Because in the past I have spoken out on issues that at the time and place were combustible, I have often been asked what my politics are. Like many, in this time of increasing political polarization and divisiveness I have come to feel no particular identification with either of today’s major political parties, but support what best advances the issues I have come to consider fundamental.
As a young father with a growing number of children to put together toys and bicycles for into the wee hours of Christmas Eve, it became my personal tradition every year to watch one of the movie versions of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” while I labored as the only elf left in Santa’s workshop. No matter how late it was, Jacob Marley’s plaintive lament never failed to halt me in mid-assembly:
“Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business! Charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business! The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
I have come to realize what I am politically: I’m a Marleyite. (This is probably more helpful than saying I’m a Jacobin – although my mother often said I was a Dickens.)
Recently I came across a transcript of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union address. The backdrop was America’s deep involvement in World War II and its uncertain outcome. The Great Depression was largely in the rear-view mirror, but FDR was speaking to the human suffering and want that had provided the fertile ground for dictators such as Hitler, Mussolini and others to come to power, and the failure of isolationism and me-first-ism to provide lasting peace and prosperity. He admonished America that while we had come far since America’s founding in securing the life and liberty of our citizens, it was now time to focus on the steps needed to ensure every American’s right to the pursuit of happiness.
There is more commonality between what was happening then and what is happening now than most realize, and what I read hits close to the mark of where my core political beliefs lie — what I think makes not just America great, but every nation that seeks these goals:
Jacob Marley admonished us that mankind is our business. As we seek to better our own personal situations, let us also work at least as hard – harder – to better the lives of every one. That is what truly creates prosperity and peace. So I’ll join with Tiny Tim this Christmas to say “God bless us – every one!”
David Eccles Hardy practices law in Salt Lake City.