I Want My Socialism, but You Can't Have Yours

I was in the break room at work just long enough the other day to hear some Social Security receiving, Medicare-using sixty-something say if Obama is reelected, the country will go into socialism. I wisely got out of there, but it does make my blood boil. I just might burst a blood vessel if I hear some older person rail about the "evils of socialism" while benefiting from it. Gee whiz, if socialism is so bad, every single person getting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, TANF, unemployment and any other safety net needs to "man up, "woman up" or "child up" and JUST SAY NO. Give it back. But it won't happen.

Will people realize that the "entitlements" they're getting ARE social programs? Do they realize if they are getting a check that says U.S. Treasury on it, they are being supported by the government? "But I paid into the system!" you say. Ida May Fuller paid a mere $24.75 into Social Security before retiring at 65. She ended up with nearly $29,000 in benefits, because she lived to be 100. You cannot tell me that she "paid" into the system and got what she paid into it. She got a HELL of a lot more than she paid into it.

But to hear old folks, and those on disability tremble at the scourge of socialism, and socialized medicine, I would like them first to rely on that part time cashiering job for survival, instead of SS. If it's all one big Ponzi scheme, and I'm paying for the old and disabled, I'll have to hope someone in a couple generations behind me is going to pay MY way. But I am pretty sure I won't see the money I've paid into the system. But it makes me wonder what the hell people are thinking. Take away the safety net, and watch the fun begin. It will turn out to be the survival of the fittest. On one hand, we'd save a hell of a lot of money. On the other hand, it's sad when grandma is bankrupt because she can't pay her medical bills. My parents relied on Medicare to pay for a triple bypass ($26,000) and bladder removal and full hysterectomy ($13,000). If not for Medicare, my parents would have been bankrupt. But you don't care, do you?

But having medical care for EVERYONE smacks of socialism, and it's horrible. The horror! THE HORROR! People are just too pussy to admit they like their entitlements. They are quick to claim them, but they don't want you to claim yours. It always warms my heart when a conservative who weighs 400 pounds gets government assistance to have surgery to fix his knees. Sorry, but if you are relying on the government for ANYTHING, you are partaking in the safety net. I've yet to see anyone getting SS turning it down. If you truly want to claim you are independent, retire on just your 401K and IRA and investments, and refuse your SS. But no one will do it. However, if you are totally dependent on a check from the U.S. Treasury, you are being supported by the government, you pinko hypocrite.

To make it totally fair, we have coverage for everyone, or coverage for no one. That's right: Aunt Sadie isn't covered, Uncle Donald isn't covered, your parents aren't covered, your kid is not covered and YOU are not covered. Pretty scary, huh? But to pick and choose and say the old and the poor and little kids get covered, because they are "at risk" pretty much flips the bird to the 45 million or so Americans who don't have insurance. These are the people who are busting their asses to make a living (and they are paying taxes too) and they don't have coverage, so when something goes wrong, they hit the ER. Yes, they get care, but the ER isn't cheap. So they have to pay it off in installments of $5 a month (if the hospital will allow payments; some won't) for the next ten years or so.

So if an old person is freaked out about socialism ruining our nation, take his or her SS check and tell them since they hate socialism, to give it up already. It will be hard, forcing an 80-year-old woman to get a job, but she'll toughen up. Weakness is for pussy commie motherfuckers.

Which is why every last one of us needs to exercise and eat better. Because judging by my own generation and the one behind it, we'll all need Hoverounds just to get through the grocery store. But that's okay. Medicare will pay for it. Right?