I’m
the stay-at-home-mom of 3 kids – 2 of whom have special needs. I’m not a politician,
a lobbyist, a church or a corporation. I am a citizen of the United States of
America.
Lately
it seems to me that our country is on a downward spiral, whipping around out of
control as if being sucked into a black hole. The centrifugal force has
resulted in a very frightening polarization of our government and our people.
My
contacts on social media have turned my homepage into an unending barrage of
propaganda highlighting every misstep made by government officials,
corporations or religious/non-religious groups. Politics have become a team
sport, citizens are taking sides and the competition is fierce.
We
all look upon the same big picture (like the one above), but we see what we
want to see… or what those people we trust want us to see. Then, as a country,
we argue over whether that big picture depicts a young woman or an old woman.
We take sides and pick teams and our teams become so focused on winning the argument game that the
individuals on the teams either refuse to see the whole picture or lose the
courage to step forward and say that the claims of both sides have validity.
Perhaps
it is because as a country we developed on a capitalist foundation that we have
become so competitive. Initially this competitive nature allowed us to build
and grow, and become an independent nation. Now that our nation has grown and
flourished, what is this internal competition doing to it?
Aren’t
we supposed to be the United States
of America? Doesn’t that very word insinuate we are all on the same team? "United we stand, divided we fall."
The concept is not new. In fact, the above phrase is attributed to the ancient
Greek, Aesop, so clearly it has been around for longer than our own great (or
not-so-great) nation.
We
have touted ourselves as the greatest nation on earth, have we not? Perhaps
that was once true, but I for one don’t believe that we are all that great any
more. In fact, the more I read about our current lawmakers, the less faith I
have in our government. And I don’t think I am the only one.
I
was raised by Republican parents. They raised me to believe that if I got a good
education, worked hard and invested my resources properly, I would live long
and prosper. (What can I say? My father was in the aerospace industry – so apparently
I’m at least part Vulcan.) In effect, I was raised with a strong team
affiliation.
Yet
in my adult life I have learned the hard way that there is more to the picture
than what I was raised to see. Both my husband and I were working full-time. We
were paying mortgage on a house and were always up-to-date on our car payments
and bills. Then our youngest was born 10 weeks prematurely with Down syndrome.
Our health insurance only covered certain parts of the vast pile of medical
bills. Our baby came home with a feeding tube and could not be put into a
standard day care. We would have to spend our own money to pay for a nurse to
care for her while I was at work… but unfortunately nurses made a higher hourly
wage than I did. I had to stop working to take care of our child. We lost our
house, our cars and the lifestyle we had built on a foundation of Republican
dogma.
Is
it not ironic? Though my personal views are against abortion, I can still look
from the middle of the road and see that the very same “team” that says that
abortion is wrong is against giving handouts to those in need. After some
really good plays, our contribution to the team went virtually unnoticed and my
family was benched. Suddenly the rest of the picture became very, very clear.
Although
I went to a high school with Catholic affiliation, I was raised with science –
my parents taught me to listen with my ears, see with my eyes and utilize my
brain to make sense of the input. It was from a very early age I felt that the
things I was seeing and the things I was being told to believe weren’t adding
up to the picture before me.
I
was taught in school that the United States of America was founded upon
Christian values. I also learned that many of the first people to settle in
North America did so for religious
freedom. (This does not include the Native Americans who were living here
long before the continent was “discovered”
by some rather narcissistic Europeans – men that apparently believed that
nothing aside from their own atrophied universe existed until they themselves noticed
and validated it. Let us remember that these very same men believed the earth
to be flat until not too terribly long before “discovering” North America… but
I digress… badly…)
Religious
freedom was so important to the people colonizing North America, in fact, that
when the Constitution was penned by our founding fathers, the very first Amendment
they included stated:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances.”
And
yet are religious issues not now cause for some of our biggest arguments? For
example, only certain people are legally
allowed to marry in our country because Christianity forbids otherwise. Yet not
every legal citizen of the United States of America is a Christian, and many
Christians disagree with disallowing same-sex unions. Wouldn’t that in and of
itself be an infringement upon the free exercise of religion?
Later
along the way, science taught me the value of survival of the fittest. Only
those who are the strongest thrive while the weak die out. There are those in our
society that tout eugenics – the use of science to weed out humans/fetuses with
inferior genes and preventing the reproduction or birth of those individuals. See this
Link.
There
are people that believe my youngest daughter does not have the same value as
other human beings. In fact a whopping 92 percent of people choose to terminate
pregnancies when they learn their fetus has Down syndrome… and yet I look with
my eyes – I listen with my ears and I see how smart and witty my youngest is.
While there are many in our country who choose not to work – who choose to
collect unemployment and food stamps, I would bet everything that I (still)
have that my daughter with Down syndrome will have a good job some day and earn
her own way.
So
who is right? Should we prevent the abortions of fetuses that will be born to unemployed,
drug abusing parents who will neither have the money to feed them properly or
the wherewithal to teach these children the value of working for a living while
we devalue the lives of individuals with special needs who will quite possibly someday
be self-sufficient with proper education? Should we claim that all life has value, yet refuse to help
those born to more difficult circumstances or should we abort them all in hopes
of creating a more perfect society filled with “perfect” individuals?
And
with these words, a gauntlet has been thrown and yet another game of semantics begins.
People will take sides and argue their personal, political and religious views.
Who will win? Or will we as a country allow our variety or views and ideologies
to tear our great country apart?
“It’s
a vase!”
“No!
It’s two faces!”
So
what do we do about our country’s gross polarization? Of our individual refusal
to see the whole picture? Of our national insistence of taking sides and
competing against ourselves?
Perhaps
it’s time to find the “I” in “Team.” Or perhaps it’s time to quit the team altogether.
Perhaps it’s time to combine the team into one great country.
After
all… whose side are YOU on?
