In response to an e-mail chain I was sent; I've included the original text as sent below. If you've not read the email "I'm 63 and I'm Tired" chain email, scroll down and start there.
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I will, for the most part, deal with each paragraph one at a time. The most critical part is the link at the end, so skip ahead to that if you don’t feel like reading.
I understand the frustration. But these points of frustration are not by themselves justification, as the original author clearly assumes. Working hard is a virtue, but being lucky enough to live in a society where you can reap the rewards of hard work needs to be recognized with thanks and humility. Too many times in the history of the world (including today), people worked hard their entire lives and saw nothing for it but a delayed death. Some amount of spreading the wealth is an inherent part of a stable society; when income is too consolidated at the top, a nation has a tendency to topple over. Look to the French Revolution, to the American Revolution before it, to the instability of the Great Depression. The goal needs to not be the pure adherence to the individual’s right to ownership, simply because that cannot suffice on its own – there is a reason why John Locke’s the Right to Property, included in Declaration of Colonial Rights, was not included in the Declaration of Independence. The goal must be a system which best promotes and rewards hard work and self-determination in the short-term and in the long term. Competition and division of labor in a capitalistic market system begins this process effectively, but if left unchecked, would eventually lead to a full consolidation of wealth with the minority, and to a dumbing down of the general populace; each man tasked with and taught only a single job, left unable to expand himself beyond his station. These two states are inherently incompatible with Democracy.
Adam Smith even addressed these issues in the Wealth of Nations: arguing first the dangers of division of labor without education, for the danger of competition without a progressive taxation system (at a rate not only comparable to the interest a landholder had in the estate, but at a somewhat greater amount to that interest), and finally the dangers of the consolidation of power in an elite class without governmental checks. He saw the effects of slavery and indentured servitude on society. He saw the dangers of excessive wealth consolidation and monopolistic behavior in the marketplace. He saw the ravages of the Dutch East India Company and company owners colluding to override local governments and their laws.
As an analogy, why don’t we grant people a vote proportionally weighted to their social or economic status, wherein a CEO or star gets a vote worth 100 of his employees’? We spread the power in a democracy by allowing each citizen one equally valuable vote, because some measure of social equality lends itself to a successful society. Giving people a chance to earn more voting power would consolidate that power in a select few; if we also allowed that power to then be passed down through inheritance, we would create family lineages of political power far beyond what we see today. Pure competition in the realm of power is not viable; if it were practiced by modern western societies, we would be living in a meritocracy at best, or an aristocracy at worst.
Islam is a heady topic. As a religion, it promotes both peace and violence….just like Christianity. Those who claim Christianity is just a religion of peace ignore the old testament, where rape, murder, genocide and other atrocities were considered acceptable and even holy. They ignore Christianity’s history; its violence against the pagans of the time, against Islam later, and against native peoples the world around during the colonial period. But is it fair to call Christianity a religion of violence simply because certain cultures used it as an excuse for genocide or other morally abhorrent actions? Those who see Islam as a religion of peace ignore its violence, just as those who use it to justify violence ignore its message. Tribal customs like burkas and honor killing are not Islam, they are cultural holdovers from the pre-Islamic era - just like the subjugation of women as property and honor killings like duels were common place in Christian Europe, but not features of the Christian message. Lest we forget about the violence against civilians during the crusades, the exile of entire populations from Christian European countries to lands where they neither had contacts or spoke the language. This doesn’t even address the millennia of violence within Christianity itself; the darkness of war stemming from the perversion of the Christian message for the purpose of state power; Catholic vs Protestant, Eastern Orthodox vs Rome.
These things are *why the US exists*. The collusion of religion and state power, and the taint each brings to the other. The separation of church and state, enshrined by founding fathers escaping from Europe in the constitution under “Congress shall pass no law regarding the establishment of religion” had a very specific purpose: to prevent the US’s involvement in never-ending religious war and the perversion of religion by those in political power. Western nations today are heavily based in Roman-Christian history and social custom, but our laws and government are based on Enlightenment philosophy; that the power to rule stems not from heavenly decree, on the divine right of a King and his sons to rule in the name of God, but from the collective will of the people. When that collective includes various religions, we must inherently insolate government and its public square law-making from any one of those religions or sects; just as we must insulate religion and its power from the designs of the state.
As for tolerance, I have to agree; when tolerance is required such that we must tolerate intolerance, we have taken a good thing too far. Variety is not only the spice of life and the foundation of the US, it is the solution to many problems. Monocultures fare poorly in the face of new problems; collections of customs and ideas and genes are what allow polycultures like America to thrive in the face of novel challenges. If we are intolerant to things different from ourselves, we hurt ourselves. If, however, we allow unjust violations of human rights in the name of tolerance of religion, we do ourselves an even more grievous injury. It does not appear to me that we *must* send our money to Saudi Arabia to support Wahabist schools and hate; we do so willingly though our continued reliance on non-domestic energy sources. Fixing this, and supporting secular schools in the region would go further to undermine that hate than adding our own hate on top of theirs.
Global Climate Change need not require that we lower our standard of living; it does require that we think ahead and push for sustainable food and energy production so that a lower standard of living is not thrust upon us in the most painful way possible down the line. Debate is most certainly allowed, however debate without evidence to back its counter-claims is not debate; it is shouting. I have reviewed the well-structured counter-arguments against the current models for Global Climate change, and they do not stand up in the face of evidence, just like some of the earlier models of Climate Change didn’t stand up in the face of evidence and have been discarded. Most of the arguments against climate change I have encountered, however, are not based on evidence, they are based on the theory that the world is REALLY big and humanity couldn’t possibly effect it entirely. Just as this argument was wrong when it was “The forest is massive, we couldn’t possibly cut down *all* the trees”, “The Holy River is huge, we couldn’t possibly contaminate it”, “The countryside is gigantic, we couldn’t possibly farm all of it”, “The oceans go to the *horizon* and to the depth of Poseidon’s throne, we couldn’t change it!”, it is wrong today. CO2 converts more solar radiation to heat per molecule than N2 or O2 do. As we pull sequestered carbon from underground repositories and add it to the active biosphere, we increase the percentage of the atmosphere which is CO2. Thus, temperatures will increase, and weather patterns will shift. That rate at which CO2 is being added to the atmosphere is unquestionably linked to human activity, and the rate at which surface temperature is increasing cannot be accounted for by solar activity or other natural factors. Debate at this point must reach a certain level of background knowledge before it adds to the conversation; denouncing it without knowing the current state of scientific understanding adds nothing. *That* is the style of debate being rejected.
Dealing with drug addicts is a simpler case. People have free will, they can choose to not do drugs. However, anyone who smokes knows how difficult breaking an addiction can be. We can stand on a moral high ground, refusing to help those trying to break addiction, or were can recognize that we as a society fare better when our members are not beholden to a chemical substance – that they are more productive and cost society less when their focus is on healthy non-destructive activities. This need not be a question of seeking a sense of fairness, but one of effective budgeting; we will save money *and* help more people break their addictions if we use tax money to fund treatment instead of jail time. Even if we applied this logic to only those currently illegal drugs without a physical addiction component, we would halve the number of US Citizens currently in jail and unable to get an education or a job because of that incarceration.
Finally, I find the third to last paragraph amazingly hypocritical. He finds the sense of self-entitlement and the refusal to take responsibility for one’s-self tiring (as do I); but actively denies his own benefit from society, instead taking full credit for his own success. His success, as the success of all of us, comes in part from working hard, and part from standing on the shoulders of giants. Our society, in spite of its flaws, was fundamental to our ability to succeed; if we as individuals refuse to take responsibility for the society which grants us the opportunity for autonomy, how can we fairly chastise others for not using their autonomy in the manner we prefer?
We as a nation and a world do have significant problems which need to be fixed; both ones created before us, and one we have created. But despite these problems which we must now tackle, what we have today is still monumentally better than what we had in the past (and what still exists elsewhere in the world): slavery, subjugation, widespread famine, constant war, lack of education, lack of modern medicine, lack of upward mobility through work, lack of personal religious freedom, lack of laws actively limiting government power…
Too easily we remember that time in our lives when we were not responsible for anything as a simpler time, forgetting that it only seemed simpler because we were not the ones in charge. As children, we were isolated from the horrors of injustice and war; but they were there, more often than not in a worse form than today. Objective quality of life has increased worldwide significantly over the past 200 years, and if we can manage to support individual autonomy, work ethic, ingenuity, *and* do so in a manner which is sustainable within the limits of the natural resources available, we can continue on our current trend – overall upwards, despite occasional stumbles.
A video on the objective measurements of income and life span across the world’s nations during the past 200 years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
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From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 9:09 AM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Fwd: I'm 63 years of age and I'm Tired!
63 and I'm Tired
By Robert A. Hall
I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shariâ law tells them to.
I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America and Canada , while no American nor Canadian group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers, and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes, or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just really sorry for my grandchildren.
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.
There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference. " I'm 63 and I'm tired.”
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Friday, January 14, 2011
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