The war on poverty and how to climb out of this hole created.

 

Ms. Tingley, a retired school superintendent and college professor, wrote a rebuttal to the war on poverty in the Williamsburg Gazette on 6-1-2024. She attacked with a typical liberal attack of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is hard." She is right. It is hard without some skills you can offer for employment besides flipping a hamburger. The truth is, some could not flip a hamburger if they wanted to or cook one to the proper degree as needed for a healthy meal. Urbanization is one of the direct causes of this phenomenon. Some high schoolers don't know the difference between a straight-blade screwdriver and a Phillips. How can they survive with little education? I offer my ideas on the war on poverty through the lens of Been There Done That. We have forgotten how we got here through high school shops, Future Farmers of America, and community skill centers in every town.

Ms. Tingley is correct when she writes concerning the war on poverty. The war on poverty has failed due to today's partisan politics. We seem to keep doing the same things to prevent poverty and expecting different results, and that is a form of madness. Ms. Tinsley writes, "We don't all get to start at the same starting line."  All are 100% true. We should acknowledge the luck of the draw and the family we are born into; neither is the same, nor does it provide the same outcomes or opportunities. Ms. Tingley writes about how "life is hard." Well, who said life was supposed to be easy? Life is hard for all of us. Yes, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is hard. Who said it was easy? For a child in poverty, the best chance of breaking the cycle is parents' love of education and their recognition that education is the most important and best way out of poverty. Someone has to be there to tell the child to go to bed. Someone has to tell the child to do their homework. Someone has to teach the child to respect and mind the teachers. Someone has to remind the child that hard work yields plenty of rewards. Someone has to put food on the table. Someone has to give their life and be willing to go without, and give the child a chance. A sacrifice must be made. Without the sacrifice of the child born of your own flesh and blood, the child will follow the parent into poverty as, indeed, the sheep follow each other over the cliff when the wolf attacks. 

Through our love of our fellow man, we have created unintentional consequences concerning human life where the survival of the fittest, a natural law of living on this rock, has been compromised. Ending poverty is relatively simple. Urbanization of our communities has left many without the skills to survive when we give without asking for anything in return. The idea of everyone getting a college education (Obama) was an unrealistic vision and a political lie for votes.  

I grew up poor, leaving a broken family unit at age 20 in a pickup truck, a bag of clothes, and a tent. I relied on my rural skills of hunting and gathering food right there in front of me. I had the skills to survive. My trade work at that age came from my time working rural farm jobs as a young adult, and of course, I was an accomplished welder at the age of 14; my time in Future Farmers of America and Shop in my high school years afforded me the skills needed to survive and have never asked the government for one darn dime. Today, I am a millionaire who is still living off those same skill sets. I was determined to put myself through night school college. To end the war on poverty, we must return to our rural roots; reintroducing shop class at the middle school level of K-12 will go a long way toward defeating this unnecessary enemy created by our love for our fellow humans.