I am fortunate enough to be self-employed and quite busy right now. I spend my time working in the Sacramento, California and Phoenix, AZ region selling bank repos. I travel between the two states weekly because that’s what it takes to earn a living right now. An average workweek is somewhere between 70-85 hours/week, not including flight time between the two regions. I am happy to have the job.

While I am busy, I would be a lot happier if I were making enough money to pay for my bills AND my son’s upcoming college tuition but for now will have to just work harder and hope that it makes enough of a difference to cover the shortfall when he starts his first year there this fall.

Apparently, that mindset is not one held by the majority of left-leaning Americans. Instead their perspective seems to be to make the government make up the difference by taking the needed funds from people like me who believe in hard work and paying their own way.

In California, I see this mindset all around me and quite honestly, it disgusts me. I live in a comparitively affluent community and even there, a reliance on cousin Barry & his gang of tax cheats to solve our problems seems to be growing. The county I live in has been one of the most conservative areas in California, which is lot like saying my part of hell is cooler than yours…. That is changing rapidly and our local republican party contributes to the problem by being more of a middle-aged country club than something that would appeal to the average American. Hmmm, maybe that’s part of our problem too.

In Arizona, I spend 3-4 days every week working in a variety of neighborhoods, most of which are decidedly NOT affluent. The economy there is teetering towards a crash and yet the people I meet within all strata of society tend to be much more positive, self reliant and conservative despite a very difficult set of economic and social circumstances. Every day, I come into contact with a variety of individuals and in almost every case, their main concern they have is that our current administration is trying to steal the few remaining liberties we have as Americans and wondering why Washington won’t just get out of the way and let them do their job. There is also a notable lack of political correctness which I find truly refreshing. I would move there tomorrow were it not for the fact that my wife deplores 100 degree-plus weather, (I’m working on this…).

Last week I went into a gun shop located in a small phoenix suburb named Glendale, AZ.  (By the way, I did not notice any Mexican Drug Cartels Buying Military Grade Weapons in the store to take back to their country…) While perusing the wares, I asked about the firearms laws and was’t surprised to find that they were substantially more sensible than California. When I mentioned this to the owner, his reply was, “That’s because unlike you, we are still free. For now…)”.

He suggested I get a book on the states firearms laws because while they may be less restrictive than California’s gun laws, they also required a lot more personal responsibility for my actions than I have in California.

In California, it’s my parents fault, or maybe the junk food I ate, or maybe global warming and I am positive that whatever I did wrong  at some level had to be the with President Bush & Vice President Cheney….

Imagine That. A set of laws that require the citizen to be accountable for their actions. Many examples of laws like this exist throughout the state of Arizona. I can only guess they are there because they reflect the values of the majority of its citizens.

It reminds me of how things were when I was a wee lad growing up in Southern California.

So how are things in your state?

What do you think about being responsible for your actions?

Are there enough of us left to save what remains of our great nation so our children have a country they can be proud of?