Man overboard

There's a fundamental disagreement taking place in this country. It's a disagreement about the role society plays in our life and what its responsibilities are to its members. Imagine a life raft on the open ocean. On the life raft are those of us who are thriving in civilized society. We own cars and houses. We have families and good-paying jobs. We pay our taxes and buy lattes on the weekend. Beyond the life raft, as far as the eye can see, people are drowning. They struggle with each crashing wave to stay afloat. They can see the life raft and they're all struggling to make their way toward it. There are a few fundamental questions that need to be answered. Can everyone fit on the life raft? Should those of us on the life raft try to help people get on or do we try to fight them off in order to keep our own spot? Does your answer change depending on whether the people in the water are there due to no fault of their own versus a bad decision or poor planning?

My view is that the life raft has a virtually unlimited amount of space on it and I believe that we should be helping people get on it rather than beating them back. I can justify that belief from a place of empathy as well as from a place of selfishness. A place of empathy because I can see people drowning and I can imagine the panic and fear that they must be feeling. A place of selfishness because I want the life raft to stay afloat, and the reality that there are countless people panicking (because they're about to drown) represents a threat to everyone on the life raft. People in desperate situations take desperate actions, and those actions could jeopardize the stability of the life raft for everyone. The solution to that problem in my mind is not to fortify the life raft with armed guards, but to figure out how we can get people on it faster.

There seems to be a train of thought among some Trump voters that the life raft is not big enough for everyone. They feel that they have to defend their position on it by beating back anyone who's not already on it. And they go so far as to say that only certain people should be allowed on the life raft in the first place. I disagree with that point of view. I would argue that society must work (equally) for everyone for it to be a stable system. It's a truth that I hold to be self-evident. The alternative requires that we deny or turn a blind eye to the intrinsic humanity of anyone other than ourselves.

One of the biggest points of contention in this disagreement is what to do about the people who ended up in the water due to a bad decision or poor planning. That's a pretty complicated topic with a lot of room for different opinions. Does someone who smoked cigarettes their entire life deserve to get health insurance for the same cost as someone who runs five days a week? Should we penalize people for making shortsighted decisions? What about if they suffer from depression? Does that make them more or less culpable for their actions? These are all questions that we, as a society, need to answer. I would love to hear people state their opinions on these topics openly rather than hide in the shadow of the opposition party.