America- home of the free-loaders!
In my line of work, I get to meet a lot of different people. I get to meet people from all over the United States as well as people from all over the world, who have come to America to make their dreams come true. I met a gentleman from Croatia while I was in Hollywood, Florida this week. He is a fascinating man with an interesting view of the United States, yet a view I have heard from so many immigrants that come here.
He fought in the war for 2 years and saw that his country was unsafe for him and his family and took refuge in Germany. While there, he was offered an opportunity to come to the United States. He jumped at the chance because he knew America was the place for opportunity and for dreams to come true. Like most immigrants, their ideas of the United States mostly comes from movies and rumors. His reality was about to be challenged.
Upon arrival, this man was placed in northeastern Indiana. His first job was a dishwasher that paid minimum wage. He loved the job and worked very hard at it. He was grateful for the opportunity to work to support himself and his family. One day a man asked him if he wanted to work in a salvage yard working on a crusher. He had no idea what a crusher was but said sure, since it paid $9 per hour. He was willing to work as hard as necessary to succeed in this country.
He noticed certain things done in the USA that other countries did not do. The biggest thing that he noticed was how American’s took so much for granted. The fact that we have electricity almost all of the time, that the water was drinkable, that everyone has a vehicle and that there were so many jobs available here, yet the American worker only complained at the lack of things that they had! Where he came from electricity was sporadic. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. They didn’t have the clean drinking water that we have. Most people didn’t have any vehicles at all. These were all luxury items, yet here almost everyone has these “gifts” but complained because they wanted more “things”.
He also noted other events that would never happen in his country. He was watching a show on TV with his son where the police were fighting with citizens and being shot at. He thought it was a movie until his son informed him that it was a reality show called “Cops”. He could not believe that an American citizen would shoot or attack a policeman. The other thing that really bothered him was the fact that we had “welfare for life” in this country. While he was in Germany, he learned of the welfare system because they too have it. However in Germany, a person has 6 months on welfare and then is offered three different jobs. If the person refuses to work for any reason, after the 6 months is up they are taken off welfare and on their own. Here, he was shocked to see that people were driving nice cars, had nice clothes and were buying food with food stamps. “Why don’t they work?”, he asked me. “Because they don’t have to”, I replied. “There is no incentive for them to work, so they don’t.”
Through his hard work since arriving here 15 years ago, he has purchased his own tractor trailer and is leased to the same company that I am. He loves this country as much as he loves Croatia. He is also disgusted with the way the American government spends money, how people don’t work that are perfectly capable of doing work, and how American’s take this country for granted. “How can people expect the government to do everything for them? Why can’t they take responsibility for themselves?”
I didn’t have an answer for him because I totally agree with him. Our country is in quite a mess here, a mess which we brought upon ourselves. We cannot truly use our First Amendment rights due to the fact that we may offend someone by telling the truth, i.e. why we allow people to spend their entire life on welfare. I don’t know the outcome of this spiraling mess we are in but I do know that things are going to have to change because we cannot afford to continue on the path that we have been going down for the past 20 years.
I have talked to many immigrants that come to this country and I love to hear their opinion’s and ideas. They all have one thing in common. They all are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, they all want to work hard and they are all proud to be here and to be a part of this great country. They also believe that American’s take so much for granted and I agree with them again.
Having visited the Philippine’s in 2004 truly opened my eyes to what a great nation we are part of. We have so much here for our people that most countries would die to have. Even with all that is offered to us here, in my opinion, the majority of Americans are an unhappy people. In the Philippines, the people have so little as far as material items, electricity, and don’t you dare drink the water,yet they are so much happier than we are. Their dream is to come to America because they think this is the land of “milk and honey”. Yet we are a country that only wants money.
September 11th woke us up if only for a few months. Now we have buried our heads in the sand, waiting for President-elect Obama to get us out of this mess. We believe one man can make things better for us. We want this Prince Charming to take our troubles away. To me, this is incredibly naive and incredibly dangerous. I know that I am not counting on our government to help me. I will do it for myself. Hell, look at what the government’s already gotten us into! No way I’m going to trust one man to get me out of this mess!
This is a new year and I have high hopes. I do love this country with all my heart. I have served this country and would do it again in an instant. I know that we will survive this mess because it’s what American’s do. I keep hearing that old cliche, “The rich get richer and poor get poorer” and it’s because the rich are willing to take action to fix this mess while the poor sit back waiting for someone to do it for them. Where do you want to be?
