re: What are some things you think are stupid about American society?

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We are so pampered and insulated from real adversity that we have no concept of what it takes to get through tough times.

I was blessed to grow up around grand parents who went through the depression and explained how things were for them.

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I was born in the depths of the Great Depression - just as the economy began its recovery to the abundance we enjoyed post-ww2.My older brother had it much worse than I - he was born in 1929 when the depression began. Although I do not have a real memory of the 'hardest of times' = my first memory was Pearl Harbor = but the way I was raised totally embodied the "waste not, want not" dictum.

My parents would not throw anything away that could possibly be put to any useful purpose. We ate mostly food we raised ourselves - went to the grocery store only for items we couldn't make for ourselves.

My dad prided himself as never having taken one cents worth of 'welfare' - he worked for 75 cents a day at times. My mother made most of our clothes - she was an accomplished seamstress, among other attributes.

But the greatest lesson they taught me was "help others" because in that time there was no federal give-away programs. People helped their neighbors thru hard times - that that help came with some unstated requirements. If they thought the neighbor was not 'pulling his weight' they would not be very generous. I've related this before, but one of the earliest and best lessons I learned was when my mother would make meals for hoboes who came by looking for food. She would prepare them a good meal, but insisted they do some chore while she fixed it. I once asked her why she had them do it, because many of the chores were things that I normally had to do.

Her reply has been one of my watchwords from that day forward = She said "they will feel better about themselves if they EARNED it."

Today, I've seen too many mothers teach their children how to milk the government for every dollar they can. I detest this kind of person.