Educating my moderate conservative brother, a continuing series, Part ?
I've been engaging in regular discussions/debates with my younger brother (I'm 46, he's 43) for more than a year now, as he has tended to side with conservative viewpoints, while holding out the promise of open-mindedness. I give him a hard time because he gets much of his news from Fox and conservative talk radio, and often seems to repeat their talking points. But he's smart and clear-headed enough to respond to logical argument, so it's not a hopeless cause. Besides, he's my brother.
So I thought I'd offer today's lesson, and snippets of his views which prompted it, below the fold.
The discussion began with the issues surrounding the filibuster debate and Judge Owen's qualifications. He observed that he wants more "conservative" judges, by which I correctly assumed that he meant "strict constructionist" as opposed to "activist". When I provided evidence of Judge Owen's pernicious activism, he questioned whether the information was accurate, as he had heard otherwise from one of his media sources, and he questioned whether perhaps MY sources were biased.
My reply:
I couldn't address the substance of your question, without having paid attention to the issue in greater depth. I suppose that you could say that my superficial perception of the issue could be colored by the superficial representation of the facts as presented in, say, headlines and brief summaries. What I feel good about in the sources that I tend to consult, including traditional (albeit on-line) media as well as the blogs, is that they tend by their nature to be self-critical. Particularly within the liberal "blogosphere", there is a constant process of internal debate and review of evidence and opinions, so that if and when something false or misleading gets out there (especially if it is caught and critiqued by conservative bloggers or commentators), the liberal side will typically examine and respond to such mischaracterizations. Many times, I've seen people make a wrongheaded or discredited assertion, only to have others jump on them and say, "that's not true, we can't base our arguments on that," etc. You doubtless wouldn't entirely agree, but I and others who share my views are of the strong opinion that "Truth" is our most potent weapon, and it is the opposition which feels it must resort to deception and "spin" in order to hoodwink the public. When left-leaners stray from that principle, most of us either call them on it, or tell them to get lost.
My brother helpfully responded:
Well that is very encouraging and I think we perhaps would agree that "Truth" is paramount and should be the basis for all debate and policy making, etc. I'm also not convinced that we would have too much disagreement about what is the "Truth" or even too much disagreement about what should be done about it. I think our most likely areas of disagreement would actually boil down most often not to what should be done but who should do it, at least in terms of broad-brush policy (feed the hungry, stop terrorism, etc.).
Of course, when we disagree about the "who" then we are likely each advocating some very different "whats" in the implementation of policy. My simplistic philosophy with regard to "big picture" US policy is that the Government, especially on the Federal level, is limited (or at least should be) in what it can and should do by the Constitution. This can only work over time, however, if the vast majority of the Citizens act to remedy injustice, assist the needy, enhance security, etc. This can certainly often involve religious institutions (charities, etc.) but should also involve State and Local government (again propelled by the Populace).
I do not agree that the Federal Government should, for example, move vast sums of money from the "Rich" to the "Poor" but to the extent that the "Poor" have real needs and suffer real injustices, the "Rich" had better look in the mirror and set things right locally. If not, they can one day expect their gardeners to slit their throats.
This led to my Treatise for the Day:
As a first-order statement of generic political philosophy, this opens a number of useful doors to constructive debate. I would note, at the outset, that the mere characterization of a major policy issue as "moving money from the Rich to the Poor" reflects a traditional conservative mindset, if the implication is that such wealth redistribution is somehow at the core of "liberal" ideology. Granted, it may have been at the core of Marxist-Leninist ideology, but contemporary progressive beliefs are no more aligned with Communism than Conservative beliefs are aligned with Fascism.
Your distinction between Federal versus State and Local initiatives represents one particular view of this country's political organization (paradoxically, the decentralized view you advocate is often labeled "Federalism"), but doesn't necessarily address the underlying ideological question. You may argue, for example, that State and Local authorities are better equipped to address the needs of their own constituents, while the Federal government, especially in a country this large, is much more likely to be wasteful, inefficient, and insensitive to local concerns. That's a valid argument, although not necessarily a "conservative" one, as there are some issues on which conservatives prefer Federal pre-emption, and some where liberals do.
On issues of Rich vs. Poor, however, it's important to keep in mind the path that has gotten us to where we are today, and the problems inherent in the Federalist/decentralized model, not to mention the "charity will take care of them" model. At the turn of the 20th century, the industrial revolution had created a vast gulf between the wealthy, capitalist class and the working classes, both here and in Europe where Marxism caught on in response. The laissez-faire approach of our government in that era resulted not only in increasing concentration of wealth and power at the high end, but increasing exploitation and suffering at the lower end. Any purist libertarian who thinks we should dismantle all labor, wage, industrial practices, anti-trust, and similar legislation is really advocating that we should permit our society to return to such a level of inequity. If you want to worry about gardeners slitting throats, or proletariat revolutions, those are the conditions under which such things will happen. Fortunately, although there were rumblings of communist insurgency, we had the foresight to elect "progressive" leaders, especially under Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, who enacted sweeping reforms that helped reduce, at least somewhat, those glaring inequities (outlawing child labor, anti-trust legislation, health and safety regulation, women's suffrage, protecting labor unions, etc., etc.). I never cease to remind today's "conservatives" of this first, basic triumph of modern liberalism in this country, and ask them if they really think the country would have been better off without those reforms.
A similar analysis and pattern then applies to the New Deal reforms following the Depression. Conservatives may bitch and moan about the need to "privatize" Social Security and Medicare, and complain about other elements of the "welfare state", but there is zero chance that the public, as a whole, would prefer to go back to the world of 1931, and eliminate all of the safety net protections and progressive civic initiatives that were launched during that period.
Finally, there are the Great Society programs established or expanded under Lyndon Johnson, an era which is sometimes characterized as being the one when the Federal government really went too far in creating a welfare state, and which are perhaps the most aggressive focus of some conservatives' roll-back objectives. But again, keep in mind the social context in which these programs were established. Robert Kennedy gave some famous speeches about the extent of poverty in rural America, places like Appalachia, Mississippi, and the inner cities, where there was rampant malnourishment, illiteracy, lack of decent housing and education. Then there was the continuing legacy of segregation and civil rights abuses, which still relegated African Americans, 100 years after the Civil War, to second-class status. When the Democrats and liberal Republicans (not an oxymoron back then) sought to address these problems through legislation, they were attacked then just as they are now, by conservataive Republicans (and Dixiecrats), claiming that it wasn't the Federal government's role, it was paternalistic socialism, that judges who ruled against segregation were too "activist", etc., etc. None of these arguments is new, but I think much of the society forgets that they have always been made to stop progress against social ills, most often by people who have a vested interest in the status quo, or are simply ignorant and bigoted.
So the problem with a pure decentralization perspective, as with a pure libertarian perspective, is that we've tried that, and we've seen the results. If you say that the States alone should address economic dislocation and poverty, for example, then some states will, at first, offer more generous and compassionate programs, and others will be stingy and libertarian. What will happen, then, is that the poor and disadvantaged will flock to those states that offer more help, and their programs will become overburdened, forcing them to cut back. Or, as was the case among the rural poor for generations, they will just suffer more: they will die younger, their kids will get sick more often, they'll endure hunger and prejudice and isolation. Libertarians who would have us believe that, in a rules-free, welfare-less society, everyone would somehow figure out how to rise up above all their disadvantages and burdens, and find prosperity and the American Dream on their own, are simply delusional. Or, they just don't give a shit, because, hey, they managed to make it on their own (with or without an inheritance from Daddy), so anybody who can't pull their own weight can just kiss their ass.
None of this is to say that the cliche characterizations of "liberal" federal welfare policies are the answer to all problems (handouts, rewards for not working and for having more babies, tax the rich to death, etc.). I don't know of a single progressive politician, commentator, or political scientist, at least not in this society, who advocates wholesale wealth redistribution or massive federal welfare programs. On the contrary, the leading edge of thought throughout the economic development literature these days is all about market-driven empowerment and opportunities. It's what I advocate on a daily basis in my work on behalf of the rural poor in the rest of the world. But there's no question that the Government has to play a role, and a central role, in promoting and enabling such initiatives, and in restraining the uninhibited exercise of power and control by the wealthy and the corporate classes. The debates that we ought to be having should involve not so much who takes responsibility for instigating progressive change, but how those changes can best be accomplished, through a combination of public, private, and community initiatives. If you can show me a high-profile Republican or Conservative politician or commentator who is even trying to address these issues in an intelligent, dispassionate way, I promise that I'll reduce my disgust with their group commensurately.
To be continued, ad infinitum...