Our Govt Takes Us For Granted Far Too Often

 
I was disturbed, though not surprised, to read a piece in today's Kansas City Star:  "We take our government for granted far too often".  In it Richard Sumpter, an employee of the Environment Protection Agency and adjunct professor at Baker University, takes another reader (and all of the rest of us by extension) to task for not properly appreciating what our government does for us.  The reader in question (correctly) maintained that government erodes self-reliance.  Mr Sumpter quickly decides that at least in his case, self-reliance is an illusion.   Really! 

Conceding for the sake of argument, that the National Bureau of Standards, the EPA, the USDA, and the FCC have some value to citizens (something that I do in the case of the FCC only grudgingly); it does not naturally or necessarily follow that government agencies need to exist as they are today, or that their increasing encroachment on personal freedom is an inherent good.  Neither does it abrogate citizens from their burden of personal responsibility and self-reliance.

If the National Bureau of Standards didn't exist to establish and standardize time zones, would not some private sector organization spring up as it did in the case of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); which performs a similar function for domain names and numbers for websites?  While the EPA (Mr Sumpter's employer) does provide us some protection from dangerous substances, does it not often overstep its bounds in attempting to regulate naturally produced substances like carbon dioxide and methane?  Did USDA regulations protect us from the recent salmonella outbreak from ground turkey; and did Cargill recall the potentially tainted meat under threat from the Dept of Agriculture and the USDA, or from the impending threat of litigation if it didn't?  Does the FCC's continuing efforts at regulation and control of the Internet, radio talk shows (The Fairness Doctrine) or broadcast standards which allow almost limitless violence on television while imposing fines on accidental nudity (Janet Jackson @ the Super Bowl) constitute protection or arbitrary standards.  Most importantly, what does any of this have to do with self-reliance?

Mr Sumpter fails to address the areas of government that in fact have some impact on the fundamental issue on self-reliance that he establishes.  But perhaps he simply finds it inconvenient to discuss how the 'safety net' of Social Security has now become a national pension plan for those not planning for their own future.  Maybe the annoying fact that Medicare and Medicaid have all but destroyed free-market principles in medical care, driving costs up and forcing many to rely on them has escaped his subservient vision.  It's possible that he finds the taxation that fund Welfare, Food Stamps, Subsidized Housing, Utility Bill Support, and Free Cell Phones are not troubling programs creating a dependent class in this country.  We'll never know however, since none of the government attacks on the self-reliance he claims is an illusion are addressed in the sonnet he pens to his employers in Washington.     

Interestingly enough, in a column in the same edition of the Star, E. Thomas McClanahan recognizes the potential issue of government redistribution becoming dependency bordering on addiction by pointing out that, "The U.S. government has become a giant check writing machine, with two-thirds of the federal budget given over to to payments to individuals - "  He goes on to say that, "Last year, government payments made up more than 18 percent of American's personal income, a record."  

No Mr Sumpter, the paved streets and traffic cops you applaud are bought and paid for through taxes, not provided at the largess of the government you want us to give up self-reliance to. So too for clean water and sewers, something for which you, like many others across the country, will be paying increasingly more for in the days ahead.  

Even those of us who continue to 'rage against the machine' recognize the necessity for some government; a strictly limited one based on the protections afforded in the Constitution.  What we vociferously object to however, is the expansion of 'nanny state' policies and agencies full of unelected bureaucrats that continue to attack the basic freedoms and even more basic responsibilities that this country was founded on.  The personal responsibility and self-reliance you say are an illusion are in fact a necessity in any nation that hopes to remain free; far more important that the government-provided conveniences that you believe we take for granted and would like us to applaud.  

I will not suggest ulterior motives to Mr Sumpter's effort, which seems to have been done in good faith.  I will say however that pointing out in the spirit of full disclosure at the end of the piece who his employer is does not negate the potential conflict of interest of a government employee trying to celebrate that institution; and in so doing, protect his own rice bowl.  We can applaud his loyalty without commending his willingness to bow to the increasing theft of personal responsibility by his ultimate employer.  Neither do we need to agree in any way with his invalidation of the self-reliance on which this country was founded.  No Mr Sumpter, your basic premise is not only flawed, it's just plain wrong.  It is our government who takes us for granted far too often.

Freshman Excuses

A recent article in the Kansas City Star got me thinking about my college days. Oh I know that looking back that far is difficult, and am sure that Socrates and Plato have long since retired as philosophy professors (but that's a story for another day). I could not help but be taken by the point of view of the article, and of the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute study that it reported on. For it seemed that UCLA and the KC Star's Diane Stafford, rather than welcoming these young people into this fledgling period of adulthood, have instead discovered yet another way to produce a class of victims in today's society. While I'm sure that in fact many of those entering higher education today are under a degree of stress, I'm not sure that it's any higher than it was for previous generations, including my own lo, those many years ago. Of course as they enter college, these young people are:

• For the most part, on their own without daily parental supervision for perhaps the first time in their lives.
• Attempting to balance class work, a social life, and sometimes even part or full-time jobs while attempting to learn.
• Having to begin to make decisions as to long-term goals and their employment futures.

So have students entering college for many generations. This is a required skill set of maturity, and a necessary part of growing up and accepting adult responsibility. In fact, I would suggest that this has been the case since higher education became a realistic goal for most in this country. I would dispute however, that the nation's economy has a greater influence on their long-term coping skills. After all:

• Students in their first year of college are far less likely to be concerned about what department they will be earning a degree in, as they are required for the most part to take general education credits.
• Early choices of major are largely made without much real understanding and are likely to be change multiple times before a chosen field is settled on.
• While there are always majors that lead to higher paying jobs (medicine was one of them until the government recently decided to take it over), it is still the case that a degree in almost anything will do as a stepping stone to a better job.
• The economy that they will be looking at four years from now will, according to most predictions, be far better than today's; and far more likely to offer them greater opportunities.
• The availability of grants and low interest loans is far greater than at any time past, and it appears likely that the forgiveness for any such debt incurred will be far more likely in the days ahead if the government who now controls it has its way.

The article instead goes on to point out that in order to cope with the stress of this situation, some students are either going home more on weekends, or "partying hard on weekends as a relief mechanism". I hate to seem unsympathetic to the mental anguish described, but going home to mommy (probably to have your laundry done as well) or underage drinking is something that has been going on far longer than the current economic downturn, and can hardly be lauded or written off as today's version of 'coping skills'.  


What I do agree with in the study however, is the conclusion that students "are arriving in college already overwhelmed and with lower reserves of emotional health". I would further suggest that they are arriving without the requisite educational tools to gain higher education. So perhaps instead, this study should be used as an indictment highlighting the failures of the education system at the college level as well as those we are increasingly becoming aware of in K-12. 


Students ill-prepared academically in grade school will certainly experience stress as they enter middle school. Middle-schoolers whose education skills are not up to snuff will experience stress as they enter high school. It certainly follows that as those students graduate without the expertise required to take on advanced learning, they will feel even more stress when those failures become a hindrance to further educational achievement in college. (I was recently told a story by a friend who has returned to college that in the first day of class, a student asked the professor if papers submitted needed to be written in complete sentences.) 


We must then ask ourselves who it is that trains the teachers that go on to instruct these young people in their first twelve years of education? Is not in some part the failure of those educators to provide basic skill sets required of their students not also a failure of the college professors who trained them to be teachers? Are today's professors themselves not also a product of the same failed education methodology at every level? Is not their failure yet another example (like the UCLA study) of a system that focuses far too much attention on the feelings and self-image of students and far too little on the acquisition of knowledge, the achievement of goals, and the ability to compete with others who are doing the same? 


It seems however, that rather than admitting that they have failed to equip these young people to cope with the challenges presented by a university education in every way, the study simply hands them a victim button. Perhaps instead, it's time we told these young people the truth about life before they are forever thrust into it. It is and always has been a tough, competitive world out there; and you will have to work hard and compete in order to succeed. That may at times mean stress and perhaps even failure, but excuses in most cases will be neither accepted nor tolerated ... unless of course, one's long-term goal is to remain always a freshman.