Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Photo REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Counter intuitive, isn't it? To have principles and live by them. When did that happen? We are living in a country where principles feel like something from a fairy tale. They feel like something once mentioned in the days of history when the class structure was stripped from the aristocracy of blood and replaced with the aristocracy of cold hard cash. When "We the people" started that declaration that was written as if the nation itself were speaking. As one. Back then the promise of economic equality was a huge new concept. We had had enough of blue blood oppression, where the myth of nobles oblige was in realty much harsher and cruel and being born to the right family was the only roll of the dice that mattered.
The new America was a promise of the blank slate, a promise that you could write your own story in your lifetime. It was the freedom to go from rags to riches. It was a tip of the hat to anyone that if they could build a better mousetrap, they could make a dollar off of it and write their own ticket. To have principles and live by them was part of that declaration. They were the rules of engagement. Principles meant that you were a good, honest worker and wouldn't cheat a friend or customer. You wouldn't take advantage of situation selfishly. You would help another in need, even if inconvenient. And people would, by their nature, do the right thing. 'Principles' is an old word that feels like the whisper of a memory, but it was part of the software that was running this country. The 'We' in 'We the people' were the men and women with the cultural integrity to do the right thing and know they'd be done right in return. That was part of the American dream as much as everything else.
But the great capitalist engine that drives America began to grind its gears on the whims of the engineers. And while the people kept their principles, profit and industry had its own designs.
It took many wars, government scandals, dying farms, lying Presidents, lost wars, a collapsed economy and outsourced jobs, to feel crushed, disenfranchised, lied to, cheated, and for the people to realize that their lives as well as their dreams were impoverished. It took a while longer to realize their own elected representatives had dropped their own principles to take the money and run and help it all happen.
Somewhere between there and here the idea of sticking to your principles has now come to mean you're stupid. Today the idea of living by principles means you're a sucker and you get what you deserve. Why should someone do the right thing if they don't get it in return? Do people cheat their fellow man? Who doesn't some would say? In a world where everyone is out for themselves and everyone grabs the biggest piece of the pie they can get, at any cost, sticking to your principles means, by definition, you're an idiot. Because you are going to get the smallest piece. Crumbs if you're lucky.
I find it fascinating when I see the occasional viral internet video blow up merely because it shows an act of kindness. A YouTube of someone doing the right thing, for no other gain than being of service will get millions of views and shoot around the world, as if it were the sighting of an alien. Why? Because it's something so strange the entire world is eager to be a part of it, because it's so absent from their daily lives. It feels like watching an extinct animal and for a brief moment, pretending it's alive again.
So here we are, in the land where the streets were once whispered to have been paved with gold. To the immigrants that came here to make their own lives better, they knew that whatever the cost, here in America their life would be their own. And hat was already riches enough. To discover that they could remake their life with every step, well that was more wealth than they could imagine.
It's said by scientists that any system has a survival instinct. Not just an organic one, but economic systems, administrative systems, business systems. Perhaps you've noticed that if you've worked for large companies, that any big changes are fiercely resisted, good as they may be, as it would affect the 'life' of the company. Economic models and medical industries are similarly resistant to actual change and accepting a cure for a problem or illness, as so much of the endemic system has learned to feed off of itself and would suddenly collapse and die if a cure were implemented.
So here we are where money talks and the bullshit walks. We've made a world where getting paid at any cost trumps principles. A world where being smart has come to mean take the bribe, look the other way, cheat, and you'll have a little more than the next guy. If not, suffer the consequences and be stupid, which to translate means live poor with principles. And that's the unspoken truth in the capitalist world today; that the person with principles has no money and no power because the two have become like matter and anti-matter. Everyone knows they can't exist together. People have been betrayed too often by the systems they were told to trust that new systems of behavior have grown in their place that eschew trust. Perhaps it's just evolution. Addiction to income has propelled greed to new highs, integrity to new lows and principles be damned.
And the one guy running for President who is polling the highest nationally is a man of principle.
Tens of thousands show up to see him at events every week during his campaign when he speaks. He's won eight of the last nine Democratic Primaries, tying the front runner for states won, after being told every week from the day he started that his campaign was already over. He is the comeback kid. Has won every new elected office in his career as the underdog and has been saying the same principled things for the last 30 years. When he brought his principles into this campaign he created the talking points for every sound bite and debate. He has maintained his principles during his long career not just when it was easy, but when it was most difficult. And he never stopped when his principles didn't allow him collusion with those in power. He has never wavered and has always stayed on point.
He's the video going viral. The proof that what we thought might be extinct is still alive. He's the proof that one doesn't just chuck principles aside when the world around you stops believing them. He believes them and that's enough. And he's not just committed to doing the right thing and running a platform based on principles, he believes in the voters as well.
He knows he's calling out to something deep in our cultural memory that fell asleep. He's pounding on the foundation of a stronger and deeper building built long ago, solid, built strong so it would never crumble. A foundation that people have forgotten about because the current remodel of the new floors above may be shiny and new but they're built poorly and repainted often. He's reminding people that there's a lot more to who we are than what we remember.
We stand on the shoulders of those who built this Nation. Who fought the elements and time and hardship to break ground with nothing in this land and built the framework of all our current comfort based on the principles they had. To ignore their efforts and ignore how we got here is as bad as leaving the same country asleep for our children to sleep walk through.
It's time to feel like what we do matters. It's time to remember that how we do it matters most of all.
It's time for change. Its time to kill off some old systems that keep a few comfortable while so many suffer.
It's time to have principles again, and make principles profitable.
It's time to vote for Bernie Sanders.
Photo by Kyle Earley