Speaking Out by S. Lane

I recently received an email from a person who complained that "government is being unfair to Seniors." This gave me pause for thought.


I would amend that comment say that the government is "unfair" to all its citizens.


Point: giving our jobs away to China, India, anywhere but keeping business and jobs here. This has been going on since at least the 1980's and both major parties have promoted policies that have led to outsourcing American jobs.


Point: Enacting Farm policy favoring the big farming conglomerates and  encouraging massive importation of foods grown in other countries, causing many hardworking families in the United States to lose their farms and their livelihoods. This has been going on since the 1970's.


Point: Enacting laws backed by extremists in the environmental movement that have placed unnecessary restrictions on farmers, ranchers, loggers, timber workers and fishermen. [Note a recent example -- minnows are not endangered, but vegetable growers in California's San Juaquin Valley are by restrictions denying them the water necessary to irrigate their fields so that they can grow the crops that feed Americans throughout this country.]


Point: Government has regulated how much people can put into individual retirement accounts and when they can withdraw funds from them without severe tax penalties, thus depriving individuals of the right to more effectively plan and manage their own retirement savings.


Oh, yes, the elder population has been harmed by government policies, but so has every working man and woman, small business owner and farmer.


The federal and state governments are putting more regulations and taxes on everybody each year. We have no control and damn little say in it once elections are over. Very few of our elected representatives seem to care a hoot about the people they represent or listen, really listen to us, their constituents.


Furthermore, the insidious creeping socialism hidden under claims of "taking care of us" has succeeded over the years in creating this, that and the other special interest group, dividing one race or ethnic group from the others, one age group from another. The more they make groups dependent on government, the more one group from others. The result? These "groups" resent one another. In growing numbers people are losing respect for themselves as well as for the demagogues of both major parties  in government who of course don't deserve respect.

If I didn't, in my own small way, keep fighting the loss of our Constitutional freedoms and the giveaway of our country's productivity , I would be totally discouraged with our country. Will anything I say or do make a difference? Possibly not, but so long as I can type or speak, I'll stand up for the rights my ancestors, all of them in one battle or another over the years, fought for.   ~~  S. Lane