Thursday, June 28, 2018

A Lifetime of Panhandling


I had cleared Chinook pass on my bike and was coming down off the Cascades enroute to Tacoma.  And the first exit I took the first time ever entering Tacoma I saw a site that was common in the Pacific northwest area - a panhandler.  Not that I hadn't seen panhandlers before - they are a permanent fixture of the Pacific northwest - but what got me about this one was how old he was.  You could tell he had been a panhandler his entire life and the toll it took on him was certainly showing.  He wasn't some spoiled 24 year old "crusty" from the suburbs, panhandling because it's what all the "cool hip" kids do in Seattle.  He was old, he was disheveled, he looked rough, and he most certainly had mental issues.  All I could think to myself was "Man, this is how all hippies end.  No matter how cool you were in 1968, the life of a parasite ends poorly if you never grow up and get a job."

The light turned green and so I motored into downtown Tacoma and the scenery did not improve.  There were more bums laying around, the architecture was minimalist and 70's, and what normal civilians that were there all dressed like the weather - ugly, depressing, and dark.  But as I saw more and more bums I realized how laziness was explaining nearly everything I was seeing.  Laziness made bums waste their entire lives.  Laziness made the Tacoma girls fat and the Tacoma boys skinny fat.  Laziness made the buildings ugly because beauty takes effort.  A complete lack of effort, if not an outright fear of it, resulted in the ugliness that was Tacoma and I was thankful I was only staying there a couple days.

But as I made my way through the city of ugly, I realized that laziness explained something a bit more fundamental about leftists..  Because if you're lazy you by default will have a political ideology of socialism.  And that laziness fundamentally forces you into a particular profession.  Ergo, regardless of their title or job, regardless of their profession or degree, nearly every leftist out there is functionally, fundamentally, and economically a panhandler.

Certainly the panhandlers in the Pacific northwest are begging for money.  You can criticize them all you want, but they are at least honest about it and don't hide it.  But how does panhandling for money differ from being a director or worker at a non-profit?  A liberal arts professor teaching a worthless class?  Social workers constantly lobbying for more money?  One of the 237 "diversity hires" at the University of Michigan?  Or any "employee" that needs government funding or grant money so they can not have to work work some kind of made up job?  It is the constant begging for money that makes you a parasite/panhandler whether you're an honest panhandler off the interstate exit or a cowardly hypocrite hiding behind some fabricated cause like "global warming" or "feminism" demanding your program get more taxpayer money.

There is however some good news and a la an "Enjoy the Decline" philosophy I'm trying to get people on the non-left to see this and take joy.  For the old man panhandler I saw upon entering Tacoma holds a lesson.  And that lesson is "lazy people work twice as hard."

I've alluded to this before in my consulting.  There's the hard way.  And the REALLY hard way.  There is NO EASY WAY.  The "hard way" is to take your bullets up front, pay the price, and get it over with.  Major in engineering, laydown the foundations for success when you're young, and do so while you're young and have the energy.  The REALLY HARD WAY is the way most leftists go.  Major in easy crap.  Live off of student loans.  Beg and plead and panhandle for other people's money.  Get a masters with more student loans.  Then go and beg and plead for some more taxpayers money for your completely unnecessary and made up job.  Yes, you may get lucky and be a Betsy Hodges, becoming one in the 1,000 leftists that gets a cushy government job, but most of you will end up like the old man panhandler stuck under a bridge in Tacoma.

This is the good news for those of you who are non-leftists.  Yes, an entire class of these people live off of you in a veritable parasitic way.  But their lives are condemned to ruination just like the bum under the underpass in Tacoma.  Because begging for other people's money goes against reality.  Begging for other people's money does NOT have the world working for you.  It goes against the world's best interests and you only get crumbs that are occasionally handed out because (shock of shocks) taxpayers want to keep their money!

Thus begins the lifetime of panhandling, which would be better described as "tooth pulling" because you don't have the real world working for you.  A highly skilled computer programmer has the world BENDING OVER BACKWARDS for him because he offers a good service.  A beautiful woman who put effort into her appearance has men slaying themselves to marry her and support her.  People who live in the real world and offer real value avail themselves of the real world because it will work for them.  An entire global economy and infrastructure bending to your beckon call because you are skilled and offer something it wants.

But if you're a bum.  If you're lazy.  If you're just another worthless person with a worthless liberal arts degree, you have to go begging. You have to go panhandling.  You have to live a life where the real world and people's best self interests operate against you (because remember, you ARE a parasite).  And thus the life of the old man I saw in Tacoma.

Of course not all leftists end up like the old man in Tacoma.  Many of you get your pet projects funded.  Many of you get grants and taxpayer money to make-believe-play "real adult in the real world" as you do some non-profit thing or another.  But there's never enough.  There never will be enough.  And only a select few like a Mark Dayton, a Hillary Clinton, or a Betsy Hodges will get the 6 figure salary and truly avoid a life of work, labor, sweat and toil.  In other words the axiom "lazy people work twice as hard" will hold true for most leftists.  The vast majority of leftists will be damned to a life of panhandling be it under a bridge or filling out grant proposal forms.  And like all panhandlers they will achieve nothing of value in life because that is the definition of being a parasite.  You will not solve poverty.  You will not end global warming.  You will not close the wage gap.  You won't help out minorities.  But that has never been your intention. It's just the tool you use to get other people to part with their money.  And even when you get it, you'll end up just as old, haggard, beaten, and destroyed as that panhandler in Tacoma.  And you'll have wasted your life just like he did.
_______________
Check out Aaron's other sites below!
Podcast
Asshole Consulting
YouTube Channel
Twitter
Books by Aaron 
Patreon 
Amazon Affiliate

10 comments:

kurt9 said...

Another excellent piece.

BTW, the 18 year old in 1968 is now 68 years old today. That's not a good age to be out on the streets at.

Red Pill Wisdom said...

Years ago when Obama was first elected, I wrote on various websites that existed then, that people would be wise to get a copy of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", because what was written in her book was a view of our country's future under Obama and his 'soft' Marxism, the tyranny of 'Political Correctness', the the Leftist control of the Democratic Party, and its own support of Socialism (and eventually Communism).
The only thing that has stopped our slide into the Socialist swamp was the totally unexpected victorious election of Trump -- which shows why the Leftists in control of the media, Hollywood and the Democratic Party are so opposed to Trump and everybody who supports him.

ia said...

I disagree about your liberal arts embargo. If more white men went into liberal arts they could retake the media. STEM are culturally passive and dull. Cheerio.

Anonymous said...

Portland is completely infested with bums and panhandlers. The filth and squalor that accompanies their camps is a dismal sight. Transplants from Portland are now in the process of ruining Vancouver by importing the same plague.

There have always been (and will always be) lazy people. In past times, lazy people were prompted to contribute at some level or starve. Not so much today. Bums and panhandlers are now given free tents, bikes, food, and clothes. They are empowered to camp (and sh*t) anywhere they please. The public commons is their oyster.

Just like feral cats, the more they are fed, the more they gather. And yet, the average lib-tard is blabbing about a nonexistent housing crisis. The stupidity burns.

minuteman said...

I understand your dad was a preacher. I bet you sound just like he did.

That is not meant as an insult in any way shape or form because I agree with everything you say, but reading this (and other) post I can easily see you standing in the pulpit of a Presbyterian church preaching to your congregation.

Paul, Dammit! said...

We have Snowbird panhandlers here in south FL.

I live in FL but commute to NY, where we homeport the boat I make my living on. I grew up in New England. If someone has a Northeastern accent, I can pretty much tell where they're from.
So when I'm home during tourist season, we've got the regulars working the intersections and streetcorners of the lower-class sections of town, and occasionally some more bold souls who approach you when you're putting groceries in your car.
It's sad, until it's really, really annoying, then it's not sad at all.
Thing is, I recognize many of these folks. They show up on their corner around October, and disappear in May. One woman has been pregnant and homeless for 4 years straight, according to her cardboard sign. She looks pretty small for being in her 14h trimester. But it's the accent that gives it away. These folks take the bus down in the cold weather, and head back to NY, where pickings are presumably better, and public services undoubtedly are.
After 4 years, bumming change is a career choice, not an unhappy condition.
The parallels with leftism are there to be seen.

Faithless Cynic said...

My Captain, I respectfully disagree with you. Being a homeless panhandler is a rough life, but, working people have to put up with these whining scum. The small town I live near is overun with homeless due to do gooder programs that attract them. I cannot go into town at night without pepper spray and a thick wood cane. Being over 60 has some advantages, no cop can bitch about my cane. Working people have to run a gauntlet of these Fucking Zombies, who mumble " spare change" instead of " eat brain " A woman walking home from work was found floating in a creek, raped and strangled. No arrests to date, it has been two years.

The local cops run the homeless off once in a while. After that, the good, working, producing citizens of Elkton are on their own.

Any time you see homeless or street corner drug dealing, best to steer clear.

DrTorch said...

Drove from VA to Indianapolis last summer, w/ stops in Ohio. Was surprised that every Interstate Hwy exit had panhandlers.

I was surprised to see so much activity in a Middle America that is fairly broke. Looks a lot like a racket.

Bill said...

The hep-c these people get is well earned.

Anonymous said...

I was born in Tacoma. That is one of the worst areas in the Northwest. Gangbangers, bums, drunks. Bad roads. Saw a pile of chicken feet on the 5 offramp once. Walked past an active bank robbery once, ran into a gang of chips about two blocks later. Watched a guy attempt to bum weed from a bus full of bums in front of a dispensery