Farmer Larry Who with sister
My roots are small Farmtown, USA, right in the heart of the Midwestern corn belt.
As a kid, I grew up on a farm, drove a tractor before I was six years old, joined 4-H at ten years of age, fed cattle, slopped pigs, gathered eggs, shoveled manure, baled hay, combined oats, picked corn and even attended a one-room schoolhouse until I was twelve years old.
Besides doing chores, my parents made sure that I never missed a Memorial Day ceremony, a Flag Day parade or a Fourth of July celebration. They instilled in me a pride about being an American and loving the freedoms our forefathers fought and died to pass on to us.
Not once did I ever hear my parents say America owed them something. Not once. They believed (and still do) that it was up to them to plow the fields, plant the corn and if the weather cooperated, they would harvest a crop. If the weather failed them, then it was time to get a winter job doing whatever just to survive until the following spring. Then, the farming cycle started all over again.
How times have changed, right?
Today, almost everybody has their hands out wanting something from America, as in our federal government. Businessmen want bail out funds. Bankers want bail out funds. Home owners want bail out funds. Credit card owners want bail out funds. States want bail out funds. Cities want bail out funds. Schools want bail out funds. America owes us! So, give me. Give me. Give me.
It seems nobody read the fine print on the loans that they incurred with their debts. You know, where it says that eventually the money would have to be paid back…or else.
So,what does America owe you?
If you have reason to believe you are owed something, you had better scurry over to the federal trough double-quick today because tomorrow will be too late. Our economic system will not survive the hatchet jobs being done on it by the Washington fools who are tinkering with it.
Maybe this would be a good time to check out Matthew 6:33 –
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
And then, maybe we should follow its advice. Today!
Swimming Upstream appears at this blog site on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It’s a little of this and a little of that, all written to encourage and exhort believers in their Christian jouneys.
Larry Who 
I know the government gives handouts.. but it’s a little harsh of a judgement on an impossible task that they were forced into by the decisions made in the past hundred years.
No one wanted to step up and stop the ball until it fell through the floor. Including you and me. Are we not as much at fault?
Maybe it’s the Mom in me, but I have to fall back on “when you point a finger at someone, there are three pointing back at you.”
There is some important legislation up for vote in congress RIGHT NOW, have you, mostly your readers, called your congressmen about what you think? WE ARE the bosses you know. Complacency is what conceived this mess, raised it, and overfed it. I say, educate yourselves america! know that your voice still means something outside the vote.
Larry, you put the ‘interesting’ in my morning coffee!!! : ) cindy
: ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : )
it’s as close to body language as I can get online! My eyes are twinkling and my heart is happy! Yours is a sight the offers to break the complacency that runs rampant in our world!
cindy,
As was stated on a Pogo cartoon, circa 1970: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
If I was inclined to place the blame on anyone for our current problems in America, I would lay it on the doorsteps of us Christians. We are the ones with the Truth. And yet, when we entered the political arena in force during the 1970’s, we settled for compromise and more compromise. So that today, Christianity is at best a weak, splinter group on the American political scene.
I would love to see America return to its constitutional foundation, but …I don’t believe that it will. The floodgates are opened.
So, what can we do? Just like our soldiers had to do in their battles in Iraq, especially Fallujah. We have to win hearts on a door to door, neighborhood basis. And this will take time. Lots of it.
That was beautifully stated… I hope to see that in your book!
I hate to challenge this Chip and Dale moment, but excuse me, as a Christian I have voted my conscience every time since 1970-something and the politician(s) I voted to represent my conscience did not necessarily follow what my vote commanded him/her to do. Therefore, if I point the finger at the lawmaker who helped pass a law I did not authorize with my 1/57,000,000th representative vote, there are definitely not 3 whole fingers pointing at me.
Now let’s talk about the 7 million Christians for whom the issue of 50 million dead babies simply slipped their minds and they pulled the lever for BHO. They get a cut of the blame now and forever for every baby that’s dismembered, has their brains sucked out while they wiggle helplessly, and the unlucky survivors of every effort to destroy them and they wind up dying slowly in a waste can.
Economic decisions, no matter how disastrous — and the G20 ones are death blows to our once great nation, and power grab decisions on debt pale in comparison to the innocent dead. Because a bad politician gets the majority of votes and non-votes by hook or by crook, I indeedy doody can and do point to each bad decision most of which I did not authorize, with a clear conscience taking zero blame for their stupidity.
jane,
Chip and Dale moment? That’s too good for me not to steal at some time in the future, okay?
Good comments as usual.
as long as I’m chip!