It’s time for another in my on-again, off-again series of graduation speeches. (I keep them handy just in case .)

Here’s what I’d say to the Class of 2010:

“There are patterns you should notice.

For example, we have state and federal regulators and rooms full of lawbooks on securities trading — yet implosions such as Enron and WorldCom happen. When they do, politicians trot to a microphone to announce there’s going to be a “tightening up.” Then there are implosions like Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs and that whole Bernie Madoff thing.

We have thousands of food inspectors and reams of food processing and safety standards, but they haven’t stopped tainted products — tomatoes, lettuce, hamburger and peanut butter — from making it to store shelves from time to time. When it happens, a congressman announces a hearing. That’s followed by yet another promise from Washington, usually followed in a matter of days by another wave of recalls.

After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was folded under the umbrella of the new Department of Homeland Security. It was given a new name, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, so now we call it the USCIS instead of INS. As the saying goes, only the name has changed. The borders are porous and those seeking legal entry can get a different answer to the same question every day.

Another function of Homeland Security is TSA, the Transportation Safety Administration. Despite billions — billions — spent on hiring people, installing devices and conducting training, the last couple of attempted acts of mass destruction have been foiled merely through the efforts of alert citizens. Even in self-studies, undercover agents have reported little trouble getting contraband onto planes.

Yet another subsidiary of Homeland Security is the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

I’ll just stop there.

What’s most bothersome is that every pledge of “new and improved” government seems to increase people’s sense of dependence as opposed to their sense of skepticism. We seem not to see the pattern of governments making promises that are not or cannot be kept.

Maybe people really don’t feel this way. Maybe it’s just the networks filling air time. But after the April 24 tornado and amidst the newly oiled areas of the Gulf Coast, reporters seem always able to find someone who’ll step up to a microphone and complain that the government — local, state or national — is not doing enough to help.

For example, one day last week a Holmes County resident griped that there was still storm debris in her yard and no one was doing anything about it.

This is not an anti-government tirade. If anything, it’s a plea for rational thought. Recognize that a trip by any governor or any president to any disaster area is symbolic, which has value, but is not, of itself, a solution.

Governments do lots of good stuff. Governments are necessary. There are people, and the Holmes County resident may have been one of them, who are too elderly or infirm to pick up pine boughs.

It’s just that this pattern is destructive. Whenever something bad happens, whether a consequence of man-made or natural forces, there seems to be a force that drives politicians to the press and the press to politicians. Promises are made that can’t be kept. And more and more of us fall into a nonsensical trap of believing they will be.

Everybody wishes it was a perfect world. It can’t be if self-reliance disappears. Think about what government can and can’t do. Do what you’re able to do for yourself and others.”

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Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. Write to him at Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182, or e-mail cmitchell@vicksburgpost.com.