Monday, August 13, 2012

Human Ladders

One of the greatest joys of teaching is that, from time to time, we receive letters from former students, expressing gratitude that we taught them to write, expanded their perceptions, or offered a skill set that has been useful to them since. Without exception, we take great pride when this happens and we applaud our students' success. Probably also without exception, we have sent such letters ourselves. Make no mistake, however: in the ideology of Romney or Ryan, no such gratitude is in order. Successful people have become successful entirely alone because of an innate and extraordinary ability to self-realize. There is no regard for parents or grandparents who could contribute the bulk of their life savings to a young person's college education and still maintain the security of a pension and social security and affordable health care. There is no regard for federal, state or local programs that afforded training or education to those whose parents had no life savings. There is no regard for the police officer whose beat was the neighborhood where they went to school, lived, or started their first business. There is no regard for the firefighters who kept the blaze from spreading. There is no regard for the regulation that protected the working or middle class from which many successful people have emerged. There is no regard for the blood and sweat of those who fought and continue to fight for social equality and social justice. No, these people are all of a class of servants, who, lacking the innate and extraordinary self-realizing ability of the materially successful, exist only as human ladders, and are deserving of nothing. These programs, the hideous result of white liberal guilt. If you’re behind Romney and Ryan, for the love of all that’s holy, think of your grandparents if not of your children.