My friend, Ray, from South Carolina sent me an article that begs a very serious question:
How much are we willing to pay in the interest of promises we know cannot be kept?
Francis Marion has hidden cameras is the title of this story and it starts like this:
Last month, Herman Jacob took his daughter and her friend camping in the Francis Marion National Forest. While poking around for some firewood, Jacob noticed a wire. He pulled the wire and followed it to a video camera and antenna.
The camera didn’t have any markings identifying its owner, so Jacob took it home and called law enforcement agencies to find out if it was theirs, all the while wondering why someone would station a video camera in an isolated clearing in the woods.
I am one of those individuals who spends a huge amount of time in remote and isolated areas of our country to hunt, fish, camp and simply “get away from it all”.
The thought of someone spying on my activities via video equipment sends a shiver up my spine. Were we to catch some “citizen” doing something like this, the guy would be classified as a real freak and we’d lock him up and throw away the key.
But that wasn’t the case.
Excerpt:
He eventually received a call from Mark Heitzman of the U.S. Forest Service. In a stiff voice, Heitzman ordered Jacob to turn it back over to his agency, explaining that it had been set up to monitor “illicit activities.”
That is a vague excuse and, naturally, it brought up the question of personal safety.
Excerpt:
“He sounded all bent out of shape that I had his camera,” Jacob recalled. He asked Heitzman about the camera’s purpose. When Heitzman told him that illegal activities were taking place in the area, Jacob said he asked whether it was safe to camp there. He said that Heitzman reassured him that it was. Jacob said he later wondered why the Forest Service would set up a camera in an area they considered safe.
Well?
As would be expected, the US Forest Service was not forthcoming with further information.
That brings me back to my original question.
How much are we willing to pay in the interest of promises we know cannot be kept?
They cannot provide us with cheap health care.
They cannot “reform” any of the failing programs they’ve created in a meaningful or positive manner.
For crying out loud, our government officials cannot even pay their share of taxes!
And we know that the government cannot keep us “safe”.
There is no question that government promises are hollow, meaningless and expensive and yet we continue to sacrifice so much because they tell us that it is for our own good.
It’s time to answer the question.
How much are we willing to pay…
