We, the people "who deserve better"

First of all, lest I share any opinions in this post, let me begin with my disclaimer: The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of my employers or coworkers.

Recently I rented The Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson. Toward the end of the film, a British-born U.S. government operative called Captain Jedburgh says, "I’ve decided what this country is." When asked what, he says, "People who deserve better." (He then proceeds to shoot a U.S. senator and two other government operatives–but that’s entirely beside the point here.)

We have heard ad nauseum about the American people deserving better. It’s a standard cliché: The upright, hard working American people should, and eventually will, "throw the bums out" and get "public servants" who actually serve the public rather than themselves.

Most standard clichés have a basis in fact, but not this one.

There is another standard cliché, more common in a smaller circle, to the effect that people get the government they deserve. This standard cliché is actually based in fact–especially where the people do, in fact, have the means of peacefully transferring power from those who hold it to someone else. History shows that power cannot be taken; it can only be given. And it is we, the people of the United States, who keep giving power to the bums we say we want to throw out.

Granted, throughout history people have seemed to have little choice but to accede to those with stronger armies or better weapons or smarter organization. (Their choice was to submit or die, and they usually chose not to die.) That has rarely been the case in this country. Even in the South after the Civil War, the old power élites found a way to maintain their power and suppress a whole race of new aspirants. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked for them. The new aspirants who were being suppressed faced the choice of submission or death, but this is the exception that proved the rule. The old power holders refused to give up their power, and found a way not to.

A slight digression is in order here to address another apparent exception: case law. Unelected judges make law from the bench and we mere citizens have to submit or be punished. But even here, the rule is not negated: we could change the system if we really so desired. In fact we don’t really want to do so, because we have other things to do. They might be other things we have to do, but often they’re other things we’d rather do.

I say thank the Infinite One for case law, because without unelected judges we’d be cooked. We may not like much that they do, but do you really want to surrender your entire destiny to your elected officials? Oh, say it isn’t so!

I will not contradict the notion that we Americans are upright, hard working people, though I know too many exceptions to support the notion wholeheartedly. The point isn’t that we aren’t upright or hard working. The point is that we are never going to "throw the bums out" until we stop electing people just because we think they’re going to give us what we want. And make no mistake, it really is all about what we want.

Of course what we want varies from person to person and moment to moment. But that’s OK; it’s a person’s prerogative to change his or her mind, and it doesn’t result in much turnover in elected office anyway.

The bigger problem with electing people based on what we want is that, if that’s what we’re going to do, that’s how elected officials are going to get elected–by convincing us that they’re going to give us what we want. Or at least candidate A is going to give us more of what we want and less of what we don’t want then the miserable schmuck running against him or her. And of course the winner has often either lied to us outright or at least misled us. Then, come the next election, he or she lies to us or misleads us about what he or she has been doing. And we believe it, because we would rather do other things than actually pay attention or (gasp!) look up the record.

So what's the alternative? The obvious choice would be to elect our officials based on no consideration of what's good for us, but entirely on the question of what's good for everyone. The problem here is that most people fashion their ideas of what's good for everyone upon what they think is good for them. It isn’t a conscious process; it’s perfectly unconscious. But the next time you judge what is fair or good or right, ask yourself why, and keep asking yourself why, until you get to the last possible reason. It will almost certainly be because of something that satisfies or doesn’t satisfy you–your needs, your wants, your ideas, your beliefs, your feelings, or something else about you.

I write this on Independence Day. Today we celebrate all that is good in the United States, and especially our identity as a "free" nation. We honor those who made our nation free and those who have fought and died to keep it free. And we should. By any reasonable standard this is the greatest nation the world has ever known, and it may be the greatest the world will ever know. But integrity demands that, rather than celebrate all that is good in our country today and complain about all its ills tomorrow, while we celebrate we also think about how what is less than optimal might be improved.

The ideal of freedom is as old as the Exodus, but it was a different ideal then than it is now. Today it is freedom for each of us to do as he or she will, subject to the assumed qualification that we not hurt anyone. In biblical times the idea of freedom was less about individual liberties than about the freedom of a people to follow its own beliefs and customs, the freedom of a community to rule itself. In this sense the people of Israel set the standard for fighting and dying for freedom, in the Maccabean revolt against a repressive Seleucid king and in the two revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries of the Common Era. It should not surprise us, then, that a product of that time and place, Jesus of Nazareth, is supposed to have said two things that might seem paradoxical, but really aren’t.

He is supposed to have said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).

He is also supposed to have said:

"Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, or the body more than clothing? . . . But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:25,33).

The freedom that counts is the freedom to do the right thing, including freedom from the fear of what it will cost us to do so. Any other notion of freedom should be unworthy of us. But that freedom can’t be given or taken by human agency. It is available only by the surrender of our own wants and needs, our own beliefs and feelings, to the One whose manifestation we are. When enough of us have attained that freedom, we will not only deserve better, we shall have it–but not until then.