beastie wrote:
There are some very fundamental differences between the liberal and conservative mind. Conservatives tend to be more authoritarian and value tradition and purity more than liberals. Liberals tend to be more open-minded to new ideas.
This is not intellectually serious analysis but the same old, threadbare, self-serving leftist tropes about the differences between the Left and the Right that the Left, which has dominated cultural and political discourse for so long, has been able to set as the default received wisdom among primarily themselves.
If you want a philosophically serious discussion of these differences, we can have that, but this book is probably not a good place to start.
In the first place as both present, recent, and two centuries of history tell us, leftists, collectively speaking, are the most dogmatic, reactionary, closed-minded absolutists among the human family. The "new ideas" they are "open to" - socialism, eugenics, the sexual revolution, the welfare state etc. - always end with human debasement, deterioration, and, in a number of cases, catastrophe, but all these historical realities ever do is make the Left dig in its heels ever deeper, shout down alternative theories/ideas ever louder, and continue with the same policies with ever greater fervor and reach.
Conservatives emphasize the fairness of avoiding free-riders. This is why, despite the fact that a very small minority of people who pay no federal income tax are able-body adults who just don’t work, Republicans usually focus on that small minority, rather than focusing on the majority who do work, are students, the aged, soldiers, or disabled. We saw this in Romney’s 47% remark, which although he, for political expediency, tried to distance himself from, apparently accurately reflected his views on the subject, as adduced from his later remarks. And, of course, we have our own local conservatives who also demonstrate this tendency on this board.
The focus of the 47% remark, however ham-fisted Romney was with it, was not on the small sub-set of the total 47% who, for whatever reasons, don't work at all, nor was it about soldiers, the aged, or the disabled (where to got this from I have no idea). It was about a huge group of Americans, now nearly equal in size to those who produce wealth, that either pay no federal income tax, or pay income tax/payroll tax but receive more in government benefits/gratuities than they pay in supportive taxes, and this also includes the entrenched welfare underclass.
We are fast becoming a nation that has decoupled economic independence and reward from work and in which a clear majority will have no more incentive or personal interest in limited, clearly restricted government.
Liberals emphasize fairness in a different way. Liberals know that there may be a minority of free-riders, but view that as an acceptable cost in order to help those whom our capitalist society would leave aside.
1 Liberals emphasize enforced leveling of material/social condition between human beings in the name of their core value, equality (in a literal, existential sense as reflected in actual economic conditions).
2. Notice the personification of "society" in this statement, and the claim that this entity called "capitalist society" does things to other people, like "leave" them behind. This is quite
de rigueur on the Left, and bespeaks the bulk of the ideological iceberg below the surface.
It’s not “fair” that our capitalist society so heavily rewards some while at the same time heavily punishes others, often through no fault of their own.
Again, an entity or personified abstraction called "capitalist society" is determining the fate or place of individual humans within its precincts. "It" rewards some and "punishes" others. "It" chooses, discriminates, and determines. This entity is "fair" or "unfair."
In actuality, what determines the general course of a person's life, in a free, open, democratic republic grounded in a relatively unhampered market economy are a number of key factors and variables in complex interaction, not an abstract theoretical structure termed "society," and not "capitalism," which is a fiction created by Marx and his later disciples that has no relation to actually existing liberal democratic, free-market societies.
"Society" does not reward or "punish" anyone. The market - about 300,000,000 individual people - who, excluding very small children (but not excluding their wants and needs), choose, discriminate, compare, contrast, sift, calculate, and decide what to buy - and what not to buy - in what quantities and variation, on a day to day basis, is that which determines, over time, what businesses thrive, which thrive only modestly, which are marginal, and which goods, commodities, and services disappear.
This is the great quandary and trade-off the concept of liberty presents, and why the Left disdains and despises it so deeply.
Further, the concept of "fairness" within an open, rule of law based free-market social order is nebulous. It has no logical or rational initial state or basis of comparison with that which is "unfair," and hence must always be essentially arbitrary. Its historic use as a populist club to incite and fan the flames of class war sentiment is its only real value, and that is political, not in any serious sense, philosophical.
One important reason why some are so heavily benefited by capitalism is because we have worked together to create a society in which capitalist ventures can succeed in the first place.
Let's be a bit more specific and precise: free-market economic relations work because of the constitutional guarantees of the rule of law, equality under the law, the right to life, liberty, and property; freedom of association, speech, press, and political activity, and the substantive restrictions on government intervention in most areas of human life.
It is ordered liberty - individual freedom, property rights, the rule of law, and protection from arbitrary government control and confiscation of property - that make "capitalism" work.
So
our society, as a whole, did contribute to the circumstance which allowed some to be so heavily rewarded. No. Individuals (like Thomas Edison), free to think, work, create, and prosper, contributed to the overall material wealth of society in concert with others also motivated to improve their own condition and that of others through the creation of wealth. Government provides the overall societal infrastructure - individual, unalienable rights, a vast field of liberty in which to develop and expand one's talents and abilities; a strictly limited government with clearly enumerated powers; the rule of law, a system of civil and criminal courts etc., but the free individual, in free concert and contractual relationships with other free individuals, creates all the actual net wealth existent within that society.
"Society" created nothing. Collective abstractions create nothing.
It’s “fair”, because of that, to help those who, through no fault of their own, will never be in such a situation.
1. No. The poor should be helped not because of the theoretical abstractions of "fair" and "unfair," but because they are our brothers and sisters, human beings, and we are to do unto them as we would do unto ourselves.
2. Who are you to say any particular person will never rise from poverty and want? This is among the classic symptoms of the mindset common to the
Anointed; the Platonic parent who makes grand, sweeping pronouncements about "society" and various individuals or groups of individual within it, and then proposes grand, sweeping "solutions" to the problems of the human condition, seeking to "change the world."
This is the problem we face.
While liberals would rather there be no “free-rider” problem, liberals don’t view it as a sufficient cause to discard the whole system of social aide to the needy.
I don't know any conservative who has ever argued for anything like this.
Instead, liberals would prefer to address individual free-riders rather than punish the whole. (Of course, that requires adequate social-service staffing, which in the age of constant cut-backs, can’t happen.)
The nation is broke, has been flat broke for many, many years, and is moving on to $17 trillion in debt that will, at the end of this decade, become over $26 trillion (which is only a fraction of the actual unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Secuirty etc.). Prepare for far, far worse.
My personal experience helps me understand this problem. For almost thirty years, I have worked with children who struggle with reading. They are often, but not always, from underprivileged households, with parents who had similar struggles in school and have limited education. There are environmental reasons for these struggles, but I also suspect biological forces are at play. Some of these children have been tested for learning disabilities and are labeled “slow learners”. What this means is that there is no discrepancy between ability and achievement which would result in a “learning disabled” label, and that the child’s IQ is in what we call the “borderline” range. The child’s IQ is not low enough to qualify as intellectually handicapped and the child can take care of him or herself, but the IQ is in the very lowest range right above intellectually handicapped. These are children who can learn, but learn at a much slower pace and need more repetition. They will likely always struggle with higher-level reasoning, and most likely would not be able to succeed in a college setting.
There is no magic wand that increases these children’s IQ when they become adults. We, as a society, seem able to recognize that some children are not able to achieve like others due to no fault of their own. It’s not due to laziness or lack of effort or care. It’s that they did not happen to be born with the “right” brain, in terms of being better equipped to succeed in a competitive society. So what do we expect happens to these children when they become adults?
In the past, these individuals had more hope of providing a decent level of support for any family they may have had by going into manual labor or manufacturing. However, those jobs have been disappearing. There just aren’t enough of them to go around. It doesn’t look like this situation is going to change anytime in the near future. So these people end up in low-paying service sector jobs. They are without health insurance, and often cannot pay their basic bills. In turn, their children are often not given the same advantages as children in higher-income families, and often start kindergarten already behind their peers. The cycle continues.
So what is “fair”?
Is this a question of economics, ethics, or cosmic justice?
To the conservative, if government provides health care and/or financial aid to these people, those people are now “takers”, “free-riders”. The conservative has worked hard for his/her money, and if these people were just willing to work as hard, they wouldn’t need help.
This is yet another two dimensional slapstick cartoon of conservatism, which demonstrates conclusively, to my mind, that Beastie has never read a single serious conservative book or magazine article in her life, listened to a single conservative talk show host for five minutes, or perused a single conservative think tank or blog. Children with low IQs? Learning disabilities? Slow minded people with low skills? So here Beastie tries valiantly to resurrect the old social Darwinist smear against modern conservatives instead of having a serious debate.
Well, bring it on (want manufacturing back in America? Cut corporate and personal income tax rates
severely, abolish the capital gains tax, the dividend tax, and the death tax. Struggle for serious tort reform and reign in and substantially dismantle the suffocating, extra-constitutional regulatory state, its extra-constitutional law making powers, and especially the EPA and other agencies dealing with environmental regulation, which are the most destructive and business hostile of them all. It'll come back in very short order).
To the liberal, it’s fair that those that have more than they need...
1. Who determines this? What is the conceptual baseline? Based upon what criteria? Is this compatible with the constitution?
2. No one is "asked to help." Wealth is confiscated by force on penalty of punitive sanction.
In my experience, most low-income workers do actually work quite hard.
Yes, I have.
Many of them work two part-time jobs, or a full-time and part-time job.
Yes, I have.
They often work in arduous, stressful settings for little pay and little respect.
"Tell it like it is, preacher!"
They often have to move around a lot because they get behind on their rent. This, in turn, negatively affects their children.
I know.
If we lived in a world where all human beings were born with equal ability and opportunities, maybe the “free rider” aversion would resonate with me more than it does now.
Its not about free riders; its about liberty, freedom, the rule of law, and an economically and morally viable society governed by an economically and morally viable state.
