By Bill Sargent and Mark Mansius
Hi, I’m just an ordinary wooden pencil. Writing is my vocation and advocation; that’s all I do! Although I am ordinary, my family history is interesting and some might say miraculous. Except for God, no one person knows how to make me, and yet, with the minds and talents of many, I am easily available to you.
Pick me up. What do you see? Some wood, lacquer, graphic lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser. It doesn’t seem like much does it? But consider this. My life started with a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in northern California and Oregon. It took lots of equipment to harvest my wood, and to get it to the factory where I was assembled. Thousands of people played a role in just getting my cedarwood to the factory where I took shape.
At the factory my wood was kiln dried, tinted, cut into slats and kiln dried again. It took electricity to run the kilns, chemicals to tint me, and machinery to create me. It took engineers to lay out my assembly line to form, shape, and get me ready for you! There are countless numbers of people who bought stocks and bonds that raised the capital for companies that took the risk to make my different parts. They are all part of my lineage!
I could go on and on about the thousands of people who played a part in making me who I am today: but I think I’ve made my point.
The astounding fact is that I am not the product of a mastermind. Nobody dictated or forcefully directed the countless decisions and actions which brought me into existence. What I represented is a free market where people make individual choices. No one person can make a pencil. It takes hundreds-of-thousands of people making millions of individual decisions to make just one of me.
These days there are those who would take away my heritage. For example, the New York City mayor has established government grocery stores financed (perhaps without the citizens realizing it) by taxpayers. This impacts my private sector “kin;” the private grocery stores that operate on a very thin profit margin. They can’t compete against big government, so government grocery stores are killing off my neighborhood relatives; family-owned grocery stores. The socialist mayor of New York City thinks he can make (Some would say control) the decisions like those that brought me (a simple wooden pencil) into being and to you.
But it gets worse, the choices available to shoppers at the government run grocery stores is limited. Their private sector counterparts seek to learn the wants and desires of their customers and offer a wider variety of product choices; not so in government stores!
All across our country, we are seeing candidates running for office who have the same mindset as the socialist mayor of New York City. If elected this coming week, we will see them trying to impose their worldview upon our nation.
– In Michigan Abdul El-Sayed is running the U.S. Senate seat. He reportedly has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which has been designated a terrorist organization.
– In Texas, James Talerico favored dismantling capitalism that makes our economy strong; he wants to repeal many of the tax cuts contained in the “Big Beautiful Bill;” and he wants to raise the minimum wage – something tried in Seattle, Washington which resulted in the closure of many businesses and their departure from the city. The socialistic ideas destroy rather than build up economic growth.
Bill Sargent and Mark Mansius recently wrote about the bold moves our president has made to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of the Biden era. Donald Trump’s efforts resulted in private (not public) sector jobs being created, and major investments made in the U.S. An example of the Trump economic policies is the Audi corporation’s recent announcement that it’s investing $4.2 billion to produce 200,000 vehicles each year in Macon, Georgia, an investment that will create 4,500 jobs.
This happens when people like those who created me have the freedom to make individual choices and decisions. But if we elect socialist like James Talarico and others, a few “elites” will take that freedom from us. Listen to their words. They’re clear about their targets. Don’t be beguiled, you will not be one of those “elites” making such decisions! I encourage you to vote for freedom and the free market economy on election day.
Thank you, Bill, Mark, and The Post Newspaper, for letting me share my family story with you.
Respectfully, “The Pencil”
