Writing a single column blending personal experiences, current events, political lessons and the holiday season is challenging, but I did it. Today’s words may seem more disjointed than usual, but trust me, I will tie it together at the end.

When I was nine or ten, my father taught me how to operate the cutting torch and arc welder; a lesson he later regretted. The shop and the machinery bone-pile instantly became my personal portal to adventure and after a couple years of inventing there wasn’t a single piece of metal I hadn’t welded to something else. It was great growing up a country kid where your entertainment was limited only by your creativity. I am happy to report those days still exist as recently demonstrated by my oldest granddaughter, Clara.

Clara has developed a keen interest in wilderness survival after viewing several Netflix episodes of “Man, Woman, Wild.” Her personal library is filled with books on make-shift shelters, edible species and fire kindling using unconventional tools. Her mother began to question Clara’s survival obsession last September, when all she wanted for her eleventh birthday were water purification tablets and a magnesium fire-starter stick; presents she did receive. A few weeks later her father granted permission for Clara and her sister, Mae, to try out the new magnesium stick down at their homemade fort. They were struggling with combustion when Olaf, the family cat, slipped into their fort carrying a mouse. A brilliant thought sparked through Clara’s mind, “If we get the fire going we can cook the mouse for dinner.” Fortunately, Olaf dropped his mouse which sprang to life and escaped into the field thereby necessitating a change of dinner plans.

Clara explained her story to the family around the dinner table later that evening. At first her mom was speechless, but she eventually gathered herself enough to declare, “Under no circumstances will any member of this family cook or eat mice!” For a redneck, she runs a pretty tight ship. This brings me to my political point.

The adolescent mind is loaded with imagination and ambition which can either be stimulated or snuffed. The ruling class prefers the later course so as to create a dependency class excelling at submission. To accomplish this the ruling class uses the educational slot and the electronic vortex; methodologies I will explain. First the slot: The government school system places students in 50 minute time slots; molds in which students possessing excessive ambition and creativity simply do not fit. Ritalin is like WD-40 for the mind and once these students are lubricated with this amphetamine they can be wedged into the required slot. With chemical solutions a mere swallow away, nearly every student sails through the education system with neither complaint nor significance. This hurts America.

The second threat to creativity, the electronic vortex, is even more dangerous than the slot because it is everywhere. Nothing destroys imagination centers faster than does the instant gratification produced by an I-Pad or smart phone. Engaging only enough neurons to touch a screen, students are instantly rewarded with brilliant colors and sounds thus mesmerizing youngsters into a vegetative state. When coupled with self-esteem training, government is able to create generations of mind numbed robots only capable of performing menial tasks all while thinking they are special. Welcome to the progressive utopia and here is why this subject is timely.

Supporters of President Obama’s Net Neutrality proposal explain the resultant internet tax will generate an additional $1.5 billion for the “E-Rate fund” for school libraries and “Lifeline” internet services for the poor; thus fueling the electronic vortex. “It’s for the children,” is their stereotypical battle cry, yet the money actually harms the very children it claims to help.

Therefore, in this season of giving thanks to God almighty, I am thankful I grew up a country kid too far from town for television and decades before the mind-numbing, portable electronic vortex. I’m thankful God granted my father the patience to let me burn through piles of welding rods and tanks of acetylene. I am thankful to see ingenuity, creativity and ambition appear in my descendants, because theirs will be the generation who will restore the constitutional republic my generation let slip through our fingers.