An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay keeps all honest

“Capitalism bums me out” was the bumper sticker on the Subaru in front of me the other day. Boy did that bum ME out! Did the driver even understand what she was stating? I wondered how she’d purchased the car she was driving, or the gas that went in it? Maybe she’d won the car and a lifetime of fuel?
Maybe her parents — also anti-capitalists — bequeathed her the efficient little auto? But where would THEY have gotten it? Down at Big Ernie’s Free Cars For Everyone car lot?! Had that driver ever worked for anything she wanted?
Had she ever experienced the thrill and pride of saving up enough money from her toil to be able to make a purchase of her choosing? Did she know the good feeling that comes from swapping her hard-earned cash with another person who’d labored to put out a product?
An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay keeps us all honest, wouldn’t you say? So who’s been teaching these youngsters this anti-capitalist message? Obviously someone who lives in a dugout and grubs around for wild edibles and insects for nourishment. It couldn’t be someone who actually owns anything bought with money, because that would be pure hypocrisy, right? This person would have to be someone who’s found complete enlightenment outside the terrible confines of financial responsibility.
Someone who’s managed to find peace and contentment without labor, without bills, without trading work for work. Someone who has gotten around that yucky issue of the worth of their output. Most likely, it’s someone who’s too lazy, insecure, and/or egotistical to think that he has to make an effort to live on this earth. So my guess is, the person spreading this ridiculous philosophy is a crook, a system abuser, or just another low-life agitator, stirring up our youth in the hopes of living out his anarchist dreams in the streets of our wonderful country.
You know what really bums ME out? People who slap a bumper sticker on their car without even considering that they are a complete contradiction. Advertise your favorite band or crack a joke, or hang those ball sacks from your trailer hitch, but when you try and get your car to be a rolling protest march, you’re really losing your street cred.

Audrey Steinfeldt
Reed Point