My beliefs and how they came about

I grew up in a family that was very strongly Democrat in nature, or so they say they were. They believed that the government was always going to be there to help them out no matter what. The concept of the “bailout” was alive and well in our family.

To me that meant sponging off the government taxpayers even if it meant lying about how you got where you were. The welfare system in the form that it exists now and then just goes against my whole moral fiber.

WELFARE
When I was a kid I saw too many people in my family abuse the welfare system and continue to get checks for doing nothing but cranking out babies. That is just wrong. The welfare system should be a system to help people in need not a system that you become dependent on. It is literally like a drug to some people. They become so dependent on it they thought they couldn't do anything else and continued to feed off the government teet at taxpayer expense. It was and is wasteful of taxpayer money to allow this to happen. At a young age it was this form of waste that helped shape my views about money use and waste.

My parents were divorced when I was about three years old. My brother and I lived with our mother after the divorce. We had very little money and lived in a one bedroom apartment and had to steal a lot to buy simple things. Consequently me and my brother spent lots of time in juvenile detention due to stealing. Dad almost never paid child support. Mom was kind of working and pretty much lived on the welfare system, while she went to beauty school to become a hairdresser.

I still remember the nasty looks that the checkers at the Safeway store would give us when we handed them the “welfare money.” We were always viewed as filthy little welfare boys. It was that perception of how those people viewed us that is the basis of my belief system and not being dependent on the government. I vowed to myself that I would never intentionally do that to myself or my children. One could say I had some pretty lofty thoughts for a six year old boy.

I still remember quite vividly rummaging through trash cans looking for food on weeks when the welfare checks ran short because mom just had to have her cigarettes and would trade the welfare money for cash.


NEGATIVITY
When I was about fourteen (sometime in 1981) I was in my fathers’ shop watching him do some of his leather crafting. I was always impressed at the work he did and how he could take a simple piece of leather and turn it into a piece of art. One day I watched in awe as he was working on an intricate piece and asked him if I could learn how to do what he did. His response to me was “You can’t even draw a straight line what makes you think you could ever do what I do!” It was that one hurtful comment that forever changed my life and also when I lost all respect for my father.

At first, I was in absolute shock that he would say that to me. After crying about it and reflecting on it I once again used this as a stepping stone to more of my belief system and how I approached work and dealt with others. It was that one hurtful comment that has always forced me to do everything I do better. Even though I never picked up leather crafting I did start doing something that my dad did which was learning computers. I eventually vowed to myself that I would learn more than he could and to learn it better than him. My own internal goals have always been to be better than him and his narrow-minded form of thinking. This was the last and final bolt in my foundation of belief that solidified how I would think and act. It was now my goal in life to be as opposite as my father as I could possibly be. In many ways it has been a very difficult struggle but it has been worth it. This internal struggle has made me who I am today.

To this day it has almost always been negative comments directed at me that have driven me to do what I do. I will admit I haven’t always turned a negative comment and made it positive. But I have been quite successful at turning negatives into positives.

UNIONS
My father was and is a huge pro-labor union guy. He was gainfully employed many times during the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s only because of the labor union. He was and still is one of the biggest jerks I have ever met. If it were not for labor unions he would not have been able to get employed. It was always his temper that got him in trouble. He always had a way of blaming others for his own problems. But the union would always save him and keep him working. Once again you can see that dependency thing going on. He always used the union as a crutch for his own bad behavior because he always knew in the end they would bail him out.

BANKRUPTCY
Like clockwork every seven years my parents would file for bankruptcy and pile up huge debts along the way and expect the government to bail them out because of the bad choices they made by buying things they did not need and only because they wanted them.

I am not saying that I am against the concept of bankruptcy. I am against the concept of using it as a crutch for your own personal method of helping you get out of the problems you create when you continue to make one bad decision after another. At some point there has to be a limit on stuff like this. To me bankruptcy is a last resort not a cop-out.

I was always just in absolute shock (and still am) that within months of getting a bankruptcy discharged how my parents would go out and just pile up more debts for crap that they really didn’t need. But yet because they had just been discharged they were able to get rid of stuff they no longer wanted and didn’t have to pay for it. So they went out and got more stuff.

VOTING
Neither of my parents ever voted. They sure complained about whoever was in office at the time and to this day they still complain. It was always my opinion (and still is) that if you did not vote then your opinion did not count. One day when I was about 17, I made this statement to my father and boy did I get a stern lecture. I really did not care it was my opinion and I stuck by it and to this still stick by it. You have no right to complain about who is running the government if you do not vote. You can piss and moan all you want it doesn’t matter. You gave up the right to an opinion about government by not casting your ballot. Period! End of discussion.

Change in blog direction

A recent post that was deleted on my Facebook page has given me new inspiration. I have decided to restart this blog in a different fashion. It was originally my ranting on about technology and those around me (namely a former supervisor, this was very unproductive). Since I have left that job life has gotten considerably less stressful so I really couldn’t keep up with being the angry technophile.

This blog will now be nothing more than my own personal viewpoints on being a fiscal conservative Republican.

There may be times when what I say on this blog may offend you. That’s not my concern. If you are offended then turn that around on me and comment or just stop reading. Either way it does not matter to me. If you are easily offended by people with differing opinions then go somewhere else. This is not the blog for you. I welcome good healthy debate not narrow-minded ideas that only one side shares. I am all for middle-of-the-road. I can easily meet someone halfway and maybe be swayed, but it had better be a damn good argument.

I personally am not easily-offended. In many ways I take inspiration from negative comments. Heck, that’s what has motivated me to restart this blog.

It seems as though some people find my political views either extreme or they just don’t understand that some people can actually think differently than them. I tend to think it to be more the latter of the two. So many people have become so fixated in their viewpoints that they cannot think of any way other way to think. This leads to a very narrow-minded view of how things should be done.

Today, so many people are seeing things as “black and white” when there really is a lot of grey out there. In our political belief system we have so many views that it’s just not Republican versus Democrat. Many people just have not learned to accept that.