There are a lot of angry people in America right now. The middle class feels screwed over, for good reason. More work, less leisure time. Our kids are raised by other people because both parents have to work in order to make ends meet. We now have to buy insurance at astronomical rates so that the poorest among us (who really still can’t afford insurance) can get insurance (theoretically) and the richest (insurance companies) can make more money.

Our criminal justice system is a wreck. It’s always been one you’d think with all the bad press it gets it might get a little better, but nah. It is still fundamentally unfair and crooked. Judges and prosecutors have bizarrely close relationships and the person who is mentioned as the one to protect – the accused – gets treated as an afterthought. Defense attorneys are viewed as nothing but brambles and thatch to be cleared out in order to get to the conviction and sentencing part of the event. We are nothing but a nuisance.

As I said in my last post blame is easy. But you know what, I skipped over laying the blame since I didn’t think it was necessary. Let’s get that part done now. Here goes:

You are the cause of your own problems, my friend. And when all of us individually fuck ourselves up, we get a nation that gets royally fucked.

Here’s what I think. If you went out during the housing bubble and bought a house that cost 500k and you make 70k a year, well, what the fuck were you thinking? At some point you were going to have to pay for that house regardless of the fact that the bank gave you a no-document and no down payment required loan. How did you not know that? How did so many people not know this? Where does this kind of something or nothing mindset come from? Why do people think they can live a life they cannot pay for?

If you thought that and did that, you are to blame. Not the banks who gave you the money. Just you.

Did you know that if you didn’t do the work for the price the bosses demanded, they would find another place where people would do the work for barely liveable wages? And then our products would be cheap and we would be addicted to cheap crap? You buy your cheap crap from Walmart, don’t you? Isn’t it cheaper to buy a new printer than pay for ink? How do you think that happens?

Stop buying stuff at Walmart. Stop buying from people who have their headquarters in Texas but their labor in China. You can’t afford to buy American?

Think about that for a bit and then get back to me.

Oh and now you come along and declare the war on drugs to be bad, poverty is bad, judges are biased, prosecutors lie. Yup, yup, yup and yup. And what are you going to do about it? Ask the government for help? Make those mean circuit court judges stop doing the mean things they are doing? You want more executive action in order to get your way? Be careful what you wish for. The executive action you ask for just might be the executive action you get, but not in the way you want.

Real talk: Is the American dream only for those of us who came here in search of it? It seems, sometimes, that the people who were born to it have abandoned it and now are regretting that decision.  You are owed a life because of the luck of your birth and the rest of us are here stealing it from you?

You aren’t owed anything. That’s the reality of life. It doesn’t matter if your ancestors fought in the American revolution the way my kids’ ancestors did. You fight and claw your way to the top, or you stay on the bottom and I guess spend your time being angry and blaming everyone and everything else for your fate.

I worry my kids will be infected with this same disease of ennui and entitlement. What a terrible combination.

And you want to blame affirmative action, or big banks, or the folks who gave you the student loan when you didn’t have any money to go to school and who gave you the money to go to school.

Blame muslims, gays, christians, black people, illegal immigrants. Blame lawyers or judges or cops or black lives matter.

Blame God. Or god. Or g-d. Allah, Buddah, Nigel Farge, Obama, Trump. Blame your mother. Fuck it, blame me. It doesn’t matter.

When you point the finger at someone else, 3 point back at you.