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by Jack Kemp | May 7th, 2008
In America, where food has been historically inexpensive and even people on Welfare have cable television and a car, the contrasts between rich and poor haven't been great enough to satisfy many radicals.
Allen Levite, in his book Guilt, Blame and Politics, discusses political guilt in wealthy people, from Siddartha/Buddha to Plato, the son of wealth whose Republic rejected private property. One could also add Bernadine Dohrn's Weathermen associate Diana Oughton, daughter of wealth who died in a bomb-making attempt in a Greenwich Village townhouse in New York.
Many wealthy young people, seeing the differences between their circumstances and the truly poor, have chosen to help – or actually embrace their situation, i.e., live as the poor. For many, this meant charity work and job creation for the poor. But for some, this has meant advocating an overthrow of societal differences — that is, advocating a Utopian society — generally of a socialist type where we would all be "equal" – theoretically.
In America, where food has been, until recently, fairly cheap and even people on Welfare have cable television and a car, the contrasts between rich and poor haven't been great enough to satisfy many radicals.
For years, when the price of gas in the US was around $2 a gallon and $5 a gallon in Europe (significantly impacted by taxes), political environmentalists advocated $5 a gallon gas in America. Why? In part to conserve oil, but the obvious byproduct of further impoverishing many was not a major consideration for them. Once again, I ask "Why?"
With increased poverty, not only could the political environmentalists blame the capitalists/Republicans, but they could – with major help from the liberal media and such "educators" as William Ayers — induce guilt in American school children for having "too much" of the earth's resources. Need I also mention Al Gore and his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, shown in so many schools, some requiring parental attendance at the screening?
In short, the poorer the poor are, the more the leftist environmentalists believe wealthy and middle class youth can be made to feel guilty about their "wasteful" American Way of Life. And they hope and believe that more of those youths can be radicalized against their parents' way of life.
The English version of the Communist anthem, The Internationalle, begins with, "Arise you prisons of starvation." Well, in order to want to make people arise in a revolt, it helps to get them to first starve. That's the real hidden value for the Left of ethanol subsidies driving up the cost of food. It's the New Age version of Pol Pot.
One of the best ways to induce an artificial sense of guilt and privilege is to keep young people in school, without a break, into their late twenties. Having never shouldered real responsibility other than a term paper, they instinctively know they are leading a charmed life that is missing something. This isn't the universal experience of all college students, but it definitely is the cultural environment they live in. I want to mention a minor example or two from my college days, not as a personal claim to doing great hard work, but as an illustration I know well.
In college, I was in the federal Work-Study Program and was employed at various odd jobs between classes. I once put on hip boots and hosed down the floors of large dog cages for the Pharmacology Dept. I also was a photographer for the Physics Dept., mixing chemicals in a dark room and once climbing to the top of a room housing a cyclotron to take its picture. On returning to class the same day as these and other tasks, I often felt that I had crossed a divide from one world to another. And, mostly felt more challenged – and at times, more worthy – for the work I did.
All this is not new. In the 1976 book In Our Time, longshoreman-intellectual Eric Hoffer noted the boredom of twenty-year-old students and advocated a half-day of work mixed with a half-day of learning real world skills which would be taught by "Retired skilled carpenters, masons, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, gardeners, architects, city planners, etc."
Political Guilt – Don't Leave Home Without It
But why should one only feel guilty and unworthy at home? Now you can feel that way on vacation. We can buy carbon offsets when we vacation via airline jets. And we can also have, as our destination, EcoTrips. These are vacations to see the rain forest or LiveEarth concerts or polar bears. Priceline has William Shatner for its travel spokesman. GuiltTrips has Al Gore for theirs. There is a Jewish joke about some guy complaining his mother is a "travel agent for guilt trips." These aforementioned jaunts are literally and figuratively "guilt trips." Maybe you don't want to take your mother with you on your next vacation – but you can take your guilt.
The Guilt Wars
Of course, wealthy people, who fly often and drive on ethanol, can borrow a page from Al Gore's playbook and accuse the average person of wasting the earth's resources by "not doing enough." Well, they could for years, until the recent news of famine and food riots. Trendy people can accuse average (income) people of not saving the planet, even though, by definition, an average person can't afford to drive around town for hours in an SUV in the first place. If one is trying to create a perfect world as a political environmentalist utopian, you can point to the imperfections of others – and if they are poorer and less articulate than you, you can win a guilt trip argument just by making a Green accusation. This is better than older liberal attacks. If you call someone a racist, they can deny it, but it is hard to say you don't waste some of the earth's resources, i.e., create garbage every day.
Back to "Environmentalist" Angst
Of course, besides the advocacy for a green, perfect Utopia, the environmentalists are also attempting to impose a sense of meaning in society, as seen through their political perspective. It is a worshiping of the earth – without the full religious tenets and beliefs of true pagans. In the 1950s a television program about communism called I Lead Three Lives had an episode about the US Communist Party's attempt to organize the sending of money to Warsaw Pact Poland. In an artful phrase, they used someone else's religion and a double entendre of a name to organize "Christmas packages for Poland." Today the Left latches onto both scientific and pagan earth worship causes to advance their own. They are no more environmental scientists than they are earth-worshiping pagans.
The Political Environmentalists' Sampson Option
During the Vietnam War, a group of US soldiers was surrounded by the enemy and called for a close air strike aimed right on top of them. This was before the days of laser-guided bombs. The ploy worked, as the planes destroyed the surrounding enemy in close proximity. This is what the political environmentalist Left wants: to destroy the old order so they can build a new Utopia. Five dollar a gallon gas? Why not ten dollar? Tripling food prices? Why not ten times the 2005 levels? Anything that destroys the Old Order is fine with them – assuming the "Old Order" is defined, for the most part, as people other than themselves, their immediate family, and close friends. But, judging by the ethanol debacle, I don't think they have worked out their plans in such detail. They just see the old order coming down, just as Sampson brought the walls down on the Philistines.
But Sampson had the sense to bring the temple down far away from his own nation.
P.S. On page 34 of Guilt, Blame and Politics by Allan Levite, it talks about the 60s Weatherman and states:
Quite often, the most radical students were precisely those from upper class backgrounds. In the violent "Weatherman" faction of the SDS, could be found Jim Mellen, of a wealthy Chicago family, and Diane Oughton, the millionaire Illinois farmer's daughter previously mentioned. Also included was her paramour, Bill Ayers, son of the chairman of the Commonwealth Edison Company.
This is also referenced in Wikipedia as:
Ayers grew up in Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago, attended Lake Forest Academy and earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in American Studies in 1968. He is the son of Thomas G. Ayers, former Chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison (1973 to 1980), Chicago philanthropist and the namesake of the Thomas G. Ayers College of Commerce and Industry.
Ayers went on to bomb the Pentagon and New York City Police Headquarters – and befriend Barack Obama. Well, at least Ayers isn't one of those bitter people from rural Pennsylvania.
It is easy to dismiss concern for the poor as the manipulation of totalitarian leftism, but some of us might be inspired by higher callings, such as:
"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." Psalm 82:3-4
Nowhere does the word compassion emerge in your treatsie. Was Jesus on a guilt trip. Must the rich all ignore their poor brothers.
Or is raising up the antics of the misguided Left just an easy excuse for avoiding our responsibility to care for our poorer brothers and excuse our extravagances.
IC and yourself seem to be obsessed with the psychoanalysis of the fringe left, always a lot easier than dealing with more rational proponents of such things as universal health care or less regressive taxation.
It is as if I tried to understand your viewpoint by equating it to Pat Robertson, Coulter, Allende, Hitler, etc.
I would argue that a more egalitarian society is in the interest of all of us, rich and poor, and rather than hold up Pol Pot would look at most of the current democracies in the world.
Scandanavia is often held up as this terrible example of socialism, yet these countries have lower crime, better health, and the people are just as happy, if not happier than Americans. Indeed, surveys of self reported happiness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index
put the countries of Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Sweeden, in the top ten. The US does reasonably at 23rd of 178, with Zimbabwe at 177, so I won't advance the claim that our current status is the cause of great unhappiness, but I think the fallacy that higher levels of social welfare is detrimental to our well being is easily countered.
Other parameters, such as crime rates, life expectancy, rates of teenage pregnancy, also paint a better picture of the social democracies, which you might define as socialist, though I reserve the term for countries in which the government owns much of industry, which I oppose and is not the case in Denmark, Finland, etc. which have healthy capitalistic sectors, but do promote greater egalitarianism through progressive taxation policies.
I make six figures and have worked hard for it, but I understand that vast disparities in wealth leads to higher crime rates and a vast array of social ills and I see it in my own self interest not to have people starving in the street. I do not feel guilty in any way, but I also think the fact that my income might go from 120K to 80K as a small price to pay for less crime, happier citizenry, and less poverty for my countryman.
Guilt trip or loving my brother as myself?
Comment by yonkel | May 7, 2008
Jack:
One more addendum.
I couldn't agree with you more on the benefits of getting out and working, and I will agree with you that there is an artificial elitism rendered by seeing the working poor sentimentally through the vantage of one's college dorm.
I picked fruit in twenty states, paid my way through college and my first child driving taxi, and haved turned wrenches and banged nails prior to getting an MD at age 40. What it fostered was an appreciation and respect rather than a fawning sentimentality about the lives of people in the trades and manual labor. From my experience, rebuilding a carburator is a much harder job than studying Political Science or Organic Chemistry.
Comment by yonkel | May 7, 2008
Yonkel,
I believe that Psalm is an admonition to God, not to an all-powerful centralized collectivist government. If you read more than two paragraphs of the Bible at a time, it doesn't read like the socialist tract that liberals believe it to be, and Jesus comes off a lot less like a hippy selling hemp backbacks in the Village. Jesus instructed *individuals* to take care of the sick, weak, and disabled in their communities. He did not arrive in a Prius and admonish the Roman government to collect the fruits of one person's labor and hand it over to another.
That you are willing to pay 3/4 of your salary to the government in order for them to distribute it to "poor" people and selected permanent charity recipients, such as minorities and single women, in a misguided, futile, and ill-informed attempt to purchase yourself "less crime", is fine for you. Just don't come knock on everybody else's door and ask for the same. When people perform work in exchange for money, the only people who should be involved in the transaction are the person paying the money and the person collecting it. If the person collecting the money feels compelled, for whatever convoluted reason, to give a portion of it to people who make less money than he does, or to people who do not work, or to people who have a particular skin color, or to people who otherwise find themselves in permanent need of charity, his decision should be his own. Assuage your own conscience – everyone else can worry about their own.
Your feelings on the difficulty of varying forms of work are as subjective as the Happy Planet Index. Fortunately, we live in a relatively free market system where scarcity and relative skill are the main determinants of pay. If studying organic chemistry and political science were relatively easier than obtaining a manual labor job, you'd see a glut of political scientists and organic chemists, and the monetary value of their labor would be diminished. There isn't much incentive to work for menial pay in a manual labor job if you can just as easily (or more easily, in fact) obtain a career in political science or organic chemistry and make more money. If your experience were the case universally, a lot of landscapers, truck drivers, framers, mechanics, and construction workers would obtain degrees in political science and organic chemistry for the more competitive pay, flood the job markets in those career fields with workers, and drive the price of labor in those fields down. Or, put a lot more simply, if anybody could do it, then everybody would be doing it. There's nothing inherently shameful about having an education and making money, nor anything inherently noble about having less education and making little money. That's what individual liberty and individual responsibility are all about. One person's actions should not have consequences for the whole of society – or rather, for the "rich", or "privileged" or "white", or whatever other group it is deemed should shoulder the collective responsibility for society.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | May 8, 2008
Yonkel writes: “It is easy to dismiss concern for the poor as the manipulation of totalitarian leftism”
No it’s not! It takes an open mind, knowledge of history, and a command of the language.
And: “but some of us might be inspired by higher callings, such as: Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless”
If fatherlessness were your cause then you would condemn the left for creating a society in which men are vilified and driven from there homes.
Then: “Scandanavia is often held up as this terrible example of socialism, yet these countries have lower crime, better health, and the people are just as happy, if not happier than Americans.”
Did it ever occur to you that these countries rely on the USA to defend them against the bad guys? Who do you imagine is defending them? France?
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | May 8, 2008
[...] Conservative has published our own Jack Kemp`s brilliant analysis of the liberal mind entitled High Priced Gas-The Fuel of Guilt Trips. Jack does a terrific job of illustrating the connections between the current sky-high prices we [...]
Pingback by Timothy Birdnow » Jack Kemp`s `Fueling Guilt` at Intellectual Conservative | May 8, 2008
Patrick:
Yes, you are correct in that Jesus did not attempt to enlist the state in helping the poor, which was probably a non-issue at the time. I can see your point.
As a representative democracy in which the government must be funded for things that both those more liberal (social welfare) and those more conservative (military) want the people can allot these taxes as they see fit. Or would you prefer that the war in Iraq, the space program, the interstate highways etc. be funded on a voluntary basis
I do not see that there is some natural law that insists that poor people pay the same taxes as the rich, and indeed it would be physically impossible to do such, and some level of progressive taxation is favored by even the most conservative legislator. Would you have the guy flipping burgers pay the exact same tax as Bill Gates.
Most Americans agree that some level of progressive taxation is necessary and the argument in the body politic is typically about the degree to which this occurs.
Now, I said I was willing to pay 1/3 of my salary not 3/4, but regardless, to me it is a small price to pay for the advantages afforded. The social democracies in Europe and the US developed their institutions at a time when the competing philosophy was socialism and communism, which thrived in the fertile soil where huge masses of the people are impoverished and small numbers have great wealth.
There also is a correlation between vast inequalities of wealth and crime. Countries like Brazil and South Africa, and to some degree the US, where there are great disparities in wealth tend to have higher crime. The more egalitarian countries of northern Europe have low crime and lower rates of social dysfunction. So, it is not that "I am assuaging my guilt" which I do not have, and was the implication of the original post, but I am acting in my own self interest by having the government promote the general welfare and afford more people the opportunity for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
As to the work thing, my point was in jest. I understand the free market determines wages and would not have it otherwise. I worked hard to become a physician, but I do often tell my patients, that it was because I find auto mechanics too difficult. I was agreeing with Mr. Kemp's point about the importance of hard work and do not suggest some program of forced manual labor. I see some of my colleagues who never left the expected path of college and profession toss a bale of hay, as having missed out on things. I also am a big fan of Eric Hoffer.
Tha "Happy People Index", of course, is subjective, how else could you do it. Polls rely on subjective data, if you ask somebody who they are going to vote for, that is a subjective comment. Conservatives have not abandoned polling, some of them do it very well. Data always has its limitations.
My point is that if you think that the democracies using progressive taxation to create equality of wealth or universal health care are doing something so terrible, why do they choose to do it, and why do they seem to be happier than us, have less crime, longer life expectancy, etc.
I am likely in agreement with you on several points. I do not support the vast array of overlapping, conceptual social engineering programs, like public housing etc. that keep a vast army of social workers busy. I was a strong supporter of the recent welfare reform, a bipartisan achievement. I see people routinely abusing the disability system in my practice. I do favor limited government in many aspects, yet also would support some programs like universal health care. I look at these things pragmatically.
Comment by yonkel | May 8, 2008
Ivan:
Yes, Europe did rely on the US for its defense, and that was one of the factors that earned our country a vast respect in Europe.
I don't know that this is relevant to my argument.
My argument was that if progressive taxation and certain social welfare programs were so terrible, why do these countries, seem to do well with them.
As to why I don't "condemn the left for vilifying fatherhood", I really don't know what you are talking about. There certainly are things that some on the left support that I disagree with, that might impact negatively on fatherhood, but hardly think that some political sector has "driven men from their homes".
I am not a representative or spokesman of the left, nor do I believe there is some universal left or right opinion on any given issue. I see aspects of some conservative and liberal viewpoints that I like, and others that I don't. I am a free thinker and not tied to anybody's ideology or concept of such.
Comment by yonkel | May 8, 2008
Yonkel,
The comments you post on this website make me want to thank you and all who think like you for "special interest groups".
Comment by KevinB | May 8, 2008
Yonkel
It is relevant in not only the past, but also today. The USA has been and remains the strongest nation in the world. I grant that the EU is trying to be a factor, but other than the UK, there is no country that carries the burden of policing the world the way we do. This gives those little countries in Scandinavia the freedom to spend their time and energy on other matters. It’s not only the military budget, but the freedom to play around with things like socialism without the fear of failure. If some policy should fail in Sweden, for example, the world does not turn on that failure. It’s a simple matter to hide the inefficiencies, or reverse them on a whim. It’s kind of like being Howie Long’s little brother and calling the school bully a jerk. Nobody is going to challenge you, so you can do as you please.
On fatherhood, let me explain. I grew up in a world with a 10% divorce rate. My Ma and Dad were still married when he pasted away after their 60th. The rate is somewhere near 50% now, so it’s a flip of the coin if that will happen to children born today. What has changed? Feminists in government, that’s what. Men are basically the same, so it’s women and government that make the difference. Moreover, who is it that panders to the feminists? I’ll let you answer that. Just listen to your patients. The divorced men and women, plus the children without fathers, they will tell you.
I don’t fault you for wanting government paid health care. I had a plumber friend that thought plumbers should be given a subsidy. It’s just natural to look out for yourself (I think Adam Smith had something to say about that). But millions of babies die before they get a chance to take a breath and millions of elderly people hang on, with medications and nursing care. A little less Namenda and RU-486 would be a good thing in my book.
Open mindedness is OK, but you have to stand for something, or you will fall for anything. (That would make a good country song)
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | May 8, 2008
Ivan:
My desire for universal health has little to do with wanting something for myself, I can well afford health insurance. I do, however, in my medical practice, often see poor working people who suffer physical harm because they can't afford insurance or medicine.
I don't see the government's function as giving everything for everybody. For example, I don't know that it is the governments function to spend money for college tuition or head start or subsidies to rice farmers. Health care I equate with fire service or police protection or maintaining the military, one of those basic life support things. A wealthy society like ours should make sure that all its citizens have access to healthcare.
How that is done, I am not a stickler. Romneys plan is fine. Some of the states have come up with good solutions.
You have a point about Namenda, but you will definitely buck up against the Schiavo supporters on the blog.
For myself, having intimately cared for 100s of nursing home residents, I do not want myself to be in a position of occupying a bed for fortunes of money with no prospect of recovering. Give me a good party and send me off on the ice flow. Now others feel differently and I have to respect that, but I do worry that as medical science advances we are creating the ability to keep people alive indefinitely in minimally functional states at enormous costs. This is all paid for by taxes, and yet a young working family with a sick child gets nothing.
Comment by yonkel | May 8, 2008
"As a representative democracy in which the government must be funded for things that both those more liberal (social welfare) and those more conservative (military) want the people can allot these taxes as they see fit. Or would you prefer that the war in Iraq, the space program, the interstate highways etc. be funded on a voluntary basis"
Private military and civil institutions wouldn't be the worst idea I can think of. They've been pitched before many a time by libertarian think tanks. In any case, your feelings on poverty and your desire to relinquish your salary to the government to "buy off" poverty (as if such a thing were possible) should be exercised individually. I would like to see the government control as little of my (and your) assets as is humanly possible to remain functional. The government should not be responsible for distributing income – private institutions by way of employers and charity organizations do a much more efficient job of allocating resources. Similarly with health care. I don't feel that I should be forced to purchase health care for myself if I don't want it, and I certainly shouldn't be forced to purchase health care for anyone else. I also feel that I should be allowed to decide whether or not to wear a seat belt when I'm driving my car. Those decisions impact my life, and my life alone (or at least they would if the government did not insist on subsidizing my bad decisions and penalizing my good ones). Individual liberty, individual responsibility. If you feel morally, ethically, or otherwise compelled to reallocate your income to other people's bank accounts, you should be free to do so. But I should be free not to do so. The charter that distributes power to our various branches of government does not give Congress the authority to collect the wealth of the citizenry for the purpose of equalizing income. The *pursuit* of happiness does not mean the guarantee of happiness. The "general welfare" does not mean "collective equality". The freedom to make bad decisions and fail is necessary if there is to be freedom to make good decisions and succeed. The government's job is to make sure that the components necessary for you to take a shot at the brass ring exist – not to buy the brass ring and present it in a mahogany gift box.
The reason I brought up the subjectivity of the "Happiness Index" is because you are trying to equate the subjective happiness index with objective government policies. That one group of people identifies itself as "happy" (an abstract human emotion) may be impacted by hundreds or thousands of factors, both subjective and objective AND depends entirely on the subjective response of the interviewee to objective external factors. I, for example, may respond unfavorably and be unhappy in reaction to circumstances that would make a person with different social, philosophical, and cultural conditioning very very happy. To isolate a single government practice as causing a particular response (happiness or unhappiness) universally is overly simplistic. I'm not especially happy with our government, for example, but I would be significantly less happy with it if it adopted more socialistic European practices. In addition, the degree to which my happiness depends on my economic circumstances may be (and is probably) extremely different than someone from a different country and accompanying culture. Or to be more brief: wealth redistribution is probably not the sole determining factor of world happiness.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | May 9, 2008
Nice response PM, but you are dealing with a person who will not admit his own self-interest. That spells Troll, which rhymes with Poll, which starts with P, which sounds like D, which stands for Democrat. He has the full power to help that sick child from a working family, but he wants you to pay. He will say anything just to promote his Orwellian ideas.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | May 9, 2008
Patrick:
Good thoughts. I am off for the weekend and will address them on return as there is quite a bit there.
Ivan, you are neither being humorous, sensible, or mannerly. I answered you in a respectful tone and you insult in the third person.
Patrick does make good points, I agree, but you are displaying a schoolyard sensibility.
I do have a different viewpoint than most of the bloggers, though not the carricature that you perceive, and if that is unwelcome by the majority, I can go. I myself enjoy talking to people with different viewpoints from my own.
Comment by yonkel | May 9, 2008
Yonkel,
In your comments #1, #2 & #6 above you make the following assertions that are either untrue, unverifiable, or false equivalencies. Among these I count:
1. proponents of universal healthcare are rational
2. the author and IC are obsessed with psychoanalysis of the fringe left
3. Allende and Hitler are representative of or relevant to conservative viewpoints
4. Scandinavian countries have lower crime, better health, and the people are just as happy
5. social democracies with progressive taxation policies have lower crime rates and teen-pregnancy, and have longer life expectancies
6. our form of government is representative democracy
7. government must be funded [to pay] for things both conservatives and liberal-socialists want
8. some level of progressive taxation is favored by even the most conservative legislator
9. most Americans agree progressive taxation is necessary
10. the guy flipping burgers shouldn’t have to pay the exact same tax as Bill Gates
11. vast disparities in wealth leads to higher crime rates
You also say things like “I would argue a more egalitarian society is in the interest of all …”, but then make no such argument. This failure to support leaves the question open without seeming to and, as such, is pointless.
1. If universal healthcare can be shown to be both reasonable and necessary, then support for it might be rational; otherwise it is irrational as are its proponents. Doing something that cost a great deal, does nothing to improve quality of care, excludes more than includes, limits health options, and overrides personal choice is irrational. Healthcare in the Scandinavian countries are frequently touted as examples of places it works, whereas mention of Britain and Canada are generally avoided (http://www.heritage.org/Press/NewsReleases/NR092900.cfm). Yet, even the much touted Scandinavian picture is marred and glossed by extreme taxation, moribund economies, external props (mainly U.S.), outsourcing, cost cutting, long waits, EU subsidization, black-market drug sourcing, border-hopping to get better care, and life-style differences. Some of the studies you like to cite have intrinsic biases (i.e., they were designed at the outset to support a fixed conclusion). For example, most of the data supporting socialized healthcare as superior to free-market healthcare originates from the notoriously socialist WHO; and many WHO benchmarks actually measure the degree to which a country’s health system is socialist – not its medical effectiveness (http://stefanmikarlsson.blogspot.com/2007/07/myths-fact-about-american-health-care.html written by a Swede). If true, that would automatically give the more socialist countries a better score than they warrant, wouldn’t you say?
2. We aren’t ‘obsessed’ with the ‘fringe-left’; we are resisting all the really bad ideas that keep emanating from the left – the whole left. In fact, our dictionaries need updating to reflect the ‘left’ to have as one of its meanings: that political persuasion obsessed with change. Many of us are folks who at one time went along with whatever the left demanded of us, never bothering to notice just how crazy and obsessed the left has become with changing everything from war to one-size-fits-all healthcare to guarantees of happiness to Nazi-like regulation of carbon foot-prints and segregating our wastes. If there is an obsession on our side, it consists only in combating the endless steam of obsessions coming from your side. Granted we may get a little ‘obsessed’ with ‘analyzing’ the left, who they are and what they are demanding of us, but can you really blame us? – and is that in any way remotely comparable with all the myriad obsessions embraced by the left and forced on the rest of us? Those who live in glass houses …
3. You’d have been okay with your analogy had you stopped at Robertson and Coulter, but Allende and Hitler were both below the belt and false. Hitler and Allende were both socialists, not conservatives. The equating of fascism with conservatism is what is a myth spawned by the left to cover its own tracks. So, if there is any equating it would have to be to modern day liberals and liberal-socialism; not conservatives and conservatism.
(cont.)
Comment by Bob Stapler | May 31, 2008
(cont.)
4. Scandinavian countries and so called “social democracies’ having favorable crime and health rates are not demonstrably effects of socialism (Sweden is far less a crime magnet than we are and the lower average age of Swedes explains most of the health difference); whereas happiness is, by any measure, subjective. Surely you know lots of folks who aren’t the least bit happy unless they’ve something to gripe about. Where is the lowest violent crime-rate in the world? Antarctica. Does that mean Antarctica is doing something right the rest of us are missing? Saudi Arabia has a very low violent crime rate, so shouldn't you be advocating despotism over socialism or capitalism? Where are the happiest people? Switzerland (http://www.happiness.org/Resources/Happiness_Studies/What_is_Happiness.aspx/)? But, is that because Switzerland is more democratic or because the Swiss have the 6th highest per capita income? Switzerland is (by American standards) 40% more conservative than liberal by party affiliation. You have, again, alleged proof without citing actual statistics or studies backing claims. We can pretty much take for granted anyone compiling statistics proving socialists are happier than capitalists will be socialists; and their data biased by a conviction regarding the result. The better measure of ‘happiness’ would, therefore, be how people vote with their feet; wouldn’t you agree? Sweden has been seeing significant emigration of its native population looking for better opportunities and a better life. The people replacing them are from countries that are even more of a mess, who see life in the Swedish ‘paradise’ as a step up. If Americans are so unhappy, why is it we refuse to budge from here? Doesn’t that mean Swedes are fed up with the socialist bliss and we are happier with a more robust market? You were right only as regards the word “paint”, because the rosy picture painted by some of socialism is by design. Your other misconception in this comment is the countries cited are ‘social democracies’. Their form of government is mostly ‘republican’, only ‘democratic’ in a tokenized sense. Switzerland is the lone exception, and even it is only democratic to the degree they hold frequent referenda.
5. The United States has one of the most ‘progressive’ tax policies anywhere. By your own argument, then, our crime, teen-pregnancy, and longevity ought to also be among the best; yet, other statements and assumptions you make depict the opposite. In fact, tax policy has far less to do with controlling crime and pregnancy than do effective punishment and disincentives. Life-expectancy is even more disconnected from tax-policy and its relative ‘progressiveness’. In fact, the number one determinant of life-expectancy is the ability to make personal healthcare choices and get the best care we can each afford unencumbered by government; which socialized healthcare precludes. Teen-pregnancy has jumped in this country because we created economic incentives for and destroyed social biases against it. Also, bear in mind the differences between how various political cultures count things like crime and teen-pregnancy. The more ideological a society is, the more it validates its own claims necessary for its legitimacy. So crime and misbehaviors go notoriously under-reported.
6. Our form of government is a representative-republic, not a representative-democracy (an oxymoron). Democracy means all citizens get to vote on every bit of legislation. Tell me, when was the last time you got to vote directly on a piece of legislation? It can also mean we vote by referenda, but would still not make our form of government democratic unless most legislation is determined by referenda. Referenda are not, themselves, ‘democratic’ unless they pass directly into law. If referenda are only used to guide legislators (as they do here), then our laws are still determined by others for us. Government cannot be both representative and democratic. It is one or the other. Where it is mixed, it is only mixed as to which objects are decided democratically and which representatively. The best we can say of our government is our election of representatives is semi-democratic, but even that results in an electoral-college who, again, make the final vote for us. The bottom-line as to which form of government rests entirely on who votes the laws, not who votes the voters.
(cont.)
Comment by Bob Stapler | May 31, 2008
(cont.)
7. Why must “government must be funded [to pay] for things both conservatives and liberal-socialists want”? You seem to think this statement obvious, but it is only obvious to someone already convinced any and all objects are fair game for government to assume. Some are; some are not. Defense of the nation is both legitimate and necessary, for without it a country ceases to exist. Road building is also obvious though less necessary. Left to private enterprise, roads don’t get built unless the builder can control the profits accruing from it. Governments have been in the road building business since Egyptian times, but only in the social-welfare business less than a century. Social-welfare programs are not at all obvious; in fact, they are counter-intuitive. Why should anyone desire his government to determine for him/her the extent of his charity? Government does a lousy job of charity and we are better off keeping government out of that racket. For every dollar government collects for charity, it spends less than $0.30 in benefits; the rest goes to ‘administrative costs’. Private charities invert this ratio with 70% going to benefits and 30% to administration. So, even if you allow charity as a legitimate object of government, why would you want government to run it?
8. Since when did failing to oppose something constitute approval? Progressive taxation is not favored by every legislator. Ron Paul, for one, has favored a flat tax. Does not that then blow your assertion “some level of progressive taxation is favored by ‘even the most conservative’ legislator” out of the water? Even some Republicans who vote ‘for’ progressive tax schemes have said they do so because they can see no alternative to progressive tax schemes without a supermajority in Congress. Fred Thompson has argued long and hard against progressive taxes, and continues to oppose progressive refinements.
9. Ditto for most Americans. We acquiesce in progressive tax schemes because we are allowed no choice in the matter. I defy anyone to conduct an honest poll (one that doesn’t preface the question as a negative) that doesn’t conclude most of us are more concerned with our own tax burden than how much the other guy is made to pay. Progressive taxes, as implemented, are never progressive. That’s because they are wide open to political manipulation and more to do with pitting voters against each other than they are ‘egalitarian’ (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg1866.cfm, http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_basics_main).
10. The assertion “the guy flipping burgers shouldn’t have to pay the exact same tax as Bill Gates” is a false dichotomy. The burger flipper doesn’t pay anything in income taxes and Bill Gates doesn’t pay a dime in payroll taxes (which the burger flipper does). That’s your progressive tax scheme at work. In fact, under progressive taxation. The Bill Gates of the world are already paying the lion’s share of all taxes assessed on earnings. 95% of all tax on earning are paid by the wealthiest 1%. This makes it the burger flipper who has the unfair advantage. Meanwhile, Bill Gates is discouraged from doing more that would create jobs here because the additional taxes will eat him alive. So, he takes his business offshore to some country with a more favorable tax scheme, leaving the burger flipper (who can’t leave) to pick up the difference.
11. If “vast disparities in wealth leads to higher crime rates”, then why are the highest violent death-rates in places like Africa, Indonesia, Columbia, Jamaica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Paraguay (http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=699) where ‘vast wealth differences’ cannot explain far higher homicide rates than here. The CIA Fact Book ranks the United States 105 out of 143 countries in terms of overall death by all causes, well behind Russia (18), Hungary (34), Germany (53), Italy (58), Greece (60), Belgium (61), and France (95). In fact, by any measure used, violent death and crime go down with a total wealth, not up; and there is no discernable correlation between wealth ratios within countries. Crime is a serious problem here, but it has less to do with wealth differences than opportunities and lax punishment.
http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/MacroeconomicAnalysisofFairTax.pdf
Comment by Bob Stapler | May 31, 2008
Bob:
Thanks for ressurecting the thread. My work had put a crimp in the blogging. Granted one does not live by bread alone, but it does pay the rent. I started to respond to your first comment and see that there is a second which I will try to get to later. Also, I dont know why I cant click on your citations and get to them, will try again.
Re #3) Retract Hitler and Allende if you wish. In fact my point is exactly that it would be unfair to offer up any of these folks as somehow representative of intelligent conservatism. Attacking a broad viewpoint by attacking the most fringe, radical, and loathsome people conmnected with that viewpoint is a straw dog type of argument. In this case presenting Ayers and weatherman as representative of liberal viewpoint fits that bill.
Re #1) This would be a long topic in itself and hopefully one that might come up on IC. I have spent the last 20 years as a physician and do understand the situation which both the right and left mischaracterize.
Firstly, Canada and Britain are democracies, and if they so choose could trade their system for ours, but it is a non starter and there is no support for doing that. Why? If their system is so terrible why would they not go back to a private system. Perhaps, they understand that they pay much less per capita for their healthcare and come out with equal or better public health stats. Yes, there are problems and long waits for MRIs etc. but there is also much less unnecessary expensive care and, perhaps, counter intuitively less beaurocracy. The US has by far the largest percentage of health care expenses going to paperwork and marketing than the Europeans.
I would not characterize European economies as moribund, they are prosperous, though perhaps not up to us, and we would both be in agreement in characterizing much of the economies as overregulated, such as the French restriction on hours worked or ability to fire people. Those things are hurting European economies, not healthcare, for which their costs are much less than ours.
I am generally pro business on many of those economic issues. However, in healthcare, all you need to do is look at the fate of GM against such other companies as Toyota and Daimler, to see that our overly expensive healthcare is much more a challenge to our economy. I have provided healthcare to my employees for 15 years and it has risen well above the inflation rate all that time and now amounts to about $3-4/per hour.
And from my years providing that care, I would guess that 50% of that is unnecessary.
#4)First of all, "my side" is not particularly liberal or left, I have variable views including staying in Iraq, pro tort reform, welfare reform, against Roe, and lean McCain. But if given the task of speaking for or of liberalism, I would say that there are intelligent liberals and stupid liberals. Those that are obsessed with demonizing all business, seeing conspiracies everywhere, thinking Bush should be impeached, that oil companies are responsible for gas prices, represent the Michael Moore end of the issues. On the other hand those that wish to be cautious about the environment, also including people like McCain and Huckabee, or support universal healthcare including people like Romney, have good arguments. I do find that IC prefers to emphasize the nut cases like Ayers rather than deal with the more rational arguments, and if you track down the number of threads, there seem to be more conversations about the stupidity of the left than dealing with issues within the conservative viewpoint, like for example, balancing the budget, which some how seems more intelligent than trying to extrapolate the behaviour of muslim taxi drivers to some commentary on modern life, or railing against the NYTimes incessantly.
As to the "Nazi-like segregation of our wastes", I was unaware that Hitler was big into recycling. To somehow equate asking/requiring people to recycle aluminum cans into the moral equivalent of despotism is absurd. We do not have the freedom to drive 120 mph or throw toxic chemicals into rivers, what is the problem with the people deciding that asking others to behave in a way that helps preserve the good future of our children is wrong.
I, as you, would be the first to oppose the curtailing of our basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech, assembly, etc., but I also think that requiring higher mpg's on cars helps protect those liberties, by halting the huge transfer of wealth to Putin and Ahmadeenijad that is happening as we speak due to our failure to push conservation in the 80s and 90s.
I will get to your second post in time. Thanks for listening.
Comment by yonkel | May 31, 2008
Bob, Second Comment:
#4) In general, my point is not necessarily that these social democracies are better than us, but the contrary argument, that social democracy is something terrible, is not borne out by any lack of happiness, good health, or other social ills that are found in those countries. The view that certain social welfare programs is a slippery slope towards tyranny, is just not borne out by reality. I do think that it can be overdone, and, with the exception of universal health care, I would have no problem with scrapping many of the redundant social programs in the US from head start to public housing to no child left behind.
I think the average age in Sweeden would be higher than ours. I don't know what statistics you have on Sweedish emigration. In general Europeans are free to move from one country in the EU to another which probably causes higher emigration rates, and there is a bit of a north to south movement that parrelels ours, but moving to another social democracy like Spain does not mean anything. I don't think there is a big emigration to the US currently.
I agree that wealth leeds to greater happiness although curiously Brunei and Bhutan were high in the Happy index:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index
The Swiss are fairly conservative and they shared the top ranking with the Danes who are not.
I don't claim that socialism causes happiness. I don't like socialism as far as the public ownership of business, bad idea, and the socialist tyrannies are terrible. I just don't consider having universal health care or a progressive taxation system as socialism. Maybe semantics, but most of these countries have strong private capitalistic sectors. Volvo and Nokia are not socialist enterprises.
#5) No we don't have that progressive a tax structure, less so than the Europeans. Disparities in wealth in the US are much greater than in the European countries, perhaps less so than Brazil, South Africa, Russia, China but those countries also have high crime rates.
When you say life expectancy is related to the ability to get " the best health care we can afford", what of theose who can't afford. Is the burger flipper at McDonalds less deserving of the ability to get a hernia fixed than the stock broker. If we dumped Medicaid and Medicare should we just let people die who cannot afford medicine. That is what is happening in Africa and China.
I would give this analogy. In the US much of health care is Cadillac. That is why it costs so much. But, you can get there in a Ford, and that is Europe. Here, 70 percent of the folks are in Caddilacs and 30% are hitch hiking.
#6) I don't know that I disagree with that. We are a representative democracy. I would include that as a subset of the general term democracy. My Websters defines democracy as " "government by the people, usually through elected representatives".
I would generally favor a popular vote for president, but the EC adds to some fun on election night and except for the Recent GWB 2000 and Benjamin Harrison in 1888, the plurality winner has taken the EC since Lincoln.
One interesting thing about the EC is that it gives voters in states with more felons, illegal immigrants, children, and non-voters, more relative power than those in states otherwise since the EC votes are population based as opposed to based on eligible or true voters. One thought would be to portion electoral votes based on the number of people that vote rather than on population.
I'm off to the dances. Have a good one.
Comment by yonkel | May 31, 2008
Yonkel said, "Or would you prefer that the war in Iraq, the space program, the interstate highways etc. be funded on a voluntary basis"
YES! Get rid of the use of force in paying for things that in fact, most of us do want. "Government" is actually not about "jobs" but about "control" – control over our lives by others for usually unrevealed agendas. Lip service is paid to the things "the people" clamor for, but in the end the use of force to collect the money in the first place is at the root of the evil in our society today. After all, let's not lose sight of the fact that when it comes to tax, your agreement isn't required. A rate is set and regardless of your personal circumstances at a given time, you are by law obligated to pay X amount. That is force.
What we are lacking is the true right to our individual lives. We do not have that right. There are "rights" of consumers, the poor, the dying, the starving, the uneducated. All those who cannot do for themselves are nevertheless said to be entitled by right to be fed, housed, educated and provided with sufficient entertainment at "taxpayer expense," which means at the expense of those who ARE able to provide for themselves.
This is so morally wrong! Why are we not rising up in great numbers to declare the very system of taxation as immoral and unjust?
The politics, the ethics, the philosophy of self-sacrifice have been drilled into the minds of most people and they accept them as necessary evils, much as people accept the system of taxation as the "only" way to pay for all the things currently said to be within the parameters of "government" to "provide" for "everyone."
Yet, when you, a healthy person, loses your job, how easy is it to get re-training if you don't fit in with the current fad minority of the moment?
As I see it, the only way to fight the ever-increasing infiltration into mainstream politics of the leftist mentality is to fight it on principle. The principle of statist governance is the initiation of force via the taxation mechanism. Oppose ALL initiation of force and oppose the very system of tax as well.
Why shouldn't those who build roads also own them and make a profit from doing so? Why shouldn't doctors and nurses have the right to own the hospitals they work in? Why shouldn't rich businessmen be allowed to put money into the education system and own schools, choose teachers according to ability and offer them high salaries and benefits?
Trying to make everyone "the same" is an impossible task when you are talking about "equality of result." Being equal before the law and under the law should mean having the same rights across the board. Those who do more with their lives will usually end up with more. Those who do less will usually end up with less. Trying to equalize results is the stated purpose of taxation, no matter what kind is used. But the real effect is to reduce morale, to deter investors from creating new business, new job opportunities and fund all manner of projects.
No, there has never been a large-scale attempt to run a highly developed country on a fully voluntary funding program. I think it's time to think about having one. Wean ourselves off this soul-destroying system and try a system that is suitable to the true needs of our species, a species made up of individuals each of whom has to learn to use his or her main tool for living – the mind.
The system of force isn't even seen as being humane when used on animals. Why is it okay to use it on humans?
Comment by AMAI | June 4, 2008
I'm replying to a few comments here and there.
Yonkel again: "I just don't consider having universal health care or a progressive taxation system as socialism."
They are. Were a system set up into which people voluntarily paid money to provide "universal health care" you and others like you who want such a system would be free to participate. When people are given the choice of buying health care for themselves, and "for another dollar" to chip into such a fund, I bet you would find you have a decent sized amount available for "the poor." But would it be such a sum that a bloated bureaucracy could also be sustained? No, it would not. Such a fund would have to be carefully managed, probably by a company that was already making a lot of money from private purchases by many individuals on their own behalf.
Oh yes, insurance companies.
I fully believe that the majority of people would be happier to take more responsibility for their own lives when they realize there actually isn't much of a safety net out there and they need to make their own. By the same token, being assured that your retirement nest egg will be there when you're ready for it could be one of the biggest selling points for a properly free society.
Comment by AMAI | June 4, 2008
AMAI:
Thank you for your thoughts. Work has limited my ability to blabber on.
I believe that you come from an ideological perspective of valuing human liberty highly and that is commendable. But you do note at the end of your first response that "no there has never been an attempt to run a large scale country on a fully volunteer funding program". I think this is not a coincidence of history but a reflection of the practical reality of the world.
The left always had a high minded ideological footing of ending poverty and elevating the starving masses, but when it came to reality, it became the justification for tyrannies from Lenin to Castro.
In the same way, I believe the libertarian values which you espouse would fail in the real world. I do not think we could have defeated Germany in WW2 in a volunteer state and although a laissez faire system of toll roads may have worked in the eighteenth century it would hold us back greatly in the modern era.
I am not a supporter of government for the sake of government but I do think that the citizens may choose to wisely use it to promote the general welfare.
I do have an ideology and religious faith that calls on me to look out for the poor and unfortunate. Were this completely attainable without government involvement, fine, and I do my share of volunteerism, but when the reality is a choice between human suffering versus what I hardly feel is an unbearable level of taxation, I sometimes choose the latter. Many social welfare programs are wasteful and unnecessary, but I look at them in terms of practical impact and not ideology.
Of course citizens can and do support private initiatives to fund health care for the uninsured, but the reality is that this does not carry the mail. If you are 50 years old and a diabetic, you can't afford and may not even be able to get health insurance, and if you are working in a low paying job, health care is beyond your reach.
So, the question is, do we value our freedom from taxes, so much that we let people potentially die from treatable illnesse.
The constitution ensures our liberty in a way that I am sure both of us support. We would both be opposed to any curtailment of our freedom of speech, religion, press, etc.
I do not see any mention of freedom from taxation in the bill of rights, and I just do not feel tyrannized by being taxed at a level which still allows me to live well beyond my needs, and enjoy the freedoms and safety of this great country, and yes, know that we are doing something for the less fortunate amongst us.
Comment by yonkel | June 9, 2008