Speakout 12/14

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

This is to insurance companies. It is not right for companies to send customers who have wrecked their cars to body shops that you people are telling them to. I wrecked my car and was going to take it to a body shop and the told me I had to take it to another one that was their preferred shop or they wouldn't warranty the work. This is bull! I pay my insurance every month and should be able to take my car to wherever I want. As a matter of fact, there is one preferred shop that I wouldn't take a horse and buggy to. This sounds like discrimination to other body shops. There should be some kind of law against this.

Grasshopper and the ant

Genesis 3:19, "From the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread until thou returns to the ground . . ." Closer now to the end of my life than to the beginning, I find myself thinking more about the concept of retirement. My wife and I have worked hard, raised our family, given of ourselves to our community and paid our taxes as all of us should do, and we have no regrets. We continue to work. Not as hard as we once did, but enough to be self sufficient. I get frustrated with SpeakOut comments from retirees complaining that "the government" does not do enough for them. They feel they are somehow entitled to have "the government" provide for their every need during the last third of their lives. Did these people not get the benefit of their government during the years they worked and paid taxes? Education for their children, police and fire protection, roads, bridges, airports, military protection, libraries and countless other services, programs and benefits. Where do they think their taxes went? The money our government collects today, is used to pay today's expenses. Our government maintains no magic bank account somewhere with your name on it just waiting to pay all your expenses for you after you retire. If you can't afford to retire, don't. If your retirement income isn't sufficient to pay the cost of your healthcare or medication, keep working. I've got my own bills to pay. I don't want to support you too. Age 62 isn't the mandatory age of retirement, it is the earliest possible age for retirement. Stop living your life like the lazy grasshopper and start working and saving like the industrious ant. Roosevelt and his "Great Society" Democrats have put this once "Great Nation" on the path to becoming a third world country because everyone is too lazy to work. God's command is that you work to meet your needs until you die. He didn't say work until you turn 62 and then sit back and let "the government" support you the last 25-30 years of your life.

I work with a girl that claims to be a Christian. She is lazy, she will put as much work on the other person as she can. She abuses her break time. She talks about people daily. She rarely helps co-workers when there is the need. But she attends church regularly. Is she a Christian or a hypocrite that is fooling herself and her family?

After running this war off into the ditch for the last three years, I'm happy to see that the Bush Administration is finally listening to Democrats and anti-

war Republicans and is announcing plans to bring the troops home.