“I work to stay alive.” – Bette Davis. “Get busy living or get busy dying.” – Stephen King
Talk show pundits, politicians, and bar room philosophers banter around the causes/reasons for the seemingly irrational behavior of thousands of protestors over the recent Grand Jury decision to not indict officer Darrin Wilson. The facts, as reported by the Ferguson Prosecutor, discredited much of the previously reported account of events leading up to the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown. Yet protesters continue to disregard sworn testimony or the discredit of the same.
A new symbol for nationwide protestors, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” continues to be the war cry even though its origin is founded on a lie. It never happened. Irrational!!
Our focus on perceived police racism ( sometimes real) as the root of the problem is a distractor. We hack at the leaves of the cause of disruptive social events such as the Ferguson protests with rubber machete’s when we should be running excavators twenty-four-seven to expose its real roots…roots of poverty, hopelessness, idleness, broken dreams and hate.
The Bette Davis quote is a classic. Having arrived as an actress at a point in her life where work was no longer a financial necessity, she continued working to “stay alive.” The Michael Browns of the world and millions like him, including thousands of the “national” Ferguson protestors apparently didn’t and don’t know what it is like to experience the satisfaction of having meaningful work. Michael Brown would be alive today if, instead of stealing cigarillos, he was doing homework or resting in preparation for reporting to his job. Instead, the curse of idleness wrapped its tentacles around a young mans aspirations and dreams, leaving him to roam the streets that fateful night in Ferguson, a young man without hope and without direction.
Who’s to blame? A question for which there is no easy answer but one thing is for sure. A national government blinded by ideology ignores facts, history and reality; a pattern destined to undermine the framework of economic expansion and consequently individual opportunity.
For six disruptive years, and before, our Federal Government has had its ladder placed against the wrong wall. Instead of using rational policy changes to revive a flailing economy, the Obama administration has systematically and ignorantly stifled the engine of opportunity that made America the greatest country in the world. The small business. Regulation upon regulation have driven the golden goose to lay eggs of lead. In the midst of an economy whose recovery is anemic at best, the Federal Government needs to stop looking at Capitalism as the enemy and remember what made this country the worlds standard bearer for opportunity. When that is done, the Michael Browns of the world will be so busy pursuing their dreams there will be no time or motivation to steal cigarillos.
authorbobtait 