I began to compose this diary a couple of weeks ago, partly in response to a sentence in a column by Nicholas Kristoff. Since then, Kristoff has written another column that adds poinancy to what I have to say.
We, meaning the people participating on this site, are aware, painfully aware sometimes, of the false equivilancies many pundits make in a bid to come across as unbiased and reasonable, the urge to always say that both sides have a point. In a column regarding the historic levels of inequality our country is currently facing and triggered by Romney's infamous 47% remark, Nicholas Kristoff wrote the following:
Romney is a smart man and, his friends say, a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, so what possessed him to say these things? There’s an underlying truth there — we do have a problem with entitlements and with freeloaders — and he inflated it beyond recognition.
Kristoff gives no background for us to know what he means when he talks about a problem with freeloaders. What is the scope of this problem? Is it serious? Who, exactly, is a freeloader and how much money do they cost us? Although Kristoff hasn't given us the source of this assertion, it sounds familliar to me. It sounds like the people who hyperventilate because they saw someone buy a steak with food stamps or the know of an able-bodied young man who doesn't want to work.
Let me tell you about my friend.
I'm going to be more vague than I'd like because, not only has he not given me permission to tell his story, but I know that there are many people here who are from the city in which he used to live and where he had, for many years, been involved in progressive causes. More than once I went to a meet-up or a similar event only to find people who knew - let's call him John Doe.
John and I met when I was sixteen years old. I was sitting on a low wall near the building that housed the cafeteria and he plopped down next to me and said, "Hi, ya! I saw you sitting there and I wanted to meet the girl with the pink hair." That was just about thirty years ago.
A couple of years later, he suffered from a bit of heartache; his girlfriend cheated on him. This event was followed by a loss of direction in his life. He dropped out of college, returned to the city in which he was born, and got a job working for the customer service department of a large department store. Already intellectually committed to progressive politics, he started pitching in with some organizations. He would come to be appreciated as someone who could be relied upon to chip in and help out. In the days before the internet, he was my main link to the world of progressive politics.
Eventually he got an entry level IT job. Over the years he got promoted. Every once in a while, I, or another friend, would suggest to him that he finish his degree. He always shrugged it off. He was doing perfectly well as it was. He read. He educated himself. Going to college just to get a piece of paper was a game, and an expensive one at that. It was hard to argue. He was, by that point doing fairly well. From time to time he'd run up too large a bill on his credit card, but as long as he had his job, he could bring it back down.
Romance seemed, however to elude him. He had always wanted to get married and have children and, although he had a series of serious girlfriends, when the talk turned to marriage, the women took off. Finally, as he approached forty, he met a lovely woman, smart, funny, pretty. He was sure she was the one.
Riding his bicycle, he had an accident with a car, not in anyway his fault, but it left him badly damaged and with some serious medical bills. His girlfriend broke up with him. The company for which he worked was bought out and he, with many other employees, was let go. He struggeled to find full time work, but could not. All that experience counted for naught without the degree. To add insult to injury, his cat died. Then another illness, for which he could in no way be faulted, struck. The treatment was followed by complications and now the medical bills were sky high. His Cobra had long since run out.
One day, on Halloween, I got a phone call. "Please come and help me pack up my apartment. I'm getting evicted tomorrow." It had been a couple of years since I'd been invited to his place. I had vaguely noted the change, but didn't think much about it. When I arrived I found out why.
There were piles of garbage the likes of which I've never seen and hope to never see again. He had hidden the severity of his illness from everyone, including his closest friend. Another friend had been helping him earlier and she had gotten a box of those big black garbage bags. We filled bag after bag with I can't tell you what. We sorted quickly to get the things he wanted to keep in boxes to be taken away with him the next day. The rest got thrown in the bags and taken to the curb. We fought almost the entire time. "That needs to go in recycling!" "John, you're way past recycling. If we're not done by tomorrow your landlord's going to put it all in a dumpster anyway. If you want to recycle, grab a bag and move quickly." "John, take, leave? John?" All night. Finally, he was packed and ready to flee the city in which he had grown up.
Depression runs in his family, so it's no surprise that when the stars were all aligned, it hit him as well. He eventually rented a room from an old friend who lived in another state. He was declared disabled due to his depression and is on Medicare and recieves food stamps. He's been on the reiceiving end of other programs as well and occasionally works doing odd jobs. He's tried to finally go back to college, but there's some snafu regarding how to pay for the tuition. He explains these things to me from time to time, but I don't entirely grasp them. It's actually quite confusing. He barely scrapes by and I know he owes his friend back rent.
So now we get to the point of this long story. John's family is educated. His parents and siblings all have advanced degrees. He was raised in a middle class family and comes across as middle class to strangers. Although officially disabled he appears able bodied. When he has to face the world, he runs a comb through is hair and digs up some clean clothes. He forces a smile and says, "Hi, ya." It is only because we are so close that I know the truth, how much he suffers and how hard it is for him to put on that smile. He tells me that the only thing that keeps him from killing himself is knowing how much it would hurt everyone else. "Me, I don't care about," he says, "but I couldn't do that to you or to my parents."
In a way, though, sometimes it's like I already lost my friend. For over twenty years he had been someone I could count on. Someone who was always there. Now, when I call, it can take weeks before he calls back. I can't remember the last time we walked down the street laughing our asses off for no reason at all.
I know he needs help, but I feel fairly certain that when he takes out the EBT card to pay for groceries, there are people on line behind him thinking that he's just a freeloader. You can't tell just by looking at someone who he is or know his story or his past.
This brings us back to Kristoff's comment that we do have a problem with freeloaders. There will probably never be any safety net that doesn't have holes, and there will probably never be any safety net that can never be gamed by someone somewhere, but we can't judge these things by our instinct and our gut. We have to build a safety net that will do the most over all good. Right now, my friend's abilities are going to waste and he's in a hole he can't get out of. Perhaps if he had the necessary help when he needed it most, he wouldn't be in that hole. We'll never know for sure, but perhaps if he had gotten the medical care he needed, despite being laid off, he would now be gainfully employed.