If You Want Something Done Right...
The era of entitlement that has enveloped the United States since the last Depression is problematic on many levels. One of those many levels is that it fosters in people the assumption that they can't do things - that the government is the one that must, and is the only entity that can do things. Conveniently, this fosters an ever increasing reliance on the government as people who used to be self-sufficient gradually (or quickly) become dependent on the government to do things for them that they & their forefathers would have done themselves.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about this inspiring story is that it revealed just how deeply this dependency mindset permeates me. I begin immediately asking questions like, Who said they could do this? How do we know if they did a good job?
The same questions should probably be asked of anything the government undertakes on our behalf as well, though. As massive, tax-payer funded spending programs are unleashed in the vague hopes of something vaguely referred to as stimulus, aren't these the questions we ought to be demanding answers to? How did I reach a point at which I assume that that government must do quite literally everything for me, and for my community? How did we as citizens allow ourselves to be diminished to the point that we wring our hands while our livelihood and safety are threatened, yet don't seem to consider that perhaps we can contribute directly to a healthier solution? How did anything get done before we had such a pervasive government?
People did things for themselves.
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