Now that we have fascist entrenched in the Executive Branch, every protection provided by our government is vulnerable to destruction. One of the most important things the federal government does is protect our retirement, with programs like Social Security and Medicare.
The Democratic Party needs to promote these programs to the voters constantly and strongly, because they will be destroyed if the fascists think they can politically survive their destruction. So it it up to us, everyone who believes in these government programs, to make it impossible for the fascists to survive that.
When I say “protection”, I’m going back to the basic purpose of government. We are better off with government than without because without government we are at the mercy of all the raw powers on our planet: foreign governments invading, the weather killing us, the moneyed interests exploiting us, disease rampaging through our communities.
The theory of our government is laid out in the Declaration of Independence, which reads in part:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
The U.S. government was specifically created to protect our rights, including the right to life. I take that in the broadest sense, that the government is here to secure the right to a full life, from birth to natural death.
This is the point of minimum wage laws. Without these laws, employers would only need to pay workers enough to keep them alive while they are able to work (and for parents to raise kids, too, so that employers would have workers to replace those who had to stop working).
It’s a very brutal way to conduct society. And I don’t think it is consistent with securing the right to a full life.
I’m starting here with the philosophical underpinnings of government because the right wing regularly attacks liberal values. The surest way to convince the public to get rid of a government program is to convince them that it is bad to have that program. That it is wrong, and therefore should be destroyed.
So, I want to be clear that it is right for us to have a government and it is right for that government to protect us. And, I want to be clear that by “protect”, I don’t just mean protection from physical violence. I mean protection in all its forms, which includes protection from exploitation.
You don’t have to hit someone to cause them harm. If you starve someone by preventing them from getting sufficient food, you are still harming them, even if you never lay a hand on them. If you prevent them from getting the same opportunities as others, you are still harming them.
It should also be clear that the purpose of government isn’t just to prevent harm from external forces. It is not sufficient to prevent Britain, say, from invading and taking over land mass. There are plenty of domestic powers that can exploit Americans, too, and it is every bit as legitimate for the federal government to protect Americans from domestic forces as it is to protect us from foreign invasion.
I plan to provide you with a series of articles about Social Security and Medicare. I want to strengthen the Democratic Party, and the left in particular, to withstand the coming assault from the right wing.
So, please watch for further articles in this series, Protecting America. It is critical to know how to respond to attacks before they happen.
And please urge your electeds to understand why these programs aren’t just good, they are also right. Providing this kind of protection to the people is the right thing to do.
