Letters to the Editor
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With you, Heather
I have a hard time seeing where there's any basis for hope (apologies, Sen. Obama) when the people who write these letters populate our beautiful land.
People like Heather do not need advice on how to make better choices. She does not need to be admonished, nor made to feel worse. Her problems are not the result of her moral failings. She feels shame because in our society being poor is shameful. In our society, far too many people are self-indulgent, and like to pretend that economic outcomes depend on a kind of "deservedness."
One of my guilty pleasures is watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC. It's rather bittersweet, because the show's premise is to find the single most "deserving" family in a state and give them a nice, new home. Of course, for the winning families it's manna from heaven, and to see these folks come to understand how valuable the help is that they're getting - it's awesome. But the race to find the most deserving is nothing more than finding the most pathetic.
Every family in our country should have the security of knowing that no matter what -- whether they are "deserving" or not, whether they make good choices or bad, whether they are smart or dumb, black, white or hispanic -- that their fellow Americans will be there for them. This is a social compact that the people of most civilized nations make. In America, however, we have been brainwashed into thinking the only system is "every man for himself."
The lesson I get from these letters is simple. Try to emigrate to Norway.