The Idea of America
While in Argentina, I made the cosmic faux pas of telling my traveling companions that during my dozens of trips to the country, in the company of dozens of people, no one had ever gotten food poisoning. “This is not Mexico, after all,” I may have added with a dismissive wave of the hand.
Those words returned to my mind two nights later while clutching the sides of a toilet and reexamining the contents of my stomach through watery eyes. Though no one can know about these things for certain, and food poisoning can strike in any country at any time, I believe the problem came from an undercooked sausage served in a private home. But the source of my malady is irrelevant to the story, which now shifts forward in time by two days when I decided that enough was enough and asked my driver to take me up to the local hospital in Cafayate for a remedy to finish off the rear guard of the bug that laid me low.
The hospital in town is only about two years old, and I was pleased to find it spotless and well organized. As I was arriving unannounced, I was directed to the emergency room where a fee of $12 was levied for the visit. After just a few minutes’ wait, I was ushered into the doctor’s chambers for the customary checking of vitals by the nurse, followed soon thereafter by the arrival of the doctor.
As he was checking the stats, the smiling doctor asked where I was from, and when I responded, the United States, he threw out what I thought was a very interesting follow-on question, “So, when do you think we will live like you?”
Maybe it was just the inadequacies of my Spanish or the fact I was still feeling out of sorts, but I found myself unable to come up with anything in the way of an intelligent answer or even much of a snappy retort, so I mumbled something like, “It’s all about politics” and left it at that.
But on the way back to the hotel, I brought the question up with my driver, an intelligent and well-spoken young man with a great desire to do more with his life.
“You know,” I said, “the doctor’s question was a good one. But I don’t think I have a good answer.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because it strikes me that the America he is referring to is an America from a day gone by.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like this. America is not a place, it is an idea. And when that idea was fresh, it was a revolutionary idea – one that literally changed the world. But with time, that idea has degraded to where, today, it is becoming only an echo of its former self. Now, don’t get me wrong. America is still a far better place to live than many places, but it’s a far cry from the shining castle on the hill it once was. And, I fear, it’s on a very slippery slope. “
While the doctor probably can’t appreciate it, though Argentina is far from perfect, it still offers a quality of life that most Americans can’t even imagine, especially if you have a few extra bucks in your jeans.
But talking up Argentina, or even talking down America, is not what I’m trying to get at.
Rather it is to ask, what has become of the idea of America? Put another way, who are we, and what do we now stand for? Those strike me as fairly important questions, at least if we want to set any sort of course for the future. Paraphrasing one of those who make a living giving out trite advice, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do.”
The path we seem to be on today has no obvious signposts but is rather determined by the prevailing electoral calculations and knock-on machinations of the politicians and their symbiotic corporate sponsors.
Consider the matter of extending unemployment benefits now in front of the Senate. As you are probably aware, a Republican senator from Kentucky by the name of Bunning has been holding up legislation designed to provide extended unemployment benefits – benefits that now run for an unprecedented 99 weeks – a short-term stop gap measure until the next piece of legislation can be whipped up to assure the extended benefits are available through the end of this year.
Said Sen. Reid, D. of Nevada, on the topic of Bunning’s legislative stalling…
"Six times last week, Democrats asked to extend their unemployment benefits for a short time while they work on a longer extension," Reid said. "Six times, Republicans said no. They didn't just say no to us, that is members of the Senate. They said no to their families in their own states and all our states count on us to act when we need action. They count on us to respond in the event of an emergency. This is an emergency. The Republicans in the Senate are standing between these families and the help they need while these benefits expire and expired." Now, what I find interesting in all of this is not so much that a senator is standing in the way of the extended benefits – because even he is for providing them, just from a different pocket than the Democrats are proposing – but rather that there is zero real debate about the act itself.
Everyone in positions of power, Republican and Democrats and, I am certain, 95% of the public, believe without the slightest hesitation or reservation that the extended benefits should continue. And that, with passage a certainty, Bunning is nothing more than a stubborn and maybe even evil person for delaying the inevitable.
But why is 99 weeks the right length of time for the benefits to be paid, versus the 28 that was the norm prior to last year? And if 99, why not 199?
There has to be an operating principle underpinning this sort of decision, doesn’t there? Is it that every taxpayer has a civic duty, whether they agree to it or not, to pay the wages of those who lose their job and can’t readily find another? And/or is it that the government has a mandate to borrow money in whatever quantities are needed, regardless of the economic consequences on future generations, in order to soften the blow of a current crisis?
I don’t pretend to have the answer, because I confess to possessing almost no sense of the modern idea of America. But I’ve been mulling it over ever since the doctor asked his question.
As I see it, the idea of America – the idea that made this country the powerhouse it grew into – is that everyone should be free to succeed or fail as a result of their own efforts and not held back based on the circumstances of their birth. In England of yore, a man who was born a serf almost certainly died a serf. In America, there were no serfs, just fellow citizens free to pursue opportunity where they found it.
Today, however, the idea of America seems weighed down with a long legacy of well-meaning or strictly politically motivated legislation that serves to build barriers to opportunity seekers – by taxing away capital in order to spend it on vote-getting social programs or on a power-projecting military that aims to spread today’s tainted version of the American idea through the barrel of a gun. And by layering on mountains of regulation whose purpose is, purportedly, to level the playing field, but which in actual fact seeks its outcomes by pushing forward one group of citizens by disadvantaging others.
There are, of course, consequences to all these actions. Open-ended unemployment benefits reduce the urgency to develop marketable skills, just as a Social Security safety net reduces the necessity to spend less and save more, and universal health care reduces the sense that one should take extra care with one’s health.
There are no easy answers to these societal issues, because the workings of an economy do not include magic trees from which wealth and sustenance grow in sufficient quantity for all. And so, in the end, all we are left with are the operating principles of the nation… the principles that establish how the private and public sector should interact, ideally for maximum success. In the America of 1776, the principles that held sway set the country apart from all others and provided a model for success that was subsequently widely emulated.
But that was then, and this is now.
I think everyone would benefit from a clear restatement of the current idea of America, an idea that used to be encapsulated in the Constitution and the Bill of the Rights. Today, those documents and the principles they codified have been all but lost under a mountain of meddlesome and counterproductive legislation.
So, who are we? What are the guiding principles of this country? Are they likely to lead to renewed economic success or economic collapse? Is it too late to return to the robust capitalism that made the country what it was? Or should we dismiss the idea of America that held sway in 1776 as outdated and look instead to a brave new world where the best and brightest set the course?
While in Argentina, I made the cosmic faux pas of telling my traveling companions that during my dozens of trips to the country, in the company of dozens of people, no one had ever gotten food poisoning. “This is not Mexico, after all,” I may have added with a dismissive wave of the hand.
Those words returned to my mind two nights later while clutching the sides of a toilet and reexamining the contents of my stomach through watery eyes. Though no one can know about these things for certain, and food poisoning can strike in any country at any time, I believe the problem came from an undercooked sausage served in a private home. But the source of my malady is irrelevant to the story, which now shifts forward in time by two days when I decided that enough was enough and asked my driver to take me up to the local hospital in Cafayate for a remedy to finish off the rear guard of the bug that laid me low.
The hospital in town is only about two years old, and I was pleased to find it spotless and well organized. As I was arriving unannounced, I was directed to the emergency room where a fee of $12 was levied for the visit. After just a few minutes’ wait, I was ushered into the doctor’s chambers for the customary checking of vitals by the nurse, followed soon thereafter by the arrival of the doctor.
As he was checking the stats, the smiling doctor asked where I was from, and when I responded, the United States, he threw out what I thought was a very interesting follow-on question, “So, when do you think we will live like you?”
Maybe it was just the inadequacies of my Spanish or the fact I was still feeling out of sorts, but I found myself unable to come up with anything in the way of an intelligent answer or even much of a snappy retort, so I mumbled something like, “It’s all about politics” and left it at that.
But on the way back to the hotel, I brought the question up with my driver, an intelligent and well-spoken young man with a great desire to do more with his life.
“You know,” I said, “the doctor’s question was a good one. But I don’t think I have a good answer.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because it strikes me that the America he is referring to is an America from a day gone by.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like this. America is not a place, it is an idea. And when that idea was fresh, it was a revolutionary idea – one that literally changed the world. But with time, that idea has degraded to where, today, it is becoming only an echo of its former self. Now, don’t get me wrong. America is still a far better place to live than many places, but it’s a far cry from the shining castle on the hill it once was. And, I fear, it’s on a very slippery slope. “
While the doctor probably can’t appreciate it, though Argentina is far from perfect, it still offers a quality of life that most Americans can’t even imagine, especially if you have a few extra bucks in your jeans.
But talking up Argentina, or even talking down America, is not what I’m trying to get at.
Rather it is to ask, what has become of the idea of America? Put another way, who are we, and what do we now stand for? Those strike me as fairly important questions, at least if we want to set any sort of course for the future. Paraphrasing one of those who make a living giving out trite advice, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do.”
The path we seem to be on today has no obvious signposts but is rather determined by the prevailing electoral calculations and knock-on machinations of the politicians and their symbiotic corporate sponsors.
Consider the matter of extending unemployment benefits now in front of the Senate. As you are probably aware, a Republican senator from Kentucky by the name of Bunning has been holding up legislation designed to provide extended unemployment benefits – benefits that now run for an unprecedented 99 weeks – a short-term stop gap measure until the next piece of legislation can be whipped up to assure the extended benefits are available through the end of this year.
Said Sen. Reid, D. of Nevada, on the topic of Bunning’s legislative stalling…
"Six times last week, Democrats asked to extend their unemployment benefits for a short time while they work on a longer extension," Reid said. "Six times, Republicans said no. They didn't just say no to us, that is members of the Senate. They said no to their families in their own states and all our states count on us to act when we need action. They count on us to respond in the event of an emergency. This is an emergency. The Republicans in the Senate are standing between these families and the help they need while these benefits expire and expired." Now, what I find interesting in all of this is not so much that a senator is standing in the way of the extended benefits – because even he is for providing them, just from a different pocket than the Democrats are proposing – but rather that there is zero real debate about the act itself.
Everyone in positions of power, Republican and Democrats and, I am certain, 95% of the public, believe without the slightest hesitation or reservation that the extended benefits should continue. And that, with passage a certainty, Bunning is nothing more than a stubborn and maybe even evil person for delaying the inevitable.
But why is 99 weeks the right length of time for the benefits to be paid, versus the 28 that was the norm prior to last year? And if 99, why not 199?
There has to be an operating principle underpinning this sort of decision, doesn’t there? Is it that every taxpayer has a civic duty, whether they agree to it or not, to pay the wages of those who lose their job and can’t readily find another? And/or is it that the government has a mandate to borrow money in whatever quantities are needed, regardless of the economic consequences on future generations, in order to soften the blow of a current crisis?
I don’t pretend to have the answer, because I confess to possessing almost no sense of the modern idea of America. But I’ve been mulling it over ever since the doctor asked his question.
As I see it, the idea of America – the idea that made this country the powerhouse it grew into – is that everyone should be free to succeed or fail as a result of their own efforts and not held back based on the circumstances of their birth. In England of yore, a man who was born a serf almost certainly died a serf. In America, there were no serfs, just fellow citizens free to pursue opportunity where they found it.
Today, however, the idea of America seems weighed down with a long legacy of well-meaning or strictly politically motivated legislation that serves to build barriers to opportunity seekers – by taxing away capital in order to spend it on vote-getting social programs or on a power-projecting military that aims to spread today’s tainted version of the American idea through the barrel of a gun. And by layering on mountains of regulation whose purpose is, purportedly, to level the playing field, but which in actual fact seeks its outcomes by pushing forward one group of citizens by disadvantaging others.
There are, of course, consequences to all these actions. Open-ended unemployment benefits reduce the urgency to develop marketable skills, just as a Social Security safety net reduces the necessity to spend less and save more, and universal health care reduces the sense that one should take extra care with one’s health.
There are no easy answers to these societal issues, because the workings of an economy do not include magic trees from which wealth and sustenance grow in sufficient quantity for all. And so, in the end, all we are left with are the operating principles of the nation… the principles that establish how the private and public sector should interact, ideally for maximum success. In the America of 1776, the principles that held sway set the country apart from all others and provided a model for success that was subsequently widely emulated.
But that was then, and this is now.
I think everyone would benefit from a clear restatement of the current idea of America, an idea that used to be encapsulated in the Constitution and the Bill of the Rights. Today, those documents and the principles they codified have been all but lost under a mountain of meddlesome and counterproductive legislation.
So, who are we? What are the guiding principles of this country? Are they likely to lead to renewed economic success or economic collapse? Is it too late to return to the robust capitalism that made the country what it was? Or should we dismiss the idea of America that held sway in 1776 as outdated and look instead to a brave new world where the best and brightest set the course?
No comments:
Post a Comment