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I can’t take it anymore. Our elites are the most wretched elites the world has ever known. In their minds, America is all about “systemic racism” and “hate crimes.” And these failings only go in one direction. Systemic racism and hate never mean government or black or brown Americans being cruel to white Americans. They only mean government or white Americans being cruel to black or brown Americans.
And there is absolutely no escaping this twisted view of America. Our schools, news outlets, and entertainment media are overwhelmingly run by people who think America, in general, sucks, and white people, in particular, suck. Just the other day, for instance, Mrs. Groovy and I were watching the HBO documentary The Weight of the Nation. And at the 15:21 mark of Part 1 (see video below) we get a certified member of the elite class opining that America (i.e., whitey) only cares about obesity now because it’s affecting children. When obesity largely affected adults and “less valued groups” (i.e., black and brown Americans), America (i.e., whitey) didn’t give a crap about it. No evidence is offered to back up this slander, of course. The makers of this documentary just take for granted that our elite’s notion that America is awash in one-way systemic racism and hate is an unassailable fact.
What the Heck Does This Have to Do with Personal Finance?
In one sense, our elite’s compulsion to crap on America and white people doesn’t have anything to do with personal finance. But to the extent that this compulsion causes people to 1) adopt a victim mentality, and 2) cling to that victim mentality, it does. A “victim” never takes responsibility for his or her circumstances and always expects others to fix his or her problems. And that’s not a good mentality to have if one happens to be struggling financially.
I have no empirical proof, of course, that our elite’s obsession with one-way systemic racism and hate is causing the victim mentality to proliferate. All I know is that there are a lot of “victims” out there, and our elites aren’t helping matters.
I’m just a little ol’ country blogger from North Carolina. Nothing I write will cause our elites to have a change of heart. Their effusive virtue signaling and their chronic smearing of innocent people will thus continue unabated. By the oft chance, however, that a “victim” stumbles upon this blog, I want to give him or her hope. America is not awash in systemic racism and hate, one-way or otherwise. In fact, I firmly believe that for every example of systemic racism that occurs in this country, there are a thousand examples of systemic kindness. Likewise, for every hate crime that occurs in this country, there are a thousand love legalities.
Because I believe that America and its people are inherently good—and that “victims” only need to ditch the victim mentality in order to avail themselves to this inherent goodness—this blog will periodically trumpet the systemic kindness and love legalities that I routinely come across. And here’s what I came across this week.
Systemic Kindness
Systemic kindness is whenever a big hairy institution dedicates some or all of its revenue to helping people improve their lives. Here are just three examples of our government engaging in systemic kindness:
- Public K-12 Education Spending in 2017: $694.1 billion.
- Medicaid Spending in 2017: $592.2 billion.
- SNAP (Food Stamps) Spending in 2017: $68.2 billion.
Add up these three programs and you get $1.35 trillion. Think about that. One point three five trillion dollars! And if “less valued people” use these programs at rates equal to their proportion of the total population, that means our government spent over $400 billion in 2017 alone educating, mending, and feeding black and brown people.
Love Legalities
A love legality is the opposite of a hate crime. It’s when someone from one tribe goes out of his or her way to help someone from another tribe. Here are three love legalities I came across this week.
1. In Memphis, Tennessee, a couple of black high school students helped an underprivileged white classmate upgrade his wardrobe. The underprivileged white kid was getting picked on because he was wearing the same clothes every day and the black kids couldn’t tolerate that cruelty. Bravo.
2. Until this past week, I didn’t know that country music legend Dolly Parton has a charity that donates books to underprivileged kids. Her charity is called Books From Birth and in September, its donations to D.C. children reached an incredible milestone: the one-millionth book had been delivered. You can read more about this wonderful love legality by clicking the link below.
Dolly Parton’s ‘Books From Birth’ Has Now Delivered One Million Free Children’s Books To D.C. Kids
3. This past April, billionaires Ray and Barbara Dalio pledged $100 million to help improve the fortunes of kids attending five urban high schools in Connecticut. There have been some problems since the Dalios announced their pledge—as the below article explains—but this doesn’t do anything to undermine my salient point. In America, love legalities are far more numerous—and far more consequential—than the real and imagined hate crimes that our elites love to hype.
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Are our elites pathetic scoundrels who should be ignored with extreme prejudice? Or are our elites right—America is a festering cauldron of one-way systemic racism and hate? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.
More good then bad
Could not agree more
Thanks for the post
There are good people everywhere. Sometimes you just need eyes to see, instead of eyes that look for prejudice, even in places it doesn’t exist.
Just because people believe something to be, doesn’t make it true.
If you are a victim, things happen to you.
If you refuse to be a victim, you do things.
“I looked up one day and saw that it was up to me
You can only be a victim if you admit defeat” – The Descendents “Coolidge”
Awesome quote, my friend. Thanks for sharing.
I vote for your world view, I’m surrounded by kind and giving people in my little town. I’ve seen one local company give $50 million of company money just to enable every single kid in the public school system here to go to college for free. I think most successful people with resources have an inner drive to help less fortunate people find their own path to success. As for the pundits, well, hate has always sold better.
That local company is pretty awesome, my friend. I love hearing stories like that. About a month ago, I came across the story of an anonymous donor in a nearby county paying the outstanding lunch bill balance for the poor kids in a particular school district. It wasn’t a tremendous amount of money–I think it was $15,000–but the generosity warmed the cockles of my heart nonetheless. But as you grimly pointed out, stories like these go down the memory hole very quickly. Hate has a much longer shelf life.
I have to agree with you 100%. My family came to the US with nothing about a century ago from Eastern Europe and Western Europe; I’m a mutt and my ancestry is of more than one faith. My parents grew up in the slums in NYC in the 40s. NYC built the Projects in the 50s and that was a big improvement. That changed by the 70s, but that is another story. My parents were able to raise us in the suburbs in a much better environment. They worked hard as their parents did before them. Now I am doing very well, but I work very hard. My father and I both used the military to get our educations.
Elites seems to forget how many people can say basically the same story that I did. My wife can, although her father came here from a farm in Ireland in the 1960s.
The US is not perfect, but it’s one great place to live. The best part of America was summed up by something Bill Clinton said about 30 years ago, “there is nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America.” That is probably the key fact that has been forgotten.
GenX FIRE recently posted…FIRE November Update
Thank you for sharing a little of your family’s story. That story is very familiar to mine. I come from a long line of civil servants and laborers who worked hard, paid their taxes, and raised their kids to be decent human beings. And I love the Bill Clinton quote you shared. We have more “right” in this country than “wrong,” and I just wish our ruling elite would open their eyes to this fact. Great comment, my friend. Cheers.
Who are you referring to when you say ‘elites’? I really can’t tell by your rant.
I always thought elites were the most accomplished among us. The most successful, highest earners, the most qualified, the smartest, the most highly educated, the fastest, the strongest, the cleverest, the best at what they do, etc.
In other words the tops in their fields, whatever their fields may be.
I can’t see this definition matching anything to do with what you are trying to say.
Could you please explain by what you mean by elites.
Thanks.
Hey, sfmitch. Fair point. Sometimes my rants really go off-kilter and sometimes I assume that everybody understands how I’m defining certain words. As far as what I mean by “elites,” please refer to my response to Lisa below. And your understanding of “elites” is spot on, by the way. Our elites are incredibly talented, especially those elites who have risen to the top of our most important sectors and institutions. But this doesn’t mean they are flawless. In my humble opinion, they are incredibly flawed when it comes to freedom and non-white bigotry. That’s why I call them wretched. And there is no greater example of their weakness on freedom and non-white bigotry than the college campus. There you will find administrators and professors who are shockingly indifferent to freedom of speech, due process, equal protection of the laws, color-blindness, and limited government. You will also find a climate in which whites are the official villains and non-whites are encouraged to engage in racial and ethnic chauvinism. Here’s another example of such non-white bigotry that I just came across:
Racist professor recorded teaching anti-white curriculum
So that’s my definition of “elites,” and that’s why I find our elites so frustrating. They are brilliant people with two serious flaws.
I hope this all makes sense, my friend. I don’t exactly love being challenged–why can’t everybody see the awesomeness of my prose!–but I know I need a healthy dose of it if I’m ever going to improve. Thank you. And I hope to hear from you again. Cheers.
Mr. Groovy recently posted…This Week in Systemic Kindness and Love Legalities
Bravo! This is a great article and glad to see someone else put in to words what so many of us think and believe.
Thank you, sir. I try.
I am truly curious. What is an “elite”, who are “our elites” you call out, and how do you define the “elites”? Your article had me looking up the standard definition of “elite(s)”, but you are not the only person I have recently heard use this term, and I usually hear it used disparagingly. It seems to me a rather new phenomenon. From your posting, it definitely appears “our elites” are people you disagree with, but I am curious how you define them. Are they the rich? The best trained or educated? I don’t understand the use of the term in your blog posting or in other recent talk, usually about people talked about with disdain.
FWIW, the standard definition of “elite” per Oxford dictionary is “a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society: ‘the elite of Britain’s armed forces'”. Cambridge dictionary defines “elite” as “the richest, most powerful, best-educated, or best-trained group in a society: ‘the country’s educated elite'”. Merriam-Webster defines elite as “the choice part”, “best of a class”, or “persons who by virtue of their position or education exercise much power or jnfluence: ‘members of the ruling elite’.” So are they the richest among us like those in the Forbes 500, the best educated like doctors, lawyers and PhDs, the best trained like our Navy Seals, or the president, all our senators, congressmen, governors, etc? For the latter group there may be a big difference in opinion on your blog posting depending on political party, but they are all “elites”, and part of the ruling elite by virtue of their positions, right?
You are a writer/blogger and words matter. I usually hear the word elites used with disdain in a politically charged exchange, but the term elites has nothing to do with politics or political leaning per all the definitions of the term. I think the word has been hikacked recently, and I really would like to know how you and others who use the term define elites, who you are specifically referencing, and I wish you would use those terms or descriptions instead. It seems lazy and unclear to use the term “elites”. Use well defined terms you mean instead. Otherwise, this just sounds like you are spouting political propaganda drivel. If you are, so be it, just own it and be clear about it so those of us that have tired of political propaganda drivel can understand that is where you are and what you are spouting and unsubscribe.
I do want to understand what you mean by elites, so look forward to your response.
Hey, Lisa. Love your curiosity. And you’re absolutely right that the word “elite” doesn’t have a concrete definition that everyone agrees with. I define our elite as the biggest players in our most important sectors and institutions. I believe our most important sectors are as follows:
Education
Journalism
Entertainment
Advertising
Big Tech
Big Labor
Big Business
Government
And I believe some of our most important institutions are as follows:
Harvard
The New York Times
Netflix
Google
Facebook
The American Medical Association
Walmart
The Federal Government
Finally, here are some of the people that I would deem part of our ruling elite:
Any tenured professor at an Ivy League school
Any reporter or editor at The New York Times
Any on-air personality at Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN
Anyone who made Forbes’s Celebrity 100 list
Bezos, Nadella, Cook, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Wojcicki
Anyone who heads a large union (think AFL-CIO, UAW, and AFSCME)
Any CEO of an S&P 500 company
Any member of Congress
Any Supreme Court justice
Donald Trump and anyone who heads a department or bureau in our huge federal bureaucracy
So that’s how I define our elite. They’re the biggest players in our most important sectors and institutions. All told, I would estimate that our elite numbers around 100,000 people. And I firmly believe that the bulk of our elite has a poor opinion of America and white people. Does that position equate to “political propaganda drivel”? Perhaps. I’ve been wrong before. So I’m definitely open to opposing viewpoints. Thank you for the spirited push back, Lisa. Even a little ol’ country blogger like me needs a good rebuke from time to time. Cheers.
Mr. Groovy recently posted…This Week in Systemic Kindness and Love Legalities
Thank you for responding, Mr. Groovy!
Thank you, Lisa! It’s nice when someone disagrees with you about something and has a bonafide conversation about it. Too often the conversation is skipped and the invectives are hurled. But that’s not your style and I really appreciate it. Cheers.
I think it is a mixed situation. It also depends on who exactly you are calling “elite.” I don’t believe in handouts for handouts, however, I do believe some people need a leg up-especially single moms where childcare costs more or too much for their paycheck to handle the rest of their daily expenses and the disabled unable to become employed and probably some other groups I’m missing. Perhaps I have misunderstood the article, however, for how I did these are my thoughts.
“Perhaps I have misunderstood the article, however, for how I did these are my thoughts.”
You haven’t. And your thoughts are very noble. I salute you.
Many years ago, I read a saying that I adopted as my motto. “There is nothing beyond the reach of determination”. If people approached every difficulty in life as something to be defeated by their own efforts rather than something that would defeat them or something that others had to fix for them, society would be much better off. Obesity is one example of something that is within our control. Eat better and exercise more and your likelihood of becoming obese or being a drain on the health care system and your own personal finances is reduced. The obsession of some to create classes of victims only serves their own purposes and drags down people that are gullible enough to believe what they are being told. We need to start telling our kids a different message at a very young age to stop this nonsense. I love your posts since it keeps me thinking!
I agree.
Ditto. Pat’s got a very keen mind.
“The obsession of some to create classes of victims only serves their own purposes and drags down people that are gullible enough to believe what they are being told.”
Nailed it, Pat. Bravo.