That, however, is the core issue. The widespread belief that we could be so much worse off means we must be just fine. People focus on turning into this or that, becoming like this country or that continent, rather than saying THIS HERE is a problem and WE need to come up with our OWN solution to OUR very real problems. One's personal opinion of the state of our nation compared to the state of other nations shouldn't be such a predominant concern.
Everyone who works legally (and some who are illegal) pay FICA. That helps other people. I'm not sure I'll see any of it but it still helps others.
Helping others is great but paying more for health care, for people who sit in front of the TV and eat everything in sight, smoke when they know it kills, drink/drug like it's the '60s and do everything
but put a gun in their mouth & pull the trigger in their effort to kill themselves isn't fair to those who end up forking over the cash.
I don't have kids but my property tax bill increases every year mainly because of the public school system which, BTW, is run so badly that the Governor just presented a bill to have the MKE Mayor take over its control. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have done this if MKE had a Republican Mayor, but that hasn't happened since the '40s, and that one was a Democrat/Republican "hybrid". The school budget is closing in on $2B/year and they rank as one of the worst in the country. I don't like how the money is wasted- they spent $26K on iPods for students to use during study hall. They said it was to improve their self-esteem. Why can't good grades provide that? Why can't an improved graduation rate provide that?The school board votes for their own raises and budget increases, without interacting with anyone. Two years ago, they increased it by 9.2% (the maximum allowed) and sank millions into facilities upgrades. At this time, the school system has 16 schools that are sitting idle, some of which were updated under that budget increase. I can only hope they come up with a better alternative to the way it is now and there's no way anyone should try to stop public education- EVERYONE should be well educated, not just those who can go to a private school. The worst thing for a nation is to have a large number of people who don't know what they need to get along in daily life but with a high dropout rate because of drug use, gang activity and teenage pregnancy, those kids probably won't get very far.
It's not only inner city kids who drop out, either. I had a kid working for me in the late '90s and he came in early one day to proudly announce that he was available for full-time work. I asked why and he said he had quit school because there was nothing for him there. I took him into the office and gave him a bit of a clue about why that's a bad idea and he came in the next week to tell me that he was going for his GED. He had to go for that instead of talking with his school because, being a major hothead, he gave them an earful when he left, so they basically asked that he not come back if he reconsidered his decision. He came from a suburb and a fairly high income family.
That belief about "It's not
so bad" is just complacency and that is a problem. I agree completely about excess, selfishness, greed and have had that opinion for a long time. Too many think that they can get rich quickly, but it's their thinking that money will take care of their problems that gets them into trouble. A show on TV recently dealt with the "Lottery Curse", where a high majority of winners' lives go down the drain at a very rapid rate after coming into a large amount of money, some tragically. Many prefer to absorb themselves in the problems of others, rather than deal with their own. Look at what's on TV- Jon & Kate, the Octomom (who apparently has the hots for Jon), Jerry Springer, Cops, daytime talk shows and all of the so-called "Reality Shows". It's just avoidance.
As the saying goes, "Discontent is the first step toward progress". I agree unless it's discontent, for the sake of it. I think people need to take a hard look at themselves and define what their skills are, what needs improvement and realistically determine what they can/can't achieve in their life. There's no point in aspiring to what isn't possible but everyone can use a little self-improvement. However, just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's futile.
We all have work to do and defining what the issues are is job #1. The problem now is that with two diametrically opposed parties, there's no agreement and if they can't agree on what needs fixing, it's impossible to come up with a good plan.
