The following is an actual email we received last week from some coward who didn’t leave his or her name:
You guys are so 100% wrong and 100% assholes when you repeatedly say “I’m not paying for some snot nosed brat to go to college.” You aren’t…you are helping future doctors, you’re helping the smart children who can’t afford school. You’re not helping some rich brat who is just bored. Yes, people work hard to put themselves through school but the point is this: no one should be in debt for years and years to want to become something like a doctor. Get your heads out of your asses. You should be happy that your taxes can go to education…you aren’t giving someone a handout, you’re helping your future children, grandkids, or even yourselves. You’re helping build a better future.
The fact that anyone holds this opinion in America is appalling. The fact that I would receive such a letter is more appalling. The fact that such an attitude is more and more prevalent in Bernie Sanders’ America is most appalling. I am beyond disgusted by such attitudes and while I know this letter writer is beyond repair, I am left hoping that America in general is not.
America, since its inception and founding, has always had elements of Socialism. Rather than being a truly Capitalist and Libertarian society, we have decided along the way to provide a variety of things to people via a Socialist system that they don’t literally pay directly for. Police, firefighters and K-12 education immediately come to mind. Few of us pay directly for such services which are deemed to be “rights.” In fact, ironically, many of us pay property taxes to fund schools even if we don’t have children. Go figure.
Within the last 100 years we added Social security, the key word being “social,” as in “Socialism,” the system in which the government takes care of its people.
At some point, if we’re going to continue to be any form of America, we must and always have drawn a line when it comes to self-sufficiency. People who are handed things rarely appreciate them (look at America’s current attitude about the police, for example).
Beyond that, the idea that the American government being involved in any way with higher education is fairly laughable since America’s current education system, funded and overseen by the government, is a total disaster and produces children who can’t rank in the top 20 in the world on subjects like math, science, geography and more.
Most notably is that there simply isn’t enough money in this country to continue to redistribute wealth and believe that it will achieve results. I realize that we have done a wonderful job of demeaning and impugning the rich and successful but at some point common sense must prevail lest we implode. If you took all of the wealth from all of the top 1% in America, you would be able to run the government for less than one month as current spending rates, keeping in mind that 77% of the current budget is spent on entitlements. If you took all of the wealth from the top 1% in America, wiped out the entire military and foreign aid spending, you could run the government for less than 3 months. This is why we’re $20 trillion in debt and counting.
Nothing in life is free nor should it be. People deserve helping hands, support, and avenues towards success, but no one deserves to be handed something rather than being asked to earn it. This infantile attitude that people “deserve” a living wage, free food and board, free college and such will ruin what’s left of America, which may be exactly what we need.
