It
is of my dad that I am referring to, and his political point-of-view is well
worth examining. For it is still shared
by a fairly great many, and I am quite sure that he would be a very
enthusiastic follower of the [American Tea Party Movement] if he was still
physically alive.
Despite
being physically born in 1920, it is arguable that he really wasn’t a child of
the [Great Depression]. For he could not
remember the area around [Blue Mound, Kansas] being severely affected by either
the [1929 Stock Market Crash] or the drought that ushered in the [Dust Bowl Era].
In
fact, my dad was able to secure a full-time union job as an oiler, which was
someone who performed light maintenance upon the heavy equipment, with a natural
gas pipeline company out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when he was just 15
years-old. Of course, he had to lie
about his age, along with having the considerable weight of an uncle’s
influence upon the company backing his application, but he was making really
good money before graduating high school when millions around the country were
looking to the government to literally save their bacon.
According
to him, my dad was a very dutiful son, but he admitted that it was only on
account of how much he loved playing varsity baseball and basketball that he
did not ignore his parent’s letters that became more and more adamant in their
insistence that he return home and get back in school as the time for the 1935 fall
semester to begin approached. For after
actually seeing some of what lay beyond the Linn County line, not even thoughts
of making trips to the sprawling metropolis of [Mound City] held quite the same
appeal for him.
Ironically,
he later turned down offers to play minor league baseball for the [Chicago Cubs]
and the [St. Louis Cardinals], along with a full scholarship to play basketball
for [Phog Allen] with the Kansas Jayhawks.
For the money he could then be making at the controls of a bulldozer far
exceeded what was in those minor league baseball contracts, and he could not
see how a college education could help him stay upright while gouging out a
right-of-way across the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina—let
alone keep from sinking in an east Texas swamp.
No,
my dad never had to face the indignity of standing in a soup line. Neither did any of the members of his
extended family to the extent that I was made aware of.
My
dad attributed that to their willingness to work, and he was quite vocal about
claiming that any able-bodied man can find a job if they are willing to
work. In sharp contrast, he was also
quite vocal about how much he resented having to pay taxes to feed the families
of men who did not have enough gumption to get a job on their own, which was in
reference to the [CCC].
No,
my dad was no fan of the [New Deal], but it was being in the second wave to
land on [Omaha Beach] under the withering fire of German gun emplacements that
fueled his hatred of [President Franklin Delano Roosevelt] the most. For he did not see where it was any of our
business being in a war against an enemy who posed no immediate threat to our
country at the time.
[Pearl Harbor]? Well, aside from that being an
attack by the Japanese, my dad believed that it was orchestrated by Roosevelt
to get us involved in World War II before the best opportunities to profit from
the manufacturing of military supplies passed.
Adding
even more fuel to his fire was that he didn’t even have to go. For he could have taken advantage of the
draft exemption granted to only sons, but Blue Mound was way too small of a
place to remain safe at home with his aging parents, quite comely wife and newborn
daughter while the sons (and even many daughters) of neighbors were lining up
to do their patriotic duty.
So,
he answered the call to arms—only to face having to sign a release of liability
to avoid a significant delay in returning home after the fighting was over in the
[European Theatre]. For he had been
seriously wounded at the start of the [Battle of the Bulge], and he was told
that all with possible medical complications would have stay overseas for at
least six months longer unless they signed a form that released the United
States government from having to pay for any future medical treatments of wounds
sustained in battle, along with any medical conditions related to them. He signed the form.
Alas,
is it not no wonder that he looked upon with horror as the reach of the federal
government grew steadily longer over the years?
For even after giving all that he had in a war that he considered to be
quite unnecessary, there was his very own government trying to take advantage
of desperate desires to return home as soon as possible!
He
begrudgingly came to accept that the New Deal was really not such a bad deal
before his time as a part of this world came to an end. I would think that it was on account of [Social Security] and [VA] disability checks keeping us from becoming completely
destitute after he was told by several doctors that he had to quit working or
face permanent paralysis and the [International Union of Operating Engineers]
refusing to pay his pension because of not being old enough to draw one
yet. In all fairness, his application
for workers compensation was vigorously fought against (and defeated) by the
company he had been very loyally with for over 30 years because of his primary
medical condition not being the result of a single accident, but even with both
of those things notwithstanding, he always insisted that he was just getting
back from the government what he had paid in to the Social Security fund and
earned on numerous battlefields in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein
and Germany.
All
of that had a great influence upon the formation of my own political
point-of-view. Does any of it bring back
memories from your childhood? How about
sounding rather consistent with what can still be heard coming from on top of many
a soapbox these days?
Be
assured that I have plenty of my own “pleasant” experiences with all that our
federal government has to offer. For in
2000, I had to come to grips with the fact that I could no longer hold any sort
of job after being afflicted with [CFS] in 1993 (1992, actually) and trying to
hang in there for the previous seven years.
My wife finally convinced me to apply for Social Security Disability,
and that is when the “fun” really started.
I
really should have been more prepared.
For if it was possible for the Social Security Administration to initially
determine that my dad was not disabled with him having one full vertebrae in his
lower back, and the discs on both sides, completely ground to dust after over
30 years of operating bulldozers and ditching machines, how could it have come
as any great surprise to me that they would not accept feeling even exceedingly
exhausted all of the time as being a debilitating condition without a fight?
Unlike
what eventually happened with my dad, it took more than two tries to finally
win a judgment in my favor. In fact, it
took four tries!
Well,
at least I think it did. Since we hired
the only board-certified social security disability lawyer in southwest
Missouri, I am not quite sure what really has happened. That is, other than initially receiving
checks for $23.50 a month, of course.
Oh,
but wait, there’s more! For if our
household income exceeds $3,000.00 a month, no money from the Social Security
Administration will be directly-deposited into our checking account, and we are
required to send copies of my wife’s check stubs each month.
Speaking
of such, we received a notification in the mail a couple of months ago that a
new national income reporting phone line had been established. Since this could save us both time and money,
I was rather excited to give it a try, and I was quite disappointed when it did
not work. Not being able to find out
what was going wrong, and receiving a letter informing us in no uncertain terms
that actual copies of check stubs had to be sent in and that a fine could be
accessed for failing to report monthly wages on time, was also quite disappointing
to me.
Be
assured that I really don’t have the words to describe what a joy it has been
trying to deal with the good people of the Social Security Administration. However, I can tell you that thinking about
how many times we have received letters announcing that great increases in my
monthly compensation amounts would be starting the next month—only to receive
another letter a week or so later that said that we would be receiving nothing
until further notice because of my wife’s anticipated wages exceeding the limit
when she has never made more than $3,000.00 in a month does bring a tear to my
eye.
Yes,
it would seem that I have plenty of my own reasons for not losing focus on my
dad’s political point-of-view, but our Heavenly Father allowing me to look at
things through His eyes has drastically changed my perspective. For I can now clearly see that He established
governmental social welfare programs to make up for what we (as individuals and
even as members of His church) far too often refuse to do on our own.
Now,
this is not to say that these programs are doing the best that they can. In fact, the way they are run would be
laughable if it was not for how many people are being badly hurt by incompetence
and corruption, but instead of wanting to throw the proverbial baby out with
the bathwater by getting rid of programs that really could be a great blessing
to us all, we should be looking for leaders who will get serious about truly fixing
what is broken about all of the various levels of government in this country.
No,
that is not something that Obama and Biden are interested in accomplishing, and
the reforms that Romney and Ryan preach about will undoubtedly do more harm
than good if they win the election.
Hopefully, the misery will end much sooner than later.
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