So Matthew Vadum has a problem with the idea of people working to help the poor to vote. He carries on at great length about the evils of Welfare, and as most Professional Conservatives like to do, he invokes the Founding Fathers as some sort of quasi deities.
For some time now, it has been very popular on the Right to suggest, both directly and indirectly, that some people are more worthy of the right to vote than others. In times past this idea was propagated against African Americans in forms such as poll taxes, and on the spot literacy tests. Today the idea is applied more broadly against anyone who is poor or Working Class through ridiculously strict voter identification laws, or in some cases campaigns of outright disinformation about when polls are open, where one is to vote etc.
This all seems to stem from a problem that many in the Professional Right seem have around accepting a very simple, irreversible fact.
This is not the 1700's. Nor is it the 1800's. And for over a decade now it's also not been the 1900's. In fact right now, at this very moment (you may want to brace yourself) it is the year Two Thousand and Eleven.
In the last nearly three hundred years, we have seen incredible changes to the way life is lived, both in the world in general, and the United States of America in specific.
The Founders, were a great many things. Some were visionaries, some were more on the order of small minded politicos. But even the best of them were products of their time. They tended to be inherently racist, sexist, and to a great extent classist. Most of them could not quite envision a world where a woman, a black man, or even a non land owner was really their equal. So in the beginning voting rights were held to be for a very, very few.
This was in an age where it was much more likely that if one were able bodied, male and white, that one would indeed hold at least a bit of property.
The founders were also generally against the Federal Government being in the business of taking care of the indigent. But this was in a time when for many people their entire world was most likely the township where they were born. There were local organs of charity, and because the scale was small it was usually easy to meet peoples needs.
But then came industrialization, and mechanization. More and more people, many of them immigrants, some of them women, went to work in factories. In short things changed.
Now the founders, whatever their flaws may have been, had a singular genius seldom seen before them, as regards one very particular part of the creation of the Government of The United States of America. They recognized that the challenges the people of the United States and their government would face in the 1700's, would most likely not be the exact same challenges that people would face in centuries yet to come. So they crafted a Constitution that was a dynamic and changeable document, and they created a system whereby the Constitution was meant to be interpreted and reinterpreted down through the years to meet the challenges of today, rather than to try and force society to fit itself into the patterns of ages gone bye.
This brings us to today. An age in which, excepting those serving time for being convicted of a crime, everyone age eighteen or older is eligible to register and vote.
But Matthew Vadum, doesn't seem to like that idea. He seems to wish that the poor wouldn't exercise that right. And he especially seems to wish that no one would help them to do so. His reason for this? Well it largely seems to boil down to hating the idea that the poor might vote in line with their own self interest. This strikes me as more than a bit hypocritical since that is exactly everyone else does with their vote, especially the very rich.
But here's something to consider, the idea that there is more than one kind of self interest. There is direct self interest, and there is indirect self interest.
Direct self interest, is, quite literally, seeking to vote for candidates and measures, that only directly benefit oneself or people like oneself. This is what many of the top twenty percent, who hold roughly eighty five percent of the wealth, tend to do. This leads to measures like privatization of pretty much everything including education, policing, healthcare etc. It also tends to lead to opposition to measures that would regulate pollution, food safety, and a great many other things that the rich are insulated from having to worry about thanks to their wealth.
Indirect self interest, is a great deal more complex. It is based on the notion, that that which benefits the greatest number directly, will ultimately benefit me indirectly, even if I am not also benefited directly as well. Take for example public education. Even if I were able to send my child to a private school, it would still benefit me to pay my taxes, and to have those taxes go towards robust public schools offering a well rounded education, because it would mean that the people going to such schools would come out of them better people, more likely to feel a sense of responsibility to the welfare of their community, and their country. Plus, such people would make better employees, and would require less training.
The same idea is at the heart of things like welfare, or jobs programs. If the people around me have at best gainful, (ideally meaningful) employment, and at worst at least have their basic needs to food, shelter, and healthcare met, then I am at a lessened risk to be the victim of a crime by someone who is jobless and hungry. If I pay my taxes I am helping to subsidize a public police force, which, while it benefits people who aren't me, it also means that I do not have to pay for a cadre of private security forces to stand around and wait for an attack on my person or property that may never come.
Ultimately it's a question of what kind of society do we want to be? A "Me" society, or a "We" society?
It seems to me that every time we have tried to turn this country into a survival of the fittest, I've got mine and devil take the hindmost, kind of zero sum game, we have been stricken with things like the Great Depression in the 1930's, and the current Neo-Depression we are enduring now. It is at times like this that many who once thought themselves insulated from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune discover just how wrong they were.
It is only when we decide that the only moral choice is to make certain that all people regardless of situation have lives of reasonable quality and unassailable dignity that we see the kind of amazing progress on all fronts that we enjoyed throughout the 1960's and into the 70's, especially technological and social. And it is the only way that we are going to have any hope of creating a new golden age of peace and prosperity for all.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
(This article originally appeared at The One About...)