There exists in my mind no greater test of a society than the experience of its most vulnerable citizens. All nations carry about a privileged class, a scum of wealthy elites under whom all others labor. There are rich Somalis, well-to-do Congolese, loaded Liberians, and of course, Saudi Princes by the bucketload. The measure of those benighted places cannot be the rarified air enjoyed by their most fortunate or ruthless members, but rather must be found in the health of their beggars, the hopes for their children, and the security of their elderly. As a civil society should enhance the natural rights of its people, so should every strata have a floor of experience below which no one need fear sinking.
I had an interesting conversation with a gregarious stranger this afternoon on the busride home. I have a regular crowd of "bus buddies" who ride together on the commute home, and we like to chat away the 45 minute ride. Today's conversation got a bit energetic, as we touched upon a variety of topics, but wound up hitting upon the inequity of tax rates between a janitor and a billionaire in New York City. We'd talked about a lot of interesting things, but the tax issue got this fellow all fired up, and he interrupted our conversation to put in his two cents.
"So you think the government should take care of everyone?" He asked.
"I didn't say that at all," I said. "And 'take care of' is a really loaded phrase."
"Then what do you want?"
"Well, I want the government to ensure that there's a level below which anyone in America -- which is, by the way, still the wealthiest nation on earth -- never falls."
Now, I want to stress to you that this man was friendly, civil, and engaged in the conversation. He wasn't stupid, he wasn't confrontational, and in fact, he waited after deboarding the bus to shake my hand and expressed an interest in having more discussions with me in the future. I liked him a lot, even if we didn't see eye to eye on our respective politics.
But that first part of our conversation, which I liberally reconstructed above, really stuck with me. Do I want the government to "take care" of everyone? Well, no. No I don't. For the most part, I want the government to enable people to take care of themselves. And you know what, I'm not alone.
Polls going back decades on healthcare, on poverty, and on caring for the elderly bear out my feeling that Americans are good people. We geniunely want our neighbors to do well and thrive, and that speaks volumes about the gap between the people of this country and its leadership.
America, as a great nation, as the beacon of liberty, blah, blah, blah, owes it to itself and to its citizens to live up to the promise implicit in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
So just how perfect could the union be when we leave our weakest members behind? How can we attain domestic tranquility when the evils of unattended poverty and privation fester in our cities and towns? And how general is the welfare when we stigmatize and ostracize citizens whose capacity to care for themselves and their own is exceeded by their need? If we're to live up to that lofty sentence, shouldn't we begin with the least among us?
So, I'm just saying, we should really begin to look hard at leaders who toss out trial balloons with phrases like "shared sacrifice" when they speak of cutting Social Security and Medicare, or when they contemplate cutting taxes on the wealthy even more, or when they plain redefine the terms to avoid admitting that their ideology has caused an epidemic of poverty in America. Because, I tell you truly, posterity will carry the story of how we care for those among us who need assistance to survive.
I'm kind of hoping we'll have a happy ending.