{"id":286,"date":"2017-09-28T14:13:41","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T14:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/?p=286"},"modified":"2017-09-28T14:13:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T14:13:41","slug":"what-do-we-owe-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/?p=286","title":{"rendered":"What do we owe each other"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote a long essay on the current health care bill and how it\u2019s being sold to us. I dug into why it\u2019s a bad idea, how it will further drive Americans into the haves and have nots, and how it shoves more of the burden of the cost of being a civilized society onto the working and corporate serf class.\u00a0 I edited it, filled it with clever asides and the personal experiences of people I know and love.<\/p>\n

Then.<\/p>\n

I deleted it.<\/p>\n

No one who reads it will change their mind about anything involved. Every election cycle, we\u2019re told by the polls that Americans want the health care system in America fixed, and anyone who tries anything to do so is ripped apart and may as well go into hiding.<\/p>\n

I keep thinking about the phrase \u201cWhat we owe each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minute I write that phrase, I hear people, mostly Americans (and mostly a specific privileged subset of Americans) say \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe that. I just don\u2019t.\u00a0 Human beings are a species that is social.\u00a0 The quickest way to break a person is to remove human contact.\u00a0 The punishment that narcissists and abusers favor is to remove their victim\u2019s social network (I know, I\u2019ve had people attempt it before).\u00a0 Our young are unable to care for themselves for years, meaning that we need to parent our young for years, unlike horses, turtles, fish, etc\u2026\u00a0 That means we have to have tribes, families, cultures and civilizations.<\/p>\n

However, there is a growing strain of so-called \u201cindividualists\u201d who feel that it\u2019s OK to take without giving. That aggression is to be worshipped.\u00a0 That ripping people off, exploiting them, and leaving them with nothing is just the way of the world.\u00a0 They argue we need to remove protections for those who don\u2019t have power because, well, everyone should be able to succeed on their own through rugged individualism.<\/p>\n

What about those who are developmentally disabled? What about those whose talents aren\u2019t suited for cutthroat capitalism?\u00a0 What about those who don\u2019t have the family and intergenerational supports that more successful people do?\u00a0 What about those who do the necessary, but undervalued jobs that have to be done for our cities and societies to function?<\/p>\n

Are they lesser beings? Are they to be left behind in the rat race?<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who do not work, do not eat\u201d is tossed around by these folks, and for some reason, we don\u2019t see this mindset as evil.<\/p>\n

What DO we owe each other?<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote a long essay on the current health care bill and how it\u2019s being sold to us. I dug into why it\u2019s a bad idea, how it will further drive Americans into the haves and have nots, and how it shoves more of the burden of the cost of being a civilized society onto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.solitairerose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}