Handicapped Permit, Heartless For Humans

I understand that many on the left have a firm belief that "government cares". Many on the left also believe that there is no God, or if there is, he doesn't care. Those of us that are Christians know and accept that we DO love ourselves, and it is HARD to love your neighbor -- or even your brother, as yourself.

Case in point, yesterday, I rush around in the AM as it is Marla's release day from the hospital after 5 weeks. Have a scant hour to "spare", rush up to the license place with the Dr signed form for a handicapped mirror hanger.

REJECTED!!!

The doctor had put the diagnosis on the wrong line and crossed it out. (he filled it in correctly below). There were a couple of other small things -- like he didn't include the ADDRESS for Mayo Clinic. Heck, can't expect the license place in Rochester to have heard of THAT place! and he didn't list the exact date when we don't need it any more ... he checked "6-12 months", we would have only gotten six. That would have been fine with me, I have a large hope my life will be less hectic in 6 months than on her discharge date after 5 weeks in hospital!

So I go back down for an afternoon of therapy assistance at Mayo, and they BEND OVER BACKWARD to get another form done correctly. This time, Marla is able to sign it, so she does and I return to supplicate myself at the feet of the royal license bureau.

"This doesn't look like a real signature, it looks like it was done by a machine" the potentate of handicapped stickers intones.

"Do you see the diagnosis line? My wife has a spinal injury, was PARALYZED 5 weeks ago, this is her signature".  I reply.

"Are you CERTAIN? This signature doesn't look like there was any pressure used to write it".

My voice rose just a little ... "Do you understand what paralysis is? My wife has very little strength and had to work HARD to do THAT"

The Queen of the blue mirror hangers relented at that point and took my $5 as a token of my subjugation, thus allowing me to leave with my proof of fealty.

It is too bad she didn't avail herself of the next step I was going to offer -- a chance to come out to the car, see the difference in grip strength in left vs right on someone with a spinal injury, and then I would demonstrate for her what "average grip strength" was for an uninjured elderly male.

The human condition "is what it is". We all know we are fallen, even those that refuse to admit it  -- we see it in ourselves and others every day. One might think that we would also know that taking a government job, being part of a union, having strong protections against losing your job, and having no incentive to perform well because your raises and promotions are based entirely on "time in grade" would not do much to improve the ability of a human being to care.

Are there "good and caring government workers"?  Certainly ... but pretty much all of us at the DMV, license bureau, post office, city clerk's office, etc have seen that those are FAR from "the rule". Handing responsibility for "caring" over to the government is not the solution -- deep down, we all know that as well as we know that ALL of us fall FAR short of even minimal standards of human caring ... on our best days, many of us do decently, but there are many days that fall far short of our best.

We "wish" for "life to be fair", "people to be nice", "security", etc, etc ... so many of us have become willing to hand the responsibility of making those wishes come true over to politicians that are willing to stand up and say that a few more trillions of dollars and millions of workers poured into a massive bureaucracy WILL make it happen ... in fact it is the ONLY way that it CAN happen and anyone that dares to disagree is "a roadblock to progress".

Look back on your life. Do you REALLY see that watching total government spending as a percentage of GDP go from under 20% in the 1950's to nearly 40% today has made our lives "nicer", "more friendly", "more secure", more decent, more meaningful? More ANYTHING positive at all?

Government is certainly "Great" as in GREAT BIG, but is it good? how often do you feel "blessed" by government? Perhaps, we were far better off living under God, with government being OUR servant, rather than allowing government to take the place of god and force us to increasingly live under it's yoke.

Let's face it ... It never bothered to promise that "it's yoke was easy and it's burden light".