Over the past several weeks my lovely wife Lynn has decided to “streamline” my library. I love my books—every one of them. I have well over a thousand books and at the end of the exercise we removed a total of seven books from the inventory. One, a book written by Douglas South Hall Freeman on Robert E. Lee that I had borrowed from my oldest friend in life over 50 years ago—it was returned reluctantly. The others were doubles—GENESIS AND THE BIG BANG by a Jewish Rabbi-Astrophysicist who used entropy and The Theory of Relativity to Reconcile Genesis with modern-day physics, THE JUNCTION BOYS about The legendary coach Bear Bryant’s first season at Texas A&M, and two books by C. S. Lewis that I had three copies of—THE PROBLEM WITH PAIN. Lynn wanted me to organize my library. I have never been a fan of the Dewey Decimal system so I developed my own system so I can easily retrieve my books when I needed to refresh my memory. My books are now arranged in five categories:
- Sports—subdivided into football, basketball, baseball and others (there are no soccer books in my library)
- History—Classics, Western History and US History
- Economics/Politics—Smith Hyak, von Misses and Freidman, Walter Williams, Sowell, Laffer and Mulligan
- Judeo-Christian—Several Bibles and The Catholic Catechism along with C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien
- Fiction
I mention all this because I have wondered if my philosophy of life has been first informed by the books that I have chosen for my library and to read, or vice versa I do have a computer and an iPhone, and I use them as a sort of library—Wikipedia, National Geographic etc., but most of my research, as I am sure for most people in my generation is done via “hard copy”.
My children, who are raising their young families and living busy professional lives, do not have the same time available to them at this stage in their lives as I do. I have trouble understanding this sometimes and forget how precious a few free moments were to me at that stage in my life. Since retiring I have been able to do three important things in my life that I previously had to compartmentalize. I now have time to pray, read and swim and exercise and after 47 years of practicing medicine and surgery, I am grateful for the time and health to be able to do all those things.
I don’t know who taught me to consider the choices in my life using a “criterion of hierarchy”, but as I was scanning reading books in my library, I found the idea in both Bear Bryant’s “JUNCTION BOYS and in my Catholic Catechism. The idea is that as we proceed in life, we must approach any endeavor with three Ideas. What do we wish to accomplish, how are we going to accomplish it, and why do we want to proceed with the specific activity that we are contemplating. WHAT—HOW—WHY. So many people go through life without thinking of these things. As I look back, I am very grateful to my Quaker Grandmother who taught me the answer to several of these questions when I was very young.
WHO MADE YOU—GOD WHY DID HE MAKE YOU—TO GOLORIGY HIS NAME and to love and be loved.
That is the way of everything we do and any decision that we are struggling with. Why should I get married? Why should I raise a family? Why should I work hard in my profession or vocation?
So many times in life I have proceeded with answering the what and how, but not the WHY. Looking back, those seem to be the times that I have gotten “lost in the process of living”
The reason I have become interested in the political process in our Country, State and Garden City, is because government, I have come to understand, is where the terms of the “social contract” are mitigated—A social contract is an agreement among individuals within a social group to abide by certain rules and laws. From the Epicureans and Stoics in Greece and Rome to The Hebrew Prophets and Kings, and finally the Enlightenment Fathers. all have recognized that man is a social creature and that to exist and thrive there must be rules and moral standards that evolve into laws that must be agreed to by all who are party to the social contract. WE THE PEOPLE agree to live by the laws, and the government agrees to administer the laws judiciously and indiscriminately. The relationship between the parties involved in the social contract is described perfectly in our GREAT DECLARATION:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.
There have recently been three instances where the idea of “social contract” have come to be of concern to me.
First of all, the politicization of our justice system (Trump political prosecutions and convictions), convictions and draconian jail sentences of pro-life activists, and finally the continued use of government agencies to persecute and embarrass citizens who have an alliance to conservative principles—IRS investigations into conservative business filings and individual tax prosecutions of people who refuse to bend the knee to “Big Brother”. Lois Learner was only the tip of an ever-growing iceberg.
Secondly, the misuse of government agencies and the collaboration of big business and government during the faux political Covid pandemic. Over and again, we saw instances in which those supposedly working on behalf of citizens, instead sided with big pharma and big medicine creating revenue streams and corporate profits on the backs of American families and small businesses, farmers, and ranchers.
Finally, at the local level,l I have seen especially in Garden City, City Fathers cozying up to out of State developers and out of State financers to exploit what little open space we have in urban and suburban Idaho communities. At election time these “public servants”—who are they really serving(?)”, ask for our vote and then they get elected, and they go for a free round of golf, or “Club Night” at the Arid Club, or have a campaign event covered by the very developer they are supposed to be protecting homeowners from.
All this happens in my most humble and respectful opinion, because those people we elect to represent us stop asking the final question—WHY. Why and who do we serve? Do we serve God? Do we serve citizens who we have promised to protect? Do we serve ourselves by not serving the very entities that we are entrusted to defend.
By forgetting to ask that very important “why” question, those representing us in government place the SOCIAL CONTRACT in jeopardy. We citizens agree to live by the rules we have all agreed to, but those in government are often serving only themselves. That doesn’t work out in the short or long term.
This generation of politicians—and maybe the people that they are representing are doing well with the “what and how”. They are missing the boat on the “why”
That is precisely what Donald Trump understood. It is WE THE PEOPLE that should be served, not lobbyists, not corporate interests, not those working in the government.
Forgetting the “WHY” in a democratic republic can have serious consequences.
It marginalizes the relevancy and legitimacy of THE SOCIAL CONTRACT. Under the table corporate collusions lead only to corruptions that cause citizens to question the legitimacy of their government—at any and all levels of government. We need more Donald Trumps in our State and in our towns and municipalities.
