Good For All

I feel very contemplative today about the Kennedy family. This family has been around my entire life. I have thought a lot about their history and where I was and what I was doing at the time of news events. I am not a historian and could not even begin to engage into a facts or fiction discussion. I just know what I have seen and felt.

In November 22, 1963 I was out on the playground hanging upside down on the monkey bar watching ants in the sand. My friends Mother came across the street and sat down with the other Moms. They talked for a moment and then they started crying and hugging each other. I got down off the monkey bar and watched them and I remember I felt scared. This was my first time to experience a national tragedy. The reactions of the adults scared me because something bad had happened. President John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed. I knew who he was because in school I had won a certificate for the President’s Physical Fitness Program and his name was on it. I knew everyone was sad but at nine years old I couldn’t understand the magnitude. It was not until later on in life did I learn and understood what had happened. There was one thing that always stuck with me and that was a quote from his inaugural speech; “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For, You but What Can You Do for Your Country”

Well first of all this quote is a paraphrase from “The New Frontier” by Khalil Gibran published in 1925. Setting that aside, what did it mean to me? I was in the fifth grade and my class had a discussion on what we thought the meaning was. The over arching theme was around Patriotism. We were in the middle of the cold war and America needed to be stronger then the Russians. (Hence the Presidential Physical Fitness Award)
So, how do we make America strong? How do we keep America strong? Why do we need to be strong? Those were pretty tough questions so we left it at “It means that you're the one that is supposed to give for your country so that it can give to you.”

I think about where America is today and I don’t feel we are a strong nation any more. I read that our educational system is slipping and health care has concerns. It seems to me the only way to have heath insurance is a benefit of employment. If you don’t have a job then you have two choices; you pay out of pocket for the entire expense or pay insurance premiums in the event of a health issue. If you don’t have a job you don’t have the money to pay for either. If you get sick, you get sick and possibly die or infect another.

How can we have a strong nation if we have a society of unhealthy and uneducated citizens? How can we provide proper healthcare and education for our citizens? Here are some approaches that then fuel quagmires

One- Be free to donate money where you see a social need.
Two- Collect a tax that fills certain buckets for social needs.

Here is how I see number one: when donating money there could be prejudice and needed funds for social needs would not be there.

Here is how I see number two: When collecting tax one has to trust the money collected will be allocated appropriately for social needs.


So I ask, why can’t we do both, tax and donate? We are doing it with education. We have both public and private schools. Well there is something wrong with this formula as we rank low globally in education. So, then I ask myself, when did we have a strong educational system? I went to public school in the 60’s and 70’s and I got a great education. Who paid for my school? Public taxes. So what happened? Why don’t we invest into education anymore? Why don’t we want to invest into healthcare?

Here it is…..Prejudice. Why should we take care of “Those People” !? Let me remind those who ask this question, they came from “Those People” Not so long ago their grandparents migrated to the United States. It was my family who was prejudice then as they arrived in the 1600’s. They were White Anglo Saxon Protestants, WASP. They hated having Catholics and Jews in our country. It went against everything they believed in and had fled from. Well the world has kept on turning. Just like when we had our first Irish Catholic President…the world kept turning.

So let’s ask ourselves, What is the right thing to do for the good of all?