The common mistake most people do is believing that everything will work out in the end, no matter what happens. Which this might work for certain circumstances, or may seem to, but do they ever wonder how much better it could be if they worked hard at it as well? We are not put on this world to just have things handed to us, and that definitely is not God’s plan for most of us. He wants us to learn how to fish, than to wait for a fish to fall out of the sky every time we are hungry.

If everything was meant to work out by just waiting, God would not have given us free will. In making decisions and working hard, we learn and grow, and possibly prepare ourselves for the life to come after this one.

The people that are not willing to work for anything, end up becoming depressed, or unhappy, and quite often think that God had planned a horrible life for them. These same people tend to welcome death (not saying they are suicidal), so they can finally be happy in the after life (Heaven), essentially hoping for the easy way out. Even though Heaven will be infinitely better than life on earth, it will be much better if we worked for it and continued to work in some way after we die.

For instance, consider heaven being a vacation resort. Now think of all the people that avoid work as the people that stay in their rooms, sleep all day, and rarely get out to take part in all the fun activities. Now the people that work hard, are the ones that wake up early enough in the morning to enjoy the company of others, while they eat at the breakfast buffet. After breakfast they go out for a walk along the beach, go for a dip in the ocean, and play a friendly game of volleyball where everyone wins. They do all of this while the others are still sleeping and missing out.

So when faced with difficult situation, even though you may not know what way to go, at least try. The least you can do is pick the best direction at the time, and start your journey, even if it means climbing over mountains. As your progress on your journey, you may find that another direction seems better, and even though you may have walked a large distance, you will find, though not always immediately, that you are still better off going the wrong direction than standing still at the start. As long as you keep trying, you will find that things always work out, though not always the way you expected, but more likely the way God planned and hoped it would.

If CNN says they predict a shortage of rice, wouldn’t you make sure you had enough rice in your house to last you a while?

Makes you wonder what kind of power the news media has on our lives and our decisions, and wether our trust in their ability to report the news is misplaced.

Clinton Example

Even though the lead between Obama and Clinton was not tremendous, all the news networks started predicting that Clinton will drop out of the race, and that she had no chance of winning. When Clinton denied dropping out of the race, and stated she still had a fighting chance, news reporters seemed to get angry, and continued to criticize her, and slam her, stating that she is deceiving her poor supporters.

Now, if you were one of Clinton’s supporters, wouldn’t you feel that the fight is a lost cause when all the major news outlets are telling you so? In essence, by making these predictions public, and wording them the way they do, they have influenced the outcome of the events in favour of their predictions.

There are many other examples of the news media controling the outcome of events, though, recently, this one has stood out to me the most.

Now there are many examples of injustice that the various news and media networks have done to the American citizens, but I will only cover one in this article. The one example that I will discuss involves media icons endorsing political candidates, which sickens me, and the best example of this is Oprah endorsing Obama.

Oprah

Now, I have no problems with Oprah having her own opinion of who the best presidential candidate is, the problem lies in her sharing her opinion among her loyal fans, who are probably supporting Obama on this basis alone.

Oprah alone, probably has one of the greatest influences over the American population. For instance, how big is her fan base, and how many people buy books solely on it being in her book club? Now take her influence and apply it to politics, something that probably a lot of people have given up on, and care less about than what the next novel they will read. The less they could care about something, the more easily they are influenced, and will blindly follow. In essence, if you take into consideration the influence she has, Oprah most likely has the largest voting power in the nation. Her vote and endorsement is, for all we know, possibly equivalent to 20 million “normal” votes.

For all we know, if Oprah supported Clinton instead of Obama, Clinton would be winning the race right now.

Conspiracy Theory

One venue of corporate influence, that is possible, is the use of celebrities. Corporations could, in essence, control a candidate by getting a powerful icon to endorse a presidential candidate. In turn for the boost in public support, they would be enticed to “agree” with some of their own corporate political views.

Now, a lot of people believe that everyone has a price when it comes to being bought, and if Oprah has a price, I am sure it is a hefty one. As for Obama, perhaps his price was more “reasonable” when compared to McCain and Clinton. Perhaps he is more easily swayed to these political ”views” of theirs.

So what if some large corporation paid Oprah to support and influence Obama?

I have the worst luck when it comes to any type of liquids. At any point, with any liquid, there is a chance I will be wearing it. Now, this might seem a little strange that a grown man has problems with liquids, but what usually happens to me is normally unexplainable, except for a handful of times, this being one of them.

One day, I was sitting on the couch, watching TV. Being lazy, I had made myself some frozen White Kastle Burgers (cooked at the time of consumption of course). Now, when I am consuming these little delectables, I usually squirt a little mustard and ketchup between the “giant” meat patty and hamburger bun, and usually do this two burgers at a time (before eating them and going on to the next two).

When I was on my last set of two burgers, I flipped the cap off my ketchup bottle, and to my surprise (at the time) the ketchup bottle started spewing ketchup everywhere like a volcano, with no assistance from my part. Luckily this time it didn’t land on me, or it probably did (knowing my luck), but in amounts I could not see. Even though none of the ketchup landed on me, I still had plenty of clean up to do.

What happened?

Well, like a lot of people, I enjoy my ketchup cold and straight out of the fridge. Unfortunately, the ketchup bottle was nearing empty and was flipped cap side down in the fridge. When I did take the ketchup out of the fridge, and set it right side up, some of the ketchup remained near the cap at the top, with a vast area of cold air trapped underneath.

As I ate my burgers, and with enough pause between my previous usage of the ketchup and the time of erruption, the air that was trapped under the layer of ketchup began warming up to room temperature, expanding and building up pressure (that is what hot air does, it starts a party, and needs more room to dance).

Thanks to the design of the ketchup bottle, the bottle was well sealed, with no where for the pressure to escape until… someone who is lucky enough to pop the cap open, and witness the volcano of ketchup!

Trucks

There are far too many people that buy trucks, only to lower them and race them. They are completely butchering what a truck is meant for, which is hauling something large, something heavy or both, possibly over rough terrain, like on a construction site. These ’souped up’ trucks can only be driven on normal roads, and if you weigh it down with anything in the bed, it will scrape the whole underside on the road in most cases. Even though these trucks can not be used for its intended heavy duty purposes, they still use up quite a far amount of fuel compared to other vehicles. In these cases, owning a truck is very inefficient, wasteful and dumb.

Large SUVs

There are different types of SUVs, and some seem like a compromise to a minivan, with a larger interior compared to a full sized car, without the need to seat 6-8. These SUVs are good for family, perhaps ones that go camping or on lots of road trips, but occasionally you will see a monster of a SUV that is used only for day to day driving, not really using it for it’s intended purpose. These cars are also very inefficient, guzzle gas and aren’t even that fast.

Hummers

These are probably the worst vehicles on the road today. Unless you live 10 miles from the nearest road, or are in the middle of a war, you should not be driving one. Hummers must of been pushed out to the public by the oil companies. Why else would anyone release them, they cost their owners a lot of money in gas, and are large and clumsy. The fact that there are people willing to buy them astound me. I always picture people that drive hummers as very self absorbed, and selfish people. I would like to bet that if they were able to buy and drive a tank to their local store for groceries, they would.

Conclusion

Now if any government decided to give tax breaks due to the increase gas prices, they should skip these people. If they own a gas guzzler, they should not get any sympathy unless they can state a practical reason for their choice, and defend it. If anything, everyone should start taking an example from many European countries, where the engines in their cars are smaller and seem more efficient. But instead it seems that the American dream includes owning the largest car known to man, and then complaining when they can’t afford to drive it.

Method of enforcement

Most of the purchases that would be controlled could be done by a machine that looks up a drivers license and identifies the person as a welfare recipient or not. This would cause some inconvenience for most people, but would reduce the amount of people abusing the welfare system.

Another method would be to provide the welfare money into a special bank account, with limits on how much money can be withdrawn a month, and any purchases made on the card would be tracked and limited based on the store, category the goods fall under, and previous spending habits.

Alcohol and Tobacco

When purchasing either substance, they should force everyone to provide their licenses, not only for age verification but to verify that you are not on welfare. This system can be used to limit the amount of money allowed to be spent on either substance.

In terms of tobacco, the amount allowed to spent should gradually decrease forcing the recipient to either get a job, or quit smoking within a year, as this will only cost the tax payers more money in medical costs. Otherwise it would be a bad investment for the government to fuel something that will kill you one day.

As for alcohol, the amount should be low, not enough to abuse the substance, but enough to be able to relax and have the occasional drink.

Vehicles/Cars

Everyone should be entitled to some mode of transportation, but in some cases people on welfare manage to buy brand new vehicles that are more of a want than a need. In most cases they should be fine with a decent used car, which can be reliable and very cost effective.

Other Luxuries

Many people working every day can not afford many luxuries, and it is quite unfair if a person on welfare has a big screen TV, while the hard worker has to settle for less. So in terms of electronics, they should be limited to bare necessities, such as small screen TVs.

Conclusion

Now I understand that some people are on welfare not by choice, and may want to provide some luxuries for their families, but they should work for it in some fashion. They can either find a job, or perhaps the government can hire them to do some misc duties such as cleaning up the city they live in. Perhaps any work they do for the government will increase the limits on some goods they are allowed to buy, not necessarily make them more money.

The government should also attempt to educate those on welfare and try to get them back into the workforce, perhaps hassle them monthly when it comes time to receive their check. Also, those capable to work, should be pressured more to work than those less capable.

What it comes down to is that a large amount of people work hard to have what they have, and it seems unfair that one can enjoy the same luxuries while living off the taxes those people pay.

About the site

The main goal of the site is to discuss/debate various viewpoints on different topics. In some cases the original author may be playing “devil’s advocate” and may not support the argument he/she is defending. Due to this, at no point should anyone be accountable for anything they have said, this is all in good fun.

Rules

This brings us to the rules for everyone to follow, whether it be an author or someone commenting/disagreeing on an article.

• when arguing, only attack the arguments, not the person
• insults may cause your post to be deleted, and may cause your account to get banned
• do not stereotype (ie: all [some nationality] people are terrorists)

I will add more rules as this site grows, for now use common sense.