The Patriot Post® · Who's the Boss

By Stephen Guy Hardin ·
https://patriotpost.us/commentary/10050-whos-the-boss-2011-05-26

One of few, unbridled joys I have in life is when I catch a rich, liberal big shot caught in the lies of their lifestyle. I just love it. It’s second best thing feeling in the world.

After years of trying to educate my kids about the finer points of rock n’ roll I feel I have started to made some progress. They can name each of the Beatles, pick an old Rolling Stones song out of a commercial free hour on 100.5 FM and they even know who Bob Dylan is. They don’t particularly like Bob, but they know who he is. But no matter how hard I try they just can’t get into Bruce Springsteen or as he is more commonly known, ‘The Boss.’

But I digress.

As one of the pioneers of the Jersey Shore sound Springsteen had built his career on being the hard rocking, working class hero of Middle America, but it appears that Bruce has been using his private jet to move into a different zip code and a different lifestyle.  Not that I blame him. How many years can you take living in Jersey when you have the cash to break on through to the other side?

The singer and his wife, former back up singer, Patti Scialfa Springsteen, proved that their children come first as they stood in attendance in the stands of the Royal Windsor Horse Show in Berkshire, England to watch their 19-year-old daughter Jessica compete in show jumping – where she took first place. Nothing says working class American like show jumping in front of the Queen of England. I’m sure his classmates from Freehold Borough High School would be proud of his success as they stand in the unemployment line wearing their Obama 2008 ‘Hope and Change’ t-shirts.

Considered to be one of the elite horse riding events of the season, the Royal Windsor Horse show was held at Windsor Castle, where Mr. and Mrs. Springsteen were able to brush elbows with the oppressive upper classes, including the Queen and the Duchess of Cornwall, which the Boss has made a fortune singing against. No moral conflict there, eh?

Jessica Springsteen, who is a nationally ranked equestrian, has been riding since she was 15 on horses raised on the family’s Stone Hill Farm in New Jersey. She has competed across the four-day event and at one point in front of the Queen and the Duchess of Cornwall.

After winning the event, Jessica said: ‘It was a lot of fun. I love this show. The atmosphere is amazing. You just don’t get shows like this in America where you can see so much in the same place.’ Well, at least she has inherited her father’s disdain for their homeland.

My last, and I mean last, Springsteen concert experience was at the Gwinnett Arena in the northern suburbs of Atlanta. It was the typical great Springsteen concert until Bruce stopped singing and started lecturing the crowd on why they had to vote for John Kerry and get out of Iraq. Well, we all know how that story goes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to shell out close to a hundred bucks a ticket to get a lecture from a spoiled rich, rock star with an entourage and a posse.

After watching ‘The Boss ’ tour the country doing the hard sell for Barack Obama during the 2008 election cycle, I pretty much wrote off the man and everything he had ever stood for. Left or right, I don’t need to spend my hard earned money to hear a celebrity try to educate me on how I am living my life wrong and who I have to vote for. Catching a lucky break in the entertainment crap shoot doesn’t equate into a suddenly superior intellect. You got lucky, good for you, now shut up and play.

So, as I read the news releases of the Springsteen’s lounging in the VIP section of an English horse competition that included Dukes, Lords and the Queen, I can’t help but chuckle at the hypocrisy. It’s just another display of the double standard that the elitist progressives display as they pursue their privileged lifestyle while lecturing us mere mortals on the sacrifices that we must make for social justice.

From the mega-rich Nancy Pelosi flying government jets because she can to Ted Kennedy playing ‘let’s make a waitress sandwich’ with Chris Dodd to Al Franken polling illegal votes from Minnesota felons as he steals a Senate seat, the list of illegal, hypocritical and outrageous progressive behavior transcends the infinite. Personally, I desire the Hollywood micro management of my political beliefs the same way that Arianna Huffington desires someone to fix that atrocious accent of hers.

Atrocious accent indeed.

But at the end of the day I believe that the karmic wheel turns upon the emptiness of the life you’ve created. The Buddhist notion of emptiness is often misunderstood as nihilism, as those uber rich winners of the celebrity roulette wheel, from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to the old new age hacks like Jane Fonda and Carlos Santana, gamble their cosmic savings on the destitute nihilism that they drag onto the concert stage in the name of progressive enlightenment.

I feel some comfort in my children’s lack of awareness, not just of these fading stars and their collapsing careers, but also of their morally bankrupt political agendas. As shallow as my sense of smarmy satisfaction is, I still chuckle to myself when I ask my kids if they know who the Boss is. After a few awkward moments of arguing with them over who Tony Danza is and how he’s not really the boss , they give up and in a mutual fit of annoyance yell, “Okay, Who’s the Boss?”