The Right Stuff

Over the years my thinking has changed about many things. At some stages of development I was strictly conservative. In those days, however, the major concern was over the Cold War and how to manage national interests in a violent and war-crazed environment. Later I came to understand how real people live and what they do for themselves; and what they can’t do for themselves.

Then there are issues that are just too big to be handled by a person, a group, or a charity or large corporation. It takes government to get some things accomplished. Among those ‘things’ are Social Security and Medicare.

One of my favorite TV series was West Wing. Watching the inner workings of the White House manage a bewildering array of events and issues was mind popping. The same action perspectives can be encountered in every one of Tom Clancy’s novels. The issues are many, and important. Human lives are at stake in most of them. If not life and death, certainly quality of life is a major focus.

Governments do things because people need them to do so. This is true for every level of government whether local, national or international. The Parks and Recreation District deals with life quality issues every day. So does the local Library. And Fire District, City Hall and its many departments (emergency preparedness, police, public works, etc.). The county deals with an even broader array of life quality issues that cut across town and city borders. The same is true for state governments.

So it comes as no surprise that the federal government, at least in the United States, is involved in a huge variety of quality of life programs and services that no one else is willing to touch.

The West Wing TV series had a string of episodes wherein the incumbent President was ending his second term of office and a candidate became favored to replace him. That fictional candidate was Congressman Santos played by Jimmy Smits. During that episode of 2005 the Santos character delivered these words in a speech that rings true even now:

“Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Right

What did Conservatives do? They opposed every one of those programs. Every one.

So when you try to hurl the word ‘liberal’ at my feet, as if it were dirty, something to run away from, something that I should be ashamed of, it won’t work; because I will pick up that label and wear it as a badge of honor.”

Whooee! That says it for me!

And today the issues are similar. Conservatives are still fighting to push back elements of each of the programs named above. Current topics of debate center on immigration, immigration reform, border protections and similar emotional topics that defy solutions because reasonable people refuse to sit down at the table and figure out reasonable solutions. Instead they block such efforts, and the problems only get larger and more expensive to manage and solve in the long run.

Meanwhile countless lives are threatened and destroyed in the mechanizations of the problems. Quality of life is more than threatened. It is an issue ripe for solution on humanitarian grounds, and on a federal level. States do not have the authority to solve this problem. Only the federal authorities can and should manage the situation. But they need the help of Congress to agree to do something and pay for it. The White House already has offered the ideas and solutions. We know what needs to be done. We even know how to do it and how to pay for it.

No, the problem doesn't get solved because political worker bees don’t want their enemies to get credit for solving the problem. So they prolong the problem. Because they can through inaction. And misrepresentation of the facts.

Human lives hang in the balance. Quality of life for millions are saddled down with the problem. All because some selfish power seekers refuse to do the right thing.

Their names fill the republican party. We know who they are. So do most Americans.

What a shame they think they are invisible. Boner and Mitchell wise up. Get to work!

August 1, 2014