“I write.” said guest speaker Joe Boyles, in answer to a question from a 55+ Club Member at last Wednesday’s meeting.
He addressed several issues of concern to himself and many in the audience, and how people could make themselves heard.
Boyles, who has penned the “National Security” column for the Madison County Carrier for the last eight years, had been asked what else one person could do to influence politics “besides vote?”
Voting could not be discounted, Boyles told the woman, because it was the most important tool people had. However, there were several other things they could do as well: “Raise our children and our grandchildren with our values. Mentor in the school system…working with young people on a weekly basis gets us in the school system where we can have influence.”
A Vietnam veteran, Boyles describes himself as “Conservative…extre-mely conservative,” and as someone who loves writing and cares very deeply about what he writes. “I appreciate the opportunity to put together a coherent sentence…put those sentences into paragraphs…one of the things I try to do is throw a lot of questions back at you, the reader. If I can provoke some thought on your part, that’s a good thing. I’m trying in the process of writing to educate people.”
Sometimes, he says, he runs into people on the street who shake his hand and say, “I read your column. Look forward to seeing it in the paper…most of the time.” He smiles as a few appreciative chuckles ripple around the room.
A conservative in all areas, whether economic, security, or social, he holds economics to be the “line in the sand” for him.
There is the private sector (business) that produces and creates things of value and makes money, and there is the public sector (government) that creates nothing, produces nothing of value, nor does it make any money. Instead, it takes money out of the private sector and grows ever bigger, especially the last 70 years since the Depression.
“Remember Jabba the Hut (from Star Wars)? That’s government.”
He’s pretty hard on politicians, he admits, “especially professional politicians who have no knowledge of the private sector…or their knowledge is so dated as to be irrelevant.”
Debt is also a topic that gets him going, whether it’s credit card debt, student loan debt or national debt created by entitlement programs with Baby Boomers retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day for the next 19 years.
On the other hand, Florida is in a better position than some other states, being a “right-to-work state” and having one of the smallest per-capita state worker forces in the country.
He fielded quite a few questions from the gathered audience, from CEO salaries to auto insurance.
The important thing, he said, is that people stand up for their conservative values and use whatever influence they have to make themselves heard, because in the Northeast and out in L.A. “all they know of where we live, is what they see from 38,000 feet as they fly over us. To them, we’re off the map.”
He pauses, then adds: “No, we’re not.”
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