Posted on 03/14/2013 2:02:18 PM PDT by Oscar in Batangas
I Was a Danged Fool!
For twenty-two or so years before my retirement I had chronic back pain -- sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. When the pain was enough to take my breath away, I’d swallow a few ibuprofens, acetaminophens, or whatever over-the-counter pain relief I had on hand and carefully hobble off to work. Once or twice I self-prescribed bed rest for a day. But generally, if I could make it to the breakfast table, I could make it to work, figuring that the pain would subside as the day wore on.
It NEVER ONCE occurred to me that I ought to look into claiming some sort of SSDI benefit for my condition. To me, SSDI was for the blind, deaf, para- and quadriplegics, and severely mentally disabled people. As long as it was just a little back pain every now and then, I figured I could tough it out, unless I ever returned to manual labor jobs.
Imagine my surprise lately, when I read about folks who exhaust their 99(!!!) weeks of unemployment, then apply for –and get– SSDI for some newly diagnosed ‘disability’.
I was a danged fool! With the right lawyer, I might have had big disability payments all those years. Compared with the trillions of dollars of national debt that’s been added lately, my little ‘cut’ would have been just a couple of insignificant digits. And I probably deserved it as much as anyone coming off his/her 99 weeks of paid vacation right now.
Don’t you be a danged fool! Since this government is bound and determined to wipe us off the financial map, you might as well do what you can to help it along. Even if you don’t need it, take the money anyway…If you don’t, someone else at least as equally undeserving as you are will.
You pay the absolute minimum Federal income tax which you honestly owe, right?? Using the same logic you should claim the maximum Federal benefit for which you can truthfully apply. EBT card, food stamps, Obamaphone, SSDI, housing assistance, whatever.
Don’t need the extra money? This just doesn’t seem ‘right’? It goes against your morals?
I know. Same here. But that thinking applied to other times. All is fair in love and war, and this sure ain’t love. So get in on a few skirmishes. If you don’t feel good about keeping the money for yourself, you can still play ‘starve the beast’ and help your neighbors.
Don’t want food stamp groceries?
> Get in touch with a local food bank and have them give you a shopping list. Fill their shelves with stuff that their needy clientele will appreciate (no vodka coolers, rib-eye steaks and lobster tails here). > See if there’s a local church school with a lunch program that needs a hand in feeding kids from poor families > Maybe that church also has a soup-kitchen or food pantry > Use the free groceries yourself and donate the cash saved to some other good charity … (see below for starter ideas).
Don’t want the monthly benefit check or cash back on your EBT card for yourself? Hmmm, let’s see….
> Volunteer Fire Department, EMS, non-profit charity clinic? > USO, Police/Fire Survivors’ funds, VFW, KofC, Lions, Shriners Burn Center? > Conservative Political Action Committee? > Local TEA party? > Crisis Pregnancy Center? (Bonus points: tick off Planned Parenthood) > Battered/abused women’s shelter? > Local Boy or Girl Scout troop? Boys or Girls Clubs? > Academic scholarship for a needy, deserving relative or neighbor?
Even if you earn $100,000 per month from your personal retirement plan, collect your Social Security and give it away to some needy organization. (If you can’t think of one, send it to me. I’ll take care of it for you!)
Know for certain that, you are the far better judge of how to spend our money locally than is the Federal Government. So belly up to the bar, snuggle up to the teat, or whatever it takes. Get what’s yours and do your part to put it into the right hands…while there’s still some left to get.
Thanks for mentioning your experience with that. Even though most of my pain has finally disappeared, for reasons as mysterious as its appearance, I have been thinking of getting one of those.
WCH is doing the correct thing for him/herself.
My husband is a medical massage therapist and I am trained, but retired at 63, when my hands gave out. I have another business of my own, but I do take his appointments and do some client education. He is gifted and I was merely competent.
I have seen miracles. The referring physicians just say “Keep doing what you’re doing, as it works” and then they just refer their intractable cases.
Ask around. In every town there is someone whose clients swear bu them and they will tell you who is the best for real relief. We have clients who may start out 2x/week and then resolve to the point where we only see them once a year or so.
We live in dread of the day we are covered by insurance and controlled by the government. For now, we are independent, which is best for everyone.
I work for a public school district. We have parents who either manage or attempt to get their children on SSDI for all manner of disabilities related to their poor school performance. This has become the new “welfare”.
Oh, and, No Thank You. I do not want to live off the teat of others who work hard and pay taxes. I would rather fend for myself.
God bless you. But it sounds like your experience on the “taker side” was not voluntary. I was referring to the leeches in our society who always look for the easy way out and are like the grasshopper in the fable of the grasshopper and the ant.
It is the human condition that often makes the easy way look tempting. But those of us who are decent know what is right and choose to do what is right.
And you are right; our children are watching.
To anyone reading my comments on this thread who has lost his job or is truly disabled:
My criticism is of able-bodied slackers and not of you.
I have been doing a lot of research into anti-inflamation foods
I make an asian mushroom soup with all the top ingredients and it works wonders... releive my hip pain and i thought i was going to get arthritis
get some fresh asian mushrooms (dried work too but you gotta soak them or boild them fist - save the water)
stir-fry in plenty of olive oil - add a bunch of garlic
when cooked pout in some heavy cream and tomato juice (i love the new ‘spring garden’ v-8 flavor) and chicken broth
heat and then toss in come 1/4 inch chunks of fresh celery, slices green onions or shallots- experiment with whatever you like... but those are the basics
I ate that for a week straight and felt great.
take 2 cinnamon capsules , 2 tumeric capsules, 4 vitamin e, 1 magtnesium at night and in a week you will notice a diff.
I blame my current tinnitus (constant ringing in the ears) on the years of almost-daily use of ibuprofen and (less often) acetaminophen. Though I have almost stopped using those meds, sometimes it is still necessary, and the next day the tinnitus is always much worse.
I should have limited my OTC pain med usage to two days per week.
The points I intended to make were:
Get Federal money and distribute it charitably. Our ideas of how it should be spent locally are much better than Uncle Sam’s.
We should be getting our money out of the hands of Washington by whatever [legal] means possible. Times have changed. But one constant is that morality depends on the situation. What is manslaughter in peacetime is valor in war. What was mooching in the 1970s is strategy in today’s conflict. Whatever amount one can get from DC and distribute intelligently means less available for them to use on other less-intelligent pursuits.
The post wasn’t about me. (I think my sore back is what writers call an allegory or something). But thanks for the words of concern, nonetheless.
Had I been a better writer, I might not have had to settle for being a nuclear physicist!
Oh, I will take care of myself and my family - no doubt.
Its just I’m tired of feeling like the last sucker to realize the game is rigged. If the Federal Gov’t is giving away free money, without rhyme or reason, without any real plan or oversight, for crass political purposes, then I want to get my share. I certainly have paid enough taxes, so as a start, I would like that back somehow.
my sil had been on two rounds of disability....once when she was very young and stayed on it for all the years her children were growing up and then suddenly, she could work....but that only lasted a few years...then poof....she was disabled again...
as everybody knows, if you collect disability, you get a lot more money than just regular SS at age 62....its really crime almost...
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