OldPoleBurner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I too can understand Drew's reluctance to help out
> the perennial losers that run the State of
> Confusion, er, a, I mean, State of California.
> If it won't "Buy" votes from the gullible voters
> at the bottom of the bell curve, they generally
> tend to hold it back - for a ransom paid by the
> taxpayers!
>
> They constantly threaten to NOT do what the great
> middle class wants - the state's most basic of all
> duties (civil protection - thus perennially firing
> police and firemen), unless the people gullibly
> agree to keep on raising taxes, year after year.
> I too an disgusted by that - I do get it.
>
> But jeez, Drew! We're lucky to have any state
> support at all, for a museum of any quality, or
> anything truly educational for that matter. With
> or without that state support, virtually any
> worthwhile civic institution, such as CSRM,
> deserves voluntary support; especially from those
> with the skills, the interest, and the needed
> physical agility, to actually do the job.
>
> Granted, you want to keep gov't small, and out of
> our private lives as much as possible. But to
> accomplish that, and still have the civic wealth
> that we now have, it will require a civic minded
> effort by all of us to do our part, freely and
> voluntarily, according to our own interests and
> abilities. I wish I still had that physical
> ability - I would have retired a long time ago and
> devoted myself "to the cause".
>
> That sir - would be "Freedom" indeed! At its
> best! I am indeed old enough to remember an
> America like that - and so are you. Or perhaps
> San Jose had already lost it by then - I don't
> know. But my Idealism (I never lost it) says we
> all ought to do all we can to bring it back -
> never mind the politics - with or without the
> state's support.
>
> As the last of the great private Industrialists,
> Henry J. Kaiser, is quoted as saying, "Find a need
> - and fill it". If you can plainly see that CSRM
> needs more help. . . . .
>
> OPB
>
>
> PS.-- If we do not freely volunteer our time, we
> will loose these civic institutions. As ought to
> be plainly obvious by now, no gov't is ever going
> to be reliable enough to depend on, for much of
> anything. And if volunteerism is also not
> reliable enough, then perhaps we the people just
> don't deserve, what we will not be getting anyway!

Say it, Brother