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Celebrating Boxing Day

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December 26th is the feast day of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr.  Having grown up Protestant, I didn’t learn much about saints, but I do recall the lines from my mother’s favorite Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas:

Good King Wenceslas looked out,
on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
gath’ring winter fuel.

The song goes through many verses to tell how the king and his page tracked down the poor man tohis humble abode and supplied him with food and fuel. If you haven’t exhausted your Christmas singing yet, this is the official carol for December 26th. It’s a holiday about giving to people in need, not supplying overindulged children with more toys than they need and keeping the economy rolling with consumerism.

The Boxing Day holiday has long been celebrated in some dozen countries, most of them from the former British Empire.  Shop owners kept a tip jar and shred the contents among their workers, while others gathered up food and clothing and money and delivered it to those in need. It may well be a remnant of a feudal tradition when the lords of the manor gave and annual (required) distribution of clothing, food, and fuel to their serfs.

For those of you who itemize your tax deductions for Uncle Sam, Boxing Day is close to your last chance to increase your income tax deductions.  Generosity should not be motivated solely by tax incentives, and it isn’t, because you have to give away a dollar for every 10-37% in federal income tax savings (plus any state income taxes). But certainly the idea of the government offering a partial match for your gift is a positive incentive.

The basic lesson of Good King Wenceslas is to be generous to the extent you can, because there are many unmet needs out there—refugees, natural disasters, wars, homelessness. But the story also raises the question,  why should the government encourage charitable donations with a matching grant? Having graduate degrees in both theology and economics, this question pushes my buttons.

Right now, there is a lot of pressure on governments around the world to provide humanitarian aid to refugees in general and victims of natural disasters and two wars in particular. It’s hard to get people enthused about paying their taxes for any purpose, and humanitarian aid is not high on the list of things voters call heir legislators about.

Refugees and victims of war and natural disaster are not unique to 2023.  There’s almost always a war and refugees somewhere, while climate change has accelerated natural disasters. In addition, the problems of poverty, homelessness and hunger don’t go away, and governments are called on to respond t these problems.  The more we can encourage private charity to shoulder some of the cost, the less of it will fall on the taxpayer.

There a re three problems with this argument.  The first is that providing relief for these hardships benefits all of us, even Ebenezer Scrooge (at least after he saw the light from his ghostly visitors).  If we all benefit, should we not all share in the expense?  But as with most expenditures that benefit everyone, people are inclined to hope that someone else will step up to the plate and contribute. Voluntary charity is far from adequate to address the size and scope of the humanitarian crisis.

The second problem arose from the tax reforms enacted during the Trump administration. A very large increase in the standard deduction meant that far fewer households would qualify for a lower tax liability because of charitable donations. The standard deduction for a single person for 2023 is $13,850 and for a married couple, $27,700. Your total deductions, which typically include mostly mortgage interest, state income and property taxes, and charitable donations, would have to exceed that amount in order to reduce this couple’s taxes

The tax reduction only applies to the amount by which your deductions exceed the standard deduction.  For example, a married couple household with other deductions of $15,000 would have to give more than $12,700 to charity in order to get a tax break.  The tax break doesn’t apply to the whole $12,700, just the excess over the excess over $12,700.  Charitable donations of $$20,000, in our example, would save this household only about $300.  Not much of an incentive, except for the wealthiest households. The limited tax savings discourage smaller contributors from increasing their giving. . (If that confused you, just accept my assurance that the amount of tax savings is very low for the average taxpayer, much larger for the very wealthy.)

Finally, a lot of charitable donations are not humanitarian in nature. There’s nothing wrong with supporting the arts or contributing to animal welfare or preserving green space, but these may be lower collective priorities than the humanitarian issues facing us.  When the government provides tax relief for charitable contributions, it doesn’t get to set priorities for which causes should be supported.  Would our legislators have chosen to spend money on my local little theatre? Probably not, but it encourages me to spend my money on my pet charity, money that would otherwise have been paid to the government in taxes.  To use the favorite insult among economists, that would be (Heavens to Murgatroyd) INEFFICIENT.

If kindness, compassion, and generosity can’t quite get you to pony up for humanitarian aid, like Good King Wenceslas, then at the very least you can support the noble economic goal of efficiency by giving generously to those causes that you genuinely believe are appropriate expenditures of government funds.  Now that’s a challenge worth mulling over for the rest of 2023. Just remember to make those donations before midnight on December 31st!

A Joyful Yule!

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Given my name (Mother Holle of the Celtic pagan tradition, midway between the maiden and the crone among the three Goddesses, and to whom the holly is sacred) I cannot fail to honor this holiday.  Two famous Christmas carols celebrate this holiday, Deck the Halls, with no mention of Jesus) and The Holly and the Ivy, which added some nativity language as an afterthought. It is one of many New Years at this time (although the official Celtic New Year was Samhain, November 1st).  It joins the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia and the 12 days of Christmas from Christmas Day to Three Kings on January 6th for a prolonged celebration of the lengthening of days, with warmer days eventually tagging in after. T be human, or even Mallal, is to be attuned to the seasons, to be both geocentric, and with an eye on the source of warmth and light that sustain us and all life, to be heliocentric as well.

Yule and Christmas alike have celebrations of feasting and dancing, music and greenery, family gatherings and community events. It is a time to express gratitude for the returning sun with generosity, offerings of food and other gifts to those in need. But there are two shadows that deserve to be acknowledged and honored.  One is the shadow, the darkness, in which roots and bulbs lie under the frosty ground gestating in preparation for the coming season or awakening and rebirth.  In the meantime, we humans tend to our own roots as we hunker down and try to stay warm.  Think of all the carols that celebrate that inwardness.  Let It Snow! White Christmas.  Blue Christmas. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.  I’ll Be Home for Christmas….

The other shadow is the sun, as earth absorbs more of its raise and the temperature rises, threatening agriculture, coastal areas, and other changes that make life on earth less sustainable for future generations and for all life, not just androcentric (also known as humans!). Christmas has become, over the years, a celebration of conspicuous consumption, in ways that are not good for sustainability.  A few years ago, my oldest daughter pressured me to make more of my gifts “consumables and experiences” as a way of not cluttering our lives and our space with more things to be used, discarded, or just clutter up our lives.  It has been a challenge.  Fewer gifts by drawing names among my three daughters, three sons-in-law, and four granddaughters. (And as of this year, one grandson-in-law.) I consider books consumable—once read, most of them can be passed on.  Edibles. Subscriptions.  Activities in lieu of gifts—movies, dining out, mini golf (it is, after all, South Carolina). Cookie baking for the girls, the gift of minor home repairs from sons-in-law.  

However you choose to make this holiday meaningful for yourself, your loved ones, your communities and the earth, may you have a Blessed Yule/Christmas/Saturnalia (if there are any ancient Romans life!), using this time of dormancy for reflection and renewal as we prepare for the longer days that lie ahead.

Disagreeing with Grammar: Pesky Pronouns Again

~ purplesage41 ~ 2 Comments

Pronouns, Verbs, and Gender Identity

I promise that this is the last blog on this subject. I know many of you are rather indifferent to digging in the grammatical weeds, but when gender identity and English grammar are in conflict, it does make grammar more interesting.

 It recently crossed my mind that while “they” as both a singular and plural pronoun creates a grammatical dilemma, it is not the only one in our English language, a result of its polyglot origin.  The second person in English would be equally confusing if we weren’t so accustomed to it.

When I first moved to the south, in 1966, a friend called to invite me? Or us? for bridge.  She said, would you-all like to play bridge Friday night? I replied, do you want just me, or me and Carl? And she replied, honey, if I just wanted you, I wouldn’t have said “You-all.”  Thus began my Southern English education.  (I do find the Southern second person plural preferable to the Bronx/New Jersey version, which is “Youse guys.”) 

Perhaps we should say “is you ready”  or “ does you want” when speaking to one individual, reserving the plural verb forms “are” and “do” for more than one person.  But we don’t, although in colloquial Southern African American usage, the singular form of the verb with “you” is more common. (And also the opposite, as in “She don’t think so.”)

Recently a friend asked me about our new minister at my UU congregation, whose first name is Holly.  The person asked where she was living. Respecting Rev. Holly’s pronouns, I said  “They are living off the Old Clemson Highway.”  And the person responded, “Oh, is she married?” No, I explained, but their preferred pronoun is “they.”

 Then I had an idea.  Next time the issue arises, I will use they, which I was always led to believe was only and forever a plural pronoun,  but I will treat it as a singular one, making my reply “they is living…”. Henceforth, I shall honor both Rev. Holly’s preferences and the English language, and encourage others to do likewise. After a few decades, it might even sound normal.

A Merry B-Corp Christmas!

~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

When I was teaching Ethics and Public Policy, I always assigned an article that described a very ethical corporation. Paid employees well, on-site day care, paid suppliers promptly, were good citizens of the community, good benefits program, and opportunities for promotion.  The only fly in the ointment was the company’s product. They produced instruments of torture. The moral of the story, like Tom Lehrer’s satirical song The Old Drug Peddler, is that one should do well by doing good.

Corporations want to be people in some ways and not others. Bankruptcy is easier for them than actual humans with burdens of medical or student loan debt. They pay lower taxes and extract all kinds of goodies from local governments hungry for jobs. One of the ways in which they are not like people is a lack of consequences for many of their antisocial actions. B-corporations are a partial answer to that question. (The B stands for benefit.)

B-corporations have corporate charters that make them accountable to all their stakeholders, not just their stockholders. Suppliers, customers, employees, the community, the environment. But they also should have an obligation that is not often included in corporate charters: to produce goods and services that are useful and do as little harm as possible.  So, I was delighted to find a B-corporation online that was offering a product that met both criteria. I can’t be too specific because I bought it for one of my blog followers. Let’s just say that it should contribute to the health of a member of my family by addressing certain allergies.

The last few Christmases have awakened my inner B-corporation. I want to have a good Christmas while doing good. Donations have always been part of our family Christmas for the past ten years, as well as reconnecting with friends and including strays where we can. Everyone gets to spend $30 on my credit card to support a project of Global Giving, ranging from tree planting to refugee relief to protecting endangered species. We also give a turkey to our local food bank and seek out other options for sharing. We enjoy the lights on homes and city streets and make our house festive with the ornaments and Santas that emerge from eleven months under the bed and in the closet.

We have cut back on the number of gifts in our family of twelve. No, I did not have ten children; that would be wildly irresponsible and not conducive to having a professional career! The family consists of me, three daughters, three sons-in-law, four granddaughters and one grandson-in-law. Everyone gets two gifts and gives two gifts. At the behest of my oldest daughter, we emphasize giving experiences and consumables—tickets to plays, movie gift cards, edibles. (I give a lot of books, but I consider them consumable, as I expect most of them will eventually wind up in a library or a yard sale or a friend’s house.)  We play family games while my sons-in-law fill in for my late husband by making minor household repairs, and usually go to a movie together.  An artificial tree serves from year to year, leaving a real tree to grow, absorb carbon dioxide, and provide shelter for wildlife. Preparing our Christmas feast is a joint effort, supplemented by snack foods I only make once a year—sausage balls, Hershey kisses wrapped in chocolate cookie dough, miniature cheesecakes, scones. Daughters and granddaughters do some cookie baking.

Each year there is something new along with all the old familiars.  One COVID Zoom Christmas featured a reading of Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. This year’s innovation for me is finding a B-corporation offering a useful and consumable product.  What will your Christmas add to your family traditions this year?

Lessons from a Doughnut Box

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When I was a child, my mother would occasionally buy us a dozen confectionery sugar-coated doughnuts in a blue box from Reynolds’ Doughnuts. On the side there was a picture and a poem.  The picture showed a tree with two men sitting under it, one on each side.  The man on the left is contemplating a fat doughnut with a small hole.  The man on the right is contemplating a skinny doughnut with a large hole.  The poem read, “As you ramble on through life, brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole.”

Nothing reflects abundance more concretely than a doughnut, rich in fat and sugar and calories, if somewhat lacking in nutritional value. But it is the picture these words paint, that remind us that we have abundance if we choose to see it.

As you count your blessings this Thanksgiving Day, think about the shape of your doughnut.

What Time Is It?

~ purplesage41 ~ 4 Comments

Tonight is the time for that dreaded semi-annual ritual, changing the clocks. We are all mandated (except for two states) to switch back from long lighted evenings and dark mornings as the overall daylight duration continues to shrink toward the winter solstice. The overall majority of Americans is opposed to clock-switching twice a year, but they can’t come to a consensus on whether they want DST (Daylight Savings Time) or EST (Eastern Standard Time). Legislation on this issue has been stalled in the House, which is no surprise, given its current inability to even give us the time of day. The pending legislation takes the side of DST.

Let’s be clear. It is not possible to save daytime, or daylight.  You can only relabel it as a different arbitrary time of day that affects everyone, but especially school children, working people with regular hours, and businesses that are busiest int the evening (like golf courses and bars and entertainment venues and restaurants). DST leaves more children waiting for the bus in the dark and getting to school before sunrise.  (Suggestion: how about starting school later? Like, when the kids are actually awake.)

DST/EST is clearly not the most pressing public issue facing Americans.  We have a few other problems, like a war in the Mideast and a skyrocketing federal budget deficit because Republicans hate taxes and Democrats like public programs. But the clock changing affects the lives of all of us who must be at a certain place at a certain time.

I prefer EST, mainly because of the school children.  It doesn’t have much effect on me personally because I am retired. On the other hand, I am cutting back on my night driving for reasons of vision and reflexes, so I wouldn’t object too strongly to continuing DST, because it’s going to be dark even earlier when we revert to EST.

My main concern, like the majority of my fellow citizens, is changing the clocks twice a year. Having to adapt our schedules to the time change is confusing and disruptive, especially for sleep schedules.  But as a long-time advocate on public issues, I do see a bright side.  I am a blueish purple person in a red state, and I don’t very often get to contact my legislators about things we can both support.  Here is a perfect chance to make nice with the two people who represent me in Congress by lobbying them on a bill that’s not particularly controversial but on which he (both white men, no surprise there) can be a hero by stopping the clock-turning and stabilizing our circadian rhythms. You can even offer talking points like states’ rights (Congress is the obstacle, my state wants to stabilize) or school children in the dark or more daylight time for evening golf—whatever floats your boat and the somewhat larger and more expensive boats of your representatives in Washington.

So be brave, be active, stand up for truth, justice, and the American Way.  Practice your lobbying skills on this largely innocuous issue as a first step toward bigger and better lobbying.  Trust me, you’ll like it.

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The Case for Religious Community

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I like people who ask me good questions. I used to have a friend whom I hiked with, and she was a good questioner. An introvert, she thought carefully before posing questions.  An extrovert, I thought my answers out loud. 

One day I told her about a sermon I was working on, and she asked me one of her best questions ever. What is a sermon? she asked (being a lifelong non-church goer). What is its purpose?  After some stumbling around, I finally came up with an answer.  The purpose of a sermon is to affirm, challenge, and inspire, I said. But in reflecting on it later, I realized that the same purpose applies to the faith community at its best.  A church/congregation/synagogue/temple/mosque is the place where we go to be affirmed, challenged, and inspired.

Other kinds of communities can serve those same purposes. Civic organizations like Rotary of the League of Women Voters  Extended families. Builders for Habitat for humanity.  Groups dedicated to music, dance, theater. Anything that has a shared sense of common ground and common values and goals is a community. (The Latin roots of the word community mean building together.)  But religious communities are uniquely expected to embody shared values and beliefs that shape the way we understand ourselves and encounter the larger world.

Some of us are affirmed in our beliefs and/or values, others challenged, and still others perhaps inspired to articulate more clearly their own unique set of beliefs or values by our religious community experience. I remember a group of us crafting a mission statement for our congregation many years ago that resulted in an inspired ending offered by one member: We are grateful for the values that we share and the diversity that both challenges and enriches us. We are also affirmed by identifying ourselves as part of the shared stories of the faith tradition and of the individual community embodying and celebrating those stories.

A loving faith community affirms each of us in all our gifts and limitations, our sameness and our diversity, our strengths and weaknesses, because of – and in spite of – our uniqueness. It holds up a mirror to us so that we can see ourselves as others see us, and so that we can identify our gifts and passions, and then cultivate and express them both within and beyond that community.

A loving faith community challenges us to embrace and interpret its shared beliefs or values and stories and to reflect on what they mean to each of us. We are invited to consider how these elements of our faith tradition challenge and inspire us in terms of how we live our lives, what kind of work we do, how we relate to others, how we can use our gifts to bless the world.

A faith community always offers us the challenge of dealing with difficult people and conflict. You may not think of that experience as a gift, but it is only by working through conflict and accepting difficult people that we grow as a person and develop attitudes and skills that will empower us to work with difficult people and conflict in the larger world.

Finally, inspire. Some inspiration comes to us through our individual spiritual lives and practices, but the faith community also has a role to play. Spirituality is that sensation of awe and wonder and peace, the dissolution of boundaries that divide us from each other and the sacred. It can be evoked by walking in nature, kayaking on a lake, contemplative prayer, meditation, or other means. It can also be experienced in religious worship or ritual, by the words repeated or sung or heard as well as the silences and ceremonial acts such as communion or sharing the peace with others. In The Perennial Philosophy,Aldous Huxley described the “merely muscular Christian” as a person who attempts the impossible task of continuously ladling from a bowl that is never replenished. A faith community offers ways to replenish that bowl.

Faith communities of all kinds embody the virtues of hope, love, trust (another name for faith), gratitude, and humility. These are virtues or values shared by all faith traditions as well as by those who embrace no faith tradition. To affirm and practice these virtues is the purpose of both individuals and faith communities as we engage in the endless shared  work of building a better, safer, more just and sustainable world community.

Dabo’s Dilemma

~ purplesage41 ~ 2 Comments

Dabo Sweeney, in case any of my followers don’t know, is the head football coach at Clemson University. He has been there twelve years and won two national championships as well as six conference championships and numerous bowl games. So far this year, they have lost two games to ranked opponents and won handily over two unranked teams. What happened? The transfer portal, which allows players to switch teams with no required sit-outs before playing for the new team. This year, the University of Colorado’s roster had only ten continuing players and a record 53 that came through the transfer portal.

 Unlike many other coaches, Dabo is not a fan of the transfer portal. It doesn’t mesh well with his understanding of what a coach is supposed to do. Yes, Clemson expects him to win games, but until now his coaching philosophy has served him,  his teams and Clemson University well.

Coaches like Dabo rely primarily on recruiting young men coming out of high school or sometimes junior college and, through football and other support systems, to help them to become mature, responsible, competent, and successful adults. These coaches are mentors, just as their academic colleagues are mentors for young men and women in a developmental and transitional stage of life. They learn self-discipline, good work habits, healthy lifestyles (except for concussions and other injuries), teamwork, and the ability to bond with others. They learn to collaborate in order to compete. Some of them join the NFL but many others do not, although their maturity, dependability, ability to work well with others, and having a degree from a respected academic institution will make them likely to succeed in whatever career they choose.

A transfer student is at something of a disadvantage in moving from one team to another in mid-career. The transfer must do a lot of starting over to bond with the coaches and team and learn their particular rules, playing style, and expectations. The developmental process is interrupted. I never played sports, but as a retired faculty member and a mother I do have some experience with students who transferred, including all three of my daughters. Team sports aside, relationships are disrupted, courses don’t transfer, and existing social networks formed in the previous year or years are difficult to join.

I don’t know Coach Sweeney personally, but everything I have heard and observed suggests that he makes a firm commitment to the whole student, not just the throwing arm or the running speed or other specific skills that can be practiced and finely honed in order to serve the cause of winning games.

Like Coach Sweeney, the University he serves faces the same dilemma. Diminished state government support has made public institutions more dependent on legislative goodwill, private donations, and adoring fans to provide enough resources to run both the athletic program and the academic institution in serving the needs of all their students. That financial support depends on successful football seasons. On the other hand, the historic mission of academic institutions is preparing young people (including football players) to live rich and meaningful lives, be responsible citizens, and have productive and useful careers. The transfer portal may sometimes serve those goals for particular players, but it’s more about ensuring a successful season than a successful college graduate.

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The Autumnal Equinox (Mabon)

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A few days ago, the holiday of Mabon passed largely unnoticed. Its astronomical name is the autumnal equinox (equal night). It occurs when the earth’s axis is vertical, so that the sun is directly over the equator and, except for extreme latitudes, most locations will have day and night of equal length. In mathematics, it is called an inflection point, a subtle turning in a movement where the rate of change increases or decreases—that is, it speeds up or slows down. My science consultant is pretty sure that the rate of change is now slowing down as we trudge our way to the winter solstice. Mabon is one of eight holidays associated with the changing angle of the earth toward the sun over the course of a year. The northern hemisphere tilts toward the sun in the spring and summer and away from the sun in the fall and winter. 

Most cultures of the world over the centuries have paid a lot of attention to equinoxes and solstices and other events that affect daylight and temperature, because they guide planting and harvesting, grazing domestic animals and providing for their winter. In modern industrial societies, however, many of us have lost touch with the rhythms of the earth. Instead, the autumn equinox is associated with football, the spring equinox with new clothes. We may get our furnace filters changed and adjust the thermostat and start wearing the warmer garments in our closet – we may even be attuned enough to the changing seasons to stop mowing and start raking – but by and large, with central heat and air conditioning, we are probably more impacted by the shorter days than the falling temperatures.

The ancient Celtic pagans, like most agricultural societies, paid great attention to what they called sky holidays—equinoxes and solstices. Solstices—Litha in summer, Yul in winter—mark the longest and shortest days of the year. But there were also four earth holidays at the midpoints between these four, each tied to the activities of the agricultural year in northern latitudes. . Samhain in autumn fell between the equinox and the winter solstice, marking the coming darkness, slaughtering some animals to provide food over the winter and bringing others into winter quarters. Samhain was the pagan New Year. Like the Jews, whose new year is also in the autumn, they went through the darkness into the light as their way of beginning again.

Depending on the latitude, there would be various harvest festivals scattered throughout. Between the summer solstice and the equinox there was a holiday of first harvest in the more northern latitudes called Lammas – the first of August, when people blessed the first harvest in both pagan and Christian traditions. (I know many churches celebrate with a Blessing of the Animals, but I have argued for celebrating Lammas with a blessing of the vegetables, which are generally much better behaved.) A third holiday, February 1st, survives in Groundhog Day. In pagan times it was celebrated as preparation for spring by cleaning out the dead greens from Yul and relighting the hearth fire. That custom makes this holiday, Imbolc or Oimelc the only known holiday dedicated to housecleaning!

The final holiday is Beltane, a fertility festival at the time of planting in northern latitudes. The customs of going a-Maying (gathering wildflowers) and dancing around a Maypole are remnants of this fairly raucous holiday encouraging the animals, seeds, and soil to be fruitful and create abundance.

There are a few recently created seasonal holidays that are both celebrations and reminders of our kinship with all life. Earth Day in April and  Arbor Day in June  both encourage us to get down and dirty in a constructive way. But the pagan earth and sky holidays, some adopted and refashioned by Christian traditions, offer similar opportunities to be aware, active, and engaged in building a good relationship with our planet and its non-human inhabitants. Concerns for the health of Planet Earth, the exhaustion of resources, climate change, loss of species, loss of rich topsoil, water shortages, all are symptoms of how humans have suffered from the loss of those deep connections of interdependence between earth and humans in earlier eras.

While I don’t want to create another occasion for Hallmark cards and gift buying, perhaps we should try celebrating some of these holidays with a bit of planting and harvesting. Hug a tree. Support protecting forests and wildlife. Plant shrubs that attract pollinators, and avoid unhealthy pesticides that kill the bugs that feed the birds and bats and contaminate the sources of pollen for bees. Buy from local farmers. Reduce the use of fossil fuels both by using less energy and by turning to more renewables. If you have a garden, try making it as organic as possible and emphasize native plants and edibles. (My two blackberry bushes provided my breakfast dessert for six whole weeks this past summer!)

But it’s also okay to have a party, preferably a picnic (maybe not for Yul and Imbolc), to serve locally grown seasonal foods, go swimming in a lake, hike a trail or mountain,…you fill in the blanks. Our future is intimately tied up with the health of the planet and all the living things that dwell thereon. Let’s have a party and invite the ants, the bees, the weeds, the birds and butterflies to join in the celebration.

Pick Your Tyranny

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Pick Your Tyranny?

In the 19th century, John C. Calhoun, on whose former plantation I taught, was concerned about the tyranny of the majority.  That is, he feared that a majority would impose their wishes on the whole country without regard to those who were harmed or disadvantaged by their actions.  He had a point, even though at the time it was a point about slavery (and secondarily, about tariffs). But equally distressing is what the U.S. is experiencing now, the tyranny of the minority. A vocal minority is trying to inflict a narrow, change-resistant, anti-democratic way of being onto a majority that clearly and openly disagrees with them about guns, abortion, book censorship, gender identity, sexual orientation, and a whole host of cultural issues.

The Constitution tried to avoid that kind of cultural tyranny in parts of the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment and the Fourth (which until Dobbs was interpreted as creating a right of privacy). The general attitude of the cultural majority is embodied in the bumper sticker, “if you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.”  If you don’t want your child to have gender-affirming care, you are certainly free to make that choice, but don’t inflict your minority religious and political views on my child. Likewise, if you don’t want your child exposed to ideas in certain books, you have that right, but it does not allow you to prevent everyone else’s children from engaging with those ideas or books. (By the time those protected children are adolescents, many of them will be intensely curious about the content of those forbidden ideas or books—and will find a way to satisfy that curiosity!)

 If readers want to accuse me of being  “woke”, I am happy to wear that label. I don’t want to be asleep. I want to be aware of the challenges others face and help them find ways to overcome them, whether those challenges arise from an unwanted or life-threatening pregnancy,  gender identity, sexual orientation, poverty, racism, misogyny, or any of the many hazards of being human in a pluralistic society.

Economic policies are a different matter. We can assert our own cultural practices without inflicting them on everyone else, but the economy is community property. We all affect the economy with our earning and spending and saving and its ups and downs in turn affect each of us. As you may have noticed, it has become increasingly difficult to get agreement on our shared economic policies—the budget, the national debt, the tax system, the role of government in infrastructure and disaster relief and reducing poverty. In economic policy, the tyranny is that of a very wealthy minority who want lower taxes, less government regulation, and privatization of everything from schools to health care to fire protection and law enforcement. Those changes would let them get out of contributing to these services for anyone outside of their immediate families in their private schools and inside the gated communities tat provide their own road maintenance, fire protection,and security..

That minority has been quite successful in imposing their view of how the nation should run its government budgets, school choice, reduced funding for public higher education, and resistance to expansion of publicly funded health care. In health care, for instance, the US. has worse health outcomes and higher health expenditures both public and private than any other developed nation.  They are aided and abetted in this pursuit of unenlightened self-interest by certain features of our Constitution that were put in place to placate the wealthy slave-owning plantation class by ensuring that that nation would have disproportionately ore more representation in Congress and the electoral college from smaller, rural, and from 1787 to 1868, slave-owning states.

We don’t need more Republicans or more Democrats, more congressional hearings or more showdowns over shutting down the government. We just need to give up the joy of tyrannizing over those with whom we disagree and, in the words of Rodney King, ask ourselves “Can’t we just all get along?” The cry of tyranny (often rephrased as fascism or socialism) is used by both sides to try to get their own way, but it also undermines trust and confidence in our institutions by convincing people that they are in the service of the tyranny on the other side  Democracy, unlike football, is not about winning. It’s about compromising. It’s about considering the needs and concerns of all kinds of minorities whether their minority position is grounded in religion, culture, gender, age, race, income, health, security, education, or anything else. It’s also about the role of government in meeting the needs of the majority for basic public services and protections and ensuring that the cost of providing those services is shared equitably among its citizens.

None of us can or should get everything we want at the expense of others. Considering differences in needs and desires and being willing to make compromises is the hallmark of being an adult and a good citizen. As the 2024 elections approach, those are the qualities I will be looking for.in candidates for public office fro city council to the president of the United States.