Do Something Every Day

I grew up in a family that came from a long history of working in the labor movement. We voted Democrat, always. FDR and JFK were my parents' heroes. However, that started to change and they started to get frustrated with the Democratic party when abortion became an issue and the Democrats made it a plank in their platform. But they would talk about not being a 'one issue' voter. The logic went: abortion was just one issue among many and you had to weigh all the different issues and then decide. One issue voters were stupid and ignorant. Except what happened was that you as the voter could never vote on that one issue because it turns out, if you are a Democrat, that it always got swept aside as not being important enough; all other issues always, always outweighed the significance of that one. Because ultimately, what might be bad for you personally (having an abortion), might not be bad for another person in a different circumstance. This is how relativism creeps in. It is the taking of an innocent life if you do it, but if someone else does it, it might not be. WHAT? Doesn't compute! Or, I think some people see it as, the taking of a lesser or potential life, except, then you start making judgments about who is really alive and who isn't. Eugenics, anyone? This is exactly how aborting Down Syndrome babies or those with spina bifida, etc or euthanasia of the sick or elderly (cuz quality of life is the only thing that matters) becomes part of the keep-abortion-legal mentality.

Of course the Republicans were just as bad. Some Republicans are pro-choice anyway (which I think shows that the Republicans have become the big tent party in many ways, as it allows different approaches, whereas Democrats pretty much all have to spout the same party line to get elected.). But then other conservatives were kind of the flip side of the abortion issue, saying it was the ONLY issue that mattered even though the candidate had horrible views on other issues that were also morally repugnant, and even though one might doubt that abortion was going to be abolished in the way most pro-lifers seemed to think, by stacking the Supreme Court with pro-life judges.

It took me a long time to start changing my vote and seeing myself more as an Independent than a Democrat. I could not bring myself to vote Republican until George W. Bush and that was only because I simply couldn't stand Al Gore (and I tend to be pro-environment! But there was just something about him that bothered me to no end - how's that for being rational, LOL) and I knew Virginia was going to go with Bush, so I voted for him so that for the first time in my life, ever, I could vote for a pro-life candidate that actually had a chance of winning. When Clinton was running, I cast protest votes. Before that, I always voted Democrat. When Obama came along, I voted for McCain and Romney. From the very first time I ever saw Obama, which was on a c-span program about his book and I happened upon the show when he was talking his interpretation of the Gospels and he was appalling wrong about it, that I shuddered and thought what a self-aggrandizing nincompoop! How very unimpressive. LOL. Little did I know. . . .

I didn't mean to make this a confessional about my past voting record, my point is that I am tired of reading all the crap on either side that is forever and ever demonizing each other! I have family members and friends who are liberals and family members and friends who are conservative. I don't think the liberals are stupid and lazy and I don't think the conservatives are ignorant and stingy. What they do have is different approaches with different emphases on problems and how to solve them.

Since I've been giving myself an education on how conservative's think, I have been puzzled by exactly how they approach the issue of the poor. I've found these two things lately on the internet.

This Onion piece is hysterically funny (though it really is atheist vs. believer rather than liberal vs. conservative).

This post I found explains how conservatives approach helping the poor, which is very different from how liberals do. It is a completely different mindset which I think liberals have a hard time wrapping their minds around (I know I did!) I think this piece is written in a very measured and clear way.

I also, at this time, am in the middle of reading my great, great grandfather's autobiography, Seventy Years of Life and Labor. You would have thought I would have read this a long time ago, but no, I didn't, I am ashamed to say. However, now I am and of course he is coming up through the tough times of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1800s. He was part of a swelling group of citizens who wanted to do something to right the terrible injustices perpetuated on the working class in the name of capitalism. I think conservatives can downplay this suffering, which is where they get their reputation as coldhearted. I think there is just a difference in world view. Most conservatives don't expect a paradise here on earth. If you want something you need the freedom to go out and get it yourself. And it is up to you personally to help alleviate the suffering of those less fortunate around you. Most liberals want to come up with a system that rights this injustice, they talk of the common good and how the government is the best way to deal with these issues. And frankly, they've been right in many, many cases! What country came out of the industrial revolution with a better overall quality of live without government regulations and programs? None that I know of.

I guess what is emerging in my own mind with maybe some clarity, is the idea that at one time expanding government and passing regulations was a good and just thing, but it always involves a downside too. And the more government expands and grows more powerful, the greater the dangers this downside becomes. As I said before, I think we've reached the tipping point. What aggressive secularists mean by 'common good' is not necessarily what was meant by 'common good' in the traditional sense. In the name of the common good, as defined by whoever gets to define it, we've had extermination camps in Nazi Germany, gulags in the Soviet Union and the Cultural Revolution in China, among many other atrocities. If the state becomes a tyrant, then the common good gets defined as anyone who opposes or might oppose that tyrant's goals.

Right now, Obama's DOJ is trying to tell the Little Sisters of the Poor that they have to get a 'permission slip' from the government in order to bypass being required to fund free contraceptives, etc to their employees, something that flies directly in the face of what they believe in. Obama is chipping away at religious liberty; a very founding principle of our country. He really spoiled his chances. After the hoopla of his speech at Notre Dame, he was poised to prove all those angry nay-sayers wrong, he had after all the U.S. Bishops wanting very much to support the Affordable Health Care Act. Instead, he alienated them all, because religious liberty is less important to his definition of the common good, than allowing for free conception-free sex.

And not only is the problem with power-hungry people trying to force their own agenda, but there is also corruption and incompetency. I had a little taste of this when my aunt was in a nursing home. First of all, right off the bat, because she had had a leg amputated, she was entitled, through Medicare to either a free walker or free wheelchair, paid for by the government (our taxes). There was no asking her if she could afford to buy them herself (she could) or there was no asking if she knew of someone who already had a walker or a wheelchair she could use; there was no mention of an exchange where people donated old walkers and wheelchairs to people in her situation. Nope. It was automatic, you got to get either a walker or a wheelchair. But of course wheelchairs are much more expensive than walkers, so the social worker advised us to choose the wheelchair (no brainer there!) and just pick up a walker for $20 to $30 bucks at a drug store. Okay, that's just wastefulness via incompetency. No one is paying attention here to money! But the nursing home she got sent to was always trying to jack up the services our aunt would need that would get covered via medicare. They gave her too much medication and then said she needed cognitive therapy in dealing with the side effects of the meds. It was crazy! It was like they had a list of all the services Medicare would cover and they were trying their best to see how many they could get, whether she truly needed it or not. This was a 'nice' nursing home in an expensive part of the city. I can imagine what goes on in poorer ones! God help us! And that's just one tiny example that I happen to have experience with.

So anyway, I do think we've hit the tipping point. Now is the time in history to ratchet back on government control as a solution to our problems. When the government gets too big, freedom is imperiled and the economy goes south.

But now I finally get to my point! If this is the case, then I think there should be a groundswell of those who think the same, doing something every day to help those less fortunate. It has to be part of the fabric of our daily lives to always be compassionately helping others.

I am trying to come up with practical things I can do in my life right now to help others. Here's what I've come up with so far. This is a work in progress and will no doubt change as time goes by.

1. Remember to take loose change with me every time I go to church, so I can put some in the poor box.
2. Remember every Sunday to donate canned/dry goods to our church, who in turn take it all to the local food pantry.
3. Budget my groceries better so that money left over can be donated to the poor.
4. Remember to stay politically active through this group, so I can be involved on a state level in supporting laws that help the poor, fight abortion, etc.
5. We do already regularly give to our church, which tithes and also has special collections for various needy groups.
6. We do have a foster child in Kenya who we give money to monthly (well, to the group that runs the school and clinic in her village -she benefits by these).
7. Remember to donate clothing, furniture, books, etc to Good Will or Purple Heart
8. To try to participate in as many service projects as we can via our church or the American Heritage Girls or other opportunities that might come up.
9. Prayer - real prayer devoted to others.
10. Keep informed about issues that affect the poor, the disabled, the needy.

I have spent far too long typing this up and not moving my family towards getting to our regular 10:00 Mass. I guess it is the 11:45 for us today. Oh dear. This type of stuff is so time sucking. Who really can deal with it all and think it through clearly and live their life at the same time? Not me!