{"id":2576,"date":"2023-07-16T04:30:17","date_gmt":"2023-07-16T04:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/?p=2576"},"modified":"2023-07-16T04:30:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-16T04:30:17","slug":"americas-values-are-competing-with-our-desires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/?p=2576","title":{"rendered":"America’s Values Are Competing With Our Desires"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Licensed by Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Years back, I was wandering down Powell Street in San Francisco. If you\u2019re not aware of the nuances of San Francisco, Powell Street serves as the Bart connection for most people in the corridor between downtown and the financial district. When the homeless situation started to get out of control in the city, you would expect this corridor would also serve as their hangout as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember a couple of suits walking down the street when one of the homeless confronted them, asking for money. One of the men seemed flabbergasted that one of the city\u2019s homeless had addressed him and turned to his friend for encouragement after he cursed at the homeless guy. His friend turned back to him and said, not even waiting to take a breath: \u201cWhen did people become so callous towards other people?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve often remembered that conversation because I think it was the last time that I heard someone actually evoke concern for those living on the street. Oh, sure, I\u2019ve heard aid organizations talk about needing to help the homeless, but that was the last time I heard it said out loud by someone on the street. Nowadays, if someone tends to see a homeless person, or any person in need, I see them avoid that person, even to the point of crossing the street, if that will help avoid that encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, in the New York Times<\/em>, there was an article about how the heat wave has been affecting Texas. I figured it was probably getting hot in a number of states, but they also reported that 10 people had died in Texas the other day, all because they didn\u2019t have access to air conditioners. I seriously thought about driving to Lowe\u2019s and buy ten air conditioners and drive them to Laredo, TX, the place where the 10 had died. And then I read more. Some of them had air conditoners but were scared to turn them on because of the prohibitive cost. The others just couldn\u2019t afford air conditioners and roasted in their homes with air fans on, not realizing that it just wouldn\u2019t be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s what caused me to want to write this article: Tano Tijerina, the county judge for Webb County (where Laredo exists) said about handing out air conditioners to citizens: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to start giving out air conditioners, where do you stop?\u201d he said. \u201cWe are an aid, we will help, we\u2019ll assist.\u201d But he added, \u201cwe\u2019re talking about people\u2019s tax dollars here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s the problem right there. It\u2019s a problem that has been growing for about as long as the United States has been a country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, before the U.S. came along, most countries were monarchies or empires, and it was through their benevolence that they bestowed charity upon those they ruled over. When we came along, we promised to be a rule of the people, for the people and by the people. If you unpack that, what we promised was that our government would be ruled by the people and that those people would take care of the rest of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But notice, that promise didn\u2019t come from the original founding fathers, even if they might have meant it. Those words didn\u2019t come into a hundred years after our nation was formed, from a speech given by Abraham Lincoln, detailing a new America after the Civil War. While his intention may have been that no people should be enslaving other people, he also meant that people with means should look after those who have needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for many years, the country has moved in that general direction, but throughout all of those times, there has always been a group of people with resources who have tried to stand in the way of helping anyone who has needed assistance. Years back, they argued that people should lift themselves up by their bootstraps, even though those of means rarely ever had to lift any bootstraps; they were lifted long ago by families that were rich that allowed them to inherit immense wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout our history, whenever those in power have tried to give a lift to those in need, there has been that swift boot of injustice that tries to intercede and stop it from happening. During the Depression, when many were destitute, there were those who had wealth that did everything to stop FDR from enacting programs to help those in need. They used the Supreme Court to stop every move FDR made. And then FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court, which caused the very rich to realize that all of the gains they had achieved from a favorable Supreme Court might end, so the Supreme Court allowed FDR\u2019s reforms to go through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, why am I talking about something nearly a century ago? Because those people never went away. Oh, sure, they\u2019re different people, but they are acting in the same ways their fathers and grandfathers did. That county judge shows us that those people are still around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s important to think about is what do we consider to be important to the American system of values? On one hand, we have those people who honestly believe that profit is more important than the well-being of our fellow citizens. We\u2019ve been fighting this battle as long as most of us have been alive. It\u2019s so convoluted that at times those with wealth have figured out ways to pitch the fights between groups of people without anything, so that the majority of the attention is spent on irrelevant fights while those with everything laugh while they\u2019re counting their money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As long as citizens of the United States care more for money than they do their fellow citizens, the point of the United States is irrelevant. We could be any location on the planet and it wouldn\u2019t mean a single thing. People sailed to this country in hopes of starting a new and wondrous life. They didn\u2019t do it because there was new land across the ocean. They risked their lives for something greater than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for centuries, that\u2019s just what we offered them. Now, not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that concerns me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years back, I was wandering down Powell Street in San Francisco. If you\u2019re not aware of the nuances of San Francisco, Powell Street serves as the Bart connection for most people in the corridor between downtown and the financial district. When the homeless situation started to get out of control in the city, you would … Continue reading America’s Values Are Competing With Our Desires<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15,16],"tags":[221,2111,620,1083,2110,2112],"class_list":["post-2576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-news-2","category-politics","tag-charity","tag-desires","tag-homeless","tag-rich","tag-values","tag-welfare"],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","post_slider_layout_landscape_large":"","post_slider_layout_portrait_large":"","post_slider_layout_square_large":"","post_slider_layout_landscape":"","post_slider_layout_portrait":"","post_slider_layout_square":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2577,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions\/2577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sarbonn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}