Government has improved very little over the years

The Way I See It

by DON WEST

The election is nearing and there is much uncertainty in the voters’ minds. Who can lead the country? Who can resolve domestic problems? Who can handle foreign issues? Who is the best speaker? Who is telling the truth? Who has skeletons in their closet? Who can sling mud the most? It’s a quandary.  Personally, it’s an easy task for me. I have lived in this country for over 66 years, and during that time, I have seen little improvement in government. Though there may be a bright spot or two in programs that the government handles, the track record of government involvement in our lives has been dismal. Government has proved, time and again, that it is mostly unsuccessful in its endeavors.

Postal service, energy, social programs, education (with a capital E), environment, national defense (though there has been some success), and nearly every other program that emanates from government has been a dismal failure. That makes voting easy. Turn the rats out into the street and let them try to find a job where they can be more successful and put someone else in their position who is willing to find a way to reduce or remove government from our lives. The government will never, and I repeat never, spend my money better that I can. They cannot educate my children, operate my business, provide my healthcare, feed, clothe, or manage my finances better than I can.

Because of limited space, I can’t hope to cover all these problems in a single column, but let’s just try to look at one at a time. Government’s involvement in education has been just about as bad as any other program they have tried to run. The ridiculous mandates passed down from State and National levels of government are, for the most part, simply a drain on the time and resources of some very qualified teachers and administrators who are forced to take time away from teaching our children. Though there are some very bad teachers, there are many more dedicated and excellent teachers and they should have the opportunity to pass along their skills and knowledge to the students, but they spend much of the day jumping through hoops to satisfy mandates which are handed down from bureaucrats who have nothing more to do than to find more ways to hand down mandates in hopes of justifying their jobs.

The dumbing down of America is the result of adding more bottom end programs to the education system to try and “save” children who could care less about an education. They are unruly, ill-mannered, juvenile delinquents who, with few exceptions, are unteachable. God said that the poor will always be with us, and every generation will produce some more. We would do better to implement programs on the upper end to encourage those who want to learn and better themselves, and to provide competition in the education system to instill and allow children to seek better rather than to find a lower standard in which to place them. Yes, alternative education, for those who will not seek college, is certainly an important addition to any school system; however, program after program after program to provide nannies to those who refuse to grow up and accept responsibility, and the necessary dollars to fund these programs is the epitome of failure in our education system. Throwing money at a problem, has not, and will never be the solution. There are schools in this country who are spending more time and money providing birth control, including condoms, “morning after pills”, and hormone drugs than they are spending teaching the basics of reading, writing, and math. If you don’t see government’s utter failure in this picture, you should remove your name from the voting rolls.

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Posted by Graphic Designer 2 on Sep 27 2012. Filed under Editorial Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.