The Hampton Roads Daily Press thinks we’re endanger of becoming a citizenry that worries about “me, myself and I.”
Nearly a half-century ago John F. Kennedy spoke of the social contract: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Such language is not especially fashionable in civic life today. The talk is of tax breaks, of the threat to individual privacy if cameras are used to catch people running red lights, of the “burden” that government imposes on citizens. As a society, we are hardly inclined to ask government to look after the other fellow. In fact, at times we even seem to resent giving government the resources to look out for me, myself and I. Hence the insufficiency of funds for public safety and transportation, never mind how stingy Virginia is when it comes to providing medical care for the poor.
Perhaps the winds are shifting. The slight increase in the state sales tax, agreed to by the General Assembly last year, is evidence of such change. 2005 will offer ample opportunity to weigh whether that action was a fluke or a trend. When issues are weighed – transportation, Medicaid, education and many others – will the rhetoric that prevails in the legislature this winter and on the campaign trail in the fall be the rhetoric of crass self-interest? Let’s hope for – let’s insist upon – something broader, something more ennobling.