Gullivers Travels in 2018

Eminent Domain. The power to take private property for public use by a state, municipality, or private person or corporation authorized to exercise functions of public character.

If you google that, there are multiple examples of lawsuits by landowners, large landowners, businessmen that are in the middle of fighting eminent domain lawsuits.  Whatever "public good" was expected to occur when the current owners had their property taken is on hold.

Eminent domain is not just used for taking property to place prisons or jails, schools, county hospitals, or parks, it is also used if a wealthy corporation decides to talk the local politicals into a project that will increase property taxes, attract tourists, make the area prettier.  No one ever mentions that it will also make the wealthy corporation buttloads of money, also.

While prominent businessmen, large landowners, and large groups of uppermiddle class residents can hire someone to squash such ventures, the poorer communities are frequently just walked all over.

We call that gentrification.

As in "Anti-Robin Hood".  Steal from the poor and give to the rich.

I realize that when an area looks poor, is full of liquor stores and crappy apartments, empty buildings, and dollar stores, it does not bring in big revenue.  Poor people don't have big revenue.  But, they have to live somewhere.  Getting rid of every place that they call home doesn't make them middle class, it makes them homeless.

I have read in a few books where the poor in feudal times were called little people (not at all the same as fairies, gnomes and brownies).

I have heard those few rich and powerful families referred to as "giants among men."

As a regular human, every time I walk outside, I may--or may not be squashing ants and other bugs.  The front of my car proves that I kill much more than ants every time I drive, but especially at night when they are attracted to my headlights.  If I glance at the side of the road, I realize that our vehicles create a lot of roadkill, also.

And most of us never think about that at all.

I think those "giants among men"  do a lot of that to the "little people".  "Well, what was I supposed to do, they were in my way."  "They breed like cockroaches, they won't even be missed."  "I am doing important work here, what are they doing."

Well, they were living their lives.  AND, they weren't easy lives....some of us humans have multiple houses, the best-of-the-best food, never have to worry about their children longer than it takes to call a lawyer or the Doctor on speed-dial, never have to worry about the electricity being off longer than it takes the generator to kick on during the storm.  BUT, a lot of us have a certain familiarity with the basic needs---pay the bills on time, how to prioritize the use of the money coming in so that A) everyone eats, B) The rent or mortgage is paid, C)The Utilities stay on, D) the car is not repossessed, E) everyone has the clothes they need to not be suspended from school, not be sent home from work, and not freeze in winter or burn in summer.

There are plenty of "little people" that screw up periodically and miss a beat that causes them some problems: the woman that thinks that better clothes will get her that better job, then finds it doesn't pay her more and now the kids school clothes are too tight and---inappropriate.  The family that does everything right till the baby gets sick and mom or dad has to stay at home for a week.  IF they knew about FMLA AND did the paperwork, the jobs are still there, but the pay is not guaranteed and now something has to give---will it be the food?  the rent? or the utilities.  They ride the bus, so nothing to cut their, but also, not much saved while off work not riding.   Hopefully the landlord will understand, the rent being late is least likely to make a sick kid worse.

Little lives can be dangerous lives.  Fraught with hard choices that those giants among men never have to face.  Some of the small things can be a mom or dad that works in health care or was in the military choosing to make butterflies to hold a wound shut that obviously needed stitches. Or throwing a child in a cool bath when their temp spikes to 105 degrees F--to avoid a copay to the ER that is bigger than they have.  Choices like feeding the family nothing but processed foods known to cause cancer because the fresh food is too high for the budget.  Choices like living in a car when they have to choose between the job and the rent.

Life is full of choices for the "little people".
But rarely full of the kinds of choices that they want to make.

If you ask a 12 year old whether they would rather be the CEO of the bank or the Teller, they aren't dumb, they say CEO.  But in the next 6 years, when they should be preparing for their future, they are doing what middle school and high school students have done for generations in public school.  They are trying to get the classes they want--based on how easy it is and whether their friends are in it.  We have a lot of AP classes anymore, and by 3rd grade, kids in small communities know who in their class will be taking those AP classes and who will be stagnating in boring, minimally helpful classes that have them memorizing pointless facts, filling out worksheets, reading the state approved books (or finding a good report on Google), trying to figure out the new math---and there is always a new math, because how else do you sell all those textbooks on a subject that is set in stone and never needs an upgrade--except maybe to make it less white bread in the story problems.

Most kids like school till third grade.  Then, we stop worrying about everyone's self-esteem and start trying to push all the kids into the mold that will build the future workers of America.

We are currently all about STEM or STEAM, depending on whether or not they put art in there to make the name look more recognizable.

But, do we really need an entire population of scientists, technologists, engineers and Mathematics?

Reality is, most of those giants among men, don't want the little people getting any closer to their STEAM moneymakers than clerical work, data entry, and working in the warehouse once they get their next little widget made to sell.

We aren't trying to turn everyone into scientists and mathematicians, we are trying to identify talent early and the rest of them are welcome to go right back to being C students that can apprentice to their plumber father and carry on with their lives.

Maybe, we should start helping all the children of the "little people" identify their special talents and aptitudes and then help them hone those for their entire public school life.  Let the musical focus on music and the person with great fine motor skills focus on things that use that.

Let us all, even us little people, live our lives to our best ability, using our strengths for our own success and enjoyment instead of having a government that is busy trying to help the giants groom us for their own business success.

Once upon a time, the lord of the manor would ride out, see a 12 year old girl that looked like she would be a nice addition to the manors servant quarters, and there she would go--her life no longer her own.  Or see a big strong 10 year old boy, grab him up and apprentice him to the blacksmith.  It didn't matter what they wanted, it didn't matter if they had dreams.

Because the dreams of ants don't matter.  Their lives are short and meaningless to those that can't see that small.

Don't misunderstand, I would have loved the STEAM program when I was a child, but we had 2 tracks, college and vocational.  For the girls that was further narrowed into---girls to college for teaching or nursing, and girls to secretarial or home economics.
Boys were great athletes to college, nerd boys to college, and all the other boys to shop class.

We haven't changed much.  We kill the love for school for many children by third grade.  That is a sign that school is not for the good of the children.  Right now we have laws requiring IEP's for "special children".  It's time that all children were special.  Unfortunately, we don't really like to pay for educating the children of  "the little people" unless we can mark it off as a business expense.

Just remember, ANTS ARE PEOPLE TOO!