A Ban on Dreadlocks?

I saw that as a headline.  I read a little bit further and the gist of it all is that some elementary school girl is at the center of a school's swirling debate over dress codes and free expression.  Meanwhile, the people who fought so we could debate the freedom of expression can't visit the very monuments erected to commemorate their sacrifices.

Government shutdown...the president closing the ocean (yeah, I know, overstating and oversimplifying that), schools scrambling to cancel or postpone their field trips, but vital items like the TSA, Homeland Defense, and whether or not the Redskins ought to be called the "Redskins" are still moving forward.  Thank goodness.

Seriously, we charge our leaders with the stewardship of our nation's funds, with leading us on to bigger and better things, to helping us face the future with a confidence that led to the original decision by an upstart band of colonists to stand together and declare their independence from the greatest superpower on the earth in 1776.  Instead, we get a healthcare plan that (according to a letter I got the other day) should be a little more effective that borrowing someone else's used Band-Aid if I lose a digit in a door slammed by the IRS and a government that instead of balancing its budget shuts itself down or raises its own debt ceiling (neither of which is an option for me or I'd be living in a house on Table Rock Lake in Arizona with a 22' Triton bass boat moored to a floating pier out back).

Somehow, the more perfect union our country's founders were seeking to establish has been replaced by the machinations of selfish men and women more interested in the establishment of their own legacy for posterity rather than meeting their charge of allowing those future generations to enjoy the blessings of liberty.

You want to see a government shutdown?  Look at Egypt.  You want an example of chaos while government collapses under the weight of its own selfishness?  Look at Syria.  Now, I'm not one of the fear-mongers who'll suggest we're "just like them," but let's remember why the United States of America was established.  As Abraham Lincoln stated, we were "...conceived in liberty...and that," HERE'S THE KEY, WAGON RIDERS, "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Let me ask you, would a government OF you, BY you, or FOR you shut itself down?

And, seek not to lay blame, folks.  Democrat and Republican sides both share responsibility here.  It's like that old episode of Scooby-Doo where Scooby is on the opposite side of a breezeway door from the Wolfman.  Ol' Scoob pretends he's a mirror image of the Wolfman; matches him move-for-move.  They look different, but their actions are the same.

The late Ronald Reagan once said that, "big government is not the solution; big government is the problem."  Look, everybody, the proof's in D.C. right now.

The wagon rolls on (it's not government subsidized, so it still has wheels).  Thanks for riding shotgun.