Dear editor:

The older you get, the more you realize that just when you thought you saw or heard it all, something else shocks you into reality.

That was the case the other day when I was viewing the evening news. The reporter – I forget what state-run media it was - was discussing the oil cleanup on the coast. In the meantime, his camera man was panning a tent where a group of workers were lounging.

I’d like to think I didn’t hear correctly, but I’m afraid I did.

The reporter explained that because of government regulations, those cleaning up on the beaches could only work 20 minutes out of an hour.

Twenty minutes!!!!!

The remaining 40 minutes – or more – they spent under the tent!

Too hot, the government figures, using union logic!

Wow, tell that to the farmers who work all day in the sun putting in their crops. Tell that to the roofers who spend hours in the sun in the summer replacing roofs. Tell that to the people working non-government and non-union jobs who spend the majority of their day in the sun, who maybe get a 10-minute break each hour – if that.

Of course, none of them are government or union employees.

My father must be turning over in his grave watching what can only be described as the continuing the “wussification” of America and the continued decline of our civilization.

He survived Iwo Jima, came home to toil in the oilfield to provide for his family and worked his way from a roughneck to an assistant drilling superintendent.

I can remember vividly as a child him going to work 12 or more hours a day, five to seven days a week, in blistering heat and never getting a break.

And never complaining.

Of course, we didn’t have “the government” taking care of everyone back then. A man worked or he had no money. And the latter wasn’t an option.

Here we are today, down to working 20 minutes out of an hour!

And getting paid $250 a day!

Incidents like this – and there are thousands worse, I’m sure - should get every American’s blood boiling. Every American who works hard, pays their bills and does the right things, I mean.

Should anyone wonder why this country is going broke? Why we are losing our moral compass? Why the America we grew up in is headed for a path of destruction?

Of course not.

The sad truth is that we have no one but ourselves to blame for this predicament.

After all, we’re the ones who put the people in office who have led us to this point!



Glenn Quebedeaux