This hard work and a strong dedication to family made my parents, according to some social engineers, members of a privileged class. This is hogwash of course, for we were never privileged beyond the point that my parents worked. My Dad worked as a farmer, a truck driver, a delivery man, a bus driver, a piano tuner, and a giver of unsolicited advice to his children. During my Mother's professional career she could have called herself a maid, a cook, a clerk, and an uncompensated giver of unsolicited advice to her children.

My parents never smoked, drank, went on strike, did drugs, owned a weekend home, went on elaborate vacations, or lived beyond their means. They never divorced, and, except for my younger sister whom I told she was adopted at the zoo, all of their children were born within wedlock. To my knowledge, other than the sporty Ford my Mom drives these days, they never owned a new vehicle in their adult lives, unless, of course, you consider being "new to them" really new. I admit it, my parents drove mostly crap cars during their adult lives, a family tradition I have been proud to carry on.

These are not the lives of the privileged, but rather the lives of the self-sufficient; people who did what they had to to get along while asking for no handouts from the government. America can survive, and has survived, because of people like my parents; people of wise disposition who live within their means and provide for themselves.

My parents do not understand how a country can continue to exist when it plans to spend trillions of dollars more than it has in the bank. They never could have done this in their home. They are not keen either on the idea of their country providing to people what they should provide, and can provide, on their own. This was not how they lived their lives.

Understand too that we are not talking about cold hearted brutes. They gave to charity, they gave to the church, and they even gave money to the GOP back in the day when Ronald Reagan managed to turn Americanism into something that Americans could be proud of. They taught me, in turn, that being self-sufficient means more than cutting the rope between myself and a dependence on government, it also means supporting others in need.

It is a tragedy that the current health care bills being discussed will force millions upon millions of people to enlist into a life of dependence on government for no other reason than bureaucrats want to control the process, and because of their enlistment, an integral portion of the American Experience will be expunged from the psyche of Americans.