I’ve decided that another variation for these weekly columns
will be what I’ll call a
”
comment that needs a reply
”
feature. So every so often, I’ll add my two cents worth on some
particular comments made by other Dispatch columnists that I think
contain some faulty logic, fuzzy thinking, or not considering the
implications of what they wrote.
I’ve decided that another variation for these weekly columns will be what I’ll call a “comment that needs a reply” feature. So every so often, I’ll add my two cents worth on some particular comments made by other Dispatch columnists that I think contain some faulty logic, fuzzy thinking, or not considering the implications of what they wrote.
For example:
Comment: “I believe it is the role of government to provide everyone in a community with the same opportunity to get to and from gainful employment.”
Dennis Taylor (1/19). I disagree with Mr. Taylor’s position, which under the guise of fairness doesn’t give a rip about saddling property owners and businesses with the burden of subsidizing continuing big money losing ventures like Caltrain. Government provides roads and highways, thanks to gasoline taxes paid by drivers, and that in and of itself should be the limit of the government’s involvement in equal access opportunity to “get to and from gainful employment.”
As transportation expert Joe Thompson has pointed out frequently in his Dispatch letters to the editor, it would be cheaper to offer free limo service to Caltrain riders rather than adding more trains, or continue to subsidize the black hole of fiscal waste that is pumped into ventures like Caltrain and the proposed bullet train. Extending Mr. Taylor’s reasoning, why stop with the government just providing transportation to get to and from gainful employment, and why not have government guarantee “gainful employment” for everybody as well? I believe that’s called socialism, and history shows that socialism always requires the surrender of personal freedom. Not a good trade-off.
Comment: “It is the job of the educational system to prepare students to be good, honest citizens both now and when they leave Gilroy High.” David Bress (1/18). Wrong David. While I enjoy reading about what’s going on from a student’s perspective at GHS in your columns, it is not the responsibility of the educational system to prepare students to be “good, honest citizens.” It’s the job of the educational system to prepare students to read, write, and solve arithmetic.
Now I recognize there are plenty of other parts of a well balanced education, but the preparation and enforcement for a student to be a good, honest citizen is the job of the student’s parents, and that job had better be started when the child is old enough to enter pre-school or kindergarten. If it’s not ingrained by the time a child enters the pre-teen years, then there’s little hope that “good”, as defined as law-abiding, and “honest” as defined as a truth practicer, will have any ability to take root in the child’s character as they get older and are subjected to peer pressure that calls to do the opposite. Just how can modern public education, which for the most part has embraced John Dewey’s educational philosophy of moral relativism and has discarded all standards of absolute right, wrong, good, or bad, be the teacher of “good” and “honest” values? It can’t. As a teacher told me recently “the system is designed to produce dumbed down rebels.”
I was saddened to hear of Bill Lindsteadt’s death on Jan. 13. If anybody had the title of the “Gilroy Economic Crusader” it certainly was Mr. Lindsteadt. I first met Bill back in February of last year when, after I wrote a column that was rather critical of Gilroy’s loss of industry, Bill called me and asked if we could meet at his office in order for him to explain to me what the EDC was all about, and what his goals for Gilroy’s economic development were. I met with him and he shared with me his vision of Gilroy’s future. I was surprised to discover his kind, friendly demeanor, and recognize the magnitude of accomplishment that he had already performed for the city’s retail growth.
Bill was no bragger, and he could stand firm on his track record of accomplishments. After that meeting, I would periodically email him requesting his ideas and thoughts about various Gilroy matters. I found him to always be gracious and considerate. I can say with so many people in Gilroy, he will be missed.
