Will She Have What I Had?
Over the Fourth of July Weekend, my son visited us bringing along our beloved granddaughter. She is three and a half and gorgeous–sassy and prissy. Miss Madison owns my wife and I. She had not yet experienced a zoo, so Saturday morning we made the trek. It has been a couple of decades since I toured a zoo. We had a great time and after 3 hours staggered to the car completely exhausted. But that’s part of the game, being a grandparent. Sunday afternoon, we put the two on a plane back to Dallas, then headed home to rest and recover. I wallowed in immense joy, yet tinged with a bit of melancholy.
My life has been a wonderful experience, warts and all. I have borne the freedoms only this country affords in such a complete way–pursuit of happiness tempered by the ultimate of responsibilities. We watch our politicians, both parties, gambling the future of Madison and her generation on the pretense they are saving the day. Their tiresome circuitous explanations defy logic and the horse-sense with which we mere citizens must live our own lives. There is no way trillions of dollars of debt can be a miracle panacea for what ails the economy. The value of the dollar has to fall dramatically eroding the retirement many have set aside. More importantly, the younger folks will bear the burden of pay this albatross off long after my generation has moldered beneath the daisies.
It is downright shameful how my contemporaries and those following have squandered our birthright. The baby boomers have justified every desire for personal comfort. Homes have become larger and more luxurious, yet the divorce rate is screaming past 50%. So much for the sanctity of family. Amoral behavior has led to the stretching the boundaries of honor. The banking industry sees fit the establishment of derivatives and other security shams, creating a house of cards that now comes a tumblin’ down around all our ears, and politicians use that opportunity to mortgage the future of our grand children by creating a governmental house of cards, the crash of one pyramid scheme solved by the erection of another.
Our government has intituted the largest pyramid schemes in history in the name of social security and medicare. Now our witless wonders in Washington have cranked the Ponzi games up another notch.
They should be ashamed. And we should be ashamed of having voted for the bastards, of allowing them to ply their crooked trade.
So, I must beg the question: will my Madison grow up with the opportunities to chase those dreams of happiness as I did, and to realize the burden of responsibility that accompanies the gift of freedom?
ACS
