Beginning Monday, December 14, polls will be open across Georgia in the runoff elections for two US Senate seats and a public service commission seat. Please consider voting for change,
You have heard nasty ad after nasty ad. You have read Facebook rant after rant, watched politician after politician accuse the three Democratic candidates of wanting the foment revolution, of being puppets of various and sundry left-wing individuals or groups, of being -- here it comes -- "Socialists".
I was first called a "Socialist" and even a "Communist" in 1968. But I heard Dwight Eisenhower called a Socialist long before that. And of course Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt faced these same charges even earlier. Nonsense. All of those guys were supportive of free enterprise. So are Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Harry Truman had been a businessman himself and I have tried two businesses during my lifetime. I am indisputably by definition an entrepreneur and a free marketeer. I have the scars to prove it.
Just because one believes capitalism should be tempered by regulations to protect the common good does not make one a "socialist". Everyone I have ever met believes in some sort of balance between liberty and the common good. So did our founders. Our whole system is rife with checks and balances to keep one person's desires (liberties) from unfairly affecting another's desires (liberties).
I would argue that while American politicians and parties have had disagreements about how best to balance the common good with individual liberty, from the very first sentence of our founding document right up till today, all influential politicians in America have agreed that those two goals should be balanced. Some are more concerned for the common good and less worried that the business world will be disadvantaged; others have the opposite concerns. But all surely understand that the Gilded Age was tyrannical just as the efforts at pure socialism have caused tyranny. We must have balance.
I contend that America was closer to a balance that had "all boats rising" before the so-called Reagan Revolution of the eighties that concentrated wealth in so few hands, stagnated the middle class and lower class incomes, and financed a false recovery on the the backs of the next generation through deficit spending. Before the Reagan years ordinary workers could finance good homes, afford good insurance through their union jobs, and live a middle class life.
For ten years now many Americans have had insurance through the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare. There is no reason Americans can't, as the rest of the developed world already does, share the costs of insuring all of medical costs.
In this Old Leaf from Alone On The Limb is written by Darrell Fedchak, a wonderful youg husband, father, storyteller, outdoor educator, and much admired friend. If you haven't read D.J.'s esaay, click on his picture below then take a few minutes and read it now:
No comments:
Post a Comment