The Protestant Work Ethic . . .

Many years ago, our illustrious government recognized the plight of the school dropouts who were forced by their illiteracy to work at the lowest paying jobs in the country . . . typically, fast-food purveyors!

"Those wages are too low!", they said. "Let's have a law that allows us to tell the employer what he must pay as a minimum hourly wage. That way, those who must work at the lowest paying jobs will be able to earn enough to be able to support themselves and their families."

So they repealed the law of supply and demand (tongue in cheek)! At the same time they destroyed the principle incentive for kids to stay in school. By artificially raising the wages of those whose educational and/or capability level limited their opportunities to enjoy a better than lowest standard of living, they proved that one does not even have to have a high school diploma in order to be able to hold a job that will pay enough to keep them in drugs, booze, and ladies of the evening. And by scrupulously avoiding the marriage vows, the females of the species can get additional help from the government to provide for their offspring born out of wedlock.

Sound like socialism? How about Hitler's children? Of course! Is it any wonder that our high school age kids opt to take one of these low paying jobs instead of attending high school, thus making it impossible for them to be able to hold an even higher paying job?

But wait! There's more! Almost always, when the scales are tipped in one direction, something also comes into play to tip them back again.

Since fewer kids are graduating from high school and looking forward to a college education, we are now depriving many of our institutions of higher learning of the opportunity to teach those no longer prospective students the really finer points of socialism.

Ever notice that most of these institutions of higher learning seem to pander to a staff of deans, professors, and other instructors who teach so far to the left that the student can actually graduate from that institution without being able to spell capitalism, let alone to define it? And, of course, socialism has now been redefined as democracy because socialism's relationship to communism has made the use of that term as unpopular as a number of other unsavory words like pimp and whore. And now the drive is underway to place such terms as conservative and Republican in that same category!

Does this signal the demise of the Republican party? Quite possibly, unless, of course, they are wise enough to change its name to something more acceptable to the product that our educational system has been spewing forth for at least the last fifty years! It is now quite apparent that mainstream thinking is oriented toward a government that taxes the rich and gives to the rest of them. A sort of modern day Robin Hood! No one wants to pay taxes anymore, and many of them do not! Those of you who are addicted to the boob tube will be able to attest to the number of assorted accounting firms that specialize in helping those behind on their income taxes to work out a settlement with the IRS for a small fraction of what they should pay. Gosh, I wonder what Al Capone would think of this . . . Born fifty years too soon! Those of you who do not recognize the name will appreciate the fact that Al was a very clever member of the lawbreaker group of the 1930's who was able to avoid the electric chair that he so richly deserved, but was too stupid to pay his fair income taxes, and so he wound up in Alcatraz for having cheated the government out of its due! Never happen in today's society!

Of course, there are a good many of our citizens who do pay taxes, and each of those who read this that think that what I have described above is acceptable behavior, should get down on their knees and thank whichever diety suits them, because it is the taxpayers of this country that make it possible for the government to be able to afford to send out all those relief checks!

But, all you high school drop-outs should save your money, because it can't go on forever. One of these days, those who do not work for a living will outnumber those who pay their taxes, and the screams from the taxpayers will be heard all the way to Washington!

So hearken unto me, brethren! Even in these days, a person who is willing to work can get along with no more than a high school education, and is probably better off without having attended an institution of higher learning. But if you aspire to a higher standard of living, you are in for a big surprise: Most employers pay lip service to the socialistic measures forced on them by the Federal Government, but all of them have found that they must still run their business with an eye peeled for profit, or they are going to go out of business!

As for taxing the rich to pay all those special benefits to the drop-out generations, you might want to give some thought to this: All of the large employers in this country are owned by their stockholders. When the tax load becomes so high that those companies can make only marginal profits, or even post losses, their stock goes down on the market, the companies are then down-rated in their credit ratings and if they do not turn things around, the stockholders demand a change in management and/or force a sellout to a competitor. You see, it is the profits that a company makes that make it possible for that company to grow, creating more jobs. No profits, no jobs! Maybe even no more company! So, as you can see, this gives the lie to all the socialistic educational institutions, because ours is a capitalistic society, depending on capitalism, not socialism to provide all the jobs that our citizens need.

And, finally, the concept of the free ride can only take you so far . . . after that, you still have to work to go further . . . if you have the education to allow you to do so!