Yesterday I gave a ride to an Iraqi mother and her son. The boy’s father was killed in Iraq. The child is wheel chair bound with cerebral palsy and, I suspect, some mental retardation though it was hard to tell because he doesn’t speak English. He had one of the sweetest smiles I’ve ever seen.
I was taking them to a school to get him enrolled and my first thought when I met them was what a daunting task to educate someone with a severe disability who doesn’t speak the language. Then I remembered my own teaching experience and the skilled and dedicated special ed and ELL teachers I had worked with and I knew that there would be caring professionals at the school who would know just what to do to ensure that he has the best possible quality of life.
I live in a mixed housing development. I pay market rate (which is still very reasonable), but there are many people in my building who pay only a third of their income, however little that is, and they would not have a good place to live otherwise. The mentally retarded man who works in a sheltered workshop. The elderly woman who is almost bent double, but still manages to get out and do her own shopping, the disabled veterans, the single mothers with young children. The management company’s motto is “everybody deserves quality housing no matter their income” and they live up to it. Clean, safe, comfortable, and everything kept up in working order.
I am grateful for these manifestations of goodness in the society in which I live.
This is the America I want to live in. One in which people are taken care of. This is progressivism. This is what we are fighting for. Are people better off? Or not? Everything else is bullshit.