Working For A Better Stokes County

Working For A Better Stokes County

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Since agreeing to join the political fray I have tryed to educate myself more on all the issues. Some that I was concerned about before or had a more immediate impact on my family I was more aware and informed than on issues that did not. But in talking to people and reading more and through the media, I hear alot about liberal and conservative views. Seems people want to label other views and certainly politicians as one or the other or leaning that way. Certainly in our area it is said you cannot be too conservative. I am not sure I understand what that actually means. I do definitely feel that this is a way to skip over the messy details of an argument, and that alot of times in the media it is a person of a certain political persusion degrading the views of another person, or the political record of a politician by saying they are liberal or not conservative enough. I am not sure all this is in the best interest of our country nor our community efforts.
By my definition conservative would be the point of view that the less government the better, while the liberal view would be a well thought out, well executed government program would be the answer. Kind of like ketchup on a hamburger. Some folks want a lot- a liberal amout, some folks like to be more conservative with their condiments. But the current conservative movement does not fit into that definition when you look at specific issues.
While out campaiging it has surprised how alot of people the first issue they want to talk about when I tell them I am running is gun control. I really dont believe this is an issue that comes before the county commissioners much but its of huge importance to some of my friends and neighbors. To me this would be an issue that the true conservative principles would apply. The "Gun People" as I call them seem to feel that any government control , or laws regulating the buying and selling, of their guns is bad. Less government good more government bad.
Another issue that folks get real upset about is imigration. Seems this is an issue that is very complicated but my conservative friends are all in agreement the government needs to get involved and build walls, hire more boarder patrols, more agents, spend what is neccesary to get those illegal immigrants out. On this issue the conservatives want more government.
The big issue some years is abortion. The current staus of being legal would seem to me to be the most conservative status. To take something legal and generate laws to make it illegal, spend government money to enforce these laws, supply more courts, build more prisons to house convicted abortion providers and abortion seekers does not sound like a less government position to me.
The big national issue right now is the war on terror. The conservative movement seems to support the war at any cost whether human of financial. Not to debate the merits of the war here but to me that would be completly opposite of the definition of smaller government is better.
I am not here in this entry to share my views on these , issues there will be more coming on all that. My point in all this is I think this country and county would be much better served if we all eased up on the labeling and tryed a little harder to educate ourselves on the individual potential solutions to specific problems. Lets take the partisan shrillness out as much as possible. I know I am going to do my best on this issue.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Zollie I agree with you on less labeling and harder work on trying to improve the quality of things. If a larger percentage of our county and government groups produced an equal amount of "positive feedback" as they did negative, we could truly see a much greater productive effort than in the recent past. I applaud your involvement and I appreciate the positive potential that you may not even realize you have already generated in people. Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Nifty post I read on a message board today...

If Mexico is so dirt cheap and out of work what are the schools like?

We talk about how we need to upgrade our schools so we can keep up with the rest of the world. Then why do the companies want to use this cheap Mexican labor so bad? Why are they moving their business to China if schooling is so important to luring big business back to America?

In my opinion we need to upgrade our families. Stop giving our kids everything they want and teach them that it takes hard work to get the things they want. Teach them to respect the value of a dollar instead of valuing the number of earrings/tattoo’s they have on their body. Teach them to respect others and not the carrying of guns. We need to stop the epidemic going on where our Children think that being young gives them the right to have a few wild moments in their life. Those wild moments are unacceptable at any time in our life. It is our responsibility as parents to keep our kids out of harms way and teach them right from wrong. We need to teach them what it takes to get ahead from an early age.

We need to stop the brain rot in their early years that seems so prevalent today. Instead of blaming it on our school systems we need to blame it on the parents. Our school systems can only do so much with the material/kids that our families are sending them. It’s like trying to make a BMW out of pig iron, it just can’t happen.

When we hear our politicians talk of our schools failing our kids I just laugh. They will say we have run down schools. I would like to ask them who makes up those schools. Is it not the communities they are in? Are they not made up by the mom’s and dads of the students? The schools are only as important as the parents make them out to be to the kids. So why wouldn’t the parents of those run down schools help them out some. Why wouldn’t they be willing to pick up a paint brush, run a skill saw or help raise funds to buy what the school needs? If my kids were in one of those schools I would do it. Our schools are full of plumber’s kids, carpenter kids, painter’s kids, carpet cleaner’s kids and electrical specialist kids. This country should not have falling down schools.

The problem is the parents are not committed to helping their kids with the things that it takes to get ahead in life. They use the excuse that they want them to have the thinks they didn’t have. The problem is those things will always be there. You can never have ever thing. On the other hand they can have what is right before them. They can have an education that will get them ahead in life.

It’s not our schools as the politicians want us to believe. It’s not our school systems as we claim it to be. It’s the parents that have let our kids down in the country.

When we talk of American people being lazy and not willing to work like Mexicans it starts at home. It starts with what we are teaching our kids. We can’t blame that on our failing schools. We have to teach our kids that all jobs are important no matter how little they may seem. It takes the whole picture in focus to make the finished product. That finished product starts at home.

Anonymous said...

Truly a breath of fresh air. If we could get all candidates and voters to focau on issues and not labels we would be much better off. Can't wait to hear more from you.