"That is our character." Those were the last words in President Obama's speech tonight. I don't think I could have summed up my feelings lately in a better way. Yes, our character as Americans is to take care of each other and to show kindness, justice and equity when we can and must. When did that change for so many Republicans?
I have seriously despaired lately over the things I have heard people shout at "town hall" meetings and in the press. I don't remember a time when starting from a lack of compassion ever served us well. Yet, that is exactly the tenor of the things shouted, the invective hurled. The most common sentiment I hear is this question, "Why should I have to pay for someone else?" It isn't a bad question. Why should we subsidize those who do not make enough money, through necessity or choice, to have healthcare? My answer is, simply, because we can. If we were living in a small village whose continued existence depended on a delicate balance of those who can participating in society and no one else being subsidized by those efforts, it would be reasonable to say that we cannot provide compassion for our fellow citizens. But we don't live in that small village and we do have enough to give those of us who cannot care for ourselves care. If we can do it, as we most assuredly can, why would we decide not to? Why would we deny someone relief from disease and a longer life if we possess the ability to give them those things?
If we decide that our country should be measured by the strength of its wealthy instead of the health of its citizens, then we have a problem. It's actually a very simple proposition to understand: If you decide, no matter who "you" are, that you do not "owe" your fellow man relief from suffering, even though you possess the ability to give that relief, you are a bad person. Your character is flawed. If you start from the position of ownership of all you produce, then you are missing the point. You produce in this society because of the other people in society with you; you do not collect your own trash, deliver your own mail, or provide your own electricity. Other people do those things for you and for themselves. You pay for those services by doing something else in society, by giving your own productivity. In that way, you share your productivity. But there are some people who are not able to be as productive as you or the garbage collector or the doctor; are those people any less worthy of compassion simply because they are less productive? No, of course not. In sharing your productivity with society, you have the ability to include those people in the circle of productivity you have created, sort of like a big hug. That is, undoubtedly, the way it is supposed to work.
Starting from a position of compassion when dealing with the needs of others is not a luxury, it is a necessity. I cannot imagine that believing in the invalidity of others makes people any happier. In fact, I would think that sort of cynicism pushes us a long way toward despair. I know I've felt that despair over the last few months as I've seen people mock a woman in a wheelchair for having unaffordable medications for diseases that were probably either the same or similar to mine. It filled me with despair because it made me think that people were losing their inherent value when they chose to embrace such cruelty, such evil. But then I remembered that most of those people had probably not thought the issue through. Those people would probably step in to save the proverbial drowning child if the opportunity arose, but they have not yet connected their more removed actions with the suffering of others. I cannot account for the evil I've seen any other way.
Yesterday, my dad and I were talking about something you may have heard of, the Nikki Catsouras coroner pictures that were posted online and then emailed, over and over to her friends and family with hateful words attached. I was stunned by it, as was my dad, and was trying to puzzle out an answer for why people would do such a thing. My dad responded: "There is a lot of evil in the world." I told him I thought that was as good of an answer as any, but now I don't think that it is. I think it is more accurate to say that there is a lot of unthinking in the world. I don't think people would do these things if they knew, could see for themselves, the results of their actions. I don't believe the people who disparage those of us who depend on society for care would do so if they truly knew the indignity of it or the necessity of it. I believe that the people who do these things are suffering from a mental disease of affluence, a thing they slipped into because they
could without considering whether or not they
should.
I still have hope that time will show us the folly of beginning without compassion. It has a funny way of forcing us all to pay the same toll.
