The Future is now...
I'm genuinely concerned for the future of this country. I'm concerned, because it appears that more than half of the Millennials seem to think they were born with an inalienable right to not be offended, and for everyone they encounter to accept them or treat them the same as everyone else. If you don't agree with their life choices, or self-image, they will throw a tantrum and force you to agree with them or else be ridiculed, or punished.
I'm concerned that we're producing a generation of self-important, self-entitled, ignorant , gullible cry-babies. Over half of them produce nothing aside from outrage, contempt, and dissension. They're more concerned with self-image, moral equivalency, political sound-bites, celebrity example, and doing everything in their power to take offense over anything that is outside their solipsistic world-view, than making a real difference in the world.
You want income equality? Get another job and give everything you earn from that job to another family in need. Finish college or trade school with a useful degree or certificate and become a teacher to educate the ignorant masses, or go into politics and change your immediate socio-political landscape. Invent something that will change the world. Open a business that gives back to your community and creates jobs.
You want world peace? Create it. Start in your own community. Quit shooting each other and looting the stores of honest hard working people that have it just as hard in life as you do. Get off your butts and make a difference in your neighborhood, create peace instead of waiting for someone else to give you peace. The problem isn't too big, you're just too lazy and unorganized.
You want access to better medical care? Create the environment. Pay attention in school. Become a doctor or nurse, not for the money, but because you want to help people. Get together with your peers and open a low income clinic, or offer pro-bono surgeries to the elderly on Medicare and low income families. Open an insurance company and offer low cost insurance to the masses, then hire the best lawyers available to fight frivolous law-suits that are driving up the costs of insurance for everyone else. Not having a job, or forcing your neighbor to subsidize your medical insurance because they do have a job is just criminal.
You want "racial equality" become a community activist, not a screaming race-baiter. Get out in your community, be a part of educating the youth, organize and mobilize, clean up your neighborhood (we do), get the drugs off the streets, run the gangs out of town. You're, for the most part not discriminated against, because you have a certain color of skin. Are you really dumb enough to believe that Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Arabs, and Whites that are doctors, lawyers, politicians, scientists, and celebrities get treated the same way you do?
They don't. You're not being treated bad because of the color of your skin, or your nation of origin. It's your social class, your income level, your ability to communicate an articulate thought, your unwillingness to conform to their vision of society. I'm not saying you should conform. I'm just saying, you're being profiled and treated unfairly because they view people of a certain income level, social class, education level, and from a certain neighborhood in a different light. You can't erase hundreds of years of ignorance and prejudice by screaming and threatening violence. Wanna know a secret? They expect violence, outrage, ignorance, and poor life choices out of you. You're just feeding the stereotype and you are doing everything in your power to play right into their hands.
Is it right? Is it fair? No. Most certainly not, but Jim Morrison and Jimmy Hendricks died and every one of the Bee Gees lived. Like Bill Hicks said, "Life's not fair. Get a helmet." Don't want to be seen as ignorant? Stop acting ignorant. Don't want to be judged by your neighborhood? Move, or clean it up. Don't want to be judged by your chosen social-class or fashion style? Pull your pants up, educate yourself, learn the law, and use it to your advantage. Learn how to communicate your thoughts and have something to say worth listening to. You earn respect and consideration. You don't demand it.
You DO NOT have the right to not get offended. You do not have the right to force other hard working people to cover your medical costs, or any other bills for that matter. You do not have the right to free food, housing, higher-education, a car, a cell phone, or anything else that has to be paid for with a tax on someone else's hard work. Those programs are necessary, and I believe they help people that need a hand-up to get back on their feet, but they are not a way of life, or an entitlement. Social Security, Medicaid, and Veteran's pensions are entitlements. They EARNED that money.
I realize that people are being unfairly oppressed, not given equal consideration and respect, taken advantage of, and underrepresented. But I can assure you that trying to force others to cater to you and take care of you, or listen to you will not produce the end result you are looking for.
Want things to change? Quit whining. Quit getting your feelings hurt. Quit expecting someone else to save you, support you, or accept you. Get out there and create the world you want to live in and be the kind of person, you want you want others to be. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."