Guest Column
by Joel Marchese
Contrary to popular belief, we still have lots to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Holiday. We still live in a free society. We still maintain the right to vote, the right to free speech and freedom of religion. And, we still have countless other rights and privileges not enjoyed in other countries and by many cultures around the world. We are truly and literally blessed.
This is why the elections of 2014 matter!
Young people, especially, have a ton of stuff for which they can be thankful: Community colleges with affordable rates and excellent instructors, internet cafes, social media, and the ability to drive at age 16, vote at age 18, and drink alcohol at age 21 (some states may vary on this one).
Let me clarify now, I’m not advocating for any kind of vice for our young people. Please don’t send me comments or letters saying that I encouraged you to start drinking!
Seriously though, young people have a great deal to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, or any time of year for that matter. America is a great place to be young!
This being the case, it is the young among us who must not take for granted the blessings of a free and open society like the United States. It is the young person who has the most to lose by electing politicians who care nothing about your freedoms and care only about their ideology and maintaining power and control. The control they seek is over YOU! It is YOU over whom they most desire control, for without you they can no longer hold on to power, control your healthcare, dictate what kind of car you drive, or what type of food you can consume. It is the young voter who risks all by stepping into the voting booth. This generation, like no other before, holds their destiny at their finger tips. Cast a vote for the wrong agenda, and your future will be screwed!
This is not advice from some old guy trying to make you think or live like we did in the 1980s. Although I will say that many of us young people back then did some pretty stupid things, listened to strange-sounding music, and wore clothes that our parents thought were cool. Needless to say, we were far from perfect. On the political spectrum, we tended to be more conservative. After all, we were beneficiaries of the Reagan era and real prosperity.
The word Prosperity (and I’m capitalizing it here to point out its importance) is something that young people today are truly in danger of losing. That is to say, it is slipping away from your grasp. Prosperity only happens when you embrace the fact that being poor is not a permanent state of being. You will shed the shackles of poverty when you realize that acting upon your dreams leads to results, which opens doors of opportunity, which ultimately leads to prosperity. Simply put, getting up off the couch and embracing the concept of hard work pays off, big time.
So you say, “I don’t care about being rich.” But, you do care about poverty, feeding the poor, and helping the sick and helpless. You’ve said this over and over at the polls. The big question is, do you want to help those people or become one of them? And, once you become one of them, you must realize that you will no longer be able to help them, because you are too poor to do so.
The Democrat Party has built it’s success off the backs of young people and poor people who think that simply saying you care for the poor and helpless makes you a good person, a better person. It does not. What makes you a better person is that you care enough to first make a success with your own life, so that you will have the cash and means to help others who truly cannot take after themselves. That is the definition of compassion. That is what conservatives not only believe, but practice.
Happy Thanksgiving!
# # #
Marchese is a candidate for Congress in the 53rd District.
Comments 27
Happy Thanksgiving, Joel.
You do an excellent job of explaining why Prosperity is more than just “getting rich”. Using the same format (one word), would you name the condition which begets Prosperity and what you might do, in Congress, to advance it?
Happy Thanksgiving Brian. The word that comes to my mind is Liberty. Liberty has provided the foundation for growth in this nation for the past 236 years! It has helped keep alive the entrepreneurial spirit of American business and innovation that has given us the leading edge in science and technology. Tyranny, on the other hand, is what we are seeing now. It is tyrrany from within, from the laptops and offices of our own elected officials, from our so called leaders and from the executive branch itself. It is tyranny that will lead to a collapse of our economy, of the middle class, of our healthcare system, of our moral fiber. My job, when elected, will be to consistently point out these two contrasting pathways, Liberty and Tyranny, and to support any and all measures which bring about a revival of our Constitutional principles and embrace the rights of our citizens under the Bill of Rights. My job as a legislator should not just focus on passing laws, but doing away with those laws which have failed us, or worse yet, damaged those systems which have been working well for us all along.
Well done, Sir. Well done.
Darn. We were thinking, Getting up off the couch begets prosperity. Liberty is much better.
Joel,
I appreciate your sentiment especially on Thanksgiving. As you point out, our country has always been exceptional because of the freedoms our people enjoy. As others on this site have pointed out, these freedoms do not come from our government; they have been handed down from a higher source.
With the above in mind, I ask if you believe these freedoms apply to all people:
Should those in the inner city be free from “stop and frisk” searches?
Should everyone be free to love and marry the person (consenting adult, not immediate family – let’s not go there) of their choice?
Should everyone be free to live in the country of their choice?
And a topical question for Thanksgiving Day, should everyone be free, without fear of being fired to have the freedom to opt to work or not work on national and religious holidays?
Isn’t giving freedom to someone to work without getting fired really just putting a restriction on another person’s ability to manage their employees and run their business? Can you call restricting someone a freedom?
A different example, can you give a robber the freedom to take the belongings of others by making it illegal to stop or arrest him? Or is that really just stealing and not freedom at all?
Some Holiday Thoughts: Should we be outraged people work on Thanksgiving? Brian Brady on Abundance. http://sdrostra.com/?p=36698
Michael,
I find it very interesting that of the four questions I posed, that is the one you took exception to. I also take exception to your comparison of stealing with wanting a day off without pay on a national holiday.
T.A.,
I think the key word in Brian’s post was “chose.”
The other three are pretty clearly covered by the 4th Amendment, the 1st Amendment, and the powers granted to congress in the Constitution (immigration policy).
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that wanting a day off to argue with your family over dinner is morally equivalent to robbing someone. Just trying to think about the other side. When you go to work for someone, you’re agreeing to work the hours they operate unless otherwise stipulated when hired. The employee has the right to refuse to work on a day they’re scheduled. Nobody is going to jail for calling in sick. But doesn’t a business owner have a certain level of rights to decide which employees are damaging his possesion? (His business)
We’ve decided, as a society, that a person’s age, sex, skin color, and religion can’t be held against them. Now you want conflicts with dinner schedules is to be added to that list? I’m not sure that’s a reasonable power to give government over business owners.
But I’m listening.
Michael,
I was talking about National Holidays (maybe I needed to capitalize the words), not just any dinner. I thought those holidays were supposed to mean something.
Your comments do remind of the fact that “freedom” may be more complicated than we think since one person’s freedom might actually infringe on another’s. I suspect this is the case more often than not. Just another reason why working together and compromising is probably not such a bad idea.
Or consensus rather than compromise.
I think that goes under the category of a distinction without a difference.
One more question for you – if our rights come from our Creator and all the people of the world have the same Creator, then why should Congress have any say where people can live?
If you want 1 and I want 10 so we use 5, it’s a compromise. It’s not inherently better or worse due to the fact that we compromised. There’s a case to be made that it’s probably worse than going entirely with one idea or another rather than compromising.
If we decide to forget numbers and settle on purple because we both like purple, it’s consensus. The difference between the two is very important.
I’m not sure people have the “right” to be a part of any society they choose regardless of what the people of that society say. So I don’t think I agree with your premise.
We were talking about freedom, not rights. What could be more fundamental than the freedom to live where you choose regardless of where you were born?
As for consensus/compromise, the problem we face today is that most elected Republicans want 1, while most elected Democrats want 9 even though most of the public wants somewhere between 4 and 6.
Does the freedom to live anywhere come with the responsibility to refuse all government assistance and support? Because, again, if rights/liberties/freedoms are veiled advocations for restrictions on others (to keep what you’ve earned, in this case), then is it really about rights/liberty/freedom?
Michael,
I have no problem denying welfare, Medicaid, etc. to new immigrants for a period of time. How does five years sound?
I’ll see your 5 and raise you 20.
But it’d probably be better left to a math major to pick a less arbitrary number. And I think it’d make sense to only count tax paying years (until we finally get rid of the income tax).
So are you advocating for a wide open border? Or what specifically?
I am mostly just playing devil’s advocate with the “freedom” issue, but the five years wasn’t arbitrary; it is how long you have to be in the country before you can become a citizen.
I do believe that anyone who is willing to submit to a criminal background check and a health scan and agree to do what it takes to become a citizen should be allowed to live here. I am not sure how you can believe in individual freedom and think otherwise.
“I do believe that anyone who is willing to submit to a criminal background check and a health scan and agree to do what it takes to become a citizen should be allowed to live here. I am not sure how you can believe in individual freedom and think otherwise.”
So do I. In fact, I’d make it even easier than that to become an American if we didn’t have that nasty welfare state. In my world, any American could sponsor an immigrant (and be responsible for him/her) at any given time. It would go a long way to insure that the welfare state wasn’t abused and immigrants would be working towards citizenship
Brian,
Why do people need an American sponsor to become an American? Why can’t they be responsible for themselves and ineligible for welfare until they become a citizen?
Say we pass immigration reform to let more people in the door and wisely make sure they are not eligible for benefits because without that, our country would be flooded to the point of broke. So it makes sense.
The fear and reality is that after we do that, then the Democrats will run commercials with poor, suffering immigrant children in the U.S. and call Republicans a “racist tea-baggers” until we agree to some social program that we can’t afford to take care of everyone who is already here.
That’s the fear.
Michael,
Are you saying that the fear of being called names is enough to stop you from doing the right thing? By the way, I think some Democrats already call Republicans “racist tea-baggers.”
Dear Joel.
Please analyze our solution to get justice for the poor and Homeless. The City Council just approve sending $167 Million in former Redevelopment Agency (RDA) Tax Increment (TI) to the County Auditor Controller. Political forces at both the City and County want the $167 million to be divided into the City and County General Funds, instead of social and economic justice.
http://www.tinyurl.com/20131121c
http://www.tinyurl.com/20131121b
The majority of the money $130 Million will go towards the County Law Enforcement, not within City of San Diego limits.
Please help solve this political problem. That just needs thoughtful investigation and Political buy in.
“Why do people need an American sponsor to become an American?”
Two ideas for this:
1- to teach them how to be an American citizen
2- to be financially responsible for the immigrant if things don’t work out
“Why can’t they be responsible for themselves and ineligible for welfare until they become a citizen?”
They have no skin in the game at that point. Certainly, exceptions could be made for those who want to prove financial responsibility (or even have a bond posted by an insurance company). This isn’t some “right-wing idea either”; it’s practiced in Australia and Mexico
I’m just trying to make it easier for more well-intentioned, future American citizens to get here and start their journey
Brian,
Do you really believe current American citizens are the ones that should be teaching others how to be an American Citizen? LOL
HQ, you know what I am saying.
Calling names is the effective tactic and putting in social programs after the fact is what is feared.
I’m not saying it is right or wrong or my opinion or not my opinion, but it’s a fear. Americans are a generous bunch. We like underdogs and we hate oppression. Neither side of the aisle hates any group of people, generally. Especially hard-working people who want to be Americans.
But we hate being taken advantage of or agreeing to something and having the rules change down the road. It’s a fear. And it is not unrealisitic.
Michael,
Definitely not unrealistic based on recent history, but all we need is people with the courage to do the right thing and then fight for the deal that was made. We used to have those people and if we don’t find some new ones soon, we are going to continue our present downward spiral..