I'm taking a brief break from my occasional series on why I'm not politically conservative to write a piece that may undermine that entire project. I listen sporadically to a podcast called The Story (kind of a conceited title, I think, but it generally makes me think, which is good). Some of the episodes are poignant and touching, while others feel a bit flat, so I don't listen religiously, but I try to catch a few episodes a week.
Yesterday I listened to an episode from last week with two very different stories. The first was about an American couple who retired and moved to Mexico to enjoy better and less expensive health care. I wanted to get behind their story, as it highlights much of what is wrong with the health care industry in America today. But in the end I found the husband, who is at the center of the story, a completely unsympathetic figure.
In part this is a result of the phrase the host kept using to describe why Steve Minnick and his wife moved to Mexico: "to take advantage of that country's health care system." I know what he means, but "taking advantage" of something is a messy phrase that implies something that was, I believe unintended but telling. The idea of exploiting a system to which you have no real connection is troubling.
I also find it hard to be sympathetic for someone who's complaint is that he has to return to work because the recession harmed his retirement savings. When the poor are losing jobs and homes, it's hard to feel for someone who lost (which means he had) $300,000 in retirement and had to sell his home in Mexico, move back to America, and return to work so he could save enough in his retirement account to live quite comfortably seven years from now.
And I contrast this with the other story in the episode, in which Robert Johnson recalls his father's sacrifice to support his family during the Great Depression. This man fought six rounds at a county fair against a professional boxer, nearly dying in front of his son, to earn $25 to pay rent. It makes unretiring look pretty pedestrian a sacrifice, I think.
This gets at something that has bothered me throughout this recession. People complain about decreased or lost income, but still get cable TV and drive SUVs. We talk about scrimping and saving, but still rack up credit card debt. And the federal response has been to spend more and bail out failing companies while cutting services for the poor.
I contrast this with the New Deal approach. Instead of bailing out banks, the federal government put people to work. Instead of encouraging us to spend more, it provided a safety net for individuals and families. A welfare system that focuses on people, not corporation, is far superior. The New Deal was no a panacea, but it seems better than the way this recession has been addressed.
And I think this says something ugly about who we are, that our response to tragedy is to amass material things, to spend, to stimulate our way out of a crisis rather than to make real sacrifices. I makes me a bit sad and ashamed.
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2 comments:
I absolutely agree with the 'sacrifice' part. We don't ask people to sacrifice anything anymore. I think this is one of the reasons that support for the war on terror (wether it was a just war or not) waned so quickly. We, as a people, were not asked to sacrifice anything in support of the war. As a result the government over spent, people continued to be real economic gluttons and our nation took a big nose dive.
I absolutely agree. If there was any since of service requirement instead of entitlement this country would be completely different. I would love to see the country establish compulsary military/civil defense service. Imagine requiring every American to serve 1 year in a public service role, be it the military, police, EMS, fire department. It would instill a sense of community that's lacking.
I think this problem is compounded by the partisan bickering that the politicians and their media allies participate in. They, whether deliberately or not, have viscerally divided the country into irreconcilable camps. The net result is that people treat one another with contempt when they find they have divergent political opinions. Instead of making common cause they simply go back to watching Fox or MSNBC while exalting in their own moral superiority. With a poisoned climate like this there's no wonder that ideas like sacrifice and working together for the common good are quaint notions of an older time.
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