I’ve been reading about economics. My original goal was to be able to discuss economics intelligently, but I am failing miserably and I remain confused. I’m pretty sure I understand the meaning of most of the words, but the econo-speak is apparently a dialect that is beyond my comprehension. I think reading economics is like going to an all-night root canal.
Despite my confusion, I have learned a few things. First and foremost, my lifelong faith in capitalism appears to have been well founded. Milton Friedman (he is definitely my favorite economist) sees a free market as the foundation of capitalism and democracy. Even I get the free market thing.
Here’s how it works: I go to the hardware store and I give the clerk money in exchange for a new drill. The hardware store and I both get what we want. I get the drill and they get the money, and we are both satisfied with the deal. If I think the hardware store is charging too much for the drill, I am free to look for a better deal at countless other hardware stores, which doesn’t bother any of the hardware stores, because there are countless other customers who are also looking for a drill. There are only a few requirements for this free market trade to work. First, both me and the store must be free to do or refuse the deal – no one is coercing either of us – and both of us must have other options, i.e., there are other stores and other customers. Oh, yeah, and we need the government to furnish pieces of paper (money) which we all agree to treat as “legal tender”. That’s it. Except for the money, government is out of the picture.
That’s how the free market is supposed to work, in theory - the government has no power to control any part of the deal. Reality, however, turns out to be much more complicated. The free market is really a simple system, but it has been all bollixed up, mostly by the government. In what I choose to believe is an honest effort to “protect” us, the government has inserted the most complex set of regulations imaginable. Just to name a few: OSHA regulations to protect workers; EPA regulations to protect us and the environment; health, liability, and other insurance requirements to protect us from insurance companies; EEO and other labor regulations to protect us from employers; FDA regulations to protect us from nature and mistakes; dozens of licenses and permits to protect us from each other when we seek to construct, open, and operate businesses; and, of course, unemployment, worker’s comp, payroll, income, sales, telephone, excise, electrical, capital gains, real estate, gasoline, and who knows what other taxes to pay for all the government protection. Every one of these regulations is coercive of either me or the store. Individually, none of them may seem too big a problem, but taken together they overwhelm that first principle of free trade – that neither party is coerced.
A retail business falls under the purview of hundreds, if not thousands, of regulations, all of which are coercive to some degree. By the way, most of those regulations also involve fees or costs which are passed on to the customer. Absent the government, that drill would have cost me a lot less than $260. Oh, yeah, add union contracts and negotiations, consumer safety investigations, the ACLU, class-action trial lawyers, and judges who continually bend and distort the Constitution, and I should be grateful the drill didn’t cost $500!
We didn’t always have all those regulations. However well-intentioned, many regulations are based on the outrageous assumption that Americans are too dumb or lazy to take care of themselves. The purveyors of the regulations never acknowledge this assumption, of course. They may not even be aware of it, but it underlies most of the government’s efforts to “protect us”. In fact, free market forces (if you sell a lousy product, people will stop buying it) and/or individual judgment, provide adequate protection. Nowadays, every time someone gets hurt or buys a defective product we pass a new regulation to “protect” everyone else. The government never considers the negative regulatory impacts: increased taxes, increased costs of products and services, government control of our lives, loss of individual choice, loss of freedom, and God only knows what else. Government can’t seem to resist imposing a 100% solution to every little 10% problem. No doubt some of us are dumb and lazy, but most of us get up every morning and go to work, out of which emerges the strongest and most productive economy on earth. Believe it or not, my progressive friends, we really can take care of ourselves.
Americans thrive in the free market. It is government control that stifles our economy. Even though it is impeded and endangered by increasing government intervention, our free market is still hanging on. Whether we call it capitalism, private enterprise, the free market, or we don’t have a clue what it is called, most of us love it.
But, as the old saying goes, “freedom is not free”. There is no guarantee that our market will remain free. There are many among us who would sacrifice our free market in the name of “fairness” or “equality”. Our Constitution guarantees equality, but it is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. It does not entitle us to anything - it sets us free to achieve in accordance with our innate talents and willingness to work hard. Our Declaration of Independence proclaims that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are rights given to us by God, not the government. Our Constitution specifically limits the powers of the government and places the power in the hands of the governed – us. It protects us from interference by too much government. In many other countries, the government is in control and it is the power of the people that is limited. And here’s the really scary part: every new government regulation takes a little more power away from the people and increases the power of the government. With every new regulation, we get less freedom and more government.
By their very nature, all governments are inclined to grow. Not all of them are threatening or dangerous, but they all have the potential to become so. Nonetheless, we can’t do away with government. Some small, limited government is necessary and beneficial. We need some government to do those things that are impractical for free enterprise and individuals to do, and to protect us from those who would force us to do things we don’t want to do; but, the government should not protect us from ourselves and it definitely should not interfere with the free market. Above all, remember that only we, the people, can prevent limited government from growing into big government and taking over.
Furthermore, it must be the right type of government. The free market only works in a democracy wherein the power of the government is subject to the will of the governed. The people must ensure that the government remains limited and small, less it gain so much power that it is no longer subject to our control. At this very moment, our government has grown so much that it is poised to wrest control away from us. Our Constitution limits the size and power of our government, but the Constitution has been thwarted by guess who – the government and its progressive friends.
My little study of economics has taught me that the free market (capitalism) is messy and often unfair, but it is free, and it works better than any other economic system ever conceived. No one forces you to buy or sell anything. The free market encourages personal responsibility, achievement in accordance with our own talents and willingness to work hard, and cooperation with others – sounds great to me.
28 September 2010
10 September 2010
Government III: Racism in America
First the disclosures: I am white, male, protestant, American, and my politics are libertarian. That alone brands me as a racist in the eyes of some people, and that is sort of the point of this essay. Also, please note that although many minorities, racial or otherwise, are subject to discrimination, this discussion is limited to racism against black people. Finally, some of you will probably object that I do not use the term “African-American”. I don’t like the term because any hyphenated modifier in front of “American” suggests to me that the person is somehow not a complete American. We are all Americans, just plain Americans, no hyphenations required or desired.
My first experience with actual racism came in 1961 when I left my home town in Maine for the University of North Carolina. The university had peacefully integrated several years before I arrived, but segregated toilets, water fountains, doctors’ offices, etc. were not uncommon in the surrounding communities, and the civil rights movement was in high gear all around us. When I could catch a ride, I liked to go and watch the civil rights demonstrations – it was history in the making and I wanted to see it (in retrospect, I’m ashamed that I didn’t actually participate, but that’s the topic of another essay). Like many of my classmates, I was a strong supporter of civil rights and the Kennedy/Johnson “great society”. My friends and I thought that poverty would soon be a thing of the past, and our grandchildren wouldn’t have a clue about race, because by then so much intermarriage would have taken place that everyone’s skin would be shades of tan. Sadly, the racial harmony we envisioned remains elusive.
The extensive and wide ranging civil rights legislation enacted in the late 1960s provides ample proof that the civil rights movement was largely successful. By the end of the 1960s, white Americans were mostly on board the integration train (still are). A majority of American white people, including southerners, thought that America was well rid of racial discrimination and the Jim Crow South. Ok, there were still plenty of northern and southern white folks who would have strongly disagreed with that contention, but their numbers were shrinking. Schools, public facilities, college dormitories and other formerly white enclaves were well on their way to being integrated, and many businesses and agencies were also on board. Yet, here we are, 40 years later, and we still have inner city black ghettos with a high drop-out rate, a huge percentage of young black women that are poverty stricken single mothers, and black kids joining gangs and then going to prison. So, what happened?
Few would disagree that the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prime factor in the derailing of the integration train. Most of us were shocked and saddened by the murder of Dr. King, but black people were devastated, demoralized, and furious. Make no mistake, black people were justified in being furious, but I think that Dr. King, the purveyor of peaceful resistance, would have tried to quell the anger and replace it with a measured response. Instead, the immense void created by his loss was filled with an emerging breed of angry, bitter, hate-filled black leaders, and it was they who changed the course of the civil rights movement in America.
Men like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Eldridge Cleaver, to mention only a few, led the civil rights movement away from integration and chose instead “black power”. That term is rarely used today, but the devastating effects of the black power movement still pervade. Black power sought to discard the racial harmony that Dr. King had so painfully struggled to develop, and instead celebrated racial discord. Instead of striving to integrate into America’s proverbial “melting pot”, black people were urged to segregate themselves. Many black civil rights groups no longer welcomed white people, universities formed Black Student Unions who insisted on black dormitories – even the Congress formed a Black Caucus. This was and continues to be segregation, prompted not by whites, but by the black leadership.
Look at where it has led. Although many black families have comfortably melded into middle class America, the press and media are still rife with problems in black communities, particularly in the inner cities. Black children learn early to distrust and not to associate with whites, to dismiss school as a “white thing”, to flunk and drop out, and to speak in ghetto dialects; black parenthood is displaced by gang loyalty; black people hurl racial epithets like “honkey” and “whitey” at white people and call each other “niggers”; black rap music is filled with vile racial slurs, is horribly demeaning to black women, and provokes violence and criminal behavior. And the results: a huge and growing percentage of poverty stricken single black mothers, growing ghetto slums, a burgeoning number of black prisoners, and increasingly insular segregation of black communities.
Furthermore, black leaders continue to exacerbate the problems by convincing black people they are victims who deserve to be “taken care of”. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Andrew Young, Jeremiah Wright and other so called “civil rights” leaders, continually extol the plight of black people as victims. They are quick to play the race card and seek every opportunity to identify so-called “victimization” of black people. Much of the loudest victim rhetoric comes from black Christian clergy, some of whom even preach the poisonous hatred called “black liberation theology”. They are too busy casting blame on white people and America to preach the actual Christian message of reconciliation. And many progressive white people are complicit. At every turn, well meaning progressive black leaders are abetted by well meaning progressive whites, all of whom are dedicated to “taking care of the disadvantaged” – terribly misdirected good intentions.
Enough! Poor people of any color do not need to be taken care of! They simply need to be given the means to escape their poverty. They need encouragement, exhortation, education, and, yes, a little help. But they need a hand up not a hand out. They need to learn to stand on their own two feet, to accept personal responsibility for their lives, and to take care of themselves and their families. Instead of supporting generational welfare and warehousing of black families in public housing, why don’t black and white leaders try to motivate poor black people to get an education and escape the ghetto? Some will claim the government is already doing that with its financial assistance and support for schools and teachers in black neighborhoods. But throwing more money at the problem is not the solution. Good schools and teachers are necessary but far from sufficient.
How about reaching out to the kids themselves? How about fostering a sense of dignity and personal pride by celebrating individual effort and the accomplishments of the many black people who have worked their way out of poverty and joined the American dream? How about successful black leaders acting as real role models and teaching black kids what they have to do to get out of the ghetto: stay in school, learn to speak proper English, don’t join a gang, dress appropriately for work, and don’t have children until you get married. Convince the kids that, if they do these things, they will be able to get a job and advance like anyone else. Why not reassure them that America is ready and willing to accept them as it has so many others? Why not prosecute so-called “gangsta rap” musicians and record labels for race crimes and inciting violence? Try walking up to a cop and calling him vile names or walking into a public building and exhorting people to rape women and shoot cops – you’ll soon get a close up view of a cell. Yet many rappers get away with doing those things every day, and kids idolize them. Worse, today’s black leadership condones destructive gansta rap and blames the disintegration of black communities on an “uncaring America”. Oh, and let’s not forget the progressive white people who extol the virtues of “black music and black culture”, and encourage more government expenditures, all in an effort to appease the “white guilt” that racks their souls. Oh, please! Will we ever stop flailing ourselves and end this madness?
For the first time in history, America has a black President and a unique opportunity to deal with this seemingly intractable mess. President Obama once semi-jokingly said, “... the brothers got to pull their pants up.” I beg him to do much more. I beg him to look at black youth and say, “Look at me, at Oprah, at Clarence Thomas, at Bill Cosby, at Denzel Washington, at Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, at Condoleezza Rice, and look at the black doctors and lawyers and tradespersons and businesspersons and countless other successful black people – look at the way we speak and dress and interact with others of all races. We achieved success in America, and you can do it too. Boys, pull up your pants, lose the ghetto/gang dialect, work hard, get an education, and you will be able to compete in the American workplace. Get a good job, then find a nice girl, get married, learn to be a good husband and father, and raise a family. Girls, learn to speak and dress properly, stay in school, don’t have kids before you’re married, don’t get married until you’re 21, get a job with a future, and aspire to greatness for yourself and your children.” That’s what we need to hear from black musicians, sports figures, entertainers, movie stars, clergy, and politicians. They need to lead their people out of poverty and into the most productive, successful, and open society on earth: America. They need to celebrate, not blame, America.
Instead, the progressive left cries for ever more government intervention. Government is not the answer, folks. It wasn’t in the 60s and it isn’t now. We don’t need more government. We need real leadership. We don’t need to take care of poor people - we need to teach them to take care of themselves. Individual pride will trump government largess every time.
Look, I know it’s not that easy. There are huge hurdles to overcome, and cultural shifts are extremely difficult to accomplish. Some will properly and proudly argue that inner city blacks have a right to their form of English, and a right to dress in accordance with their own cultural norms. Fair enough, but the cost of exerting those rights is painfully high. You certainly have a right to speak ghetto/gang dialect, dress like a gangsta, and tattoo and pierce your body to your heart’s content. But you cannot do those things and get a good job with the prospect of advancement. Like it or not, workplaces have their own cultural norms. They cater to the expectations of their customers, clients, patients – whomever they service, serve, or sell to. Virtually all organizations and businesses have dress and behavioral codes. There are few good jobs available to someone who looks and sounds like a gang member. President Obama and Oprah dress and speak like most Americans. There’s a reason.
Changing black cultural norms will not be easy, but it has to start somewhere - if not with black leaders, especially the President, then who?
My first experience with actual racism came in 1961 when I left my home town in Maine for the University of North Carolina. The university had peacefully integrated several years before I arrived, but segregated toilets, water fountains, doctors’ offices, etc. were not uncommon in the surrounding communities, and the civil rights movement was in high gear all around us. When I could catch a ride, I liked to go and watch the civil rights demonstrations – it was history in the making and I wanted to see it (in retrospect, I’m ashamed that I didn’t actually participate, but that’s the topic of another essay). Like many of my classmates, I was a strong supporter of civil rights and the Kennedy/Johnson “great society”. My friends and I thought that poverty would soon be a thing of the past, and our grandchildren wouldn’t have a clue about race, because by then so much intermarriage would have taken place that everyone’s skin would be shades of tan. Sadly, the racial harmony we envisioned remains elusive.
The extensive and wide ranging civil rights legislation enacted in the late 1960s provides ample proof that the civil rights movement was largely successful. By the end of the 1960s, white Americans were mostly on board the integration train (still are). A majority of American white people, including southerners, thought that America was well rid of racial discrimination and the Jim Crow South. Ok, there were still plenty of northern and southern white folks who would have strongly disagreed with that contention, but their numbers were shrinking. Schools, public facilities, college dormitories and other formerly white enclaves were well on their way to being integrated, and many businesses and agencies were also on board. Yet, here we are, 40 years later, and we still have inner city black ghettos with a high drop-out rate, a huge percentage of young black women that are poverty stricken single mothers, and black kids joining gangs and then going to prison. So, what happened?
Few would disagree that the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prime factor in the derailing of the integration train. Most of us were shocked and saddened by the murder of Dr. King, but black people were devastated, demoralized, and furious. Make no mistake, black people were justified in being furious, but I think that Dr. King, the purveyor of peaceful resistance, would have tried to quell the anger and replace it with a measured response. Instead, the immense void created by his loss was filled with an emerging breed of angry, bitter, hate-filled black leaders, and it was they who changed the course of the civil rights movement in America.
Men like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Eldridge Cleaver, to mention only a few, led the civil rights movement away from integration and chose instead “black power”. That term is rarely used today, but the devastating effects of the black power movement still pervade. Black power sought to discard the racial harmony that Dr. King had so painfully struggled to develop, and instead celebrated racial discord. Instead of striving to integrate into America’s proverbial “melting pot”, black people were urged to segregate themselves. Many black civil rights groups no longer welcomed white people, universities formed Black Student Unions who insisted on black dormitories – even the Congress formed a Black Caucus. This was and continues to be segregation, prompted not by whites, but by the black leadership.
Look at where it has led. Although many black families have comfortably melded into middle class America, the press and media are still rife with problems in black communities, particularly in the inner cities. Black children learn early to distrust and not to associate with whites, to dismiss school as a “white thing”, to flunk and drop out, and to speak in ghetto dialects; black parenthood is displaced by gang loyalty; black people hurl racial epithets like “honkey” and “whitey” at white people and call each other “niggers”; black rap music is filled with vile racial slurs, is horribly demeaning to black women, and provokes violence and criminal behavior. And the results: a huge and growing percentage of poverty stricken single black mothers, growing ghetto slums, a burgeoning number of black prisoners, and increasingly insular segregation of black communities.
Furthermore, black leaders continue to exacerbate the problems by convincing black people they are victims who deserve to be “taken care of”. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Andrew Young, Jeremiah Wright and other so called “civil rights” leaders, continually extol the plight of black people as victims. They are quick to play the race card and seek every opportunity to identify so-called “victimization” of black people. Much of the loudest victim rhetoric comes from black Christian clergy, some of whom even preach the poisonous hatred called “black liberation theology”. They are too busy casting blame on white people and America to preach the actual Christian message of reconciliation. And many progressive white people are complicit. At every turn, well meaning progressive black leaders are abetted by well meaning progressive whites, all of whom are dedicated to “taking care of the disadvantaged” – terribly misdirected good intentions.
Enough! Poor people of any color do not need to be taken care of! They simply need to be given the means to escape their poverty. They need encouragement, exhortation, education, and, yes, a little help. But they need a hand up not a hand out. They need to learn to stand on their own two feet, to accept personal responsibility for their lives, and to take care of themselves and their families. Instead of supporting generational welfare and warehousing of black families in public housing, why don’t black and white leaders try to motivate poor black people to get an education and escape the ghetto? Some will claim the government is already doing that with its financial assistance and support for schools and teachers in black neighborhoods. But throwing more money at the problem is not the solution. Good schools and teachers are necessary but far from sufficient.
How about reaching out to the kids themselves? How about fostering a sense of dignity and personal pride by celebrating individual effort and the accomplishments of the many black people who have worked their way out of poverty and joined the American dream? How about successful black leaders acting as real role models and teaching black kids what they have to do to get out of the ghetto: stay in school, learn to speak proper English, don’t join a gang, dress appropriately for work, and don’t have children until you get married. Convince the kids that, if they do these things, they will be able to get a job and advance like anyone else. Why not reassure them that America is ready and willing to accept them as it has so many others? Why not prosecute so-called “gangsta rap” musicians and record labels for race crimes and inciting violence? Try walking up to a cop and calling him vile names or walking into a public building and exhorting people to rape women and shoot cops – you’ll soon get a close up view of a cell. Yet many rappers get away with doing those things every day, and kids idolize them. Worse, today’s black leadership condones destructive gansta rap and blames the disintegration of black communities on an “uncaring America”. Oh, and let’s not forget the progressive white people who extol the virtues of “black music and black culture”, and encourage more government expenditures, all in an effort to appease the “white guilt” that racks their souls. Oh, please! Will we ever stop flailing ourselves and end this madness?
For the first time in history, America has a black President and a unique opportunity to deal with this seemingly intractable mess. President Obama once semi-jokingly said, “... the brothers got to pull their pants up.” I beg him to do much more. I beg him to look at black youth and say, “Look at me, at Oprah, at Clarence Thomas, at Bill Cosby, at Denzel Washington, at Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, at Condoleezza Rice, and look at the black doctors and lawyers and tradespersons and businesspersons and countless other successful black people – look at the way we speak and dress and interact with others of all races. We achieved success in America, and you can do it too. Boys, pull up your pants, lose the ghetto/gang dialect, work hard, get an education, and you will be able to compete in the American workplace. Get a good job, then find a nice girl, get married, learn to be a good husband and father, and raise a family. Girls, learn to speak and dress properly, stay in school, don’t have kids before you’re married, don’t get married until you’re 21, get a job with a future, and aspire to greatness for yourself and your children.” That’s what we need to hear from black musicians, sports figures, entertainers, movie stars, clergy, and politicians. They need to lead their people out of poverty and into the most productive, successful, and open society on earth: America. They need to celebrate, not blame, America.
Instead, the progressive left cries for ever more government intervention. Government is not the answer, folks. It wasn’t in the 60s and it isn’t now. We don’t need more government. We need real leadership. We don’t need to take care of poor people - we need to teach them to take care of themselves. Individual pride will trump government largess every time.
Look, I know it’s not that easy. There are huge hurdles to overcome, and cultural shifts are extremely difficult to accomplish. Some will properly and proudly argue that inner city blacks have a right to their form of English, and a right to dress in accordance with their own cultural norms. Fair enough, but the cost of exerting those rights is painfully high. You certainly have a right to speak ghetto/gang dialect, dress like a gangsta, and tattoo and pierce your body to your heart’s content. But you cannot do those things and get a good job with the prospect of advancement. Like it or not, workplaces have their own cultural norms. They cater to the expectations of their customers, clients, patients – whomever they service, serve, or sell to. Virtually all organizations and businesses have dress and behavioral codes. There are few good jobs available to someone who looks and sounds like a gang member. President Obama and Oprah dress and speak like most Americans. There’s a reason.
Changing black cultural norms will not be easy, but it has to start somewhere - if not with black leaders, especially the President, then who?
06 September 2010
Government II: Names
This is the second in a series of essays on government.
No reasonable person wants to abolish the government. We need some government in order to function as a civilized society - some problems can only be addressed by government. Consequently, we must let government stick its nose under the great tent of freedom, but I caution that a voracious beast lurks behind that innocent looking nose. The struggle to limit government’s size, scope, and power will never end. Our founding fathers knew that. They wisely created America with a small, limited government whose power was severely restricted, but they were wary of their own creation and feared its powers would expand. Sure enough, during the 230 intervening years, the founders’ worst nightmare has been realized. We have managed to ignore their wise counsel and allowed our government to evolve into a powerful giant bureaucracy that intrudes into every aspect of our lives. Whereas our initial limited government was run by “citizen-politicians” who answered their country’s call, today’s big government is run by professional politicians and bureaucrats. These “officials”, particularly the elected ones, often portray themselves as altruistic beneficent managers, but their actual behavior more closely resembles rulers who govern the masses. Fortunately, they are not fooling very many of us, as indicated by the polls that consistently show how much we dislike and distrust them (more on that later). We are all too familiar with big government officials, whether elected or appointed, who adopt an attitude of superiority and even antagonism toward those who pay their salaries.
Government, by its very nature, divides the population into two groups: the government and the governed - those that run the government and those that are run by the government. Today’s big government officials and advocates (especially academics) typically think of themselves as well-educated, intelligent, and intellectual - the best and the brightest. Given their sense of self-importance and the government’s great power, it is not surprising that big government officials and advocates have increasingly assumed the role of rulers or the “governing class”. Many of them believe in “statism”, a belief that sovereignty lies not with individuals but with the government, and that everyone should subordinate themselves to the needs of the state – statism, socialism ... whatever. But rarely does the media or the press refer to big government advocates as rulers, or intellectuals, or statists, or any of the other terms mentioned above. The big government advocates, including the media and the press, are careful not to use any terms that might suggest they are immodest or arrogant or power-hungry. Instead, they camouflage their actual self images by publicly referring to themselves as optimistic, open minded, and forward thinking liberals or progressives or secularists. The heart of the matter is that, no matter whether they think of themselves as the governing class, rulers, well-educated, intellectuals, best and brightest, statists, socialists, liberals, progressives, or secularists, most advocates of big government see themselves in the top echelons of the big government movement – sort of big government aristocrats. Perhaps they should be called “progressive aristocracy”.
Going back to polls, one important question begs to be addressed: if big government officials do so poorly in the polls, how do big government politicians get elected? By promising free benefits, entitlements, and other goodies. This is the time honored way that progressive politicians garner votes and support, especially from the poor, the unfortunate, and the needy - those at the lower end of the economic scale. To further cement the deal, progressives preach that the only recourse for these “victims” of “forces beyond their control” is to be “taken care of” by government largess (which the progressives of course promise to generously dole out). These promises are not always duplicitous. Many progressives honestly believe that common folks really are victims who are unable to properly care for themselves. The not-so-subtle subtext of this “victim” rhetoric is that, were we not so ignorant and poorly informed, we would all be grateful to be led and cared for by intellectually superior progressives. Listen carefully. Can you hear the unspoken corollary: that we are too dumb and lazy to care for ourselves? In any case, by continually reminding them they are victims, progressive politicians always appeal to the poor. Here’s a radical notion: instead of victimizing them, how about motivating the poor to get an education and escape the ghetto? How about fostering in the poor a sense of dignity and personal pride in their own abilities? How about celebrating the accomplishments of the many that have worked their way out of poverty? How about celebrities (starting with the President) acting like role models instead of saviors?
Another major progressive constituency is Unions. Progressive politicians easily gain Union support by pitting them against their “greedy capitalist employers”, and promising special favors. Consider, for example, the nationalization of GM which ended up with Unions owning 35% of the company they were instrumental in driving into bankruptcy, or Obama-care wherein the Union “cadillac plans” received special treatment.
And how about the other end of the social scale: cosmopolitan urbanites, the press, the media, entertainers and academia – natural progressive constituencies. Who among them would not wish to be seen as intellectually superior, the brightest and the best – selfless, altruistic caretakers of the poor and the oppressed?
Thusly the poor, Unions, and elitists become the three main constituencies of progressive big government politicians.
And what of those of us who prefer limited government, how are we called? Well, based on the fact that progressives see themselves as better educated and more intelligent, that must mean they see us as poorly-educated and less intelligent. We continually hear progressive leaders characterizing their opponents as uninformed or “not getting it” or even as rednecks, hillbillies, hicks, and fly-over people. Sarah Palin and her Tea Party supporters are commonly demonized as angry mobs, racists, subversives, and just plain dumb.
More objectively, those of us outside the progressive aristocracy could accurately be described as the “governed”, or the “ruled class”, and in the case of the poor, the “underclass”. On another note, consider that any country must produce food and other goods and services in order to sustain itself, and, since big government is busy ruling and expanding, all the food, goods, and services must be produced by those that are governed. Therefore, we, the governed, could also be called the “productive class”. So, if we, the governed, are the productive class, I guess that would make those that run the government the “unproductive class” or the “non-producing” class.
In the remaining essays in this series, I’ll use “progressives” for the lovers of big government, and “productive class” for those of us who prefer private enterprise and individual freedom.
The saga continues with Government III: Racism in America
No reasonable person wants to abolish the government. We need some government in order to function as a civilized society - some problems can only be addressed by government. Consequently, we must let government stick its nose under the great tent of freedom, but I caution that a voracious beast lurks behind that innocent looking nose. The struggle to limit government’s size, scope, and power will never end. Our founding fathers knew that. They wisely created America with a small, limited government whose power was severely restricted, but they were wary of their own creation and feared its powers would expand. Sure enough, during the 230 intervening years, the founders’ worst nightmare has been realized. We have managed to ignore their wise counsel and allowed our government to evolve into a powerful giant bureaucracy that intrudes into every aspect of our lives. Whereas our initial limited government was run by “citizen-politicians” who answered their country’s call, today’s big government is run by professional politicians and bureaucrats. These “officials”, particularly the elected ones, often portray themselves as altruistic beneficent managers, but their actual behavior more closely resembles rulers who govern the masses. Fortunately, they are not fooling very many of us, as indicated by the polls that consistently show how much we dislike and distrust them (more on that later). We are all too familiar with big government officials, whether elected or appointed, who adopt an attitude of superiority and even antagonism toward those who pay their salaries.
Government, by its very nature, divides the population into two groups: the government and the governed - those that run the government and those that are run by the government. Today’s big government officials and advocates (especially academics) typically think of themselves as well-educated, intelligent, and intellectual - the best and the brightest. Given their sense of self-importance and the government’s great power, it is not surprising that big government officials and advocates have increasingly assumed the role of rulers or the “governing class”. Many of them believe in “statism”, a belief that sovereignty lies not with individuals but with the government, and that everyone should subordinate themselves to the needs of the state – statism, socialism ... whatever. But rarely does the media or the press refer to big government advocates as rulers, or intellectuals, or statists, or any of the other terms mentioned above. The big government advocates, including the media and the press, are careful not to use any terms that might suggest they are immodest or arrogant or power-hungry. Instead, they camouflage their actual self images by publicly referring to themselves as optimistic, open minded, and forward thinking liberals or progressives or secularists. The heart of the matter is that, no matter whether they think of themselves as the governing class, rulers, well-educated, intellectuals, best and brightest, statists, socialists, liberals, progressives, or secularists, most advocates of big government see themselves in the top echelons of the big government movement – sort of big government aristocrats. Perhaps they should be called “progressive aristocracy”.
Going back to polls, one important question begs to be addressed: if big government officials do so poorly in the polls, how do big government politicians get elected? By promising free benefits, entitlements, and other goodies. This is the time honored way that progressive politicians garner votes and support, especially from the poor, the unfortunate, and the needy - those at the lower end of the economic scale. To further cement the deal, progressives preach that the only recourse for these “victims” of “forces beyond their control” is to be “taken care of” by government largess (which the progressives of course promise to generously dole out). These promises are not always duplicitous. Many progressives honestly believe that common folks really are victims who are unable to properly care for themselves. The not-so-subtle subtext of this “victim” rhetoric is that, were we not so ignorant and poorly informed, we would all be grateful to be led and cared for by intellectually superior progressives. Listen carefully. Can you hear the unspoken corollary: that we are too dumb and lazy to care for ourselves? In any case, by continually reminding them they are victims, progressive politicians always appeal to the poor. Here’s a radical notion: instead of victimizing them, how about motivating the poor to get an education and escape the ghetto? How about fostering in the poor a sense of dignity and personal pride in their own abilities? How about celebrating the accomplishments of the many that have worked their way out of poverty? How about celebrities (starting with the President) acting like role models instead of saviors?
Another major progressive constituency is Unions. Progressive politicians easily gain Union support by pitting them against their “greedy capitalist employers”, and promising special favors. Consider, for example, the nationalization of GM which ended up with Unions owning 35% of the company they were instrumental in driving into bankruptcy, or Obama-care wherein the Union “cadillac plans” received special treatment.
And how about the other end of the social scale: cosmopolitan urbanites, the press, the media, entertainers and academia – natural progressive constituencies. Who among them would not wish to be seen as intellectually superior, the brightest and the best – selfless, altruistic caretakers of the poor and the oppressed?
Thusly the poor, Unions, and elitists become the three main constituencies of progressive big government politicians.
And what of those of us who prefer limited government, how are we called? Well, based on the fact that progressives see themselves as better educated and more intelligent, that must mean they see us as poorly-educated and less intelligent. We continually hear progressive leaders characterizing their opponents as uninformed or “not getting it” or even as rednecks, hillbillies, hicks, and fly-over people. Sarah Palin and her Tea Party supporters are commonly demonized as angry mobs, racists, subversives, and just plain dumb.
More objectively, those of us outside the progressive aristocracy could accurately be described as the “governed”, or the “ruled class”, and in the case of the poor, the “underclass”. On another note, consider that any country must produce food and other goods and services in order to sustain itself, and, since big government is busy ruling and expanding, all the food, goods, and services must be produced by those that are governed. Therefore, we, the governed, could also be called the “productive class”. So, if we, the governed, are the productive class, I guess that would make those that run the government the “unproductive class” or the “non-producing” class.
In the remaining essays in this series, I’ll use “progressives” for the lovers of big government, and “productive class” for those of us who prefer private enterprise and individual freedom.
The saga continues with Government III: Racism in America
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