Spoiled Kids"R"Us

Several weeks ago, a national news van parked in front on our office in Downtown Minneapolis in expectation of a snow storm that was to dump 6 to 8 inches. That’s when it struck me: When did snow in Minnesota become national news material! It snows here every other day and every winter temperatures drop below zero. A typical deviance from the mean is normal. Actually, if everything was exactly at the mean, then we should be concerned. People are horrified by an economic downturn which by no means should be considered historic. What is happening to the American culture? We built this country through hard work and hardship, so why are we wimping out on the first sign of trouble? It concerns me that we are moving from self-sufficiency to self-victimization.

Politicians pretend to understand what the “people” are going through by making such comments as “I had a tough childhood because my siblings picked on me”, or “I saw my parents struggle to keep our farm” and “it was always somebody else’s fault, we were just victims”. Listen to yourself. Do you realize how spoiled these comments are? To put it in perspective, as siblings, it was our job to pick on each others, that’s how you train in a micro-society to prepare for the real world. Compare your experience to growing up during the civil war in Lebanon and being picked on by different militia factions. How about seeing your parents struggle to find basic needs for their family while dodging sniper bullets. We had our house destroyed three times and no insurance or government helped us. Every time that happened, we picked ourselves up, moved on and rebuilt.

We hear that we want to change and grow our workforce, as long as somebody else is paying. Some politicians are even suggesting we work less to resolve the unemployment issue. I do not know about you, but last time I checked the 35 hour week that was implemented in France was a miserable failure. And finally, we are asking the government to help innovation and make businesses more nimble. There should be a ban for using the words government, innovation and nimble in the same sentence. It is like asking a 90 year old to pick up contortionism! Since when setting policy, regulations and rules helped innovation?

We are nothing but spoiled kids who cannot handle the slight hardship and who want grownups (the government) to resolve our issues. Just tough it up and move on! If your ancestors who moved to this country thought like you, you would still be under some form of dictatorship or extreme socialism.