Rekha Basu is a columnist for the Des Moines Register and has titled her latest whine, "When lack of bus fare means no school". Apparently there's a Des Moines mom whose children are truant because they don't have money for the city bus. Well, my BS-detector went off on this one -- don't public schools have buses? FREE buses? Heck, the school bus comes right to my door to pick up my kids because one of my children is disabled. Anyway, I read on and came to THIS tidbit of information:
Wright moved her family to Des Moines from Ottumwa in August because of the limited job opportunities there. But Ottumwa at least had free bus service, she says. Here, jobs aren't the problem; transportation is.
At first they lived with her sister on the southeast side, and Wright enrolled her daughters at East High School and Hoyt Middle School. When she found an apartment on the northeast side in November, she didn't want to transfer them, fearing it would be disruptive. So she open-enrolled them to the schools they were already in. That means they can't ride the school bus, and it's too far to walk.
Ummm, so we're again supposed to subsidize people's choices? I realize it's not much fun to have to change schools, but let's please consider the consequences of our choices, okay? These children do have the opportunity to go to school. If you have no means of getting your kids to their other school, then you bite the bullet and enroll them in their own neighborhood school. And let's not paint the picture askew by blaming these kids' truancy on the public transit system's inability to give people free rides.
Basu then opines with this non sequitur:
Between talking to Wright and Corbett [of Catholic Charities] on the phone one afternoon this week, my cell phone rang and it was my 14-year-old asking to be picked up from school, as he often does when he has a late practice. I ran off to get him. I've gotten so used to doing that when he has an after-school event that I barely give it a thought.
But for other people, a chore that simple can present an insurmountable problem.
Ms. Basu, this is not "life's lottery" where people like you just got lucky while poor Ms. Wright didn't. Did you not WORK to get where you are? Did you not make choices that got you where you are today? Or did you just wake up one morning and find yourself with a cell phone and a job at a newspaper?
Umm, okay. Maybe that last one wasn't a good one to ask. Anyway, the bold print on this column states, Many low-income families are at the mercy of public transportation to get to their jobs. Yes, it IS a mercy that our government takes a significant portion of my income to partially subsidize such things as public transportation. But do we OWE it to people to make sure they get to work every day as well? Rekha, if you're that concerned, why don't you go to Ms. Wright's house and give her a ride to work yourself? Why is it MY obligation somehow? I manage to make it to work on time every day, even when my car is broken down. It's called "Call a friend." If she doesn't have any friends, maybe it's because they're all tired of her mooching off them.
Consequences, people. It's called "consequences". There are consequences to our choices, good or bad. When parents don't allow their children to face the consequences of their choices... when government saves people from having to face the consequences of their choices... we have, as a result, people with the skewed mentality that they are somehow "owed". Doesn't work that way, folks.
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