by Corey Widdison

Created on: May 15, 2009

Everyone has heard the famous quote. My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy

This is a quote given by a democrat, if you can believe it. So just what happened from the early sixties to now? These days it seems that everyone has their hand out for some kind of government intervention to save him or her from whatever is going bad in their lives. Some people are begging the government to help them with their mortgages. Others are asking the government to do more about finding them a job in this bad economy. Whatever happened to a little independence and a can do attitude?

The sad thing is that more and more people seem to be falling into the mindset of the government owes these things to me. That is not at all what JFK had in mind and I believe if he were here today, he would be wondering what had happened.

Now if we look at our political parties, it is the Democrats that want a bigger government, a plan where we all pool our money in together for the common good. It takes a village is something the Dems like to say to sum up their intentions. The Democrats say we all have many different unique abilities, which, when you put them all together, we all benefit from those different abilities.

The Republicans want a smaller government that lets the individual take a bigger role in his or her own life. You will often hear Republicans go around saying, The government needs to stay out of my way. The Republicans are on the side of individual rights, that people will be able to take care of themselves far better than the government ever could.

There are also other parties out there who have different variations of these two differing ideals. Be they more to the outer edges or closer to the center. Even with all these parties out there, the simple quote from JFK could be good advice for them all. If instead of holding our hands out for some help, we look around at how we can help the government, especially in these hard economic times. For example, if you are one of those looking for government help with your mortgage, instead of asking for a handout you try working with the bank yourself. Is the bank really so unreasonable? After all, they did approve you for a loan you probably never should have received in the first place. If the banks had the choice between our government taking them over and calling the shots, or bending a little to ease the burden on a problem they helped to create, I would hope they would choose the latter.

We all fight and bicker over what we should do. But I believe that JFK had something to what he was saying. I hope you do too. The next time we hear our neighbors, family members, or maybe even ourselves start asking the government to do more, we can instead think of how we can help our government.

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