When my I and my twin Peter were seven, and our brother Erik was eight or nine, we bickered among ourselves as much as kids do. My mother wouldn’t have it. She gave us a little lecture. She said, "Remember, a single stick can be broken, but if you put sticks in a bundle, you can’t break them."
This message from my mother is a parable for America. We cherish individualism, but we survive and thrive collectively.
1. Individuals versus community.
Teddy Roosevelt was famously an officer in the Spanish American War. He wrote a memoir of his exploits there called The Rough Riders. It so emphasized Roosevelt’s own role that humorist Peter Finley Dunne’s much-loved character Mr. Dooley said that the memoir should have been called Alone in Cuba.
Obviously Roosevelt wasn’t alone. No war is won alone.
And Apple and Microsoft weren’t built alone. And no single person put the rover Curiosity on Mars. Many people share credit for its success. If it had failed, failure would have been collective failure.
But, sure, individual initiative is essential. Whoever knows of Apple credits the inspiration and leadership of Steve Jobs. And every war has its stand-out heros, its indispensable people, like its great generals and its medal-of-honor winners.
A fair trial verdict usually depends upon a fair judge, good witnesses, a decent trial lawyer, and wise jurors. But though they join together to find justice, each contributes to the discovery of justice as an individual.
2. America lists.
But maybe America has listed too far toward a go-it-alone mentality. Barack Obama’s you-didn’t-build-that statement was Exacto-knifed out of his speech about the cooperation between the individual, government, and society to create success. Many people have denied that anybody else has contributed to their successes, and I think this in part is from an eagerness to be contrary to anything Obama. So people claim to be self-created. And that just ain’t true.
The paradigm-case of the self-creation myth happened years ago with actor Craig T. Nelson. When he was interviewed by Glenn Beck, Nelson famously asserted: "I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No. No."
Somehow, Nelson overlooked that he survived by help from the government. But Nelson doesn’t stand out; it’s what many of us want to believe about ourselves. Yet I have heard that over ninety percent of Americans have at some time received government help.
3. The weight on the other side: religion.
In opposition to this attitude stands our religion. In religion, in Christianity for example, believers assemble together to worship.
Paul’s letters often call for unity among believers and decry division among them. For example:
In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. [1 Corinthian 11:17-18 (NIV).]
Or listen to Jesus, through John:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. [John 13:35 (NIV).]
Or hear the unknown writer of Hebrews:
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. [Hebrews 10:24-25 (NIV).]
Certainly, we are popularly supposed to have a "personal" relationship with God. And that’s true. God relates to us as individuals. He knows each of us by name, and he knows our hearts better than we know ourselves.
But God also relates to us as groups and churches. So, in the Book of Revelation, chapter 1, God spoke to seven churches as churches – the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea .
And in Philippians 2:12, Paul writes to the church in Philippi to "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling . . .." Maybe Paul was addressing individuals, but I believe he was also addressing the church as a church. Personally, if I am saved, I believe that the choices of others in my church will influence that.
3. The weight on the other side: politics.
And politics, and American politics, are inherently collectivists. Democracy is individuals voting to determine the common future of the body politic.
People are known to wonder what the point of voting is, because an individual vote makes no difference. That misses the point. Voting is a collective act. And it is a powerful collective act.
Who becomes president makes a giant difference to the fate and fortune of the nation. And that selection is made by determining which candidate can gather the most voters to support his candidacy.
Of course an individual vote makes virtually no difference. But a voter (usually) prevails by joining the larger group.
4. Conflict.
The Citizens United case is widely disliked. That's the case by which the Supreme Court gave the same free-speech rights to corporations that individuals have. That's the case by which the Supreme Court said money is speech. The Supreme Court overturned limits on corporate and union spending on elections.
Citizens United gives the already-very-powerful a very loud voice. That very loud voice drowns out the average citizen who’s political authority is humbly asserted as part of a nationwide group. Citizens United offends most people's notions of democratic equality.
In Citizens United the Supreme Court struck down limits on political spending by organizations (corporations and unions), which tends to drown the collective efforts of individuals. But the dislike of that case does not come from a simplistic sense that individualism is good or bad, or that collectivism is good or bad. The dislike of Citizens United comes from it's particular application of the principles of individualism and collectivism. It comes from a sense that Citizens United wrongfully withdraws political power from the average American by shifting it to the wealthy and to corporations.
People have strong opinions about the right or wrong calibration of power between the individual and the collective. Some people oppose even the nation as a whole from a love of a particular group. Some Americans so identify with a political party or with those who share their ideals that they hate the nation as a whole, because it hosts people whom they oppose or hate.
5. Individualism, as practiced, shows that groups are important.
Even passionate individualism proves the importance of groups. People who little-value the nation’s shared good often exalt the idea of the individual with near Ayn Rand-ian fervor. In their fervor, they try to attract others to their ideas. They might suggest that someone read Atlas Shrugged. They might donate to the political party that is sympathetic to their ideals. They might post on Facebook to encourage the like-minded. So even extreme individualists make effort to multiply their power by making common cause with others.
There is no escaping collectivism unless that escape is to a remote part of a forest.
6. The shifting calibration.
I cannot claim that there is one right calibration between we’re-all-in-this-together and the hail-to-the-solitary-man-or-woman. No one calibration fits every person in every place at all times.
But we are individuals; and small communities; and cities and counties and states and a nation; and Lions Club members; reunion-committee members; or Hell’s Angels members (or all of these). And we must constantly work this calibration out. And the right-seeming calibration never stays the same.
7. Three proposed rules.
Even though the calibration between freedom and community is elusive and shifting, here are three thoughts about how to get it right.
(1) It’s better to have loyalties to groups that mesh rather than to groups than conflict. It just makes things easier.
(2) But conflict is inevitable. It’s a fallen world. The most basic conflict is between the unconstrained freedom on the individual and any need to conform to fit within any group. I would suppose that even anarchists have rules that must be followed for the sake of group cohesion.
And loyalties might be split between one group and another. Your soccer team might have an important game on Sunday when church meets. Your boss might want you to cut legal corners, which defies your duty to the larger society to obey the law.
(3) So we have to decide how to mediate such conflicts. This is like an ethics exercise. All virtues are good; that’s why they’re called virtues. But sometimes they conflict.
The classic dilemma is this: it’s good to tell the truth; but you have a choice to make if it’s World War II, and you are hiding Jews in your attic, and Nazis come to your door and ask you if any Jews live with you. It’s good to be truthful, but it’s more important to love God and love your neighbor than to tell the truth. In Christianity, the duty to love is a meta-rule that mediates among lesser duties. So you lie and deny that you are hiding Jews.
That is, you follow the meta-rule. In other words, you have a rule that breaks ties among virtues.
Every person needs to know which loyalty breaks the tie among other loyalties. Your loyalty to God? Your loyalty to Country? To Family? To Work? To yourself?
This is an issue in which it is easy to be superficial. That’s because it’s easy to be virtuous when virtue is hypothetical.
But it’s better to be honest. That might make you re-calibrate for the better.
Mitt Romney has promised to cut taxes for everybody, from billionaires to shoe-buffers, by 20 percent. But he promises that that won't increase the deficit, because he'll make the revenue up by closing loopholes.
Non-partisan tax analysists say that to make up the revenue, he'll have to close middle-class loopholes, and the net effect would be that the rich will pay less in taxes and the middle-class will pay more.
So far, Romney hasn't proved that this ain't so by saying what tax loopholes he would close. Here are possible reasons.
1. The list is so brilliant that it would create an impossibly high level of expectation for his presidency.
2. National security is the issue: all of the loopholes he would close are secret loopholes for extra-terrestrials.
3. His secret plan is not to close tax loopholes. He’ll make up the revenue from his tax cuts by having TSA steal cameras and computers from the luggage of foreigners coming into the country.
4. His secret pan is not to close tax loopholes. He’ll make up the revenue from his tax cuts by selling the 47% to Chinese electronics-assembly factories. He’s already said he doesn’t care about those people.
5. "The truth? You can’t handle the truth!".
1. Hate calls to hate in American history.
Before the Civil War, abolitionists spoke hatefully about the South, and Southerners spoke hatefully about abolitionists. Even before the war-killing started, there was violence.
Senator Charles Sumner was a strong abolitionist, and Congressman Preston Brooks was a Southerner. Sumner insulted a kin of Brooks in an anti-slavery speech. The next day, on the floor of the Senate, Brooks ambushed Sumner and beat him with a cane. The beating was so savage that Senator Sumner never fully regained his health. Brooks survived a congressional censure vote, resigned from Congress, and was immediately re-elected by the elated voters of his district.
At Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, abolitionist John Brown and his men hacked to death five pro-slavery supporters. John Brown was celebrated in song. (John Brown’s Body.)
2. The generosity of Abraham Lincoln.
Not everybody shared hatred. Abraham Lincoln did not. He gave a speech in Peoria, Illinois in 1854. He attacked the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This repeal permitted slavery to spread. He did not attack his opponents. He showed that he did not judge them.
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.
This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless, there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tiptop abolitionists; while some Northern ones go south, and become most cruel slavemasters.
When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery then we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.
The insight "They are just what we would be in their situation " is brilliant, humble, and non-judgmental. And it is Biblical. It lives in "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:37 (NIV).)
3. Lincoln’s understanding as a lamp to read the Bible by.
And Lincoln’s understanding, which is from the Bible, also reflects back on the Bible. It helps us to understand the importance today to us of some parts the Bible.
I’m reading the Old Testament prophetic book Ezekiel. I’m reading about the children of Israel, what they did before God crushed them and scattered them to the nations. They worshiped idols. They even sacrificed their own sons and daughters to these handmade gods. It’s easy to judge. It’s better to wonder: if I had lived in those times, would I have joined in these horrible practices?
Likewise, people often judge those who crucified Jesus. Instead of judging, the better response is to wonder whether we, if we had lived in those times, would have stood in the plaza in front of Pontius Pilate and shouted "Crucify!" Instead of assuming that we would have wept at the foot of the cross, it’s better to remember what Lincoln said: "They are just what we would be in their situation."
4. The good in us, the good in others.
If we have any good in us, we don’t have it because we are innately good. It’s the favor of Providence. It is the Holy Spirit working in us.
Hezekiah was a righteous king of Judah. The kings of Judah were good and bad. Sometimes they were very bad, like Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, and Hezekiah’s son Manasseh. But Hezekiah was the best of kings. (2 Kings 18:5.)
And he was righteous because of God in him. Toward the end of his life, God withdrew from him, and Hezekiah blundered. The blunder is described in 2 Kings 20. The blunder is explained in 2 Chronicles 32: "God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart." (2 Chronicles 32:31 (NIV).)
The Holy Spirit is at work in the world and in the universe, in the believer and in the unbeliever. God can withdraw the Holy Spirit at any time. My faith in God is what it is, and I consider it to be a bedrock of my personality. But recently, I believe that God withdrew my faith, and for the first time in many decades my faith collapsed in weakness. This humbled me.
5. Lincoln’s generosity as a light in these dark times.
We can choose to judge those Muslims in Libya who killed our ambassador and three others. But it might be better to remember Lincoln: "They are just what we would be in their situation."
I tend to judge the makers of the crude and hateful film that insulted the Muslim prophet and may have provoked the deadly response in Libya. So I too need to remember "They are just what we would be in their situation."
I tend to judge Mitt Romney. Some of my friends fume against Barack Obama. But "They are just what we would be in their situation."
So that we don’t think of ourselves more highly than we ought, or think of others more harshly than we ought, we need to remember what Paul said: "God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Romans 11:32 (NIV).)
As for our conduct, I guess that the right thing to do is to struggle against disobedience, as strongly as God empowers us to do. And we should give glory to God for the good that he grows in ourselves and in others, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, unbeliever.
Unlike the makers of the crude film that provoked fury in Islam, we should not call hate to hate. We should not return evil for evil. God calls us to love our enemies. Sometimes this is considered naive. But it is generous, like Abraham Lincoln.
I’m in Visalia, in central California. I had a court appearance for a client. It’s done.
I thought I’d get lunch. Brother Peter used to practice law here, so I called him for a lunch-restaurant recommendation. He gave me big news: there’s a Naugles here.
My friends from Colton and Grand Terrace will remember Naugles. It was a fast-food restaurant on Valley Boulevard. I loved it as a teenager, and so did my friends. We delighted to scarf down Macho-Meat burritos and Macho-Combo burritos. Their burgers tasted better than burgers that I can remember from any other fast-food restaurant.
Naugles comes with good memories. Like going through the drive-through with a car-load of friends and ordering for everybody with a Dracula voice.
So I was excited to find out that there was a Naugles in Visalia. Well, not a Naugles. The Naugles chain was sold to Del Taco long ago. But the Naugles company kept a stand here in Visalia. It’s called BT’s Grill.
Never mind the name-change: it was a connection to my youth. I searched for it, with general directions from my brother. I almost gave up, but I spied it almost by chance.
Inside, I mentioned to the counter-woman that I was an old-time customer of Naugles, from my youth in Southern California. She confirmed that this stand was owned by Naugles. She wanted to know where I had been a customer when I was young. I swear, I had to pause as I spoke because I became choked up with the memory.
I studied the menu-sign looking for the menu-items from my memory. There was no "Macho Combo Burrito". There was no "Macho Meat Burrito". Never mind. I looked for menu items that had the ingredients that I remembered. The meat burrito looked close. I ordered it and an iced tea, paid, and waited.
I guess that a sentimental end of this story would have been that I bit into my burrito and swooned, taken back to a time before I was twenty by the taste of my present meal. Memories of Yellowjackets football games in the Yellowjackets stadium would have bubbled up. I would have remembered hanging with my friends in a shoulder-to-shoulder circle in the open space in front of the student store and next to Mr. Bridges’s classroom. Watching the drill team practice, and hearing band practice from outside the band room. Working out with the swim team. CDB.
But it wasn’t that.
The burrito tasted – different and disappointing. I looked inside of it. It looked the same. I remember onions. It didn’t have onions. And the sauce was bland compared to what I remember. Otherwise, it was pretty much the same, but somehow very different.
Sometimes, going back to a place you once knew does disappoint. Twenty-some years ago, I worked at the Pasadena branch of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. Sometimes my business would take me back to the Pasadena courthouse, and I would drop by. For a while, I was greeted like an old friend. Then less so. Finally, I realized that I was to the strangers there just an unknown person who showed up without any apparent business. So I stopped going.
I used to own a house in Pasadena. Someone else owns it now. And no doubt they are so accustomed to their own possession of it that that they can't imagine it owned by someone else. It would be strange to them to think about someone like me whom they’ve never met who once walked sleepy and barefoot from the back bedroom to the living room, as they do today.
So I know that the world changes. But so do I. I’m not the boy who ordered food for himself and for his friends with a Dracula voice. My tastes have changed; that might be one reason why the burrito did not seem the same. Are my tastebuds more sophisticated, or just different? Who knows?
But also, the world today is not the world of my 18-year-old self.
Every day we wake up in a brave new world. Hopefully, we’re brave with it.
An old, dead debate is clawing up out of the ground: whether a woman who can’t show two black eyes and missing teeth or the legal equivalent of that was really raped.
That debate was called back by Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin and his reference to "legitimate rape". But that reference led to a search for the position of other Republican candidates. That search led to the discovery that Akin and Paul Ryan had co-sponsored the so-called "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act". That bill proposed to limit the rape-exception in a ban on government-funded abortions. The bill proposed to limit the exception from rape to "forcible rape". That language that narrowed the definition of rape eventually was dropped from the bill.
So there we go. What’s old becomes new. But the answers to this old argument have been around for over three decades. In fact, we can find answers in a case that was decided by the California Supreme Court that talks about rape law in California.
1. Threats, coercion, and sex.
Juoquin sold marijuana. Marsha smoked a little marijuana with Juoquin at his house. After 10-15 minutes, he started to hug Marsha. She pushed him away and told him to stop. He had overstepped, but she didn’t think that it was any big deal. But he kept on hitting on her, so she told him that she wanted to go.
He told her that he didn’t want her to go. But she got up, left the house, and went to the front gate.
Things turned hostile outside. He yelled at her. He refused to open the gate, and she didn’t know how to open it herself. Then he said that he would open the gate, but that he wanted to put on his shoes first. She followed him inside.
Inside, he continued bullying her. Several times, he reared back his fist like he was going to hit her. He told her that he was a man. He flexed his arm muscles. He grabbed her sweater collar and told her that with one hand he could lift her up and throw her out.
He boasted. He said, "I had bitches do anything I want. I have had bitches suck me . . . I have had them do that. I can make you do anything I want. You understand me?" He said, "You're so used to see[ing] the good side of me. Now you get to see the bad." She expected him to hit her.
She was afraid. About 40 minutes after she followed him back inside, he turned affectionate and started hugging her. She thought that he was psychotic. She decided to act as if she were going along with what he wanted.
Then he said that he wanted sex. He told her to take off her clothes. She refused. He said that she was going to make him angry. She took off her clothes. They had sex
2. Criminal courts.
In Superior Court, the jurors convicted Juoquin of rape.
But the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction. The justices said that the conviction could not stand because Marsha had not physically resisted.
And in fact that had been the law before Joachin confined and grabbed and threatened Marsha and had sex with her. But it was not the law when he did these things.
The case went up to the California Supreme Court. In a decision written by Chief Justice Rose Bird, the Supreme Court reinstated the conviction. (People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal. 3d 284.)
The Supreme Court first noted that physical resistance was no longer needed to prove rape. In 1980 the rape-statute was changed so that a rape was rape if the rapist accomplished it by forcing the victim to have sex by fear of violence.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court noted how the new definition of rape reflects a new understanding of women and proof of consent.
Historically, it was considered inconceivable that a woman who truly did not consent to sexual intercourse would not meet force with force. [Citations.] The law originally demanded "utmost resistance" from the woman to ensure she had submitted rather than consented. [Citations.] Not only must she have resisted to the "utmost" of her physical capacity, the resistance must not have ceased throughout the assault.
The law evolved, so that that need to show utmost resistance became a historical relic. Nevertheless, until 1980 in California rape wasn’t rape if the victim had not physically resisted or physically resisted only slightly.
This need for proof of physical resistance was based on distrust of women’s claims of rape. It was also based on false assumptions about a woman’s inevitable response to rape. As the California Supreme Court said, some women resist; others freeze. This "frozen fright" can be a "psychological infantilism" that looks like "cooperative behavior". Far from showing consent, the Supreme Court understood that lack of physical resistance could be the product of "profound primal terror". All of these conclusions were supported by reliable studies.
In fact, studies showed that physical resistance could fend off a rape, but that it could also lead to greater violence to complete the rape.
3. Judicial burdens.
The end of the need in rape cases to prove physical resistance has had judicial effects.
The effect of this law is that, yes, it is easier to convict a man of rape who in fact had consensual sex. This adds to the burden of an innocent defendant and his hopefully hard-charging lawyer.
But it also means that women have greater freedom from rape. A rapist’s ability to squelch physical resistance by making his victim feel a paralyzing primal fear is no longer a get-out-of-jail-free card.
4. Psychological burdens.
Any successful efforts of legislators to re-introduce the issue of "forcible rape" into abortion laws would have deep psychological effects.
I suppose that a rape victim who physically resists has at least the consolation of her courage. I would suppose that someone who was frozen in fear bears the risk of increased shame from her non-resistance. Efforts of the Todd Akins and the Paul Ryans would have the effect of narrowing the options and adding to the great burden of those victims who suffer the greatest feelings of shame.
5. Burdens on advocates
Some of my friends believe that a woman should not have the option of ending a pregnancy if she has been raped. I respectfully disagree. I mean both of those words. I respect them. And I disagree with them.
A substantial majority of Americans take the side of the rape victim. Given that substantial majority, any likely versions of the laws about abortion will protect the freedom of choice of rape victims.
That means that persons driven to protect the product of a rape will have to walk their efforts along the ancient ways. They will not be the law of the land; they must be the light of the world. If they succeed, it will be through love not compulsion. The choice will rest with the victim.
The recent Republican nominating convention had both too much imagination and too little.
1. Too much imagination
There was too much imagination in this sense: the whole convention responded to an imaginary Barack Obama sitting in a chair, an imaginary Obama that holds opinions and does things that the real Obama doesn’t.
For example, a major theme of the convention was that Obama is against small businesses. A fifty-dollar bill with the face of Draco Mulfoy has as much verity as that claim. It ignores Obama’s support for small businesses – like his administration’s loan program for small businesses. This canopy of a theme of the Republican convention came from X-Acto knifing certain words in a certain Obama speech. These words were picked away from the words that came before and after. The claim was not honest.
2. Too little imagination.
But there was also a lack of imagination.
I didn’t see most of the convention, but I trust conservative columnist David Brooks when he says that testimonies there about the compassion of Mitt Romney were moving. So let’s accept that Romney is a compassionate man.
Then how can he link himself by his selection of his running mate to the extreme part of his party that wants to cut away the social safety net? How can he in that way link himself to the members of his party who, as Bill Maher says, want poor people to find their food in the woods?
Mr. Romeny appears to have compassion for persons who stand in front of him, persons he knows. If someone he knew were hungry, he would probably feed that person. If they were sick, he might try to find a way to get them cured.
But if that person is not in front of him, if he doesn’t know them, then he seems unable to imagine the harm he would do by, say, stopping the government food-stamp program. And he can’t imagine the death or bankruptcy that would come with the end of Obamacare.
Make no mistake: without food stamps, people will go hungry. In fact, even with that program, people live in America who are, in sterile social-science speak, "food insecure". Without that program, children will be stunted in their growth. Without that program, adults will die. Particularly the elderly. Particularly the sick.
People will steal to survive. People will pilfer to fill their children’s mouths. Some of them will get caught, get prosecuted, get convicted. With the stigma of a criminal conviction, their ability to feed themselves and their children will be more dire than it was before.
If Obamacare is repealed, people who give birth to children with birth defects will go bankrupt saving their children. That’s because insurance companies won’t sell health insurance for a baby born with a "preexisting condition." The baby’s parents will have to choose between going bankrupt paying for medical care or buying their baby’s coffin. And they might both go bankrupt and bury their baby.
If Romney could imagine this, maybe his compassion would not permit him to allow it. But he can’t or won’t imagine it. So he has embraced the social-Darwinists of his party. He has (literally) embraced the Paul Ryans who claim they want to "free" poor people from dependence on government. This is the freedom to starve. This is the freedom to die. Imagine it, if you can.
So far as I know, no soldier in American history has chosen to put himself in harm's way for the freedom to go hungry. It isn’t much of a freedom. There’s got to be a balance that permits essential freedoms, but which doesn’t convert us to some kind of Dickensian dystopia.
3. Failure of imagination: it couldn’t happen here.
There’s another potential failure of imagination. That’s the failure of the imagination of the electorate. That’s the electorate that might select Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in November.
We human beings typically have a hard time imagining a radical change from what is. I suspect that that’s one reason that a prophet like Jeremiah could prophecy that his countrymen would be reduced to literally eating their own sons and daughters, but the reaction of those countrymen was something like, Yeah, whatever.
This lack of imagination affects us today. There is not now mass starvation. So we can’t imagine mass starvation among us through the policies of a major American political party. The image and idea of mass starvation in America seem incredible, the product of a severe fever, not careful thought.
We often can’t imagine a future without a social safety net, even though it is a marquee idea of the Republican Party. And even if we imagine the dynamiting of our dams that hold back hunger, we can’t imagine the flood of suffering that will flow from that policy.
The practices of our compassionate government rose from the suffering of The Great Depression. The potential repeal of those practices comes at a time when few men and women live who remember the time that gave birth to them. This is probably not coincidental. Perhaps the practices will die with living memory of their reasons.
4. Imagining a worse possibility.
Or it might be worse than that. It might be that small-government conservatism is so appealing that it makes mass suffering tolerable to many people.
Ayn Rand has many disciples, and she despised compassion. In a time before he chameleoned himself to blend with compassionate stage-scenery in Tampa, Paul Ryan compelled new employees to read Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand would have kicked into the gutter poor Lazarus, the beggar who Jesus spoke of. The only thing that might have stopped her is if he were already in the gutter. Certainly, she would not have lifted him out of the gutter. She would not have bound up his sores. She would not have given him bread.
(The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is at Luke 16:19-31.)
5. This election.
Imagine a parable of a man beset, not by bandits, but by hunger. Or ill health. Or lack of education. Imagine a priest and a Levite and a small-government conservative who cross the road to avoid that helpless man. (Luke 10:30-37.) Who will be the good Samaritan to help him?
This election is a choice between the candidates who want to cross the road and the candidates who want to help. Imagine the difference that the election of one side versus the other will make. Literally: please imagine it. Because elections have consequences, and this election will make a difference in hunger and in health and in education and in prosperity.
Prayer: Lord, your word says that as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Let it be so in this debate. And if anyone’s imagination is stimulated by this piece, perhaps their prayers will be, too – including their prayers for me, which I covet, to make my own imagination pleasing to you.
