Imagine.

Imagine $10m being spent on what really matters.

At $80k per, 125 desperately needed new school busses for the state.

A homeless shelter or three, or five, around the state.

A domestic violence shelter or three, or five, around the state.

Marriage counseling before marriage to lower the domestic violence statistics.

Mental health counseling clinics, to help people before they solve their little problems, with guns.

Imagine.

Imagine an educational facility built to educate students academically and vocationally, because not all want to nor should, go to college, at least not right away. 

Imagine students taking all on-line courses at home, and venturing out to apprentice jobs in the afternoon, learning a trade and earning school credits.

Imagine students who want to play sports, signing up for local teams and paying their own way.

Imagine students who to play an instrument, signing up for local lessons and paying their own way.

Imagine no public funds wasted on a school library for a generation who cannot read and cares not a whit about wanting to do so. 

Imagine an entire student body of athletes not put at death risk through CTE and other injury possibilities, by banning football (heresy in the South). Imagine the savings to taxpayers of not having to build another Friday night stadium for four home games annually, not having to foot the light bill, the insurance bill, the medical bills, the traveling bills, the equipment bills.

Imagine this state climbing out of the bottom ten of national education rankings, and becoming a shining example of progress and forward-thinking actions.

Imagine.

Nah....what's worked/damaged our kids in the past and present, is just fine with us.

Dori Garcia Mata I suppose you as a parent might do things to try and make a better life for you children and family, the fact that they cross to work to feed and support their families to give them better education and opportunities, these things help people, citizens or not who want a better life NOT become thugs and criminals...most of these people are forced into crime (crossing illegally)...to eat, or escape oppressive conditions...and then they come here, work, contribute, have families, and someone decides its a good idea to rip them from their families....heartless is the only way I can say..taking babies, children from their parents. Saddening, sickening, empathy, is gone.(A Facebook post on whether or not a law exists to allow separation of children from parents, 18 Jun 2018).
My reply, same day:Dear Bleeding Heart Mata, I have plenty of empathy for those deserving. I too am against the splitting up of families. Like every other country, we too have entry processes, procedures, and laws to qualify for and follow, when requesting to come here. I guarantee you many many countries are not nearly as pleasant as we are when people cross THEIR border without their permission. NK will lock your butt up, quite probably torture you, and sentence you to years of hard labor. None of this mamby-pamby migrant camp crap. Look, I don't know how to differentiate between the truly needy seeking aslyum from war in their country, the only reason I can think of for granting asylum, and those seeking work. If people want to work in America, we have procedures for them to do that, by bringing legal documents, not forged ones, by applying, by waiting for OUR approval, and leaving, when their permit expires. They're certainly not taking up "the jobs Americans don't want", that is for sure. And, too many of them have come illegally, to do deliberate or accidental harm, then dash back across our border to avoid our punishment laws. I lived 20 yrs in the SW and witnessed our police officers being killed by illegals, our citizens killed and injured by drunk driving illegals, who also dashed back across into Mexico to avoid prosecution. I taught their children for 12 years, while they refused to learn English and become citizens, and falsified forms to enroll their children in our schools, thus putting huge unfunded budget requirements on our school districts and taxpayers I watched their gangs terrorize entire city sections, trafficking in drugs, sex, murder. I understand. Most are truly needy, some are flat out criminals and will never change. I say, again and again, we should secure our 1500m southern border with our troops, round up those who cross, and send them back immediately. No more water stations in the desert, no more sympathy or empathy. If we run background checks and find some who were here illegally before, those are the ones we arrest and confine. Those are the ones we tell Mexico to come get, at Mexico's expense, and send the incarceration bill to Mexico. Come here legally. Do no harm. Live in peace. It really isn't difficult. What Trump and the other idiot Sessions and the BP assholes are doing, is against all known basic human rights, and it needs to stop, now. Personally, i put far more blame on the adults deliberately bringing pregnant women, and all the children, across illegally. They caused this mess. Let us not forget Mexico, who is allowing all of this to occur. Our govt is simply making it worse. Comprende? If not, read this again. Geez.

Manage

I think that if you are happy with the conditions around you, meaning you have the means to do more than just get by on a daily basis, you stick with the worthless incumbent.

On the other hand, if you are fed up with:

• a crumbled state-wide road system in near-universal dis-repair and ineffectiveness;
• crumbling bridges, a too-high percentage of which already have been designated as must-replace, but no such work has yet to be started and nothing is scheduled in our future;
• a far too-old inventory of un-safe school busses, not being replaced nearly fast enough;
• tax give-aways to corporations just to settle here and pay minimum, non-living wage salaries;
• near-total lack of sound, Common Sense ethics from just about every employee in the State House, representative or not;
• political lobbyist families with un-due influence throughout the state;
• a dismal and rapidly getting-worse public school system, in which under-paid professionals continue to teach out of sheer dedication until they burn out and quit from lack of financial, professional, and community support;
• the good old boy back-room dealing in Columbia and across the state, where the same old insanity is guaranteed to continue with winks and backslaps and handshakes; people to whom politics is just a game, the end point of which is to be remembered as having done something with their lives, rather than simply serve two hard-working terms and then permanently step down.
• the lack of internal controls within the State House that have allowed far far too much power to be concentrated in the hands of just a few at the head of too many critical committees, thus blocking any and all method and manner of progress this state desperately needs;
• a traditional adherence to an ancient tax code, in which owner-occupied homes pay almost nothing to support schools and services, while dumping that responsibility increasingly on business owners large and small;
• the same people having the audacity to continue to run for re-election, as if professional politician was ever supposed to be a career, and then watching numbskull voters proceed to do just that, vote for the incumbent without caring;

then it is time for you not vote for this incumbent governor, who as an individual is no doubt a fine human being. Nothing will change, unless we the people, we Deplorables, get off our collective duffs, put down our devices, and start paying attention to those we elect to represent us, to make our lives better.

Because what we have put in state-wide offices to this point, has proven by mis-guided actions, decisions, behaviors, to be an un-mitigated disaster. It doesn't have to be this way. 

(insert your state's name, and see if this is still accurate, overall. I bet it is.)