Lions and Eagles

My letter to the editor sparked some interesting debate and comments. Mostly encouragements, good to hear. There were a few folks who didn't necessarily disagree, but who think that we'll never get people to be personally responsible for themselves on a large enough scale to ever solve the problem.What can I say? If you start with a low expectation of people, they'll satisfy that expectation. It's like the epidemic of low expectations in majority-black schools these days: If you tell students that they can't learn, then they won't try, and if they don't try, they won't learn. Likewise, if you create policy based on the expectation that people won't try to plan for their own future, you'll make it harder on people who actually do plan for their own futures. On the other hand, if we expect that there will be people who are responsible, and that there will be people who are charitable to those in need, then we might actually get people who are ...

I have submitted this as a Letter to the Editor at the Citizen . This is in reply to the Jan. 4th letter to the editor, " Thanks to 'our wonderful' Obama ". A reader thanked the President for an increased Medicare check she recently received. Here's the thing: The money didn't come from Obama. As my parents taught me, money doesn't grow on trees. All money in the government treasury comes from taxing, and borrowing against future taxes. Ms. Zeldin: Decades ago, before I was old enough to work, politicians told you a lie. They said that if you would just pay your Medicare taxes into the system, they'd pay you back when you got older. You were told that if you would just accept the additional taxation, you wouldn't have to pay for your own medical care in retirement. It was a scam, a Ponzi scheme. They took the money and ran. Now you're being paid back, not with your own tax money, but with mine. Now, that's bad enough. I understand,...