Thursday, February 7, 2013

Need Your Input

Someone I know owns a radio station, and has given me the text of a public service message that he is proposing to place on-air.

You may not know this, but the Federal Communications Commission requires that broadcast stations--television and radio--air programming in "the public interest," and that this programming relates to issues of interest as determined by the management of the broadcast station.

The gentleman in question had determined that one of the issues of local interest is the lack of good entry level jobs, and the increased sentiment that this lack of purposeful employment can be overcome through  the application of social justice; that is, the re-distribution of wealth.

There is, there seems, no interest in criticising either state or federal officials for creating an economic environment where few, if any, are willing to create new jobs.

This gentleman wishes to propose to his youthful listeners, that there is a course of sense, and common sense, available to them. That the emphasis on "social justice" is just as strange, and foreign to us, as it is to them.

Children know when their parents are just filling space. When they are exposed to teachers that are just filling space, they can begin to doubt their purpose in life. How many losers must one have to be beholden to, until one becomes a loser ones self?

Children aren't idiots. They just don't have a lot of allies.

From the PSA:



Life, between the ages of 13 and 18, can be difficult.

You watch your parents. You listen to your teachers. You want to learn how to take care of yourself.

And then, in learning how to take care of yourself, you would learn how to take care of the most important people in your life, your family.

You are learning how to take responsibility. You need to learn how to pay your bills, learn the skills that will earn money that puts food on your table. And, if you have children, learn how to budget so that your daughter, Suzy, and your son, Billy, have new clothes for back-to-school.

Learning to take responsibility for paying bills, putting food on the table, juggling the family budget so that Suzy and Bill have new clothes for back-to school, all of these are abilities you need to learn, so that you grow up to be an adult, even if your mother or father couldn’t learn to take care of the bills, and provide you with the clothes you needed for back-to-school.

A lot of moms and dads can’t take care of themselves, or their families, and don’t care whether or not there are jobs. They want to have the things that successful moms and dads have, for themselves, and for their children, for you, whether, or not, they have jobs. Whether, or not, they earned them.

You know who these moms and dads are. And you’re not alone.

Our coastal economy needs jobs.

Right now, there are too many people without jobs.

Social justice, and simply giving people money, doesn’t create jobs.

A message in the public interest, from ...

The question is, is my friend on track, too radical, too conservative?

Let me know what you think. And I'll carry the message forward.

3 comments:

Gordon R. Durand said...

Life between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can be difficult.

You watch your parents. You listen to your teachers. You want to learn how to take care of yourself. And in learning how to take care of yourself, you want to learn how to take care of the other people in your life -- your family.

You want to learn how to take responsibility, to pay your bills, to earn the money that puts food on your table. You want to have children, and you want to learn how to budget your money so that your children will have new clothes when they go back to school.

Learning to take responsibility for paying bills, for putting food on the table, for juggling the family budget so that Suzy and Billy can have new clothes for school, all of these things you need to learn, so that you grow up to be an adult.

But what if your mother and father never learned to take responsibility, never learned to take care of the bills? What if you never had new clothes for school? What if you grew up on food stamps?

A lot of moms and dads can’t -- or won't -- take care of themselves or their families. They don’t seem to care whether or not they have jobs. They expect to have all the things that other moms and dads have, whether or not they have jobs. Whether or not they have earned any of these things.

They call it "social justice."

Well it's not very sociable. And it's certainly not just.

Right now, there are too many people without jobs. Our coastal economy needs jobs.

Social justice -- living on other people's money -- doesn’t create jobs.

MAX Redline said...

It seems off the mark, and for a number of reasons: young people very often don't want to learn how to take responsibility, and they need look no further than our golfer-in-chief to understand the concept - it's easier to blame somebody else.

Entitlement is the concept with which they're most familiar, and most comfortable. Jobs are for idiots.

Government has made it so.

When I was 13, I had three paper routes. I learned how to handle money and retain customers. Nobody does that, these days.

At 15, I was working in fields, detassling corn. Child labor laws today prohibit that.

By 17, I was driving a forklift in the Midwest's largest distribution warehouse, charged with managing five truck bays and a 12-car rail well. Child labor laws today forbid such activity by precious snowflakes.

Many of the things that kids used to do in the course of growing up, and which taught valuable lessons in responsibility, cash management, service, and other areas of life are simply off-limits today.

Kalashnikat said...

Gordon, I like your edit...the original wasn't bad, but lacked the "fire for effect," on-target with twelve rounds of five inch-fifty caliber from the forward gun.

Target destroyed.