John's First Job!

Here's a wonderful peek into the past when government was not the enemy of the individual as so many modern commentators and rabble rousers want to shout. Government here in the shape of the Social Security Office gives help and hope to some of its citizens, making lives better.

Admittedly in this crisp story by Atlas veteran artist Joe Maneely, the America on display is lily white and has that lyrical, gleaming, and neatly trimmed look of the time as so often reflected on television. But nonetheless this bit of "propaganda" (I admit that openly and why not) does show an America living up to its ideals of crafting a society that enables all America's citizens to cleave to a life that is dignified.

So much of the modern aversion to government is wrought by ignorance, willful and otherwise, paying no heed to the infrastructure supplied by governments both small and large which allow the entrepreneurs of our modern society to accumulate their gilded eggs. They promote the myth of the rugged individual at the cost of the civil society to feather individual nests at the cost of the greater population. It's a big lie that capitalism is the source of America's relative wealth, because the truth is that a highly regulated capitalism is the source otherwise financial anarchy rules the day as we've seen all too much in the current century.

There are constant calls to unleash capitalism, and each time that roaring engine is revved up on its own there are casualties galore. Powerful engines like capitalism only work if they are harnessed in a vehicle of some quality that gives that raw power both a purpose and direction. That's what government is properly for, to give shape to a civil society.

For all that, it's a cracking well-crafted story by Maneely. It's a pity such a talent had to die so young. But since he died on a train track, I suppose that all public transportation must be indicted because of the death of this hard-working American. At least that's what the modern scare-mongers might bellow.

It's a shame all around.

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