[Edit: tweaked the title a bit.]
A good friend of mine became a dad tonight. His wife did the hard work, of course, but I heard the news from him. And it's wonderful news.
He's a friend of mine from law school, an all around good guy. The birth was apparently not an easy one, but all fingers and toes are accounted for, and everyone is recovering.
Oh, and this will be a political diary.
"Looks perfect, buddy," I typed. Typical 21st Century conversation. An MMS message with a picture of the recently hatched kid with an IM conversation and more pics by email a few hours later. "A perfect little alien," I said, looking at the wrinkled, reddish bundle in the pictures. "Don't worry, dude," I continued, "only 18 more years to go."
And that got me thinking about why I'm interested in politics. I'm sorry, I just can't help it.
The appeal of politics is, in large part, the game. Oh lord, watching the maneuvering of the candidates, watching the results come in, wondering what scandal is going to unseat what advisor next... That stuff is a dream for a political junkie like me. This primary season, for all its teeth-gnashing angst, has been like uncensored political porn because of all the twists and turns.
But when I stop for a moment and reflect on what this is all about, I realize that it's all about people. In a way, that may be what makes me a Democrat: it's about the people, not me. Sure, there are political issues that are important to me, this or that change that will benefit me, but I'll pay higher taxes if it means better schools, better transportation, better health care for everyone. I'm not interested in tearing down government because government can do so much good for the citizens if there are good people running the government.
It's not only the province of Democrats either. Republicans like Mike Huckabee can sometimes surprise with laws and initiatives that show a remarkable commitment to the well-being of the people of this country, even if they don't always get it right.
But at the end of the day, when all the votes are counted, after all the pundits have had their say, after the campaign signs have been cleaned up and (one hopes) recycled, politics is about government, and government is about us.
When I hear that my friends have had kids (I don't have any of the little critters myself yet), it reminds me that everything we do today touches the future. Every moment that passes is reflected in the hours, days, and years to come. It's so easy to become distracted with what's happening to us NOW that we lose focus on what what we must do NOW to ensure a better future. And it's those moments of political and moral clarity that remind me why I'm here, why I'm involved.
So, a few brief observations:
HEALTH CARE
Our health care system is, in terms of technology and treatment available, the best in the world. But people like my friend should have to spare a moment's worry about medical bills when a delivery becomes bumpy and the greatest day of his life becomes the most challenging. People shouldn't have to choose between food or health care for an elderly parent. Our nation of 300 million souls should be able to mobilize our economy and our sense of fairness and decency to provide quality health care to all Americans, regardless of their ability to pay.
WAR
War is sometimes a horrible necessity. I have no problem supporting our intervention in Afghanistan because that's where bad people who have done bad things to our country have a base of operations. But too often war has been chosen over realistic alternatives, and thousands of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters have paid the price for our government's foolishness, coming home missing limbs, with broken minds, or dead. The men and women who wear the uniforms of our armed services are people. The citizens of the countries we invade are people. Each of them comes into the world as an embodiment of hope for the future, of avoiding the mistakes we made. And none should die, none should be irreparably broken, for cynical policies that do nothing to protect the well-being of our people or the citizens of this planet.
THE ENVIRONMENT
I'm going to live to see the world 2050 if I'm extremely lucky. My children will make it to 2080 or so, barring some science fiction revolution in life extension. My grandchildren will make it to the next century. Three generations covering barely a century of history. Things can go terribly wrong for our planet in that brief time, but efforts to recover will be the epic work of generations, and we must begin now. Even if we concede, for the sake of argument, that global warming isn't "real", our civilization has poisoned this planet, stripped its natural resources, and we owe it to future generations to wake up and begin the healing of our world. I don't want my friend's son -- or my children -- to grow up in a world without whales, tigers, or safe, secure places for human beings to live.
THE ECONOMY AND POVERTY
To an extent, there's nothing we can do to prevent economic downturns. I'm a firm believer in markets -- well-regulated markets -- as the best economic system for the largest number of people. But that doesn't mean we leave people to their devices without any recourse in the event things go sour. We are a rich country, despite our indebtedness. We are rich with money, we are rich with kind people, and we are rich with innovation. It is simply unthinkable that we could decide, as a group of citizens, to encourage policies that allow a significant portion of the population to live in fear and hopelessness. It is unthinkable that we can sleep while we know that our brothers and sisters are, right now, sleeping under bridges and in boxes. I'm not opposed to government intervention to stabilize corporations in key industries, but this sort of welfare should never be more prominent than the basic level of human welfare we guarantee to our citizens. Job training, education, sustenance, shelter: all of these are things that private organizations can and do with wonderful success. But the problem remains, and sometimes mobilizing the power of the people through the government is the only response to an intractable, enormous problem that none of us can fix on our own.
EDUCATION
My friend's kid will begin his education very soon. He'll be learning from the moment he opens his eyes. He'll be learning decency, manners, morality, but he'll also be learning to read, count, explore our world through science. And for a relatively small investment, we can, as a community, provide him with a world-class education ... or we can turn our backs and leave it to fate. My choice is easy. I'll pay the taxes for our schools happily. Yes, we need parents to be more involved, and we probably need some way to evaluate what teachers' plans are working the best, but we need textbooks, computers, notebooks, and all the other stuff schools and kids need, and if the government is the only entity that can and will get involved to ensure a quality education for every child, well, let's vote for it and get it done.
TECHNOLOGY
Now, a flight of fancy. We're talking about the future, after all. We have challenges on this world, but our future is bigger. It won't take much money, at least compared to the overall size of the national budget, to provide incentives for private corporations or public-private partnerships to invest in the technologies that will literally free our world. Whether it's pervasive data networks to bring educational and social opportunity to all people or mining the asteroids to put a stop to destructive practices on our mother planet, it's long past time that we start looking up to find the solutions to some of our problems. And, of course, there's the doomsday scenario: a plague, rock, or act of war that renders our planet uninhabitable. We need to explore, look to the stars, so that our children's children's children will have a chance to survive, no matter what catastrophe hits our small world.
LIBERTY
And, finally, liberty. What more needs to be said? Individual liberty, protection against unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant, the freedom to protest: these are the basic hallmarks of respect for the integrity of the person that is a prerequisite for any progressive system. Without a basic respect and reverence for the idea of liberty, without the empathy to see our fellow citizens, almost all of whom are law-abiding and decent folk, as people with individual dreams, we fail the most fundamental test. Liberty. The word comes before justice in our Pledge of Allegiance to the nation and the Constitution, because justice only survives when people live as free women and men.
So that's my mission statement, in part. I haven't talked about some other issues and I haven't discussed anything in real detail, but these are some of the biggies. These are the ideas and goals that leap into my mind when I hear the happy news that a friend of mine has a new baby.
We are working for the future, for a better tomorrow, and that's never an easy job. But we must do it. We must.