Filet Mignon in Every Pot

GOP candidate Mitt Romney said in the Republican debate last night that he wants everybody to rich.  It’s not enough anymore to just have a chicken in your pot, to have a job that will pay for the basic necessities of life.  Now, everyone has to have an HDTV, an X-box, an IPAD, a new car, a no-money down mortgage on a McMansion, a computer with Internet access, and free health care.

The trouble with a Utopia is that it’s a utopia – it’s not for real.  Utopia is a place someone cooked up in their imagination.  Wouldn’t it be great if none of us had to work for a living and yet had everything our hearts desired?  I’d have a little house with a yard where my two cats could chase butterflies in the summer and leaves in the autumn, I’d have a dog, and I’d never have to listen to my bellowing new neighbor ever again.  In fact, I’d have my loud-mouthed neighbor’s glossy black Lab.

But thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s glossy black Lab.  Those are the rules.  Someone has to do the work and you can’t expect them to do it for nothing.  That’s not called “volunteerism” or “charity” – it’s called “slavery.”  If I didn’t have deadlines for my company’s website, I’d be doing a number of things.  I’d be working on my Greatest Books for Conservatives megalist.  Owing my employer a day’s work for a day’s wages, I’m obliged to type it at home.  I’d be working on my own future novels and films about freedom.  I’d be writing speeches for Tea Party candidates.  Oh, the things I could do if I didn’t have to work for a living.

Soon enough – all too soon – I will have all the time in the world.  But I won’t have all the money in the world.  Comes March, I’ll be unemployed.  My severance pay and unemployment will carry me for awhile, but I’m far from being so independently wealthy that I can afford to remain in that state of freedom indefinitely.  By this time next year, I will be obliged to sell my time, if I’m lucky, to another employer with deadlines.  The Greatest Books list at least offers me one useful solace – it’s improving my typing speed and accuracy.

Up until the creation of the Great Society, we had a reasonably balanced society economically. Blacks needed to be allowed to work.  Once that huge mistake was corrected, our economy hummed like a well-oiled machine.  Sure, there were socialist cranks squeaking their wheels because Capitalism was flourishing and socialism wasn’t.   But who cared?

Still, the Socialists persevered in their designs to upend society.  Thanks to Obama’s “transformation” our economy has been upended.  Thanks to all the entitlement programs, the money is not only flowing downhall to the dregs of society, but it’s draining right out of economy altogether.  If something is done to correct the many problems, the American engine will seize up and break down entirely.

The present GOP field is not encouraging.  Romney is Obamacare lite.  Perry doesn’t care that illegal immigrants are flowing over our borders.  Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that holds our senior citizens – and the politicians for whom they would vote – hostage.  None of these candidates can or will do anything about it.  Bachmann needs to polish her image.  Ron Paul is a Truther.  Palin is pro-union.  Christie is a moderate.  Yet we must put one of them in office. 

Bachmann at least has all her conservative ducks in the right row.  Like Palin, she may be too much of a lightweight, though.  The heavyweights, unfortunately, are overweight from too much compromise and Kool-Aid drinking.  Unless there’s a Conservative Superhero waiting in the wings to announce their candidacy, we’re in trouble.

If the Socialists win in 2012, we’ll be lucky if we have a pot left in which to put our poor, scrawny chicken, much less filet mignon.