Critique Of An Unthinking Man, Pt. 5

This is my final installment of my critique on Robert A. Hall's "I'm Tired." To catch up on my comments to his piece please see Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Hall finishes his rant as follows:

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I'm really not quite sure how the first and second sentences here connect, unless Hall means that the expectation of forgiveness from the public that celebrities have when they get caught having affairs or doing drugs is the same sort of "entitlement" starving kids have when they get their only meal of the day at school. I also don't really understand how a Tiger Woods or a Lindsay Lohan really fits into the rest of Hall's litany of things that tucker him out, but I suppose trying to find strong logic in this piece is a fool's errand.

Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn’t have that in 1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.” The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.

True! And I can't believe that the people who did call themselves poor in 1970 had the audacity to do so when they probably had running water and electricity running through their homes- the majority of Americans didn't have that in 1894. How dare people try to raise the bar of what we consider "poverty" as the rest of society surges forward?! At the time of the Founding Fathers, you were only poor if you had one pair of knickers, ate hay for at least 4 meals a week and could only afford two corners on your hat instead of three! If that definition was good enough for them, it's good enough for us, too.

Also, I think we all know that discrimination has been, since the late 1960s, dead and gone. Doesn't exist. At all. It's about time those whiners get over it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps! To be fair, personal responsibility is certainly important and government assistance should be temporary (as it has been since the Clinton Administration) in order to help people get back on their feet and then let them make their own way. Those who scam the system or expect the rest of us to support them for an entire lifetime (unless they have an impairment which keeps them from gainful employment) should be expected to carry their own weight. However, as most thinking people realize, sometimes folks fall on hard times and we've decided, as a society, to help each other out via certain stopgap measures (Unemployment Benefits, Social Security Disability Insurance, WIC, etc.).

Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to get to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.

...AAaaand scene. Way to end it on a high note, Robert. Since this same rant has basically been put forth during every period of American history with the same sort of doomsday urgency with which Hall writes, I have a feeling his granddaughter won't wind up in as dire of circumstances as he expects. I responded to this piece partially because of how simply ridiculous (and typically angry) it was; but also because the cadre of people who believe such things- and there are many- act as if they are the enlightened few who have a responsibility to save America from malicious usurpers, that they have a duty passed down from Washington himself not to let America move from where they'd like it to be. That, simply, is not the case. There are other, more rational ways to consider these issues and we have decided, through political debate and elections, that our country should move in certain directions and deal with certain issues through government intervention.

These rants will never go away- and at least people care enough to speak up, no matter how ill-informed they may be- but I hope that those who read this critique consider the issues fully and get legitimate information before getting as bent out of shape as Mr. Hall did when writing. Critical Focus is dedicated to considering the challenges of our day through logical and rational analysis, and aims at sharing this approach with others in the hopes that it spreads to our (inter)national discourse.

You can find Mr. Hall's blog (and leave your comments) here.