Helping Ourselves
Are we as a civilization so beyond the capability of self-restraint in our consumption of the good life, our own bad habits, and our tolerance of depravity that we are doomed to suck ourselves dry and shrivel at the center?
In the winter of 1983 I was at a PCA meeting in a small country town. America was in a depression, farmers were mortgaged to the hilt and interest rates were 13.5%. The speaker stated flatly to the group of gloomy farmers, “We will never see single digit interest again.”
I remember thinking, ‘Are we as a nation so weak, so undisciplined, so helpless, that we have condemned ourselves to the fate of bankrupt third world countries?’
I am reminded of that dark night years ago when I see the battle over water in our western United States today. As the population of southern California, Las Vegas and the front range of Colorado and central Arizona grow virtually out of control, enormous pressure is placed on their surrounding fragile ecology and limited water supply. These giant metro centers beckon tourists and businesses. They encourage people to come and settle. They also seem to have no compunction about co-opting life-giving water from smaller communities and wild lands hundreds of miles away.
The Imperial Valley, the Arkansas Valley, The San Luis Valley, and Owens Valley are prey in the eyes of the voracious city planners. Yet these same metro-citizens plant huge lawns, trees, golf courses and open spaces. They pump the neighbors’ aquifers dry and yet vote down dams in the already civilized canyons near their homes.
I ask myself again, ‘Are we not capable of self-discipline?’ We squawk like offended geese when the price of gas goes over two dollars a gallon, yet leave ourselves to the mercy of such “allies” as Iraq and Venezuela rather than drill a well in our own backyard or develop nuclear power.
10% of our income goes to food. But we get indignant when the price of beef or blueberries or milk goes up. We demand that we not ship jobs overseas yet we continue to buy at discount stores that voraciously import cheap goods.
Are we as a civilization so beyond the capability of self-restraint in our consumption of the good life, our own bad habits, and our tolerance of depravity that we are doomed to suck ourselves dry and shrivel at the center?
In the gut-wrenching belt-tightening of the early eighties, the United States bit the bullet. Alan Greenspan and Ronald Reagan did the surgery. We have been double digit-interest free for over 20 years.
But do we have leaders of their caliber today? And more importantly, are we as Americans willing to face these giant issues as fellow concerned citizens instead of partisan carpetbaggers?
I look forward to next January when the election bickering is over and we can get down to the business of helping each other put our house back in order.
Do I hear an Amen?
This article, from Baxter’s weekly column, On The Edge Of Common Sense, is posted here with the author’s permission. Visit his website at http://www.baxterblack.com/default.aspx.