Of late it seems like all of the air has gone out of our sails. And I don’t just mean my friends, I mean the nation as a whole. People aren’t speaking of things getting better, people aren’t dreaming big, people aren’t trying anymore. And it’s not just a feeling of temporarily hunkering down to weather the storm of volatility. It’s a feeling of throwing in the towel and handing our championship belt to the next sad sap of a country that wants to try and run this crazy world. When did this happen? When did we lose our fight and vigour, instead meekly saying “okay” to everything that is thrown at us and accept things that seems counter intuitive to some of the founding principles of this nation?
Though I haven't lived a long life, people are simply grateful for their jobs in ways I cannot remember ever seeing. There have always been periods of high unemployment, but nothing so long as this. When the analyst were splitting hairs over whether this was a depression or recession, most people were just trying to hang on and ride it out with the expectation that it would get better shortly. We’ve been hanging on for 10 years and everything else is toast and employment still isn’t much better. There is moderate job growth, but in low paying fields. The homes that used to be a backup to handle a period of long term unemployment are toast. Fully ¼ of the homes in the US right now have mortgages greater than their estimated value. The stock markets and 401ks that people counted on for early retirement – yeah, they’d be a fool to start dipping into them now because they are still undervalued by a good 20% of what was expected (and that’s with a healthy recovery the few years). If that wasn’t enough to say yes to overtime and taking the extra work without the promotion or paycheck there is the lurking unknown of health benefits. Your job provides you with some degree of insurance (assuming it has health care, assuming its good healthcare that covers what you’ve got) and without it, it just takes one broken arm, one chronic disease, one bad car accident to wipe out that emergency fund. You need to be covered, if you aren’t, and something happens…down the drain you go. I feel like life used to be a game of chutes and ladders, you might go down, but you could climb back up. Now the climbing bit is getting harder. And so when presented with dissatisfaction about a job or benefits the answer seems to have become, “it could be worse, you could have no health insurance,” “it’s a good paying job, so you should hang onto it”. We are a national humbled by our recent economic woe, displaying Dickensonian attitudes and humbly asking “might we have some more?” rather than knowing we can find something better and getting it.
The phrase “first world problems” with some amusing trivial picture has really picked up steam lately and in many ways it is rather humorous. My personal favorite is the Pringles can in which our hand cannot fit to get at the salty crispy goodness laying below the top third of the can without having to tilt the can – first world problem. And it’s true, it is most definitely a first world problem. A problem I’m sure the entire continent of Africa would be quite happy to take off our (oversized) hands. What I find interesting about this new take on an older phrase, is that it feels like a distraction from our real first world problems. Laugh at the post on Facebook and don’t think too deeply what is really happening these days. And what is happening? It could be said to be a first world problem that rights we always thought we would have are being chipped away at, or have disappeared. I find it a problem that a woman’s right to choose is under fire every day with laws and legal rulings slowly limiting our options. I find it a problem that under the new Anti-Terrorism Law even US citizens can be detained indefinitely without any council or rights. It is no longer extremist to say that without any explanation to their loved ones a person can be picked up, moved to an unknown location, and held indefinitely with no trial or representation. No explanation required other than pointing to a bogus law that people seem too afraid to stand up and say is wrong, even you Mr. Obama…you promised a veto of the most egregious sections of this law and then quietly stepped back and declined to veto after all, hoping no one would notice. This isn’t a black ops spy movie plot anymore, it’s a law on the books that is enforceable at a federal level.
I get that, even though it is a law, the idea of being whisked away and stripped of your rights may seem a bit farfetched for you. So here is a more relatable example: The Transportation Safety Administration, that harmless bunch of people who slow you down between the ticket counter and your flight. Over the course of 10 years, little by little, they have utilized our sense of patriotism (they’re just protecting us from the bad guys, it’s un-American to have a problem with this) and it’s now acceptable and expected that in order to travel on an airplane we subject our bodies to an invasive search. It started innocently enough. Additional ID checks, more thorough baggage scanning and no liquids….
PUBLIC: “Okay we get it, you are just trying to protect us,”
TSA: A failed attempt with a shoe bomb, and TSA says please remove shoes with steel. Then...actually all shoes, yea, even flip flops. And yes the kids shoes too, even the three year old, cause he might be a terrorist.
PUBLIC: “Okay, I guess there was that guy…so all right here are my shoes,”
TSA: Well the random test of our security systems have shown that we aren’t catching even 50% of prohibited material so we need add random searches, strip searches. Oh and just so you know, we are now tracking all of your flight records and any suspicious behavior - like a one way ticket, is going to put you on our watch list.
PUBLIC: “ummm, okay…I guess its okay to keep all that, cause its likely it’s not going to be me that gets selected for the search or flagged, so…alright…I guess”
TSA: Here is our latest and greatest security system. You do have a choice, because we wouldn’t dare think to take away your choices. You can either get virtually stripped via this new machine that shows you absolutely naked OR you can subject yourself to a pat down that includes the cupping of breasts and genitals (male/female). Also we require you to hand over your child and have a stranger put his/her hands on their private parts. Ohhh and by the way, we didn’t bother screening our employees to make sure they weren’t registered sex offenders or have any sort of history of sexual crimes.......
Sooo, dear public, at what point does it become too much? If I told you that there is a plan afoot to institute TSA at all forms of mass transportation, what would be your reaction? They don’t currently use the body scanning equipment…yet…
Real. First. World. Problems.
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