I’d rather be a fool than be heartless

[PianoBlack]

If this tends to jump around...forgive me. I write as it comes to mind.

It is 8:40 in the morning and I am sitting in rail cart 1496 of the 8:30 train from New Brunswick, New Jersey to New York City. It is part of my weekly trip from where I go to college to where I call home, a house nestled in the Catskill Mountains. I have 3 more hours to travel but this is my favorite time of the trip. I get to sit and think about life. During the week I have classes full time and work 2 jobs so I don’t have much time to reflect on myself and the world around me...it is my way of coming to terms with all the information I gather during the week. It is a digestion period for me. This train ride in particular I found myself thinking about something I have been hearing more and more often lately. It is a quote from republicans who were once democrats themselves. It is something I have been told over and over again as a way to blow off the cat that I am a democrat now and a way for people to dismiss the fact that I am a democrat now and they suggest that I will see things differently in the future.

“You know what they say ____, If you’re a republican in college your heartless, but if you’re a democrat when your older you’re a fool.”

They tell me that democrats seem to say that making money is a crime, and that’s why they want to remove the tax breaks for billionaires and give them instead to the middle class. They tell me that the tax breaks needs to go to those people because they are the ones that pay us. They say that they want to give out money over and over again to people who don’t want to work and they just sit back and take it. And, most appalling of all, they tell me that the moment I get a big paycheck I will change my mind. I sit and listen because I believe in letting everyone say their piece…and because I don’t want to make a scene by arguing with them at a family or an event with a friend’s family.

This morning I realized why that quote never quite set right with me. For as long as I can remember I have had a very damn-the-man break-the-system robin-hood-and-his-merry-men way of thinking. That the government should not only fear but adhere to what the people say and that the people should be active in politics because the ultimate crime against nature, the balance of good and evil in the universe and our own constitution is to be indifferent. Men and women since the creation of our great nation have fought and died for their rights. The Civil Rights movement, the movement for women to have equal rights, the initial break away from England, countless political protests…we forsake all of these things when we stand by and do nothing while the government does evil things. We sit and we wait while the government tears our country apart…and there is something we can do to help but a lot of people stand by with their hands in their pockets doing nothing, and even ignoring the truth! Exactly the kind of complacency that has gotten us into the situation we are in today. I believe that everyone should have a shot to be great, that the children of parents who have made mistakes need to be looked after, the children of a single mother trying to get by deserve a shot, even the homeless man who is starving on the street deserves a shot to be great. That is what this country is about! It is the land of opportunity! The land of the free! Isn’t that what it has always been? Or at least what it always should have been?
The biggest thing they harp on when they argue with me is the importance of money. They tell me that the all mighty dollar is the true measure of a man and his family. And I have come to terms with the idea that I would rather live from one paycheck to another than to sell out on my ideals, than to loose my humanity. It is sickening to think that money can change a person so completely…it makes me cry for other people what money can make people see dollar signs before a human life. I don’t give a damn if I make 100 dollars a week or 1 million dollars a week; I refuse to let money change the fact that I AM A GOOD PERSON! Just this morning a man asked me for a dollar for coffee. I had only 1 and everything else was plastic and I knew the man was just scrapping for cash…but I knew he needed it more than I did. I gave it to him, and whatever change I had in my pockets because I can always hope that he did get food or some water with it. What I do know is that he needed it more than I did. Isn’t that what is important? A fellow human being needed money and I helped them take care of themselves and that makes me feel good. That should be enough for anyone…that should help make everyone feel better.

Today I proclaim not just for myself in the future…but for every democrat my age and every democrat that ‘should’ have seen the light by now.

If caring for the wellbeing of others over money makes us fools then we take the title happily. We would rather be fools than be heartless.