Thursday, January 28, 2010

Just my opinion

I get so incredibly frustrated at times with our government. Instead of having the best interests of the country in mind, it is just an agenda pushing minority that forces legislation that the vast majority of the population doesn't want.

The proposed healthcare bill has some minor amount of good ideas buried under a steaming pile of pork and unnecessary regulation. And not only will it bankrupt the country, it will destroy any chance of economic recovery. Small businesses cannot afford to provide healthcare to their employees so most people will have no choice, legally, but to go with the "public option". Even some larger businesses will opt to not provide healthcare plans to save money, forcing their workers to purchase their own plans or go on the government role. The idea of penalizing citizens with massive fines if they are not able to afford insurance it just simply stupid. You can't get blood from a turnip.

As for the self-employed, or those businesses that only have a handful of employees, they will have no choice but to close up shop and go out of business. Individual businesses who are struggling to make it in this harsh business climate, will close down in favor of mega-chains who can afford to sell a small portion of their inventory at or below cost in order to attract customers. The American ideal that if you work hard and make good decisions, you can make it in this country is over. The Walmarts and McDonalds of the world have seen to it that the little guy is so over regulated that it is impossible to stay in business. You can look at the Main Streets in every small town in America to see the truth of that. Doors are locked and windows blacked out in stores that have been in business for 100 years. There will be no more "mom and pop" stores in the US anymore. Even if you can get a small business loan to start a new business, the cost to operate in licensing fees, taxes, accounting, sales tax regulations, required safety equipment and security systems would drive most people out in the first year. And that is assuming you can attract enough customers away from the major chains to stay open even that long. It is sad. Small businesses are what built this country.

It used to be that each person worked to make their community a little better, a little more prosperous. Now, it is every person for themselves. From the Federal government all the way down to the individual. We are all so paranoid that someone might have something better, that we forget that working together will make everyone's lives better. We don't help our neighbors when they are struggling. Most of us don't even know our neighbor's names. When someone is sick, we don't take food to their families. We don't look out for the neighborhood kids that hang out after school because their parents are still at work. We are all too busy trying to hang on to what we have that we can't stop and actually see what is happening around us.

And our government and the media is encouraging that process. They tell us about all the crime in our neighborhoods, so we must lock our doors and windows and never trust anyone. They tell us that children and teens who hang out in the park after dark must be dealing drugs or guns or be in gangs, so we should be afraid of them. If someone is sick, it is probably contagious so we should stay away so we don't get sick too. There are government programs out there for those who need them, so why should we give of ourselves when the government will do it for us?

I could go on and on about this. We are being led down a rosy path by our elected officials. We are being made so dependent on our government, slowly but surely, that most people just could not survive without government aid. And this is in their favor. If they can tell us what to do and how to do it, and we fall for it every time, they will never lose the power they have over our lives and they can slowly tighten the rope.

If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water he will jump out. But if you put that same frog in a pot of cold water that is heated slowly, he will stay in the pot until he is cooked. Well my friends, we are almost to the boiling point.

Monday, January 11, 2010

New year, same wants

Things being what they are, I have been too busy to post. But now that the holidays are over, hopefully, I can get caught back up.

I have been looking at seed catalogs again. This is always torturous for me. I want to have a big garden, a couple of fruit tress, some grapes, berries, etc., but we just don't have the space without tearing up the whole back yard. That idea was very firmly nixed. lol Go figure?

So, I will probably just do what I always do, plant high yielding food like beans and tomatoes, and buy what I can't raise. It makes me sad though. We have less than 3 years until the boy graduates, and if my husband doesn't get laid off before then, we will almost have the house paid off. Then we can buy something out in the middle of nowhere with a few acres (and pay cash for it) and I can have my little homestead.

I really don't need much, just about 5 acres or so, with a decent house and preferably a barn already in place. A few chickens and maybe a milk cow (yes, I am dreaming) and a big garden to raise our food. Is it too much to ask for an asparagus bed, onion bed, some berry vines, a grape arbor, a few fruit trees, and about 1/2 an acre tilled onto garden? It would be nice if this is on the highway so that I can set up a produce stand to sell the extras or have a neighbor who is willing to let us set up on his.

All of this take money though. I would like to be able to be set up to be self-sufficient, or at least as close to it as possible. If things really start getting tight, at least we can eat.

I have learned a lot of skills that will be useful towards that end. Home canning is probably the most useful one. That, along with the dehydrator, have pretty much cut our grocery bills in half. We don't have to buy canned foods and the food I put up tastes much much better and is healthier for us than commercially processed food. It involves actually cooking, but I enjoy that anyway.

I can make bread, and do on a regular basis. It tastes different than the bread you get in the store, but at least it is really food with real nutrition instead of just empty calories. And it makes a mean grilled cheese.

I can make soap, and therefore, laundry detergent. I haven't bought bath soap or laundry detergent in over two years now. That is a BIG money saver. Who wants to spend 5-7 dollars every couple of weeks just on laundry soap? I can make 3 gallons (about 4 months worth) of laundry detergent for about 80 cents. Granted, it isn't a major boost to the budget, but it is kinda nice to not have to go down that aisle at the store.

I can sew our own clothes if necessary. Granted, there are some things it is still cheaper to buy, like socks and underwear, but for just daily clothing, I can do that. Especially if things get bad, this will be a useful skill.

I would like to have a wood stove to use for heat. That does involve cutting wood, but that shouldn't really be too big of a problem. And if it is done right, I can also use the top of the stove to cook on in the winter or if the power goes out. It wouldn't be the first time I have cooked over a fire or on top of a wood stove. It is actually kinda fun, in a strange way. Wouldn't want to have to do it in the summer, but in the winter it would be sort of nice to have a big pot of soup bubbling on the stove all day.

Maybe I am just strange, but I can do without a big house, fancy cars, and expensive clothes. I never really needed those things anyway. I am just a country girl at heart.

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