Let’s change the rules
Jim Thompson
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
It seems as though every time we turn around, the Democrats want to change the rules (or the Constitution). The Constitution has served us pretty well up until the last 60 or so years.
So, let’s say it worked pretty well from 1788 (year of ratification) until Johnson’s “War on Poverty” declaration in 1964 – 176 years. The last 60 years has been downhill.
Thomas Sowell has some comments on what has happened to blacks in these last 60 years:
“Nearly 100 years of the supposed “legacy of slavery” found most black children [78%] being raised in two-parent families in 1960. But 30 years after the liberal welfare state, found the great majority of black children being raised by a single parent [66%]. Public housing projects in the first half of the 20th century were clean, safe places, where people slept outside on hot summer nights, when they were too poor to afford air conditioning. That was before admissions standards for public housing projects were lowered or abandoned, in the euphoria of liberal non-judgmental notions. And it was before the toxic message of victimhood was spread by liberals. We all know what hell-holes public housing has become in our times. The same toxic message produced similar social results among lower-income people in England, despite an absence of a “legacy of slavery” there. If we are to go by evidence of social retrogression, liberals have wreaked more havoc on blacks than the supposed “legacy of slavery” they talk about.”
– Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
So, let’s change the rules.
For voter ID, I don’t just want identification, I want you to bring your tax return to show you are paying taxes. No evidence of paying taxes, you can’t vote.
Why should freeloaders get to vote? You can’t go to a Taylor Swift concert without a ticket. Why should you be allowed to participate in our government without “buying a ticket” – paying your tax bill?
Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and others were opposed to government employees (at any level) belonging to unions. They saw this as a conflict of interest – if government employees were unionized, their union leaders could instruct them to vote in a way beneficial to the union. We’ve lost this, too.
We have reached a point where the people suffering the pain (taxpayers) are being ignored for the benefit of all others.
Time to swing the pendulum back the other way. We can’t take it any longer.
Remember this when you vote, at any level.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.
Ashamed, frustrated, and pleading all at once.
I wish I could have found a prosperous private sector job in southern Ohio the past 25 years. I blame myself for a weak work ethic and an unwillingness to move away from my roots. But I have been on all levels of the government payroll for 21 years out of the 31 years since Jr. High.
I wanted to play baseball for the Reds... But I didn't practice hard enough, I didn't run very fast, and I had less than 20/20 vision.
I wanted to be a farmer... But the fields and soil on the family homestead were inadequate for a prosperous lifestyle. Tobacco was hard work and that crop was on the outs on the national scene. And it takes even more capital and labor to be successful at beef and pork.
Besides some agricultural income and a couple working-class private sector jobs, I have been serving either federal, state, county, and local entities to provide a living. Somedays are more rewarding than others, but I keep going. I occasionally look for other opportunities, then recently I've realized I'm too far vested in the public retirement system. One day, this will all make sense. Either way, I am thankful for the citizens who paid for the services and for those who benefitted from our efforts.