“Worth Our Salt”

We were told growing up – in settings that taught responsibility, a family, school, church, civic group, or  military – to be “worth your salt.” The phrase was a gentle prod, and applies today. It reminds us to make ourselves useful, be valuable, help others, be equal to our blessings, work.

Where did that phrase come from? “Salt” is valuable in preserving meat. Salt – or sodium chloride – has the ability to preserve meats in a process called osmosis. Water molecules pass through the meat and evaporate, reducing bacteria, prolonging shelf life.

Salt’s value goes back to the Romans, who paid soldiers in salt, thus the Latin word “salarium,” where “sal” means salt. From that Latin word, we today get the  word “salary.”

Being “worth your salt” started to be a widely used term only in the 1800s. The phrase was similar to “earning your keep,” working for what you need. From Rome to now, the expectation was that respect flows from work. People who can work should want to work, to “be worth their salt.”

Lately, that whole idea – that we should be “worth our salt” – has been tossed to the wind. As President Trump tries to shrink dependence and encourage work, requiring able-bodied Americans to work, volunteer, or go to school 20 hours a week for medical coverage, Democrat governors – including in Maine – fight him, pretending voters are entitled to free stuff from those who work.

If that sounds like communism, a way to get voters to vote Democrat by taxing those who work in order to buy votes from the lazy, it is. Karl Marx’s phrase was, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” All you have to do is imagine those with “ability” will pay higher taxes, as leaders widen those with unmet “needs,” assuring reelection and perpetual power.

Communists figured this out early, the idea that power is concentrated, then perpetuated by higher and higher spending, higher and higher taxing, more and more dependents on the state.

Lately, they have tried a slight-of-hand: Import non-citizens (illegal aliens) and then link them to voter registration groups, assuring no identification is needed to vote (or issuing fakes). Bingo!

Now consider the latest innovation, discovered in Minnesota and Maine. What is it? The next logical step in assuring Democrats do never lose power and can push public corruption to the limit.

These Democrat states – we are discovering – have a self-licking ice cream cone, a perfect power retention machine: They give millions of dollars to groups formed by recent immigrants to provide benefits to illegals and register them as voters.

The scheme was brilliant in the annals of crime, will go down as one of the boldest, but these lawbreaking immigrant groups, and illegals they pay to vote, are not the real villains. The real villains are the Democrats controlling these one-party, highly corrupt states, like Minnesota and Maine.

Put differently, you cannot have wide receivers catching balls without a quarterback. The quarterback is the Democrat-controlled governor and legislators. They are all complicit.

Frankly, power is seductive. When some get it, they do not want to give it up.  These Democrats do not want honest elections; they believe in power concentration and retention by all means. Buying votes from lazy and illegal voters with taxpayer money has not worried them, until now.

Pulling the camera back, a blunt picture: Democrat leaders do not believe in “earning their keep,” or creating conditions under which citizens can, or in deporting illegal aliens gaming the system.

Democrat leaders do not believe in being “worth their salt,” or setting conditions where we must all strive to be “worth our salt,” each earn our material benefits, public respect, and self-respect.

Democrat leaders in places like Minnesota and Maine gave up on integrity long ago. They believe that you can separate working citizens from non-working, make the working work harder, pay more, and finance the non-workers and illegals, who will keep voting for Democrats entitlements.

Truth is, it will not work in America. Taxpayers eventually revolt – throw out the Democrats raising property, income, and sales taxes to buy their lazy and illegal voters. That will happen in 2026.

One final, interesting fact. When work or individual responsibility is separated from the Republic, replaced by communism and vote buying, the result is poison. Likewise, when a harmless compound called salt – sodium chloride – is separated into sodium and chloride, you get poison.

Bottomline: We need to be “worth our salt,” remember and teach again how to make ourselves useful, valuable, help others, be equal to our blessings – and to work. Society, so flavored, thrives.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor. BobbyforMaine.com