Root 'yes' vote in optimism

The fate of our school levy hangs on a single, shared disposition. Do we, as a community, choose to come from weakness, or from strength?

If, by voting down the levy, we chose to come from weakness and thereby preserve our personal financial resources in the most miserly way, we will no doubt validate our own decisions. Our children's future prospects will shrink (to what degree is certainly open to debate), and the varied psychological effects of this diminished future will subtly weave their way into the fabric of our community. Hope will subside ever so slightly, thus engendering modestly lowered economic expectations, and so a further hoarding of personal resources. In this way we will, ultimately and tragically, validate our original decision. In short, our fear will have successfully fed upon itself.

Our other choice is to come from strength and vote for our children's future by risking $20 a month or so of our own economic future. In doing so, we will be voting to face this recession head on by proclaiming that we believe in ourselves and in our children and that we're willing to risk modest near term economic consequence as testimony to that belief. We will, in essence, be saying that we believe our future prospects to be robust and that we have the resources to help our children be part of that future.

Come from strength, look fear in the face, and vote yes on the school levy on Feb. 24.

MARTIN McBIRNEY

Sandpoint