More past thoughts

                                             What would he think?

  Quite often I drive through the center of Lexington Massachusetts right by a beautiful common known as the Lexington Green. For those of you who don’t have that pleasure or even know what the significance of that famous place is let me give you a hint. This is the place where the “Shot heard round the world was fired”. Now I know that some of you will not know what took place there. All I can say to you is get an old U.S. history book and find out. But for the rest, you will recall that it was the start of the Revolutionary War with England. When you drive or walk by you will find standing defiantly at the head of the green a statue of a Minute Man, musket in hand prepared to lay down his life for liberty and freedom, and indeed along with a lot of other minutemen they did. Who were these men who with their muskets stood in front of the greatest military the world had ever known and said the fight starts here? They were ordinary citizens just like us. Wait! Let me take that back. They may have been ordinary citizens, but they were nothing like us. And that is what brought me to the subject in the very beginning.

  While driving through the streets of Lynn Ma. Last week I came upon a fire station that had been closed. There was a big placard out front that stated in large red print THIS STATION CLOSED DUE TO BUDDGET CUTS and then the mayor’s name. I also have encountered numerous stories on the news lately about school closings and teacher layoffs, and a host of other critical local government services that were being threatened. Why was all of this happening? Well, last month our new Governor announced that because of a large deficit he was going to cut State aid to the Commonwealths cities and towns. Well, as you can imagine there immediately rang out cries from every corner of the State. These were the typical cries of those who have a permanent spot at the tit of the great sow we call our Government. If you live in the Socialist Republic of Massachusetts you’ve heard it all before, our elderly will be thrown into the streets to eat dog food, our children will all starve. All of our schools will be forced to double class sizes, all of our teachers will be laid off, and curriculums abandoned. There will be no more fire or police protection. Basically we are all going to die!

  Now when I was a young man I once asked my Dad about a similar situation and this was his reply. My Dad asked me if I knew what the U.S. Park Department did whenever their budget was threatened? Of course I had not a clue, then my Dad said they put a big sign in front of the Washington Monument that reads ELEVATOR OUT OF SERVICE!

 Knowing full well that it will only be a short time before the out cries of the people who were being inconvenienced would force the government to restore their budget.

 Remarkably this tactic has been going on since long before I was born and is still very effective today. But how can this go on unopposed today? Do you suppose that the citizens of this country are so stupid that they don’t know what is really going on? Or maybe we as a people have become so accustom to the free ride that we just ignore the deceit and corruption that run rampant in our local governments.

  I would challenge anyone to come and tell me to my face that the first action that need be taken in a fiscal crisis is to shut down the fire stations and lay off the teachers. If you can I would suggest that you are either stupid or a liar. It is my contention that a child in grade school could find enough waste, fraud, and corruption in one day to avoid the need to cut any services. Yet no one does the right thing. Men and woman of character do not stand up to these thugs and crooks that have worked their way into our government. People don’t even take the time to get involved in the political process and vote. They don’t even care to know the truth let alone do any thing about it.

 I am sad to say that if the statue could come to life today he would surly look around in disgust and say where have all the Americans gone? I am also sure that if given some time to digest just what a sorry bunch we’ve turned out to be that he would surely ask why they gave their lives up for us.