A bit of a philosophical debate I've been having in my little mind for a couple years and that is one of the morality of collecting a government check.
Understand one of the primary reasons I have the energetic, cynical, rage-filled, bombastic personality you've all come to know and love harkens from arguably the darkest days of my life - college.
They were dark because of the sheer amount of work I foisted upon myself, not out of self-discipline, but because if I didn't, I would not have succeeded. I had no help, parental, government, familial, nor friends, and this resulted in me working full time and going to school full time. The years of sleep-deprivation, weight loss (I went from 147 to 118) and mental strain took its toll, but it forged a viciously independent person, incapable of empathy as it was very likely what I went through was worse than whoever was complaining about life being tough. Because of this the single largest thing I prided myself on was my independence. I didn't need my parents, I didn't need a government hand out. I graduated, top of my class, 6 months early, with no debt and cash to spare. Nobody else I knew did that.
However, times have changed and whereas I was very judgmental about people collecting a government check, living off of the government or just not carrying their load, I'm not quite sure about that anymore. ie-the playing field and the rules have become so warped and so illogical, perhaps my old school beliefs are no longer obsolete, but just outright wrong.
For example, a big complaint in the "manosphere" is how traditional roles between men and women have changed. A large part of the men (and the women, I might add) lament this change and pine for the good old days of the 1950's to return. Men in the divorce community are desperate for a traditional woman to love and care for them, just as women howl "where have all the good men gone?" However, the forces that be are making such a return impossible. Plus society has been so brainwashed to ignore factual differences between men and women (going so far as to villainize the mentioning of these differences), deprogramming this communist brainwashing is going to take longer than most people have remaining in life expectancy. Therefore, the healthy or rational choice is not to lament this change, but to accept it as fact (which it is) and change your behavior to take advantage of it. Ergo, the rise of the "pick up artist."
"OK, you ladies want to be everything and do it all and have grrrrrl power and get divorce on a whim. You want to eschew traditional marriage and courting. You want to eschew traditional roles and go on slut walks or be the bread winner and be like guys. You want to jack up my taxes to effectively have the government replace men? Fine, we'll adapt. We'll become Man-Children, we'll never grow up, we'll just play our video games, we won't get married, we'll get vasectomies, we won't trust you, we'll use you, we'll tell you what you want to hear just so we can get what we want."
Is it disagreeable?
My idealistic, idiotic, "white knight," "uber beta," old school, youthful moral self would have said yes.
Is it reality?
My experienced, older and much-wiser self today says "damn right it is."
And guess which one I live in.
Sadly, this same logic has to be applied to today's economic reality as it pertains to self-supportation, independence and relying on the government.
Understand over time, government spending as a percent of GDP has gone from about 5% to 45% today. This includes state, local and federal spending. With government spending accounting for such a large percent of the population, it almost is impossible to live 100% of the time without being reliant upon the government at some point in your life. Additionally, with the private sector, production, wealth, excellence, progress and achievement being punished in the form of regulation, taxation and outright political and social derision, it becomes progressively harder to simply find private-sector employment (let alone a place where you can excel). So whereas our younger, more idealistic selves would be focusing on the shame of collecting a government check or taking a cushy government job, we do our modern day selves a disservice in ignoring the economic realities more or less forcing you to.
Much as I would like to stand here and say collecting a government check is bad, shameful and wrong, and champion the traditional American way of manly independence, if society is so hell bent on socialism and is stupid enough to put a guy like Barack Obama into office, not to mention equally hell bent on punishing individualism, profit and excellence, then in the end we're the suckers for slaving away anyway, trying to find jobs, merely to pay more in taxes for the slackers. And therefore, disagreeable as it may be to collect a government check, and disagreeable as it may be to "neg" women as a player, unfortunately that is the reality society has placed upon us.
Now, does this mean I fully endorse everybody going on the dole and stopping the fight against socialism? No, not at all. However, what I am trying to point out is that during these times of harsh economic conditions it is OK to collect a government check or go on unemployment. It is OK for those of you truly, psychologically independent people who love freedom and liberty to take from the government coffers. Of all people that deserve it, it's those of us who loathe and hate collecting a government check. And therefore you should have no shame in doing so. Better yet, if you can psychologically reprogram yourself, you might even be able to enjoy a much needed respite from a progressively decaying corporate world.
Really try to enjoy the decline.
(On a related note)
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