Then, I would dare them to try to say that even the ‘poor’ in America aren’t doing pretty good.  I’d dare them to show me the thousands of children who are dieing of diseases that can be cured with a dollar’s worth of medicine.  I’d dare them to show me the millions of children who aren’t going to school because they have to work as hard as an adult to stay alive.  I’d dare them to show me the graves of the people who die from mal-nourishment in America.

Then I’d laugh in their face as they try to come up with examples, because there aren’t any.  Generations of Americans have bled into our soil so that these problems stayed away, and we continue to do so now.

If we don’t wake up, we are going to lose the ethics of hard work, self-reliance, and ingenuity that have been all that has kept us from sliding back into the morasse that our fore-fathers sailed across oceans to get away from.  Our ancestors didn’t come over in steerage or worse so that their grandchildren could demand that others take care of them, and they would be ashamed if they saw how this movement is acting.

As a nation, we are soft.  Hard work, ingenuity, and making your own way have fallen out of fashion with not only our young people, but also with their parents, and that scares me.  The thought that the world owes you anything is a dangerous honey trap to fall into, and what I see when I see these Occupy people chanting, drumming, begging, and speaking is nothing more than a fly that’s fallen into the pitcher plant.

Now y’all excuse me while I get cleaned up and get to my job.  There are thousands of protesters in the streets who are depending on me to provide for them.

*Here’s a hint:  if your income is growing, then you’re not really poor.  At worst, you’re only being swept along in the wake of the truly prosperous, but your income is getting bigger nonetheless.