The Crippling Of The Elderly

Are the elderly, the ones who made this country great, being treated with respect by our government?  I would be the first to say that the government can’t do everything.   But, they do have a  moral responsibility to do  some things and protect the weak and less advantaged.

I have worked in a service industry (real estate sales) in a county that is more than 50% populated by seniors.  Not only have I seen neglect of real needs of seniors,  I also see some alarming trends of the government preying on their vulnerability.   For example, here in Florida, the state has cut benefits to the disabled, many of whom are senior citizens.  During the same time, state taxes have been used to buy swamp land in the name of ecology and purchase large sports stadiums.

Many of the very oldest of our seniors are living on $300 per month in Social Security benefits.   And the IRS has the gall to tax their meager proceeds.  How does a person pay for housing, eat, buy clothes, see a doctor, and go to the dentist?   Sadly,  I have seen many end up homeless.  Talk to any Florida based organization that helps the homeless and ask how many senior citizens are on the street.   You’ll be amazed at what you hear.  Better yet, volunteer to help a homeless feeding program and you will see for yourself  many seniors living on the streets -  it will break your heart.  In the City of Tampa, FL alone, there are upwards of 8,000 homeless.   Sadly, many are older Americans.   Sadder still, is that many are veterans who fought to keep us free.

A factor that has been widely overlooked is the hidden and unhidden inflation in our economy.  The meager income paid to seniors is shrinking due to inflation.   Many are predicting hyper-inflation in the next few years.

Then, there is the marriage penalty that pressures seniors who would have married, to live together.  Many do so with great feelings of guilt and shame.  Seniors who live together draw more Social Security than couples who marry.  This is wrong.  Many a politician has campaigned on the promise to change it, but we’re still waiting.

One of the greatest tavesties of justice is the disappearance of retirement funds.  There has to be regulation put in place to keep retirement money safe.  When people work and save for an entire lifetime some money for their golden years, that money should be held sacred by our laws.  Those who would plunder those funds should do a life sentence.

The high gasoline prices have severely hurt many senior programs such as Meals On Wheels.  The slow economy has limited job opportunities for seniors who need extra income.  I see my own mother considering moving across the country to get lower rent.   It seems the deck is stacked against our senior population and with the exception of election years,  no one seems to be souding the alarm.   Growing tax pressures,  indifference from the state and federal governments,  a suffering economy and shrinking job market, all these things are making the golden years much less golden.

We owe a great debt to our seniors.   They fought our wars,  built our industries, raised up our institutions, and for the most part paid their own way.    We send billions across the sea to people who despise us.   We can do better than this for our own.

The American Caste System

In India they have a social pecking order called a caste system.  The lowest people class is a group known as the untouchables.   Privileges afforded to the higher castes are not accessible to them.   We look at that here in the United States and we think how archaic that is, and  how odd it is in modern life.   We think ourselves to be more advanced,  more educated, and definitely more sophisticated.   I would propose that all of our sophistication and American pride is a smoke screen.  The reality is that we are more backward than they are.

First of all I would observe that human rights and freedom are not accessible to all.  For example, if a rich man gets accused of a felony, he would immediately call the family attorney, make bail, hire expert witnesses to tear down the prosecutor’s case, and either get a greatly reduced sentence or be aquitted altogether.  But, if a poor man was accused of a felony, he stays locked up during the trial,  he gets a free public defender.  I’ve actually observed trials where the public defender didn’t even have a conversation with the accused until minutes before the trial.  Their reputation is that they carry a heavy case load and are forced to do the bare minimum for their clients.   At least they can wave bye to you on your way to the big house.  There is not justice for all – only justice for those who can afford it.

Then there is the credit reporting system.  Once an individual has a tainted credit score, they will have very limited access to housing and to employment.  So, how can someone get ahead if he can’t access housing or get a job?  And to add to the pain of the credit damaged ones, the insurance company will jack up your insurance rates if your rating goes down.  This creates a slippery slope for those who are struggling to avoid homelessness.

My next exposure of the American caste system is our health care system.   I can remember when my wife’s uncle needed a new liver.   He was told that unless he could ante up $6000 to make a down payment on rejection drugs, he could not get on the list to get a new liver.  Uncle Bill died.

Finally there is the matter of how we deal with life.   Medical technology has advanced to the place where people are killing the handicapped before birth and calling it choice.  Already in this country the elderly routinely get overdosed on morphine as a form of mercy killing if the care givers determine that their quality of life is not worth saving.  The systematic killing of the unborn and the elderly is vigorously defended by the liberals.   One of the first presidential orders signed by President Obama was to allow our tax money to be used internationally to kill unwanted children.  Meanwhile there is a huge shortage of babies for adoption, forcing many in North America and Europe to travel to Asia to adopt a baby.   When we were in China adopting our daughter, we met couples from England, France, Spain, and Italy who were there to adopt.  When people ask me why we didn’t adopt an American baby, I reply that the liberal political system is working overtime to kill them all off.

Your value as a human being should not be determined by your checking account, your credit report, your disability, or your age.  Let’s be the civilized society that we claim to be.   That would be true progress and justice for all.

Your Fabulous Fifties

I remember when my dad turned forty. The very idea of forty sent my dad into a mild depression. Some call it a mid-life crisis. Forty seemed so “old” to him. Now I find myself at fifty, which some say is the new forty, taking inventory of the past and musing about the future.

I read somewhere that most people’s biggest financial growth years takes place in their fifties. I like that thought. It seems it takes most of your life just to figure out how things work. Many of the greatest accomplishments of highly successful people takes place after fifty. In China, there is mandatory retirement from government jobs at fifty. Many of them start their own businesses at fifty. Seems it would be a great place for a seniors ministry.

If life experience means anything, and I believe it does, you have more wisdom at fifty and beyond compared with your young adult years. Wisdom comes two ways. One is by learning from older people with life experiences and wisdom. You can learn from their mistakes and pain, sparing yourself from the same mistakes. Sadly, like most other folks, I didn’t do that. That’s the easy way to learn wisdom. The other way, is to live life, make mistakes, and learn from our own life experiences. That’s the school of hard knocks, or the hard way to learn wisdom. I have my bumps and I wear them like war medals. Paul the apostle said that the only thing he boasted about was his sufferings. We talk (or boast) about our past war stories and what we learned, the young yawn, and life goes on.

Have you ever tried to convince a 20 year old that you know what you’re talking about? The problem is, they don’t know what they don’t know. So they talk about what they don’t know in a very knowledgeable way, and we grin in amusement. My take on the whole learning process is this – Pre-teens don’t know anything and they know it. (Maybe that’s why Jesus loves children so much.) Teenagers think they know something. Young adults in their twenties are convinced they know something. People in their thirties come to a realization that they don’t know anything. In their forties they set out to learn all they can. And when they reach fifty, they know enough to operate in the real world, make things happen, get things done, understand relationships, and generally start doing some things that really matter.

The landmark of fifty doesn’t bother me. The way I see things, I’m just getting started. So, look out world, here I come.