All That's Wrong With The People In This Country

Every day I listen to the radio in the morning, and every day I come away more pissed off than ever. Eddie & Jobo are ignorant and stupid, as are Crazy Howard McGee and his crew, Eric & Kathy are incredibly dull and lifeless, and Drex talks about the dumbest teenage crap. Mancow actually says some pretty good things at times, but his listeners that call up are some of the biggest rejects I can imagine.

But for some reason, I still always start out my morning listening to these shows. In the end, I either have to put on a CD or wind up getting to work feeling nice and angry.

This morning, the topic on GCI was "If you don't want to fight in this war, you shouldn't have to", which was the opinion of Crazy Howard. And all these people were calling in to say stuff in support like "Yeah, I joined ROTC cause they paid for my school, but I'm against war and I don't wanna go". The sad and disturbing thing is, they were saying all of this with serious intent.

Tell me that isn't some of the dumbest stuff you've ever heard. You sign up for ROTC, they pay for your school, but when the time comes to serve, all of a sudden you're against war and you don't wanna go. Now, did somebody put a gun to your head and say "We're giving you $20,000, sign here or else"? Or, did you think the US military was some sort of high-level charity organization that likes to give out scholarships for fun?

Here is what I think is wrong with people in this country today (hence the title of this blog). We've all come to expect to be given certain things without having to work or pay for it. There's too many takers, not enough givers. I say "we" because a lot of what I'm writing applies to myself too, and it needs to change.

See, the people here are born into some of the cushiest conditions this planet has ever seen. Okay, so there are still the ghettos, the trailer parks, etc. Yes, some do have it better than others. But for the most part, we all enjoy a degree of freedom, human rights, and a quality of life that is unmatched in history, to an extent which is still considered rare around the world.

We grow up with the luxury of playing video games, watching cartoons on TV, and joining Little League Baseball. We all get to go to school for free from the time we're 5 until we're 18, and in many cases, we're helped along through college and grad school as well. Roads are paved, firefighters and policemen protect us, food is plentiful, and healthcare and medicine is more advanced than ever, while our friendly congressmen and presidential candidates beg for our support. And, with by far the strongest military in the world defending us, we've never in our lifetime had to really worry about being taken over or enslaved by foreign conquerers.

You couldn't say those things about any other civilization, past or present. Even today, millions upon millions of the unfortunate are starving for lack of food, dying for lack of available medical treatment, and/or living under oppressive governments. Let's not even talk about the cruel Egyptian rulers, ancient Chinese dynasties, or the evil Nazi empire of the past. And let's not even compare ourselves to the current extreme situations in Africa, North Korea, Iraq, Bosnia, or Israel, for the moment.

How about we just take a look at the democratic society of Taiwan instead, a relatively rich and advanced country by most standards. ROTC members here complain about having to serve in Iraq? At least they had a choice about it. At least they got to go to school for free because of it. In Taiwan, every last male is required to serve for 2 years in the military once they graduate high school or college. No "sign here please", no "we'll pay for college" - if you were born with a penis, you're going to serve with no questions asked.

Why? Is it just for fun? Give me a break. For over 50 years now, Taiwanese people have been living in the genuine fear of being attacked and taken over by Communist China. If you don't believe me, read some history books. Better yet, take it from me. I lived there for a year in high school, and I've visited plenty of times throughout my life. Let me say this: if it weren't for US political support and the aircraft carrier dispatched to the area, Taiwan would have been toast a long time ago.

Only a few years ago, China test fired some missiles near the outlying islands of Taiwan just for kicks and giggles, and the Taiwanese stock market plunged like a rock. Another time, when I was visiting, there was a citywide power outage in Taipei, and the first reports that came on the radio were speculating on the fear that China was about to attack. Property values and consumer confidence routinely drop in the country as tensions rise. I mean, just take a look at a freaking map and see how tiny the island is compared to the mainland. Trust me, people living in Taiwan have had to, and continue to deal with a significant fear of being attacked.

This kind of feeling is something that too few people in America know about or understand. Many of us have never been outside the country, and when we do leave, it's as a tourist. The result is that we share a distorted fantasy view of the world, as if nothing bad is going on, a attitude based on ignorance of the facts. You don't have to watch Jay Leno interviewing people on the street to know that there are too many stupid people in this country who don't watch the news, don't know what's going on, yet act like they do. Just yesterday on Mancow's show, they went on the street and asked people what they thought of Kim Jong Il, and everyone started talking about Lil'Kim. That's just plain embarrassing for the current state of our society.

If only we all knew how truly lucky we have it here. Right now, as citizens of the United States I can think of only 3 fundamental duties we can offer in return for all the benefits we enjoy - vote, pay taxes, and serve in the military when called upon. Most of us don't even vote, everyone complains about paying taxes, and now, many are reluctant to serve. If you didn't want to serve, why did you sign up and why did you feel right in taking the scholarship? I never signed up for anything, I haven't received a penny from ROTC, but if a draft notice appears tomorrow in my mailbox, I'm there. No ifs, ands, or buts.

The underlying problem with all of this is that too many of us are used to being given things, and too few of us know the meaning of earning, working, or fighting for them - myself included. When this happens, the natural response is to take these things for granted. Such things as liberty, the Bill of Rights, national security, even the availability of fresh food at Jewel. All of these things have come at some cost, when it's easy to believe the myth that they are owed to us as human beings.

The fact is, brave men and women died throughout history for our liberty, and fought so we could have such a thing as the Bill of Rights. Brave men and women still work hard and risk their lives in our military today so that we can have "national security". Unfortunately, our society suffers from a collective ignorance of this fact. And when you don't know or understand the work that goes behind certain things, you don't appreciate it.

Think about it, when we were young, it was funny to destroy other people's property. Yeah, we're bored, so why not go TP someone's house or spray paint graffiti on some random building, for no reason? After all, none of us ever had to clean up TP from a house or pay for a building and its maintenance. But now that we're older, it's not that funny anymore.

Or, I think of back when I took Chinese School every week after church, and they would give us cookies during recess. Me and my friend would take the cookies outside and try to hit the lightpost across the field with them. Perfectly good cookies, now that I think about it, but we literally were just throwing them away because we didn't have to buy them ourselves.

Also consider this fact: statistically, studies have shown that the vast majority of lottery winners spend their entire winnings within a few years. I personally don't know how you can blow millions without at least saving some for the rest of your life, but I guess that's the lottery player's mentality. Does paying $1 for a ticket and watching ping pong balls bounce around on TV constitute "earning" $10 million? Yeah right. You won the lottery, you didn't work for the money, so there's no respect for the cash. Of course you're gonna end up wasting it away.

Compare that to how my grandparents or my dad are. Having witnessed his own mother and father scraping the bottom of the pot of rice as a kid, and having to wonder whether there would be enough for the next meal, my dad would never ever forget the value of food, or of money. To this day, he is one of the thriftiest people I've ever seen, even though by now, through years of hard work, he has made enough money to live comfortably. He tears napkins and tissues in half before using them, because he thinks using an entire napkin is wasting. When we leave the house for as short a time as an hour, he turns down the thermostat to save that little bit of energy cost. And when I think my tube of toothpaste is out, he takes it and somehow squeezes another month's worth of use out of it.

My point being, if we could pry ourselves away from silly reality shows for more than a few seconds, maybe we would be able to see and understand that we are lucky to have the lives we do. We might see that there is actually a real world out there somewhere, and not just on MTV. A real world where "due process of law" is a pipe dream, where fresh meat and vegetables are not necessarily a given, where you might witness your closest friends and family dying before your eyes each day, and you could be the next.

It's because of this lack of awareness that it's become so cool and popular to be anti-war these days. I saw on the local news last night that high schoolers walked out of school to protest the Iraq situation. They were joined by Jesse Jackson and many other protestors who heaped praise on the students for "standing up". There's even people who flew themselves over to Iraq to be human shields, thinking it's some heroic act. They don't realize that our country respects the lives of civilians, and that by these kinds of actions, they are using this very fact against us. Does Saddam care about civilian lives? He's probably laughing hysterically along with the rest of the Muslim world that thinks Americans are stupid, ignorant, and weak. Can you really blame them for thinking that? (By this time, most of the "human shields" have already come back after they realized Saddam only cares about them shielding his palaces - how funny is that?)

Not to mention the peace "leaders" like Dave Matthews and George Clooney speaking out against our government. Seriously, what do celebrities know about the real issues? They live more comfortably and have perhaps a more distorted view of life and this world than anybody. Dave Matthews, yeah he makes good music, but it's painful to listen to him talk about this kind stuff. He's much better off just sticking to his rambling about the joys of sex, and how we should legalize weed.

Now, this blog wasn't meant to be written about Iraq, if you want my thoughts on that, check my entry from 2/21. But while I'm at it, I should mention, it's now been weeks since I wrote that blog. Notice that months have now passed since we first heard the words "one last chance", and still nobody has the balls to disarm Saddam. We're in the same exact place we were before. Yes, I have a good idea: why don't we just wait till it's summer to make the decision? It'll be more fun for our soldiers to wear all their chemical/biological protection gear when it's a pleasant 100+ degree August day in the desert anyways. Let's not forget, that's why it's so dangerous for Saddam to have those kinds of weapons in the first place, because of the environment there.

For real though, what is it gonna take before we finally decide to enforce this thing? Say you get pulled over by a cop, he asks you if you have drugs, you say no, and then he searches your car and finds some dope in the trunk. No way any cop's gonna give you a few months to get rid of it, your ass is going to jail. Instead, it's like we should all give Saddam a cookie for reluctantly agreeing to destroy these missiles that he wasn't supposed to have in the first place. What a flocking joke.

What, so France is against war? So France wants inspections to continue? SCREW FRANCE!!! WHAT DO THEY KNOW??? WHY DO WE NEED THEM ANYWAYS?!! (If I could make the font any bigger, I would) The French, they've spent their entire history getting raped by the Germans cause they do nothing but sit around, eating their baguettes and despising Americans for being fat and ugly. The same Americans who saved them in World War II, after they foolishly thought some bunkers they built on their border after WWI would save them from the Nazis. Face the facts: these inspections are not truly working. They are merely giving us an illusion of security, much like those silly Maginot Lines did in the past.

Forgive the tangent. This is becoming one of my longest entries ever, I think. That's saying a lot too.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, there's way too much we take for granted here, and way too many ignorant people in this country. All the stupid things being said and done today in the name of avoiding this war only highlights that fact. It's one thing if you are "morally opposed" to war, but to actually join ROTC and not want to report when the time comes to fight is one of the worst things I've ever heard. How selfish of a person and how big of a pussy do you have to be to even have such a thought? I really wonder.

You know what, being an engineer at the nation's 2nd largest defense contractor, I have seen a little bit of how far advanced our military's technology is compared to what's available to the rest of the world. It's ridiculous and not even fair, the kinds of things we have which give us an unbelievable advantage over our enemies. Not that being a soldier is a walk in the park, but look at our casualties from recent conflicts, compare them to the numbers suffered by the other side, and they will tell you as much. If you think it sucks to be a part of our military, how about you try serving in another country and then we'll see what you think.

The more I write, the more I'm getting frustrated with the things I hear. We live in the greatest country in the world right now, and none of us seem to realize it or care. People freely criticize the President while defending Saddam like he's not so bad, as if he's some great guy who just accidentally gassed his own people and didn't mean to use deadly chemical weapons on our soldiers. People praise our men and women in the armed forces in one breath, but refuse to offer themselves in service and "morally oppose" war in the next. They accuse G-dubs of thirsting for Iraqi oil, complain that gas prices are too high, and all the while they're driving around in Hummers and Ford Expeditions that get about 10 miles per gallon.

Am I the only one who sees something gravely wrong with all of this? I really hope I'm not alone. There's a lot of waking up and eye-opening to do for all of us. And if we don't recognize what's happening in this world on our own, one day worse things will be upon us without any further warning. By that time, we'll have no choice but to recognize the cold hard facts of life. Our selfishness and our ignorance will then be our own destruction. All I can do is sincerely pray that we won't let it come down to that day.