|
 Are we
going to be a nation that looks out for each other, especially when
times are tough, or are we going to be a nation of such selfishness
that we only take care of ourselves? If you think this is just
overblown hyperbole, just look at the matters that are facing
Congress this upcoming year – extending long-term unemployment,
immigration reform, the continued rollout of the Affordable Care
Act, marriage equality will again be before the Supreme Court, and
the most important of all is how Congress will react to the widening
canyon of income inequality. In each and every one of these issues,
we are struck face to face with a moral dilemma. How we proceed
will have great implications for our nation and how we are seen
throughout the world.
Why has it become fashionable to
look down upon the poor with disdain, claim they are nothing but
no-good scammers and proceed to kick them while they are down and
then tell the rest of the world that 47 percent of our own population are
nothing but worthless takers who shun personal responsibility? We
are losing our ability to provide empathy toward our fellow
friends, neighbors and citizens. We are all guilty of judging the
person at Wal-Mart when they use their Link card to pay for their
groceries. We are so quick to assume that these people who have
to rely on the government for money in order to buy groceries are
somehow living a life worthy of any upper-middle-class family. Somehow we imagine that the money the government gave them was
most likely fraudulently scammed. How many times have we thought
that this person probably had more than one child strictly for its
ability to be an income-generator? We tend to forget that this
child could have been conceived during a period when times were not
tough and that they only recently have needed to rely on
governmental assistance. It is amazing how much judging we are
capable of doing in just a few minutes in the checkout line.
I was fired from a good-paying job
in May of 2012 and had to rely on unemployment benefits. The
process was daunting. I was mortified and embarrassed for being
fired, and now I was having to swallow my pride and apply for
unemployment benefits. After my pride was swallowed, I was so
grateful for this program. I am like most Americans, a few
paychecks away from drowning, so my unemployment benefits were a
lifeboat at a time when I was sure my boat was sinking. I was now
the person that people were judging in the checkout line at Wal-Mart. I am sure they saw me get out of my brand-new Chevrolet Camaro (which was bought in better economic times), and I am sure
they questioned my need to use a government-issued debit card. The
fact that I stood up and refused to back down from an ethical
problem that led to my dismal was never known to the people who
have stood behind me in line, judging me. They had no idea of the
struggle that it took to stay within my bounds and to make my
benefits cover my bills. I was not living like a king. I was
looking for work every day while going back to college full time and
earning high academic honors. It would have been so much easier for
me from a stress level and a financial position to never have been
fired. Being jobless is not a cakewalk. It is not the high life
that people think it is.
[to top of second column] |
 Why do we give the businessman the benefit of
the doubt when they take advantage of a government program that
saves their company billions of dollars? Why do we proclaim them to
be prudent and shower them with great esteem and reward them with
parachutes made of gold? What is the difference between the poor
who depend upon the government for groceries or the businessman who
depends upon the government for profit? Why is the House of
Representatives, the "people's House," demanding that no long-term
unemployment benefit bill will be passed unless it is fully funded
with money stripped away from the Affordable Care Act — the same act
whose sole responsibility is to provide poor people with health
insurance? Why not close the tax loopholes that allow a corporation
to write off the purchase of a private jet? Certainly they can fly
from coast to coast in a 5-year-old jet as well as in a brand-new
one? We have gone so far to the side of pandering to stockholders
that the stakeholders are now the forgotten class. The very things
that made this country great have been pushed aside in the chase for
the almighty dollar. Unions, which built the middle class, have been
systematically torn apart to the point that companies can run
roughshod over their employees with impunity. The robber barons
like Rockefeller and Carnegie are alive and well today. The
difference is we now put them on pedestals so high that they can
fleece hundreds of thousands of homeowners and not spend a single
night in jail. Al Capone knew he was in the wrong racket the whole
time. We must come to the realization that the rich can take care
of themselves and that they do not need to be coddled. We must ask
ourselves if this a government of the people, for the people and by
the people or is it a government of the rich, for the rich and by
the rich?
We must bend our moral compass back
to compassion for those left behind and for those who need a hand to
help pull themselves back up. We can do better than what we are
doing now. We can work together and help our friends, neighbors and
citizens. We are the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen, so
why must we act like a miser? We can afford to take care of each
and every one of us, but if I am wrong and this country is going
broke, let it be from feeding the poor and not the rich.
[By
JOSEPH DARTER]
Click here to respond to the editor about this
article.
 |
