When you make your living in the public arena as I do and when you   let your opinion be known as I do in mainstream and social media, you   expect some criticism and this is as it should be, this being America   where our very way of life is centered around free speech.

I don’t mind the criticism and usually give as good as I get,   respecting all comers, regardless of how far afield or how vehement I   consider our differences to be. But, lately, I have been receiving a   small amount of correspondence from people who resent the headway that,   through the blessings of God and hard work, I have made in my life.

They seem to be of the opinion that anything I possess or have   accumulated has been due to luck or having some special advantage over   them and others, and that a goodly portion of what I earn through my   labor should be taken away and given to people like them.

I would like to personally address this attitude for a moment.

I come from humble beginnings, a blue-collar background, and the   first house I remember my family living in didn’t even have running   water.

I have worked all my life – in my younger days in the log woods, the   peanut and tobacco fields, on the blistering work yard of a creosote   plant, in a factory with an assembly line. I have picked cotton, plowed a   field with a horse, cleaned out a chicken house, and I’ve even been a   water boy. I know what hard work for little money is all about.

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