“But those who do not have their own savings, and rely on the public weal—the PROPER word for that is CHARITY.”
Did I abide by my contract? Yes.
Did that contract include a pension? Yes.
Do I get my pension because you like me, or because you feel sorry for me? No.
I get it because you have a legal obligation, thru the government, to pay me. Not because you like me. Not because you feel sorry. But because we had a deal.
Because I kept my end of the contract, and now you need to keep yours. I’m sorry you don’t like being honest, or keeping your contracts.
When you buy a car on installments, you don’t get to quit making payments halfway through because you wrecked the car. When you make payments on your house, it isn’t charity to the bank.
“Kipling’s son died in WWI. You mock him with that vile use of his words as a cudgel.”
Nope. My Dad died in Vietnam. I spent 25 years in, and went to my fair share of funerals. And my son is in Afghanistan right now. When there is peace, everyone wants to cut from the military. But when there is trouble, they want the men in the military to go take care of things. Kipling knew that, and so do I.
You are no Tommy now. You are a retiree. Everyone else is out in front for you, while you demand they bring more tea, sir.
Many a man dies on the job without a pension for his wife and family. Your job was better and more deserving than that man’s?
No. You are no Tommy now. You want us all to be Tommy’s for you.
You have an arrogant demand that I worship your military service, and hold it in higher regard than the services of any other citizen. In fact, that although the nation is bankrupt, many people are bankrupt and many a private business with its pensions bankrupt, and indeed that some of those pension funds are bankrupt—for example ones which invested in GM or Chrysler bonds—and those who had CONTRACTS left bereft and ruined, that nonetheless we Tommies struggle to pay you you fulsome pension and all your benefits with not any reduction.
Is that what any true military hero of this nation killed in some war died to have had happened? That you be at you luxurious leisure in a ripe old age while all mere citizens become slaves on this plantation run by Federal Retirees?
You, sir, with this attitude of entitlement that makes of mere peons of all others I hold in worse esteem than that professor of sociology and all the Marxists with him. YOU should know better.