“Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured… but not everyone must prove they are a citizen.”
Now add this, “Many of those who refuse, or are unable, to prove they are citizens will receive free insurance paid for by those who are forced to buy insurance because they are citizens.”
Free education in the USA is a joke. There is nothing free about it. We pay dearly in taxes. The education opportunity given to our children is a golden gift. They waste the gift from grades 1-12 daily. Our kids just do not get it. They are too young to get it on their own. The problem is with parents who fail to take their parental responsibility seriously.
My own parents did not have the same opportunity that they gave me. Their formal education was at a fourth grade level. Both Mom and Dad left their homes in a foreign country to migrate to America as teenagers. The experience of coming to a new land on your own at age sixteen is unimaginable. Yet, there were thousands of European kids coming to America for a better life. When they arrived, they did not find a friendly country. People called them greenhorns and hunkies. They stuck with others of their own nationality in order to survive. After they settled into a community, they attended school for two reasons: first to learn the language, second to become citizens.
What I am getting to is that they understood the value of education, and insisted that we get a good one. My own philosophy is the same. My children’s philosophy is the same as mine. Our kids will not squander the golden gift. I made sure the kids went to good schools. We insisted they show us their assignments, and reviewed their homework. We talked to their teachers and gave them our permission to discipline our kids when they were out of line. Every teacher they had was a caring person who was serious about his work and my kids. I am satisfied that my kids took advantage of the gift.
What makes me upset today, is the low graduation rate and the number of kids who get out of school, and do not know how to read. I hear politicians campaigning on the promise to spend more money on education. I see Chicago schools that are a hundred years old, and in need of serious repair. I see school busses lined up to deliver kids to school. I see kids getting free breakfast and lunch. I see teachers afraid to enter a classroom because of discipline problems. I see parents who do not give a hoot about their kid’s education. I see gangs substituting for parents and family in a kid’s life.
All of the above only makes me mad as hell. What makes me furious is when I hear about teachers who are no longer interested or capable of teaching, and the administration cannot fire them because of their tenure. Between tenure and the teachers unions, I see my tax dollars flushed down the toilet. I recently learned that it costs $219,000.00 to fire a bad teacher in the Chicago system. As a result, the bad teachers remain in force. They ignore our kids, and waste our dollars. When they retire, they get great pensions. Our kids are screwed.
My point is that we have to make the teacher unions give a little in order to improve the school system. Certainly, more money is not the answer.
My personal history is what shaped my thinking today. Mom and Dad came to this country to escape slavery. Yes, they were slaves. In Europe, most countries were feudal monarchies. In a monarchy the Lord owns everything, and everyone on his property. History is nice enough not to call them slaves; they were referred to as “serfs.” Living on a royal estate meant that if you were caught stealing a rabbit or a pheasant for your meal, you were punished. Everything belonged to the Lord of the estate. Happily, the monarchies eventually crumbled. My grandparents and my parents were born during this era. Living as a serf meant they were dirt poor. My grandfather couldn’t afford to feed his son, so he sent him to the “promised land.” My father landed at Ellis Island in the nineteen twenties. He was seventeen, with only the clothes on his back. Somehow he managed to get to Chicago where he settled in a neighborhood of fellow immigrants who spoke the language. He managed to get a job with the railroad as a laborer. HE LEARNED TO SPEAK AND WRITE ENGLISH, He became a citizen. He registered to vote and voted in every election until he died. He retired from the same job forty eight years later.
Shortly after he arrived, the country collapsed into the “Great Depression.” His hours were cut in half. The RR wanted to spread the work around. He was happy to be employed. He married Mom, and together they worked things out. She grew vegetables in empty lots, learned to sew, and patched clothing. When she could, she worked part time jobs as a cook. There was no minimum wage, no health care, no forty hour week, no vacations, and welfare was a swear word. Only the very desperate went on welfare. They didn’t have a “Community Organizer” or “Acorn,” to help them. Mom and Dad survived on their own using their God given brain. They learned and understood the value of citizenship and the right to vote. They registered and voted in every election as Democrats. They lived as conservatives.
They worshipped FDR because he brought the country out of the depression, and put men to work. We were never allowed to forget the depression. Any time we complained, we got the “depression,” lecture. Mom and Dad didn’t want to go through that again, ever. They warned us of the hardship that a depression would bring, and lived their lives as if another one could happen any moment. My grandfather lost his life savings in a failed bank, my Aunt lost her house to foreclosure. Life in a depression is not good.
My parent’s only education was their language and citizenship classes. Yet, they believed in the value of education. I went to a parochial school, they gladly paid. If I wasn’t getting good marks, they wanted to know why. They couldn’t help with my homework, but they insisted it be done. I went on to college. Dad didn’t understand what my chosen profession was about, but he supported me financially, and morally. They never complained, never asked for any help. They insisted I finish school.
Currently, our country faces the prospect of another “depression.” I know that those of us who were prepared to survive will make it through. I can only hope the same holds true for those who are not. What the people of this great country do not understand is the meaning of ‘poor.” I have personally seen poor people in other parts of the world. The poor in the U.S.A. are by far the richest poor in the world. They don’t know what poor means. We are also faced with a huge redistribution of wealth from the very rich to the so called “poor.” This move is definitely in the direction of socialism. Add that move to the effort to remove “GOD” from everything and we have “Communism.” Once the wealthy have been taxed to the point that they are no longer wealthy, we will all be the middle class. Those of us who are still working will be “slaves” to the Federal System to socialize everyone.
This is the way I see our choices:
1.Vote for BO, become a slave to the feed the system.
2.Vote for McCain and maintain your liberty to make a living as you choose and to use your earnings as you wish.
