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September 14, 2005
Where Are We?
I don't often link to the NY Times. I figure that many people either read it online or get newsfeeds. However, Tom Friedman's op-ed piece was quite powerful. You can link to it here. The following really stood out for me though:
The discipline that the cold war imposed on America, by contrast, seems to have faded. Last year, we cut the National Science Foundation budget, while indulging absurd creationist theories in our schools and passing pork-laden energy and transportation bills in the middle of an energy crisis.
We let the families of the victims of 9/11 redesign our intelligence organizations, and our president and Congress held a midnight session about the health care of one woman, Terri Schiavo, while ignoring the health crisis of 40 million uninsured. Our economy seems to be fueled lately by either suing each other or selling each other houses. Our government launched a war in Iraq without any real plan for the morning after, and it cut taxes in the middle of that war, ensuring that future generations would get the bill. ....
Janadas Devan, a Straits Times columnist, tried to explain to his Asian readers how the U.S. is changing. "Today's conservatives," he wrote, "differ in one crucial aspect from yesterday's conservatives: the latter believed in small government, but believed, too, that a country ought to pay for all the government that it needed.
"The former believe in no government, and therefore conclude that there is no need for a country to pay for even the government that it does have. ... [But] it is not only government that doesn't show up when government is starved of resources and leached of all its meaning. Community doesn't show up either, sacrifice doesn't show up, pulling together doesn't show up, 'we're all in this together' doesn't show up."
Every day we make a choice as to what type of world we want. I don't subscribe to handing people something for nothing. I think that most people will work if they have real opportunities for good jobs, with livable wages. Those opportunities were not available to many in New Orleans. And we now know that they don't exist for many, many others too. We have an opportunity to address these issues. Are we going to step up to the plate and do something substantial? The past performance of this administration leads me to think not. I hope I am wrong.
Posted by Chip Spear at September 14, 2005 9:23 PM