I read an article in the Riverside Press Enterprise a couple of months ago, and I was so incensed that I sat down and penned a letter to the editor. The article was about a poor dejected woman who lived in a house which the city of Temecula, CA. had sold her the house at half the market price. It’s an older house, and it’s not in one of the choicest parts of town. But it’s by no means in Inglewood or East LA, where children are lulled off the slumberland each night by the pop-pop-pop of stolen Glock 9’s. No, it’s actually a quaint little area—just not as ridiculously expensive as the rest of Temecula.
Anyway, so Vanessa(that’s her name) gladly accepts the generous offer from the good people of Temecula moves in, and lo and behold, a few months later, winter has the audacity to come sliding down from Canada and dump a prodigious amount of water on her new/old home. Now, evidently it’s been a few years since the roof was installed, and probably the same amount of time since anyone touched it. Vanessa is now very hurt, confused, and just downright flustered, darn it! If it wasn’t for the heartless people of Temecula (and their bumbling city managers), poor Vanessa wouldn’t have this problem……I mean it’s only obvious.
But, of course, I simply don’t possess the wherewithal to say it better than Ms. Vanessa herself, as she so eloquently stated in her plea for help in patching her celing: "It wouldn't seem like $1,000 would be a big deal to [the City of Temecula] to help out and fix this." Evidently she labors under the delusion that Temecula has its own mint, or money tree, or some other form of money-producing machine which is "no big deal" to turn on and off. She further clears up any misunderstanding regarding just exactly who is ethically responsible for this mostly cosmetic inconvenience: "It would be nice if [Temecula] could help." (help = "Pay for the repairs") Yet "she wonders why a city with such ample resources as Temecula would seek the help of a non-profit group rather than solve a problem connected with one of its programs." (Italics mine)
If we extrapolate this last concept of Responsibility-by-Connection, well, then my mortgage company is therefore ethically responsible for repairing the crack in my foundation; they surely knew the home was built in a seismically active area. I mean, it's only fair; they were connected with the sale of the home, after all. They did loan me the money, without which I would not be in the predicament I’m now in. I’d most likely be contentedly watching football on my $5000 big-screen—stuffed into my $1200/month apartment, rather than squirting epoxy into a 50 foot long crack—until I can sell the old big-screen in the kids’ room, after which time I’ll have enough money to pay someone to fix the crack right. (please spare me the recipes for this fix; it’s only fixional)
Or, in other words, because the people of the City of Temecula were generous enough to pay for half of Vanessa’s home, then it only follows that those same generous Temeculans should pay for any repairs which Ms. Hernandez isn't currently prepared to pay for herself.
Sorry, Vanessa, but it's time to staple up some plastic and tough out another brutal Temecula winter. And while you’re at it, drape a tattered American flag over it; it'll be a fitting symbol of what's left of the boot-strap independence that made America the great nation it was (and will be again, if ever we can manage to rid ourselves of this irresponsible and socially cancerous mindset...and the people who preach it).

Jefferson