Wisdom Of The Week

"There may be good reasons to keep post offices open in rural or low population areas, but keeping them because they are "lifelines" is not one of them. Post offices that serve a small population, like anything else,  must be subsidized by the income generated from larger population areas.  I have no problem with this model - it has served our country well since its founding.  However, we are now told by many people that we can no longer afford to carry the people the who don't pull their own weight, and that surely applies to rural people.  If offices are closed throughout Alaska and the hinterlands, the people have a choice to either do without or move to a place where there is a post office.  Don't like those options?  Welcome to the real world, where the rest of us have to move to get a job, receive good health care, or enjoy abundant water supplies.

It's this cognitive dissonance that Americans believe that they should be able to live where ever they choose, and that everyone else has to subsidize their choice with new roads, infrastructure, post offices, cheap utilities, affordable housing, free quality schools, and everything else.  But they don't believe in "handouts" or raising taxes to pay for the things they refuse to pay for themselves.  It isn't even a matter of socialism - it's a matter of doing the best for all concerned, and they are the beneficiaries.  But they can't understand the concept that if they benefit, so should others, and everyone needs to pay something towards it.   Are people really that ill-informed?"

- via Andrew