Maybe it is because I am staring down a birthday.  Perhaps I fear becoming a curmudgeon, even though most of those are men. Perhaps I am not adapting to societal changes, including ones I find repugnant.

Whatever the reasons, I do not believe we are the same people we are today that we were in earlier generations of Americans. Millions of us are coming to the same conclusion for these and other reasons.

We no longer believe in the value of an educated populace for a productive community and a high quality of life.

We want our own families to have access to high-quality teachers and facilities, but to heck with everyone else. North Carolina is a strong example of this failing, though many other states also underfund public education from K through college.  Almost half of the states, including our own, fund private schools with public monies through vouchers, and some states have more than one voucher program. North Carolina’s voucher program, not based on financial need, is expected to cost $5 billion by the next decade. According to Public Ed Works, a non-profit focused on public education, student test performance is declining, as is college enrollment—now at about 40 percent, down from 66 percent ten years ago. In addition, a recent survey by CouponBirds finds that North Carolina teachers rank second in the nation for personal spending on classroom supplies at $1632, only $5 behind Pennsylvania teachers. Shame on us!

While we want an education for those we love, we have lost the idea that an educated community benefits all and enriches life from cradle to grave.

We express horror at videos of starving children in Palestine, but at the same time, we take food from children in our own nation. The Big Beautiful Bill enacted by Congress earlier this summer cuts a projected $300-500 billion in food assistance over the next decade, affecting food availability for some 1.4 million North Carolinians who rely on SNAP benefits (once called food stamps). Many of them are families with young children who depend on quality food to grow properly, and among that group are young military families, our own neighbors, some of whom will go hungry.  Amy Beros, CEO of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, told NC Newsline, “We’re in the worst hunger crisis that we’ve seen in nearly 20 years, and with the SNAP cuts that have been passed at the federal level, we’re going to see that spike in a way we can’t fill the gap.”

Apparently, that does not bother us either.

Almost 13 years ago, a troubled 20-year-old shot and killed 20 kindergarteners and first graders and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, and a national outcry went up, “never again!” We lied to ourselves.  According to the K-12 School Shootings Database, there have been 189 school shootings since Sandy Hook, including single suicides and brutal, continuous shootings, like Uvalde, which left 19 elementary schoolers and 2 teachers dead. Gun violence is now the leading cause of child deaths in the United States, making us unique among large, wealthy nations. Today, as you read this, 12 children in America will die a gun death, and another 32 will be injured by gunshot. 

Do we care? We say we do, but we do nothing to stop the carnage.  Apparently, we care more about possessing guns than protecting children.

Millions of Americans, including this one, do care about all of this, and millions are struggling to fund schools adequately, protect the vulnerable from food deprivation, and get a grip on gun violence. 

As we consider who to support in this year’s local elections and in the 2026 cycle, please pay attention not to what candidates say, but to what they actually do.