Shifting focus for a moment--we have a moral obligation to care and care well for our veterans. Knowing that being cared for and cared for well, if necessary, would certainly not be a disincentive to joining the military.

I'm going to do it one more time, shift focus that is--stay with me. Poverty and social programs designed to deal with poverty are a problem in the United States. The complaint that social programs designed to help lift people out of poverty have failed and in fact caused people to be kept in a perpetual and generational cycle of poverty has a lot of merit. These programs have helped to foster an atmosphere where poor people on assistance programs lack any concept of personal responsibility and civic responsibility.  They often lack discipline and education and skills as well.

To affect real change among the poor it is best to start with children--really young children--before bad behaviors and bad habits are formed.

OK, so having said all of that, here is my idea.

I propose a new GI Bill sort of thing for our veterans--focused primarily but not limited to veterans who were wounded and will be unable to return to duty or jobs requiring physical exertion. I propose we train them to be teachers and we promise to pay them well.

In the poorest neighborhoods where dependency on entitlement programs is high, we open charter schools and staff them with these veterans. Charter schools are not beholden to the same kinds of employment crap that public schools are although they are required to meet curriculum standards.

We offer the opportunity to students in these neighborhoods to go to this school. The parents and the students sign a contract agreeing to abide by the rules of these new schools.

These teachers stay with the same group of kids from first grade to fifth grade. These teachers teach what they know about discipline, civic responsibility, patriotism as well as personal responsibility and subject matter. They run these classrooms like a mini-military unit where the kids are invested in each other and have that "leave no man behind" way of thinking.

We do this in an effort to break the cycle of poverty. Part of the mission statement or philosophy of these schools is that dependence on the government to live is wrong and that each person has an obligation to contribute to society.

Yes, there will be a struggle with the life they are living now. These will be children from homes where they are currently depending on the government for survival. These schools will say it is wrong anyway.

Hey--they tell my kids at school that smoking is wrong--don't think I don't hear about it every single day. I don't go marching down to the school to tell them not to say it.

A program like this could succeed. Will it work 100 percent of the time? Nope. Nothing does. But it covers a bunch of things we need to do and do better.

It cares for our veterans. It allows them not just a living, but one as noble as serving our country in the way they already have. It instills in a whole generation the belief that our veterans are heros and what they have done is worthwhile. It makes the military guys role models and encourages the kids to join and be heros as well. It gives these kids a good education. It covers a lot of things we need to do and need to do better.

Now, it is your turn. Comment away. Remember though, you are always on my case about Democrats not having ideas and Democrats wanting poor people to be dependent on them. Here is an idea, it is designed to break the cycle of dependency and I am a Democrat.

Try this. Instead of telling me why it can't work. Find a way to help make it work. Call it an exercise in idealism.

Chris

Posted at Two Babes and A Brain