I do not wish to call anyone out, and will attempt to write with respect, regardless of my strong feelings. I understand that a lot of people are upset with the government and they are entitled to their opinions, but there are a couple of glaring problems in last Friday’s guest column by Damian Erasmus.
I would like to advise people to avoid making threats, such as of self-imposed expatriation. If one feels so slighted and disenfranchised that one wants to leave the country, and seeks not to be further subject to the political and economic system of this republic, then one is free to leave at any time.
Using that freedom as a rhetorical device is not valid, because others will happily oblige and call the bluff. Thus; if one wants to leave, then do it, and we remaining will all be the happier for the absence of poorly structured and ill-informed complaints.
Furthermore, if one is indeed planning on leaving the country, I might say that a letter of resignation in the form of an opinion piece is neither required nor particularly desired.
Also, using the term ”progressives” as a scapegoat without clearly delineating just who these people are and what specific policies they have or have not put in place, which are causing the problems perceived, is patently ignorant. If there is hard evidence of something, names, dates, causes and relationships, then surely those things should be included in a work. If one does not, it might be considered conjecture, and therefore irrelevant.
“Progressives,” “banksters,” “quasi-fascists,” “Wall Street cronies” — these are highly clichéd catch phrases for the punditry, and I, for one, will not be bullied into compliance with such boogey-man idioms.
Furthermore, I invite UNM alumni and citizens in general to consider that everyone has taken advantage of social programs themselves. Indeed, if one has yet to pay off one’s student loans, then in planning on expatriation, one would indeed be shirking one’s debts. Shall I give pass to such wanton disregard and disdain not only for the services themselves, but for the costs involved as well?
I certainly would like to live in a world in which university is free, or where impossibly large debts could be easily erased, but such is not the case and we must be responsible for our own.
The point is that there is no such thing as what has been termed ‘the honest rich,’ and to say that it is possible for anyone and everyone to ‘pull themselves up by the bootstraps,’ as the common maxim goes, is unbelievably insensitive. It flies in the face of empathy, kindness, compassion, and allows for the dehumanization of the poor by asserting they are just looking for a handout, or somehow lazy.
Everyone who is living in this country as I write this has benefitted in some way or another from social programs, government subsidization, welfare or what have you. In fact, an individual’s primary and initial means of becoming a successful person is determined by upbringing, of which an individual has no control.
People who see themselves as “self-made” clearly owe it to their parents first. There is also no such thing as really being self-made, literally and figuratively. Furthermore, the relative wealth or poverty of one’s parents features heavily in how successful — that is, poor or rich — one will be in their lifetime. This, of course, is barring some fantastic event such as becoming a professional athlete, actor or celebrity, which for the majority of the unattractive, untalented, physically awkward bulk of humanity, is a sheer impossibility.
For example, it has been more or less tradition — and I have seen numerous examples of it — that parents either buy their child, or help their child purchase, a car as a graduation present, as reward for good grades, or what have you. Yet no one pays their parents back for things like that, or at all, for that matter.
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And while that is true, we live in a generation that puts its old folks away in homes and lets them die alone in obscurity. We live in a generation of ungrateful, self-centered and heartless people.
People who — and it shocks me — would have the sheer audacity to suggest that the poor do not need help, all the while enjoying the benefits of social programs, infrastructures and institutions themselves.
Additionally, why is it that people commit crimes? Is it just fun Is it easy? Are the punishments light and transient? Do criminals simply like being criminals? It could be, but undoubtedly and first of all, it’s because people find themselves being desperate and poor. As long as there is such a thing as the rich, the few who have plenty, and the poor, the many who have little, then there will be what there has always been too much of: death, starvation, genocide and war.
It seems that a significant portion of an individual’s aspirations are motivated by selfishness. Everyone wants a big house, a nice car, expensive clothes and objects, and wants no one to touch or come near them. Everyone wants opportunity for themselves and their people and to hell with everyone else.
Yet it is one’s responsibility to enrich humanity should one become wealthy. After all, ‘You can’t take it with you.’
Ideally, one is supposed to leave the world behind in a better condition than one was left in. Getting rich and then leaving inheritances to ungrateful children who blow it all on idiotic pursuits is precisely the kind of attitude that has created the economic deterioration that we are now facing.
Finally, we are most certainly not practicing the redistribution of wealth — not here in the states, and not the world over. Where is the evidence of that? One may not simply state something as truth without providing evidence. Where’s my evidence? How about 10,000 years of human suffering brought upon by the fact that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor?
If what I have said makes me a “progressive”, then I guess I am. If it means desiring freedom, equality, justice and enough for all to enjoy, then brand me as such. Unlike some, it matters not to me what name I am given by others.
