"Ignorance is no excuse. It’s the real thing.” - Irene Peter, American writer.
May 2, 2012
By Linda Case Gibbons
Hey, Occupy Wall Streeters, I see the weather has warmed up and you’ve taken to the streets again, this time for free college tuition for everyone.
I would have thought that with all the time you spent "occupying” the streets of New York City last year, you might have taken some time off to work and save some dough for school. But I guess not.
Instead you want all of us – other people – not you – to work and pay for your college, right?
No, wait. I worked my way through college. Dudes, did that ever occur to you?
So, no. Now that I think about it, I won’t pay for your education. If you can’t afford college, go to work for a couple of years, save your money or attend community college.
When I was working, studying and commuting two hours each way from Long Island to New York City, I didn’t whine about it because I considered it a privilege to be able to go to college and get an education.
"Privilege,” not "right.”
Maybe if you tried it -- worked a full work day the way my husband and I did, then attended night school you might understand the economics of the real world – like paying rent, an electric bill, car loan, food and clothing.
Maybe you would realize you can’t afford your electronic goodies, why? Because you can’t afford them!
Maybe you would realize you can’t afford to go to college, why? Because you can’t afford it!
The cupboard is BARE, son. There ain’t no money to pay for your college, so if you can’t afford it, you can’t go. And stop feeling sorry for yourself. Many a person has been told that, including when my father told me, so get over it.
(Make believe you’re on the Waltons, John-Boy.)
And guess what? During those memorable years, I loved being an independent grown-up. I felt good being able to budget and pay as I went. It never occurred to me to think I was being treated poorly by my country. Why do you think that?
But maybe you are like the First Lady and you will only be proud of your country for the first time in your adult life when you get to go to college for free.
And I do not feel sorry for you. Why would I? For what? Times are hard. Is that really something new?
While President Obama is making his taxpayer-paid-campaign-swing through college campuses to commiserate with you and your "plight”, don’t buy it when he tells you he and Michelle are unique in having college loans to repay and coming from humble beginnings.
He’s playing you, bonding with you, his newest group, trolling for votes from "the young people.” He wants to be able to say, "They like me! They really like me.”
Last week when he chose to lead the student body at the University of North Carolina with Al Sharpton-Jeremiah Wright-type-pastor preaching, repeating phrases preacher fashion, stirring up the crowd, interspersed with amens, it was creepy --reminiscent of what you guys did last year when you got together to figure out what your goals were.
But, for what’s it worth, here are two things you might want to keep in mind:
Number One: If your student loan rates are going up, it is because the Democrats voted for that very thing in 2007, to take effect this July. He didn’t tell you that, did he? Check it out.
Instead he quoted a female Republican politician and laughed at her along with his "buds” in the audience. So presidential.
He said: "She said she had ‘very little tolerance for people who tell me they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that.’
(She’s right. There isn’t; not if you work or postpone school for a few years and save your money.)
"I’m just quoting here. I’m just quoting,” he said. "She said students who rack up student loan debt are just sitting on their butts, having opportunity ‘dumped in your lap.’”
(This was interspersed by boos and amens from the audience which the president thoroughly enjoyed.)
He continued, "Now, can you imagine saying something like that? Those of you who have had to take out student loans, you didn’t do it because you’re lazy. You didn’t do it lightly. You don’t like debt. I mean a lot of your parents are helping out, but it’s tough on them. They’re straining.
"And so you do it because the cost of college keeps going up and you know this is an investment in your future.”
Question: If you genuinely can’t afford college, why didn’t he tell you man up and bite the bullet. Why didn’t he say, review your assets, if you can’t afford it, if you don’t like debt, don’t go into debt.
Question: If all this is true, why doesn’t he ask the colleges and his alma mater to lower tuition, ask professors to take a pay cut? Why not go straight to the horse’s mouth?
And upon graduation, if you’re counting on a cushy job with a big paycheck to balance off those school loans, why didn’t someone in the audience ask the president what his second term plans are to tackle unemployment?
Or ask him why he put a kibosh on the Keystone XL Pipeline which would provide jobs or why he is content to let Americans fill up at the gas pumps for nearly five bucks a gallon and do nothing about it?
Instead of poking fun at someone on the other side of the aisle, and a woman at that, why didn’t he man up and tell you what a great country this is instead of engaging in sophomoric antics, making fun of other people to make his point?
While he was at it, maybe he should have broken the news to you that it’s possible you might not be able to afford spring break either.
Number Two: If you choose to make him your financial role model, you’re in worse shape than I thought! Following him is like following the Cat in the Hat. It won’t end well and at the end of the day, you’ll have a mess to clean up.
You have to remember, Barack Obama has never worked a 9-to-5 in his life and he does not limit himself, his wife or his kids in any way. He spends and spends and it’s usually on the taxpayers’ dime.
He went from being a nobody, to community organizer, to senator and then president and never disclosed the paper trail that would explain how all this happened. I guess it was magic.
He was also the one who sent his daughter to Mexico (not the safest country in the world) for spring break and let the taxpayers foot the bill. That’s always an option to meet your bills. Ride in on other people’s buck.
In my book, he’s the last person to lecture anyone on real life tactics.
But in the end, bad decision-making is just that. So chant responses to your handlers if you want to -- sounds cultish and ignorant to me, but whatever. I like to think and talk for myself and get nervous when people ask me to recite hypnotic phrases. Sounds like indoctrination to me.
And keep swiping your plastic or that of your parents. Maybe your next march can be to pay for your credit cards.
See how that works for you.
Can I get an "amen”?
Hold the line, America.