Posted by manualblock [ 69.112.69.86 ] on September 07, 2005 at 16:22:58:

In Reply to: Re: 2 B A Drug Addict in NO posted by akhilesh on September 07, 2005 at 15:29:00:

Then you better vote Democratic ticket because under the Republicans the Government has expanded three-fold.
The bureaucrat is supposed to be working for us; we tell them what to do. Why is that hard to phathom?
I had an epiphany earlier that I think explains this serious dichotomy in perception of what our government does and is.
When I was younger I lived in a very exclusive area of New York called Great Neck. I wasn't wealthy, I rented, specifically in order to send my daughter to their schools. They have a school system that is rated in the top 10% of public schools in the U.S.
I worked per diem for the school in order to acqaint myself with the quality and methodology they favored in order to reach that level of ability.
There were several reasons for the excellence of their schools.
The oversight committees were an agregate of parents/teachers and administration personell. The parents were extremely involved in this process and believe me when I tell you there was accountability there.
Even with the strength of the Teachers Unions they still had to answer to the school boards and the oversight committees. If a teacher slacked off even for a second they had a monitor installed and the teacher was assigned a mentor. The administration was held to the same standards.
The school system in my town now does not have this system inplace. While they are not bad; they are nowhere near what Great Neck was. The parents are not as involved and the administration has a hands off policy that excludes people from participation. The people that live here are natives; most of them grew up here and so did their parents. So they feel the schools are what they are and cannot be changed. They are fine they say. Why? Because they have never been exposed to what a school should be.
I think that is the Dis-Connect here. People settle for government behaviour in parts of this country that is inexcusable because they have no reference with which to compare how their officials should be behaving. With poor leadership;..of course you think you have to do it yourself. After all; if you don't, who will??
We need to share some of the better governed places with those suffering from inept and incompetent leadership; so they can see what their leaders should be capable of.
I believe that explains the complete bafflement at the attitudes expressed where the government is not accountable; nor is able to do their job correctly.

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