The president was almost right

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Ever carried 6" irrigation pipes? Big aluminum pipes 20 feet long Every thrown watermelons all day long? Every caught 60 pound bags of cabbage and packed a semi trailer full with those bags?

Yep. Been there, done that.

Growing up I spent my summers in a field throwing watermelons. While my friends were at various camps, pools and in general spending time doing pretty much nothing, I worked. I started working in the field when I was 5 years old. I kept it up until I graduated from high school and headed to college.

I know what work is. I worked.

I also know what the president said and what he meant with his recent "lazy" comment. The comment was "we've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades." In context, the "we" he referred to is not the American people but elected leaders.

Not going to argue that.

But I will say if the president referred to the people of America, the nation as a whole as being lazy, he was dead on accurate, straight up, hit the nail on the head and was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

We, as nation, have gotten lazy over the past few decades. It's telling on us too.

You ain't got to agree or like it. But facts are facts and you refusing to accept 'em is not going to change matters.

The new motto of the United States?

There is a reason the United States has such a problem with illegal immigration. These people are coming here to take jobs Americans won't accept. Here's one for instance: http://savannahnow.com/opinion/2011-11-18/georgia-farmers-good-kingston

You can look around your community and find other examples. Where hard physical labor is the requirement you're going to find immigrants and older people. Young people won't take demanding jobs. They must have climate controlled offices, full internet access and a break room.

This kind of job does not produce the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the vehicles you drive and even the building you might work in. All that stuff is generated by intense, hard, sweaty physical labor. That kind of stuff is created by people who are not afraid to work hard.

Americans are afraid of hard work.

OWs relies on iPhones. Irony?

That is why so much of our manufacturing base has shifted overseas. Those people are not afraid of hard work.


What manufacturing base we still have in the United States is run as much by unions as it is by the giant companies which are the target of the Occupy Wherever Doesn't Have Toilets movement. Consider union contracts that require companies to continue to pay workers after a layoff, allow workers to draw a full day's pay for a couple of hours work and union demands that force companies to raise prices to cover those demands.

Pride in product has also slipped over the years. This is yet another indicator of laziness.

Companies are going to go where they can make a profit and provide their product at the lowest reasonable cost to their customers.

Consumers, including union members, aren't off the hook either. In a continuing demand for products as cheap as possible, consumers have forced companies to shift production overseas. Given the choice "buy American" or "but cheap" most Americans opt for the cheap route, never understanding that it is costing jobs in this nation.

The United States also leads the world in obesity rates and the health problems which come with that. This comes about not only from poor eating habits but from a surfeit of leisure time. Simply put, Americans are not working hard enough to keep the fat off.

You don't have to like the idea that Americans are lazy. But I'll bet you whatever you want to put on the table the average American cannot put in a real day's work on a real South Georgia farm.