The Ugly Mean-Spirited American
Posted: Friday, February 20, 2009
by Tex Norman
There is a cruelty that is way too common among us. By us I mean human beings.
Today, I heard a story, on NPR, about two Washington State girls (ages 13 and 14), who decided to skip school. The girls made a bad choice. These young ladies hung out in a quiet place where the rail road tracks ran along side a creek. It was a bad decision. As the day passed the girls laid down on the tracks, not across the tracks, but running with the tracks, they put a book bag between them, rested their heads on the book bag and talked with one another for a while. Eventually both girls dozed off. They never heard the train coming. The vibration of the rails didn't wake them up. The screaming of the power horn on the engine failed to rouse them.
I agree that these girls did the wrong thing, but I'm not sure I can go so far as to say, skipping school and falling asleep on the track is so stupid that they deserve to lose body parts and live as crippled beings for the rest of their lives.
This morning, on television news I heard Rick Santelli was seen on TV ranting at a group saying, "How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage?" There was some negative sounding noise coming from these stock traders. "President Obama are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgage! It's a moral hazard...President Obama, are you listening?"
OK, this is the United States and we still give a positive nod towards free speech and I'm not about to call for Mr. Santelli to shut his pie hole. If you get more than two people together you can't get 100 percent agreement about where to go for hamburgers so it is obvious we are going to disagree on how to address our economic problem.
I can understand why people might have different opinions, but I am just sad that so many of us wish punitive outcomes to our fellow citizens. There seems to be a large segment of our population that would agree with the following:
"I pay my bills and made good choices, and you didn't so I could care less if you lose your house, in fact you should lose your house, in fact, I'm tickled pink that you are losing all your stuff because you are a fiscal dolt, an economic dim bulb, a financial fool and losing everything you have is just what you deserve."
Mr. Santelli, has a history of consistently opposing ALL of the bailout. Santelli is not just ready willing and able to enjoy people losing their homes, he also opposes any help to the banking and car industries aw well. It is unfair to say that all Republicans or all conservatives are mean-spirited compassionless people, after all, three Republicans did vote for the stimulus package.
First I would point out that Mr. Santelli is painting everyone with a very broad brush. It seems a little presumptuous to claim that every single person who is about to lose their home is in a bind because they took on more loan than they could afford. There are thousands of other causes for being unable to pay for your home, like unemployment, or falling housing prices, making it impossible for people to sell their homes because the houses have lost value. Do these naysayer really think that adding a hundred thousand (or more) houses on an already glutted housing market is NOT going to drive down the value of their own homes?
Sincere people can have different opinions and those opinions are sincerely held and honestly believed. When Reagan said "Government is not the solution government is the problem" he was expressing a sincerely held ideological view. I read a story once about how someone cut holes in coconut shells, put a peanut in each shell, and the next morning he'd caught a dozen monkeys. Each one had reached in to the coconut shell, grabbed the peanut, and then couldn't get their fist out of the coconut. The monkeys could easily have released the peanut, and then they could have shaken the peanut into their open palm, but they just didn't get it. To the monkey, once they had the nut in their tight little fist they just could not let go of it, and therefore they were trapped by their own insistence that they hold on to what they had.
The Republicans seem to have this same view, they hold to small government, low taxes, let the market fix itself, and if a million people are homeless and unemployed while the capitalism "fixes itself" then that's OK because they have a firm grip on their ideology. To be fair, there are times when the Democrats have a grip on their own ideological preconceptions and they won't let go, even if it means they are trapped. I wish we were all pragmatic and not Republicrates. I wish people mattered more than philosophy. I wish people mattered more than profit. I wish we cared about each other, even those of us who make mistakes. I wish it rained beer. If wish I looked more like Brad Pitt than Marty Feldman with a weight problem.
We all do dumb stuff. We all make made choices. Yes, we suffer the consequences of those bad actions, but the consequences for those little girls who fell asleep on the railroad tracks should have been being grounded for a month, not having a leg amputated.
If we just let everyone who made a bad choice go under, do we really believe that their suffering won't eventually become our suffering? If we could keep those children from losing body parts shouldn't we do it? If we can keep our fellow citizens from living under a bridge shouldn't we do that too?
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Tex, Great article, makes us think. I believe that we just need to do the right thing. It's not always about us, is it? I think it was Wayne Dyer who asked, "Would you rather be right then have peace/harmony (or) would you rather have peace/harmony than be right?" I vote for peace/harmony! Warmly, Barbara
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