You probably know someone
like my uncle. You might even have
someone like him in your family.
People with serious gambling problems aren't hard to spot. Their homes are always shabby and neglected looking, with peeling paint and missing shingles. Their yards are overgrown with weeds and seldom mowed. Their children wear ragged clothing and, in the worst cases, are ill fed and sickly.
People with serious gambling problems aren't hard to spot. Their homes are always shabby and neglected looking, with peeling paint and missing shingles. Their yards are overgrown with weeds and seldom mowed. Their children wear ragged clothing and, in the worst cases, are ill fed and sickly.
They’re always just one step ahead
of the bill collectors because they pay for life’s necessities with credit, with
all of their income being diverted in service of their addiction. If they own a car, you can be sure it’s
both old and in a terrible state of disrepair.
Such people are seldom close with
their families, neighbors, or have any friends—save for their fellow addicts—because their addiction has caused them to alienate all who might be sympathetic or
supportive. Their relentless pursuit of
the Big Payoff has caused them to lie, cheat and steal from all those
unfortunate enough to get close to them.
As I said, we all know
someone like my uncle. And if you’re a
U.S. citizen, I know you know my
uncle, because he’s your uncle too.
His name is Uncle Sam.
Now I know that my analogy is
a bit weak in that Uncle Sam isn’t so much a gambler as he is an enabler of the
Big Time gamblers whose billions dominate our government. But the level of influence wielded by these Big
Shots—always substantial—has grown at such an astonishing pace in recent years,
it’s fair to say that they now are
Uncle Sam.
Only the new Uncle Sam no
longer wears that corny red, white and blue getup. That outfit represented a lot of quaint,
outmoded ideas like fair play, justice and government-by-the-people. And nobody who’s anybody cares about that stuff anymore.
No, he’s traded it in for a
sharkskin suit, two tone shoes and a black fedora. Like a mobster straight out of a Scorsese
flick, when he bets with a bookie and wins, he collects his money. On the other hand, when he bets with a bookie and loses...he collects his money. If the bookie
refuses, he’s in for some serious trouble.
And when the mobster’s
addiction spirals out of control, he starts squeezing every one of his
underlings to kick as much cash upstairs as they can. When that’s not enough, they start letting
the basic stuff go and they end up living in the sort of houses described
above.
And it’s gotten to that point
in the U.S. Have you taken a good look
at our ‘house and yard’ lately? Millions
of homes are in foreclosure with millions more on the verge. Large swaths of our cities are in decay. Roads and bridges are reaching a frightening state
of disrepair. Poverty is soaring, with
social programs suffering drastic cuts. (More than one in five children in the U.S. is
now living in poverty!) Public
schools are crumbling, due to equally drastic cuts in spending for education. Vast numbers of citizens are either
unemployed or underemployed and our
standing in the world community has degraded, with anti-American sentiment at
an all time high.
I could go on and on, but in short, our national ‘house and yard’
looks like it belongs to an addict.
So why did this happen? Because a bunch of Big Shot gamblers made a
load of bad bets and they’re taking payment for them out of our collective ass. And just like the addict's house, which will someday collapse from neglect, so shall our nation someday collapse from this shameful neglect.
All of this points to one
conclusion: Our country is being run by a
pack of degenerate junkies and the time is nigh for an intervention.
