It’s time we call it what it is, stupidity and incompetence.  As a society, we have become complacent and self indulgent.  We want somebody else to take care of the problems.  In the “War on Poverty” declared by Lyndon Johnson, we designated welfare agencies to fix the issues of low income in minority segments of the population.  Those agencies then allowed the “safety net” to become a hammock for many, in effect paying people not to work in some cases.

Because of the rules set up to administer welfare programs it became prudent for the father to go out the back door when the welfare agent arrived at the front.  Soon, that led to the total breakdown of a significant portion of society.  Single parents and leaderless children.  Crime, drugs, and all that comes with those scourges to civilization.  When it was obvious that the welfare system wasn’t working, the bureaucrats who worked at those agencies demanded more money to pour down the rat hole.  Nothing improved.

In order to pay for these programs, taxes had to be raised, and the one income family became a rarity rather than the norm.  Both parents had to work to provide enough income to live on.  But how about the children?  No problem, we’ll have daycare centers who will look after the youngsters until they can be put into school, and then they can go back to daycare in the afternoon until their parents get off work or they’re old enough to fend for themselves.  In effect, they are being “warehoused”.

Beginning in the 1970’s, large number of “immigrants” began crossing our southern borders.  Most of them illegally.  No problem.  We needed cheap labor anyway.  However, a significant number of them discovered the largesse of the American Welfare System, and since the rules for obtaining it were so lax, they were allowed to do so.  More welfare expense and “anchor babies”.

Hospitals and emergency care facilities began to close because they were overwhelmed by non-compensated expenses generated by being required to accommodate whoever arrived for service, whether they could pay or not.  Medicaid is nearly bankrupt in many states, and it’s not because of legal citizens.

School systems are required to provide teachers who can speak the myriad of languages the children of these immigrants speak.  All this has to be paid for by school systems who are already stressed, because the tax base which provided their funding isn’t receiving money from those who are being paid in cash “under the table”.  To point out these obvious facts brands you as “racist”.

Retirees who have paid into Social Security and Medicare for most or all of their working lives are now lumped in with all the other so-called “entitlement” program recipients, none of whom has paid anything to be able to receive their benefits.  The system is broken, and will not be fixed by continuing down the same path.  However, the Democrats, who have morphed into a completely Socialist movement, are incapable of seeing any other way.  The politicians are wealthy by the time they leave office, with large pensions and other benefits for life.  They don’t have to worry about Social Security or Medicare.  They have exempted themselves from those programs.  The same goes for all those unionized federal employee groups.  They have their own retirement programs.

Now, the agencies which we have depended upon to protect us from threats within and without are showing themselves to be incompetent at best, or corrupt at worst.  The FBI, CIA, NSA and others can spy on American citizens without warrants, or with warrants obtained under false pretenses, but can’t pay attention to a crazy teenager bent on killing school children, even though in the case of the FBI they were warned of his erratic behavior on at least two occasions prior to his violent rampage?

Now, these same political parties and government agencies would have us give up our right to defend ourselves, and submit to being victimized by thugs, terrorists and crazies until law enforcement arrives on the scene of the bloodbath?  We must rely on ourselves, and our local law enforcement agencies, particularly our County Sheriff’s Departments, who are the closest to the community.  God help us if they don’t support the average honest citizen’s right to bear arms in defense of themselves and their families.

Finally, the slogan:  “If you see something, say something” is just that, a meaningless slogan, if the authorities aren’t  going to pay attention to those tips and follow up on them.  If the FBI had done that, seventeen people would probably be alive today, not being grieved by their community, family and friends.