The government of Alabama is always looking for new ways to abdicate its responsibilities, and this "private welfare" idea is a part of that. Rather than fixing our antiquated tax code, and providing a good basic education, which would translate into economic development and so on, Alabama legislators spend much of their time fussing over whether it's really up to them to handle these problems - then they start looking for someone to blame for the problem - then they try to figure out how to punish that person or persons. It it's too hard to get at the perpetrator, well, they're happy to punish the victim, because after all, punishment builds character.
If our schools are failing, it's not because they're underfunded; it must be because we're not punishing someone who needs it. Maybe we need to make our kids pray in school; maybe we need to allow their teachers to beat them. Maybe we need to tell them that dropouts will wind up on the chain gang; that'll teach them to value their education.
If a lot of people are thrown overboard at sea, and some of them find ingenious ways to stay afloat and keep from drowning, somehow it seems to miss the point to praise them for their ingenuity.
Our leadership however seems to be saying, "Let's throw more people overboard, to promote individual initiative in staying afloat."
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antiquated tax code: as in, low property tax, high sales tax, and other regressive features.
chain gang:I'm happy to say that the chain gangs in Alabama have been abolished again. A chain gang, for those who don't know, is a group of prison inmates who are all connected to a single chain by shackles on the ankles. For about two years beginning in 1995, chain gangs could be seen working beside the highways, a visible sign of how tough our new state prison chief was. A related practice was to punish an individual inmate by tying him to a "hitching post" and exposing him to the hot sun. These were childish "tough guy" practices - but no less abusive for being childish. They earned the attention of Amnesty International.
Our leadership is changing. In November 1998 Alabama voters elected Don Siegelman governor by a wider-than-expected margin. There's reason to think that he is the ablest person to seek the office in a long time. His biggest drawback is his commitment to establishing a lottery in Alabama - as if the state needed another regressive tax (which is what a state lottery is, in effect). But there's more reason to hope than to give up. Stay tuned.
Last update: Wed 9 Dec 1998
