OS has taken some time off from his blogging. It was time for a break, time needed for other things, and to watch and reflect. Life has been eventful, productive, happier than he had any right to expect.
All this to say--for Mr. and Mrs. OS, much of the American Dream has come true. We have been able to pursue our lives and careers and creative passions, and succeed. We were able to launch our children to better lives than our own, which was the number one goal. We live in an environment of freedom where Christian faith is not yet under direct attack, where anything is possible. In fact, one of the conversations now ongoing is What Next? Twenty-something years ago, we dreamed up what seemed an impossible list of goals, and we have seen everything and more come to fruition. We have not built wealth yet, that task lies ahead for us.
What next, then? Where next? How next?
So, OS finds this seemingly innocuous story in the Louisville Courier-Journal about 'tiny houses' chilling.
So many, so beaten down by an economy that just will not grow, and a government more interested in surveillance and control of our lives than in legitimate governance (such as operating on balanced budgets, controlling the borders, restraining criminal activity by bankers and mobsters, etc), have resorted to building tiny little houses on used flatbed trailers. They can park them where they can find a spot, no mortgages, no codes, no fixed address, none of the normalcy that should accompany normal lives in America.
These are not street people, scrounging out lives to support drug habits, or untreated manic depressives released to the streets. These are formerly middle class people who have thrown in the towel, who have decided that the American Dream is beyond reach, and they are happy to settle for a Tiny House, away from the banks and the feds and even the local government.
They are, in effect, opting for a version of Amish life, or old-school Mennonite life. Here in the rural South, there are many more of those folks than one might suspect, living anonymously in plain sight. No social security numbers, many of them not vaccinating children (since that leaves a paper trail of the child's existence), home-schooling, never voting, quietly living out of sight of a society they have decided is more of a threat than a blessing. The more fervent await The Second Coming, most simply have decided to opt out, come what may.
OS does not think this is a good path to follow, and is troubled to see this practice spread. It creates a dead-end for the children of these families, for starters. We may yet see the return of the Hoovertowns of the early 1930's, places where the dispossessed of the Great Depression gathered to live, because there was no place to go.
In the end, Liberalism crushes Hope. Duh' Prez can preach all he wishes about Hope and Change. The real change OS sees in many places is the evisceration of Hope--of the expectation that today's labor will result in tomorrow's rewards, that life will improve, that the children of a family will surpass the parents. Hope, the thing that keeps people going in the face of adversity. Hope.
OS lays this at the feet of Massah Obama and his ilk, who have gleefully expanded welfare rolls, encouraged indebtedness, used every tiny corner of government as a means to reward cronies and punish enemies--the Chicago model of governance now employed on a national scale--and now are encouraging a mass migration of the indigent and criminal from Central America over our southern border.
To what end? Qui bono? Who benefits? Where are these people to live, and under what conditions?
What about the people who were born here, who have worked here, embraced American life, and have decided that the only way forward is life on a flatbed trailer?
What about them, Mr. Obama? What about them, Mr. Boehner? Mr. Paul? Mr. Cruz? Miss Hillary?
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