In my previous three diaries I examined Ayn Rand's Objectivistic philosophical views of individual rights, government and capitalism. While Paul Ryan, a Tea Party leader reportedly regards Ayn Rand as "the reason I got into public service", it has become increasingly apparent to me that Ryan was not referring to Rand's defense of individual rights nor to the role of government in protecting those rights. He was evidently referring to her valuing of capitalism, in particular laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., a system in which the owners of industry and business dictate the rules of competition, the conditions of labor, the cost and safety of products and services, the negative effects of their activities on the environment and on public health, etc. as they please, without government regulation or control.
According to The Right Post (http://www.rightpost.com/...),
the main goal of the Tea Party movement is to change the institution of the federal government to the effect that American’s freedoms are restored to the ideals of the founding fathers. These ideas include:
- Low taxes
- Dramatically smaller government with a much reduced role
- Substantially less central government (Washington)
and a preference for states rights
- More individual freedom
- Free market prosperity
The majority of these ideas are consistent with the idea of laissez-faire capitalism.
The parts of Ayn Rand's philosophy regarding human rights and government, however, are inconsistent with laissez-faire. I will explain why I think that below the swivel. I think it is important to thoroughly understand why some people want to "shrink" and disempower the Federal Government and what effects that will have on individual rights and on the Common Good.
The Right of Life=the Right to Health
The basis of the ethics of objectivism is expressed by Ayn Rand as
An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil.
Related to that is her assertion that the one fundamental right possessed inalienably by all of us is the right to his/her own life. All other rights are the consequences or corollaries of the right to one's own life. She asserts that all rights are possessed by all people at all times and that the rights of one person
cannot and must not violate the rights of another.
Rand's view of human rights is consistent with the Declaration of Independence which declares
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs. Either one believes in inalienable human rights for everyone or one doesn't. One either believes that life has intrinsic value and that what supports human life is good and that which threatens human life is evil or one does not believe that. Those who don't believe everyone has an equal right to life might be categorized as communists, fascists, radical Muslims, white supremacists, plutocrats, oligarchs, etc. All of these people are abusers. It is a futile waste of time and energy to try to reason with or to try to appeal to an abuser's "humanity". That is also true of corporations that disrespect human rights. To support or even condone any type of abusive behavior while giving lip service to universal individual rights, e.g. the right to life, is absolutely hypocritical.
What is more basic to life than health? I remember reading an impressive quote which I think was authored by a Greek philosopher. I could be mistaken but it went something like,
He who loses his money, loses much. He who loses his family, loses more. But he who loses his health, loses all.
If one values life, one must logically value health. If one believes everyone has the right to life, then one must logically believe everyone should have the right to a healthful lifestyle and the ability to live healthfully. For most people a healthful lifestyle includes a good balanced quality diet (minimally processed, preferably organic), the ability to exercise, hot running water, a warm safe healthful living space, quality health and dental care, For some of us there are specific needs such as allergen-free food and living space, special diets, prescribed medications, food supplements, the help one needs to kick health-threatening habits, etc. All of us will probably be healthier if not exposed to toxins and/or pathogens.
If the Founding Fathers possessed the scientific and medical understanding of human health that is common knowledge in our time, perhaps they would have made more specific Constitutional provisions for keeping every one's health from being threatened by factors that did not even exist in their day.
In regard to the "original enumerated constitutional powers" of the federal government, if they don't include protecting individual rights and promoting and maintaining the Common Good, then of what value is the federal government?
The Common Good
The U.S. Constitution refers to the national government as promoting "The General Welfare". In my opinion, there is no difference between the General Welfare and the Common Good. I define the Common Good as that which citizens need to freely live as healthfully as possible but which the majority of individuals could not personally afford. Most of us could not afford to erect street lights in our neighborhood, establish traffic lights and roads and bridges to allow us to get to work or to the grocery store. We could not afford to hire teachers for each of our children. We could not afford our own fully-functioning library. We could not afford to build and maintain our own water supply and sewage systems. Not everyone can afford their own private quality playground and park.
It's perhaps a difference of opinion. I believe the government has a duty to promote the Common Good. Tea Party people don't necessarily disagree with that. I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect that Conservatives, Tea Party followers, etc. believe that the Common Good refers to a prosperous economy. I further suspect that Conservative and Tea Party leaders, although loathe to admit it to their followers, personally measure prosperity by the rate of growth of the American Upper 1%'s income and net worth. That would explain why the Tea Party seems to care more about the jobs of those that support the millionaire and billionaire income classes than the jobs of those whose task it is to support environmental and educational quality and human health.
Abolition of the EPA
If one believes in the basic right to life, then one should realize that allowing the owners of business and industry to threaten any American citizen's ability to live a healthful lifestyle for the sake of profit is evil. And yet that is exactly what the doctrine of laissez-faire would permit. And that is what the Tea Party would permit.
There are some government agencies entrusted with the task of protecting human health and environmental quality (which also impacts on public health). One of these is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established by President Nixon in 1970 with the mission of preserving human health and environmental quality. There are numerous articles such as "The EPA's War on Modern Civilization" (http://www.teapartytribune.com/...) which assert that the EPA has overstepped its authority on numerous occasions. I prefer that those charged with protecting the environment and human health be overzealous at that task rather than lax. .
There is definitely a conflict between individual business owners who are too busy making profits to be concerned about public health and environmental quality and those charged with protecting human health and environmental quality.
One critic claimed that the EPA has, on occasion, opted to protect the lives of non-human organisms when that protection threatened human health. If there is a conflict between protecting the lives of non-human organisms and protecting human health, I think human health should be the priority. Speaking as a person with an MS degree in Sustainable Systems, I assert that those situations are rare. Usually, the protection of environmental quality is supportive of public health.
I also understand the frustration of not being allowed to act without credible scientific evidence. No matter how much evidence there is to support any theory, there are always going to be people who disagree with the credibility of the theory. A good example of this is the Flat Earth Society that promotes the idea that the Earth is really flat. If law makers had to wait for a consensus that the Earth is actually round before making regulations designed to save the Earth from imminent destruction, the Earth would be doomed.
Does the Tea Party actually want to due away with legislation designed to protect human health and the environment and the agencies charged with enforcing those protections?
The following is an excerpt from a letter to the U.S. Congress from the PA Lehigh Valley Tea Party:
We respectfully petition you to take steps to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency and every governmental agency that is not constitutionally mandated so that they may never be used to intimidate any American citizen again. We call on you to take steps to eliminate and defund every agency and program that stifles the principles of free enterprise, individual rights and free will and return those powers to the states as outlined in the 9th and 10th Amendment. (http://lehighvalleyramblings.blogspot.com/...)
House bill H.R. 2584, introduced in the House of Representatives in 2012, if passed, would defund many EPA programs thought by the Tea Party to be "job killers". EPA programs are designed to protect environmental quality and public health, which is the mission of the EPA.
According to an article in The Guardian, Michelle Bachman "advocates abolishing the EPA as soon as God puts the Tea Party in charge". I wonder if Michelle spent even a New York minute to consider the more than 16,000 EPA employees whose jobs will be "killed" if the EPA is abolished. There are thousands more jobs that have been created in the private sector by businesses whose purpose is to help industries comply with EPA regulations. Those jobs would also be killed if the EPA is abolished.
The Tea Party supposedly favors more individual freedom. Whose individual freedom is being stifled by regulations designed to preserve human health? As Ayn Rand said, "the rights of one man cannot and must not violate the rights of another". Industry cannot and does not have the right to unnecessarily threaten public health. By unnecessarily I mean emitting poisons from the production of products that are not essential to human survival or emitting any toxins from the production of essentials if those toxins can be contained.
Nor does the Tea Party seem to care about diseases like Black Lung and Asbestosis. If they did they would not want to abolish the agency charged with protecting workers from contracting these diseases. Or maybe they believe that Black Lung isn't really caused by coal dust inhalation and it is just coincidence that the only people afflicted with asbestosis are those who have inhaled asbestos fibers. So who needs an agency to protect people's health? Perhaps volatile organic compounds (VOCs), mercury, sulphur, small particulates and all the rest actually make us healthier! Especially those of us with asthma and other cardio-vascular conditions. And global burning will turn out to be a positive thing, good for human health and the environment.
In my humble opinion, the Tea Party, or any one else who believes this crap is delusional. Not only delusional. Greedy.
Or, perhaps, the Tea Party thinks each state should have the exclusive legal power to make regulations to protect the right of life in relation to public health and the environment. How would that work? If Ohio has old inefficient coal burning power plants on their border with Pennsylvania emitting copious amounts of mercury, small particulates, and sulphur dioxide that the prevailing winds carry through Pennsylvania into upper state New York which suffers property damage as a result of acid precipitation, what would compel Ohio to do something to remediate the problem? Since their citizens' health, environment, and property are not being negatively impacted, why should Ohio act? Especially since the citizens of Ohio would have to spend their taxes for the benefit of other states. Remember the Lehigh Valley Tea Party petition to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? Those are the people who collect federal taxes. Without federal taxes the Federal Government won't be able to help Ohio remediate their pollution.
I don't trust the individual states to protect individual rights. If you wonder why, you are probably not informed about the history of civil rights.
But wait! I apologize for suggesting that the Tea Party might favor state or local governments having legal power to regulate life or property threatening pollution. I am not used to Tea Party thinking. The Tea Party wants to be in control at all levels of government. If the Tea Party ever gets sufficient power on the national level they may pass federal legislation that would prohibit state and local governments from enacting any legislation that would interfere with free private enterprise. If that happened, a city like Pittsburgh, PA could turn into the dirty city it once was where the sun would not be seen for weeks at a time because of factory emissions. In the 1940's gas lamps had to be lit during the day (www.buzzfeed.com/...stunning-photos-of-pittsburghs-air-pollution-in-th...). If local and state governments aren't allowed to enforce regulations to protect public health and environmental quality in ways that would interfere with free enterprise, lots more people in public health departments and state environmental agencies will lose their jobs as well as thousands more employed by companies that support other companies' compliance with local and state regulations.
The Effects of the Tea Party Plan
If you trust the leaders of business and industry to simply respect individual rights, you may want to acquaint yourself with the robber baron period of American History at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. There is a book by Howard Zinn entitled History is a Weapon (http://www.historyisaweapon.com), the eleventh chapter of which is entitled "Robber Barons and Rebels" that addresses the problems of that period. Or you could check out my diary "Historic Repetition and Soylent Green" posted Mon Jul 21, 2014 at 09:00 AM PDT. The Tea Party's aim as espoused by the Tea Party ideas listed above seems to be to "turn back the clock" to a time when the federal government only exercised what the Tea Party claims are those powers enumerated in the Constitution. From watching Ken Burns' PBS documentary "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History", I suspect that the time before the administration of Theodore Roosevelt was a time when the powers of the federal government were more limited. The robber barons were doing their thing at that time.
If there is some reason why the Tea Party thinks that conditions would improve for the lower classes today if all that power was returned to the captains of business and industry, that reason is certainly not apparent to me. The lower classes suffered more then than they do today. Why would anyone want to repeat that?
If one thinks, that in the absence of regulations, one will simply and easily be able to secure redress for damages through the court system, one should watch the movies Flash of Genius or The Insider or Erin Brockovich. One may be able to successfully sue a corporation for environmental/health damages if one has enough time and money. But I suspect that those who possess enough time and money probably live in neighborhoods that don't have to worry about nearby illegal dumping of chemical waste, contamination of their ground water from fracking and who can afford to feed their families organic food without toxic chemicals and GMOs.
What can we expect if the Tea Party has its way? A higher rate of environmentally-related diseases, more accidents from unsafe products, higher incidence of sickness from contaminated and unsafe foods and food additives, more health complications from changed agricultural growing methods. More industrial accidents. Also, the rate of global burning will increase resulting in more violent storms, more forest fires, faster rising sea levels, worse drought conditions. Health care costs will increase due to increased numbers of patients. There will be more unemployment and underemployment. There will be a decrease in energy efficiency in office buildings and an increase in all types of toxic emissions.
Who benefits from laissez-faire or the Tea Party solution? Corporation owners and large stock holders will benefit the most in a financial sense. Not only will the production cost of products and services be less without government regulations, consumers will buy more products and services with the extra money that used to be paid for taxes. Will the cost of goods and services decrease? Why should they? Business owners may increase prices figuring that consumers now have more to spend.
The other people that would benefit from laissez-faire are the legislators who will no longer be responsible for protecting individual rights by regulating private enterprises. It would not be surprising if the legislators expected the same pay and benefits for less work.
Lower Taxes
When I consider the negative consequences of the Tea Party's "solution" to the country's problems, I can't help wondering what would motivate anyone not in the Upper 1-7% income bracket to support the Tea Party. I suspect the "hook" for lower income earners is the promise of lower taxes.
Many Americans seem to resist and resent the idea of paying personal income tax. The same people who like the Tea Party's plan to decrease taxes by decreasing the size of the government may agree with the idea that one can't get something for nothing. One wonders what these people are willing to give up in order to pay lower taxes. Americans have more security than Iraq because we have a superior military. Are they willing to do without national security? Without the FBI? Without federal courts? Without limits on corporate polluters? Without safe food and drugs? Without federal highways? Without National Parks and Monuments? Without Federal lunch programs in schools? All of these things cost lots of money.
The answer, or part of it, is that Tea Party people resent paying taxes for those things that benefit other people, people less financially blessed than themselves. One example is "safety net programs". According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (http://www.cbpp.org/...), in 2013 the Federal Government collected $2.8 trillion but spent $3.5 trillion. Of that, $398 billion (ap.12% percent of the federal budget) was spent on safety net programs. These are programs that give support (other than Social Security benefits or health insurance) to financially-challenged individuals and families.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (http://www.cbpp.org/...), 47% of federal revenue collected in 2013 came from personal income tax. 10 % came from corporate income taxes. 9% from other sources. 34% came from payroll taxes. $680 billion was borrowed. Personal federal income tax collected in 2013 totaled $1.316 trillion which is approximately 37% of the total $3.5 trillion spent by the government. 12 % of the $3.5 trillion dollars was spent on safety net programs but only 37% of that 12% came from personal income tax. So 4.4% of the total personal income tax collected in 2013 was spent on safety net programs. I'm no mathematician, but it would seem that no matter how much a citizen paid in income tax in 2013, only 4.4% of that amount went to pay for safety net programs. For example, if one paid federal personal income tax in 2013 as a head of household on $51,371, of the $7484 paid in taxes, $329 would have gone to pay for safety net programs.
Admittedly, a percentage of that $329 was spent on unnecessary expenditures. However, some of it may have actually kept some poor, blameless people from starvation or homelessness.
Where does that $329 end up? Perhaps the person who paid it owns a grocery store or two. Some of the income from that store probably comes to him/her in the form of food stamps. If the tax payer owns a retail store, some of the people shopping there may be on public assistance. There is a virtual army of federal employees who administer the safety net programs. These people spend money in retail stores also, as well as paying taxes that help support the safety net programs. Even if the tax payer of the $329 is an employee of an establishment patronized by people dependent on government assistance or by government employees that administer safety net programs, the tax payer's wages are being partly paid by the money spent by those patrons. In other words, some of that $329 in taxes could end up helping to support the person who paid it.
Taxes paid to the government don't disappear. The government is not hoarding that money the way the Upper 1% is hoarding theirs (http://moneymorning.com/...). All revenue the federal government collects is spent. The fact that the government does not always buy American is a separate problem that needs to be fixed. Congress should pass a law that the Federal Government must buy the most affordable American products and services unless they aren't available in this country. An amendment to this law should restrict all purchases by the Federal Government to necessities.
The Alternative
I have explained why some people favor a smaller, weaker centralized government in the United States and some of the negative effects on the Common Good and individual rights that would occur if the Tea Party is put in charge. In my last diary on Capitalism (Sept. 13, 2014, 12:53 P.M.), I proposed a system that was not capitalistic nor collectivist, but an alternative system that respects and protects every one's individual rights; provides everyone accessibility to a quality Common Good (see my diary on Government Sept. 9, 2014, 11:59 P.M.); takes care of those who are disabled from working; and provides a job to every able adult who needs one, decent jobs that pay at least a healthful living wage. This system needs a label. "The Individual Right to Health" (IRH) system or solution will do. Under the IRH the government would create jobs for the unemployed that enhance and maintain the Common Good. These jobs would pay at least a healthful living wage to start. These jobs would be tailored to the abilities of the individuals employed. There would be total freedom for those hired by the government to switch employment to the private sector whenever there was a desire and opportunity to do so. Any adult who could not find a decent full-time private sector job that pays at least a healthful living wage would be eligible for the IRH.
Some will call the IRH "socialism". My question for these people is which of the following items do you think is socially acceptable in a country that calls itself the leader of the free world?
1. Homeless citizens
2. Unemployment of able adults needing jobs
3. Inability of some citizens to afford adequate health care
4. Citizens living in extreme poverty
5. Inability of some citizens to afford a healthful lifestyle
6. Large corporations and the super-rich not paying enough in taxes to eliminate
these conditions
Voting
We need to think about the above question in regard to the next election. Voting for Tea Party candidates and most, if not all, Republican candidates is a vote for those six conditions listed above. It is also a vote for increasing wealth of the richest Americans while the rest of us lose net worth. (According to an article at www.pewsocialtrends.org.../a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for... entitled "A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy; Declines for the Lower 93% - An Uneven Recovery, 2009-2011" by Richard Fry and Paul Taylor, the economic net worth of households of the 7% most affluent Americans increased an average of 28% from 2009 to 2011. The net worth of the less affluent 93% of Americans fell by 4%.)
In my opinion, neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party has any better understanding of individual rights than I had before writing the first of this current series of diaries (9/15/14, 12:31 P.M.) on Daily Kos. Just as there is the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party, there is a Progressive movement within the Democratic Party. It seems to me that the positions taken by Progressive candidates are closer to the IRH solution than the positions of other non-Progressive candidates.
This diary discussed some of the problems that could prevent the implementation of the IRH solution. One was a difference of opinion about the nature of the Common Good. Another is the resistance/resentment of American tax payers to paying taxes. Another is a disrespect or misunderstanding or undervaluing of individual rights. In the next diary, more obstacles to an IRH implementation will be explored.