In the ongoing saga of the CMRTA, Richland County Council agreed to toss more taxpayer money into the abyss. It's just $775,000 of your money, so no worries, right? The funny sad part is that this amount still won't cover the bus system's operating deficit for very long.
Apparently, a group of constitutional law scholars showed up to be heard at the council's meting.
A contingent of 10 passengers and advocates attended the meeting, encouraging County Council to reach an agreement with the city to cover the funding gap. They said public transportation is a basic service, like police protection, water and sewer.
“We demand our share,” rider Mamie Jackson said. “We should not have to come and beg for a basic right.”Wait, what? When did having a bus system become a "basic right"?
Ok boys and girls, just to recap: "rights" are given to you from your creator. A government neither gives rights, nor can it take them away. The government provides services, benefits, and privileges. That's it. It's really not that complicated.
Public transportation is a simple service that has costs and benefits. It costs money to operate public transportation. The problem we have is that the bus system isn't self sufficient. The money earned from those paying the bus fare isn't covering the cost of operating the system. That's the basic problem. The question that our County Council needs to answer is how much annual support does the bus system need, and is it worth it to pay that much money?
It's cost/benefit analysis.It's not a right, it's simply a service that we need to decide whether to provide or not.
It's really depressing that we have citizens who believe that public transportation is a "basic right", but that's where our culture has gone. There are simply people out there who believe that they are entitled to things like this, and to have others pay for it.
Slaves have rights not held by free men. Those rights do not come from their Creator, but rather from their masters.
ReplyDeleteSlaves are encouraged to promiscuously produce offspring and are not required to furnish the necessities of life for those fatherless creatures - instead the masters extract the maintenance of those future slaves from other slaves. The Masters grant this as a right to their chattel.
For the most part, masters are no longer individuals.
The trick is to decide where you are in that equation.
The greater trick is to figure out how not to be a slave.
It escapes me.
Lookee here - the govt paid out $1.6 Billion for free telephones last year under the FCC - article in TIME by Brad Tuttle
ReplyDelete"Washington Footing the Cell Phone Bill for Millions of Low Income Americans" - we would all agree that is a right under fredom of speexh