I was brought up a military brat.  My father did 22 years in the United States Air Force.  In 1954 when he joined, they promised if he made a career of it, he and his wife, my mother, would be taken care of for life.  He got out in 1976 after extending his service a couple of extra years so I would not have to switch high schools in Florida.

We moved out west after my father retired and I finished high school.  In 1978, I got a job in the wood products industry at a particleboard factory and began work a schedule that just became normal to me. seven days on, two days off, working nights, weekends, and most holidays.  I wore “save the whales” t-shirts at work.

The industry came under attack because of environmental concerns for the spotted owl.  The lumber and wood products industry in the West was decimated over the next 15-20 years.  We tried to muster support from our government, but our efforts fell on deaf ears.  Eventually after 22 years, the facility I worked at closed.  The ability to do what we did, which was to recycle sawdust and discarded wood into a usable product, became too expensive as we had to go further and further away for our raw materials.  The logging industry was gone because of environmentalism and government policies to put animal concerns ahead of humans.

The spotted owl (the Mexican spotted owl in the southwest) was noted later on to be mating with other ‘species’ of owls.

It occurred to me if they can call an owl of a different color another species, then this should be applied to humans.  By a definition of species, we are all our own species based on external color, size and shape, etc..  Why were we not being looked after by our government in our lives?  We paid taxes and worked our butts off, only to be told we were killing the planet.  Where was the Human Protective Agency?  Why was I paying taxes to have the government pay bureaucrats to work against me?

In the 90s, I watched the Clintons. Bill at that time seemed to be a pragmatist but Hillary, the unelected first lady, tried to take over the healthcare system.  I saw it as a blatant power grab by an overly ambitious person in government.  By this time, we were well into the spotted owl era, and my distaste for the government sticking its nose into our lives was huge.  My save the whales t-shirts were history long before this.

Now, my parents were Roosevelt Democrats who fed on the nightly news: Huntley-Brinkley, Walter Cronkite.  That was the source for news.  In their minds, republicans were the evil ones trying to take away their VA benefits promised to them in the 50’s.  They believed the nightly news.  There was no internet, no counterpoint.  When I reached adulthood, we argued over politics a lot more than we should have.  My Mother actually believed the SPLC was a conservative organization.  We believed the same things really as she espoused conservative positions, but she thought the Democrats had her back on it all.  I swore to my mother I would never vote for a party that would put a damn bird above a human.

It has only gotten worse.

After securing a job at a hospital, I watched ObamaCare tear through healthcare and then almost immediately watched as our pension benefits were frozen as a result of having to comply with new rules and regulations.  My wife and I lost 3000 dollars a month in future retirement income as a result of her company having to reorganize, and my pension is a private plan. Not a single Republican voted for the ObamaCare scam. But hey, 70 million dollars later the hospital has EPIC.  My Chart anyone?  I understand the CEO of that company has a lot of ties to Obama.

Hospitals now have departments of people working just to make sure all of the I’s are dotted and T’s crossed and the punctuation is correct just so we get paid for taking care of those on Medicare and Medicaid.  I can imagine on the other end that the government bureaucracy has people just looking for mistakes and ways not to pay out.  It is really mindboggling.

I watched my father get piss-poor treatment at the VA hospital, waiting months to get appointments and then just handed more drugs.  He struggled with issues from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam.  He had back surgery there without any physical therapy follow-up.  He could not straighten out his back to lie down or stand up straight after the surgery.   He died in 2011 after having to live and sleep in his easy chair for years due to the pain. I want to say he was taken care of for life as promised years before without sounding sarcastic.  But I can’t.

I watched as my mother walked away from the Democrats.  She quoted Reagan…. they left her.  She voted for President Trump.

I never went to college, I am totally self-taught.  I am a doer of many trades and master of none.  I have had a great life in the greatest country on earth.  All along the way, the Democrats have stepped on me, taxed me more, lied to me, called me names, and demand I give up my rights.  Democrats were the ones pushing environmental causes at the expense of humans and government takeover of healthcare.  They have mismanaged everything they get their hands on, and then blame others for their own deeds.  I watch them lie and cheat and twist words.  Democrats have alienated their own base to the point they have to argue for foreigners to come into this country illegally in order to vote for Democrats, mainly by calling those of us opposed to this "racist."

In all fairness, the weak Republicans in our government have hardly stood in their way.  But that is another day, another rant.

I am now called racist, homophobic, misogynist, and Islamaphobic.  A gun-toting, Bible-believing bitter clinger.  A deplorable.  A white nationalist.  Nazi. I can’t remember all of my Democrat party subtitles.

But I am middle class. I have been given nothing by our government and have given too much to it.  And it always wants more, telling me I have to pay my fair share.  It is a sad state when you get to a point in life of maximum dollars earned that it is taken away by higher tax brackets and the loss of deductions.

I will never vote for anyone advocating for more government control.  Or for anyone who is trying to denigrate me by name-calling or label-making.  The reason is my life.