Patriotism?

It does feel this way sometimes. A lot of times.

Reinventing Robin Hood

My son and I have been reading the original Robin Hood from time to time (it's a bit of a rough read aloud for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the level of bawdiness!).

Early in the book I discovered that the whole "taking from the rich to give to the poor" sense of Robin Hood that we all grew up with has been seriously distorted. Robin Hood was really all about returning to the poor who had been exploited what was rightfully theirs.

So, in all that year, fivescore or more good stout yoemen gathered about Robin Hood, and chose him to be their leader and their chief. Then they vowed that even as they themselves had been despoiled they would despoil their oppressors, whether baron, abbot, knight, or squire, and that from each they would take that which had been wrung from the poor by unjust taxes, or land rents, or wrongful fines; but to the poor folk they would give a helping hand in need or trouble, and would return to them that which had been unjustly taken from them.

Not that I'd recommend we go about dealing with things the way Robin Hood and his band of men did, but we've got companies making record profits, productivity levels are at all time highs, and wages are stagnating. The average worker is losing ground in our society, and a society that has the kind of extreme inequality we've been trending toward ends up ripe for unrest or worse.

I certainly don't advocate for equal outcomes--some inequality can be motivating. But I do advocate for a more balanced economy and a fairer playing field--extreme inequality is demoralizing and destabilizing.

We've got large and growing segments of our society that work their fingers to the bone and have very little to show for it (in some cases, why wouldn't they opt for welfare?). In the meantime, our cost of living goes up and up (cities have minimum lot sizes and minimum square foot requirements for homes, access to technology is increasingly essential, etc.), pushing more and more people to the margins. They have to take on two or three jobs just to make ends meet, never mind get ahead!

Something's got to change. And we're either going to be ahead of it--making conscious, constructive choices--or we're going to be paying for it in painful ways. Far more painful ways than dealing with union negotiations or with a measly 3.5% marginal tax increase, up from the lowest tax rates in my lifetime.

Broken Stones

Came across this article the other day: "Debtors' Prison for Failure to Pay for Your Own Trial." The key quote:

Criminal justice debt drags people further away from reintegration with civil society. A person's life can spiral out of their control when interest, late fees, revocation of a driver's license and ineligibility for public assistance, mean that unpaid criminal justice debt snowballs. You can't get blood from a stone but if you try, you can break the stone.

In the past year and a half I've met many broken stones.

I've been surprised to learn how many inmates at the county jail are there for failure to pay fines and how many of them have lost their jobs due to incarceration for failure to pay fines. I was also surprised to learn that people who are serving sentences for misdemeanor charges are required to pay to stay. Many of them are thousands of dollars in debt to the community when they are released.

Part of the thinking behind our local pay-to-stay program is that it will encourage people to stop committing crimes. I get that, and it may be true for some. But based on my experience, I suspect that it is a predominantly counterproductive idea.

Sure inmates are in a pickle because of their own choices. I do believe we all need to face the consequences of our choices. But most of them are already paying for their choices in a multitude of ways. And they will be paying for their choices long after they've served their sentences. If we want them to choose a legitimate path, it doesn't make sense to me to marginalize them even more by pushing them further into debt.

What does make sense--from both a public safety standpoint (politically feasible) and a humanitarian standpoint (which is apparently no longer as politically feasible because, you see, "we are a Christian nation" and so no one should be forced to be charitable through taxation)--is to do what we can to draw people in from the margins of society.

In Vain

Another photo that has been making the rounds on facebook that feels like a punch in the gut. Not in a "truth hurts" kind of way (which is what people who post it would argue), but in a battering-souls-in-the-name-of-God kind of way. If the loving God people claim exists, I'm quite certain this is not a message he'd embrace. In fact, I think this is exactly the kind of thing he meant when he asked us not to take his name in vain.

I have great respect for people who stand up for their beliefs, especially when it makes them vulnerable to derision and scorn. I think there's an important difference, though, between standing up for yourself (and your God) and wielding your faith like a weapon.

Pulse Uno de Inglés

This picture of John Wayne with the caption "Now just why in the hell do I have to press '1' for English?" has been making the rounds on facebook lately. Sigh.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a high school student a few years ago who was complaining that the instructions on a box of macaroni and cheese were in Spanish as well as English.

I asked him if he thought private companies, who are responding to the demands of a free market, should be restricted from or penalized for providing services in languages other than English. And who says their markets stop at our borders? "Oh," he said. "I hadn't thought about it that way."

The Beginning

Yes, I'm starting another blog. This one is going to be focused on ideas that I want to think through, sometimes in bits and pieces, sometimes in longer more cohesive posts.

I'm driven by two things. One is my frustration with binary thinking in our culture (nationally and locally). The other is my belief that pretty much anything can be a double-edged sword. Water is essential to life. But too much water can kill us.

Exploring complexity and finding balance. That's what I'm striving for.