Honoring Humble Beginnings

While I was mopping the kitchen floor today I contemplated my humble beginnings. My dad was blue collar all the way: variously a short-order cook, a window cleaner, a janitor and a bus driver.  When he had his own janitorial business I would sometimes help him with the lighter work, dusting doors and woodwork in new houses. When I was in high school I worked for a time cleaning apartments for the elderly -- mostly mopping floors.

That reminded of how frequently conservatives tout their "humble beginnings." At the 2012 Republican National Convention they talked about it constantly: from Ann Romney, to Paul Ryan, to Chris Christie, to Condoleeza Rice, they all had stories about their "humble beginnings."

Throughout the nomination process Rick Santorum constantly bragged about his grandfather Pietro being an immigrant coal miner. Of course, neither Rick nor his father were coal miners -- Santorum had to go back two generations to dig up his "humble beginnings."

These conservatives always talk about honoring those humble beginnings, about how that kind of work "builds character."

But you gotta ask: how does our society really honor someone? By waxing poetic for a couple of hours at a political convention? By taking off our hats for veterans at a football game? No.

The best way to honor someone is to pay them more money.

The best way to honor someone is to pay them more money. Enough money so they and their kids don't have to suffer through the indignities of poverty.

That's how we honor our sports "heroes." That's how we honor captains of industry. That's how we honor doctors and judges and attorneys and politicians. We pay them lots of money.

Why is it that the teachers and the janitors and the window cleaners and the maids and the miners and the cooks and the waiters and the cops and the soldiers and the farmers and the meat packers -- the people who actually do all the work to make this country function -- get paid peanuts, while the people who caused all of our major problems -- politicians, CEOs, hedge fund managers, bankers, stock market traders -- get paid the big bucks?

Look at this way: if all the CEOs died tomorrow, the country wouldn't skip a beat. If all the farmers died, we'd all starve. It's not an arbitrary comparison, because their numbers are roughly equal: according to Forbes, there are 1.7 million CEOs in the United States and about 1.9 million farmers and agricultural workers.

And even worse: through the miracle of the capital gains tax cuts passed under George W. Bush, the people who do the least work get taxed at the lowest rate. That's how Romney paid only a 14% tax rate while doing nothing but running for president.

Why is it that the people who do 99% of the work to make this country function have only 65% of the country's wealth?

Based on their policies, conservatives resent and despise their humble beginnings.

Based on their policies, conservatives don't honor their humble beginnings. They resent and despise them. They want to make anyone who hasn't "bettered themselves" -- like they did -- suffer for their laziness and lack of initiative.

When conservatives tout their humble beginnings, they're really just puffing up their own egos. They're bragging, "Look how much better I am than my grandfather, how successful I am. I got where I am because I'm better than they are. Better than you."

If men like Santorum really honored their grandfathers, they'd be demanding that men like Pietro be paid more, work under safer conditions, and be guaranteed decent health care when they were injured on the job.

Why are the people voting for these guys suckered into believing them?