On the Contrary

Word out of the White House is that President Obama rejected the four plans the military were offering for our way forward in Afghanistan.  And we got that on top of the news that the Ambassador to that backward nation, Karl W. Eikenberry, said don’t send more troops basically because the government is dysfunctional (New York Times).  Now Ambassadors could be considered effete Yale or Harvard snobs, but this one was the general in charge in Afghanistan prior to becoming Ambassador.  It might also be said that the four plans were simply four different troop level increases.  That is real change isn’t it?

Maybe President Obama is showing some backbone on this subject.  If the way forward is a commitment of more troops and no light at the end of the tunnel, why do it?  The Republicans, of course, say do whatever your generals want.  Remember President Lincoln and General McClellan?  Had Lincoln listened to that moron, the Civil War would still be going on and we would still have the Union Army in the Virginia peninsula awaiting more troops.  I never can figure out why people think generals have some special way of understanding a situation that should be given more consideration than others.  These guys have careers that are about winning (mission accomplishment).  There is no other strategy.  It is mission accomplishment or retire as a light Colonel.  Cost benefit ratios are for the weak minded.  McChrystal was given a mission and it is not in his DNA to give up on a mission no matter what the cost.  There won’t be any failures in their record.  Are the fighting the Vietnam war again to in their mind right the record (John McCain)?  Do I hear the strains of “Charge of the Light Brigade”?

Here is the real issue that I think our President is wrestling with:  With a government that is corrupt and dysfunctional, and a war that will take at least 10 years or more to even begin to make progress, is this really in our national interest?  Republicans think in simple rather childish ways, so they will attack the President on “not supporting the troops”.  But like Vietnam, we may look back after the death of almost 60,000 and wonder why.  Oh I know, the fate of Pakistan and Al Qaeda will get conflated with the fate of Afghanistan, but remember the domino effect in Vietnam, or the conflation of 9/11 of Iraq.  It is the same hysterical, irrational thinking.

So what President Obama wants to see is a plan that gets us out of there, and what he is getting is more open-ended commitments.  That is the reality of the situation.  If you demand a win and you define winning as a stable democracy, well we are in for a 20-50 year war.  But if reality is allowed to creep in, then our real strategic interests in Afghanistan are minor.  A plan to let Afghanistan continue their civil war, let the chips fall where they may, and just control any incursion of Al Qaeda or any real threats to our national interests, is probably what we should be doing.  I don’t know if the military mind can wrap their mind around that.  It would mean abandoning grand plans for victory and a fifth star.  But a victory at what cost?  Not their problem.

But it is our President’s problem and with the real challenges that face us, the money could so much be better spent returning us to a prosperous nation.  And that’s not the real issue.  Go gaze on the Wall in Washington where almost 60,000, some of them my friends, are listed.  What is left of their lives is some letters engraved into hard cold granite.  And for what?  This is not an argument about winning.  This is an argument about waste, hubris, ego, and understanding real strategic interests.  A never-ending war in Afghanistan is futile and is all about the former and nothing about the later.  President Obama is starting to show a glimmer of political backbone.  We can hope.

Every now and then when I am watching the news and I hear morons like John Boehner claim that he hasn’t talked with anyone who wants a public option for health care and I go off, my wife reminds me that Republicans are not evil.  No they are not, but their conservative philosophy and the people they put in power are.  Okay, I will give you that John Boehner’s myopia is not any worse than Nancy Pelosi protecting Charlie Rangel from his lapses in ethics.  When it comes to politicians, most have been corrupted by power and money, too many deals, and too many compromises in order to stay in power.

But at the heart of conservative dogma is selfishness, pure and simple.  It is all about I got mine and I deserve it.  It is about a total lack of empathy for those not so fortunate, because they don’t believe they themselves are fortunate.  They believe that what is theirs they earned and that those less fortunate deserve their station in life.  Any sharing of their fortune would be to promote a lack of discipline and hard work, hence their aversion to any government program.  The proof in this statement is to watch how quickly a Republican “sees the light” when some calamity hits them and then they want to be bailed out.  But this only lasts for a few moments before they fall back on their “I deserved to be bailed out because I am a productive member of society, but the rest are just lazy scum living off the system.”  If you really listen to the underlying philosophy this is its basic underlying belief.  I am special.  The rest of you need to work harder.

Let’s look at their mantra of low taxes, small government, and balanced budgets.  The basic logic of low taxes is that it incentivizes businesses to expand.  But that is a gross over simplification.  Taxes are also how the government accumulates capital to invest in infrastructure and business cannot survive without first class transportation systems, communication systems, and a healthy and educated population.  So it has to be a balance.  But what the conservative ideology has become is a tax hating mob, which is kind of strange since they are suppose to be made up of businessmen and women who understand about capital investments and improvements.  But then why should they pay taxes which will just be wasted on the undeserving?

Small government and balanced budgets are part of the same ideology that says government interference with business equals bad, and free unrestrained markets provide the most return for our people.  Once again this is a gross oversimplification.  Certainly government bureaucracy can hinder business, but sometimes to the good.  Need I remind you of our recent financial crisis or the environmental abuses of the past?  Many of our problems that beg solutions are not local or regional, but are national.  Just how are these to be addressed with an ineffective and small national government?  Global warming (which they don’t believe in), energy policy, our depleted oceans, infrastructure problems, clean water and air, oh I could go on forever, are national problems that take a national approach.  As our populations grow and we become ever more interconnected, these problems will not have solutions at local or regionalI levels.  And of course when there is a national catastrophe, there is all of a sudden a national clamor for government intervention.  And the demand, “Why weren’t they prepared?”  They being that government they hate so much.

The balanced budget clamor is also a red herring.  All of us know that we need to balance the books if we don’t want to go under, but we also know that if we look at the business model, large corporations make long-term investments (read loans here) to improve their competitive advantage in the future.  So why can’t conservatives see this logic when it comes to our government?  We are in a whale of a mess and a lot of it comes from our lack of investment (read here tax cuts) in our future.  We are becoming one of the unhealthiest populations of the industrial countries, we are lagging badly in education, and our infrastructure is sad when you go to other countries and see their investments.  Right now is the time to take on big debts to invest in our future and yet conservatives have derailed any attempt to do this.  Why do they do this when it is so obvious we need it?  Why have their arguments become illogical?

The answer to this question goes back to the issue of why American conservatism, at its heart and in its present form, is evil.  At its basis is “I got mine and all the rest of you deserve your fate because you are lazy or undisciplined.”  It is a total rejection of the idea of the common good. It is a protection of the status quo, either for the individual or the corporation when change is what is required.  It started with Ronald Reagan, and the “problem is the government”, and the idea that greed is good because if you are making lots of money you are smart, deserve it, and are lubricating the economy.  This idea should have been totally destroyed by out latest financial crisis where greed almost destroyed our economy, millions were made jobless, but a few got very rich.  Let’s face it.  Most of us bought into this over the last 30 years as we borrowed our way to massive debt, because, well, we deserve the things we bought.

So what we are seeing in almost every debate now are conservatives who feel they are special and chosen, block anything that might require sacrifice now for our future investment or a change in the status quo.  Whether it is health care to protect our citizens, cap and trade to control global warming, energy tax for moving to green energy, infrastructure investment for better transportation, water and air improvements, or people investment, they are against it because they got theirs and they do not want to share in the common good by making any kind of sacrifice.  It is no coincidence that the religious right is part of this movement.  They believe they are also special and selected people.  This whole movement is about selfishness, being the chosen few who deserve their good fortune and justifying their lack of empathy. Money taken from me and spent on others just encourages their dependence on the system.  That is why socialized anything strikes terror in their souls.  The fact that many services like fire protection, police protection, transportation management, and education are socialized, is totally lost on them.

All of the other associated issues, whether it is hating gays, denying a woman’s right to choose, wanting their country back, interjecting religion into politics, interceding into end of life decisions, demanding the impeachment of Obama, denying his legitimacy, it is all about defending their moral superiority, and their perceived deserved affluence.  I got mine and there is no need to share because you would just squander it.  It epitomizes a total lack of empathy or an understanding of our common condition, that there for the grace of “god”, go I.  It is a denial of our basic common humanity, it is an attitude that is at the heart of some of the most evil acts this world has seen, and it is destroying our once rich and prosperous country.  It is evil.

One other thought:  It is true that the nation sprung up for a highly individualized population that took amazing risks in our past to create the nation we have.  But what we have forgotten in this worship of the individual is that they also knew their vulnerability and their survival in the new world depended upon working together.  We have raised that individualism to a level of worship, and we forgot about all of the cooperation that it took to just survive.  It is time to remember both.

The no-boys never cease to amaze me.  They are against everything.  But in the Iran thing they are for more aggressive language.  It is like they have learned nothing from the last eight years of bellicose behavior.  But what made me laugh until my sides hurt was to hear them call for a U.N. resolution.  These are the boys who think the U.N. is a wimp institution and now they want the United States railing at Iran from the podium.  Thankfully we did not elect John McCain who would be playing right into the Supreme Leader’s hands with these ham handed tactics.  The focus would be on the United States interfering with Iran internal politics instead of on Iran’s government stealing power from the people.  But then why change our tremendously successful bellicose war strategy on display in Iraq removing Al-Qaeda.  Oh, I forgot.  They weren’t there to begin with and neither were the WMD.

Okay, okay, but they are going to protect us from big brother.  Did it ever occur to them that they are big brother?  Weren’t these the guys leading the charge on denying habeas corpus and warrantless wiretapping?  Oh, but I digress.  This time they are going to protect us from big government’s involvement in health care.  I guess they are against Medicare, the VA, and Medicaid too.  Oh did I mention that big brother actually pays for their health care?  But the free market will save us from these horrible catastrophes caused by government intervention and according to Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican member of the Finance Committee, there will be no public option.

Now unless I am confused, there is no public option now, and the market place has made a muddle of health care.  But with a few rules from Congress and the magic of the market place, SHAZAM, the market place will prevail.  Actually what he is proposing is government welfare for the insurance companies, but that is a post for another day.  These guys are so out of touch with most Americans, but they have close relationships with health industry lobbyists.  I actually thought President Obama made the most eloquent argument asking if government makes such a muddle of everything, why are they afraid to compete with it.  But logic is not having its day with these folks, and fear tactics are everywhere.  Be afraid of the cost.  Be afraid of deficits (brought to us by these very folks).  Be afraid of losing benefits.  If we follow their lead, just where do you think this train wreck is headed.  All of the above.

But I save the best for last and that is hapless Governor Sanford of South Carolina.  According to him, he wanted to be off and alone in Argentina.  It turns out he wanted to be off and “alone” for the same reason a 15-year old boy wants to be off and alone in the bathroom.  In this case he had a lover other than his hand.  Now the talking heads/spin machine are at it telling us what a good man he is to stand up and take his punishment.  If he were such a good man would he have cheated on his wife?  If he really found his life’s love, would there not be a more honorable way to deal with it?  The story is made large by the largeness of his hypocrisy, he the railing protector of the sanctity of marriage.  But now he wants forgiveness though he wasn’t willing to give Bill Clinton forgiveness.  And that is the central theme of all Republican thought.  They can’t imagine they would ever have been in such a situation so they have no empathy for others until it happens to them, and then they are a special case.

And here I want to make a point that is so important to understanding Republicans.  They really do think that the world is just and they are special.  Those that are poor, or ignorant, or disadvantaged are that way because they deserve it.  The market place is the final arbitrator and it rewards those that are just.  Except it didn’t in the last bubble burst and the playing field is clearly not level.  Okay, but what is their fear of government funded (note not run, but funded) health care?  It is the fear that all they believe is wrong.  Just as fundamentalist Christians want to believe the Bible is literal and ignore the thousands of conflicts, Republicans cling to the status quo with all their might.

I have conservative friends who are facing a health care crisis and see the problem, but that does not bleed over into so many of their other faulty held beliefs.  It only does when they have personal experience with the reality most of our citizens actually live.  Then and only then do they get it.  Governor Sanford wants compassion, but he was having none of it when the shoe was on the other foot. The Republican Party justifies very, very selfish behavior.  It does not empathize with less fortunate because to be less fortunate is to be unworthly.   We are going to have to live with conservatives for a long, long time, but isn’t it time Democrats started to ignore them instead of a bipartisan fool’s errands to accommodate false logic?  I would hope so.  They are very little people with no vision of the future, except on looking in the rear view mirror and protecting their own.

I have been trying to zero in on what Republicans are missing as they try to reinvent their party.  My trouble is that I focused too much on their core beliefs and missed their overarching goals.  David Brookes, the conservative columnist for the New York Times, wrote an editorial  this morning that may have just hit the nail on the head (The Long Voyage Home).   Here is a snippet of his wisdom and I highly recommend you read it (Note the bold text is my emphasis):

“If the Republicans are going to rebound, they will have to re-establish themselves as the party of civic order. First, they will have to stylistically decontaminate their brand. That means they will have to find a leader who is calm, prudent, reassuring and reasonable.

Then they will have to explain that there are two theories of civic order. There is the liberal theory, in which teams of experts draw up plans to engineer order wherever problems arise. And there is the more conservative vision in which government sets certain rules, but mostly empowers the complex web of institutions in which the market is embedded.”

Both of these visions are now contained within the Democratic Party. The Republicans know they need to change but seem almost imprisoned by old themes that no longer resonate. The answer is to be found in devotion to community and order, and in the bonds that built the nation.”

Yesterday it was reported by many news organizations that there were large protests against….well government, taxes, gun control, Obama, you name it.   What I found interesting based upon the numbers was that if this were a protest about global warming it would have been reported as a small turn out.  Why the deference to these fruit loops?  And fruit loops they are.  At least some liberal bloggers got it right:  “Fizzle in the Drizzle.”

Ever try to talk to one of these people rationally?  Basically everything about government except national defense and the interstate highway system (and some object to this) is bad and just burdens us.  They want fewer taxes, but they hold dearly to their Medicare.  They want to send their kids to private schools or home school them, but fail to see how public education has created the environment where the majority of the nations education has created a literate and prosperous society.  They fail to see that the food in the markets has been subsidized through water projects and investment by our government in agriculture.  Their great medical care is grossly subsidized by government aid and research.  In a word, they fail to see any connection between the myriad things that government does and their affluence today (as compared to most other nations).  It is denial and selfishness on the grandest of scales.

Let’s face it, these folks are not deep thinkers.  They decry our tax rate yet pay one of the lowest rates in the industrialized world.  They point out that we have one of highest corporate tax rates in the world, but they never look at the effective rate, what corporations actually pay.  They say we are being taxed to death when the reality is our taxes are lower than they have ever been, especially for the rich.  But even if their claims were true, the real question is are they part of the nation and have a responsibility to pay for services they demand or not?  Of course they would deny any services demanded until something tragic happens in their lives and then they demand to know where government is to help them out.

But there is a more disturbing element to this than just a bunch of nut cases on the fringe.  They are being pandered to by a failing opposition party and its noise machine, Fox News.  I guess that would be okay if these people were harmless, but if history is any guide, Timothy McVeigh was a product of just these sorts of fruitcakes.   The Governor of Texas suggested succession recently.  Morons such as Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota suggested rebellion.  Fox News actively stokes their fires.  It is survival by appealing to the irrational fringe masses.  It is the bankruptcy of their ideas and their desperation to hang onto power, any power, that they eschew any moral or intellectual integrity to attract anyone that will follow them.  Their ideas don’t make sense and in this crowd nobody cares.

The Republicans, and make no mistake, while these people may say they are independent, they vote Republican, are pandering to these folks in a very dangerous way.  Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) went after Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, when she issued a warning that with tough economic times, these groups could, as they have in the past, generate domestic terrorism.  What’s wrong, Representative Cantor, is the truth to hard to bear.  Veterans groups were offended because the warning also said that returning vets could be a problem if they found themselves on the street with no alternatives.  Wasn’t Timothy McVeigh a returning, disgruntled vet with lots of military training?  These are obvious conclusions yet we can’t say them because they reflect directly on the Republican’s base.

I guess what is really troubling to me and which shows how morally bankrupt the Republicans are, is that after 9/11 if you disagreed with the President you were a traitor.  But now we may face an even greater threat to our well being in our unraveling economy and their response is to sow discord every step of the way.  It exposes everything you want to know about conservative Republicans.  They only care about their beliefs and yours are irrelevant.  If the democratic process puts them out of office, then succession and rebellion is their answer.  They are the embodiment of the intolerance of their ideas.

I have to totally agree with Bob Herbert (The Same Old Song) on this one, why do we care what they think.  Is our memory so short that we don’t remember how we got here?  The Republicans are demanding, in a bipartisan way of course, their way or the highway.  They had their way for eight years and it has almost bankrupt us.  Their spending ways have left us with nothing in the bank to spend our way out of our coming Depression when we now need to spend.  You would never know they got clobbered in the last election because they ran up the deficit and have nothing new to offer for a failing economy except tax cuts that don’t work.  Now they claim they are the force to keep us on the straight an narrow?  Not one Republican voted for the stimulus package after compromises on tax cuts were made in their favor.  One would think that after their twelve years of stewardship in Congress they would see the error of their ways.

Today they were misrepresenting data on how effective tax cuts are on stimulating the economy (not very).  Of course the media, once again not having done their homework, didn’t know the facts so they just let these misguided souls prattle on (see Depression Economics).  Note how we are getting political arguments again as a substitute for news instead of subject matter experts who might actually clarify the issues.  But in the same vein there was Chris (Catholic) Matthews implying that the money in the bailout for family planning was the government trying to control the number of children you have instead of giving poor families choices.  Who doesn’t think preventing unwanted children is an investment in our future and reduces cost in Medicare, childcare, incarceration, food stamps, and welfare?

But what is it about eight years of failed tax cuts that does not enlighten Republicans and those morons that listen to them?  I keep pointing out the GAO study that showed that two-thirds of businesses pay no taxes (CBS News) so why doesn’t any one ask how a reduction in zero taxes is going to help?  Of course our friends in the Republican Party obfuscate this fact also by saying we have the highest corporate tax rate in the modern world.  That is true, but nobody ever asks what the effective rate is (that rate after all those loopholes are applied, hence the two-thirds who pay no taxes).  The cutting tax religion is just that, a religious faith whose underlying belief is not informed by reality.  It didn’t work last time and it won’t work this time, but it fits into their free ride beliefs (we can get out of this without sacrifices by allowing trickle down from the rich if the rich get richer).

So what gives here?  Why can’t they and their conservative base get it?  Well here is the basic difference between conservative (not moderate) Republicans and Democrats.  These conservatives basically believe in their bones that anything government does is done poorly if at all and is an infringement on their freedoms.  This belief is not informed by reality, which is an advantage for the Democrats, but is to their disadvantage because they can’t see that this belief is a religious faith and still think these Republicans can be reasoned with.  The reality is government does some things really well, and other things very poorly.  What it can do well and what it does do well is a function of the talent of its managers and the flexibility we give them to perform their jobs.  But these distinctions are lost on these conservatives.  In their imaginary world the failure of FEMA during Katrina had nothing to do with Brownie or the gutting of the organization.

So we have the spectacle of the President trying to bring them on board and in the process, watering down the stimulus package to make it less effective, and the result was that it was a waste of time.  House Republicans live in narrowly defined districts that are inhabited by their base, the Know-Nothings.   The game isn’t over yet as Senate Republicans have to appeal to a broader audience and therefore must be a little more reasonable, but if it were up to me, I would change the bill to be as effective as possible (move much of the tax cuts to infrastructure), dump the concessions, and get a bill that might actually work.  I think you can still change the tone in Washington without compromising your values and catering to failed ideas.

Sooner or later we have to just say it.  Conservative economic theory has run its course and compromising to cater to their ideological needs is making our situation worse.  We can’t afford to fail.  It is time to march in a different direction and leave the Republicans to stew in their juices.  Besides, they have Rush Limbaugh to lead them to a world I would not want my children to grow up in.

Oh, and one last thought:  when the Republicans were grabbing microphones that our media obligingly provided them without any critical analysis of what they were saying, did you see anything but white people?  We are a mixed race nation, but the Republican party and their ideas are squeaky white.  It is a world that doesn’t exist anymore.  Somebody ought to tell them.

The late Molly Ivings, that great columnist and humorist from Dallas Texas, was once asked how a girl brought up in the South in the Republican Party could be so liberal.  Her answer went something like this, “When I realized they were lying about race, I wondered what else they were lying about.”  Conservative belief in their ideology is tightly engrained in their pyschy.  They can’t afford to let it go or they would have to ask themselves what else they have been wrong about.

This election is really about who we are as Americans and what our philosophy for the future really is.  The conservatives understand that the very survival of their ideas depends upon this election.  The progressives have yet to really define what this battle is about.  “Change” doesn’t begin to describe what is really at stake here and until the progressive really engage in this battle, they will forever be relegated to second place.  This battle is not about issues; it is about how we approach the 21st century and who we are as a people.

Progressives think in terms of empathy and responsibility.  They have empathy for those around us, and they have a responsibility to do something about it.  Government is for protection and empowerment:  Protect one’s physical security and rights, and empower its people to be successful (think education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc).  Progressives understand their morality in what George Lakoff* calls the nurturant parent model (NPM).  Both parents are responsible for raising their children, children are born good and can be make better, the world can be a better place, our job is to work on that, and parents job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nurturers of others.  From that comes the edict that it is your moral responsibility to teach your child to be a happy, fulfilled person who wants others to be happy and fulfilled.  It is a moral world of cooperation and synergy.

Conservatives think in terms of authority and obedience to authority.  There is a moral person in charge and the role of the people is to be obedient to authority to maintain order and morality.  Government’s primary purpose is to maintain order by protecting us from threats from outside the system and enforcing the authority and discipline of the leader. Conservatives understand their morality in what George Lakoff* calls the strict father family model (SFM).  Morality in this system is obedience to authority, assumed to be a legitimate authority who is inherently good.  Note that in this system it is assumed the world is an evil and dangerous place, children are born into it immoral, and through punishment learn discipline to be obedient.  If people are disciplined, pursue their self-interest, they will become prosperous and self-reliant.  Without this strict discipline, the world is an immoral place.

This are two very different systems views of government and moral systems.  One, the progressive is open to dissent.  Progressive want to find the best possible world and they are in the mode of cooperation and discussion to find it.  Conservatives think they have found the best possible world and it is defined by small government, little regulation, non-existent taxes, open and unregulated markets where the moral will be victorious and the immoral and undisciplined will fail.  Government intervention to help these that have failed is just encouraging immorality.  Most importantly, in the strict father family, dissent is viewed as disobedience, and is not tolerated.  In their system, the self sufficient and disciplined person who seeks his and only his self-interest will prevail and there will be good for all.  That is why the huntress and fisherwoman Sarah Palin is so valued among conservatives.  She embodies these characteristics.  The problem is that these characteristics, self sufficiency and independence, which made us a great country in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, are no longer relevant in the world we live in, the 21st century.  The proof of that is in the failures in the last eight years reflected in our economy and in our standing in the world.

Conservative philosophy, unlike progressive philosophy, is a deeply held faith.  The strict father model of morality is a reflection of conservative religious beliefs.  As such, the basic underpinnings cannot be challenged.  Much for the same reason fundamentalist Christians deny evolution because it might bring their whole religious edifice down,  conservatives will not accept that their basic beliefs are no longer functional in the 21st century.  The failures of the last eight years must be due to conservatives who lost their way, lost their self-discipline.  Change to them just means finding conservatives who are pure.  Then things will be hunky dory.  Remember that conservatives feel they are morally right because they are conservatives.  The rest of us who question their basic philosophy are the barbarians that will bring chaos into the world.

The funny thing is that George Bush, other than his Neocon leanings, met the test of a good conservative.  He lowered taxes on the rich and two-thirds of business don’t pay any.  He neglected government by starving the beast and appointing his cronies instead of competent public servants since government is the problem anyway; he gutted the important roles of protecting our citizens through the FDA, securities oversight, banking oversight, because regulation stifles business; he turned the Justice Department into a political partisan organization because only conservatives have the proper morals to govern; and then he instituted torture, rendition, and waived the constitution because obedience is above all else.  Their abuse of power was systemic and is a result of the fact that they really feel they are morally superior and they don’t have to answer to the rest of us, just the discipline of their rules.  Ted Stevens come to mind?

So the battle is really between whether we are going to adopt the model of the self-reliant hunter and frontiersman/frontierswoman that was in tune with 18th century America, or are we going to adopt a model of cooperation in working together with government to address the real challenges of the 21st century.   The rest of the world is moving past us while we dither on which model will propel us forward.  The conservative model has failed and failed miserably.  The challenges of the future are not how to be self-reliant or gut a moose, they are about working together to solve massive problems that will take a partnership of both an empowered government and private enterprise.  Ask your self the following questions:

• If the economy needs a modern infrastructure to be competitive in the global market place, who is going to build it and how are we going to afford to build it as we continue think small government is the answer?
• We have a deficit that is amounting to roughly $30,000 for every man, woman, and child under conservative cut taxes and spend wildly.  How are we going to take this load off our children by reducing taxes even more?
• Most economists agree that our future depends upon our human capital, and our ability to innovate in the future.  How is this going to happen as we cut our investment in education and research and development, and depend more on competition in the school market place?  Anybody noticed the debt our graduates are carrying today?
• How are we going to have an energy strategy that really does relieve us of our burden on foreign oil and oil itself unless government invests in a massive way to help industry build the infrastructure for alternate energy systems?
• Every other industrialized nation has recognized that for profit medicine is the most expensive way to deliver healthcare.  But conservatives are terrified of this system because it threatens their whole edifice of the marketplace solves all problems.  What is it about making a profit by denying claims don’t they get?
• How does reducing taxes produce flow down to increase economic activity when we have no more room to reduce taxes and the inequality in America is growing every day?
• How can we have less regulation on businesses and avoid the Erons or Mortgage crisis melt down that is upending our economy?
• How are we winning the surge when there is no movement in Iraq and the troops and the costs are not being significantly reduced?  How much longer can we continue to afford to “win” this way?

Said another way:

• Flow down/trickle down economics (Voodoo Economics) has been a failure except for the very rich
• Seeking your own self-Interest in the extreme and hurts more people than it helps
• The marketplace is limited in a global marketplace in solving problems and righting the system
• Decreasing taxes is not a cure-all for the economy and has not substantially helped our economy in these troubled times – there is little more to cut as we go broke
• Government has an important role in both our society and our marketplace
• The welfare of all of our people is critical to our success
• We have a responsibility to help those disadvantaged so that we are all buoyed up
• We are all in this together

The problems that face America in the future are complex and difficult.  They will take a partnership of our government and our private sector to deal with them.  Government doesn’t need to be smaller when you consider the things we ask and need it to do.  It needs to be smarter.  Conservative philosophy does not recognize this complexity and looks for simple solutions that have totally failed us.  They have no plan for the future except more of the same applied more rigorously.  That is because it is their religion and their faith is unshakeable.

This election is not just about ideas, it is about our future place in the world.  If the conservatives succeed in distracting the voting public from the real state of our country with cultural wars, inciting class warfare, and emotional cheap shots (that’s why the McCain camp is now working with Karl Rove), they may win this election.  But we all may loose if we fall any further behind the rest of the world.  Four more years to prove the travesty of this approach may just be four more too many.  It is a battle worth fighting and I wish the Democrats would show the passion in this fight that the Republicans have in trying to protect their religion from reality.  It’s about our children’s future.  The Democrats do not have perfect answers but their philosophy allows for dissent and discussion.  In the strict father family of the conservatives, this is heresy.  Which world do you want to live in?  Until Democrats understand that this is a real war for the soul of our country and the emotional, not rational basis it is being fought on, they will be striking out with “the facts ma’am, just the facts.”

* George Lakoff, “The Political Mind”, “Don’t Think of an Elephant”

The other evening I was over at a friends for an impromptu barbeque and I was telling the story of a elderly couple I had met at the hospital when my oldest son Travis was severely injured when he ran in front of a car as a tyke (he is healthy and fine today).  They were in their 70’s and had jumped a freight train from Southern California to come up to Sacramento to find their daughter.  The wife had severely fractured her arm jumping off the train.  They were living at the Salvation Army and I gave them a ride back to their temporary quarters and a few dollars to get home.  They never found their daughter.  I told this story to emphasize that there are many people out there that are living on life’s edge and it is going to become a big problem for us in the future as they age.

My hostess’s response was that there were a lot of irresponsible people out there that had not planned for their future.  I patiently countered that maybe there are a lot of people who don’t have the assets we do such as intelligence, education, decent parents, or an equal chance at a good life or a good job.  Maybe because of this they never had “disposable income” to invest for their future.  I got a swift kick under the table from my wife and I shut up.  But here is a prime example of the difference between a progressive and a conservative framing of reality.  Mine was one of empathy for their plight and there by the grace of good fortune go I with some feeling of responsibility for their welfare, and hers was one that put the blame on them for their situation because they lacked discipline, didn’t follow the rules, and we shouldn’t have to be responsible for them because they were imprudent and immoral.  So lets look in detail at where I think this framing comes from.

For this discussion I will be stealing and quoting a great deal from George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant!” and his other book, “The Political Mind” which I have found about the best way of conceptualizing how these differences in viewing reality come about.  I will try to layout the conceptual framework from which a conservative sees the world and use this in the next few days to discuss how the Republicans in their convention are framing the argument for their platform and their candidates.  Note that I already discussed how a Progressive thinks in my blog “How a Progressive Thinks was on Display Last Night”.

George Lakoff has come up with a model of how progressives and conservatives conceptualize a nation and its appropriate responses by using the analogy of the two models of a family, a strict father family, and a nurturant parent family.  I have already talked about the nurturant parent family (the progressive) who views the world with empathy and responsibility, and governments role as protection and empowerment, so I am going to focus on the strict father family model to explain how a conservative sees the world.  Here are the underlying assumptions:
➢    The world is a dangerous place because there is evil out there
➢    The world is also a difficult place because it is competitive
➢    There will be winners and losers
➢    There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong
➢    Children are born bad in that they will do what feels good and have to be made good through discipline in the form of punishment

➢    What is needed is a strong father who will:

o    Protect the family in a dangerous world
o    Support the family in a difficult world
o    Teach the children right from wrong through punishment

From this conceptualization come the following conclusions:
➢    There must be punishment if a child (citizen) does something wrong so they will learn not to do it again and develop internal discipline to do the right thing so in the future they will be obedient and moral
➢    Without punishment there would be no morality and the world would go to hell
➢    Internal discipline has a secondary benefit in that it is what is required to get ahead in a competitive world:  If people are disciplined and pursue their self-interest, they will be prosperous

Thus the strict father model links discipline to prosperity through pursuing your self-interest.  Given opportunity and discipline, pursuing your self-interest should make you prosperous.  And here is the big one:  If you are prosperous, you are moral and this wealth is a measure of your well-being.  If you are poor, you lack self-discipline and have nobody to blame but your self.  Unimpeded self interest, as Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) proposed, is the ultimate good because the invisible hand of the market place will maximize the self interest of all.  Seen another way it goes like this:

“For conservatives, the market is seen metaphorically as an institution personified as legitimate authority who makes ration decisions, as imposing market discipline , and rewarding discipline and punishing the lack of it.  Prosperity is seen as a mark of discipline, which is in turn seen as moral, since discipline is required to obey moral laws and whatever is required by those in authority.  By the logic of this system of thought, if you are not prosperous, you are not disciplined, and therefore cannot be moral, and so deserve your poverty.  It follows that if people are given things they have not earned, they become dependent and lose their disciplin and with it their capacity to obey moral laws and legitimate authority.”

Progressive thought is about empathy and responsibility, and conservative thought is about authority and obedience.  Okay it is a lot to digest, but let me give you some examples:
➢    Ever wonder why radical religious conservatives are all Republicans?  We have a strict father (God) who sets out rules (whatever scripture/dogma they believe) and if you unquestionably follow it, you will be moral and be rewarded with an afterlife, some with multiple virgins to contend with.  It is the strict father model.  Get a hint why conservative philosophy is undemocratic?
➢    Social Programs are giveaways that reward immoral people who haven’t followed the rules or shown self-discipline and make them dependent.  They reward bad behavior and break down morality.  Note that they are not against subsidies for big business because this rewards good behavior (accumulation of wealth)
➢    If your world is defined by the strict father model, then gay marriage threatens that legitimacy.  As George points out, marriage isn’t the issue, identity is.
➢    Government regulations or interference in seeking your self interest is a basic violation of the good from the competition of seeking your self-interest and thwarts your moral behavior
➢    Healthcare provided by the government will always be inferior because there is no self interest to promote the best possible healthcare.  It rewards people who lack self-discipline who have not provided for themselves
➢    Competition for resources imposes discipline and hence morality.  The discipline to be moral is the same discipline to win competitions and prosper.  Wealthy people tend to be good people, a natural elite.  The poor remain poor because they lack the discipline to prosper, and therefore deserve to be poor.  The increasing gap between rich and poor is good and natural.  Rich people are morally superior to poor people
➢    Immigrants are people who come here for a free ride and therefore must be thrown out of the country as they take jobs away from those who follow the rules.  We cannot allow one illegal immigrant to stay in the country because they are rule breakers and upset the moral system.  Lou Dobbs is the ultimate strict father
➢    God (the ultimate strict father) has dominion over nature and therefore nature is a resource for prosperity.  It should be used for human profit.  The same can be said for the animals.  If you are following the rules then global warming is not an issue nor is the demise of species.  Everything is self-correcting if government doesn’t interfere
➢    Democracy must take a second seat to the strict father who in times of threat will set the rules to keep us safe.  Questioning these rules is questioning the strict father and cannot be tolerated.  Thus we have George Bush trampling the constitution with his Republican brethren going right along with the help of some Democrats
➢    Because we are the most moral of the moral, in foreign policy, other nations must listen as we define what is right.  We are a superpower because we deserve to be through our discipline and rule following.  The free market must reign.  America must establish its view of right and wrong on the rest of the world which is a dangerous place full of undisciplined and immoral nations
➢    Ever wonder why “outdoors men” and NRA members flock to the conservative agenda?  Hunting and gun ownership reinforce the hierarchy of the strict father who provides for the family.  It reminds them of their view of the natural order of things

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea of the strict father model and how many conservative ideals come from this model applied to a nation.  George Lakoff makes the point that we all think in both modes, strict father and nurturant parent depending on how an argument is framed to activate that mode of thinking.  In the next few days I will try to point out how the Republicans are masters at activating the strict father mode.

But back to my original example:  Now I think you see what was going on.  From my hostess’s original reaction to the indigent elderly couple, the strict father figure model was in play.  They lacked self discipline, did not work hard, and were poor now.  They deserved their fate and to help them would be to encourage more undisciplined behavior and sap our tax dollars.  Ah but if the world were so simple.  You know the funny thing is that this is almost a instinctive reaction in the abstract, yet if it impacts their personal lives, they can show great compassion.

One further note on this already too long blog:  One characteristic I find in common with my conservative friends along with the idea that the poor some how caused their poorness, is that government workers are lazy flacks.  Although they make exception for the military, police, and fireman, the rest are leeches that suck our tax dollars dry.  But when you see it from the strict father model it is quite simple.  If you work for the government that provides services to people, then you are not seeking your self interest to the maximum, you are helping those that don’t follow the rules and are upsetting the natural order, and therefore you are lazy and encouraging immoral behavior.  You don’t deserve the benefits you receive because you are not competing and by paying taxes to support you, I am hurting my ability to fully secure my own self interests.   It is an interesting way to see the world.  Too bad they don’t have my 31 years of government experience to know that the majority work very hard and think there is more to measure a life by than money and self interest.

“If the Democrats get elected their tax and spend ways will destroy our economy.”  How many times have you heard that?  It is the Republican conventional wisdom that conservative politics are more suited to helping our economy.  “Cutting taxes simulates the economy and the lower the taxes on business, the better our economy hums.”  Of course if you are at all tuned into reality and accept that they have had their way for eight years (twelve in Congress and eight in the White House) you might be questioning those assumption looking at where our economy is today.  But reality doesn’t faze most of these folks so I want to throw something at them and see if they can grasp it.

If low taxes helps business by simulating investment and growth, what does it tell you that two thirds of large business (both domestic and foreign) in the United States pay no taxes at all?  CNN reported that:

“The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined samples of corporate tax returns filed between 1998 and 2005. In that time period, an annual average of 1.3 million U.S. companies and 39,000 foreign companies doing business in the United States paid no income taxes – despite having a combined $2.5 trillion in revenue.

The study showed that 28% of foreign companies and 25% of U.S. corporations with more than $250 million in assets or $50 million in sales paid no federal income taxes in 2005. Those companies totaled a combined $372 billion in sales for the largest foreign companies and $1.1 trillion in revenue for the biggest U.S. companies.”

So how could taxes get any lower for them?  Do we start paying them out of the treasury to do business here?  That’s called subsidies and if you look at the oil and gas business, we do it all the time.

But here is the clincher:  In an article in the New York Times Business Section entitled, “Is History Siding with Obama’s Economic Plan”, the author of the article, Alan S. Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, cites two economic facts “in a brilliantly delineated”  new book, “Unequal Democracy,” by Larry M. Bartels, a professor of political science at Princeton.  These facts when looking at the period from 1948 to 2007 during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26 show:

➢    First, average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.  Said another way, the GNP grew at almost twice the rate under Democrats as Republicans

➢    Second, over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all

Said simply, the numbers show that our economy and the welfare of our people have been better served under Democratic administrations than Republican ones.  What Republican administrations have done is continue to widen the income gap between rich and poor, but when you look at the very rich, it also accelerated their accumulation of wealth while retarding the economic growth of those not so fortunate.  One possible explanation for this is that cutting taxes for the rich accelerates their wealth accumulation, while Democrats prefer a more progressive tax distribution, and raising the minimum wage.

Whatever the cause, it would seem that if history is any guide, the economy will grow faster, with less inequality under the Democrats.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it Republicans.  Kind of destroys that whole flow down fantasy you have been gouging us with.  Maybe it is time for a real change.  What is that I hear from my Republican friends?  You say those good numbers were just a result of Democrats reaping the benefits of good Republican policies.  Then why are we where we are today?

Make no mistake; the mess we are in is a direct result of conservative thinking.  What we are going to be presented with in the next week was previewed in Andrew Ferguson’s column that appeared in the New York Times on Sunday, “Republicans, bound for Mars”, the old bad Republicans are gone and the real conservatives in the form of John McCain and Sarah Palin are back to save us.  I could only stand Meet the Press for about two minutes on Sunday because those were the Republican talking points and Tom Brokaw is no Tim Russert.  Now think about it.  We have John McCain who promises to stay in Iraq for as long as it takes while our nation goes bankrupt and Sarah Palin who represents every extreme right political dogma that has bogged us down for the last eight years to include drilling everywhere while our problem is our dependence on oil, teaching evolution and creationism as equal scientific theories, staunch supporter of the NRA, supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages, and deny women any choice even in the case of rape or incest.  How are these new Republicans and how do any of their policies address our problems going forward?

Basic conservative thinking is all over the block, but to distill it down, it is small government, minimal government interference in public discourse, and fiscal responsibility.  The “new” Republicans are going to bring back all these wonderful traits, and do away with the old Republicans of the last 8-12 years and of course, the evil doer Democrats who are responsible for everything that has gone wrong.  The problem with all of this is that it is a strategy for 1900’s not the 21st century.  Even Republicans recognize this in their actions if not in their words as they call for more border enforcement and better FDA screening of products and goods imported into this country, all of which results in larger government.  Our energy crisis is not going to be solved by less government, but by massive investments especially in the electrical transmissions systems to make alternate energy viable.  Even Boone Pickens get this.  The whole idea of minimal government is not compatible with the massive challenges we face for the future that will take a collective effort of both government and industry.  Should I even remind you of what reduced regulation has brought us in the energy mess of Eron, the contaminated food stuffs and toys that have shown up in our stores, or the potential bank failures of the mortgage crisis?  Government is not the enemy as the Republicans believe, but the tool that will allow us to propel ourselves into the 21st century

Then there is the less intrusive government that stays out of people’s lives.  The reality is the only Party that believes in this is the Democrats.  Take a look at Sarah Palin’s beliefs and religious dogma that represents what the religious right would like to enforce on the rest of us.  The real conservatives, the Barry Goldwaters of the world, believed that government had no right to enter into people’s private lives and force them to carry babies they did not want, decide what their rights were in an end of life situation, or decide who we can love and marry.  They believed in a strong separation of church and state.  Do you see that in John McCain or Sarah Palin?

Finally there is the issue of fiscal responsibility.  Needless to say the present crop of Republicans have spent wildly and under a Republican Congress and Republican President, they have created the greatest deficit in the history of the country.  But these “new” Republicans are going to save us and right our ship.  Here is where I go against the conventional wisdom grain.  We have ignored our country and its infrastructure needs for years and now all the chickens are coming home to roast.  We need massive investments in roads, bridges, rail, education, energy, communications, medical care, and on and on.  This is not the time to further backslide on what will make us competitive in the 21st century against China and India who have been and are making these investments. Katrina vanden Heuvel, a woman I highly admire for her ability to rationally take on the conservatives and editor and publisher of Nation Magazine, made a similar argument on the Bill Moyer’s Journal last week. If you need a simple minded example, I really can’t afford to reseal my quarter mile asphalt driveway this year, but I can’t afford not to because saving money today will bankrupt me tomorrow.  If we don’t invest in ourselves today, we will get so far behind we will never catch up with the rest of the world.

To me it is so obvious that the Republican’s and their conservative philosophy is at a dead end, but I got a lesson the other evening in how Republicans think or more appropriately don’t think.  I made an off-handed comment over dinner about the fact that the  country is in a mess and the Republicans have controlled our course for eight years.  My friend, who like most of people who live up here think conservative, said yes but the Democrats have had the Congress for two years and so they are also the problem.  When I pointed out that it was less than 18 months (when they actually were seated) and that the Republicans had blocked every substantial legislation with a filibuster, he commented that the Democrats did the same thing when the Republicans had the Congress.  When I pointed out that that was not true and that the Republicans in the last session had set an all time record for the use of the filibuster, he was incredulous.  That’s when I got a kick under the table from my wife to move on.

The point here is quite simple.  Eight years of failure doesn’t faze the Republicans.  It must be the Democrats fault.  There is no acceptance that their basic conservative dogma offers us no solutions for the future.  There is no acceptance of responsibility for what the people they put in office have wrought with our nation.  “We’ll just get a few better ones, not the misguide ones we had, and things will be fine.”  Thus we have the depiction of John McCain as a maverick and Sarah Palin as a real conservative.  There is only one way for them to face up to the reality of their failures.  Throw them out of office.  It is now or never ladies and gentlemen.

By the by, in the world of cynical politics, have you seen John McCain using the hurricane Gustav as a political tool to gather sympathy for he and Sarah.  Republican Govenors invite them down to the South to view their preparations.  I wonder how many resources were diverted for their visti?  I am appalled that he has anything to say about the hurricane other than to get out of way and let local and federal officials do their job.