by Jerry Esmay, Stevensville
How did your Thanksgiving holiday go? Did you really take time to consider how many things we should be thankful for? At the very least, you should have acknowledged how fortunate we are to be living in the greatest country on earth. You should recognize the great freedoms we have to include the freedoms to live where we want, to choose our path in life and to worship who we want.
However, if you pay attention to current events at all, you should be concerned about the many negative concepts and activities that are threatening our great country. What follows are a few of my concerns:
Growing mental & drug problems continue permeating our society. Rather than recognizing what is happening, we, as a society, have decided to overlook the real underlying problems and assume we have to accept the current situation. I am convinced that until we change our attitude toward mental illness and start placing many that roam our streets back into mental institutions things will only get worse. Back when I grew up, folks with mental problems were addressed by non-voluntary hospitalization for adults and being sent to “reform” schools if the individual was a minor. Similarly, illegal drug use had stiff penalties intended in part to try and rehabilitate the individual early on. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude is to blame everything on “homelessness” and throw more money at the wrong problem. How can we think that allowing folks to live like animals is okay?
The invasion of illegal immigrants at our southern border continues unchecked. The last statistics I’ve heard are that at least five million have entered our country in the last two years, but more troublesome is that at least 600,000 have entered without being caught. Just think about that “got away” number — we worry about individuals entering as airline passengers or through passport checks but we are okay with hundreds of thousands of folks sneaking in over our southern border? Why as Americans are we allowing the southern border invasion to continue? This is pure TREASON occurring before your very eyes. I would suggest that the additional 87,000 federal employees the Biden administration has asked for the IRS should be Border Patrol employees instead. Oh, before I leave this topic let me remind the readers of all the illegal Fentanyl and other drugs that are coming in down there — there were more deaths from fentanyl overdoses in our country LAST YEAR then were total military deaths during the ENTIRE Vietnam War.
What has happened to our “work ethics,” or where have all the workers gone? I continue to see and hear of worker shortage on a daily basis. “Help Wanted” signs are everywhere. We were informed at an American Legion meeting recently that there is a shortage of 30+ personnel at the Fort Harrison VA Hospital and a shortage of 90+ statewide in the VA system. On a recent trip to Columbia Falls, I encountered another problem of “work ethics” where three workers had failed to show up for work at a restaurant. Another related problem I hear about is potential workers show up for a job interview, are offered a job which they accept, but then never show up for work. Although previously other readers assured me that folks cannot be living off welfare long-term, I have to assume they are still able to “milk” the system somehow. A final thought here is, shouldn’t unemployed statistics be zero?