The Rights of Man and... Taxpayer?

It's been some time since I've posted. That's what happens when school starts: you have no time for the things that really matter in your life. But, seeing to it that it's Election Day (and I have the school day off), I think I'm long overdue to post something, particular something about my feelings on the now-occurring election.

Not surprisingly, I have read a butt-load of political articles and what have you, mostly about hackneyed topics, such as the current "financial crisis" (or, more specifically, what to do--and not do--about the crisis), about Palin, about the implications of an Obama presidency. Which is all very nice and dandy, but nothing as of yet has addressed one of my prime annoyances of our country's politics and media and culture in general: the tendency to take such a narrow view of things.

This isn't just a high school student's pretentiousness (for once); there are, indeed, serious matters which hardly ever get brought up during these political high tides. The things that do get brought up--pork-barrel spending, abortion, the economy, the Iraq war--are all valid issues to discuss, and I don't mean to patronize these issues or the people who like to discuss them. However, I am inclined to believe they are the shadows of much larger considerations. For instances, where are the conversations about:

• the use and distribution of power in both our country and at large?

• the purpose and effectiveness of fighting a war against terror--that is, against a concept?

• the fact that, while the upper class is fretting about maybe having to settle for five-figure-salaries instead of six-figure-ones, more than a third of the world's population lives on less than 2 dollars a day?

• the dangers of the two-party system as only a step away from a one-party system, particularly with the rise of "bipartisanship?"

• the application of the law and the justification of its use by "authority?"

And these are just five matters. Given a week, I could come up with a least twenty, if not more.

These may seem inconsequential to politics on the surface--what the hell does the application of the law have to do with anything, I already hear you saying--but they have grave consequences. In the case of the "application of law" question: how a candidate regards the nature and application of the law and authority is a good thermometer to determine that candidates' views on the use of force. A candidate who insists that lawbreakers have broken the law and mustn't be shown mercy in any circumstance reveals that he may tend to view legal situations in a very black-and-white, absolute, objective sense--which would spill over into how such a candidate might react to suspected terrorists, or corruption within their administration, or immigration, or prison reform, for example. And these broad topics are not mutually exclusive: immigration is an issue that can fall under both the use of force (application of the law/authority) and the distribution of power (defining who has and doesn't have the authority to enter this country legally).

I'm not a complete cynic: I'm sure these conversations are happening somewhere, probably in some backroom at some small forgotten liberal arts college, at the very least. But they are not happening (or happening often enough) where they would have the greatest impact: with ordinary people. (I mean, can you imagine Joe the Plumber talking with his colleagues about the dangers of bipartisanship slipping into an effective one-party situation?) If these large, big-idea questions dominated the political sense as much as the small, narrow issues did, then I would have more hope and higher expectations with regards to this whole 18-month political debacle.

Having read others' opinions and listened to others' beliefs, I have come to a conclusion of why this narrow-minded outlook has dominated our political climate. In one sentence (well, in one sentence fragment), it is this: the reduction of citizen to taxpayer.

Strike up a conversation with any typical disgruntled middle-class American, and one definite topic is guaranteed to rear its ugly head at some point in the discussion: taxes. (Just think of Joe the Plumber.) How much they'll change, who will have to pay what, what the government intends to do with the money: no topic has so taken ahold the American imagination as the monster of taxes.

Such is the American fear of taxes that the concept of the citizen has effectively been discarded and eroded and the idol of the taxpayer resurrected in its place. Long forgotten is that sense of civic duty, of social responsibility, of direct action--in short, of not simply living in a democracy, but participating in a democracy, belonging to a democracy (or a democratic republic or whatever term the political science police would judge the most accurate). Other than taxes, the only real "citizen-like" duty Americans internalize is voting. Taxes and voting are both important issues in and of themselves, but the idea of American citizenship should not contain itself only to November 4th and April 15th; American citizenship should express itself all the time. There is much, much more to being an American besides voting and taxes, but listening to types like Joe the Plumber, no one would know.

So, my challenge to Americans on this historical election night is, ironically enough, to be an America--a real one--and get involved. Not just to vote and expect our politicians to lower taxes and work miracles, but for us, as a country, to be our own miracle. The momentum and the excitement and, most significantly, the actions of ordinary Americans packed into this one election for the past 18 months or so shows the true fiber and strength still remaining in America's citizens, citizens who ultimately do care about more than just taxes or any one of those small cliche issues, citizens who care about something much greater than themselves: the state of our country. Imagine if the same energy put into this election by Americans everywhere was put into improving communities or fighting for causes or helping each other out or even just caring more about what's happening around us. This newfound fervor for civic duty and social responsibility would indeed redefine the concept of citizenship in America, one entailing much more than just taxpaying and voting. It would, in the long run, create a revitalized American culture--one capable, perhaps, of asking questions like the ones mentioned at the beginning of this post.

I am certainly not known for neither my patriotism nor my optimism, but let me say this: if this election has done anything, it has given me hope that, no matter who wins, the potential to redefine American democracy certainly exists; it is only a matter of action. One of my teachers once told me "to act" is "to do", and I'll add: "to do" is "to change." And change is what this election season has really been about for Americans.

So go out and make a change, no matter how small. Because that's what patriotism is really about: caring enough about your country to make those changes.