It Begins With: We The People, Not We The Government.

I have never been without access to adequate food clothing or shelter. There were a couple of times in my life that I came very close to living in my car but I never crossed that threshold and I never had to ask for extra government support to dig my way out of the hole that I was in. My parents raised us on an income that sometimes was considered near or below considered below the federal poverty guidelines for a family our size, but we never ever considered ourselves poor. And most of the world’s true poor would not be impressed if we tried to make that claim as they struggle daily for access to proper food shelter and clean water. My grand parents on both sides of the family hustled and scraped and generally worked their tails off to get by in the most trying economic times this country has ever seen. My parents lived through the Depression and war-time rationing that forced them to set clear and severe priorities just to get by. There is a true story in my family of my grandfather traveling to purchase fish which he brought home to fillet in his kitchen which he then proceeded to sell door to door to earn some money to support his for his family. My wife’s grandfather raised 15 kids working a farm, also starting and running a lumber camp and generally doing everything he could to support his family without help from the government. My mom was bought up on a family farm and her story is similar.

The point that I want to make is that I grew up in a family tradition where hard work was considered a normal state of life. Divorce was rare. Parents married and then raised their children. Fathers stuck around for better or worse and respect for each other was measured by your level of honesty not by how nice a car you were able to own.

Having said this it should now come as no surprise that I hold these very same values as founding principles for good citizenship. I feel this way because I have observed that a strong family is the framework on which everything else in our society depends on.

The world has changed a lot since my parents and grandparents time. This is our time. Divorce is more common. I have experienced the trauma and sadness of it myself. Families have been fractured and redefined. My son has more than one phone number for some of his friends as they move back and forth between two families. I know a great many single mothers who need WIC, food stamps and their low paying job just to get by. And I know many grandparents who are placed back into the role of parent after their own children have grown just so their children can work as daycare is too expensive on the wages paid at Wal-Mart. We are a service economy now. Most of our higher paying jobs are being lured overseas to countries that offer lower corporate taxes. While many still have families to turn to we also have an older population now and senior citizens who hoped to find support from their children have found that it is not as abundant as it once was.

We are going through a rough time and it is going to get even harder. I think my generation is having a difficult time maintaining the family values that my parents grew up with. Yet we can no longer afford to think of ourselves as a society of individuals only. Those of us who remember how to work hard, love each other, and care for our neighbors, as those who preceded us before us had done, ought to succeed brilliantly just as the previous generations have done. If we stand alone doing nothing but shaking our fists at the world we will accomplish nothing and we will surely succumb to our troubles as many failed societies have done before us. Our predecessors have shown us what we should do to get through our present difficulties. We should start remembering those lessons while our governments are fumbling around trying to get through this. We already have what we need. We just have to remember who we are.