Americans have moved off the farm and into town, and along with some of their possessions they left behind their common sense. As they have forsaken the soil for the concrete, they seemed to have forgotten that you can’t plant radishes and expect to harvest corn.
Every rube, redneck, hick and hillbilly in the country knows that you can’t breed a mustang to a mule and expect to win the Derby.
The “American Dream” seems to be disappearing faster than the gas in our tanks. People say our “Golden Age” is over and wonder if we can regain our former glory. Can we fix what ails US (as in, the United States)?

Of course we can. All our city cousins have to remember is that old biblical bromide: As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

We can’t continue to elect the same old corrupt politicians and then expect our government to change. We can’t turn our country over to a bunch of lawyers and then expect simple and cheap solutions. We can’t continue to buy everything from China and then complain when we get laid off. We shouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart and then expect the small merchant on Main Street to sponsor our child’s Little League team.

Every hog farmer in the country knows that you can’t eat like a pig and not expect to get fat like one. If you cheat on your spouse, put your job and money ahead of your family or get a divorce, you have no right to expect your children to be great parents someday.
Oh, and just like that old sterile mule, don’t be surprised when the men marrying men and the women marrying women produce no grandchildren.

You shouldn’t expect to fill up your car with cheap gas if you have stopped the drillers from drilling and the miners from mining. You can’t put the loggers out of work, put government firebugs in charge of our forests and then expect two-by-fours to be cheap or straight.

You can’t place rent controls on property owners and can’t stop builders from building because of fairy shrimp and three-legged frogs, and then worry yourself sick about the homeless.
And a word to the politicians and Hollywood types who like to drape themselves in swaths of green: You have no right to complain about global warming while speeding down the runway in your private jet. Don’t wave your carbon credits at the rest of us – they don’t make your exhaust disappear.

This may come as a surprise to some, but we simply can’t leave the population spigot turned on, both legal and illegal, without having the bathtub overflow at some point. And, there will be a mess to clean up. Just as we can’t pollute our streams and expect to catch any fish, we can’t turn loose lions and wolves without them occasionally eating someone. You can’t lay down with lions and wake up with lambs.

How can we give our kids drugs in school and then expect them to “Just Say No” when they are offered deadlier ones later on? This may come as a shock to some parents, but we can’t turn our kids loose to play video games and watch movies where the primary goal is shooting something, and then be horrified when our schools turn into shooting galleries.

And just a word to young people who are piercing their nostrils, lips, eyebrows and tattooing their bodies in ugly art: When you are trying to feed your own family or trying to get a job, I wouldn’t expect to get an upper management job if I were you. Better get used to delivering pizza and flipping burgers.

And you old folks whose sole investment for retirement has been in losing lottery tickets ... guess what? There is no jackpot and you have no right to expect the next generation to pay for you to live the extravagant life you’ve been charging on your credit cards for 30 years.

The answer to our problems is simple, really: Just know that you can’t plant seeds of corruption, greed and sloth and expect to harvest hope. It just doesn’t work that way.
We know what we must do. Don’t we? I’d suggest it’s planting time in America.

So – what seeds will you be sowing this year?

Readers with questions or comments for Lee Pitts may write to him in care of this publication.