How does a country look itself in the mirror while abandoning its children?

Carl Schurz Park: A lovely spot by the
East River on Manhattan's Upper East Side

"The senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, 'My country, right or wrong.' In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."

-- Missouri Sen. (later Interior Sec'y) Carl Schurz
(1829-1906), on the Senate floor, Feb. 29, 1872

by Ken

I know it's an oversimplification (it is, isn't it?), but I always feel that deep down the distinction made here by Carl Schurz defines the difference between American conservatives, who take the position of the senator from Wisconsin, and liberals, who side with Senator Schurz. The only thing is, that qualifier -- "if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right" -- seems to me not only so right but so obvious and so unarguable that I can't imagine how any decent human being could believe otherwise. Belief in self, family, community, and country is certainly important, but again, how can any decent human being believe in any of them uncritically?

There are things for Americans to be proud of as Americans, and then there are things not to be proud of, things it must surely be our job to try to fix. However, it appears to be one of the most automatic responses of people on the Right to brand as "anti-American" or "America-hating" anyone who takes on the task of "setting right" that which is wrong.

It took me awhile to understand, but I do now grasp that a major source of the savagery and viciousness of the modern-day Right is either caused or at least fed by the sense that America is somehow no longer No. 1, and that this is intolerable, and that the logic response is an orgy of sociopathic ignorance and demagoguery. This is, of course, the perfect environment for the kind of anti-human junk religion that has become a plague on the land, serving primarily the shameless exploiters who run their houses of worship for their own enrichment and glory, and it's also a breeding ground for secular priests of ignorance and savagery like Rush and Billo and Sean and Glenn.

The poison is effectively shot directly into the veins at the family-unit level, what with the monstrous right-wing hypocrisy of devotion to "family values," whose result (if not its actual intent) is to foster children stripped of all human decency and twisted into the vile, worthless creatures their doctrines believe human beings to be.

Anyway, this is the sort of thing that ran through my head as I read this post today on the Gay City News website:

3,800 runaway and homeless youths are without shelter every night in New York City.

Alone & Sleeping on the Street: Happy Holidays
With 3,800 NYC runaway, homeless youth, Bloomberg cuts shelter bed funding

BY CITY COUNCILMAN LEW FIDLER

I want you to close your eyes. Picture a 15-year-old child, out on the streets of New York City, late at night with no place to go. Some horrible situation has made living at home impossible. Unable to go home, the child finds whatever comfort one can possibly find in a bus shelter. Hungry and needing food and a place to stay, this young tender creature considers the options — couch surfing, sex work, an act of criminal desperation, or starvation and exposure.

Now, before you open your eyes, pretend that it’s your child.

As melodramatic as all of that may sound, that is the story for approximately 3,800 runaway and homeless youth in our city on the average night. That’s a shocking number, especially in this day and age in a city that prides itself as one of the world’s most civilized places.

Yet this Thanksgiving, in one of the cruelest actions imaginable, the Bloomberg administration cut funding for our youth shelter bed programs by $1.5 million. Ho ho ho and happy holidays. . . .

Councilman Fidler, a Brooklyn Democrat, writes that in his nine years chairing the Youth Services Committee,

we have held 18 hearings on issues related to runaway and homeless children. Partnering with the Department for Youth and Community Development, we have increased the number of shelter beds and their diversity. For me, the goal is a moral imperative — to find a hospitable and appropriate shelter bed for every child who needs one.

We are miles and miles from that end.

Today, despite having added capacity to the program, there are still far too few shelter programs. There are a scant 114 emergency or “crisis” shelter beds. Most programs have 100 or more kids on their waiting list, kids who have come in from the cold in the hope of getting their lives together, returning to school, or getting some vocational training, only to be told that there is no room at the inn.

"Who are these kids?" he asks.

Many are fleeing a home environment where they have been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused. Some have a parent or parents who are drug abusers. Many have “aged out” of the foster care system. They come from diverse ethnic backgrounds. One-third to forty percent identify as LGBTQ. Some are pregnant. Hard times? No doubt. Bad choices? Sometimes.

Still, each is a child, a child almost always without proper parental guidance, love, and support… and every one of them is one of God’s children.

As a parent, I cannot fathom anyone who cannot feel the pain of a child who has been denied love and support in the one place that every child should be entitled to it, in their family home.

It's not just an issue of "human tragedy" and "compassion in your heart," the councilman writes.

[A]s a taxpayer, look at your wallet. Left on the street, every one of these kids is more likely to develop a mental disability, become HIV-positive, or end up a burden to the criminal justice system. And the cost of dealing with any one of those things is more than the cost of a shelter bed program.

He's not dreaming of spending "money we don't have," or of raising "the only tax over which the Council has control -- the property tax," thereby "driv[ing] more famlies into home foreclosure." He says that "cutting spending is a must."

But doing it on the backs of our very most vulnerable population — children who are without their families, sleeping on subway grates at night — is morally wrong.

In a budget of more than $60 billion, there’s got to be a better choice to make.

Feel the pain of a child. Multiply it by 3,800. Then go home and hug your child. But first, let City Hall know that in the most civilized city in the most civilized country in the year 2010, letting 3,800 children sleep on the streets every night is just not acceptable.

Call it the holiday spirit. Call it simple human decency. Just call City Hall.

We're No. 1. We're No. 1. Our country right or wrong.

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