overwhelmingly helpless and dependent, just the way the gov’t likes us…

… “Up to 30 people were pepper-sprayed by police after students tried to storm a Santa Monica College trustee board meeting in protest over proposed higher course fees.”

The students were chanting, “No cuts, no fees, education should be free”.

Education should be free.

Free, because teachers don’t deserve a salary. Free, because it doesn’t cost a dime to maintain the school’s infrastructure and facilities. Yes, free. Free to make getting a college education has commonplace – read worthless – as having a high school diploma.

There used to be this notion, called the American Dream, where “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement“. The idea was that you can attain for yourself upward social mobility, regardless of social class or birth, through hard work.

Ah, work.

I worked in high school to save for college. After 2 years that money ran out and guess what, I got another job. I took all the required courses for my degree at a local community college and transferred the credits to save money. When I went back to college and studied nursing, 15 years later, I paid for everything myself as well. Again, I worked.

College is expensive. Expensive as hell. No one is doubting that. But to say you can’t go to college, in this day and age, because you’re poor is absurd. If you maintain your GPA in high school and get a part time job you can easily afford a local community college. From there, with good grades, you can apply for the endless grants and scholarships that exist. But you have to maintain your grades, which requires study and effort. You also have to save money and not blow it all on PBR and beard wax. It’s hard, I know.

If you are an average student of average intelligence do not expect people to throw money at your feet to get a “free” education. If you do not want to work don’t expect the rest of us who do to feel pity for you. And lastly, there is no right to riot in the Constitution. If you chose to storm a board meeting than don’t be surprised if you are met with unwelcome resistance.

Chanel that disgruntled rage on your resume. Use that boundless energy to pound the pavement and find a job. Stop expecting everything to be handed to you. You have a right to this, that, or the other. No, actually you don’t. You have a right to attain upward social mobility, yes, through hard work and actual achievement.

And if you still can’t manage college what is so gosh darn terrible about finding a job and entry level position and working your way up the ladder? That is what the American Dream was about, advancing through your own efforts. An 18 year old store clerk could, through hard work and job experience, be promoted to store manager then to district manager. There is nothing degrading about starting from the bottom. Some of the best bosses I’ve ever worked for started out this way. What made them great was the hands-on knowledge they learned from each job level as they progressed forward.

All these gov’t hand outs have made people expectant and perfectly helpless to care for themselves. Ambition, drive, and ingenuity is being bred out of our youths. People come to the work force with nothing to offer except unrealistic expectations to be made CEO because they have a right to something.

Maybe it’s just a simple matter of confusion. The words ‘right’ and ‘want’ or not synonymous. You may want a house but do not have a right to a house. To get a house you need to have saved a deposit and have a decent credit score to be approved for a home loan. If you do not make the effort to save the money or build credit than you get no house. The government, or anyone else for that matter, does not owe you a house simply because you want one.

You may want a college education but you do not have a right to one; unless you are willing to put in the time and energy to attain one.

I’m not sure why people are so quick to become indebted to the government. The only thing I can think of is pure laziness and the complete inability to provide for themselves. The latter is how government institutions like their citizens, it helps them maintain power. When Americans can do for themselves, provide for themselves and figure out clever ways around life’s obstacles they clearly no longer need the government and her politicians to play nanny.

I suppose if Big Government was giving me housing vouchers, food stamps, medicaid, childcare vouchers, Obamacare and free birth control – and I became wholly dependent on these items to live – I would be afraid to lose them and vote for whatever politician told me they were going to fight to keep my subsidies in place.

And lastly… free education. You get what you pay for.