Tag: Washington

The Death of American Modesty and Character

Posted on by Mark Harvey

by Mark Harvey

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” –HL Mencken

General George Washington

I’ve always loved Winston Churchill’s comment about his political rival Clement Attlee: “He’s a modest man, a lot for which to be modest.” Churchill himself was not a modest man, and when asked how he thought history would treat him, he responded, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” He did go on to write a significant historical tome titled The History of the English Speaking People and even won the Nobel Prize in literature for his writing and oratory. You could turn the phrase on its head to describe Churchill, the man who saw Hitler’s evil early on and helped lead the allies through World War II: he’s an arrogant bastard, and a lot for which to be arrogant.

America’s arrogance and individualism seem to be at a grotesque peak right now with our choice of president in the recent election. We’ve chosen perhaps the most arrogant man in history for a second term in the Oval Office. This is a man who compares himself to Lincoln and Washington, hinting that he might be greater than either one. Take a seat, Jesus Christ, your miracle work pales in comparison to his Eminence at Mar-a-Lago.

But it hasn’t always been so, and it’s good to remember those great American leaders who exhibited a healthy modesty, even those who had nothing to be modest about.

Our very first president, George Washington, though a snappy dresser, was modest to a fault. Upon being made commander of the Continental Army in 1775, he said, “I beg it may be remembered, by every gentleman in this room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” Washington was, of course, up to the task, probably more than any man alive at the time. Without his warring capacity, we might all be eating mince pies and Cornish pasties.

But he truly had little stomach for public appointments and certainly did not seek the presidency. After the long and bloody war fighting the British, Washington’s sole desire was to return to his wife, Mount Vernon, and his love of farming, or, as he put it, “to the shades of my own vine and fig tree.” Read more »



Monday, December 20, 2010

Selling a disability

Posted on by Dave Munger

Socsec If you're an American and you have a job, you're supposed to get an annual statement from the Social Security Administration explaining how much money you stand to receive at retirement. It also reports what your dependents will get from the SSA if you die, and what you'll get if you become disabled.

For me, the statement is a stark reminder of how much I rely on my wife's income to survive. As a writer, my income is sporadic, and if I couldn't work, I'd have a difficult time living on my Social Security benefits alone. Many people see the Social Security program as a sort of charity, but fundamentally it is not: The more you put in, the more you get back from it. If a person hasn't made much money, they won't be able to collect enough benefits from Social Security to live on. But even when people do pay in, the system has made it nearly impossible for some people to receive the benefits they deserve.

For physical laborers, the very work they do can end up causing disabilities that prevent them from working. My stepbrother Mark had always had a bad back, but he'd dealt with the problem by loading up on Advil and taking an occasional day off. He never visited a doctor about the problem because his jobs never provided health coverage. Often, before starting a job, his boss would pull him aside and remind him that he was not an employee; he was an “independent contractor,” which meant that the boss wasn't responsible for any injuries or other problems that occurred on the job site. There was no health coverage, no unemployment insurance, no safety net at all, physical or financial.

Once Mark was working on a makeshift bit of scaffolding in the cavernous great room of a partially-completed McMansion. He was 30 feet above the rough plywood floor, balancing on a narrow plank, attaching blocks to the rafters with a nail gun so heavy it was difficult for him to hold it over his head, weakened as he was by his deteriorating back. A nail got caught in the gun, causing it to backfire; the 15-pound piece of equipment glanced off the ceiling before crashing down on his face. The blow cracked a tooth and nearly knocked him unconscious. He's still not sure how he managed to stay on that plank. If he had fallen—supposing he managed to survive—he would have had no way to pay his medical bills.

About eight years ago, Mark realized that he wasn't going to be able to continue doing construction work and other low-paying manual labor. He enrolled in a vocational school to become a dental technician, but as I mentioned last month, even this quickly became too demanding for him. Hours of sitting in class only made his condition worse.

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