Something to discuss over turkey

Listen to Dave’s Commentary: Something to discuss over turkey

A lot of families will hold hands around the table today and give thanks for their daily bread, and for their families, and for their jobs.

And since there might be someone at the table who doesn’t have a job there will be a spoken or whispered prayer that one might open up.

But the overriding sentiment is typically gratitude for what we’ve got.

The question is at what point does gratitude give way to impatience and then resentment.

Because you’ll know the character of that out-of-work relative, or it may even be you,- and you’ll know that the lazy stereotype doesn’t fit.

This is a person who is not lazy, and does have skills, and has relentlessly applied for work, but it’s been two years of temp jobs.

At some point, gratitude begins to give way to a sense that something’s not right. That the deck is stacked.

I’ll say it. I think everyone who can work and wants to work, and has a skill to offer ought to be able to get a job in a reasonable amount of time. That’s not to say the world owes you a living, or that you have a right to the perfect job, but it is to say there’s no point in having liberty and the right to pursue happiness if there’s no happiness to pursue.

And if that means the government needs to provide that job when a slumping economy won’t, why not? Unless you want to see Occupy Wall Street turn into something a lot bigger, you’re going to have to keep paying some form of unemployment and if the government’s going to hand out money anyway, we might as well use it to put a teacher back in the classroom or a least a little more blacktop in a pothole.

By the way, feel free to bring the topic up at dinner. Just make sure the carving knifes are safely stowed.