By Bill McCamley
“I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.” – Helen Keller
“I’m taking what they giving ‘cause I’m working for a livin’.” – Huey Lewis and the News
For the past two months I have been looking for work here in the
I’ve also learned what it means to come home from work so dead tired that you just want to sit and do nothing. It’s kind of funny, but you know how everyone talks about jobs that “Americans won’t do” when mentioning immigration? I’m working one of them.
All that aside though, I’m lucky. On top of just plain having work, I have a great boss and wonderful supervisors. My co-workers are friendly and speak in Spanish slowly enough to have conversations and teach me a few words a day. I have health insurance with the county for another four months and, though my pay is relatively small, I don’t have a family to take care of so I have been able to mostly tread water financially. With the nation’s unemployment rate hitting a five-year high this month, these are no small things.
So even as I go through this rough time in my own life and experience a taste of what this kind of life is like, I realize that there are people in much tougher situations than I. It’s given me a perspective on life, and I would like to offer some thoughts on politics that have been going through my head as I do this work.
Results matter
Basically, talk is cheap. Results matter. Take health care, for instance. One in five people in
I know this is an age-old problem, but it becomes much more real when you get in to situations where politics start affecting you directly.
The purpose of a government in a market economy is to make sure that everyone has the basic things, like health care, that are necessary to succeed. However, rather than focusing on how to improve the society, some public officials go out of their way to scare Americans in to voting for them. Others spend an inordinate amount of time trying to seem like “normal” people, especially in election years. They think they have to do this as people are likely to vote for them if they can be relatable.
While this is probably true, I am more interested in how someone is going to help provide basic education, establish a health-care system accessible to all and work to improve the overall economy than how they bowl or how many shots they can take.
Media stunts
When I posted my last column discussing the relationships between sports and politics, there was a comment about how a problem today is that political coverage and analysis has become more about entertainment than information. This is a valid point. Politicians see appearing on radio or TV, debating a policy through an editorial or blogging as a means to plug themselves to voters as interesting, entertaining people rather than as a way to talk substantially about policy and how to move forward in solving public problems.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, please watch MSNBC or FOX News, or the Daily Show for that matter, and you will quickly see my point.
While this may be fun, does it take away from the time and effort political leaders need to make good public policy?
If there is one thing I have learned living paycheck to paycheck, it is that I will always vote for the person who does the best job addressing the issues that help people live the best lives that they can. I will never be fooled by fear or media stunts ever again.
McCamley is the District 5 Doña Ana County commissioner.