>All, >Before this get blew out the water let me ask one question. >Are you any better off then you was four years ago? > >Noel "Spirit Rider" Bell
No, I'm not. I've got two kids in college now and I'm skipping lunches and hoping the gas in my car goes a little farther if I drive slower. I'm a design engineer but vacations have been re-defined as trips to deliver the kids back to school at the end of break. That could be great if it didn't seem to degrade into whirlwind trips with all the time spent making arrangements and packing and unpacking belongings to eat a lunch at McDonalds in a far away city and then come home. My wife works full time and picks up O.T. when she can. In spite of this we are now just paying bills and hoping nothing breaks that needs repaired. Don't think I'm complaining. I'm grateful for God's provision. My brother-in-law, the union member, has taken his first family vacation of his marriage to my sister. My niece and nephew are almost grown and ready to cut the apron strings. I'm glad they did it even though they couldn't afford it. But. I remember all the talk in the news in the spring of Bill Clinton's last year about the economic down-turn beginning and the affects that would "trickle-down" months later, so I didn't expect a whole lot. Instead of what we've got now, I could have had the same thing plus a President trying to put ultra-liberal judges on the Supreme Court. I could have had Higher Taxes. I could have had not only the rampant abortion that we have now, but a president that supported it too. I could have had the same thing happen in NYC in 2001 but a "President who would have mobilized world opinion" (in the words of one utopian dreamer) instead of acting "unilaterally." [By the way, "unilaterally" means "with one opinion". It could be several groups or countries with one opinion. "Multilateral" doesn't mean a coalition with a single goal or opinion, it means multiple opinions or positions. ...Think of the warning phrases. "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians." Or, "Too many cooks spoil the broth."] I could have had a President who put his trust in the United Nations, an organization that is overwhelmingly Arab in makeup and very much anti-US and anti-democratic in spite of assertions to the contrary. I could have had an "environmental" president, instead of a pro-business one. But a former employer of mine that was once a major US timber harvester is now languishing near bankruptcy after bending over backward trying to make a business of "making" lumber from the crumbs of wood chips allotted to it by the environmentalists and the spotted owl. The wood chips didn't make good wood and the company got sued. I could have had "universal" health care. Not "good", mind you, just universal. I believe there is an inverse relationship between the quality of health care and the amount of government regulation that controls it. I could have had a president who believes in proliferation of re-distribution of wealth through taxes and hand-outs. I was watching a PBS special about 15 years ago when they first made a robotic submarine that could reach the depths of the Marianas Trench to take pictures. At unimaginable pressures of hundreds of tons per square inch, with no light, there were volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean spewing caustic chemicals at the temperature of molten rock. Amazingly, surrounding these vents, were creatures that survived and depended on the energy from the vents. The message to me was this: When you supply a source of energy or sustenance, no matter how austere or severe or inhospitable, you create a culture that survives on it. There's something about a family that is pretty good at rearing children to someday move out on their own and be self sufficient. Government makes a lousy parent--especially when lawyers are involved. We often need to be our brother's keeper, but not his enabler. DPerich _______ List host: http://Kahunapule.org List info: http://RangerNet.org/faq.htm To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe rangernet" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://RangerNet.org/subscribe.htm
