Go West Old Man! Or east, south or north.

A theme through all my complaints and rants about the economic crisis has very little to do with Wall Street or the government. Most news outlets have enough of that to go around. I like to focus on something that nobody else does, the American People. They are getting off without any criticisms, and its frustrating the shit out of me. The American People that are losing their jobs and maybe even their entire industries are hypocrites. I doubt that you would find many communist (or even socialist) sympathizers in the UAW. But as soon as things start getting bad for them they want the government to help. If you asked them, in an abstract sense, do they think its good when the government intervenes to help out business, or do they think that its good to have a big government, I'm sure the majority would say, "hell no!". But as soon as that argument becomes concrete and no longer abstract they change their tune. I suppose there is nothing all too bad about this, we are all hardwired for self-interest, and that's what this boils down to. But there is a fatal flaw for many blue-collar workers. They want capitalism. They love it. They love America more than anyone else, and they'd be damned if we had to live like those Ruskies, or even those French. But they don't really mean it. They want the government to intervene, they demand it. Try moving or closing a military base that's in a small town. Even if it means shrinking government. Even if it means growing the economy as a whole. The people of that town will freak out and protest. Try shutting down a factory because its more beneficial to make some product overseas, and watch the people wave the American Flag and claim that the big company is a traitor for moving their operations overseas. The company is being as American as Apple Pie. They are participating in capitalism, the thing that all the blue collar-types supposedly love. Its a hypocrisy that has its roots in the fact that people of this country want everything. And as soon as they get it, they want more or they complain about why they didn't get it sooner.
The mobile, mostly Y.U.PPy types get it. They realized from high school that they weren't going to have one career their entire life, they were probably looking 3 or 4 different ones. They certainly knew that they were going to have to move around, all over the country and possibly to another country. This is capitalism. It is fast, dynamic and unpredictable. Most of the world agrees that capitalism is a good thing, but few stop to think what it really means. It means that you have to be ready to move and be mobile, both literally and in your thinking. And the days of getting a job at the plant after high school and staying in one town for your whole life making a great living are gone. does that mean that things are worse off? Not by a long shot, for those who embrace the world as it is, as people claim it ought to be things are much better. The good old days weren't always so good.
The next time you wave a flag and bad mouth those lazy Europeans, think for a minute what it really means to have a free market.