that was in a book. I forgot the title of the book but remember the quote as it is an absolute truth.
"Most people don't know how this damned country works."
He's right. Most people DON'T know how the country works and that includes most elected officials. It's sad, really.
It's not too bad when someone in the working class doesn't know, but when the lawmakers don't know then there's likely going to be trouble.
Looking at family run farms we have to say that they are very much that. They are run by families and as soon as a child is able to do something to contribute he or she is expected to pitch in. Children fresh out of infancy are given jobs to do based on their ability to perform the tasks. A little one might be required to feed the chickens for example.
Pre teens are sometimes trained to run farm machinery that their big city counterparts don't even know exists. Youngsters may learn how to run a plow as a small child by sitting on their father's lap. When they are still in their pre teens thay may find themselves running various machines.
It's been this way since Day One and the system seems to work. You have to remember that a farmer is pretty damned likely to make sure the kid is competent to run the machine. First of all, he doesn't want his kids injured. He also knows that an incompetent operator can destroy a very expensive piece of equipment.
The farmer isn't likely to turn a kid loose running something until he is damned good and sure the kid is up to snuff.
This is pretty much a part of how a lot of family farms run.
Yet an awful lot of people don't even begin to understand it.
I'm a mariner and over the years I've had a few people ask me questions about it. Most are questions that indicate that they at least have somewhat of a clue as to what I do.
"Do you sleep on the boat?" one guy once asked me.
"No," I replied. "We just have Tom Bodett leave the light on for us. He has a bunch of his motels floating around in the Atlantic." The line came from a Motel 6 ad that was going around at the time.
Still, there are a lot of people that don't understand that the way they live is because a lot of people are behind the scenes working their ass off and jobs they don't even realize exist.
I had someone ask me what I do for a living and told them I move oil so they didn't have to walk home and freeze in the dark while watching television by torch light.
There's one guy out there that seems to get it, though. It's Mike Rowe, who hosted the TV series 'Dirty Jobs'.
He had a long running show about how people that work behind the scenes provide us with a lot of things that we take for granted. Mike Rowe knows how this country runs.
Anyway, we have a lot of elected officials out there that don't really seem to have a clue. Let's revisit the family farm and the twelve year old kid that dear old dad finally let plow twenty acres of the lower forty.
Enter Senator Whatshisface on some fact finding mission. He's been sent there to investigate child labor in the fields. He sees some kid that's been training on a machine for the past six or seven years now running it.
Of course he looks at the kid's New York City counterparts that can't get a driver's license until they are eighteen and decides that the kid running the machine is all wrong and shouldn't be permitted.
When he gets back to Washington, he'll get right on it. Of course he does and then gets the other people in the Senate to push through legislation to keep people away from farm machinery until they are at least eighteen.
Either the family farm gets weaker or the farmers flout the law. Can't say as I blame the farmers for flouting the law. I also can't say I blame the county sheriffs for turning a blind eye and not enforcing the law, either. After all, it's just another case of lawmakers not knowing how the country really works.
It's a shame but the coal miner was right.
Most people DON'T understand how this damned country works. Congress ought to just shut the hell up and get off of our backs.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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Congress Critters simply don't understand that the people didn't send them to DC because they were the best. Rather they got sent because they were expendable from the real work that makes this country tick.
ReplyDeleteUsually they are prone to vivid imaginations that they are worth their salt, which is a harmless illusion until like your example they return to shit all over the people whose backs they are riding upon.
One wonder if we at least have more fun if we sent the village idiots to DC... wait I think that is what we are doing?