Considerations

I think Newsweek’s Evan Thomas per­haps gets it right when he says, Gov­ern­ment Is Not the Prob­lem: we are.

Amer­i­can indi­vid­u­al­ism and enti­tle­ment is cer­tainly at its height these days (though, I don’t agree that par­ti­san­ship is).  “What’s in it for me” has become the mantra of the Amer­i­can tax­payer.  We’ve man­aged to cre­ate a cul­ture in which pun­dits on both ends of the polit­i­cal horse­shoe simul­ta­ne­ously decry the loss of “self-reliance” or “per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity” while demand­ing that gov­ern­ment do more to boost the econ­omy, sup­port small busi­nesses, “fix” health­care, pro­tect doc­tors from mal­prac­tice suits, stop global warm­ing, et cetera ad infinitum.

For instance, in Ver­mont, nearly forty per­cent of kids ages 8–12 have had alco­hol in the last month.  That, to me, is pretty insane.  What’s scarier, how­ever, is that the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health rec­og­nized a need to include the fol­low­ing para­graph in its “Solu­tions” tab:

Our job as par­ents is to set clear bound­aries and mon­i­tor our children—where they go, what they do, how they act and more. This kind of mon­i­tor­ing is not a vio­la­tion of trust. It should be a reg­u­lar and expected part of par­ent­ing through­out the pre-teen and teen years.

Really?  Par­ents need to be told this?  By the gov­ern­ment?  Well, the sta­tis­tics cer­tainly bear out that they do.  Talk about a loss of respon­si­bil­ity!  That’s just one exam­ple, of course, and I hope it doesn’t lead the com­ments down too much of a digres­sive path.

My point is that the gov­ern­ment, whether it be local, state, or fed­eral, is our gov­ern­ment.  Our Con­sti­tu­tion starts “We the Peo­ple, of the United States of Amer­ica.”  At the time those words were writ­ten, “the Peo­ple” – at least, those with the right to vote – con­sisted of white landown­ers.  Now, the power of “the Peo­ple” lies in the hands of every­one over the age of 18.

How many times, how­ever, have you heard it said, “Those bums in Wash­ing­ton” or “Politi­cians: you just can’t trust ‘em”?  As if to say we don’t have the power to get rid of them.

Or, how about, “Well!  Our gov­ern­ment is con­trolled by Big Money, Big Cor­po­ra­tions, the Lob­by­ists.  The lit­tle guy doesn’t have a say any­more.”  I’ve got news for you: the lit­tle guy doesn’t vote.  There are a num­ber of rea­sons for that, to be sure.  On the other hand, I would ven­ture that while the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre makes nearly $1 mil­lion a year, most of its mem­ber­ship is lower-middle class.  In other words, the lit­tle guy is rely­ing on Big Money and Lob­by­ists to rep­re­sent his inter­ests, why shouldn’t the rich do the same but with­out the mid­dle­man?  (Don’t think this is lim­ited to the reac­tionary Right: just look at the Global-Warming Left’s Al Gore.)

I return to my point: 220 years ago, in the words of Lin­coln, “[O]ur fathers brought forth, upon this con­ti­nent, a new nation, con­ceived in Lib­erty, and ded­i­cated to the propo­si­tion that all men are cre­ated equal.… It is for us, the liv­ing, rather to be ded­i­cated here to the unfin­ished work … so nobly car­ried on. It is rather for us to be here ded­i­cated to the great task remain­ing before us … that this nation shall have a new birth of free­dom; and that this gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple, for the peo­ple, shall not per­ish from the earth.”

And that, my friends, is done through com­mu­nity, not individualism.

Now Avail­able: E-Book down­load: “Let­ters from Israel: An Amer­i­can journalist’s adven­tures in the Holy Land.”

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2. Con­ser­v­a­tive Pol­i­tics: Glenn Beck, Over­ton Win­dow, Bill O’Reilly
3. Watch Simp­sons in Israel — No Satel­lite TV Needed
4. Israel Travel: The Idea of Sovereignty
5. Mater­nity Leave