“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

– Matthew 6:24

It is difficult, now, to lead by phrase or anecdote into a discussion regarding the crisis in which the American people and their interests now find themselves embroiled. For what a crisis it is, to be a citizen of a republican government, and to find that your representative in that government turns no ear whatsoever toward you, without even the consolation that they do hear, and choose to ignore.  To them we seem to not exist.  We find that those whom we have elected to represent our interests have now rejected our guidance and pursued a path laid before them by interests other than our own.  To such eyes, we are not seen.  To such ears, we are not heard.  To such hearts, we are nothing.

“Here, sir, the people govern,” spoke Alexander Hamilton in June of 1788. That was the dream of the American experiment, and the shining goal toward which all who fought in their own ways for independence struggled.  A government by the people and for the people.  The founders, with history as a warning, with intellect as a guide, and with the future as a danger to be faced, forged what they found to be the best available and most secure form of representative government.  While it was no pure democracy, the people did govern who would represent them in the House of Representatives, and who would represent them in their state legislatures.

It is to our representatives in the states and in the federal government that we entrust our lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It is to these select few who step forward from the multitudes that we offer power in return for representation, and along with this trust and with this power comes a solemn and sacred responsibility.  Our representatives are not given the scepter of power and the cloak of duty to empower them solely for their own ends.  No, and vehemently is it written ‘No!,’ for such an idea runs contrary to the very purpose of our government.

As Samuel Adams wrote in April of 1781: “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” There can be no greater trust, no greater responsibility, than to carry in one’s hands the fate and futures of not just one person, but of thousands, or millions.

To whom would we entrust our children in our absence? What character do we seek out in the person to whom we deliver our most precious gifts in the world?  Do we seek responsibility?  Do we seek honesty, and intelligence?  Do we seek a good heart?  Or do we simply deposit our treasured young ones with the first available stranger who declares themselves available for their care?  And if we cannot entrust our children to a person so lacking in character and ability, how then can we entrust our neighbor’s children, the future’s children, and even ourselves to a government representative lacking, in the same way, in the important traits of character and ability?

We must ever “[l]abor to keep alive in [our] breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience,” as George Washington instructed in 1748, and we must labor even more to keep such a spark alive in the breast of those we choose to represent us. What good is it to be a pacifistic blacksmith, if one’s tools are used for war?  What good is it to be conscionable ourselves, while allowing our representative to act in unconscionable ways?  What moral shield do we stand behind, when the one we elect to speak on our behalf throws theirs aside to stand unprotected in the rotting rays of self-interest?

The question, then, we must ask of our representatives, not only today, but regularly, is “Whom do you serve?”

If the answer given is any other than “You, the people,” then immediately you shall discover they are unworthy of the responsibility you have entrusted to them. And if they give the appropriate answer, apply then their record and their deeds to their words, and discover for yourself whether they speak true, or whether they conceal in honeyed words that their allegiance is not to those who raised them up, but to those who would wrap a leash around their necks and beckon them to act in ways indifferent to our desires.

We come now to the act that precipitated these words, an act so unconscionable, so foul to the mind that its inky, poisonous taste remains forever even with the mere general consideration of what occurred. One need not even plumb the depths of the depravity ensconced in recent acts to feel unclean and unwell at its existence and occurrence.

For you should consider, in this moment, what you should feel if the person to whom you entrusted your children, who promised what you desired to be promised and spoke the words you desired to hear, declared to you, upon your return, that as instructed your children are maimed and wounded in ways unfathomable, that their lives are surely at risk. And better still, this person consoled you with an arm around your shoulder, stating that not only was this what was best for you, but it was what you deserved.

The rage, the wrath that would brew in your gut like hellfire, waiting to exhaust itself in a pillar of flame to consume this person, this horrible, wicked person, would be justified.

And so, today, we come to a similar crisis of conscience, a similar moment of singular rage.

Of all the advanced countries of the world, the United States of America stands alone in failing to provide healthcare for each of its citizens, regardless of class, wealth, race, or illness. A mere decade before today, an American citizen, entitled to all the benefits of being a member of our nation, could be thrown into the cold night air and refused adequate insurance for their healthcare simply due to a pre-existing condition, and such conditions could be defined in the most absurd and unfair of ways.

Consider the immorality of such a world. Because of illness, you are refused access to that which might make you well.  What conscionable person could justify such a state of affairs?  What person, claiming the highest of morals, could stand by and watch as their neighbor suffered and became drained of financial resources, solely due to the fact that an illness, over which they could exercise no control, threatened their lives?

Must a human in a nation as great and powerful as the United States be forced to choose a home over life? What value is life if one must pay for it with all that makes life worth living?  Is there glory to be gained by sacrificing all one possesses to breath one day more?  Is there glory to be found in forcing a person to live such a life, to undergo such trauma and stresses?

Our Congress then passed a healthcare act only seven years ago that declared “This is unjust.” No longer could a person be denied care for pre-existing conditions.  No longer would there be lifetime caps to your care, so that one would no longer still lose their home if their illness was so great and malicious as to exceed the ‘kindness’ of the insuring company and their monetary limit to rescuing you.

The healthcare law that was passed was imperfect, for one cannot expect imperfect people to create perfection. But yet, it addressed so many injustices in the manner in which we care for our sick and infirm that it was a marked improvement on the dark days of the past.  Just as our founders recognized that our Constitution was imperfect and needed a manner in which to amend the ultimate law that guides our nation, so to would a law that addresses one-sixth of our national economy and the needs of the ill and dying require changes, adjustments, and repairs.

It came to pass, however, that one political party in our nation rejected the existence of such a law. They rejected every part of it, and rejected the President who pushed for the law.  They rejected the cures to our societal ills, on partisan bases.  Time and time again, with scores of attempts, one political party in our nation sought to completely rid our government of this healthcare law that insured so many more millions, and provided and guaranteed care to even the sickest and poorest (and even so, some Americans still remained beyond the reach of the law).  These representatives of the people, due to their personal dislike of a President, sought to doom millions.

With deception and immorality their guiding partners, this party finally arose to complete power of the nation. This party now controls the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

And what do these stewards of the faithfulness of their voting citizens attempt to do, in mere months? They sought out, once more, an opportunity to undue in its entirety the healthcare law that ensured millions of Americans would live.  Rather than repair the damage they inflicted on the law, rather than improve the law’s faults to cover more Americans at less cost to the individual, rather than take every step possible to ensure even more Americans have access to healthcare, and thus access to that inalienable right of life, this party sought the complete destruction and devastation of the law.

The keepers of your children wrapped their arm about your shoulder, and informed you that the horrible acts about to be perpetrated against your children were for your own good.

For what justification can there be for such hatefulness and cruelty? What challenger shall rise to the defense of these acts?  Who shall defend the act of un-insuring more than twenty-million Americans?  Who shall defend the act of reinstating the excruciating standard that simply being sick is a reason to be denied healing?  Who shall defend the gutting of aid to the poorest among us, the cutting of aid to those with disabilities and special needs, the increased cost on the elderly, in return for tax cuts for the richest among us?

Who shall defend these things? Who shall stand, and with a strident voice and without moral compunction declare that this is right, that this is moral, that this is just?

Show us this person. Show us this man, or woman.  Show us these individuals, and we shall reveal to you the most horrid betrayer of which your mind can ever conceive. You ask the guardian of your children to keep them safe, and you return to find their faces cut, their bodies bruised.  Is this justice?  Is this right?  Is this what we are to expect from those we elect to represent and, fundamentally, protect us?

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens,” wrote Joseph Story in 1833. “They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”  Are we not betrayed?

Are we not betrayed?

Are we not betrayed?

When our founders declared their independence from King George, they enumerated the reasons for which they sought to throw off the yoke of royalty across the sea to pursue their own path. While the reasons were many, and many were unfair to the colonists and even criminal in nature, nowhere in the text is there any declaration rising to the level of the abject cruelty of this act of our elected government in relation to our healthcare and thus our very lives.

Our representatives, possessed of the sacred duty we gave to them, voted to imminently harm the least among us, to tear away the healthcare of millions upon millions, and for what? What is the balance to the dark pits in which these representatives have thrown us?  What loftier goal, what solemn necessity, requires that the many should suffer, needlessly?

The answer, the nauseating, haunting answer, is that these representatives betrayed our trust and our lives in order to benefit the wealthiest Americans. It was their stated intention, and the manner in which they so publicly describe their plans evidences the disrespect and dismissiveness they show to us, the citizens who elected them.

For, as these representatives so ably and happily explained, in order to deliver $1 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest in their forthcoming tax plan, they must find equivalent savings elsewhere. And where shall those savings be found?  By slaughtering the health of American citizens.

How else could one describe these unconscionable acts, but by declaring them slaughter? There was no rose-petal soft whisper in the ear as the knife was drawn across the throat.  There was no bullet fired into the heart of the enemy you faced, eye-to-eye with honor.  No; our representatives drew out their jagged, hateful knives and took to the body of American citizenry, slicing inward to pry us apart.  And there, behind them, stood the interests to which our representatives now owe their allegiance.  Into their hungry hands are deposited our hearts and our lungs, as our representatives set to the hungry, bloody work of eviscerating all that makes us alive and well to profit the few among the many.  No care is taken to properly honor and respect our integrity; no cause is given for the pain we shall endure.

Are we not betrayed?

“A little matter will move a party,” wrote Thomas Paine, “but it must be something great that moves a nation.”

Are we not moved? Are the intentions of those we trusted not laid bare and made clear?  If we are not moved now, then when shall we be moved?  And if moved, toward what are we moved?  As the growing wave of our discontent prepares to crest and crash down, shall we finally make answer to this betrayal?  Shall we finally bring political justice upon those who would deliver such sour injustices into our mouths?

As Joseph Story instructed, let us never forget that we “possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of [our] ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to [our] latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence.” For life is the sister guarantee of death.  As we live, so shall we die.  And those two things being the only two guarantees we shall ever encounter, with the rest left up to fate, chance, and choice, we must faithfully guard an American right to a life, a full, healthy life, which is not hastily ended for the profits of the rich.

The battle, and truly this is a political battle the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetimes and which we shall hopefully never see again, “is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”

We must now be vigilant.

We must now be active.

We must now be brave.

We must call our representatives to account for their acts. We must demand of them, “Whom do you serve?”

And, if we find their answer unsatisfactory, we can assist their recollection by asking further, “To whom shall you answer?”

For it is not to God, or to themselves, or to their souls that they shall answer, but to those who trusted them, those who bestowed upon them power to act, and who are now aggrieved, pained, angered, and betrayed. It is to us that they must make answer, and it is we who must mete out justice upon them.

For if we do not bring justice upon them for this, then how may future generations bring forth justice for similar acts?

On you, fellow American citizens, “depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.”

No one can serve two masters; our representatives must now make clear who they serve. Is it the people, or the profits?  The citizens, or the rich few?

You cannot serve both Country and Money.

Whom do you serve?