Why We Can’t See or Tell the Truth
Why We Can’t See or Tell the Truth
By Larry Wilson
Our country has a tough time seeing the truth for we have great myths about who we are that are range from partly true to absolutely false. We have myths that run completely contrary to each other, such as a love for the constitution and then a belief that the government it creates can do no good at all. We have a myth that free enterprise is the best way to live and a huge respect for the military by same groups. The military is a totally socialist organization.
I live in Biscoe NC, the place of the first public school in our state. This is a socialist undertaking to educate people. Most people who claim to hate socialism would cry foul if anyone suggested that we do away with public education. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the first state supported college in the United States. The difference in attending UNC, (tuition and fees $8202) as opposed to the private institution Duke (tuition and fees $36,065) is $27,863 a year. Duke also receives large government grants for medicine and other research as well as government grants and loans for students or Duke’s cost would be even more. If one goes to the community college system of our state (Montgomery County Community College cost $2,459) the first two years while living at home they would save $33,606. a year. Without state supported schools most people would not be able to attend college. If a person abhors socialism shouldn’t they be consistent and not take advantage of government spending on education.
Almost no one that makes under a hundred thousand dollars a year thinks that Social Security and Medicare are bad ideas. These systems spread the risk of catastrophic illness, injury or loss so that older citizens can live lives of dignity even if life affords them low pay and bad luck. These are socialist programs. They provide for the common good and are a part of our commonwealth as a people.
Maybe we need to get rid of the word socialism and replace it with a word that is not as offensive like projects for the common good. Maybe then we will not act so visceral about what the government does well.
A very close acquaintance manages a town water plant (manages it very well) but he doesn’t feel that government can do anything at all well. He has a son that is dependent on SSI because he is disabled, another son worked in the shipyard in Norfolk that depends on the Government for ships to be built and his wife works for a hospital that depends greatly on all levels of government. He has insurance and retirement because he works for government. He went to public school and to community college; his kids were schooled by public education and went to state supported colleges. He will soon be retiring which means that he will depend on Social Security and Medicare. He does not stop to think how he makes his money or how much his life depends on the health of the government because he belongs to a group. He is a Republican and like many other groups they can make us blind to the truth.
She is a Democrat and she loves all things Democrat. She was for helping minorities and against war. She had put all the evil that she knew of on the Republicans. The first Democrat President was a fellow by the name of Andrew Jackson and he was a man of the people. He was terrible to the minorities, moving Indians hundreds of miles to new reservations with thousands dying along the way. The residents were moved by the aliens, a reversal of what people talk about today. Not my favorite person. As for Democrats being against war, there was the war that almost made me a soldier brought to us by Johnson and McNamara, the Vietnam Conflict they were fond of calling it. This lady tried to defend Harry Truman the one that started the never-ending war in Korea.
I have been a Republican and a Democrat in my life. When I was a young man the Democrat party of the south was extremely prejudice and always stood against integration and even used God as an ally to keep African Americans in a role that was less than fully human. In reading a book on lynching in NC the democrats are mentioned over and over as the ones that condoned the practice. With the passage of the Civil Rights Bill the Johnson Administration lost the Democrats of the South. Jesse Helms, George Wallace, Strom Thurman, Lester Maddox all started out as democrats and were deeply involved in the racial segregation movement. Ronald Reagan the person that most people see as the saint of Republicans was a democrat until 1962.
In order to help our government and its political structures we must be guided by truth principles greater than party allegiance. I have strove to be a Christian. I am for peace and justice so I have in the course of a rather long life as humans go belonged to both major parties and have been deeply dissatisfied with the stances that they take. I cannot defend the foolishness of Truman, starting a war without end that made no sense when it was begun and even less now. I cannot in anyway condone the tax breaks that Republicans have given to the wealthy. I am a Christian and I know that extreme wealth is a God problem. Jesus says that you cannot serve God and wealth. Any look any day at American celebrities and you will see how this god has made them stupid. I read an article not long ago about a person who won the lottery and after nine months he was found murdered. His instant wealth caused his early demise.
Why do we have the opinions that we have in our country. What makes us believe things that are far from reality? Why do we trust businesses that are greedy and not government? We practically worship the constitution and then hate the government that it created. Where did we get ideas that the world will be OK if we let corporations like BP, Exxon, Enron, Bear Sterns, Microsoft and Toyota have their way in spite of evidence to the contrary everywhere. All institutions whether they are private or public are subject to all of deadly sins. I would be the first to admit that governments are sinful and greed is a major cause of it. Much of the temptation to greed comes from private companies that lobby them.
Why do we believe in military solutions in spite of the fact that the US the most powerful of all has failed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and every war in the 59 years that I have lived? The fact that Presidential candidates argued that we would be OK if Iraq became like Korea, a place that no soldiers are killed and we still had a presence there 60 years later made me believe that only infantile people want to govern our land. What a waste war is. We love them when we go. We were going to get the terrorists but now the war in Afghanistan is seen as hopeless by most Americans. It has achieved nothing good and has probably destabilized Pakistan, a nuclear state. My hope is that the plight of women and children could be improved but war itself always makes life worse on those that are weakest.
We don’t talk too much about wasted military spending because we have a myth that our freedoms depend on our military almost alone. We spend 10 times more than any other country and one can argue that we have received nothing from this expense that seems tangible. I believe that soldiers should be well paid and looked after well but they deserve from this country better leadership that does not place them in harm’s way for a cause that after we enter the conflict no one can understand. War is good for defense contractors and undertakers. Jesus warned us that living by the sword would lead to dying by the sword and we need to heed that warning for the good that we could all enjoy is wasted on an endeavor that deals in death not life.
If we are to do the right things for our country we must be informed by a philosophy greater than that of political parties. We call things evil that the other party see as good. It is like a sports event where we have sides for no reason other than we or those that went before us chose it for us. Some have tried to make all government programs bad. People may agree until you try to take one away. The truth is without government we would be in a mess and the ones with the most would be in the most mess. Imagine a country without roads, police, water and sewage, libraries, schools, zoning laws, food safety and clean water. Imagine a world without standards like doctor’s licenses or worse plumber’s license where we really have to look out for ourselves and it would be a terrible place.
Imagine a world the opposite of this and it would be equally bad. A world where creativity is stifled by government planning, a world that says that we cannot change how we make products, we have to accept cars, computers, TVs’ or homes that are like everyone else. A world that limits individuals more than is necessary. The world must be made up with as close to the right mixture of both government and free enterprise as is possible in this world.
I don’t believe that the world is as far apart on issues as the party allegiances make them seem. Sometimes it is only a matter of degree. I have not met a single Republican in Montgomery County that believes that any Wall Street Banker is worth 20 million dollars a year (a person making $50 thousand would have to work 400 years to make that amount). Most would put a top on that at about 2 million a year, I might would let people keep 4 before most went into taxes. 2 million would be what the person making 50 thousand would make in a life time (40years). People will quickly say that governments should distribution of wealth as if no country had the right to do such a thing. Governments always decide the distribution of wealth. A king would distribute it to himself: a government of the people by the people and for the people would distribute it in a way that would help the people most. A middle class would be a good thing to promote. To be sure governments will make mistakes but no limits is creating a feudal system with no hope for the poor and an ever shrinking middle class. Before a person pays high taxes they will pay their workers more, it always has happened before.
There are many ways that will work for our country but the present way of yelling increasingly more foolish arguments at each other will lead only to destruction. Think what you are saying, look at what is real and take care of people. Love for others is the heart of the gospel and the countries best hope.
I serve one that called for self sacrifice and sacrificed himself. I know something about sacrifice, you either do it willing which is redemptive or you do it because you have to when the system has failed. No one has called the country to sacrifice. A theologian I heard said that Americans only have a language of self. No language to speak of God or nation only what is good for me. All true philosophy, knows what John Dunn knew that we are not an Island and what affects my neighbor affects me. The Bell always tolls for thee.
There has never been a country as rich as this one. To look at our problems as if they are insurmountable is foolish. A little sacrifice, a little common sense and love for neighbor and we’d fly high again. If we remain foolish and selfish we will end on the junk heap of history.
