They built it

Hoarded Ordinaries:

This year, the right is rallying behind the cry of “I built this,” a shorthand slogan pointing to the importance of individual initiative and industry. Labor Day is a holiday to acknowledge the workers whose collective effort make our individual accomplishments possible: I am able to build this because they worked so hard to build that. When you drive to work every day, who built that road? When you negotiate orderly, crime-free streets, who protects your safety? When you go to the grocery story to spend your hard-earned paycheck, who stocked those shelves?

Whenever I’m grocery shopping and see a delivery man stocking shelves, I smile because my Dad did that, driving a bread route for years. If there was bread on the shelf when you went grocery shopping this week, it was because some hard-working Teamster like my dad drove a truck to deliver it: it didn’t just appear there by accident or chance.

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