America Thrived for 150 Years Without A Safety Net

 

This photograph depicts my ancestors more than 100 years ago. They were farmers, living on their land in Southern  Indiana without electricity, indoor plumbing, refrigerators, tractors, automobiles, or any of the comforts of 21st century life. Family supported family. Many who were educated in a one room school house learning from the McGuffey Readers were far more educated than college today.

My blind Great Aunt Mary, blind from her teenage years, raised my father and his siblings, ran the farm, and was one of the most well read people I’ve known. Adversity created strength, resilience and character.

Too many people living in the USA today have never experienced true deprivation. The soft, easy life has created generations of lazy, over privileged, over protective, ingrates who don’t have the ability to work hard, endure adversity, understand that nobody is guaranteed anything, that the government and taxpayers owe nothing more than secure borders, and that they should be grateful they don’t live in pre-industrial revolution society. 

I would venture to guess that. 85% of the US population could not have survived the upbringing experienced by my parents and their siblings. They could not appreciate that achieving a nice but modest life in an older house without air conditioning, having modest jobs, contributing to community, sending their kids to college and enjoying a few international trips would cause them to appreciate that they ‘made it’. 

The plumber’s daughter and the dirty little farm boy stood on the Great Wall  of China, amazed at how far they ‘d come without handouts, free meals, welfare, food stamps, or Medicaid. They believed they’d achieved the American dram.

It truly is a shame that more Americans don’t feel gratitude for their good fortune instead of criticizing the success of this great experiment.