If you ever start feeling sorry for yourself...

 

Read the heart-breaking story by clicking on the picture.

This picture cropped up in my FaceBook feed this morning. 

I've been struggling the last few days not to mope -- strained by some stressful relationships. Nothing earth-shattering but enough to put me in a bit of a funk. This picture set me off. I couldn't read for a bit for the moisture in my eyes. You see, without reading the story or even the headline, this little girl reminded me of my first sight of my own first grandchild, Clementine.

Our first visit with Clementine in the NICU.

We knew, very soon, that Clementine would survive, and we had great hope, and within days reasonable assurance that she would be "normal". But her very rough start in life kept us in waiting rooms at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego for days on end, aching for a few minutes to see or maybe even hold her after carefully decontaminating ourselves sufficiently to be admitted to the NICU. 

During that time we quietly conversed with other parents and grandparents in the waiting rooms and heard story after story of heartbreaking cancers and injuries and birth defects and series of surgeries. I spent a lot of time walking the miles of hallways in that giant hospital to "feed my Fitbit." I've been determinatied to exercize enough to perhaps live long enough for Clementine to be able to remember her "GrandShaw". In that process one day I passed the door to a surgical unit where a young woman barely out of her teens knelt at the closed door in fervent prayer. 

If you ever get to feeling sorry for yourself, spend some time in a NICU waiting room. Then go home and count your blessings.

Now to get political. (Feel free to stop reading if you like. :-) )

I have been called names in my life. I have been called "n****r-lover" (for voicing support for LBJ in 1964 at good ol' segregated West Rome High.) I've been named a "socialist" or even a "Communist" several times in my life (first for supporting RFK and HHH in 1968!) Well I was taught that "God is Love" from childhood so I try to love every one, as Christ requires, even folks with different cultural backgrounds, like maybe "Samaritans". I have never considered myself a "socialist" and certainly not a "Communist". Some people describe political leaders like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, etc. as "social democrats". If that is their label I'll gladly accept it. 

But I contend that any of us who take seriously Gouverneur Morris's carefully crafted first sentence of the Constitution must be, to one degree or another, a "social democrat". After all he flatly states that the job of "We the People" through our government is to balance six goals including constantly improving justice, safety at home and abroad, and the general welfare while preserving the blessings of liberty for all. Quite a charge. Translated to twenty-first century, post agrarian society, I believe Morris's definition of republican government suits me and the times to a "T".

Just as the eighteenth century founders realized that "socialized" postal service fit those goals, I believe medical care is best with the profit motive removed. How many of our fellow Americans have died as a result of Big Pharma's greedy profiteering off diabetes drugs? How many babies have died because drug research for childhood cancer is not profitable? I believe it is time for we the 21st century founders (the Preamble and the articles that follow makes plain that the founding -- perfecting -- is perpetual) must reform those aspects of our society.

I have been a proud entrepreneur. I did my best to make two businesses succeed. I believe innovation and industry should be encouraged and incentivized. I want a strong private market and a business environment that allows inventiveness and rewards for those who make our lives better through their creativity and industry. However, as deserving of wealth as a Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett, or Steve Jobs, or Oprah Winfrey might be, NO ONE "deserves" all the gazillions they control and they did not get to where they are solely on their own any more that I have gotten my much more modest but comfortable lifestyle on my own. I work hard, but not as hard as one father I remember who lived in the run-down trailer park, and worked two jobs to keep his family fed and still managed to, as best he could with not a lot of native intelligence or formal education but more than his share of dedication and wisdom, keep his kids in school (two in my classroom), clothed, fed, and loved. I believe he deserved to earn at least $15 an hour for his labor, to have decent healthcare and medicines for himself and his family, an education for his kids, and respect for the labor he performed. Those of us who have more income should pay incrementally more in taxes for each incremental amount we make.

While I'm at it I also believe that: 

• our government is by, of, and for the People, and businesses are not people. 

• in a world of diminishing reserves, natural resources should belong to all of us and their use strictly controlled by the people at large. 

• any monopolistic enterprise should belong to the people and be under the control of the people. 

• no business deserves to profit if it cannot pay its employees a living wage. 

• business interests should always be tempered by labor interests.

• taxation rates that are not progressive are not fair. (The so-called "Fair Tax" is anything but.)

• the profit motive has no place in medical care.

• the profit motive has no place in warfare, law enforcement, or incarceration.

As I have written many times, I believe maximum liberty resides somewhere in the middle of the socialism-capitalism scale. Both extremes of that scale are tyranny.