Just how selfish are we?

And how little are we willing to give to those who need it the most?

Note: I have two substacks, one devoted to climbing and the other to culture and society. Last week, by accident, I posted an article to both of them. (I was gratified to see it read by many in the substack it wasn’t intended for.) This article is deliberately posted to both because it’s relevant to both.

A couple of sections of my gym were set aside yesterday for adaptive climbing. There had to be at least a dozen volunteers helping a couple of dozen, mostly young, in some cases first-time climbers, all of whom needed some kind of physical assistance. Some had cognitive issues, for some it was coordination; some had overt physical handicaps; one fellow had to be helped out of a wheelchair to climb.

I looked over to the area where people were being fitted with their climbing harnesses. There was one guy, young, but not as young as some, whose harness was hanging way lower on his body than it should. I was undecided whether to say something to one of the volunteers, or just go over and offer to fix it myself. Then I realized that he was waiting for someone else to be done before he could have his harness put on properly. In all this time looking at him, we made eye contact. He asked me something I couldn’t hear until I walked over. “Do you work here?” he asked. “No,” I answered, “but I climb here a lot.”

We exchanged names. Brandon asked me if I knew the Steelers score. I said I didn’t. He asked about how Pitt did yesterday. I had to admit I didn’t know. “I don’t follow it much,” I said. I pointed to his blue and yellow Pitt sweatshirt. “But I see you do!” It was his turn to have his harness fitted. We shook hands.

Later, I did look up the scores. Pitt had lost, but the Steelers won. I looked around for him. “Good news for the Steelers, huh?” We did a thumbs-interlocked handshake.  Later, just as my partner and I were packing up to go, I watched him climb. He had coordination as well as cognitive limitations. He didn’t get far up the wall, even assisted by a volunteer pulling on a rope system that had a 3-1 pulley. Still, everyone around him — it seemed like both his parents were there —cheered when he came down. I went over and gave him a high-five.

Donald Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education. One of the most important things it does — maybe the most important — is administer funds appropriated by Congress to help schools help students with disabilities and ensure that those students are not discriminated against.

Vivek Ramaswamy wants to stop funding any programs whose Congressional authorization has expired. Besides money for NASA (some of which goes to SpaceX) and $120 billion in veterans’ health care, the cuts would include Head Start, which provides funds for low-income students’ early education.

Elon Musk wants to hack $2 trillion dollars from the federal budget. It’s an absurd number, but we can expect all parts of the so-called discretionary budget to see massive cuts if Congress allows it.

(It’s not clear how it would work without explicit Congressional approval. Congress has two ways to continue a program on which it spends money — it can explicitly reauthorize the program, or it can just continue to fund it.)

Presumably, some portion of my monthly dues at the climbing gym went to staffing the assistive climbing event on Sunday, even if many of the people doing the assisting were volunteers. I wasn’t asked by the gym if it was okay to spend that money that way, nor should I have been.

Voters weren’t asked if it’s okay to spend some portion of our taxes on education for those with special needs. Nor need we be. Arguably, we gave permission when we gave Trump a second term, but for the people who want to make that argument, did we also give him permission to slash veterans’ health benefits?

The fact is, we’re a rich enough country to reduce the deficit without putting programs through the shredder, if we each contributed in ways similar to decades past. For much of the 20th century, marginal tax rates were 70% or more, including a 91% rate during the administration of that noted socialist, Dwight Eisenhower.  

The fact is, we all have limitations. There are climbers who warm up on the climbs I can’t complete. There are climbers no one would call disabled, some half my age, who can’t complete routes that I can. Neither fact makes any of us less human.

One way or another, my gym will continue its adaptive climbing programs. But these are dessert for the people who benefit from it. Their main meal, when it comes to developing their best selves, is public education, and they’re likely to be starved of it in the name of freedom by people who are as selfish as they are stupid and whose idea of freedom comes down to not giving a fuck about anyone who isn’t exactly like them.