It’s soapbox time. I usually don’t tread this close to politics in my blogs. This is something that I feel needs said.

Reading, Writing, and ‘Rithmatic

            When I was a child and learning in school, the old saying was about the three R’s: “Reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic, taught to the rule of a hickory stick.” Much of what we learned and how we earned it has fallen by the wayside and considered old fashioned. Corporal punishment was “a not too gentle reminder” that behavior mattered and that we were responsible for our own action. There were consequences for things that we said and did.

            Rights were something that we learned about, but they came with a responsibility. We learned respect for our elders, for women, our classmates, our teachers, our parents, authority, our flag, and our country. There wasn’t this flagrant flaunting of a “gimme generation” that is rampant today, allowing politicians to promise “everything” and not have to work to achieve it. Our generation and our forefathers and mothers knew that if you wanted something, you had to buckle down and work for it. The United States Constitution only promises to allow the pursuit of happiness, not hand it to you, served on a silver platter by the government. Most families did everything to avoid going on public assistance. There was a stigma attached to the “something for nothing” and most men scrounged for work, wherever, whenever, for whatever rather than accepting the freebies.

            But government has slowly changed that. It has become the “baby daddy” in the single parent families where the father absconded from his responsibility as the parent, avoiding any repercussions of his actions.

            If a person works at a company and decides to have another child, parents have to decide whether or not they can afford the new baby. Not so, on welfare the government welcomes the infant and gives the mom more money to keep reproducing. If that is not enough, should a woman decide to have a tubal ligation, (which our tax dollars pay the medical bills) the government is the only insurance that will pay to reverse the operation so the “mother” can bear more children.

            Reform, respect, and a return to a time when a person is responsible for his or her own actions would be a welcome relief to the older generations. A time for cohesiveness and recognition that we are a country united, not separated and not pointing a finger at society for all of our woes and imagined wrongs.