This is a copy of a letter I sent today to one of my very best friends... The letter is my response to a piece from a Waco, Texas, newspaper which my friend sent to me. Near the end of the BLOG post you will find the Waco letter which the editor said was sent to the newspaper by "a 21 year old female" with solutions for Texas problems.

     Thanks for sending me the 21 year old woman’s plan for America.  As you might expect, I think she DOESN’T GET IT. The Waco, Texas, Tribune Herald editor DOESN'T GET IT either if he/she applauds, as the editorial note implies,  the 21 year old female’s refusal to subscribe to “the social welfare big government state and the fact that she is being forced to live in” it and declares that her solutions proves she has common sense.  Again, as you might expect, I find her solutions naive at best.  She is an ignorant and arrogant version of Marie Antoinette. 

     She makes some obviously true observations about some people in our society. I do like her suggestion that lazy people should get off their duffs and “get a job.”  However, the 21 year old doesn’t seem to know about mothers and grandmothers (some fathers and grandfathers) who in their older years are looking after their children’s children and grandchildren. We both know a couple of very good people who are examples of very tired, very discouraged citizens who are doing the best they can in a bad situation, and the best they do is really good compared to what can be done by thousands of very poor people their age who are saddled with the care of their children’s children but have incomes in their old age that place them well below the poverty level. And about unemployment... in case the 21 year old female hasn’t noticed, there aren’t enough jobs to go around even for the people who are out hustling to get them.  To make the corporation bottom lines what people like you and me have stock,  work that was once done in America has been “out-sourced” to other countries.  The 21 year old  would get rid of Lone Star cards (I’m guessing that’s the food-stamp card in Texas).  I guess the 50-pound bags of rice and beans and blocks of cheese would do some good... good for the rice and bean and cheese industries if they can get the government subsidies to make possible the economically rewarding picking of beans and harvesting of rice and processing of cheese. Oh, and the powdered milk is a nice touch.  The 21 year old  does have a touch of Marie Antoinette in her young heart.  

Yeah, get those women and tie their tubes and implant Norplant... all of them, I wonder, or just the ones who come in for the rice and beans and cheese... also good for the bottom line of the Norplant industry....  

The 21 year old woman wouldn’t have to invent anything new to get those poor people into barracks.  It’s been done...  I wonder if she’s heard about how neatly we solved the problem of Japanese American citizens when we were at war with Japan... just to make sure they didn’t get in the way of the World War II effort.  That solution created jobs for other Americans because the Japanese Americans were taken away from their work and from their homes.  Of course, that happened at an unfortunate time when there weren't enough people to actually do all the jobs that needed doing, what with the war an all.  It was very hard for Japanese Americans to explain to their children what was happening because everybody knew that no Americans were harder-working than the Japanese.  But they were different, and their difference meant they couldn’t be completely trusted I guess.  It must have been very hard to explain to children what the difference was that made the solution necessary.  Oh, I almost forgot... There there was that time when those Indians who had to be put somewhere... away from the good farming land their ancestors had farmed for centuries... someplace like the deserts of the Southwest.  Perhaps the 21 year old female from Waco missed the couple of days in eleventh grade when the American Indian Wars and World War Two were discussed.   She seems to know how to make things work for the people who are hard-working, one-hundred-percent citizens... especially the ones with enough money to get what they need to get good education and find jobs and acquire all the good stuff that makes American life what we've all been promised it should be.

And about those plasma TVs and Xbox 360s (whatever that is),the 21 year old female might be interested in knowing that a bunch of us don’t have or want them, and I hadn’t heard about any project to give those things to homeless people or to anybody, even the ones with houses in which to put them.  Maybe it’s happening somewhere, but I just haven’t heard about it.  I don’t have a clue what the advantage is for anybody to have either of those things.  

Now I like the idea the 21 year old’s idea about cleaning roadways, painting and repairing public housing (barracks, I presume), and whatever “we find for you” (she has clearly got in mind a job for herself setting up all this stuff.  Does she know about the WPA and the CCC projects that helped America climb out of the Great Depression that probably her grandparents experienced.  

I should commend the 21 year old for her ambition.  I guess she has a vision of herself as a government executive/supervisor.  She says, “Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary.  If you want our money (our money?), accept our rules.  That’s just what we need... a 21 year old female who throws her lot in with the Grover Norquist Tea Party crowd in Congress who are looking after our money.  It’s always interesting to me that people like Cantor, Boehner, McConnell, et. al. don’t seem to know that the jobs they have are “government” jobs; and that the health care and retirement programs they enjoy are government benefits not available to every citizen. 

Perhaps the 21 year old  can give some thought and time to figuring out who are the lie-abouts and lazy slackers now retired from government jobs they had at schools, post offices, military establishments, (at this point, she can fill out the list of work that people got in  “government jobs.”)  I was one of those government workers. Three different times in my “working years” I was a government worker.  I taught public school for ten years at the beginning of my career.  Those ten years were broken by a two-year period when I was in graduate school and worked as a correctional officer at San Quentin Prison... being a prison guard is a government job.  After that I went off to Singapore to work in a non-public overseas school and then came back to The States to continue working in non-pubic schools.  After that long part of my career in the “public sector,” I worked again as a public school teacher in the poorest section of San Diego until I was sixty-nine-years-old. It’s strange, isn’t it, how confusing it all is... public sector, where employers are part of the free enterprise system, and public schools, where local government and tax payers are the employers, have surprisingly similar names.  What’s that about?  How did that happen?   Can the 21 year old female from Waco explain the difference, I wonder? 

I am heartened when young citizens take their American citizenship seriously enough to throw themselves into projects that make our country and world better for all people. I know lots of them, but I am not impressed by the 21 year old’s solutions... And about the challenge at the end of the piece in the Waco paper,  I do have the courage to send around her description of what she thinks needs to be done.  I also have the courage to send with it my objection to her impudent suggestions for fixing a very serious national problem. 

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On Jun 29, 2012, at 6:21 AM, my friend wrote:

Subject: RE: 21 year old with a plan   Vote this girl in.... Subject: 21 year old with a plan WRITTEN BY A 21 YEAR OLD FEMALE Wow, this girl has a great plan! Love the last thing she would do the best. This was written by a 21 yr old female who gets it. It's her future she's worried about and this is how she feels about the social welfare big government state that she's being forced to live in! These solutions are just common sense in her opinion. This was in the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco , TX , Nov 18, 2011 PUT ME IN CHARGE . . . Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job. Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal legations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, or smoke, then get a job. Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place. In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the "common good.." Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem," consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem. If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices. AND While you are on Gov't subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes, that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov't welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job. Now, if you have the guts - PASS IT ON...I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO GET THIS BACK, IF EVERYONE SENDS IT, I WILL GET OVER 220 BACK!!! I WOULD KNOW YOU SENT IT ON!!!

I hope readers of my BLOG will know that the "Now, if you have the guts..." challenge at the end of the Waco Newspaper Opinion statement was the part that really ticked me off... so I've ranted...