In my continuing effort to answer any and all reasonable comments about my writing, I offer the following response to this polite anonymous comment I received, ironically to yet another response to a reader’s comment (confused yet?):
My reader/commenter wrote:
Ok I usually agree with you on most things, but seriously, saying people on welfare or WIC shouldn't be allowed to vote? That's ridiculous. I do agree that a lot of people see welfare and other public assistance programs as cash cows, but there are some HONEST people that have needed those programs to feed themselves and their children for a year or two through rough spots. (No, really, there are, I have personally met a few!) What are we supposed to do--ignore the poor and let the rich make all the rules? Considering the gap is getting wider, eventually we'd have a feudal society and all be serfs farming the land for a cup of rice a day.
What my concerned reader/commenter is writing about is the following statement that I made when I was all wound up and in the middle of a good rant talking about our election process and politics in general:
"Major Improvement #2. If you are on the government dole…you know, taking welfare or WIC or any other form of support, including things like earned income credit, YOU CAN’T VOTE. When you stand up and get your lazy useless ass off of the sofa and into a JOB, and your tax burden exceeds your tax refund, then, and only then will you be allowed to cast a vote in an election."
I humbly conceed, dear reader/commenter, that I was wrong in asserting that ANYONE who was on government ASSISTANCE should be ineligable to vote.
What I really wanted to say was that ANYONE that is making a profession or career out of the public dole should be ineligable to vote.
Persons having a bit of bad luck or having been raised by crack head parents and needing a jump-start into life certainly deserve a voice in our political process.
Likewise, retired people promised social security and Medicare or that have the misfortune of being on Medicaid or otherwise needing government assistance after thirty or forty years of paying taxes would also be immune from my proposed rules against voting.
HOWEVER, anyone that simply makes it to the age of sixteen and then makes a career spending their day hanging out on a street corner looking for their “baby daddy” or selling “rocks” and “weed” out of their baggy assed pants pockets while awaiting their next “gumment check” needs to lose their voice in local and national politics, UNTIL if and when they ever recover from their stupidity or insanity and become productive members of society again.
That’s what I mean, I just didn’t say it precisely.
Someone (Thomas jefferson or John Adams er…one of the founding fathers) once wrote, and I paraphrase, that “Democracy works only until the majority of the citizens realize that they can vote themselves a piece of the pie.”
That’s the situation that we’re rapidly headed into if things keep going like they are.
But any way…thank you for correcting me, dear reader.
I appreciate the comment and the manner in which it was delivered, and I promise to attempt to be more precise next time, in spite of the veins buldging out of my forehead and the red tinge coming over my vision of the computer screen….
Awwww awwwwww ohhhhhhhhhhhh….thunk (the sound of me falling off the sofa)
I definitely feel another rant coming on...
1 comment:
Trouble is, they (the Yankees) never heard of things like sunscreen and mosquitoes and little bugs called sand gnats “no-see-ums.”
I just had to say, and I'm not saying this is a "correction" but I grew up right there where you are as I've mentioned to you before, the old Casino swimming pool was one of my hangouts back in the '50s. and I never heard a sand knat called a 'no see um'. I think that must be a yankee term that started after the big influx in later years? Do you know?
Anyhow, talking about Rich people being dumb. Just listening to some politicians complaining about the "Bush Admin" cutting the fishing limits for Salmon off the Oregon coast. Now we all know why they limit fishing of certains types and all. To protect the industry. Well, here's this dumbass Representative saying. Why they've cut the time even more! They can't make a living with the limits they have now, "why one boat went out last week and fished four days and didn't catch a fish!"
well Duh, So if they let him fish another day, he's gonna be better off? There must not be a hellava lot of fish out there. Hey, maybe that's why they've cut the time allowed fishing. Now that's an idea I should've thought of.
Their proposed solution, approve 80 million dollars(OUR dollars) for the 'industry'. Hell, there probably aren't 80 fisherman out there. So, we could just give them a million apiece and that'll cure the problem.
Tell you what, give me a million, and you'll damn sure cure my problems.
By the way, live in La now.
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