By Will Collins

Growing up, I had a love for learning history, and I still enjoy it today.

I remember asking my teachers and college professors about the thought processes of nations, leaders and society and was often told, “It was the way of the times.”

I certainly understand times do change and we are supposed to learn from our mistakes.

I still have to ask, “How could we have been so stupid?”

I realize the word “stupid” is not very politically correct or in the least, not very proper, but certain times in our world’s history fall right into that category.

Let’s take slavery, for example.

There is no word or phrase in any of the world’s many languages that can even attempt to describe it in a manner of “the times.” I say, “How could we have been so stupid?”

What about the Holocaust and its pure evil; or segregation prior to the Civil Rights movement? How could the world have been so stupid?

I start thinking about the future, long after this article and possibly after I am gone. What type of things will we look at from today’s times and ask, “How could we have been that wrong?”

We have areas where we as a nation have improved and learned from our past mistakes, but we continue to do things that seem to move us backwards.

We are soft on crime, we don’t do enough to address the drug epidemic, we are weak at securing our borders and with all of these issues, we continue to pay a lot of tax dollars.

A few weeks ago, a man was sentenced in Lexington for killing a doctor while driving under the influence. It was noted in the trial this was the ninth time he was arrested for a DUI — nine times!

What made it worse was the individual had to have a translator in order for he and the judge to communicate.

You can say what you want, but government and our society failed this doctor’s family. It should have never happened.

Over the weekend, I watched a news program talking about an organization in Toronto that provides “safe houses” for taking illegal drugs. I use the word safe house because I don’t know the actual term, but people were lined up and had choices of tents for smoking, injecting or taking drugs. The goal is to create a safer environment with fewer overdoses.

It was suggested we bring more of such places into the communities of the U.S. to help address the issue. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer safety, but really? In my opinion, what I watched was terrible because it was making the process seem more enabling than preventing or delivering help.

As I mentioned, our tax dollars are spent so unwisely that situations like these continue to be prevalent. The new tax proposal has a big goal of putting more money back into your pockets, so for that reason alone, I am all for it.

I don’t want to give our government more money until they learn how to spend properly for the things we as citizens truly need.

As Chico Xavier said, “Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning, anyone can start over and make a new ending.”

My good friends, it’s time we begin working on the new ending with some common sense forward thinking.

Political enthusiast Will Collins is a lifelong resident of Kentucky and has called Winchester his home for the past 20 years. He can be reached at wrcollins70@gmail.com.