Breaking the Bubble

SUPPOSE YOU ARE a hard right conservative Christian capitalist. This should be easy for many Americans to do, since there are so many of them You believe in America, Jesus, the G.O.P., the second amendment, and the free market. A person who might be called a "Jesus, guns, and Money American", and damned proud of it. And yet, you like the military, the local police department, the local fire department, and you really have no trouble with the notion that government at all levels, municipal, county, state, and federal, are responsible for the construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, and highways. No, this infrastructure should not be in the hands of the free market, with private ownership, most likely corporate ownership. What this means, of course, is that you realize that it is not feasible to operate an entire modern economy according to the free market, there are certain shared needs within the community, local, state, and national, which can only be addressed by all of us together, acting cooperatively, using government to provide necessary services. This, dear friend, is socialism. You are part socialist, even the most staunchly free market capitalists among you, the ones who decry socialism at every turn, who claim that socialism has never worked anywhere it has been tried, yes, you are, admit it or not, part socialist. And let's take you, you die hard left wing democratic socialistic utopian visionary. have you ever, just once in your cooperatively enlightened life, wanted to buy some personal item, like a quick lunch or new underwear, and given some thought to just exactly where you might get what you want for the lowest price and with the highest quality? Sure you have, which means, of course, that there is a bit of the capitalist in you as well. We are all mongrels. If we here in historically polarized America are to ever again get along, it might do us well to remember that whatever traits we see in others we ourselves possess, at least to a degree. All points of view have merit, no matter how little. If we could ever manage to unlick ourselves from the confinement of our own bubbles, and go out and about a bit, we might learn to see someone else's point of view.