POLITICS AND NATURE

I just saw a photo of the woman who had the octuplets through in vitro (sp?) fertilization with a caption saying the taxpayers will be paying for everything for her. Hmmm.

Now, I don’t normally go for the sexy, engaging, and bawdy new stories and subsequent commentary which may actually make my website more successful. C’est La Vie. Or as Hunter would put it....Sela. I’m sure O’Reilly and Rush have plenty to say on such matters. It’s the fault of the liberals, the godless, the irresponsible hippies...all the same garbage.

What got me thinking though relates to much of my other work . . .. the relationship between the state and society, the responsible use of public finances, personal responsibility, and the role of each individual in pursuing the greater public good.

There appears to have been many poor choices in this situation. Why someone who is single with no job would actively pursue doubling her number of children (which were already hard to handle I would guess) is beyond my faculties. Why a California in vetro clinic would assist boggles my mind even further.

The only thing which could surpass the ignorance, foolishness, and carelessness of this woman and those doctors would be a society which allowed those extra eight little human beings to grow up in despairing poverty and hopelessness.

This is not to suggest any answers to this one specific instance of shamelessness and complete lack of common sense. Who knows, she may get a movie deal and soon have maids to care for them all. Joe the Plummer got a job and I still can’t figure that one out . . .but good for him.

What is the public good?

There are those who would say it is to keep the economic engines driving. Separating the wheat from the chaff by limiting taxes, raising salaries beyond what any human could possibly require, and reducing the role of the government in our individual lives.

This does not work.

There will always be financial gurus who will make more money than good sense dictates. I do not believe simply being wealthy makes someone a poor character. In fact, many rich people are great and do fantastic things and they do drive the economy. And, they should keep their money. But they should be providing leadership. Not only in these bad times but in worse times as well.

The public good rests upon security in knowing your children will be ok. It thrives on hope in this, or any age. This class division bullshit has gone too far. I don’t feel bad for the wealthy. Yes, many of them work hard but many of them, from Halliburton to KBR to Blackwater Security to Exxon Mobile to Shell to Grumman to Boeing to Monsanto and on and on and on all receive tremendous tax benefits when the government is not purchasing their goods.

This corporate welfare garbage did not start in the last six months. It was going on back when Jefferson financed the Lewis and Clark expedition to see what was out there which we could plunder and pillage for the good of the nation at the expense of people who should have been our dearest friends.

We have to talk about the public good. It is not in the interest of anyone to let children be malnourished, in California or in Zimbabwe. It is not in anyone’s interest to turn a blind eye to drugged out child soldiers forced to murder in what seems like a world away. It is not in anyone’s interests to allow our e-waste to fill African lands where children wallow through mounds of our trash to retrieve the miniscule amount of copper or whatever it is after being exposed to the horrendous chemicals spewing out after they break it.

There are those who will say . . . but this is life and it gives them money . . . what else would they do. This is a foolish and ignorant sentiment. Just as ignorant as those who say they have no connection to the starving children in our own nation or that wilderness does not matter.

We are better than this.

The gross manipulation of facts which somehow work to justify and sanitize poverty and pollution and war in the name of so-called realism must be cast away. The world is what we have made of it.

Perhaps if we had thought more about the true relationship between business and the public good, that woman would be married, have a job (or not), and her kids would not become a burden on society. Who knows.

All I know is that when we consider it a burden to pay someone $12,000 per year to support a family (or $20,000) but we think it is fine to tear down our mountains and watch as our fellow citizens live in poverty and we spend billions of dollars making incompetent people wealthy beyond most normal people’s wildest dreams......we have made, and continue to make some serious errors in judgment and I believe these stem from fundamental philosophies. Maybe I should have called the book Re-think America.