Sam Rides Again!

My favorite editorialist, Sam Hurst, is at it again in today's Rapid City Journal. Enjoy!

Two weeks ago George McGovern spoke to the Rapid City Public Library Foundation. The old war horse of the South Dakota Democratic Party is a proud, unapologetic voice of American liberalism - a blend of the social gospel and New Deal activism. In these times when selfishness and greed are gospel, McGovern's interest in social justice and opportunity seems outdated and nostalgic. He's not much of a "me first" kind of guy.
McGovern's presentation focused on his life-long interest in the problem of world hunger. His most recent book, "The Third Freedom," takes its title from Franklin Roosevelt's famous "Four Freedoms" speech (the third freedom being freedom from want). It is a reflection of George McGovern's indomitable idealism that he still believes, after a lifetime of disappointment, that it is possible to end world hunger, and it is the responsibility of American citizens to try.
So I'm listening, and he's talking, and I'm listening, and he's talking, and something isn't right. He keeps talking about how he and Bob Dole (former Kansas senator, former GOP presidential candidate) are working together to provide school lunches in poor third world countries. And I think to myself, "Wait just a minute ...! Bob Dole?"
The relationship rolls off McGovern's tongue like it's as natural as peanut butter and jelly. A conservative Republican and a liberal Democratic working together for a better world? Who do they think they are?
What kind of experience could possibly make these two old men rise above the cheap and easy partisanship that smothers Washington these days? Could it be the shared experience of war?
The Bush administration plays at war like they are little boys in the backyard, full of bluster and costume and tough talk. George McGovern and Bob Dole put their own lives on the line. There's a world of difference.
They could disagree with each other about taxes, fight each other bitterly about government waste, or welfare, or policies to protect the environment. But they never doubted each other's patriotism, and there was a subtle generosity about the way they dealt with each other, born of the intimate knowledge that each had served the nation. The shared experience of war has given them more in common than all the partisan fights can tear apart. How different our world is today.
I remember like it was yesterday the week that followed the attack on the World Trade Center. Towers aflame, firefighters silhouetted against the smoke, the nation collectively holding our breath, waiting for leadership ... waiting to be called to a national purpose. President Bush told us to go out and shop. Those terrorists won't break our spirit. We'll take a sacred oath ... "Shop till we drop."
That's it? That's all I can do? No savings bonds? No gasoline rationing? No cancellation of tax breaks for the rich so we can spend the money on body armor for our soldiers in the street and medical care for the wounded? No sacrifice?
There we were, marching off to fight the War on Terror, but it was somebody else's job to fight it, not just in the Army, but in every corner of society ... it was someone else's problem.
How do we restore the idea of service? How do we make young people believe that it is noble, and valuable, and, yes, essential, that they serve the nation? How do we escape the trap that citizenship is a free ride? The hysterical aftermath of Vietnam is long gone. It is time for young Americans to learn, again, how to serve, and boot camp won't be at the mall.
The best thing that could happen to American high school graduates is to leave the comfort of home, move to the other end of the nation and serve: be teachers' aides, be soldiers, fight fires in western forests, serve soup to the terrified victims of hurricanes, dig wells in the Sudan, treat the victims of cholera in Cambodia. Don't just spread democracy at the end of a gun ... be a citizen, and show the world what it means to be a citizen in a democracy.
You're a black gang-banger in south central Los Angeles? You're assigned to clean bedpans at a hospital in Alabama. At night you can study Arabic. You're a cowboy from Harding County? Welcome to a poor public school in Boston. You'll be teaching reading to seven-year-olds. You're a rich Republican from New York, on your way to the Ivy League? Welcome to the Army. You're a conservative Democrat from Ohio who thinks all illegal immigrants ought to be deported? Welcome to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation ... they've got a thing or two to tell you about how illegal immigrants don't belong.
It is easy to pass judgment on others from the isolated comfort of class and race, region and faith, but the challenge of America is to reach out beyond our isolated comfort and see our nation through the eyes of others.
There are a thousand problems with the idea of a national service program for American youth. But the biggest may be that none of our leaders have the imagination to even consider it. It's so much easier just to tell every one to go shopping.
But if I were running for president next year, I'd get George McGovern and Bob Dole on the phone and ask them to look into it.

Personally, I don't blame young people for not wanting to associate themselves with anything remotely linked to government in this country. The leadership is not worth emulating and certainly not inspiring. The message from the top is this: "Self-sacrifice is out. Self-service is in." Why should an upstanding young person want to be identified with ANY incompetent, corrupt, mis-managed government-sponsored program these days?