What nation will we be?

In 1936, FDR told Americans that they had a rendezvous with destiny. These words foreshadowed America’s upcoming role in the bloodiest human conflict on record.

In 2011, we are at another pivotal point in our growth as a country, another rendezvous with destiny. We hold in our hands the ability to determine how we treat those less fortunate than us.

Do we choose to continue to help those who have been laid off because their jobs were shipped overseas, those veterans who can’t readjust to life back in the States, those families who can’t pay for a loved one’s medical costs and those whose circumstances I can’t explain because of the brevity of this letter?

Or do we choose to let those people fend for themselves, because we can’t understand that although people do, and always will, exploit our welfare system, people also fall on hard times? Just because you’re living in relative financial security doesn’t mean your neighbor is as well.

Depending on how we act now, we will be remembered as the generation that sacrificed to help its fellow man, or as the generation that decided that personal wealth is more important than the man next to us.

Kyle Primm

Spokane