Eleven Simple Words

Louisiana Governor "Bobby" Jindal's response to President Obama's address to congress had me musing once more over how completely the Republican Party has abandoned the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. They either don't or won't remember or understand the phrase that Lincoln is most remembered for uttering. Well, alright, the second most remembered phrase; but "four score and seven years ago" is just a fancy way of saying "87 years ago" and was out of date within a year. This one is timeless, and in eleven simple words defines exactly what makes the USofA the great nation that it is - or at least, that it should be. Allow me to type it out in big, bold, red letters to remind everyone what it is:

Government OF the People, BY the People and FOR the People.

This is important. The US Government is by design not composed of royals or strongmen or high priests or corporations. It is made up of the People. That's us. American citizens. And who performs the daily tasks of governing the richest, most powerful, most loved and feared nation on earth? Why, those duties are handled by the People. All that wealth and power and freedom and every other benefit realized from those activities are not intended for Halliburton or the Church or the Military Industrial Complex - they are for the People. And every time you see the phrase "the people" remember that the word "all" is implied just ahead of it.

This phrase goes to eleven.

Contrast this vision of America to Jindal's philosophy, summed up in the lesson he learned when two government officials - a Sheriff and a Congressman - stood up to a Republican administration that forgot that government was for the people and took it upon themselves to do the job that should have been being done by all of the people.

"There's a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens."

Really? But if we live in a representative democracy that is made up of the people, by the people and for the people (repetition assists in memory), then shouldn't that government be a concentrated, distributed, efficient implementation of our national compassionate and understanding spirit? What is Bobby saying here? That it is better that enterprising citizens in the free market decide to rescue people if and when it profits the entrepreneurs? Or that nearby compassionate but likely ill-equipped, under-resourced citizens should take on all the risk and effort of rescuing their neighbors? Citizens who are themselves in the middle of a disaster area?

OK, in a crisis it's all hands on deck and heroes are made from volunteers who leap into the brink; but forgive me for believing that it would be far better for all of the people to be prepared ahead of time and provide a quick, efficient, well equipped, co-ordinated and safe response. Without a profit motive. Without random hope that someone somewhere will "do something." Without all the risk and loss going to the very someone who does do something. Without the chaos of every well-intentioned do-gooder loading up his pickup truck with whatever he imagines might be needed, a gun or two to protect what he considers the good people from the bad people, and towing a leaky boat that he found somewhere but doesn't really know how to operate because by god someone has to do something so the hell with safety regulations and if nothing else he can at least jump in and need just as much rescue as the guy on the roof. Remember the scene in Jaws where all the landlubbers jumped into anything that would float to go hunt the shark? Is that the response Bobby wanted to Katrina? This is one of the times when I regret the decision to avoid obscene expletives in this blog - I guess I'll have to substitute a pithy explanation:

The problem with Katrina was not that the government should not have been doing the rescues. The problem was that the government SHOULD have been.

Jindal also said this:

This is the nation that cast off the scourge of slavery, overcame the Great Depression, prevailed in two World Wars, won the struggle for civil rights, defeated the Soviet menace, and responded with determined courage to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The American spirit has triumphed over almost every
form of adversity known to man, and the American spirit will triumph again.

Yes. The nation cast off slavery. That is to say, the Federal Government (made up of whom? that's right) cast off slavery. You can read why and how in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

It's true FDR did not overcome the Great Depression - the People did, by understanding that it was a huge problem that could only be solved by all the People (working together through what overall organization? good, you've got it!). Of course, part of the way the People overcame the Depression was by electing FDR (four times) and supporting/shaping/contributing to the solutions he implemented on their behalf.

Civil Rights are now enshrined in laws passed and enforced by the government, even to the extent that the Feds compel individual states to follow those laws (and this is done for the P....; I don't even have to finish, do I?)

Government is not the problem, except to the extent that We The People are the problem. And as bad as it sometimes gets, it is at least ours. Sorry, make that "at least it is us." Consider the alternative.