New restaurant at empty KFC

[csgray]

I grew up in a rural farming community similar to Puna and jobs for teenagers were scarce. My first jobs were detassling corn, picking strawberries, roofing pole barns, and mucking out horse stalls, none of which were useful to gaining employment as a young adult. Not everyone lives in the sort of suburban environment that has entry level job opportunities readily available, and a thinly spread community with the population of Puna certainly doesn't.

If you weren't related to a business owner in my town there was no job to be had, so our HS had a work experience program for students who weren't college bound. That was in the 70s, so the need for programs like this one is not a new thing. When my father was a kid (he's 81) high schools all had a vocational track for people to learn the basic skills to enter skilled trades. Those programs have been eliminated from public schools by the "let the free market decide" anti tax forces over the last 30 years or so, starting with the Reagan administration, leaving it to places like KYBC to pick up the slack.

Afwjam went to a private tax exempt religious school, which means every taxpayer in that community who couldn't afford a similar education for their children was "forced" to support his education by funding all that public infrastructure his school relied on: sewers, roads, water, police and fire protection and so on. Dwedeking as well was probably educated at public schools or private non profit tax exempt schools that get a free ride on everyone else's dime, but now that they have theirs supporting the education of the next generation is extortion by jack booted thugs and the enterprise delivering that education must be evil by association.

I think what we have here is pure mean spirited selfishness masquerading as a political philosophy. If you look at the civic history of our country, public schools were such a high priority that pioneers living in open sheds or sod houses built schools and supported them through taxes. The idea of investing in the education of the next generation was accepted as a common public good, now a vocal portion of our population who benefited from that system want to close the door in the face of the next generation. There is a lot of room for debate on how well our tax dollars are spent, but to denigrate any and every expenditure of tax dollars as evil and corrupt because you don't get to choose to pay or not pay your taxes is absurd. If you want to live in some Randian utopia go find it, but the system in this country is that we are a nation of laws with an elected representative government that prioritizes expenditures based on the idea of common public good, and constantly seeking to undermine that system because you don't want to pay for anyone's needs except your own is as futile as it is selfish.


Carol