An e-mail from Hillary

I got an e-mail from Hillary, I did really and truly … but does it count if, at the end, she asked me for money? Oh well, here is what she told me. 

One young woman in Marshalltown told me about learning to run her father’s farm. A principal from Cedar Rapids said he’s worried about making education a priority for his students. A mother at Kirkwood Community College spoke about the challenges of being in school while raising her daughter.

What I heard over and over again is what motivates me to run for president: Everyday Americans want the opportunity to work hard and get ahead, for themselves and for their children.

It was an incredible trip. I sat down with Iowans and asked them what they really cared about, and heard about their hopes for the future. It was just honest conversation and a whole lot of coffee.

What does it all mean? When did Americans not want to work hard and get ahead? When did Americans not overcome adversity and hardship … during the First World War, during the great depression, during World War Two and many times before the 20th century? 

When did Americans driven to a better life not find a way to do so, often with the help of their families? When did Americans not wish for a better life for their children and work a lifetime and struggle to achieve that goal? When in America, including today, was there ever a lack of opportunity for those truly seeking it? When was it ever easy for Americans. Is that what we seek; easy?

It’s not everyday Americans who have changed, it is those Americans who have been convinced, largely in the last six years or so, that America has changed, that opportunity is absent, that others have what is rightly theirs and that their struggle for a better life is unfair. 

It is those Americans who see progress as making the less fortunate more comfortable in their state, thus more dependent and less driven to achieve more. 

“Dur­ing Mr. Oba­ma’s pres­idency the num­ber of Amer­icans re­ceiv­ing food stamps has risen by two-thirds and the num­ber of peo­ple draw­ing dis­abil­ity in­sur­ance is up more than 20%. Not sur­pris­ingly, labor-force par­tic­i­pa­tion has plum­meted.” Phil Gramm-WSJ

We actually support a political philosophy that says tax more, give it to government and in some undefined manner government will make our lives easier.  

We have, in fact, become a nation of victims, of complainers, of seekers of scapegoats to blame for our failures and mediocre performance. Our financial troubles are not the result of our lifestyles and spending habits, but rather the banks. Our problems with schools are the fault of teachers, not the parents who tolerate poor performance from their children and even contribute to it. 

We seek free college as if that were a guarantee of success; it isn’t. Without individual drive, ambition and good choices, it’s quite meaningless; just look around you. 

We can’t save for our future, but we sure can spend on pleasurable crap for today. We can spend on tattoos, but not birth control. Health insurance costs so much because of insurance companies, not because of our lifestyle or eating habits and insatiably demands on the system. 

We seek to raise the minimum wage because it’s fair, but we fail to consider that the only way up the ladder is to improve your skills and your value in the workplace; we trap the lowest wage earners in the lowest wage jobs. You are never going to have a livable wage if you always work in the lowest wage job no matter what it pays… because the cost of everything you buy will go up proportionally. 

Average Americans should be concerned. They should be outright terrified that the down on America, the scapegoat, not my responsibility, way of thinking is rapidly becoming mainstream. The deck is stacked. The game is rigged against you. You will hear those words over and over in the next eighteen months. So often in fact, you may come to believe that is the actual problem. 

The spark that ignites the American Dream is growing weak … but you know that already because that is all you have been told for nearly seven years. 

It’s always somebody else, some outside condition, some entity, some organization, some system that’s against you. Well, it’s not, it’s you‼️ and no politician’s rhetoric is going to change that. 

Past generations have succeeded, have overcome tremendous odds and adversity far greater than we face today. What the hell is wrong with Americans in the 21st century⁉️