Stories of liberals gone 'crazy'

Also, offer up a prayer for the school children of Uvalde

Every now and then I hear a story that makes me understand why some of those “MAGA Republicans” (as President Joe Biden would call them) think that us more liberal types are nothing but pure pantywaists when it comes to molly-coddling those who think they deserve special treatment for every little thing.

This is a bit different than my normal attitude. Perhaps it is shaped by the “loan forgiveness” that President Joe Biden announced a few weeks ago. Give, give, give is all we seem to ever do.

Never mind that the college-educated will typically earn hundreds of thousands more in their lifetimes than those without the same education, which means that they will drive the economy to a much greater degree, which in turn means they will pay a much larger share of taxes.

It’s the principle of the thing. Just don’t ask me exactly which principle. I couldn’t tell you.

I heard this story just the other day in the most unlikely of places and must warn that I cannot vouch for its truthfulness. It could just be a story.

Still, it does sound like something that could have happened in one of those uber-liberal places like San Francisco, Portland or maybe even Austin.

It’s all closer to home than you might think. Keep your eyes open, friends.

Whatever the actual details, I was led to believe that this happened right here in the good old U.S.A., though goodness knows it sure doesn’t sound like the America I have come to know, particularly over the last few years. The Pine Curtain has held strong against this kind of thing.

The fact that it happened doesn’t mean it is becoming indicative of American behavior, just that it could be the direction we are travelling. Don’t let down your guard.

The story goes like this: There was a businessman — probably in one of those Democratic states where Greg Abbott ought to be sending people who sneak in from Mexico — who ran a business with his two sons.

What kind of business I can’t say, other than I know it did tolerably well. It could still be in business but, not if the father doesn’t show better business sense.

Nobody got rich from the business, but the family did fine. Everyone worked hard. The father did run a pretty loose ship, in that benefits and salaries were higher than norm, but though the work was tough, no one was complaining.

Well, almost nobody that is.

The guy had a problem with his youngest son. You know how it is, those young people get a little something, then they think everything ought to be just given to them. You and I know well enough that’s when you must clamp down and flat refuse.

One day this son goes to his dad and says he wants out. Period. But it’s worse than that. The kid wants what he believes is his “share” of the business. He figured that daddy was going to leave him half the business, anyway, and he wanted to cash in his chips. The kid couldn’t realistically say he’d done a thing to build up this enterprise. Yeah, he shows up to work and does what he’s assigned to do but he’s never sweated a payroll or had to fire anyone.

He’s where he was because daddy’s was the boss.

Don’t you just hate that kind of entitlement?

The dad thought about it for a while and probably asked the son what he was going to do with the money and the boy must have given him a good line about college or something. He really wanted the money to party. He didn’t give a fig about learning anything.

Despite that lame request — now, get this — the father said, OK. He liquidated half of his business and then he just flat handed it over. It put the business in jeopardy but it somehow survived. I can’t say how.

The next thing the father saw was the son skipping away with a suitcase full of money, laughing as he went out of sight. Even with all that the father couldn’t help but being sad. Me? I would have said, “Good riddance, Sonny boy.”

Unfortunately for the son, the good times weren’t going to last very long. He lived large and I don’t know that college was ever in his plan. Wine, women and song, not necessarily in that order, were what he wanted to pursue and he did that with a vengeance.

Before you know it, he was flat broke and hungry. Surprise! He was working at the local burger joint, eating left over bits of burger and fries that customers had discarded. Finally, he’d had enough. He was going nowhere, when what he wanted was to go back home.

He decided to just show up unannounced and offer to work at the lowest position in the plant. Anything would be better than his present circumstances.

Do you know what happened then? Daddy took him back with open arms, even ran out to give him a big hug when saw the son coming up the walk.

That wasn’t all. The father threw the kid a party for coming home. Can you believe that? Whatever happened to kids taking responsibility? His brother was some kind of upset and who can blame him?

I don’t know what happened to the kid. He’s probably sitting at home playing video games. The old man? He’s just another snowflake trying not to offend anyone. What else is new?

I hear the old man pulled another giant boner. He had a small flock of 100 sheep. One of them got out and was lost for a while. Now a good MAGA Republican would just let the one sheep go as the cost of doing business.

But, no, this bozo leaves his 99 sheep and goes looking for one. He gets lucky, he finds the one and no one steals the other 99, but that won’t always be the case! You just can’t trust people.

He makes it worse by getting all happy and telling everyone about it, which means he better never do that again.

As you’ve probably realized, those two old stories of “liberalism” didn’t originate with me. They are universal truths that sometimes all of us forget.

We have a big “forgiveness” problem in this country. We never want to do it. We want people to pay, perhaps for no better reason than that we had no one to help us in a time of need.

The old model of, “you must suffer because I once did,” doesn’t work anymore, if it ever did. There must be a better way.

Hold a man’s feet to the fire long enough and soon you’ll have a man who can’t walk. Of course, we’ll likely blame him for that, too.

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Given the somewhat religious nature of this newsletter, this might be a good time to say a prayer for the students in Uvalde, who returned to school this week.

If you pray for nothing else, pray for their fears to be eased as they enter a new school year. It would also not be a bad time to pray for elected officials to have enough courage to do something.

The backbones in every one of our state’s elected leaders was combined, it wouldn’t make one good vertebrae.

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