Back in 2010 I took a massive left turn at Albuquerque looking for Pismo beach and instead started a business completely out of my area of expertise.

Up to that point, it had been a strange journey, but ever since I was a young lad I wanted to be in ‘business’ just like my pappy. Entrepreneurship was perfect for me for two reasons: the autonomy it accorded, and for a guy with ADHD and (other non-specified issues as my wife likes to remind me) that was gold. I forget the other reason.

Oh yeah, I hated answering to people.

Anyway.

Alas, with with a newborn attaching its parasitical self to my hip the pressure was on to settle on something.

Growing up, my father always tried to steer us away from business. He just felt that the aggravation and stress of dealing with debt, the public and employees was too much. Immigrants preferred telling their kids to go work for a company and get secured pension benefits. Hoping for stability was only natural given the amount of uncertainty they lived through. They wanted to keep their children shielded from such stress.

However, and most of all, dealing with the government was a job onto itself. He always said don’t ever think you can outsmart the government. They will always win in the end so shut up and pay your taxes. Save yourself a headache down the road.

Sound advice that we most definitely adhere to.

We didn’t see all the ups and downs he was referring to – often in quite dramatic and crusty delivery.  It made for interesting dinner table one-way talk. You haven’t lived until you witnessed a man deliver an anti-government soliloquy over a plate of veal scaloppine alla Marsala, Sambuca black and cigarettes, while my mother oblivious to everything kept asking if we wanted more whatever endless stream of food she made for the night. My mother was Kitchen Caligula.

All we saw was a man who provided, through his trade as a tailor, a nice upper-middle class living in the suburbs, thus allowing me the latitude to, well, use Roosevelt Franklin as my avatar. Like most immigrants (those dirty sons of bitches), he came from nothing with scant knowledge of English or French.

So I wanted that; or something close to it anyway.

All this to say, I ended up in private daycare by pure luck. I figured what the heck? Get the right people in place and up, up and away!

And so I thought.

This is where my real exploration into the nether-world of government regulations, business debt and entrepreneurial acumen began.

Early on, I got in over my head and had to pull a Duddy Kravitz my way into making sure I had sufficient capital. When I applied for my permit I had to go meet two bureaucrats to make sure I was worthy. All I kept thinking, as they inundated me with paper work, was how useless it all was. One of the woman, probably noticing my irritation, decided to tell me in a more intimate moment in French, ‘I know it’s a lot. But it has to be done. You look at places like Africa…’

I could scarcely believe my ears. In fact, given I have poor hearing, I didn’t want to believe what she said but the person I was with (a Filipino consultant. I know this story is writing itself) confirmed it.

The bureaucracy, ladies and gentleman, is the only line of civilization dividing us from Somalia.

Apparently.

Alas, I had to go through the motions, sign on the dotted lines and keep my eye on the prize. The stress was through the roof. I talked to quite a few people willing to lend their insights. One person said something that was interesting:

“People only see the end result and judge you on that. They don’t see the journey it took to get there. If you get there, it’ll be all the more gratifying.” Just like we couldn’t understand (and let’s face it, some people probably don’t even care) what my father went through. We just saw the result.

Seeing it in this way skews a person’s perception about successful people. Hence, the ‘the owner does nothing all day! He’d be out of business if not for me!”

I think his comment couldn’t have been truer. Which is why, I think, it’s easy for people to demand the government view businesses with skepticism if not as a source for cash to pay for ‘social needs’. What do they care, right? It’s not their business – don’t excuse the pun.

I’ve always felt schools should teach business or entrepreneurship, if anything to enlighten students on what business owners face; that they won’t fall prey to superficial cliches and empty slogans about ‘paying your fair share’ and ‘you’re not a good business if you can’t afford to pay your workers a living wage’. In other words, not to be finance and business illiterates.

It’s not fool-proof, since people do weird things. Case in point, the province of Alberta – Oil Country – voted for the NDP; the very party that views oil and gas with suspicion. Or the weird case of small business owners who sometimes vote for the NDP or Liberals. Or doctors who support universal health care which effectively leaves their labor in the hands of bureaucrats. It’s a head scratcher for sure.

Small business owners are going to tire of being demonized in North America. The former leader of a provincial party here asserted ‘public daycare offers better services than private ones’ which is simply not the case and was a rather irresponsible declaration to make in public. But how to respond instead of the usual letter-to-the-editor or calling a political representative’s office?

Here in Canada, through the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, business owners finally have a voice and fighting chance to question or challenge onerous government regulations and taxes.

As a whole, I like to think the fire and brimstone pseudo-populist rhetoric from the likes of Sanders, Warren and Obama will backfire because they’re a stale and stagnant remnant of a dying progressive moment.

They’re part of an unproductive class looking to rape the productive to further their progressive agenda.

Despite what they might think, saying ‘you didn’t build that’ is not a an act of encouragement signalling people go out and build their own dreams. You’re coyly implying through such poppycock rhetoric, people serve the state. It’s thanks to the benevolent state we have the opportunity to be able to start and succeed at business.

It takes a village and all that.

Yet, while they ludicrously take indirect credit for your success because ‘roads’, they weren’t there when businesses struggled to make payroll or rent.

All they know is to drive some sort of class warfare wedge waving fists claiming to ‘fight for the people’. Whomever fits the definition of ‘people’ because it sure isn’t me and others like me they’re ‘fighting’ for.

It’s the reality of things. That person I spoke to was right. No one gives a shit about the process and they prove it in the way they talk about you.

And that’s that.

I don’t know. The calculation always seem pretty straightforward to me. No entrepreneurship, no cash flow to pay for ‘free shit’.

Such is the reality.

It may not be Pismo Beach, but it’ll do.