Duty and Faith

E. J. Dionne Jr. authored an opinion in The Washington Post entitled “America’s Elites Have a Duty to the Rest of Us.”

What I want to talk about starts in paragraph three: “But a funny thing happened to the American ruling class: It stopped being concerned with the health of society as a whole and became almost entirely obsessed with money.” This, as opposed to everyone else who isn’t getting their proverbial panties in a wad over money. Indeed, the very epitomes of asceticism, they.

That’s a bit of a low blow with a dash of “apples to oranges,” but it gets at what I feel is Dionne’s thesis: it is the responsibility of the so-called ruling class to fork over their earnings to allow the government to support everyone else.

I would love to pay less taxes. I just swallowed my first payment to Uncle Sam that had a comma in it, so I’m quite anxious to get those rates down. On the other hand, I work with orphans all day long whose lifeblood is the Pell educational grant that’s on the chopping block. I feel the benefits of the public assistance programs every day, and they help thousands of people--orphan and otherwise--achieve their goals.

What I think we (really “We”--the nation) are realizing is that we don’t trust our government. Not in that crazy, black helicopter sense. In the way that you just stop inviting cousin Steve over to visit because too many things have gone missing. The government has consistently proven its inability to commit to progress. When we have a President anxious to be a leader, we get a Congress that’s too busy covering its own ass. When we get members of Congress trying to lead from within, we have a President too terrified of making a stand.

Why should I, socially-conscious citizen that I am, be anxious and feel obligated to throw more of my hard-earned money into Congress’ black hole? What this means in a policy argument, I have no idea. I’m not that guy. Who I am--with all my heart, who I seek to be--is a person able to support myself and, one day, others. Doing what’s necessary and right is rarely easy.

We don’t do these things because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. In September, 1962, President John Kennedy used those words in a speech that kicked off the Space Race. Nearly 50 years later, where are those who would take up his banner?