Navigation

Letter to the Editor: Pursuing the Common Good

Congratulations on the well-thought-out and well-written editorial “Where Are We Going?” The worse the conditions that we face, the greater the need for well-balanced reasoning. I believe your plea for pursuit of the common good gets to the core of many issues. The question is, what is the common good?

The one “good” that is “common” to the vast majority of Americans is what we call “personal freedom,” but we Americans most often translate this to self-gratification. I won’t die if I don’t get a haircut, for example, but I want a haircut, and nobody is going to get in the way of me getting what I want. Or, I don’t need to parade around my state capital with an assault weapon, but I want to get together with my camouflaged buddies and show the world how macho I am. Personal freedom? Self-gratification, pure and simple.

It’s popular among many to blame President Trump for America’s number-one ranking in coronavirus deaths, but he’s not holding a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to hit the bars and beaches. Rather, because he himself is driven solely by self-gratification, he encourages our own self-destructive self-gratification. 

As Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Mark Polczynski

Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin