Summer’s over . . . “Meet the Teacher” & “Personal Conscience vs. Collective Conscience”

Yesterday I took my wee elf child to her school.  We met her teacher (Mrs. Tanamachi) and tucked all her newly purchased school supplies away in her desk.  I know it’s only third grade, but gosh — it feels as though I’m sending her off to college.  Something about third grade . . . it just seems so much older than first or second grade.  After we met Mrs. Tanamachi (I love that name — it’s so much fun to say), we went to Chick Fil A for lunch.  Yum. 

So today, Miss Jami is being lazy and I’m going through the motions of getting some work done.  Tomorrow is the honest-to–goodness first day of school.  I’ll drop her off at 7:45 a.m. and then pick her up at 3:30 p.m.  Oh, my gosh!  3:30 p.m.!  Just like the big kids.  She got out at 2:30 last year.  So while I will be missing my small girl, the silver lining in the cloud is I will have SEVEN hours a day to accomplish great and wonderful things without interruptions of the eight-year-old sort.  THIRTY-FIVE hours a week to sell many, many window treatments and contribute to the flourishing economy with my ambitious attempts to prosper and contribute to the family piggy bank.

I love this quote:

“Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.” –Herman Hesse

While I’d like to write a lengthy opinion of this quote and what it says to me, I don’t have time right now.  So I’ll just post a little “this is what strikes me on first reading” blurb and maybe come back to it later:

I read so many liberal ya-ya’s waxing not-so eloquently about “community” and “the better good” and “human rights” and “working together . . . ”  Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m a firm believer in helping others and standing up for the little man until the little man can stand up for himself.  But these liberal ya-ya’s won’t be happy until we are all standing in line formation repeating the party line like zombies.  Until our individual, God-given consciences hum in concert the party song:  “Raise our taxes to the maxes, do our thinking, while we’re drinking away our misery.  It’s okay, we don’t care . . . as long as you send back a little-bitty share.”

They just want us to cough up the money we’ve worked hard to earn, not to think about what they are doing with it, and be grateful if we can afford a six-pack to numb the pain of having no part of our lives untouched by the bloated federal government.  After all, misery loves company and those who won’t work can complain about the size of the little check they get from our taxes, and we can complain about our taxes going to those who won’t work.  So let’s all be miserable together!  Can you pass me another beer???