Ask Not What You Can Do for Your Country - Ask What You Can Do for Your Community!

We’ve all heard that quote from the late, great John F. Kennedy, and it’s a good one to be sure.  It contradicts directly the entitlement mentality that has gotten its claws into all too many souls in our nation, and it harkens to a nationalistic pride that is characteristic of the global “far right” movements in the news today.  Elections in France and more recently, Germany, have globalist panties in bunches all across Europe, and Javier Milei recently celebrated his one-year anniversary as Argentine President by gifting his bureaucracy-cutting chainsaw to Elon Musk and the DOGE team.  

And - people are freaking out - and I can understand why.  The world’s richest man, volunteering his time, digging around in our government offices looking for wasteful spending, corruption, and fraud - what could go wrong?  Probably plenty - but yet - I fear not.  

In this months blog, I am going to share some thoughts on the first 40 days of DJT #47 and Elon Musk and DOGE, but that’s just my hook and mostly I’m going to write about how most of us would benefit greatly by bringing our focus closer than JFK asked, by asking not what we can do for our country, but instead what we can do for our community.  

BREAK

Like most of you, I feel like I have a fairly well-informed and integrated worldview.  We’re all programmed to think that way - otherwise we’d go nutty!  Mine is informed by 35 years of curiosity and study, however - especially in the fields of economics, politics, and sociology - and so I like to occasionally share my thoughts - often here in this blog.  

Let’s start with Elon Musk - why in the world would he be volunteering his time for this DOGE project if it weren’t for some nefarious purpose?

Ask what you can do for your country is my primary theory, going back to that quote from JFK.  

I’ve been following Elon since rejoining Twitter/X.com a while back (me and 200 million others) and he REALLY REALLY wants to send people to Mars.  If humans are the only intelligent life in the universe - which is starting to seem less likely - but that could be misinformation too - we have a special responsibility to become multi-planetary before we blow ourselves up!  But - Mars programs are expensive! - and so over the years I’ve been seeing Elon increasingly focused on the national debt, and the out of control spending that’s been taking place in this country - with national debt going up at an increasing rate since basically the first Obama term.  

Because - if the US is bankrupt there ain’t nobody with enough discretionary income to pay for Mars programs!  But, he’s a businessman not a politician, and for most of the 2024 election season he was sitting on the sidelines, hoping for the best.  And then - Butler PA happened - and Musk was like - “I’m on Team Trump and I got a lotta money!” and now almost 9 months later the world is a whole different place and the largest government spending investigation in American history is off to a fast start.  

Along the way, there were voter registration campaigns in Pennsylvania, and appearances at rallies, and then talk of DOGE began and now we’ve got the craziest bromance in world history happening before our very eyes.  Musk has gone from a bit of a helpless bystander billionaire to “oh, wow - we can get right in there and do stuff!”, and doing stuff they are.  They’ve got Kash Patel and Dan Bongino at the FBI, Tulsi as Director of National Intelligence, RFK at HHS.  And most recently, nearly all federal employees got the dreaded “List 5 things you did last week” email over the weekend.  What would you say you do here Bob?

And - there will be pain - perhaps especially around Washington DC, but also right here in Northern Colorado because of the cuts now, and cuts later.  Between CSU research grants, CDC, USDA, and the National Forest and Parks employees in the region there are many thousands of federal jobs buying groceries and paying mortgages.  If a significant number of these jobs get cut it won’t just be those families who feel the pain, everyone from the small business community to city sales tax coffers will be impacted.  

But - something needed to be done.  

I’m gonna pivot a bit here, and brag on Alma Arellano, our Operations Manager at LoCo Think Tank.  Alma recently celebrated her 22nd birthday, and her 2nd anniversary - and - she and Isaac started shopping for a house this month!  She’ll celebrate 4 years with LoCo next month - and yes - she will read this before publishing.  

A couple months before they got married, Alma and Isaac purchased a mobile home on a rented lot, and fixed it up a bit to move into - better than an apartment they thought.  And - over the past two years they’ve made it nicer still - and paid off their mobile home loan - and when they sell it they’ll have a nice downpayment for a home, and a still-manageable mortgage.  Isaac is a barber - my barber in recent years - and he’s been working 6 days a week for years, and Alma has freelanced on websites and such for her church community with skills developed at LoCo to earn a bit of side income.   

And together, they’re jumping the timeline on getting married and buying a home by like 10 years in this region, and it’s because they’re working hard and working together.

A few weeks ago, before the house shopping started, Alma and I were chatting about the nature of the world at the end of the work day, and the topic of the national debt came up.  Alma doesn’t have my background in economics, and so things like mandatory and discretionary spending, trade deficits, economic growth, and net interest expense don’t mean as much - and so I brought it home to her household.  

“Imagine you and Isaac are America - and you have your combined income of around $100K annually - and very little debt.  You’ve got no kids yet, and so you have a lot of discretionary income - which in your case you’ve been using to make your home nicer and pay it off.  You’re working toward a good trajectory.”  

“But - if you were managing your budget like America, you’d be going out to restaurants every night, developing an alcohol and/or opioid habit that costs money and keeps your productivity low, eating crappy food and getting sick all the time and on 5 prescription drugs - and travelling to exotic destinations a few times a year to take the edge off, because the points on your credit card make it almost free!  You’d be spending $130K every year against the $100K you’re making, and going $30K further into credit card debt every year, while renting an apartment.  5 years into your marriage you’d be completely unsustainable unless you entirely change your lifestyle and spending habits - and America is basically you and Isaac with $150K in credit card debt and no assets and one of you headed to rehab!” 

Now - I didn’t carry the analogy to where the points on the credit card are the reserve currency status of the Dollar, or how inflation eats away at their income and spending power over time - but - I’d say the example I shared is actually an understatement on the lack of stewardship in our federal budget the last several years.  Here’s the recent stats from the Congressional Budget Office - disturbing.  

And so - cutting spending and making the business of America work again is not optional - it is necessary.  

And, we can remove some of the angst by bringing our focus closer.  Ask not what you can do for your country - but instead - what can you do for your community?  

In the example above, Isaac and Alma are a couple - the smallest unit of community - and because of their hard work and focus, they’ve set themselves on the right track.  And, they’re giving to their church in both time and talent, and extending to the next layer of community.  And, when you’re part of a couple - or riding a tandem bike - there’s no room for free riders - you will be found out!  

But that’s also the beauty of bringing your focus closer, is that you can see what the community needs.  Wouldn’t it be great if a laid-off forest service employee could start a business that helps homeowners fire-proof their properties - and eventually build a team of fire-prevention workers earning incomes and paying taxes?  Or a laid-off scientist from CDC to develop a software that makes early detection of biological threats through sewer systems a simpler process and easily communicated to citizens? How many stories would it take for a silver lining to appear, and more people to be focused on their community, not the national headlines.  The foundation of all economics is to add value, and by most measures the private marketplace adds more value to more lives than bureaucracy.  

JD Vance got mixed reviews when he spoke on this topic recently when he said basically - first, love locally and move outward as you’re able - but the Ordo Amaris is sound doctrine, and though we may love the world, it be best if we love God first, and then our spouse, and our neighbor next, and extend from there.  Concentric circles of love levels, so to speak, and responsibility to and for one another.  

We can love our community through charity - give a gift card to your neighbor experiencing unemployment - and we can love our community through commerce.  Filling a gap in the community through offering needed goods and services is a form of generosity, and those willing to risk loss to be generous should be applauded.  And - those who focus their shopping and services needs on local businesses should also be cheered.  And those who build non-profit organizations that fill gaps.  If we keep our focus local, on filling the needs in our community - our collective impact will be greater - and the sum of all those strong communities is a strong nation, with love for one another - but the most love for those who are closest to them.  

Be Smart

Be Kind

Be True

BE LOCAL

BE THE CHANGE

Be You!

Thanks for reading, turn off the phone, go for a walk, and see where you can be helpful today!