I recently received an interesting fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant.  It reads “It’s doing good with what you’ve got that lights the morning star.”

“Doing good with what you’ve got” reminds me of what Teddy Roosevelt told a group of struggling farmers over 100 years ago – “Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.”  Farmers struggle a lot, so an intrinsic self-reliance – as Roosevelt was advocating – is a big part of why farmers are still around today.

Farmers are not just good at doing what they can with what they’ve got, they’re also good at doing good with what they’ve got, which is another reason we still have farmers and small towns.  As self-reliant as farmers are, there’s also no one quicker to lend a hand.

Farmers embody the best of both sides in our nation’s political divide – the self-reliance that’s a hallmark of traditional conservatism and the willingness to help those in need that’s the bedrock of traditional progressivism.  And there’s nothing wrong with this – I suspect most of us possess both of these qualities to varying degrees, but because we do vary in how we balance self-interest with the greater good, our nation has become alarmingly polarized.  Conservatives decry helping the less-fortunate because ‘people need to stand on their own two feet.’  Progressives, however, sometimes go so far in helping the disadvantaged that they remove people’s incentive to take responsibility for themselves.

Farmers understand that we all must do our best to take care of ourselves – it’s an extension of taking care of one’s land, one’s crops and livestock.  But because farmers know that no matter how hard one works, life sometimes hands you things you can’t overcome on your own, farmers never hesitate to help a neighbor in need.

I’ve come to believe that the conflict between helping one’s self and helping others has been deliberately stirred up by certain special interest groups seeking to benefit their narrow interests at the expense of national unity.  Politics is more about marketing than anything else, and marketing tools have evolved to the point where significant demographic segments can be manipulated not only into buying products they don’t need, they can be manipulated into supporting – or opposing – political policies based upon how issues are framed – described and presented – and bundled together.  After all, what do abortion, gun rights and tax policy really have in common?  Yet people on opposing sides of any of these issues are usually on opposing sides of the others as well. And there are powerful forces in our society that know if they can bundle their issue with one of these, they can get voters to support their interests, often without even realizing it.

Our nation sprang from strong agrarian roots, but we’ve drifted far from those roots, especially in the last 100 years.  Maybe it’s time for a hard look back at where we come from.  And maybe, by doing so, we can regain an appreciation for that age-old agrarian understanding that our society is strongest when we each do “what we can, where we are, with what we’ve got” AND when we help others overcome circumstances beyond their control.

Lots of things come in bundles, from phone and Internet services to Chinese food and fortune cookies.  But political issues need to stand on their own.  Maybe, if we can somehow start evaluating political policies on their individual merit again, we can begin to wrest control of our government back from the special interests whose unceasing divide and conquer techniques are tearing this country apart.