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I want to get into this this this issue of human dignity
and is it in our founding documents and and
the dignity have youth we talk to a death with dignity
will be any young person with dignity wanna my
in none of my three kids be my kids are in their thirties
by the time I was in my thirties louisan I
probably had bought our third house and that's not like saying hey we were rich
because the first house we bought was literally
the downstairs was the living room and the bathroom
and the upstairs was the bedroom in the kitchen and
we had a waterbed up stairs and it leaked in it just it was about us
and it was this little teeny tiny thing but
you know it was like the first house we bought and
a and we bought it for like I don't and remember now I mean this was in this
state 70's early 80's
like fifteen thousand dollars or something i mean
Eunos if that and we didn't
and and you know I put down a couple months where the paychecks on it and we
made payments on it and then
you know we moved from that house to another bigger house in on bill
that has a bigger house and we ended up buying that the house that win
made the most I guess on was the the housing boom was going on we bought a
house in
when we moved to Vermont back in
the mid 90's and we sold that house
ultimately for more than twice what we paid for it and I
you know looking back I kinda feel guilty about that cuz I mean I was a
sign that the market
but it was just before the market collapsed but the fact of the matter is
that most of the
retirement money who is now I have is either tied up in
or is the result of our having been able to buy a house when we were twenty five
years old
ands
a we've got a whole Jen
Emma want my kids right now is in the process a bind a house
the first one for anyone these three in this is a I i don't wanna identify which
kid like anything but
on this is somebody in their 30's
who is not going to have the kinda equity that I had in my fifties
until this child is
in is ur horrors 60's or 70's and that's assuming that there's no more housing
crash
and that's assuming the that's assuming a lot of things
and I just
I find this whole this whole thing we talked about death with dignity
well life with dignity what a young people being able to
22 to start their lives in America
without being in debt 90 ronald reagan when he was governor California
you know was a green aggressively with
with a Russell Kirk in the other conservatives were saying
you know these young people should not get free college they should be indebted
they should have to pay a further education so they value it
and and and by the way there
there hassling pearl Ronnie you know for you know
as reagan fannie famously called them brats and
and said you know why should I why should I pay for the
for the tuition these brats word is protesting my policy is you know I get
all
but human dignity
change it really need Java
points together some other stuff the pope
touched on this thing he said a society cannot offer personal possibility of
work
is a society that has stripped this person
dignity
and by work I mean the pope is pretty clear that he's talking about
work the way teddy roosevelt talked about work we played that clip on the
your yesterday
you know a living wage enough to
live decently enough to provide for old age
after care for your children enough to pay for your health care enough to take
a vacation
I was Teddy now Franklin Teddy roosevelt's
definition of a living wage
the pope said power money culture did not give his dignity
work on this work gives his dignity today many social political and economic
systems have chosen to exploit the human person
by pain by not pain
adjust wage by not offering work
by focusing solely on the balance sheets on the company's balance sheets only
looking at how much I can profit
this goes against God end of quote
from Pope Benedict her pop pop Francis excuse me
this goes against God does ago against the Constitution
well here's where it gets interesting
the Supreme Court arguably has said yes human dignity is something that's in our
Constitution
to the Eighth Amendment to begin with it the moment says that you cannot
you cannot impose cruel and unusual punishment people
the court has in Fourth Amendment cases
characterize police behavior as offensive to human dignity
in Lawrence v Texas for example
Lawrence v Texas was the still the
Supreme Court ruling that struck down the anti sodomy laws in Texas
the that struck down laws that made it a crime to be gay in Texas
and they say in this majority opinion
they said the accused statute infringed upon a liberty interest that involve the
most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime choice is
central to personal dignity
Justice Stevens wrote part of the constitutional liberty to choose
is the equal dignity to which each of us is entitled
house it's not all tied together
and yet we're saying to this to this lost generation we've got a lost
generation
kids in their twenties and thirties be young people in their twenties and
thirties
Andalusian generation those in their forties fifties and sixties
who are discovering that you know they've got basically two choices either
work for what somebody
fresh outta college is willing to work for which is damn near nothing or
you know be a greeter at Walmart immunity and go or.org or just never get
a job because our hey you know your your fifties you're overqualified a year
entered to alter whatever you know health insurance get a costume
I mean the we need to go back to the concept in this country
twin concepts I love a free college education
which we functionally had I mean thomas jefferson and
Abe Lincoln you for buyer and some those were big advocates at the San actually
created three colleges
and college used to be just right up until reagan presidency was inexpensive
enough in reagan came into office eighty percent the cost at which was paid for
by state federal local governments
and the schools themselves now it's reversed
now that eighty percent is paid for by the individual student
only 20 percent is paid for by the state and that's we'll say are you got
inflation in
been in intuition and its cuz because the government is giving out Pell Grants
and that is what conservatives say
this nonsense that's all I
it's been an actual change in policy
that is the that is at the core of reaganomics
so number one we need to declare a Jubilee
on the trillions of dollars in student debt and simply say you know that
student that never should have happened that's our intellectual infrastructure
we should have paid for that collectively we're going to take that
trillion dollars in white of the books
if george bush can run up a trillion dollar debt
with one war in one year
and nobody says Boulevard then we can certainly wife a trillion dollars of the
books
college student debt and yes some other students might be from wealthy families
I don't care
so number one and number two we need to go back to the idea that Franklin
Roosevelt laid out that the best welfare program has a job
the government is becoming player last resort
this is the Thom Hartmann program if capitalism is failing if Mitt Romney's
moving all the jobs of China
or wherever there's money that can be done here that the federal government
can hire