One of the most dismaying aspects of the year-long battle over health care reform, at least for me, has been the growing realization that more and more Americans are opposed -- noisily, angrily, violently opposed -- to having any of their tax dollars spent to benefit anyone but themselves.
Health care? Why should I pay someone else's doctor and hospital bills? Education? Why should I pay for someone else's kids to go to school? Housing? Why should I pay for someone else's grandparents to have a place to live?
Bottom line? If you can't afford it, you have no right to it. If you're broke, get a job. If you're poor, you deserve it.
More and more frequently, and more and more openly, I hear people saying such things. And this dismays me, not only because the ideas behind these words are ethically abominable, but also because they are un-American.
The republic created by the Constitution in 1789 was far from perfect, and we should never forget that it was created by an elite ruling class who were strongly opposed to democracy. And yet ... And yet, the preamble to that Constitution was written in the third person plural: "We the people of the United States ..." And although by "people" they may have meant free, white, property-owning males over the age of 21 ... still, they said "We."
All through the 221 years of our history since then, we have (mostly) expanded the notion of who is included in the "people" of the United States. But lately, it seems, the "we" has dropped out. Now it's "I" and "me" and especially "my" -- "my" tax-dollars, "my" freedom to do as I please, "my" right not to be offended by anyone or anything. Whatever happened to "we"?
Four of our fifty states use the word "commonwealth" in their official public documents. It's an old-fashioned word, and it describes an even more old-fashioned idea: the notion that there is even such a thing as the "common weal" -- the common welfare, the public good, the benefit of all.
But there was such a thing, or at least the idea of such a thing. It never existed, of course, and never will exist. But it has been, from time to time at least, a goal -- something we aspired to, an idea and an ideal we valued. Whatever happened to "we"?
What's even worse than being opposed to the use of tax dollars to provide for the health of our citizens and the education of our children is the lack of opposition to the spending of billions of our tax dollars on a foreign war that doesn't benefit anyone.
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