The Asshole Bracket Final Four

Please note, the italicized text is what that asshole did to garner the title.

Justin Bieber – A shining example of what is wrong with today’s youth (4)

vs.

Josef Stalin – General Asshole.  Dictator of the main opponent of the United States and freedom in general (3)

–

Matt-  Bieber or Stalin…Bieber or Stalin…It may just be too close to call.  Seriously.  Would I rather live in Communist Russia or listen to Bieber’s music?  Would I rather try to endure the harsh winters of Siberia as a political prisoner, or sit through a showing of “Never Say Never”?  At least Communist Russia had some culture to  it…

That being said, I’m still picking Stalin. 

Nik- In Soviet Russia, Bieber love you!
        When you actually break it down, sure Stalin was a much bigger villain. But Villains is so last year, am I right? But when it comes to the body hairless science experiment gone wrong that is Justin Bieber, I think he’s a much bigger asshole. Bieber on this one. He’ll continue his move.

People that use welfare as a job (1)

vs.

Lance Armstrong – Doping/Lying/Destroying the lives of those that were trying to expose his doping/lying (1)

–

Matt- Lance Armstrong is a deplorable human being, hands down, no contest.  People that use Welfare as a job are a whole class of people.  Are they being enabled by a government that would rather hold everyone’s hand than see them do things for themselves?  Absolutely.  Does that make them any less of an asshole for using and abusing the system?  Nope.  Just like at the beginning of every month, “Welfare” wins again.

Nik-  I thiiiiink Welfare’s going to take this one. But my vote is Lance. I think, with him, you can put a face to the asshole, if you will. (gross) Whereas the whole welfare skidoo is more of a mass/faceless crime. It’s easier to hate an asshole you can see (still gross), than to hate a collective of assholes. (possibly the grossest)

For Shame

                When I was in fifth grade, I received a poor grade on a math test.  We’re talking really poor, like a fifty or something along those lines, no higher than that for sure; an utter failure.  My parents would not have been happy with a failing grade on a test.  Would they have grounded me?  Maybe, maybe not, but they would have been ashamed of their dunce of a son that could not manage more than a measly fifty on a test.  So I hid it.  I was so full of shame that I hid that test in the top of my locker and I “buckled down” and wound up cruising through the rest of school with high honors.  Was that a scholastic turning point for me?  I don’t know if I would go that far, but I’m sure that if my parents praised everything that I did, good or bad, that I may have let that grade slide, not seen it as a sign that maybe I should pay attention a bit more and concentrate on my schoolwork, and instead continued down that slippery slope until I was asking “would you like fries with that?”

                Many of the decisions I made in my youth, and still make today for the most part, are made with shame in mind in the form of: “Will what I do bring shame to me and/or my family”?  By having that run through your head, it tends to take a bit of the impulsivity out of one’s actions.   I believe that that sense of shame is not a bad thing, instead coming from a general understanding of right and wrong and social etiquette.  Am I going to pick my nose in public?  No, because it is not socially acceptable and carries a bit of shame with it.  Am I going to sit on my ass and collect welfare for the rest of my life?  No.  Same reason. 

                There are many reasons that people can feel the opposite, having little or no shame.  They could have been brought up in a household where their parents had no shame, and therefore instilled none in their children, or they could have been brought up in a household with these new-age yuppie parents that think their children shit gold and can do no wrong.  All this does is lead to spoiled, entitled brats with little to no real skills or work ethic, or any real desire to better themselves because they’ve never had to.  Everything they have done has been good enough, and when you are perfectly willing to settle for “good enough” and that has even been celebrated by the adults in your life, it’s hard to transition to wanting to be better.  Is it a coincidence that you can usually spot the people that are long-term welfare abusers?  The people that have no pride or respect for their home or their appearance, the people that think that cat piss is just the new fragrance from Calvin Klein or the people that talk a lot on social media, trying to drum up an inordinate amount of support for everything they do in order to validate themselves.  This is because if they have lost the requisite amount of shame to not take long-term handouts from anyone, then they have probably lost the requisite amount of shame to realize that when your clothes are holier than the pope it’s time to retire them.  You can probably see a lot of these people around the first of the month at any Wal-Mart across the country. 

                This is in no way condemning everyone that is on public assistance as there are many different reasons that people are in that situation.  It is, however, condemning those that use public assistance (or anything they’re not working for such as child support or alimony) as their only source of income.

                Now, there’s a difference between shame and bullying.  First of all, no one should shame a child but an adult (preferably a parent), and an adult needs to realize that you’re not shaming someone to tear them down completely and leave them a puddle of tears.  Shaming a child, or telling that child that you are ashamed of them because of an action deemed reprehensible based on our social mores, should be done as a matter of fact.  “That test score is unacceptable, you are smarter than that.  Now you’ll have to buckle down and study harder” is much different than “You big dummy.  Do you want me to get Velcro shoes for you too, or can you handle the laces?”  Obviously tact is important in everything, but especially here where you are not trying to make an enemy of your child, but you are trying to make it so they realize that bringing home a test with a shitty grade (as in the example above) or just making poor decisions in general will cause you to feel ashamed. 

                This obviously will only work if you praise the crap out of them when they do something exceptional.  They’re a solid 90 student but pull out a 100 on an exam?  Go nuts with your praise and congratulations, not money, that’s silly, but praise will do it.  If you give them money just for getting good grades, then they will most likely grow up thinking that if they get good grades in college they are owed high paying jobs when they graduate, which is silly as no one owes anyone anything (the sooner your kids realize this, the better). 

                The endgame here is to get where I was in fifth grade, to have that shame take over to the point where your child wants to better themselves, not to the point where they want to kill themselves though, that’s silly.  The idea is to create a sort of self-policing within the child, so that they grow up and think twice about their actions, and what it could mean in the long run to them in terms of shame.  Let’s not forget about adults either, they could do with a healthy dose of shame themselves, isn’t that right Miley?

Take and Give

                 Events in my personal life have led me to the realization that the system, and the country that it supports is undeniably flawed.  For a long time, I felt that the negative view of the United States was unwarranted, that we weren’t really as bad as everyone claimed us to be.  It could be that I was just too young to see with my own eyes what was right in front of my face.  The stunning lack of ambition and self respect in my generation and younger is destroying this country. 

                This is a problem that has obviously increased as more options for children to be lazy and less accountability for those same children increased as well.  Instead of going to play outside, children are now sitting inside all day, watching other people play video games.  You read that right, watching other people play video games.  I am a huge proponent for video games in general.  I think they create and enhance hand-eye coordination as well as develop problem solving skills; causing children to not only explore every avenue in terms of solving a problem, but also providing an instant reward if they do.  Watching someone do that on YouTube instead of doing it yourself is tantamount to putting your brain on autopilot and pledging not to learn anything new. 

                Sorry, that was a mini-rant, and one not even completely related to the topic at hand.  What I would really like to uncover is the handout process in the United States.  How someone with no education and no skills can be making more in governmental support than someone with a Master’s Degree.  How did we get to be so backwards as a society that we are actively rewarding those individuals that sit home and pop out kids because they know that the government will not let children starve?  Believe me, I understand not letting kids go hungry, but if your entire idea of subsistence is popping out a new child every year (often from different fathers) so that you can cash in on their existence, how does that make you worthy of even having the child? 

                I understand that there is a job crisis, and a housing crisis and so many other crises in this country, but I have a solution for you, one that will cost no more than what the government is spending now, and probably a lot less.  Give these people jobs.  Give them all of the menial shit jobs that no one wants.  I could go on Monster/Careerbuilder/etc. right now and bring up 500 open positions in the Syracuse area alone.  If you give each individual currently on welfare a coupon with a special code on it that they can present to their prospective employer, thereby entitling that employer to only have to pay that individual half their hourly wage (the government would make up the difference) you can’t tell me that a restaurant or a department store wouldn’t jump at that. 

Here’s the kicker though, you get six months of housing assistance in order to get on your feet, and a month of food stamps to use until it’s gone.  (Speaking of food stamps, let’s dial back what you can buy on food stamps while we’re at it.  White or whole wheat bread (the store brand), water, milk, peanut butter, etc., things like that.  No one should be able to purchase soda, chocolate or anything that can be denoted as “fancy” while using government money.  Why should you be able to eat better than 90% of the working class?)  Once that money is gone, you’re done; you have to struggle to make ends meet like the rest of us.  That means breakfast for dinner, turning the heat down and throwing on an extra sweater and not being able to afford the finer things in life without budgeting for them. 

If you deny that, if you decide you still want to sit on your ass and just collect, then you can go fuck yourself.  Be homeless, die penniless.  If you have no ambition, motivation or self-respect, then you’re not contributing to society anyway. 

If you have children, and their other parent is better off than you and in a position to care for the children, then you lose your kids, regardless of your gender unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt why they belong with you over someone that works for a living.  This archaic notion that the mother should be raising the children has run its course.  There are plenty of terrible mothers (just look on Facebook, they’re the ones that always repost memes about being good mothers) and good fathers and this line of thinking that says a child needs to live with their mother to grow up well adjusted is about as forward thinking as women not being allowed to vote.  Children that grow up in a household of takers, will become takers themselves and if we are going to stop the downward spiral, it needs to start here and now. 

This will not only cause people to have to start working for what they get in life, but in the long run it will help those individuals that may have been trying to get off welfare but were unable to get a job because of a lack of knowledge or experience.  An employer would more likely be willing to train someone on the job if they’re only paying them half the salary that they require by law, thereby increasing that individual’s stock and making the next job that they get a lot easier to obtain. 

This is not hard.  Will it receive pushback from bleeding hearts that think everyone is special and that the destitute deserve the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness at the expense of those that bust their ass everyday to make something of themselves?  Absolutely.  Do those people have a pot to piss in, considering the fact that they are collecting a government check of a different kind?  Not at all.  Let’s make some noise.  Stop paying people for being lazy and worthless and start making them earn their keep.  Let’s bring accountability back to this country.  We can make it great again, something to be proud of, as long as we start from the bottom and build everyone up.