So does all this talk about Occupy Wall Street (OWS), wealth re-distribution, class warfare business have you confused?  I thought I had a handle on it.  I’ve not read much about it other than what major news sources are putting out.  I mean OWS looks like a bunch of hippies smoking dope, banging on drums, not bathing, and clamoring for free college tuition.  Watch this for a very small sample Hard to believe.  To the last point and the kid in the interview, I will offer this: you can get free tuition, just get a hair-cut, raise your right hand and serve.  Well, just raise your right hand, the military will provide the haircut.  The point being, I received a BA degree in history from the University of Maryland’s distance learning program and didn’t pay one nickel, the tax payers did.  Sounds like a great solution all the way around.   Fear The Turtle!

As far as class warfare and wealth re-distribution, my 2yr old Frank put it best when he said THESE ARE MINE!  So I guess he yelled actually.

At Grammy’s house in Lexington Kentucky, Frank received a cookie play set.  Some wood, some velcro, a pan and spatula and the kid is making cookies with icing.  Of course he didn’t make them, some chinese kid in the Hunan provence, working out of a sweatshop owned by Kim and the rest of the Kardashians, actually made it, Frank was just simulating the baking of said pre-made wooden cookie-toys.  Anyway using his new toy Frank artfully cleared up this whole entitlement – OWS nonsense for me.  He has in fact converted me.  I am now a “what’s mine is mine and the rest of you can get bent” capitalist.

Frank fired up a batch of his wooden cookies.  Now the kid does have some real skills.  He can flip his own french toast, put in a hot dog and start the micro-wave if I hold him up, and load the dishwasher.  The last one is important.  I don’t care if you’re a head chef or flipping burgers at Mel’s Diner, if you can’t clean up after yourself as you’re cooking you are just taking up space and wasting someone else’s air.  Frank is learning and will continue to learn the rules of engagement in a properly run kitchen.  After the required cooling time for the cookies Frank, complete with oven mitt and wood spatula, begins to disperse them, 12 in total.  One for daddy, one for Frank, two for daddy, two for Frank.  You get the idea.  At some point he gave me the old Abbott & Costello routine of “three for daddy and one, two, three for Frank”.  He ended up with 7 while I only had 5.

After he was done surveying this display of confections he had just laid out on the carpet he urged me to mangiare or mangia – eat in Italian.  Did I mention I’m hitting him with Italian flash cards randomly during the day?  Well I protested this great injustice and refused to eat my measly 5 cookies while he had a robust 7 cookies.  He kept on, exhorting me to eat.  I said “no way bro.  Daddy only has five, how many does Frank have?”  We also speak in third person during NBA season, in case you were wondering.  Frank counted them out, “Frank have seven cookies.” (keep in mind he’s only 2)   I said good job, now how many does daddy have?  “Daddy have 5 cookies.”  ” Now eat daddy!”  I retorted with name calling, “Hold on henry, daddy only has five and Frank has seven.  Frank has to give me one and we’ll both have six.”  He simply said “No”.  At first I thought he may have been stunned by my immediate algebraic calculation in solving that little word problem without benefit of google, calculator, or even paper and pen.  Nope, turns out he was just being 2.  When I kept after him to give me one because it was not fair that he have 7 and I have 5 he said “NO THESE ARE MINE I MADE THEM.”  As my brother would point out, all caps is nerd speak for yelling, and Frank was yelling alright.

That Frank is 2 years old is key to his understanding of all this OWS nonsense and the misunderstanding of most “adults” banging the drums.  As we have already explored, Frank didn’t “make them” but he did pretend make them, labored over them to a finished product and then offered me some. It was an offer he was under no obligation to make.  When I demanded he give me another one so we would each have the same amount, there-by making it “fair” he had no way to compute that.  So he yelled the obvious as if volume can defeat stupidity.  I MADE THEM.  He’s right of course.  I have every right as a free man in America to demand that he make it “fair” and give me one more so I would have six.  Even though I never earned the initial five let alone the final one cookie I was demanding.  Frank also has the right to deny that demand, which he so eloquently did.  THESE ARE MINE I MADE THEM.

How is it fair that we should have the same when I did nothing to contribute to the making of the cookies?  Why should he be forced to give me some of his because I don’t have as much?  Here is some nuance for you.  He shared 5 of his 12 with me without me asking.  He made 5 cookies for his daddy for no reason at all.  My demand that he give me more then made him appear like a greedy little kid.  But that’s really not true is it.  The reality of it is my demand for one more revealed the truth.  I was ungrateful for what I was freely offered and made a generous kid sound like a brat.

Force those that have more give to those who have less?  Force them?  Enact laws that require it?  It may have sounded good on its face, and it really doesn’t, but scrape off the icing bro and go make your own cookies.  Frank has had it with hippies and drum circles.

I’m sure some superior intellect will disassemble the simplistic rantings written here.  Who cares, we got our 12 cookies.