The balance of I and the We
It feels as though we are all standing at the edge.
And it scares me.
ICE agents have killed two more people, neither of whom was the intended target of the operation. Again came the familiar explanations. The shooting was justified. The vehicle was used as a weapon. The agents feared for their lives.
Like many, I do not believe them.
We have heard too many explanations after too many deaths, watched too many facts shift beneath our feet. Trust, once lost, is not easily summoned back into existence by a press release.
We watch Mitch McConnell disappear from public view for weeks with few answers. Lindsey Graham dies after what is described only as a brief illness. Even ordinary human events arrive through a fog of carefully managed information.
We don’t trust the news on television.
We don’t trust the government.
We are exhausted by the gaslighting, the lies, the hatred and the rage. Most of us do not want to live this way. I don’t believe most people wake up wanting to hate their neighbours, fear strangers, or spend their days furious at people they have never met.
And yet here we are.
Standing near the precipice, wondering whether we still know how to step back.
I find myself looking for a path down. Not backward to some mythical golden age that never really existed, but toward something more civil, more decent, more humane. A society that asks for the best in us instead of constantly rewarding the worst.
When trust breaks down, so does our willingness to sacrifice for one another. Every tax feels like theft. Every regulation feels like punishment. Every compromise feels like surrender. We retreat into the I because the we no longer feels trustworthy.
Being in Canada again has made me think more deeply about that balance.
Not because Canada is perfect. Good God, no. It has its own failures, injustices, bureaucratic absurdities and political nonsense.
But it has reminded me that there are moments when we have to ask not only, What do I want? but also, What do we as a country, a community need?
We originally came to Vancouver Island looking to buy a summer place. My family and old friends are still here, and I love these northern summers and vast array of squirrels.
And then we crashed directly into the we.
Victoria has a vacancy tax. If we bought a property and did not occupy it for at least six months of the year, we would face a three-percent tax on its assessed value each year.
Ouch.
That was not the happy little footnote in our Canadian summer fantasy.
We were disappointed. Irritated, even.
And yet, damn it, I have to admit that I understand.
People who work here should be able to afford a roof over their heads. They should be able to buy food, receive healthcare and build lives with some measure of security. When condos are purchased as investments and sit empty, they drive up costs for everyone else and make home ownership impossible for many. They make rent breathtakingly high.
Entrepreneurs and creative people should reap the rewards of their ideas, risks and efforts. But there comes a point when wealth simply generates more wealth, when people are rewarded not for working harder or creating more, but simply for already possessing what others desperately need.
It is wonderful to have investments. I have them.
And it is too easy to dismiss all accumulation as greed. Wealth is also how many of us try to purchase safety. We save against illness, old age, dependence and the fear of becoming a burden. We tell ourselves that if we can gather enough, perhaps nothing terrible will be able to reach us. I understand that impulse because I share it. But our private search for security can still help create a society in which other people have almost none.
Millions of people are struggling so hard to afford the basics that the idea of investing might as well involve buying property on Neptune.
I cannot ignore what I see with my own eyes. As I walk through Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage, I pass beautiful homes that are occupied only for a few holidays each year, then sit empty for months at a time.
I understand the pleasure of having a second home. I understand the desire to escape winter, to have a place in the sun, to enjoy the rewards of a life well lived.
But I also understand the uneasiness of seeing so much housing stand empty while working people struggle to find a place they can afford to rent or buy.
At some point, the question becomes unavoidable:
When does private abundance begin to create public scarcity?
Victoria just restricted short-term vacation rentals.
I know what that feels like from the other side. When Palm Springs imposed restrictions on short-term vacation rentals, we lost 20 percent of our home’s value.
We were not happy.
Not remotely.
But again, there is the uncomfortable question:
What do I owe the we?
It is easy to believe in fairness when fairness costs us nothing. It is much harder when it reaches into our own pockets, reduces the value of something we own, limits what we can do with our property, or asks us to give up an advantage we have worked for.
That is where our values stop being slogans and start becoming choices.
I do not believe the answer is to punish success or pretend individual effort does not matter. The I matters. Freedom matters. Ambition matters. Creativity, risk, achievement and the desire to build something better for ourselves all matter enormously.
But the we matters too.
A society cannot remain stable when some people own five empty homes while others work full-time and sleep in their cars. It cannot remain humane when the winners keep winning simply because they have enough money to buy another seat at the table, while everyone else stands outside looking through the window.
We are going to have to find a new balance.
Not eliminating the I. Not surrendering ourselves to some faceless collective. But remembering that none of us lives entirely alone. That fairness matters, that a level playing field matters.
And for the we to survive, there has to be trust.
Trust that sacrifice is shared.
Trust that rules do not apply only to the powerless.
Trust that truth still matters.
Trust that when we are asked to give something up for the common good, the common good is real.
We have to champion honesty and integrity instead of winning at all costs.
We need a kinder country, where we are willing to say, even when it hurts:
This time, the we matters too.
Kim
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