Taking Food from a Baby

I am often befuddled by the confusion some people have over the interdependence we have with each other. We live among many people and need to get along with them. This is practical. It is also fortuitous!

The latter point recognizes the many positive attributes of living in community. We share educating all of our kids, we pool resources to provide libraries, parks, streets, curbs, gutters, storm water management and fire and police protection. We pay taxes toward many of those attributes to make them happen. Needed and valuable. Good things all.

That’s the local focus. There is also the local regional focus that constitutes towns living constructively side by side and within the county governance structure as well. Then the state government has pooled resources we all pay for and benefit from. Same with the federal government.

National governance, however, is far removed from our dinner tables. Its footprint looms large in our lives, however. Much of the safety and protection standards guarding food quality, air, water and soil safety and conservation, are defined by federal authorities. So too are education standards. Criminal justice procedures, support systems and court mechanics are all provided for by federal standards and authority. So too national defense and international relations. This gives us entrée to the world community.

Being removed from us, however, is not the sole point to make. People, elected or career bureaucrats, are making decisions in our name – Of the People – and we do have a responsibility for their decisions – By the People. Need we say that everything done by each of the governments associated with us is doing what is needed by us – For the People?

Look at it this way. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made this statement:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

There is a logic we need to support: all things come from each of us for all of us; yet there are limits.  Lest we think too narrowly, just because I don’t need a specific service doesn't mean my neighbor or family members don’t. Each of the services provided by government is a necessary one. Some are in need of better management or updated mission and vision statements, however!

But the primary needs remain and we should not be stingy about that. Rejoice that we don’t need each and every program personally; but also rejoice that those less fortunate than we have a place to which to turn.

Churches and charities do fabulous work. But they too have limits. Governments are needed to handle the larger issues and tasks. I do not mistrust government. I do not deny services to those in need. I do want the cost to be fairly shared and valued by all. And I personally need the tax bills to be affordable! They haven’t always been.

As I enter my twilight years I have more need and fewer resources. Please go gentle on my checkbook!

July 19, 2013