I'm a Republican, and it's my fault. My most grievous fault. Mea maxima culpa. Now, then, and in advance.
Picking through the MSMspeak auspices of my LA Times (one must learn how to read the entrails of his newspaper), I discover/divine that budget cuts are being thwarted by the smaller number of GOP "wobblies" and those from heavily Democratic districts. And, it should be needless to say, every single Democrat.
Of course the GOP as a whole is blamed. Even in the Times' headline and in the lede itself. (Duh.) Some things will never change. Perhaps it's original sin or the Mark of Cain, but it's not exactly media bias (altho every little bit helps):
When the Democrats shut down the government in 1990, demanding more taxes to maintain spending, it was the GOP's fault. GHWBush gave in, and read my lips on this, it cost him the 1992 election.
When Newt Gingrich shut down the government in 1995 over spending, it was the GOP's fault. Bill Clinton hung tough, and that helped him toward his 1996 re-election victory.
Spending wins, but even more precisely, opposing spending cuts is a winner.
Fact is, if the Democrats wanted spending tamed (or illegal immigration for that matter), it would already be so. The threat of their demagoguery hangs like a veritable Sword of Damocles over the GOP pols, who are learning to like being the majority party.
But there's a structural weakness in being an anti-government party that finds itself in charge of the government: The GOP gets credit neither for cutting spending nor for increasing it.
Now, the Democrats have the same problem on foreign policy, where they are the anti-government party. The impotence of the Carter and Clinton administrations was palpable and near-disastrous, and each time ushered in a Republican. But Democrats enjoy a structural advantage: when (and if, ever again) they are remotely credible on national security, their home field advantage on domestic policy will take home all the marbles.
Progressivism in domestic policy is enticing; things can always get better. Wi-fi for the disadvantaged, geez, why not? Anyone who can promise cost-effective dental care for stray dogs has our complete attention. Or if anyone can promise to ease the plight of the poor, boy, we feel good about voting for that, too. We see poor people everyday, and not just on TV. Somebody ought to do something, even if it only requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part. Everybody knows that it's the Democrats who are just the guys to do it.
22 comments:
Tom, I have to disagree on something here. The failure of the GOP during the Bush years has been that it should have had the votes AND the off-year political opportunities to cut spending and hang tough. They forced Clinton into signing the welfare bill (that was a stupendous success) and they could have done more of the same with all three branches. Good grief, Clinton almost nationalized health care. You'd think we could engage in a bit of belt-tightening, particularly given the dot.com spending orgy based on swollen tax revenues.
I hear you, HB, but the article indicates that it's just the type of soggy Republican that Stephen Moore's Club For Growth targets who is holding up the show.
I hate demanding ideological purity from anyone in our big-tent coalition, but it seems that by refusing to hang together, our soggies are ensuring that we will hang separately. Although they may save their own rubbery necks. ;-)
(I hope you'll entertain the "structural" riff a little, which was triggered by your original post. At least a cup of coffee, maybe some Danish...)
I'm a big fan of the Club, though I don't understand why they dumped Steve Moore. The problem with these soggy GOP dorks is that they entertain the stupidity of the bell curve as it relates to American politics. The essential thinking is that if a conservative is good, a watery conservative should be super popular. Idiots. If that were the case, why did Ronald Reagan do what a Gerald Ford or even a Nixon never could? If there is a bell curve in American politics, then Reagan put that sucker on his back and moved it to the right.
We're all willing to spend for things that we think are important, it's the spending for what the other guys want we hate.
This is certainly true...but what's interesting about the left is that when they want to spend, they demand everyone spend with them. The gov't is their great charity with this really cool ability to force the rest of us to chip in too. And because this 'charity' doesn't have to prove itself worthy in order to receive funding, it's effectiveness and efficiency suffer incredibly.
I've always found it interesting that the people that demand higher taxes never seem to chip in to this charity voluntarily on their own (in fact, many hire professionals to look for ways to minimize their taxes). They demand support for their cause, then sneak off to minimize their level of participation.
What a bizarre form of charity.
Connie, I believe Stephen was spamming our comments section, looking to co-opt our readership. His windy and boilerplate post has nothing to do with the topic.
This even happens with some of our regulars, who hijack our comments threads to spew on subjects of their own interest instead of ours.
I see there's nothing I can do to get you to prove your slanders of Strauss or Straussians for that matter; they're just gonna keep on coming regardless.
The source is one Shadia Drury, an obscure Canadian philosophy prof, and the calumny has been widely popularized by followers of Lyndon Larouche. You are eyebrow-deep in the fever swamp.
I have to take issue with this. I consider a lot of the military spending to be "charity" to Lockheed, Boeing, etc.
There's certainly an element of life support there, similar to what most state DOT's do with their roadwork projects. But you can't argue that these are at least core gov't functions (unlike wealth redistribution programs) that have little if no chance of being handled in the private sector. But let's imagine the alternative to using Lockheed...we would have a giant military/public works department...and all of a sudden, Lockheed starts looking like a real bargain.
Connie, I don't believe I've said that social programs serve no purpose, but they're not core responsibilities of gov't.
And so, to the extent that gov't goes beyond throwing 'a few bones' to the poor and we start identifying wealth redistribution rights, I find the method of liberal charity somewhat odd.
My uncle had the chance to take many classes with proteges of Leo Strauss when he was Claremont-McKenna. Many of the professors at Claremont's political science and government department in the sixties and seventies were former proteges of Strauss. My uncle said, and I quote, "I have never heard a more cynical, pathological, and utilitarian impression of human nature than I heard from these men." It's pretty black-and-white in the writings of Straussians like Irving Kristol, too.
Connie, what years were you at Claremont? You might know my uncle or my aunt. That would be weird.
Matt, it's interesting that you would say that. Studies have shown that areas with higher "wealth redistribution" - i.e. social welfare - also have higher levels of charitable giving. Studies also show that charities are no more efficient or effective than government programs.
"...throwing some bones to the poor may be necessary to keep them from revolting against you."
Yes, Connie. I was trying to reconcile the Enlightenment priority of "the relief of man's estate" with Mr. Karnick's definition of classical liberalism as the pursuit of both liberty and order.
You have done so, reconciling relief with order, at least in the lingua franca of our age, utilitarianism.
As for Strauss, you must look to Plato. Socrates' affair with the truth is a suicide pact. That is seen as fine and noble, but truth does not require one to turn himself into cannon fodder before the savage arms of popular prejudice.
This is where Drury misunderstands Strauss, because she herself is of the leftist elite who call the rest of us poor stooges mindless sheep, then wonder why it never fosters good.
Because good and truth are not identical, and neither are always beautiful.
Those who do not understand this lump those three in along with nobility, and use the concepts interchangably, as Drury and I suppose Claremont sophomores do.
But Strauss is not Machiavelli. In fact, he calls him a "teacher of evil."
Although Machiavelli has never been refuted, impotent moralizing aside. ;-)
We are actually agreeing, Connie. I do not consider myself a member of the rightist elite either, and I think neither do my fellows. We take great pains to convince instead of condemn, I think. (And it's often painful, lemme tellya.)
Even Machiavelli had a soft spot. He believed a prince had a noble end in mind, the good of his people; but his experience had taught him that in observing the niceties of means, nice guys finish last. Usually dead.
I appreciate you using the vocabulary of utilitarianism on your point about the poor. We God-influnced classical liberals use it too, because it is the common language in our post-Enlightenment age. We speak Straussian when we're in secret conference.
But we help the poor because "it's the right thing to do" as well. But why it's the right thing to do is unanswered by modern philosophy. (Machiavelli is the father of modern philosophy, y'know, untethered by all that Bible mumbo-jumbo.)
The brave and hapless Immanuel Kant (who I think was a secret Aquinian) notwithstanding.
(You were echoing Kant in your defense of truthtelling as a necessary moral habit, BTW, as well as in his concept of sharing the full truth, out of egalitarian respect and trust in one's fellow man. I've been meaning to pass along my compliments on that.
I do think if Kant would have gone into politics, he'd have ended up dead, and therein lies the rub.)
I'm not talking in circles at all, Connie, but I am trying to indicate the depth of Strauss' thought, and why shallow critics like Shadia Drury confuse it for endorsing "lying."
Matt, it's interesting that you would say that. Studies have shown that areas with higher "wealth redistribution" - i.e. social welfare - also have higher levels of charitable giving.
I'm not sure how this is relevant to my point. I'm not saying that taxation for social welfare is wrong because it 'steals' money from charities (although I believe it does). I just have always found the rationale for me to tell you how much you must to give to a my charity somewhat odd. I suspect the libs do too, which is why we keep discovering new 'rights' all the time.
Studies also show that charities are no more efficient or effective than government programs.
On a side note, if true, this really would have potential to change some of my thinking. But I have to admit that I have some real skepticism about what types of groups are being compared here.
In the Straussian world, it might be fair to say that one is not responsible for purifying every prejudice of the populace in order to act. Harry Jaffa (the head Claremont Straussian) reflects on Lincoln making certain statements along the lines of that although he wanted to free the Negro, he would not insist on social equality.
These statements may have represented Lincoln's actual thinking, but what if he were "lying" so he could get elected and end slavery? It's quite clear that the moral absolutism of abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison wasn't getting anywhere.
Now, I don't even know how I feel about that scenario myself, or if I would do what Lincoln putatatively did, but my moral uncertainty would extend far enough that I could not condemn him.
(BTW, in the Strauss world, philosophers do not wish to rule. Philosophy is the best life.)
Well, Connie, looks like you were a few years behind my uncle. He was already at Harvard Divinity and then Stanford Law. I think my aunt was out of Pitzer and at Stanford by then, too. That would have been weird if you'd met either of them.
My uncle took a number of classes with Jaffa and found him to be utterly insane.
First your uncle goes to divinity school then law school? Sounds like quite an interesting fellow himself.
You're supposed to do it the other way around, eh, Hunter?
What can I say? I've yet to see you prove it.
I've sought out the proof myself and not found it.
Hey Tom, I haven't done divinity school yet. I'm in a religion/politics Ph.D. right now, but after law school I was petitioning for divinity school and the wife wouldn't entertain it. I'll fit it in before I'm done, though!
Of this I have no doubt, but I've already begun thinking of you as The Divine Mr. B.
Connie, from your example
If Lincoln had run on a platform supporting slavery and then tried to free the slaves, that would be lying. It might even be noble, but then he no doubt would not ever be re-elected.
I conclude that you would see such nobility as an unconscionable violation of "process."
Interesting in its own right, but I believe you substituted primary colors for Jaffa's more subtly pigmented proposal.
You're asking for dogma. Sorry, no can do. I have not proposed diversions; these are classic illustrations that people still wrestle with, where Sunday school morality shows itself to be inadequate.
I haven't said I don't find any truth in what you claim. I'm wondering if examined more closely, whether you still can. If you're to dispense these claims, and you do, they should be tested.
Would I say there were WMDs when I knew there weren't any, in order to war on Saddam? No. Would I lie to halt the Holocaust? If it would save a single life.
Would I lie in court to save you from going to jail for twenty years for a couple of joints?
Yes, I would, Connie. I sure would. Screw "process." I am a man, and the state does not own my conscience.
I assume that your justification for 'Screw process' is that the bigger lie (the process) does not have grounds to morally press on you to conform.
My dad used to make the following analogy: If the Nazi's come to your door and ask, "Are there any Jews in your house?", how can you respond truthfully? He would say that the real question was "Are there any Jews in your house that we can kill?"...and the truthfull answer to that is "No".
Matt, that's a brilliant line from your father. I'm tucking that one away for use later. Hopefully not in the context in which you made your point, though.
"Are there any Jews in your house that we can kill?"
Matt's dad's answer is pretty much what I was taught in Catholic moral theology. Many people look at this like some sort of Jesuitical trick. (These are people who think 'Jesuitical trick' is a insult.... personally I think Jesuits are cool.) It's a sin to tell a lie because a lie offends against what we owe our fellow humans. You're not just allowed, but required, to use your intelligence to understand what question is really being asked. The priest who instructed me for reception into the church phrased the Nazi's question as: "Are there any subhuman beings whose destruction is necessary for the good of mankind hiding in your basement?" And as Matt's dad said, you truthfully say no.
I've heard objections that this confers blanket permission to lie whenever you want to. I might take this more seriously if the objection weren't usually raised by people who also claim the Pope makes you park your brain at the church door.
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