Massachusetts? Really?
I'll be damned.

It's a little off topic but the raising of the retirement age for Social Security hits people who do hard labor like a ton of bricks. I have a desk job and I suppose I can wait till 99 to get my check, but anyone who does hard labor 8+ hrs a day should be able to retire a lot sooner than that.

As for not supporting people who are "too stupid" to earn a living, that's a side effect of living in a complex society - there's no room for people who are really and truly slow in the head.

Some slow folks are actually quite nice, honest, humble - they're just not smart. I would urge all of us smirking superior educated atheist types not to view them with contempt. If you have a stroke and lose half your faculties, you will be no better than they.

I don't think he was talking about the mentally retarded, but more about people who lack common sense.

I could be wrong though.

ummmm....yeah, I don't think he was referencing mentally retarded people. He was referencing lack of common sense, like Ann said. Anyone who interprets that in any other way is just looking for something to argue.

I love this letter. This person really understands what is going on. I feel exactly the same way. Just leave me alone, let me spend my own money on what I want to spend it on, don't force tolerance and diversity down my throat when you have no tolerance, and quit making excuses for poor choices. Follow the rules. Make damn sure that if you are preaching equality that it better be EQUAL.

Thanks for posting this Amy...!

...Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.
_________________

Um, he really shouldn't spread that type of misinformation. That is, specifically, the Qur'an does NOT take a stand one way or the other on FGM - in fact, IIRC, it barely mentions it, as it predates Islam. Of course, it doesn't help the image of Islam that Muslims aren't working that hard to abolish it.

In Fauziya Kassindja's book "Do They Hear You When You Cry," she tells of how, when her loving, modern Muslim father (in Togo) suddenly died, her greedy relatives legally forced her mother to leave and tried to marry Fauziya off - at 17 - to a rich middle-aged stranger who would insist on her mutilation. With help, she fled the country and found her way to the U.S. - only to be imprisoned for 18 months before getting asylum. She is now 33, a U.S. citizen, married, and the mother of triplet sons. Also, in the book, she talks of her religious sex ed class as a teen in Togo. Quote: "The malam never spoke about (FGM). If it had been a requirement of the Islam faith, he would have told us as much. But he never even mentioned the word. He did talk about polygamy, though...."

What a douche. I'm tired of over-60 white people complaining that their wealth is being redistributed, that I'm not a good citizen, although I vote, serve jury duty and give blood, and that this country is going to hell in a hand basket. Cut your whining, and be part of the solution.

And yes, Massachusetts. I'm also sick of that. I'm sick of anyone who lives more than 20 miles inland on either coast assuming that because I'm from Massachusetts that I'm a flaming liberal. I don't own a gun, but I don't care if you do as long as you are responsible with it. I don't like taxes, but I like having a firehouse down the road that is open and a police presence in my neighborhood and good schools that my taxes pay for as well as roads and other infrastructure that I use on a daily basis. I believe in the death penalty if it could be applied fairly.

In other words, I pay my taxes, work as hard as anyone else, do my civic and public duty and I'm less of an American than any of you that are going to reply to this? Go fry, vote, serve your jury duty without complaining. Get your town in shape. Then come talk to me. I'll listen.

wow, keith such hostility. It is not just whitey over 60 folks who are fed up with liberalism, pull your head out of your ass long enough to gauge the mood in this country and see you are on the wrong side. BTW, I live within 2 miles of the pacific ocean, and yes, nothing good has come out of Massachusetts in years. You and your pal barney frank can go f themselves

Keith..
You're making assumptions that those who are currently tired of the continual rise in demands for more of our money, while we receive less and less in return, means we wish to pay no taxes. None of us have issues with paying taxes for the basic services we all agree are a part of society: police, fire, road/infrastructure maintenance, etc. The problem is that, the quality and quantity of the return on those taxes seems to be dropping rapidly.

This was made much clearer to me just a month ago when I was on vacation in New Hampshire. I have relatives that live in Mass, and one couple just moved to NH. The same branch of the family has a really old cabin on Lake Sunapee in NH so I mostly spent time there, but also around Manchester. I was again reminded how the roads and infrastructure in NH is in FAR better shape then in my native San Diego despite having far lower taxes overall. As well, the relatives note the same for Mass: roads chewed up, infrastructure falling apart... but politicians screaming that they need more and more money.

I was nearly blown away when my one cousin whined about the nearly $400 is cost them to register their cars in NH since they'd just moved. Note I said cars plural.. they had registered 4 cars. My single car in CA is about $380 a year.

Yes, property taxes there are far higher then CA, however they're still much cheaper when factored against no income tax and no sales tax when compared to the taxes I have to pay in CA. Back here in San Diego, where I'm paying a ton in taxes and fees, our streets are torn up all over, we're seeing more and more problems with things like sewers, and don't get me started on how long the (ever increasing) schedule for under-grounding utilities is.

The basic services seem to be mostly ignored, pensions and salaries for gov't employees are at all time highs (and don't dare suggest any pay freezes or cuts), yet the only things they even talk about cutting are the ones that directly effect us every day: fire, police, teachers. All the while they cry that they need more and more of our hard earned money.

In other words, I pay my taxes, work as hard as anyone else, do my civic and public duty and I'm less of an American than any of you that are going to reply to this? Go fry, vote, serve your jury duty without complaining. Get your town in shape. Then come talk to me. I'll listen.

I have no problem funding my local roads, or schools, or the fire station. My problem comes when my money is sucked out of my pay to go to D.C. Money is sucked out of my gas tank to go to D.C. and then they say they want more. Where and how does the Dept of Ed help my school. what if the money had always been local? How does my money (Ohio being a donor state for the DOT) contribute to my local roads.

The problem is the fed is making the states beg to have the money back that is being sucked down by the fed.

>>Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

This is timely. My best friend works in a low-income area school that is predominantly black. This is her fourth year teaching. Her first year, she was all gung-ho about buying the kids supplies - she bought each kid a pencil box loaded to the gills with pencils, post-it's, pens, markers, paper, folders, etc. She was cheerful about it when I criticized: "These kids' parents can't afford this stuff, and I want them to be prepared!"

Fast forward four years. She doesn't do stuff like that anymore. Last year she bought a kid in desperate need of a backpack a drugstore special. I think she spent five bucks on it. The next month, the parent was complaining that she'd had to sell *some* of the boys' video games to pay for something for the school. She was astonished. "How is it," she asked, "that they can afford video games and a system to play them on, but not a five dollar backpack?"

She's seen more and more examples of that kind of thing. Generally, most of the class has cable. At least half of them have cell phones (for the kids!). Quite a few talk about owning video games and watching the latest DVD's. But these same children are on free lunch-and-breakfast programs, even the ones during the summer. These same parents can't afford to get their children school supplies! They complain about the cost of field trips. Books for entertainment reading at home. Everything. But apparently, they have the money to buy $200-$500 gaming systems.

It's a priority screw-up as far as I can see.

Oh, blah, blah. This guy is drawing VA benefits on the taxpayers dime, I am tired of that too. And he drew a salary on Mass taxpayers dime?

Waaa-waaa-waaaa.

What? Only 13 comments? Just wait until November, when this LW's views are expressed by the voters! You will all be commenting then...