I got really pissed off in a conversation yesterday. Seriously, genuinely and truly pissed. And the conversation is such a perfect illustration of why I do not like the welfare mentality that pervades so much of the American left.

I was talking with a couple in town who are chronically out of work. Not chronically out of work because of the job market, mind you, but chronically out of work because, frankly, they don't want to work.

In the three years I have been here, it has been a continual cycle. He'll get a job. She'll get a job. At first, everything's wine and roses, but after two or three months, they start missing work. Chronically. To the tune of a 40-50% absentee rate. If you can't figure out what happens next, well, you haven't been in the job market very long. They both end up out of work, and will usually sit around the house without a job until they simply do not have any money left.

They cannot keep a car on the road because, well, they have no money. They've pretty much lived off of the kindness of strangers the entire time I've known them. And, while they're pretty much universally frustrated with the mentality, they help out, becase, frankly, nobody wants to see them starve.

They're in a down cycle right now. She just got let go from the fast food restaurant where she worked, and he's finding every excuse not to work. I was visiting with them yesterday and he began complaining about how "the government needs to" do this, and "the government needs to" do that. He believes the government should set prices for all grocery commodities and you pay the government set price. He believes that gasoline and oil should be regulated. He believes that a manager of a business should make less than the stockboy because "the stockboy does all the work" (not realizing that, without marketing the goods, you can stock all you want and they don't get sold because NOBODY COMES IN). In other words, he pretty much believes the government should subsidize his laziness.

Now this was where I blew a stack. Classic grasshopper and ant story here, really. During the past three years, while he has held at least four jobs, and she has held at least six, I've been busting my hump trying to make things better. I've finished my associates and pretty much tried to make a gradually better living. And this guy expects the government to step in and level the playing field so that he doesn't have to make any sacrifices to get ahead?

The further along I get in life, the more I come to truly resent people who believe they are OWED a percentage of my paycheck. Sure, I'm more than happy to help someone who's truly down and out, but you know what? The people who have genuinely fallen on hard times aren't the ones coming up to me and begging for "fairness". They usually just want opportunity, and they should be given opportunity.

Call me lacking in compassion, call me mean, call me anything you want, but I do not believe the world OWES us anything. Not one of us. Heck, if it weren't for a few choice picks out of Darwin's grab bag, we'd be flinging feces at each other and picking lice out of our hair. Just to have the opportunities we do in the Western world is something we should be grateful for, not something that should make us want to beg for more.

You can walk into any third world nation and find people who are DESERVING of opportunity, who would WELCOME the chance to live to a standard equal to even the poorest of America's poor. These people are impoverished by circumstances beyond their control, and if there's anyone we should help, it should be THEM.

As I look at my surroundings, I see three desktop computers, not one of them less than four years old. No dual core on my desktop machines. I have a new laptop, true enough, but it's anything but a top of the line model. My TV is 13 inches in diameter, my DVD player was a $40 special, my car is 8 years old, and I haven't got a single pair of jeans that was manufactured during the Bush administration. But I have it pretty danged good. As an adult, when these circumstances were in MY control, I have never gone hungry a single day, never been homeless, and never had a single utility cutoff. With the exception of one two week period in 93 and one six week period in 2004, I have never been unable to find regular, steady employment, and most of that time I've had a running vehicle.

The thing is, though, I know exactly what I need to do to have it better. And I intend to do it, not ask my representatives in Washington steal money from someone else so I can realize the American dream! And the people who want THEIR success to be funded by MY labor...can kiss my rosy red (PG thread censored word!)