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HELLO?  HELLO? – Double Dippers, Compulsive Gambling, Releasing Prisoners, Trent Lott, etc.

By Terry Gray

It seems that there are people kicking about “double dippers”, especially the double dippers that were government employees, retired, and then went back to work for the government.  The people kicking are the government budgetary watchdogs.  What’s the deal here, I ask?  A person works for government or in private business, retires after 30 years, receives the retirement pension he deserves, and goes back to work at a job he knows and a place where he is needed.  Who are these people to tell a man that he can’t have his retirement if he is still working at the same job?  He should be able to get the money he earned through his hard work when the time comes for him to get it.  Not at the whim of government.

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Compulsive gambling is making Courier-Journal headlines and just the headline alone is about as liberal a statement as one can make.  “Gaming rise takes human toll” just makes me want to cry.  How many times do we have to hit these “humanitarians” over the head and tell them not to save us?  It’s our money, and if we want to lose it, then that is our business.  What if I decided to take all of my money and give it to charities?  Would someone squawk then that I was recklessly squandering my money?  No, I’d be a hero.  And think about this, if I go to Joe’s poker game on Saturday nights and lose all of my money, then I’m a criminal.  Even if I win, I’m a criminal.  But if I spend all of my money buying government sanctioned lottery tickets, spend all of my money playing bingo at my church, or lose all my money at a government sanctioned casino, then I’m just stupid, but I’m legal.  Get out of my head, my heart, my pocket and my life!

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In reading the Courier-Journal forum, a place for censored letters from selected readers to spotlight their beefs and praises, I can only shake my head. 

One letter writer pats Patton on the back for releasing prisoners even though he doesn’t believe that it will work.  He thinks that a solution to a problem that doesn’t work is better than no solution at all.  HEY, wake up.  A solution that doesn’t work isn’t a solution.  Then he says that this solution that doesn’t work will accomplish what needs to be done.  I know that I’ve missed something here, but I really don’t want to speak with this person for clarification.  I fear that it would be muddy wading indeed.

Another letter writer agrees that the prisoners should be released, and he makes some sense.  I agree that non-violent criminals should not be jailed; calling them criminals is pushing it.  We have politicians in high places that have done more to hurt people than any pot-smoking scoundrel.  The fact is that these people should never have been jailed in the first place.  Now, this letter writer goes on to say that the release of these non-violent prisoners has moved Kentucky closer to greater personal freedom.  Whoa.  I once took a course in logic, and the first rule is to prove a conclusion.  Logic problems give you the answer, and you have to figure out how they got there.  I want to know how the letter writer reached the “conclusion” that we are closer to greater personal freedom by taking this action.  Didn’t these non-violent people lose their personal freedom for a time?  Are they being released because the law is wrong?  Is there any indication that the law will change?  Isn’t this move financially motivated without regard to right or wrong?  Applaud all you want, but applaud for the right reasons and refrain from hollow praise, please.  This action is nothing more than a further testament to the almighty buck.

Now we move to another letter writer’s views on The City of Windy Hills and its monetary reserve accounts.  They apparently have saved money for rainy days.  “Here government people, over-tax our citizenry and hoard the money for a time when you have depleted the official budget.”  If the city planners of Windy Hills used their “pigeonholing” expertise to budget the money correctly, they would not have a shortfall on rainy days, nor would they have a surplus to hoard.

Okay, one more and I’ll move on to other areas of illogical and reckless thinking.  Now I may be wrong about this and correct me if I am, but is not the living wage specifically for government employees?  A letter writer says that the poor are all but invisible to the suburbanites as they try to care for their families, yet they “They care for our parents in nursing homes, clean our homes and offices, landscape our yards, ring up our purchases and make it possible for us to pick up convenience food.”  First of all, Ms letter writer, you make it sound like the jobs they do are sacrifices they do that take them away from their families.  It’s called working to support their families.  Why aren’t you caring for your parents, cleaning your own home, working in your own yard and cooking your own food so these poor, downtrodden folks can stay home and be with their loved ones?  Then you can take the money you save from paying all the little people who serve you and help support them while they enjoy their quality time at home?  Hello? Grow up, lady.  You’d starve to death with a ham on your back.

Trent Lott said nothing that isn’t felt by millions of Americans; he just had more ears to hear him.  We all have our biases, but it just so happens that he is in a position where he can’t readily express his.  I don’t know why this is.  Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, to name a few, gained notoriety by expressing their biases in the guise of fighting prejudice, still a popular stance even after the amends for past actions have been made.  Black folks are some of the most racially biased people in the world, from what I’ve experienced, and their prejudices against whites serve to create a barrier that would otherwise have been long traversed.  As long as they continue to dwell in the past and scream for equality, they will serve a examples of the things that they are trying to overcome.

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Terry Gray

Rabid Citizen/Raging Peasant 

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