Lessons from history
Posted on Friday, September 21st 2012 at 10:11 am
I was talking with a friend of mine about Arizona history. It boggles the mind that people would come from east of the Mississippi in horse drawn wagons to hopefully strike it rich mining or ranching. If they broke down along the way there was no AAA to call or cell phones for that matter. When they settled here they had no air conditioning, plumbing, electricity or any modern "conveniences:" If they ran out of provisions or got sick there was no government program or healthcare to provide for them. People relied on their own wits, hard work and the compassion of their neighbors when they hit hard times. That "rugged individualism" is what built America before we slowly allowed the government to take over more of our lives. What scares me is what happens when the government fails us or is no longer able to bail us out? When Mitt Romney brought up the 47% of Americans that don't pay income tax it started a firestorm of controversy. One commentator accused Mitt of degrading retirees and disabled people as "moochers". That inflames people and takes us away from the real issue, have we as Americans become too dependent on government? When Katrina hit New Orleans a large portion of the population that remained after the warnings to evacuate were people that were dependent on the government. They expected the government to rescue them and appeared nearly helpless and incapable of helping their neighbor. What will the future be like if we continue to grow a dependent class of people? And if the government is incapable of meeting the needs of these dependent people chaos will reign. When we examine our history and marvel at the capacity of our ancestors to survive and through their hard work and cooperation with their neighbors build the foundation of this great land, it begs the question could we do what they did? If not we truly have not learned from history.
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