January 4, 2006
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Topic: Liberal means open-minded
I popped into B&N briefly today, and my eye caught a book titled, “Why Jews shouldn’t be liberal,” or something to that extent. This book attracted me for a couple of reasons, one being my need to read criticisms of liberals, and the other being my curiosity as to why a Jew would argue for other Jews to oppose liberal politics. Christians you hear about all the time on the news, and for the most part they succeed in coming off close-minded and angry, but a Jew?
As it turns out, Jews and Christians have many things in common besides the Old Testament. The first few pages I read were a good look inside the thoughts of a conservative. I find myself stopping and criticizing less, although still reading with a critical eye. For example, I was struck by the almost fanatic worship of free-market capitalism that was celbrated by the author. I was also struck, although not surprised, by the vicious language used to attack liberals. It made me ask the question, “Can a person accuse another of being arrogant, without then being arrogant themselves?”
I think the author had some ok points about society, but the way in which he begins with the presumption that all things conservative/libertarian are right, and then builds evidence around that, is what struck me most. Certainly, liberals are guilty of that as well. Guilty of worshiping blindly to theories and philosophies, making it nearly impossible to see the realites of society.
For example, conservatives tend to view “government as the problem.” When the government takes money from people in the form of taxes, and spends that money in its budget, freedom has been destroyed. That I believe to be an essential factor in conservative thought. Private property, which includes the money we make, should under no circumstances be “stolen” from us.
So…conservatives start with a philosohpy which they hold to be true, and argue from there. All government programs are bad, because in order for the government to pay for government programs, they need to first rob people of their property. This is inherently unfair.
What liberals fail to realize, about conservatives, is that their views on politics stem from this particular philosophy. Ultimately, understanding is more important than lashing out. I had a 45-min. conversation w/ a conservative co-worker that never would have got off the ground if I had dug my heels in the sand when he argued that welfare and tax money for public schools was wasteful.
Speaking of education (you knew i’d change the subject), my co-worker was arguing how it was unfair to have to pay such high tuition, when the actual education that comes from tuition is such a small percentage of what is paid. “Why should i have to pay for a psychologist who probably gets paid $80,000 just to help females with their issues? Why should i have to pay for a sports stadium that i never step foot in?” I found his concerns interesting. I believe there is a lot of waste in education…Wash U would plant and re-plant flowers every month and go overboard for parents weekend, and the business school had flat-screen tv’s that showed images of campus, a complete waste of cash in my eyes. Yet, my friend’s comments made me see another philosophical difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals see community where conservatives don’t. Liberals see money spent on others as important because those others are part of the community, whether a college community, or the US community. If a conservative is not interested in being taxed so that some poor person can have food stamps, then that’s the very reason that we need to tax. Because clearly people in this country are self-interested (which is not a problem in itself), but that self-interest does not take care of our nation’s poor. Rather, we require the gov’t to come in and take a bit from everyone, “for the good of the community.”
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t be skeptical of government. This shouldn’t say we shouldn’t be skeptical of the poor. “Why should I have to support a woman who irresponsibly had 5 kids?” That’s a genuine concern. “Why should I be taxed higher because I busted my ass off to get a high paying job?” That’s also a genuine concern.
I ran into a girl at Wash U. last year, and during a discussion about higher education, I came a cross a new viewpoint, a conservative viewpoint. “Why is it my problem if college kids are lazy? Why should I be penalized by having some of my tuition money go towards extra programs or counseling for these people? Why should I be sympathetic towards them when I grew up with nothing, and had to scrape my way to get where I am today?”
This conversation was truly eye-opening, as it made me realize part of the ideological gap between conservatives and liberals. This girl was absolutely right to feel that her hard work should be rewarded, but what I had a hard time demonstrating to her was how she would benefit if those less hard-working students were assisted, even if it meant taking some time or resources away from her. I told her we don’t need to necessarily sympathize or coddle those students who waste their time in school, just as we shouldn’t nurse the poor. But to show disdain towards these people is equally irresponsible.
Another difference between ideologies that’s come up continues on this idea of responsibility. When people fail to succeed, conservatives blame only the individual, while liberals are open to the idea that society played a role. “With hard work and a little luck…” a conservative might say.
And it’s true. Countless poor people have succeeded in this country. In the worst schools, students can still access any book they want from the free public libraries, and learn to their hearts content. “Success is a choice.” In a way, I respect the conservative line there.
But…I believe the differences between conservatives and liberals also is that liberals see individual cases, whereas conservatives might only see genearlities. “Poor people are poor because they’re lazy,” vs. “This poor person grew up in a single-parent household to an illiterate mother in a crime-ridden neighborhood.” In the liberal mind, society plays a key rold in determining who will succeed in life, and therefor it is sometimes necessary to use gov’t to interfere with society in order to remedy things.
Many conservatives also have a longing for the past. What was in 1776, is what should be in 2006. A conservaitve might site what happened 230 years ago as our country was founded, in order to make a point about life today. “Our founding fathers did not say anywhere in the Constitution that our purpose as a nation was to help the poor.” In fact, the founding fathers had no objections to slavery either. Many conservatives argue for the written word of the law, holding that higher than any modern interpretation of the relationship between law and society.
To me, politics isn’t all that complicated. Help me to fill in any blanks, but there’s really only 2 pieces to politics. There’s the issue of taxes and budgets, and the issue of legislation. The difference between the US and Canada and the UK and Venezuela and China, politically speaking, are the differences in how much the gov’t taxes its people, in what way it taxes its people, and how those taxes are spent. Its also the difference between what is allowed, and what is not allowed within a society. Can gays marry? How are business regulated? How are criminals tried?
And as people, we must never forget about the 4th arm of the gov’t, beyond the judicial, congressinal, and executive…the way in which we as individuals have any idea about what’s going on and are able to have discussions about politics. The media. Is the media “free?” Who owns the media? Who does the media serve? Which biases are included and which biases are left out of the media?
My co-worker made a comment about how futile it is to discuss politics, except for entertainment purposes. And I believe he’s largely right. Our form of democracy as it stands today is stacked against the will of the people. The media we receive is over-sensationalized and driven by corporate agendas, working against efforts to attract people into taking an active role in making change in society.
But…i may have struck a chord w/ my conservative friend. He was going on about, “I have no control of the gov’t, my vote doesn’t count, and at the end of the day, I’m always going to have to pay 30% or more of my paycheck to Uncle Sam for services that don’t affect my life. I work my job, and take care of my family. Isn’t that enough?”
And I thought of my friend who got arrested in DC the other week for an act of civil disobedience, protesting against the House and Senate budget cuts. And I told this story to my friend and I think it struck a chord. “Our elected officials are about to cut food-stamps to thousands of poor people.” I actually haven’t read all that much about poverty issues, but when it came down to the nitty gritty policies of food and shelter that people need, it was hard for my conservative friend (whose mom was the youngest of 9 and was briefly on welfare herself) to agree with the cuts.
Yet…on the flip side, I continue to see the conservative argument. “How hard is it to get by in this country by working min. wage, if you spend responsibly?” I have a copy of “Nicke & Dimed” at home, which I need to read and start sharing with people…because I believe the big problem in politics and society, really, is how little we know and understand one another, in particular, those within this community of America who we never even see or talk to. What is life like really for those who are the beneficiaries of gov’t spending?
The point of this post, was hopefully to demonstrate the need to understand one another, liberals and conservatives alike, we need to bring an open-mind and healthy skepticism to the table, and to recognize that besides science, there may be no absolutes in this world. (i had an interesting discussion w/ my minister-to-be friend about god, and came up w/ the argument that if god existed and could affect the non-science world, meaning there was a supernatural relationship between god and society whereby we aren’t alone, than it’s only logical to believe that tom. gravity won’t exist because science is just a by-product of god…ugh, been too long since i’ve thought about that topic).
Anyways…discuss. What do you think?
Comments (9)
Hey Dan! Sweet! I will get you the dates for sure. I don’t have them written down in my calendar at the moment, but it will be around the 16 of April I believe, and will be for about a week. It would be cool to meet up or something. I will be there for a conference, so I won’t have a whole lot of time to enjoy the city, but we can work something out. I have met a couple people myself off of here. It’s kind of fun to finally meet in person isn’t it?
And I love the question that you pose, “Can a person accuse another person of being arrogant without being arrogant themeselves?” Such a good question. I am still mulling it over.
Yes, read Nickle and Dimed. That book shows just how hard it is to survive on what is supposed to be a “living wage.”
I think it’s easy for people who have never been there to say that success is all about hard work and a little luck. It’s easy to say that when good fortune or opportunity has been handed to you on a silver plate, but what about those that work day in and day out at jobs that involve hard physical labor, danger and lack of job security and demeaning themselves with little compensation or benefits such as good health insurance for their families? In the end, what it comes down to is that those people live on the edge more than we realize, where one catastrophe, such as the injury of a wage-earner, the illness of a child, or a house fire might be something which will take years to recover from. That’s one thing that being on a Disaster Action Team and helping victims of residential fires will teach you real quick.
I heard survivors of Katrina say, well we lost everything but at least we have each other and we can rebuild. Very true and a testament to the human spirit, but what about those who were living precariously and lost everything? It’s going to take them years to recover, if they ever do. I guess my point is we need to be sympathetic to those worse off them than us, because tomorrow we could be in their position through no fault of our own.
I think we’re way too individualistic a society. We’re all in this together and we all need to think of each other, not just ourselves and how to get ahead. It’s not a matter of hand-outs or charity but a matter of realizing that it could be you next time.
~Bethany
Bethany,
Thanks for your comments, i think you helped me clear up in my head my thoughts on poverty, and how to think about poverty. People “living on the edge” as you put it, one accident from falling off. Interesting article in the Times today, in the main section, about a Republican representative from N.O. who is pushing for a large federal gov’t effort to help pay-off mortage payments for those who have had their homes destroyed. I think that demonstrated what I’ve been thinking recently, that the role of the gov’t is to be available to help those who are most in need of help. This Republican, who has made a career by fighting for a philosophy of minimal gov’t, finally came across a situation where gov’t was needed to do what the private-sector and what the free-market could not. In time, some conservatives may look-back and criticize this gov’t intervention, just as people look back at FDR and criticize his new deal for interfering with the free-market, but, clearly, when you see someone drowning, you go in and save them.
There was another Republican who was somewhat critical of the call for gov’t to help N.O. His main concern was that tax-payers in the future would end up paying unecessarily for some of these gov’t recovery programs. And I think it’s important for everyone to have that conservative mindset, that we shouldn’t be wasteful w/ taxpayer money. But, I am beginning to see another difference between conservatives and liberals. In this case, conservatives feel that a great injustice is done when an individual has been taxed (although we’re all taxed, and life goes on, and we survive despite the inconvenience), while liberals see the injustice or the hardships that truly face people. Someone can’t afford food or housing, that’s a hardship. A hard-working upper class suburbanite being required to give up some of his income, is annoying, inconvenient, and perhaps philosophically objectionable, but there really is no comparison between the hardships of the poor and the “hardships” of a middle-upper class taxpayer.
-dan
I will be there for the United Nations Conference. Pretty intense.
But yes, coffe shops are always good. I have seen the big things in New York. I want to find the tucked away places. 
are either liberals or conservatives behaving as their dogma and beliefs tell them they should behave and stand for? Or are they so lost in the lust for power? Because if they are out for power then their agendas help no one. Do you see the Federal government helping people in any form besides the legal standards that they have been eroding?…
“Do you see the Federal government helping people in any form besides the legal standards that they have been eroding?…”
without knowing too much about these programs, i’ll still go ahead and assume that the federal gov’t is doing a great deal towards funding programs for the poor, so that they may eat, have housing, get training for jobs, and a host of other services. As far as eroding legal standards, i’m assuming you’re referring to the legal standards of privacy protection? This isn’t 100% my view, but i’ll argue that the gov’t is helping people by using their resources to hopefully learn about future 9/11′s. Obviously, it’s not legal standards that matters, but how the law relates and affects members of society. Maybe I haven’t read enough cases of innocent people being taken away and tortured, but I equally haven’t read, or heard people talking about, cases of the gov’t taking action to prevent future terrorist attacks (likely because national security w/ regards to terrorist attacks does require some amount of secrecy).
There are enough generalizations in this broad post to float a battleship.
First, you may have confused conservatives with right-wing Republicans (or perhaps the media confused them, and you just followed suit). The two are not synonymous. Additionally, the world isn’t quite as polar as you paint it.
I think one thing you’ve tried to index here is the relationship between money and compassion, and it seems you’ve assigned a relative quality to those two entities. As in: “People with more money have less compassion.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
Government programs may be a primary source of income for many below the poverty line, but they are far from the only aid available to the needy. Hundreds of thousands of charities exist for the sole purpose of helping the underprivileged.
Your friend who doesn’t like paying for the university sports complex and psychologists does have a choice in the matter…matriculate somewhere else. Access to an institution requires one to play by that institution’s rules.
“Poor people are poor because they’re lazy,” vs. “This poor person grew up in a single-parent household to an illiterate mother in a crime-ridden neighborhood.” ~~ This is a valid argument for a person being a victim of their surroundings … until any one person in that same setting overcomes their oppressive environment and achieves something more affluent. Barring mental retardation or birth defects, most people are born with the same capacity for learning. Granted, it must be exponentially harder to garner a quality education from PS-109 than from Ivy Wood Finishing School. In the land of opportunity, there are always alternatives. Last time I heard, the Army was clamoring for recruits, and willing to put young people through college in the process. Blaming one’s surrounding for one’s position in life is like blaming a car for an auto accident. To imply that everyone in the projects is doomed to poverty and failure because of their surroundings is a stereotype and a disservice. The notion that a child raised by a single parent is certain to be poor is equally ludicrous.
It seems lately, very few people are willing to take personal responsibility for their own actions (or inactions) and the inevitable repercussions in their lives. It is always the fault of someone or something else.
And welfare, the “cure” for the poor, has perpetuated more poverty than it alleviates. Hell, I wouldn’t work either if someone were willing to give me a handout greater than what I was capable of earning.
I’d like to comment more (and may at a later time), but it took me a half hour to read and digest all that is written here. Like money, time is another of life’s resources that must be budgeted.
i’ve come to love metaphors…because you can be so creative with them, because it helps us look at the issue from another angle, and because any person’s metaphor can quickly be flipped on its head, and then re-flipped upright. kregg had a good one:
“Blaming one’s surrounding for one’s position in life is like blaming a car for an auto accident.”
To quickly address the metaphor, and to show how it is appropriate to blame one’s surroundings for one’s position in life, try comparing driving a Ford Pinto vs. a car like a Volvo. Ford Pinto being the car the would virtually explode on impact if rear-ended, and the Volvo being considered a safe-family car of today. The driver is not the only one in control of the car. The driver is affected by the quality and safety of the car, as well as the drivers and cars on the road around them. Driving through parts of South Africa, there’s a possibility of someone driving you off the road, holding a knife to your throat, and taking your car. Do you blame the individual in this case, or the environment? The individual driving a car is also affected by the level of instruction they received. Were they given enough experience before being sent off onto a highway alone?
So…there’s 1000′s of factors that affect an individual (or a driver), that go beyond the individual themselves. To address the metaphor one last time:
“Blaming one’s surroundin’s for one’s position in life is exactly like blaming a car in an auto accident!”
This comment was regarding the issue of how the environment of poverty affects poor people. My current thinking is that the environment of poverty hinders, though does not prevent, the prospect of rising above the duldrums (ultimately…ideas of success and other measurements of life are relative throughout time and culture…but here i choose to discuss this issue within the generally accepted standards of what consitutes a satisfactory level of living…vague for now, but will work on that later). Anyways…I believe that environment, which includes physical and social factors, has a significant influence on human development. I accept Kregg’s claims that most people have relatively equal capacities to learn and achieve (although that’s likely a false generalization about mental capacity), however, social factors vary widely. The reason that well-off suburban white kids can go on to “do well” in life, at a higher rate than urban minorities, is likely due to those external factors. The issue is not black and white, and certainly there are cases of kids rising out of the duldrums to do amazing things, but my concern is with the odds. The odds of success are different for people of different socio-economic status.
I’ve been having this conversation with myself the past 24hrs. about the role of money in society. Is money a pre-requisitie for “success.” (success in quotes because of its relativism, until i come up w/ an appropriate definition definition). After all, there were people who went through the Holocaust who still managed to maintain a positive outlook on life, and there’s kids in run-down African townships who spend their days singing with joy, and there’s kids in rich suburban neighborhoods who are burdened by social pressures and depression and suicidal thoughts. So…why even stress over politics, budgests, and “helping” the poor?
Let me take a step back…I believe society can objectively improve over time in two ways. The first way is increasing life span, which is occuring today through improved medicine and knowledge of health. And the second way is to improve the “quality of life.” Addressing the qualityf of life issue will require looking deeper into our culture, and seeing what role gov’t plays in this.
Through the private sector, people are able to work together to attempt to improve the quality of lives of other people. This is done through charities and volunteerism, as well as through the work of social workers, pyscyologists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and virtually any number of professions, including plumbers, carpenters, entertainers (athletes, movie stars, musicians, etc) mechanics, waiters, etc. These people do work that serves to improve the lives of other human beings.
Now…we need to tackle the idea of those of low income, who are not able to benefit from many of those goods and services that are being exchanged between people. Those who have less options for the kind of work they will do, the kind of school they will attend, the kind of food they will eat, the kind of homes they will live in, and most importantly in my eyes, the kind of leisure they will partake in.
I also want to offer the idea that the poor are at a psychological disadvantage to the rich, in terms of attaining a quality of life that is available to people with money. I’m not necessarily saying the poor should be given money so they can experience what it’s like to watch a sporting event from a luxury box, or to fly first class to spend a week on a Carribean island (although…ideally, all people would be able to enjoy the riches that life has to offer). But…the poor should have the same opportunities to the environmental factors that allow for financial success, which allows for the opportunities to choose in which way a person would like to find quality in life. (remember, rich people can live modestly, or give to charity, too. But poor people can also spend time with family or playing in their neighborhood).
The issue that I have for rich and poor alike, and which I will likely make the focus of my future writings, are those environmental factors, for the rich and poor, that contribute to poor mental health. Weather it is the unnecessary social pressures and mindless priorities of the middle-class, or the crime-infested, overcrowded, dirty, uninspiring neighborhoods of the lower-class. Perhaps the issues for the poor can only be done w/ the support of the government…but ultimately, improving quality of life for our society crosses both class and race.
What do you think?