If we each contribute to hire a group of people to manage our resources, are we not “entitled” to demand that they do the job we hired them to do? Should we not expect them to work to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” — or that they follow the oath they took upon entering office, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; to take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which they have entered?
Some people in today’s political arena have been using the word “entitlement” and “entitlement programs” as battle cries against what they deem to be “big government.” Instead, they propose a system wherein we as individuals are responsible for ourselves.
This sounds reasonable, but what does this “rugged individual” America without all the “oppressive” rules, regulations and public services look like?
Look at the road in front of the house or building that you live in. If the road needs to be maintained, who does it? Do you form a block association, or is each family responsible for the half of the street in front of their house? What happens if someone decides to rebuild their bit of street using cobble stones or cheap tar? After all, it is their street, they can do whatever they want. Maybe there is a block association to prevent that sort of thing. But, what happens at intersections? And, more importantly, what is the mechanism that coordinates these lines of division? What happens at the line where one person’s (or block association’s) property ends and another’s begins. One property might be six inches higher than their neighbor’s. Which neighbor builds the ramp, and who mediates that?
To be fair, some conservatives say that local and state governments are OK, their problem is with the federal government.
This sounds like a reasonable distinction, but the issues are still the same. What the people in one state do affects the lives and livelihood of the people in the neighboring states. Actually, many of these actions can affect the entire Nation. In this no-federal-government scenario, how does one address grievances that cross state lines? If the water that comes down a river from a state that allows pollutants to be dumped into the water poisons us, our food, our children, should we not have a mechanism to address this issue? But if it is not illegal to dump pollutants into the water, we have no legal recourse. Should we then take up arms against the polluters as individuals or should we as a state declare war on our neighboring state?
I like that many more of my fellow Americans are waking up and becoming active participants of the political process. Truly, I do. Unfortunately, for quite some time now, an anti-government political ideology has been poisoning our political system both ideologically and through legislation. To them, government is something outside of society, an external force exerting power and influence over us ordinary citizens.
The protest that my conservative friends have chosen to name themselves after was concerned with a more nuanced position than expressed today. They were fighting against “taxation without representation” not against taxes. They were had had enough with their interests being ignored by the king and his representatives. They were fighting for representation.
Absolutely, we should protest a government that has increasingly diverged from meeting the needs of those they represent. Let us make our government function as the mechanism that provides and promotes the aspirations espoused in the opening lines of our Constitution, not just for the wealthy, not just for multi-national corporations, but for all of us.
Together, we rise. Divided, we fall.
The needs of our country can not be achieved without coordination and cooperation. Our Nation can not be built upon a crumbling and outdated infrastructure. We need to stop the rhetoric and practice of divisiveness, roll up our sleeves and get back to the kind of work that made us great.
I think We The People of the United States of America are indeed ENTITLED to that.
