Tuesday, June 12, 2012

"Hang Tough" - WTF?

The basic message of this article is this:
"
“Hang tough” was a regular refrain of Winters' during the war. He exhorted his men to do the best they could given their circumstances (often horrific). We as a country would do well to remember that advice too."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/06/12/normandys_lessons_for_obama_--_and_all_of_us.html

What I am struck by is the juxtaposition of this message with the reason we need to give each other this messag right now - that is to say, because we seem to unwilling to let people hang tough in their individual lives, we have established a circumstance in which the entire western world is on the brink of permanent financial implosion.

We can't hang tough, we know that.  We can't bear the brutal suffering of having folks say mean things to us, we can't be expected to provide for ourselves or our families.  We can't be expected to save our own retirements or work out our own arrangements for health care.  We are not smart enough to choose whether we should take the drugs deemed illegal, nor whether we can satisfy our sexual needs with a financial transaction.  That stuff is hard.  We threw in the towel on hanging tough a long time ago.  We made the choice - we need tough talking politicians waging wars on poverty and drugs and the health care emergency.  We need political geniuses, compassionate and wise, to establish the rules for us and throw us in jail if we violate those rules. 

We cannot be expected to be responsible for ourselves! 

Hang tough?  That message is about forty years too late.  Singing that song now is a bit late.  We should've considered trying that before we gave up our authority to an all knowing, all loving, and much too powerful government.

No comments:

Post a Comment