Home of Today's Common Sense

Published – Brownsville Herald 3/20/2005
According to a State of Texas interpretation of the “No Child Left Behind” requirements as they relate to English as a Second Language there is a mandate to determine the level of a students writing skills as “Beginning”, “Intermediate”, “Advanced”, and “Advanced High”. The local implementation of that program also requires that the students prepare 3 to 5 compositions specifically for that purpose which are evaluated and filed with the evaluation. Many teachers do not know what if anything will ever be done with those files. I wonder also!
I happened to have the opportunity to read several of the examples where the identity of the writer was not available to me. One related to “why would someone steal something” which resulted in many of the expected answers such as “revenge”, “because he could”, or for “financial gain”; but more interesting to me was the Social Studies subject, “What is freedom?”.
One young person, I would have to describe as very “Street Savvy” after reading the first paper, described what I believe to be the most insightful and pervasive understanding of how many view freedom in “today’s” America and possibly how many view America’s “influence and generosity” around the world.
The government is perceived as “having fooled Americans into thinking they are free and safe but are in reality nothing but another number assigned when born”. As evidence of this, the fact of free school, free food, welfare benefits, given to some, is submitted with real disdain, but then asks about the taxes that cause hard some working Americans to end up in bankruptcy because of those things. The accuracy of the perception is not as important as the fact it was voiced in the community that “America” deems as needy.

The idea frequently advanced that “those people” don’t appreciate all we have done for them or that if we just provide more funds for this or that they will like us better and see things our way.
It would appear that our young writer feels that all of this trying to help has really taken away some of his freedoms and made him feel inferior in some way.
Our founding fathers believed that we should be free to make the choices that would guide our lives and have an equal opportunity to work for success not that we should be guaranteed equal success. Every attempt at outcome based equality – socialism, has failed throughout history.
In the U.S. every immigrant group that arrived followed a similar path; including my immigrant group, the Irish. Many came here as indentured servants, where they sold a portion of their life to pay debts in Ireland, and many more came here during the famine. Some were thought to be possibly diseased and were placed in quarantine on some of the “Thousand Islands” in New York where hundreds are thought to have perished due to exposure to the severe elements rather than disease.
The majority “white Anglo Saxon protestants” looked down on the “Irish Papists” and disdained their ghettos. These new immigrants like so many others started with the lowest of jobs and sought to better themselves with military service, government jobs, and political careers. Some making good life choices and others not so good.
The Irish faced some handicaps, however, an intense pride as well as a highly developed idealism. Additionally, many believed that the English and their perceived attitude of “I know what is good for you better than you do” were responsible for their misfortunes in Ireland and brought those sentiments to America.
In this area, the earlier settlers saw some of the results of this when, Irish American Soldiers, poorly treated by their “Anglo Overlords”, deserted the U.S. Army and fought for Mexico and the “Catholic Mexican People” during the Mexican War. Stories and sentiments of brutal British treatment of those days, were prevalent in my community and among relatives during my youth. They were often related at pubs and public places where Irishmen gathered. Another story I heard, possibly not true, was that the community of Churubusco, New York, near my home town on the Canadian Border, was named for the site of the last battle.
I relate this not as history but to demonstrate that we all face many obstacles which include our inherited prejudices and yet with the opportunities available here it is possible to achieve the particular success that we really want.
I refuse to believe that people with a Hispanic surname, a different face, a different language, a different color or a different God are in any way less intelligent or less capable because of those differences. People are people and regardless of the differences, can make the choices that will bring the success that they want. Obviously, poor life choices can also bring a poorer outcome. All of the difficulties I have faced in my 60 years have been the result of poor life choices. I have learned with time that my maker continues to give me a perfect day every morning and I try not to screw it up too bad by not making some of the bad choices. Some, like me, just take longer than others.
Our government is going from bad to worse by trying to take these choices away; the federal support of our schools effectively dictates what is taught and how. The other federal “give-me’s” essentially tell us how we must live and remove even more choices. Any of these social benefits should be the responsibility of the community to help each other not to force folks in other communities to support us because we cannot take care of ourselves. It just provides another opportunity for others to say, “Live how we say because we support you.” I seek freedom not effective enslavement.”
The current crop of politicians can only say that the State should give us more and that the Feds are at fault for our problems because they don’t give us enough. All the while the money goes to administering all of this and still there is no positive result. Could it be that the motivation is to “not achieve success” because improved conditions will not require so much money to be managed and a big loss of power.
I would like to recover some of that lost personal power; Freedom of choices and the acceptance of the results of those choices should be the guiding light and meaning of Freedom. That gives me back my stolen personal power.