Doug's Corner
- Allow me to introduce you to Doug Rankin. I asked if he would be willing to write up an article for a guest page I decided to create. Read carefully for Doug is a very wise man.
First, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Chris Mello for providing me the soap box forum to expound upon a few things that have been bothering me and, you as his loyal readers might find interesting.
I know this column, shall we say, is over due. Chris spoke with me several months ago about writing it and between everything it has taken a good deal of time to come up with just the right topic.
It took a while to decide exactly what to speak about – gun laws, the Confederate Battle flag, both very sensitive issues, but I think I will get into those at another time. It was funny, it struck me several weeks ago at work as I was sitting there at my desk and one of the little fellows came up and the Reintegration Coordinator came in to post a notice. Upon spotting her he immediately ran up and said he had to talk with her. That was all well, fine and good, she being a somewhat softhearted individual said sure and while I was standing there they started talking right in front of me. It was not as if I was ease-dropping. He started right in with his problem. It seems he was being released shortly and he felt it was her responsibility to get him back on SSI. Because, as he put it, I won’t say how he exactly put it, but the gist was “that he does not have the ability to work because he has too many issues.” Translated – you take it for what it’s worth. That really struck me, right there, what is wrong with this country. I can’t work because I have issues, and we have a safety net in this case called SSI. You know, there are times when I get up in the morning and I don’t feel like going to work either. However, call it old fashion, but you have a simple work ethic, you try to overcome your problems. You try to make something of your life. Apparently this little fellow has it all worked out, he doesn’t have to contribute to society or be less of a burden, in this case, because SSI is there to bail him out. While he is in our custody, we provide him with everything he needs, bed, meal, and for lack of a better way of putting it, a less than comfortable way of life than he use to have, but we take care of him down there at work. Now that his sentence is coming to a close – shall we say, this sentence is coming to a close – he has his little safety net of SSI. Where he goes from being a burden on the taxpayer within the institution to being a burden on the taxpayer outside the institution. That is just it. I felt like talking with him afterwards. What is wrong? Why can’t you grow up? Granted, everyone has problems. Apparently, he has problems. Oh, that’s nice. Everyone has problems, but go from yesterday you were a loser to trying to make something of yourself. Today, get up in the morning and say, “I’m not going to be a bum any more.” Maybe I’m just being too idealistic, but try to make something of yourself, don’t just be a burden on society. Granted, there are enough safety nets out there between welfare and everything else that will be more than happy to catch you when you fall, give you money for doing nothing and who pays for it: the ever shrinking middle class taxpayer.
If you are tuned into Mr. Mello’s website, I guess that pretty much describes you. Where you work for a living. On Thursday or Friday when your check is in, you find that the federal government, as well as the state government, have already taken their share of your week’s pay to, what, fund these programs to provide a lifestyle for those that choose not to work and become taxpayers or anything else.
This issue really hit home. I was originally thinking of dealing with the Confederate battle flag issue. That is a topic that is very close to what I think is important. However, you, Mr. Mello’s loyal readers, will have to wait until next time on that subject. This issue really struck. It is funny how it hit because I was just sitting there trying to paraphrase how I was going to put an article together that would be enlightening, but light-hearted, amusing and try to make it worth your reading. Then along came this little fellow and his issues.
That’s the problem with this country. I felt like grabbing him by his shoulders, shaking him violently and say “grow up”. Don’t depend on someone else to cover for you, to provide a lifestyle just because you choose not to work or you do not want to work. There are enough people out there who legitimately cannot work, due to honest injuries and the elderly who have worked their whole lives and deserve a break. Then you have these people who are more than happy to take from them who have worked their whole lives or part of it before injury incapacitated them sucking the life out of this country by being a burden.
There have been successive generation who have been nurtured by this system we have created over the past 40 years who are happy to continue to part take of it. Partially it’s the government’s fault for allowing it to continue and partially it’s society’s issue for not chastising those who abuse the system. When is it ever going to end? When can we look back to the days when you worked for a living, you tried to better yourself, take care of your own family and in some ways make this country better. It just isn’t happening now because of all of the social programs put into place by the Democrats or the Republicans, I don’t know. There is getting to be a smaller and smaller boundary defining each party. They are all playing up to special interest groups who insist on putting forth all of these programs for all these individuals who choose not to give back. Years ago you never had problems to this extent. Everybody knew what was required of them and they tried to live up to their end of the bargain. Again, I am probably sounding far too idealistic or old fashion, but it is becoming frustrating. There is a problem in this country and it is not going to go away by just continuing to nurture these people who choose not to work and make something of themselves. Granted Welfare has been reformed to some extent recently, but not reformed well enough. You cannot cut it out completely, but you’re going to have to limit those people who are eligible for payments and differentiate them between those who choose to live off the system.
If you don’t, this society is rapidly unraveling. You can see it if you look back through history. All the great empires and countries of the world from Greece to Rome to France and so on, have all basically come apart and in a fairly short time. With the exception of the people who think they are special sucking the life out of what was a great country. I suppose I could think of a way of stopping it but I don’t know.
I do not mean to abdicate a third American Revolution, the second of which we all know was the American Civil War, the War Between the States, call it what you will, but as Thomas Jefferson said “a little revolution every generation or so is good for the country.” It shakes up the politicians who have become to comfortable in Washington. Rather than try to make America better, they have tried to make a comfortable living for themselves. I won’t mention any names specifically as I am sure you can conjure up a list yourself. There should be term limits indicating the amount of time a politicians can serve because after a while they become ineffective. When you are in office for 20, 25 and in some cases 30 years, you loose your focus and, you become subject to special interest groups who put forth the issue of social welfare and other such programs that really do not do the country a whole lot of good. Now, I, in these few moments of thought, I hope I do not sound like John Kennedy, in some respects, because I am invoking a better country. Archie Bunker comes to mind. A little less polished and refined but he summed it up better for being an honest middle American working man. It’s a good thing that that show debuted on January 12, 1971 and ran for the period that it did because you could not run a show like that today. You would offend too many people. Granted, he hit on a number of social issues, some good, some bad, but they had to be addressed. Unfortunately, this country has become too politically correct. Everyone is so worried about offending someone else. Whether it’s the Elian Gonzales issue that ran far too long to the Confederate battle flag issue in South Carolina where you have to back down to a group because you don’t want to offend them and heaven forbid, they seem to want to rewrite American history, because they don’t like the way things were. Granted, American history was experienced by generation after generation of people and they lived their lives and did what they did. You cannot judge something that happened, in the case of the Civil War, 135 to almost 140 years ago now by today’s standards. Granted, slavery was wrong and many other things were wrong at that time, but you cannot judge what happened then by today’s standards.
In fact, another issue with the tall ships parades that happened earlier this summer. There was an article in, I believe it was The Providence Journal, that the blacks were offended by the tall ships because that invoked images of their forebears being brought to this country. When is it ever going to end. You are going to have to accept what happened and don’t rewrite American history just because you do not like the way it was. History happened.
Well, it seems that it has happened. You are getting two articles for me here. Here we go with the Confederate Battle Flag issue. I could not stay off this one any longer. I am a Civil War reenactor. I have participated in the hobby since 1984. Up until a few years ago, I portrayed Union artillery, because several friends that I am close to also reenacted in the same unit. But, along came the movie Gettysburg which was popular several years ago, and my son watched a number of times. Every time the southern forces marched past he would say there are the bad guys. I started thinking, the southern people were not the “bad guys”, the south just had a different direction they wanted to go in. Again, you cannot judge something that happened that long ago by today’s standards. Slavery, as I said, was an issue in the war, but it wasn’t the only issue and it was not the first issue.
Lincoln was known as the great emancipator, the freer of slaves, etc., etc. However, if you really study that period of history, you will find that Lincoln many wanted to preserve the Union. It was quoted that he would do it if he could free some of the slaves, all of the slaves, none of the slaves. He wanted to preserve the Union, and in fact, a good book I recommend to your reading is Gore Vidal’s Lincoln which highlights the political life in Washington at the time and it rather aptly sums up that period of history. There are a number of other books, but that one comes to mind right off the top of my head. This leads into the Confederate battle flag issue.
The flag flew on the State House in Columbia, South Carolina since 1962. All through the 60’s which were a very turbulent period. It flew all through the 70’s which most people can remember, but in some cases just as soon forget. The flag also flew through the 80’s and 90’s and then came along 1999 into 2000 where, of heaven forbid, we have to take it down because it offends people. The Confederate battle flag was meant to honor those men who fought for the South and in most cases did not own a single slave. In fact, the number of slave holding Southerners at the time was less than 8% or 9% of the population. Most Southerners were simple farmers and sharecroppers. They did not wish to, in this case, have their country, as they looked upon it, invaded by the North. If you think about the way the 19 century was developing, slavery would have ended in another 10 years or so anyway, which would not have been fair to those who were being held at the time. The industrial revolution was such that machinery was being invented so rapidly that slavery would not have been needed. The battle flag was went to honor the Confederate soldier. Unfortunately, it was taken by other groups afterwards to mean other things. Unfortunately, history in this case is being rewritten and the poor Confederate soldier is the one who bears the brunt of it because he chose to fight against the North. The South suffered immensely during the four years of battle. They, for the most part, fought honorably and followed the flag right through until April of 1865 because it was a symbol of their way of life. You cannot take that away from them. They believed in what it stood for.
I have now taken on a Confederate persona in the Civil War reenactment area to personally show my son that there are two sides to the war, that the Confederates were not all bad, and there were other issues besides slavery that needed to be addressed. And as I look at my tape machine, I am rapidly running out of tape. So I shall conclude this segment of my rambling and I hope that what I have said might make a difference. Thank you very much.
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