New Hampshire is obviously still a swing state. After treating the true-believers to a visit from their commander-in-chief on the Scamman Farm in Stratham, the Bush campaign released a new ad on our airwaves.
It's all about the benefits of owning things--a house, a health plan, a retirement plan. Why? Because people who own things, as opposed to being renters of living for free in public housing, like the resident-in-chief of the White House I suppose, have a vested interest in their country.
And that's a good thing.
Why, you might ask, is it a good thing to own things? Is it because the native Americans who didn't conceive of property being private, were tricked out of the use of their lands by people who understood full well that ownership meant that other people should and could be kept out?
Or is it because the impulse to own things that others want makes people more competitive and competition, in and of itself, is a good thing?
When Republicans talk about ownership, it's a little of both, I would guess. But there's also something else. There's the belief, probably quite sincerely held, that when people own things, they can be held responsible for their proper use and preservation for the future.
That's a nice idea, but experience seems to indicate that there's no evidence to support it. Whether or not people own things or just use them on a temporary basis, their interest tends to be relatively short-lived and, even when an object isn't designed to be disposable, they discard things almost without a second thought. All we have to do is look around us to see that's true. Just look at the abandoned buildings, the mountains of trash, the road-side weighing stations, the water-logged coal mines, the crumbling smoke stacks and all of the brown fields on which nothing useful is able to grow because of the poisonous residues left behind. Not to mention all the children and old people abandoned by their relatives.
It seems pretty obvious, to me at least, that the Republicans just don't understand. They think that the issue is what people want; when, in fact, what government is designed to deal with is what people DON'T want. Helping us get rid of waste, disease, contamination, agression and ignorance, for starters, is what government is supposed to be about. When it does that, individuals can take care of the rest themselves.
Posted by Hannah at August 11, 2004 03:15 PM