The above title is a piece of political advice by the late Molly Ivins. It is an old Texas Saying which means "stick with the principles, people and tactics that have succeeded in allowing you to arrive where you wanted to go".

In the '60's and '70's parents of disabled people realized that we as a society could do more - do better - for our fellow citizens. Their efforts brought us the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

One can admire their efforts while still recognizing that their cultural expectations were optimistic. "Land a man on the moon? Sure! Why not!"

That optimistic view of american society enabled us to do a great many things; the civil rights movement, the steady improvement in middle class standard of living, reducing crime, decreasing poverty increasing education.

At some point cynicism became cool. The improvements made weren't just taken for granted, but actively denied. Few people realize that today violent crime is 80% less common than it was in 1980.

That taking for granted (at best) or outright denial (at worst) has a seriously harmful result. If we refuse to recognize that things have improved, it gives a rationale to attack the programs, processes, and laws that created the improvement.

I think most of us would be surprised to know that prior to 1975, kids with disabilities in most states didn't have a right to go to their community school, and in fact the school district didn't have any responsibility for their education at all. It was okay to simply pretend they didn't exist, and that they didn't have any ownership of the society in which they lived.

Chronic funding cuts for the disabilty systems run the risk of recreating the marginalization which previously existed.

"Dance with the one that brung ya." The optimism of the 60's is what brought us the successes that we today take for granted. So my solution is, don't dance with the cynical and negative. "We don't have the money" is a cop-out. The GDP in this country is roughly $50,000 per person. There's plenty of money, we just spend it wrong. As a society and as a government we can always seem to find the money to deal with a crisis, but we often can't find money to prevent them.