I've just returned from staying with my physician brother-in-law, and as often is the case on these visits, somewhere after 1AM we held an hour long screaming session on politics. I believe I said something about everything being the fault of freakin' anti-worker Republicans backed by corporate corruption (and I may well have used a word other than "freakin'"), while he ended by touching on his Air Force career and insisting that it was going to take a military coup to set this country right.
We'd have still been arguing at 3AM but for three things: one, I started to remember that I was a guest in his house; two, I realized that he'd spent the day looking after his father who is currently in critical condition; and three, my agitation rose to the point where my heart began to do extravagant flip-flops around my chest and it occurred to me that I was very close to getting my own bed in cardiac intensive care.
This argument -- like most others I've had in my life -- left me with a mixture of intense frustration and profound relief. Frustration because in the heat of the moment I found myself sputtering obscenities rather than getting my point across clearly, and relief in that I've never been silly enough to run for political office and demonstrate my incoherence in public.
So, in the spirit of all those zingers I wish I could have fired back when made the butt of a joke, and all those clever lines that occurred to me while driving home from an awkward date, here's what I'd like to think I would say in defense of my beliefs, were I not busy being strangled by my own endocrine system.
I believe there is both worth and glory in the achievement of individuals. However, I do not believe in the elevation of selfishness into a virtue. What I want sometimes comes -- as it rightfully should -- behind what many others need.
I believe that noble self-sacrifice is not something that is demanded of only a few on the battlefield. It's something that's demanded of almost everyone, almost every day, in ways both great and small. That includes when I pay my taxes.
I believe that we almost never have the government we need, rarely get the government we deserve, but nearly always have the government we earn. That is, the quality of our government is exactly equal to the effort we're willing to expend. If we are convinced that government is intrinsically evil, or hopelessly corrupt, our neglect will be reflected in bad governance -- and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.
I believe that the government is not separable from the governed. Pretending that we are governed by some "other" -- be it secret organizations or evil aliens -- is only an excuse to not put in the work needed to make government better. Like it or not, in America there is no line between "us" and "them."
I believe that elections count, that my vote matters, and that all politicians are not created equal. I do not believe in dark cabals or conspiracies that keep the numbers in elections from representing the actual votes cast -- that includes both theories of massive vote fraud and theories of voting machine malfeasance. I do not believe every politician will, once seated in Congress or the White House, instantly transform into a servant of the status quo. Our system, while neither as open or as fair as it should be, is far too open and fair to be controlled like a puppet by a few shadowy figures. Pretending that the outcome of elections is either preordained or pointless is another reason to complain when we should be working to fix things. (oh yeah, I also do not believe in wacky theories about zillion dollar offshore slush funds full of money from ambulance-chasing lawyers that gets fed to thousands of people so they can sneakily insert it into the pockets of pet politicians. Sheesh.)
I believe that government is worth making better, and that Government is not only vital, but also good. There are things that we can achieve as a community -- and it's a large set of things, not a small one -- that we can not achieve as individuals. This includes (but is far from limited to) our mutual defense, public education, the infrastructure on which we all rely, the protection of our individual rights, the protection of workers, and the protection of our environment.
I believe it's within the government's justifiable powers to take some of the taxes collected from those able to pay, and use it for the benefit of those less able. Not just because "as you do to the least of these" is a core tenet of many religions, not just because it's sound moral principle, but because it's absolutely required to generate the kind of society in which anyone would want to live.
Finally, I believe it is not too late. Not too late to do the right thing in our foreign policy. Not too late to do the right thing with our environmental policies. Not too late to change. And that if we stop blaming the Illuminati for our problems and get out there and vote, we really can take our country back.
Oh, and I do believe that those freakin' Republican union-busters deserve a smack across the chops. Which I intend to deliver -- in the voting booth.
uo