Student Loan Debt and Personal Responsibility.

We see a fair amount of discussion in the news as of late concerning federal student loan debt. Justifiably, loans taken out for college educations are a monstrous portion of the outstanding debt presently owed by Americans. I can see why many politicians claim that they’ll work to erase lingering college loans for voters. It sounds enticing to say that college debt can be magically deleted with the wave of Uncle Sam’s hand. Let’s look at the numbers as of 2018:

• Total federal student loan borrowers: 43 Million People
• Total outstanding federal student loan debt: $1.4 Trillion
• Average amount currently owed by a federal student loan borrower: $47,671
• Borrowers actively repaying their loan: 18.6 Million (43%)
• Total number of federal student loan borrowers in some form of default: 11.3 Million (26%)

Let those numbers gestate in your brain for a moment so that you can fully understand their sheer size. The current amount owed in federal student loans is $1,400,000,000,000.00. Wrap your head around that number. It’s a number so large that the human mind can’t fully visualize it. Of the total US population, presently 327 Million citizens, 13% of them possess forty-seven thousand dollars of student loan debt each.

As you can see, the federal student loan debt crisis is frightening. This doesn’t even consider the number of private student loans, nor loans taken against personal lines of credit. It’s a gargantuan figure, not one to soon be erased. And you know what?

It’s your own fault.

I can’t muster even an ounce of pity for someone with student loan debt.

Taking out a loan for college is a personal choice. Just like buying a car, or mortgaging a house, or picking a dog at the local animal shelter – getting a student loan is your responsibility. You made that decision to borrow an average of forty-seven thousand dollars. You have neglected to repay that loan. You have chosen to default on the credit extended to you, an amount fully funded by your fellow Americans’ tax dollars.

I can’t state this any more plainly. Your student loan debt is your personal responsibility to repay.

When I hear a politician promise to erase the student loan debt of voters, what I really hear them saying is “I want to buy your vote.” Such promises are cheap, hollow, and desperately short-sighted. Carry this process to its logical conclusion. What happens if someone’s federal student loan debt is erased? Well, that debt doesn’t just disappear; the borrower’s responsibility to repay their loan has simply been forgiven. The money they borrowed is still outstanding to the US Treasury. If the buyer doesn’t repay it, then the federal government takes a loss on the loan.

Can you imagine what would happen if the Federal Government took a $1.4 Trillion loss? That’s $1.4 Trillion flushed down the drain, with no hope of that money ever being collected. It’s a loan fully funded by federal tax dollars that’s simply pissed away, never to be seen again.

What would happen if you simply failed to repay your auto loan? How about your mortgage? You know precisely what would happen. Your automobile would be repossessed, and your home would be foreclosed upon by your lender. Debt doesn’t just go away. Monies owed are always owed, up to the point that they have been paid in full and satisfied. If a politician promises to erase student debt, then they’re completely ignoring the damage that would do to our country. It’s gross negligence of the highest caliber.

The federal student loan crisis is the next fiscal bubble waiting to pop. Consider what the mortgage crisis did to our economy in 2008-2009. The massive amount of mortgage lending debt, coupled with the reckless gambling undertaken by the financial sector, sent our economy into a tailspin the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Ultimately, the US Treasury spent $439 Billion salvaging the banking and auto industries from certain collapse. Thankfully, the treasury’s efforts to assist the economy eventually resulted in a net profit of $3 Billion. Do you understand how scary the federal student loan crisis is in comparison to the 2008 financial crisis? The erasure of merely half of the outstanding federal student loan debt, with no hope of it ever being repaid, would make the 2008 economic downturn look like a field trip to Disneyland. The student loan bubble will eventually pop, and we’re collectively in for a rude awakening when it does. It's just a matter of time.

Beyond the numbers, the repayment of federal student loan debt is a reflection of individual accountability. When you sign a promissory note to repay a student loan, you’re wagering your personal reputation against your ability to securely repay the American People. If your obligation to repay what you promised is eliminated, then what good is your reputation? Your word would be worthless. Anything you further promised would be as feckless as the lies spoken by politicians to buy your vote. Your name, your reputation; they mean something in this world. You not only owe it to your fellow Americans to repay your debt to them, but you also owe it to yourself to be an honorable human being. At the end of the day, all you have is your good name. Consider the millions of Americans that have repaid their student loan debt. They worked tirelessly to satisfy their loans and followed through on their promises. How do you think those people would feel if the borrowers whom neglected to repay their debt got a proverbial 'Get Out of Jail Free' card? The subsequent discord that would erupt would not be repairable, I suspect. Even worse, what of the politicians that promise to forgive student loan debt -- will they be repaying all of the trustworthy individuals that previously satisfied their loans? What's to be said of the decent American? Not a lot, apparently.

You have to ask yourself the follow question.

Do you want to be remembered as a patriot… or as a phony?

The Importance of Writing Letters.

I’ll set the scene…

Pressing against your front door, you step into the foggy, overcast glow of a misty day. The birds are calling; the trees drip with water. A breeze brushes against your face, sending the hair on the back of your neck into a fervor. Minuscule droplets of rain grace the lids of your eyes. Briskly, you dart down your porch steps and strut along your driveway. Reaching the end, you drop the flap of your mailbox with conviction and reach inside. The anticipation is nearly unbearable. Your fingertips can feel the rough organic surface of a letter. Pulling it out, you close your eyes for just a moment. Where did it come from? Who wrote it? You open your eyes…

Could you feel that? That’s what millions of people experienced every day before the advent of mobile phones, the internet, and social media. The ardor of receiving a letter in the mail from a friend or loved one was the highlight of the day for many. It kept people together, despite the countless miles that may separate them physically. Much less, a letter represented the act of willing thoughts and feelings into existence. What once resided solely in the mind of the writer now had life; a letter was a tangible embodiment of sentiment.

I fear we’ve lost that crucial connection of sentiment in the Twenty-First Century. Never have people been more connected, but also more alone.

The older I get, the more I miss getting letters, cards, and postcards from friends, family, and pen pals. When I was a teenager, receiving mail seemed like second nature; it was a facet of life that I took for granted. Even receiving magazines in the post was something to get excited over.

Magazines… remember those? Nintendo Power and Wizard, I weep for both of you.

Barreling towards my forties, I miss what I once so carelessly took for granted. When I do receive a card or letter, it genuinely warms my heart. Thanks to the select few of you that still send me things in the mail; you know who you are.

Letters embody the purposeful communion of love and friendship between people. The effort to write down your ideas, address an envelope, purchase a stamp, and place the letter in a mailbox certainly isn’t a difficult task. And yet, that uncomplicated journey is a task with meaning. It takes motivation. Nowadays, one person can send another person a text message while using the bathroom, giving no further thought to the sheer magnitude of what they just accomplished. We can wondrously tweet and instant message and snap and kik and blow up our BFF’s Instagram simultaneously in the same time it takes to put on our shoes.

I feel disgusting for that last sentence; please forgive me for momentarily talking like a modern teenager.

Writing letters teaches us patience, sincerity, and gratitude. It humbles our sense of self in an ever-expanding world of technology. To think, words that could require months to arrive, as recently as a mere thirty years ago, can now be shared in an instant. By increasing the quantity of words that we share, have we not lessened their quality? A letter carries weight by sheer necessity, projecting the most important and heartfelt invocations of humanity itself.

Modern technology is fantastic. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to reach you with this very article. That being said, the use of technology also carries a measure of personal responsibility with it. As a collective society, we’ve lost a part of our identity to technology – our ability to project sincere feelings, to create bonds, to maintain relationships. We’ve practically become disposable to each other, much in the same way that we disregard the deluge of instantaneous dispatches that flood our cell phones, timelines, and feeds. Letters circumvent this pitfall by forcing us to take each other with earnest regard. As such, I recommend sending pieces of handwritten mail to your friends and family whenever possible. Not only is it a delight for the receiver, but it’s also a healthy alternative to throw-away cables sent over the internet. Writing truly is terrific for your spirit.

I know I’m fighting a losing battle here, but that doesn’t mean we can’t at least try to turn this ship around. When I send someone a piece of snail mail, I’m trying to establish a connection. Sometimes it works out, but more often than not it doesn’t. Ultimately, I’m left asking myself…

What will be left to salvage of our civilization when the majority of our conversations carry such negligible significance?

If you would like to exchange mail with me (and I would hope you would), then let me know in the comment section below.

In Defense of the American Nuclear Family.

I recently read an article in the latest issue of The Atlantic entitled ‘The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake’ that left me feeling deeply incensed. The author describes how the ideal of an American Nuclear Family is a false premise predicated upon classism, racism, and American Exceptionalism. Essentially, having a father and mother in the same home with their children is not the default; normal, healthy families are a blended mix of single parents, extended family, and potentially a revolving door of multiple partners that come in and out of a child’s life. A nuclear family is unhealthy because it provides a child with a limited set of adults from which wisdom can be drawn. As such, only wealthy White people have nuclear families because it is affordable to them.

I’d love to see a precise definition of what makes someone white, but I digress.

To quote the author of the article, David Brooks:

“Conservatives have nothing to say to the kid whose dad has split, whose mom has had three other kids with different dads; “go live in a nuclear family” is really not relevant advice. If only a minority of households are traditional nuclear families, that means the majority are something else: single parents, never-married parents, blended families, grandparent-headed families, serial partnerships, and so on. Conservative ideas have not caught up with this reality.”

Therein exists the fault in the author’s assertion, though. He expects ideals and principles to follow degenerate behavior, thereby reinforcing and justifying the degeneracy. It’s essentially the equivalent of sticking your finger in a light socket and proclaiming, “Getting electrocuted is normal, everybody is doing it. If you’re not doing it, then you’re the weirdo!”

Leftist ideologues like Mr. Brooks revel in explaining away their harmful values as realistic and suited to the norms of modern society. Many families don’t have both parents in the home and that’s how it should be, as Mr. Brooks would lead you to believe. It’s not normal for children to have a mother and a father, so it must not be correct. More and more families are lacking one of the parents in the home, so that means it’s okay… right? The defamation of the nuclear family is an intellectual shrug; a relinquishment of accountability in the face of mounting societal collapse.

That’s the funny thing about objective truth, though; it remains true whether you believe it or not.

Objectively, children do better when they have their father and mother living together in the same home. Their chances of graduating high school and going on to earning a higher education spike dramatically. Accordingly, their ability to break through the poverty barrier and become self-sufficient adults also sharply rises. Single parents earn less and are less likely to have finished high school; they’re also more likely to live in poverty. Even worse, most single-parent homes are led by the mother. An absent father has a frighteningly negative impact upon a child. Fathers imbue a certain measure of masculine knowledge that both sons and daughters need to become independent, well-rounded adults. This isn’t to say that women can’t teach children valuable life lessons; they absolutely can and do. The difference is that fathers and mothers teach different lessons that neither can completely encompass alone. Without one parent, the other is left to manage the best way they can; invariably, some masculine or feminine standards and lessons are missed.

Here’s the point that I want to make – just because someone else is screwing up, that doesn’t mean you should purposefully screw up too. Don’t let the behavior of others justify your abandonment of principles and decency. Instead of having children with multiple partners and being a single parent, act responsibly and be more selective of your sexual partners. I’m not even bringing religion into this argument, either; this is far more rudimentary than lofty questions related to God, the afterlife, and spiritual morality. This is a question of common sense. Do you want your potential children to live with their father and mother? You absolutely should. Demonizing the ideal of a nuclear family doesn’t miraculously make the anti-nuclear family warranted. The nuclear family living next door isn’t to blame for your lack of personal responsibility.

I can’t help but mordantly chuckle at the sadness of this whole situation. Honestly, the lack of personal responsibility is a pervasive blight upon all corners of the American landscape; that’s a whole other book-sized can of worms I could write about.

I should also be clear -- extended family is a wonderful thing. I want every child to know and learn from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so forth. The nuclear family should be at the core of a child’s existence, though; that’s a habitual fact which must be applied whenever and however possible.

As I was researching data for this article, it became glaringly apparent that the leftists at The Atlantic aren’t the only deceitful maligners pushing this anti-nuclear family agenda. All my Google web searches produced alarming headlines that took priority in the results provided.

• Do children in two-parent families do better?
• The myth of the nuclear family.
• Single moms get it done!
• Minorities should blame Whites for their dad’s being locked up.

Regrettably, this is an active agenda to divide the American populace and deconstruct the traditional family unit. Why? Because the globalist puppeteers wielding left-leaning media outlets like sabers want to bring down America. How do you do that? By imploding where the American spirit is born and cultivated – within the home. The quickest way to defeat our remarkable republic is to smother the proverbial hearth of the American family. Once the family is made obsolete, then the individual can be further eroded, too. Before long, you wind up with a dystopian society that values the state over the individual.

In essence, the reinforcement of the American Nuclear Family is a defense of liberty itself.

The Liberal Bias on College Campuses is Very Real.

Don’t think professors with a liberal bias have an agenda to push on college campuses? Think again.

I’ve been attending a course this fall semester entitled The Human Experience. It involves reading various short stories from a variety of authors, then discussing them with classmates via an online forum. There’s also a personal essay to write which serves as the final paper. Sounds simple, right?

The professor of this course has spent the past few weeks giving me terrible grades because my answers aren’t "correct". Mind you, these discussion questions have been completely opinion based. Because my answers haven’t been the ones you’d typically get out of a modern fascist liberal with Trump Derangement Syndrome, she’s labeled me a racist problem student.

I’m a Chancellor’s List student with a 4.0 GPA… and I have an 81 [C] average for the course. It just doesn’t add up. On top of that, I’ve been receiving harassing emails from the professor with various links to websites “proving me wrong”. That’s just absurd.

Over the course of this past weekend, I turned in an assignment that discussed the importance of race in regards to poverty, drug abuse, and education. How this has anything to do with short stories is beyond me, but just go with it for a moment. This assignment was subjective; and yet, my opinion was backed by evidence and empirical data. I didn’t write about my feelings, I wrote the truth. My document satisfied all of the criteria set forth in the professor’s syllabus in terms of style, grammar, and length. For those of you that know me well enough, I’m certain that you’re aware that I know how to write correctly (not tooting my own horn, of course). That should at least earn me a B or higher, right? Wrong.

I got an F on the assignment. Why? Because my response was clearly racist, capitalistic, and I don’t understand the “ethnic experience as it pertains to continued white oppression and the disadvantage that all minorities face world-wide.”

Here in exists the irony. How would the professor know what race I am? I don’t use any sort of photo in my online discussion posts and I’ve never met the professor face-to-face. I have never stated my race publicly in any of my college discussions. This has all been purposefully done as a means to prevent people from making judgments about my character based solely upon the color of my skin. In an academic setting (or any other setting for that matter), a person’s race should not matter. I’m about as far from a racist as you can get.

In response to the professor’s poor assessment of my latest assignment, I asked her two simple questions via email:

1. What sort of opinions do I need to express publicly to earn an A in her course?
2. What kind of political ideology is the right one?

No response was received.

It gets better, though. Earlier this afternoon, the professor surprisingly called me on the telephone. She used foul language, called me a racist yet again, and said that I would never get a decent grade on anything I ever submitted to her. She was "sick of racist people" like me and refused to "tolerate my attempts to degrade her safe space for all students." 

Yeah… all students except those she disagrees with politically.

When I asked her how she knew what race I was, she said that she'd looked me up on the internet and seen that I am a "ginger fuck". That's right... my professor stalked me on the internet.

I stated that the phone call was being recorded and she immediately hung up. Shocking!

I’ve already withdrawn from the course and registered for another one, so it doesn’t affect me academically at all. And yet, this incident just goes to show that our college campuses have become anything but bastions of free-thought, knowledge, and respect. Many college professors have a clear, politically driven bias to enforce. They’re the de facto thought police of our youth, seeking to warp students’ minds at a highly crucial point in their lives. I’m quite thankful that I am an adult student, unable to be corrupted by such nonsense.

For those of you reading this with children, be careful with their future. Give them the tools they need to be free, independent thinkers. Instill in them a sense of confidence and righteousness. I want all people across this globe to have access to an education… but college in the United States is looking more and more like anything but a place of learning.

That is, unless you’re a rabid communist with a love for identity politics.

Jared vs. The Universe.

Despite all of the positive events taking place in my life as of late, the universe has also tried its hardest to make me give up.

Not today, bud-day!

First of all, I had to deal with bronchitis for over two and a half weeks. That was no cake walk, rest assured. Between all of the hacking, coughing and garbled vocalizations, I nearly lost my head in a freak explosion. I'm sure my liver didn't appreciate all of the medication I was pumping through my system, either. I'm just now feeling somewhat better and can breathe almost normally. When you have asthma like I do, bronchitis is practically a death sentence. Imagine how difficult it was not to cough like a rabid hyena at my new job; to stifle and silence a gooey rumble trying to escape my lungs. But wait, there's more!

Towards the end of my second week of coughing up alien slime globules, my coccyx (aka the 'tail' bone) began aching.

The pain started as a dull, almost unnoticeable ache. Steadily, it grew more sharp and acute. Whenever I sat down, if not in the proper angle, my coccyx would feel as if it were caught in a vice clamp. I've acquired a special pillow to help ease the pain (I'm sitting on it right now, actually), but the pain has yet to subside. It's not like it could get any worse, am I right?

Wrong.

I woke up yesterday morning with an extremely agonizing pain in my neck. For those of us that grew up in the South, this sort of pain is called a 'crick'. This is no ordinary crick in the neck, though. This tends to happen to me a few times a year. The pain is nearly debilitating. Only through sheer will and determination am I able to function. My right arm has shooting pain, radiating from my right shoulder down to my fingertips. This fluctuates with numbness and eerie tingling. I can't turn my head. To look to my left and right, I have to do what I refer to as a Batman* turn. The base of my skull must have a dozen razor blades lodged securely in it, because that's exactly what it feels like!

My neck! My back! At this point, I better register for a Life Alert system before I take a spill in the floor and can't get up.

You know what, though? I'm not going to just give up. I'm determined to enjoy my new position and work through the pain. I will show up every day, pain or not. I will inch ever closer to being a librarian. Fate, the universe, god, whatever you want to call it... it can't keep me down.

Now I'm just waiting for the next roadblock or injury to occur. I've never broken a bone (that I know of), so I'm most certainly overdue.

*A Batman turn refers to the 1989 film starring Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader. Because of the way his suit was designed, the cowl he wore during filming was extremely stiff. As such, Keaton couldn't turn his neck. Instead, he had to turn his whole body when looking around. This actually added to the off-kilter demeanor of Batman, making him more mysterious and creepy in the process.

You Can Find Me at the End of the (Reading) Rainbow.

What a long, strange trip it has been.

When I left you in 2016, I had ceased daily publication to Jared Unzipped. Having completed my original challenge of writing one article every day for an entire year, my goal was fulfilled. In fact, I continued on with my task long after I’d completed it; I published something new daily for over a year and a half! I finally reached a point where I felt satisfied with my body of work. One day, I simply decided enough was enough. Having proven to myself that I could complete such an arduous challenge, I abruptly stopped. Writing was in my blood, that much I knew for certain.

Leap ahead to today. As I begin to write this article, I’m sitting behind a desk at the Gibsonville Public Library. Not as a patron, but as a library assistant. A few weeks ago, I began working here. Much to my enjoyment, the position has been wonderful so far. My fellow library staff members have been nothing but welcoming and kind. It’s genuinely a dream job for me, having always desired to be a librarian since a young age (amongst other dream jobs: comic book artist, archaeologist, paleontologist). I didn’t accept this position solely for monetary gain, though. My at-home business as a collectibles dealer shall continue, largely running on auto-pilot.

I begin classes at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro in the fall in an effort to complete a Masters of Library Science degree. It’s about time I reached a major career milestone in my life and became a librarian.

As you can imagine, this position at the public library is a valuable learning experience for me. From my youth, I have spent a large amount of time in libraries, both public and within academic settings. I worked as a volunteer library assistant all throughout my middle and high school years. That was seventeen years ago, though. Times have changed. Libraries have stepped into the twenty-first century. That’s where I have room to grow and learn. My understanding of how libraries function is a bit… antiquated. Card catalogues have left their dusty old storage shelves behind and become completely digitized. Books have taken a backseat to more immediate forms of media. The internet dominates every aspect of social interaction. Children simply don’t read as many books as they used to. And yet, that’s not to say that they have stopped learning. The method by which the majority of people absorb information has merely changed. Libraries still fulfill a necessary role within the community.

A public library provides for the common good.

Classes will begin in August for me. I hope to have the course regimen completed within a few years time. I have no plans to leave this library any time soon. The experience I aim to gain here shall surely last me a lifetime. I am already comfortable with using a digital catalogue to transact items with patrons. Thankfully, I’ve also found my first real niche opportunity to contribute to the library itself. I’ve begun analyzing the history section and looking for worthwhile additions to add to our book collection. This is a small, but growing library. I hope to expand my knowledge just as this library expands its collection.

For those of you wondering, history is the 900’s within the Dewey Decimal System. See, you learned something today after all!

I’d like to write about my experience as a library staffer, as well as my upcoming classes. This looks to be a memorable period in my life, one that I wish to permanently record and share with others. Look for new articles periodically about random library-related topics. What authors are popular? James Patterson, or whoever is ghost-writing for him these days. What are kids reading these days? It’s all about Big Nate. What do most people use the library for anymore? Duh, the internet. What’s the best part about working in a library? Helping people learn new information. What’s the worst part about working in a library? More people don’t come by. What’s the most surprising aspect so far? Libraries have taken over the role of video rental stores.

Thanks for sticking with me and I look forward to answering your questions about my progress!

Hillary Clinton's "Basket of Deplorables" or: The Shame of Judging Our Fellow Americans.

This is an editorial on the recent "Basket of Deplorables" comment made by Hillary Clinton referencing supporters of Donald Trump. This isn't intended as an explanation of what happened in detail. If you're not aware of the situation, you can read about it here and here.

A great number of left wing commentators and pundits are saying that Hillary Clinton's "Basket of Deplorables" remark didn't go far enough. In essence, these mouthpieces and Clinton surrogates believe that MORE than half of Trump's supporters are racists and villainous miscreants.

I'm a moderate independent with zero love for either the Democrats or Republicans, so I have no problems with calling it like I see it.

Hillary Clinton is full of fluffy, glitter-laced unicorn crap.

You know who supports Trump? People that don't trust the federal government (and rightfully so). People that don't want to give a corrupt criminal organization more of their hard-earned money. People that are tired of being told what they can and can't do within the bounds of their own home and with their own property. People that don't want to be taken advantage of by Uncle Sam. These people have every reason to feel the way they do. It has nothing to do with hating people of different skin tones. It has nothing to do with xenophobic nationalism. It definitely has nothing to do with wanting to spread hate and fear.

Most importantly, there are people like me that flat-out refuse to support a dishonest, untrustworthy war criminal like Hillary Clinton... no matter how 'progressive' and 'thoughtful' she claims to be. Trump is the only viable agent of change to a large number of our fellow Americans. Not because he's likable or altruistic, but because he's simply an alternative to the status quo -- more corruption, more death, more greed, more destruction of the American dream.

Sure, I'll be the first to admit that Trump can be a blustering, egotistical, inarticulate jerk. And yet, at least Trump isn't Hillary Clinton. For many of our fellow Americans, that's the 'lesser of two evils' in this election cycle. Shame on you (and those big-mouthed pundits) for looking down on that decision. Shame on you for judging our fellow citizens who are just trying to make the best of a bad situation. Most of all, shame on you for ignoring reality. Hillary Clinton is perhaps the most slippery and nefarious politician I've known in my lifetime. I'd say her husband Bill is worse, but Hillary actually took steps to cover up the crimes he committed and silence the women he violated. She's revolting in every capacity. Hillary Clinton is a traitor to humanity, all in the pursuit of money and power.

Trump might be a pompous braggart, but at least he hasn't made direct decisions that have gotten people slaughtered. As far as I'm concerned, the American men and women in that "Basket of Deplorables" have made the right call.