Three Questions

Three Fundamental Differences Between Progressives and Conservatives, Pt. 4

Terrance Heath — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:28:22 -0400

For all the noise they make extolling small town America and Main Street as the epitome of American values and the touchstone of morality, conservatism's world view is much closer to that voiced by Phil Gramm, who once called Wall Street a "holy place" — because of all it has "done for the working people of America." Little more than two years after Gramm uttered those words it seems righteousness of a deregulated financial sector comes not what it has allegedly done "for" working Americans, but what it has done to them.

That is, if you're a conservative — because, then, we are not in the middle of a crisis, but rather a correction.

Crisis v. Correction

Gramm's statement, let alone his reverence for Wall Street, is even more perplexing now than when he said it two years ago, when read with the the understanding that (as Robert Reich most recently pointed out) Wall Street bears some responsibility for both the crisis itself and it's severity. (Yes, there's plenty of blame to go around. But let's not pretend that everyone deserves an equal share.) Take into consideration that millions of Americans have suffered disastrous consequences, caught in a crisis they're not powerful enough to stop, let alone start, and Gramm's veneration of Wall Street seems downright crazy (and more than a little creepy).

It is, however, completely consistent with conservative's response to a disaster of a different sort, and the people who suffered in its wake.

Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, heaping devastation upon New Orleans, and leaving a trail of destruction from Florida to Texas. Nearly as devastating as the storm itself was what happened to those left in New Orleans, unable to get themselves out the way of the storm and its aftermath.

After Katrina's deluge came the rhetorical deluge from the right, as conservatives responded with as much anger and outrage as many others witnessing the footage and hearing the stories from post-hurricane New Orleans. But their comments made it clear that where most people were concerned with the failure of the government to step in and help people who were unable to escape the storm and its aftermath, conservatives seemed to reserve their anger and outrage for Katrina victims.

Barbara Bush's nervous discomfort with the possibility that Katrina refugees might stay in Houston — where she lived, and Tom DeLay's bizarre "Isn't this fun?" question to a group of boys living in a shelter after the hurricane, gave way to remarks like those of Rep. Richard Baker, who declared, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Yet, even Baker's comment seems benign compared to; Glenn Beck calling Katrina victims "scum," as he declared his hatred for them and the families of 9/11 victims; Republican strategist Jack Burkman dismissing Katrina deaths with the familiar conservative refrain, "These things happen"; Newt Gingrich blaming "uneducated and unprepared" Katrina victims for not being able to get themselves out of the way of the hurricane; and then Sen. Rick Santorum going Gingrich one better, and suggesting a "a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

But, as one of many bloggers posting about Katrina at the time, conservative pundits Bill O'Reilly and George Will offered a clear conservative frame of Katrina and the events that followed.

Let’s take a look at two such conservatives who at least came close to saying something like the above in public recently.

There was Bill O’Reilly, for whom disaster and human tragedy is also a "teachable moment."

American middle and high school students everywhere should be required to watch video tape of the poor people stranded by Hurricane Katrina. Teachers should point out that many U.S. citizens without the financial means to get out of New Orleans wound up floating face down in the water or, at the very least, were subject to gross indignities and suffering of all kinds.

The teachers should then tell the students that the local, state and federal government bureaucracies failed to protect those poor people, even though everybody knew the storm was coming days in advance. The lesson should then segue into how the most powerful nation in the world was powerless to stop 9/11, and scores of other natural and man made disasters throughout our history.

After presenting those undeniable facts, the teachers should then present two questions to the students: Do you want to be poor? And do you believe the U.S. government can protect you if you are poor?

…Then there’s George Will, who thinks that Barak Obama — who described Bush adminsitration officials as unable concieve of people who couldn’t (as O’Reilly says a professor pal of his did) hop in the SUV and head for higher ground — missed the point.

America’s always fast-flowing river of race-obsessing has overflowed its banks, and last Sunday on ABC’s "This Week," Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois’s freshman Democrat, applied to the expression of old banalities a fluency that would be beguiling were it without content. Unfortunately, it included the requisite lament about the president’s inadequate "empathy" and an amazing criticism of the government’s "historic indifference" and its "passive indifference" that "is as bad as active malice." The senator, 44, is just 30 months older than the "war on poverty" that President Johnson declared in January 1964. Since then the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed in more than $6.6 trillion of anti-poverty spending, strictly defined.

The senator is called a "new kind of Democrat," which often means one with new ways of ignoring evidence discordant with old liberal orthodoxies about using cash — much of it spent through liberalism’s "caring professions" — to cope with cultural collapse. He might, however, care to note three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don’t have a baby until you are married, don’t marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal.

Many of us felt anger and frustration over the seemingly endless reports and horrific stories coming out of New Orleans, because on some level we shared a basic value similar to the one expressed by an anti-poverty activist in the previous post in this series.

Other anti-poverty experts say the record caseloads are a necessary response to economic hardship. "We should be there to support people when the economy can't," says LaDonna Pavetti of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank.

Our anger and frustration was a result of the obvious failure of government to come to the aid of those without the resources to get themselves and their families out of harm's way.

The anger and frustration of conservatives was effectively summed up by conservative commentator Neal Boortz, just a couple of years after Katrina:

BOORTZ: I like this: "Edwards' campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago, with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn't hear the cries of the downtrodden." Cries of the downtrodden, my left butt cheek. That wasn't the cries of the downtrodden; that's the cries of the useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them. "It's somebody else's job to get me out of here. It's somebody else's job to save my life. Not mine. Send me a bus, send me a limo, send me a boat, send me a helicopter, send me a taxi, send me something. But you certainly don't expect me to actually work to get myself out of this situation, do you? Haven't you been watching me for generations? I've never done anything to improve my own lot in life. I've never done anything to rescue myself. Why do you expect me to do that now, just because a levee broke?"

And then Edwards said, yeah, it was Washington's problem, it was all Washington's problem, it was all George Bush's fault. You had a city of parasites and leeches, and that's George Bush's fault? So, boy, I need to slow down. I'm saying too many of the things I actually believe today.

What Baker, Gingrich and Santorum implied, and what O'Reilly and Will suggested, Boortz said very explicitly: it’s not that the government can’t help people, especially the poor, who can’t get themselves or their families out of harms way; it’s that the government shouldn’t help them. Their poverty itself marks them as undeserving of help.

In fact, the government must not help, because it would be helping the wrong people. By stepping into a what many of us see as a crisis, government effectively gets in the way of the what conservatives see as a much needed correction.

Moral Hazard

O'Reilly, Will and Boortz aside, I can' t think of anyone who has distilled the conservative world view than George Lackoff, author of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Lakoff's take rings true for conservatives on the current economic crisis.

Competition is necessary for a moral world; without it, people would not have to develop discipline and so would not become moral beings. Worldly success is an indicator of sufficient moral strength; lack of success suggests lack of sufficient discipline. Dependency is immoral. The undisciplined will be weak and poor, and deservedly so.

Strict Father Morality demonstrates a natural Moral Order: Those who are moral should be in power. The Moral Order legitimizes traditional power relations as being natural, determining a hierarchy of Moral Authority: God above Man; Man above Nature; Adults above Children; Western Culture above Non-western Culture; America above other nations. (There are other traditional aspects of the Moral Order that are less accepted than they used to be: Straights above Gays; Christians above non-Christians; Men above Women; White above Non-whites.)

Since to participate in the promotion or preservation of immorality is itself immoral, it is a moral requirement to eradicate immorality—through "tough love" if possible but through punishment if necessary—in every aspect of life, both public and private, domestic and foreign.

In other words, it is not only better to let the poor drown in the stagnant waters left in Katrina's wake, but it is right. After all, they're poverty is solely their own fault. Not only should the government not help them, but as Boortz suggests, individuals have no particular obligation to do so either. If they were better people they would be better off, and better able to pile the family into the SUV with a few cases of bottled water, and head for higher ground. What's happening to them is no more than what they deserve.

It's not a stretch to compare conservative rhetoric around Katrina to the current recession, which has all the makings of an economic Katrina, as Dean Baker described in a column last month:

The middle class is getting whacked by the Great Recession. Fifteen million people are out of work, another 9 million workers can only find part-time jobs, and millions more have given up looking for work altogether. Those lucky enough to be employed are unlikely to see any substantial wage gains for years to come.

Millions of homeowners are facing the loss of their home and more than 10 million are underwater in their mortgage. Most of the huge baby boom cohort is approaching retirement with little other than Social Security to support them, now that the collapse of the housing bubble has destroyed their home equity and much of the rest of their savings.

Like those left behind in Katrina's wake, millions of unemployed and under-employed Americans have been essentially abandoned in the middle of an economic disaster, figuratively standing on the roof tops (of homes with underwater mortgages), waiting for help to arrive — three years into the crisis.

And, as with Katrina, conservatives in Congress and the media reserve the bulk their anger for those Americans suffering the most in this crisis.

When conservatives, after months of blocking unemployment benefits for millions of Americans, started talking about extending tax cuts for the wealthy it seemed counterintuitive. But in the conservative world view it made perfect sense.

Just as it was "a tragedy of the first proportion" for the government to hold BP responsible for the consequences of it's oil leak, spending tax dollars to extend unemployment benefits is "punishing" the wrong people. At least according to Rand Paul, taxes are a "punishment" rather than paying ones fare share for the public infrastructure that we all use, but that the wealthy use to varying degrees to increase their wealth.

Listen carefully to the what conservatives — media spokespersons, office holders and office seekers — have been saying about Americans caught in the unemployment crisis: that helping them with unemployment benefits will make them not want to get jobs; that people are unemployed because they want to be; that they're choosing not to work; that there are jobs available, but the unemployed are too lazy and too busy using drugs to bother applying for the jobs that are out there just waiting for them; that they should just go work at McDonald's; and so on.

It hardly matters that unemployed workers outnumber lob openings, or that unemployment benefits don't discourage job hunting, because the benefits are nowhere near enough to replace a paycheck. And it hardly matters that millions of Americans are struggling to survive on unemployment benefits, living day-to-day, not knowing how they'll survive when benefits run out again.

It makes perfect sense to cut taxes for the wealthy while cutting benefits for the unemployed, as well as the government programs that serve those in the most need, and it's easy to do so without thinking of the consequences those already in desperate need. It just depends on the context in which you view all the realities above.

It should come as no surprise that candidates like Sharron Angle — who opposed extending unemployment benefits and also opposed Katrina relief funds — have become the rising stars of contemporary conservatism. Three years later, Neal Boortz suggestion that he'd said too much seems almost coy. There are, however, a still a few limits. As far as I know, conservatives have not yet embraced NY Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino's idea to use prisons as dorms for welfare recipients.

Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they could work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in "personal hygiene."

Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo real estate developer popular with many tea party activists, isn't saying the state should jail poor people: The program would be voluntary.

…Asked at the meeting how he would achieve those savings, Paladino laid out several plans that included converting underused state prisons into centers that would house welfare recipients. There, they would do work for the state — "military service, in some cases park service, in other cases public works service," he said — while prison guards would be retrained to work as counselors.

"Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we'll teach people how to earn their check. We'll teach them personal hygiene ... the personal things they don't get when they come from dysfunctional homes," Paladino said.

Paladino's idea would effectively bring the workhouse of the Victorian era into the 21st Century.

As counterintuitive as it seems, just like those Americans who needed help during Katrina and its aftermath, Americans who are in need of help in this economy (help getting back to work, help keeping their homes, help putting food on the table, etc.) are undeserving of help precisely because they need it. If they lack sufficient resources to whether this particular storm, it's because they are "lazy," drug addicted," or just choosing not to work. If they were better people, they'd be better off right now.

Just as mortgage relief that might have kept people in their homes was opposed because it might have helped the "wrong" people, and health care reform was vehemently opposed because it might help the "wrong" people, so have any efforts to alleviate the suffering of millions of unemployed Americans — let alone serious investment in job creation — run into intent opposition from conservative.

It all boils down to the supposed danger of "moral hazard," and the belief that people in need of help might not change their ways if they don't suffer enough for their moral failings — failings which are indicated by their need for help in the first place.

Hazardous Morals

Conservative opposition to keeping people in their homes, expanding access to health care for the uninsured, helping the unemployed, and investing in job creation are at least party based on the belief that it's a "moral hazard" to help the "wrong" people. But in each conflict over the above in the last two years, the line between the "right" people and the "wrong" people seem arbitrarily drawn. It's not a straight line either, but one that winds its way around the familiar territories and battlegrounds of race, gender, class, and a few others. An example of this are the unemployed tea baggers who receive social security and Medicare benefits even as they rage against health care reform, unemployment benefits.

It clear that the "right" people vs. the "wrong" people is simply the same an "us" vs. "them" dichotomy that has run like a motif through this country's history. Most recently it's raised its head in the form of the controversy over the proposed Park51 Islamic cultural center at "Ground Zero."

In his response to the Park 51 controversy, President Obama again gave voice to the opposing progressive value: that Americans are all on the same side; that there is no "us" v. "them," but just "us."

President Obama closed his longest-ever press conference Friday by saying that Muslims who are fighting for America should understand that all Americans are on the same side.

"I've got Muslims who are fighting in Afghanistan in the uniform of the United States armed services," he said. "They're out there putting their lives on the line for us, and we've got to make sure that we are crystal clear, for our sakes and their sakes, they are Americans, and we honor their service."

"And part of honoring their service is making sure that they understand that we don't differentiate between them and us," he added. "It's just us."

That leads to the third and final of the questions that launched this series of posts: What do we mean by "We"?

Three Fundamental Differences Between Progressives and Conservatives, Pt. 3

Terrance Heath — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:08:54 -0400

Read the rest of the series here.

In the previous post in this series, I wrote:

To progressives, it seems a given that of course we must do something to alleviate the suffering that the financial collapse and economic downturn have the inflicted on millions of Americans. That's the moral response to human suffering: Do something about it. Most of our complaints about the current state of our politics is that too little has been done in this regard.

Yet, the moral response to suffering and the circumstances — whether a crisis or unfortunate circumstance — depends on your point of view.

"Do something" and "Do nothing," are statements that both reflect and answer the question, "Should we?."

Both raise questions that demand justification: "Why?" and "Why not?"

Recent headlines underscore the difference between doing something and doing nothing, and why progressive and conservative answers the second question — "Should we" — are so starkly different.

Do Something

Remember the auto-bailout? Around beginning of June, and again in mid-August, we started seeing reports that it at last this bailout was starting to pay off. Particular attention given to GM's turnaround: the first quarterly profit reported in almost three years, rising prices for the company's cars, filing to once again sell shares publicly, and already producing returns on the government's investment. Where U.S. manufacturing has lost nearly 175,000 jobs in the last two years, the U.S. auto parts and production sectors grew by 41,000 jobs to 704,000 between July 2009 and July 2010.

No wonder president Obama, when he toured a GM factory in Detroit, touted the success of GM's turnaround to vindicate government intervention to save U.S. automakers — and the jobs of auto-workers, as well as those in the parts, supply, and service sectors that depend on the auto-industry. White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs summed up the administration's argument: ""

It serves to remind Americans of what conservatives would rather we forget: that they were adamant that the government stand by and "do nothing" as U.S. automakers failed, with disastrous consequences for workers, families and communities that relied on the industry. Likewise, conservatives were willing to let the financial sector collapse, and let million of Americans suffer another Great Depression, "For the sake of the altar of the free market." Many of the congressional conservatives who advocated letting the U.S. auto-industry die, came from southern states that offered generous incentives to foreign automakers to build factories, which came the expense of their constituents, and failed to yield the promised economic growth.

None could claim to be as successful, in fact, as our government's investment in saving the U.S. auto-industry. No wonder conservatives who claimed at the time that president Obama effectively "owned" GM, with a government rescue in place for the company and other automakers, are now claiming that he can claim no credit for its turnaround.

Nothing Doing

That jobless claims hit 500,000 in July, and foreclosures hit 300,000, only underscores that government intervention saved at last some Americans from adding to those numbers. Conservative policies, in terms of the auto bailout, would have meant even more jobless claims. Even most conservatives would be hard pressed to argue right now that workers whose jobs were lost in the collapse of an entire indigenous industry would have been "absorbed" by the private sector by now.

More recently, USA Today reported that one in six Americans receive help from government anti-poverty programs — including a 17% increase of Americans on Medicaid — since the recession began in December 2007.

Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.

More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That's up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007.

… More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years.

… Close to 10 million receive unemployment insurance, nearly four times the number from 2007. Benefits have been extended by Congress eight times beyond the basic 26-week program, enabling the long-term unemployed to get up to 99 weeks of benefits. Caseloads peaked at nearly 12 million in January — "the highest numbers on record," says Christine Riordan of the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for low-wage workers.

More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18% increase during the recession. The program has grown slower than others, causing Brookings Institution expert Ron Haskins to question its effectiveness in the recession.

Understand that even as these numbers illustrate that an increasing number of Americans are in need of help, conservatives are enthusiastically advocating cuts that would certainly make circumstances even more dire.

The USA Today article notes that the programs have grown because the recession has made more people eligible for these programs, and Congress has expanded eligibility and benefits in response to increased need. What it doesn't mention is that, particularly when it comes to unemployment benefits, congressional conservatives consistently blocked extensions, and have even advocated cuts in the very programs that more Americans are finding themselves in need of.

It's a conservative "Nothing Doing" approach to government that has a firm rooting in conservative philosophy, worldview, and understanding of government.

Counterintuitive Conservatism

Demanding cuts that would almost certainly impact programs would seem counterintuitive to many people, certainly to progressives. After all, if the moral response to the suffering caused by the economic crisis is to do something to alleviate it, then cutting the programs that provide some measure of relief is counterintuitive, or "seemingly contrary to common sense."

That is, unless you're an adherent of what passes for mainstream conservatism today. Then it makes sense.

When conservatives, after months of blocking unemployment benefits for millions of Americans, started talking about extending tax cuts for the wealthy it seemed counterintuitive. But in the conservative world view it made perfect sense.

Just as it was "a tragedy of the first proportion" for the government to hold BP responsible for the consequences of it's oil leak, spending tax dollars to extend unemployment benefits is "punishing" the wrong people. At least according to Rand Paul, taxes are a "punishment" rather than paying ones fare share for the public infrastructure that we all use, but that the wealthy use to varying degrees to increase their wealth.

Listen carefully to the what conservatives — media spokespersons, office holder, and office seekers — have been saying about Americans caught in the unemployment crisis: that helping them with unemployment benefits will make them not want to get jobs; that people are unemployed because they want to be; that they're choosing not to work; that there are jobs available, but the unemployed are too lazy and too busy using drugs to bother applying for the jobs that are out there just waiting for them; that they should just go work at McDonald's; and so on.

It hardly matters that unemployed workers outnumber lob openings, or that unemployment benefits don't discourage job hunting, because the benefits are nowhere near enough to replace a paycheck. And it hardly matters that millions of Americans are struggling to survive on unemployment benefits, living day-to-day, not knowing how they'll survive when benefits run out again.

It makes perfect sense to cut taxes for the wealthiest citizens while cutting benefits for the neediest, as well as the government programs that serve those in the most need, and it's easy to do so without thinking of the consequences those already in desperate need. It just depends on the context in which you view all the realities above.

The USA Today article cited above ends with a quote from an anti-poverty expert that pretty much sums up the progressive position.

Other anti-poverty experts say the record caseloads are a necessary response to economic hardship. "We should be there to support people when the economy can't," says LaDonna Pavetti of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank.

The current ascendant strain of conservatism says, "No we shouldn't" be there to support people when they economy can't (or won't).

Because to do so would be immoral.

Three Fundamental Differences Between Progressives and Conservatives, Pt. 2

Terrance Heath — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:03:58 -0400

Last week, I wrote this:

The fundamental differences between the left and the right — between conservatives and progressives — comes down to how we answer three simple questions: "Can we?," "Should we?" and "What do we mean, 'We'?"

Apply them to any challenge we face as a country — Can we make health care available to all? Can we reign in Wall Street? Can we build an economy that works for the other 99% of us? Can we keep teachers, police officers, and fire fighters working in our communities? Can we reduce our contribution to climate change? — and our answers reveal who we are and where we're headed.

This week, an exchange between two political leaders illustrates that point, and then some.

In one corner is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who looked back over the challenges and crisis the country has dealt with in the past year, and only regretted that his party didn't do more to block the Obama administration's and congressional Democrats' efforts to solve them.

In an interview with the New York Times McConnell said charges that he blocked the president’s agenda are okay by him because of the results.

“I am amused with their comments about obstructionism,” McConnell said to the Times. “I wish we had been able to obstruct more. They were able to get the health care bill through. They were able to get the stimulus through. They were able to get the financial reform through. These were all major pieces of legislation, and if I would have had enough votes to stop them, I would have.”

In the other corner is President Obama, who almost took the words right out of my mouth.

Today Obama used McConnell’s comment to paint the Republican Party in general as the party of "no."

"Obstruct more? Is that even possible?," he said.

Obama said the Republicans have a twist on his campaign slogan, “Yes We Can.”

"These guys slogan is 'No we can't,'" the president said. "Clean energy? No we can't. Health care? No we can't. Wall Street reform? no we can't.

OK. He was a bit more concise than I was.

Left unspoken — unasked and unanswered — in the exchange between Obama and McConnell is the second question from the previous post: "Should we?"

Should we?

To pick up where the president left off, in the context of the crises both he and McConnell addressed, the question becomes: "Should we make health care available to all? Should we reign in Wall Street? Should we build an economy that works for the other 99% of us? Should we keep teachers, police officers, and fire fighters working in our communities? Should we reduce our contribution to climate change?"

That's really question both men are answering. Neither is arguing that nothing can be done to addresses these and other challenges, or whether a "perfect" solution is possible. Both the efforts of the White House and congressional Democrats, and the obstructionism of conservatives in Congress make it clear that something can be done to addressed these problems, mitigate the damage done, and alleviate the suffering of Americans in the midst of crises.

Of course something can be done. One party worked to do as much as was thought possible, and one side worked to stop them. That's because of how each answered the third question: "Should we?"

For progressives, the answer is clearly, "Yes, we should."

For conservatives, the obvious answer is "No, we should not."

It's a more nuanced question than the first, and getting at the root of how conservatives and progressives answer it will require a couple more questions.

Crisis or Unfortunate?

In the previous post, I framed progressive and conservatives answers to the first question — "Can we?" — in terms of justice and injustice, and choice between working to challenge injustice or simply accepting some degree of injustice and allowing it to stand. The implication was that how each side answered the question depends upon whether we first even perceive injustice in the status quo. Again, Paul Rosenberg explained it well:

…By its very nature, conservatism's tribalism, focus on narratives, attraction to comfort and acceptance of hierarchy provide a strong impetus towards a relative simplicity of political self-concept.

The exact opposite is true of progressivism. The universalist tendency means everyone is invited in, and tribalism is always distrusted to some degree or other — even the idea of establishing a progressive identity. Having a critical-empirical approach means that what a given progressive individual or group believes is highly mutable, depending on the latest research — or at least, the latest information available to them, as it fits into their pre-existing understanding of the world.

The second question fits into a similar frame, informed by those perceptions.

When we look around us — at what's happening in our communities, our country and the world — and conditions in which some of us live, what do we see? In the final post of a serious on health care reform, I finally concluded that where one stood on health care reform depending on whether one saw lack of access to health care as an injustice or merely unfortunate.

The difference depends on what you believe concerning health care. Is it an injustice that millions of Americans have little or no access to quality, affordable health care? Or is it merely unfortunate?

It depends on whether you believe health care is a right. It's a generalization, but not too much of one, to say that progressives — many or most — believe that health care is a right; or, more specifically, that access to quality, affordable health care is a right. This makes health care a human rights or civil rights issue. It means that a system in which millions are without access to care is an unjust system.

What if you don't believe that health care is a right? If you don't believe that health care is a right, then it is not a human rights or civil rights issue. It means that millions of Americans being without health care is not an injustice. It may be unfortunate, but it's not an injustice.

What does this matter? It matters, because an injustice and a merely unfortunate circumstance add up to to different levels of urgency. An injustice, to many people, is intolerable, and thus so is any delay in delivering justice.

A similar question can be asked about about each of the challenges both McConnell and President Obama mentioned: "Is it a crisis or merely unfortunate?" Turning to the dictionary again, there are a few applicable definitions:

cri·sis

–noun

1. a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, esp. for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.

2. a condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change.

3. a dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person's life.

It is a crisis that 18% of American workers are either unemployed or underemployed? Or is it merely unfortunate? A crisis requires decisive action sufficient to halt and reverse the undesirable trend, avert danger, correct instability, and end the upheaval crisis brings.

An unfortunate circumstance may require no action at all, as responsibility may be pinned entirely on the individual or individuals affected. In fact, the action necessitated by crisis may be an overreaction to what adds up to mere unfortunate circumstances.

Action vs. Overreaction

Conservative responses to the economic meltdown, and the ensuing problems rippling out from it make it clear that what progressives see and many Americans experience as a crisis is, from a conservative viewpoint, merely unfortunate. The most recent example is Sen. Bob Corker's recommendation on what to do about the economy: Do nothing and wait.

And less than a month earlier, House Minority Leader John Boehner compared financial reform legislation to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon." As with McConnell, the president's response put Boehner's words in context of the impact the financial crisis has had on every day Americans.

Obama got in his licks on Wednesday. "That's what he said -- he compared the financial crisis to an ant," the president told a Wisconsin crowd. "This is the same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly 8 million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes, their life savings."

The Republican idea seems to be, Obama joked, that all the country needs is an "ant swatter."

That context could have just as easily come from Boehner's own family. Three of the minority leaders brothers lost their jobs in the recession. But he cited their job loss, and his not knowing whether they'd found jobs yet, as a sign of his "empathy" for the unemployed.

Of course, Boehner's words only echoed many of his fellow conservatives, from Phil Gramm disissing the recession as a "mental recession" and Americans as "whiners," to No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor accusing the White House and congressional Democrats of "overreacting" to the economic crisis.

In their view, there is no crisis. Sure it's unfortunate that 14.6 million Americans are unemployed, that states will have to cut hundreds of thousands more jobs, that foreclosures are over 300,000 for the 17th month, that bank repossessions of homes are at a record high, that cuts to the food stamp program are likely even as more Americans need food stamps, and especially that suicides among the unemployed are spiking in areas hard hit by the recession.

No of these things, individually or all together, amount to a crisis. Thus, the greatest danger is that we may try do too much about them. The best course of action is to do nothing.

Do Nothing

Not that Rep. Boehner is wrong. Empathy is defined, after all, as the intellectual identification with the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of another. One empathizes with the misfortunes of others, for example. Compassion, on the other hand, is defined as feeling deep sympathy or sorrow for another's misfortune, accompanied by the strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

To progressives, it seems a given that of course we must do something to alleviate the suffering that the financial collapse and economic downturn have the inflicted on millions of Americans. That's the moral response to human suffering: Do something about it. Most of our complaints about the current state of our politics is that too little has been done in this regard.

Yet, the moral response to suffering and the circumstances — whether a crisis or unfortunate circumstance — depends on your point of view.

"Do something" and "Do nothing," are statements that both reflect and answer the question, "Should we?."

Both raise questions that demand justification: "Why?" and "Why not?"

Three Fundamental Differences Between Progressives and Conservatives, Pt. 1

Terrance Heath — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:24:42 -0400

Part I of III

When caught at something, it's best to come clean. I was recently caught by the Crow, who — in a response to my earlier post about power outages and our politics of powerlessness — saw and asked outright the obvious question I've been hinting at for some time.

Heath has written enough essays like this to make me think about the next questions, even though he avoids it in this essay. Is the GOP intentionally fostering this helplessness? To what end? For a party that pushes the entrepreneurial spirit what is the benefit of helpless masses? Are sheep easier to rule over if they are complacent?

Now that it's been asked, why not tackle it head-on?

Three Questions

The fundamental differences between the left and the right — between conservatives and progressives — comes down to how we answer three simple questions: "Can we?," "Should we?" and "What do we mean, 'We'?"

Apply them to any challenge we face as a country — Can we make health care available to all? Can we reign in Wall Street? Can we build an economy that works for the other 99% of us? Can we keep teachers, police officers, and fire fighters working in our communities? Can we reduce our contribution to climate change? — and our answers reveal who we are and where we're headed.

Can we?

Each side's answer to the first question have most recently been emblazoned on Barack Obama's campaign posters and shouted on the floor of Congress by House Minority Leader John Boehner: "Yes, we can," and "Hell no, you can't."

It may be trite to begin an argument citing definitions, but in this case it's appropriate. The dictionary on my Macbook. which seems as good as any, defines "conservative" as:

a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics.

And it defines "progressive" as:

a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.

The difference between the two was illustrated for me by two blog posts I read weeks apart. The first came to my attention through Athenae, via Digby. Aptly titled "No, We Can't," it was written by the John Derbyshire of the National Review Online. I was struck by his oddly celebratory, and almost gleeful tone concerning the oil leak in the Gulf, and the possibility it was unstoppable.

As the writer says: "The very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more."

In slightly different words: The best we can hope for is that the thing just goes on gushing through the bore hole indefinitely. (Or until we can drill enough relief wells to reduce the pressure. Don't hold your breath.)

I'm as horrified as anyone by this — if the guy has got it right, and I've understood him correctly. At the same time, as a constitutional pessimist, I'll own to a certain grim satisfaction. The infantile optimism of post-JFK America may have met its match down there in the Gulf. Nature is not mocked.

My reaction was the same as Athenae's. (Though not nearly as colorful.) I wondered, as she did, what Derbyshire meant by "infantile optimism." So I searched NRO, and found Derbyshire's definition.

Optimism helped build this nation. Yes, we can clear the forest, tame the prairies, fight off the Indians. Yes, we can build heavier-than-air flying machines, land on the Moon, defeat fascism and communism. Yes, we can prosper without the horror and indignity of slavery. I am sure there were pessimists who said those things could not be done. They were wrong; and thoughtful persons, including thoughtful pessimists, knew at the time that they were wrong.

Today, however, American optimism has got completely out of hand. A corrective is needed. The corrective must come from conservatives, the people who understand that "human nature has no history." We must revive the fine tradition of conservative pessimism. In this age, optimism is for children and fools. And liberals.

Some children will be left behind. You cannot "remake the Middle East" or "defeat evil." The poor will always be with us. Black and white will never mingle together in unselfconscious harmony. Corporations will not research and explore without hope of profit. Russia will not become Sweden. Forty million immigrants speaking a single language will not assimilate.

Conservatives used to know all this. Some - the infallibly sapient Roger Kimball, for example - still do. The smiley-faces are leading us to perdition. They must be shouted down.

Derbyshire's position isn't new, of course. We've heard it before, concerning previous disasters and their victims. We heard it in the odd ways conservatives responded to Katrina, for example.

Good Enough vs. Better

I filed Derbyshire's post away, to maybe write about later. Later came when I read Paul Rosenberg's post about why it's so complicated to be a progressive. Rosenberg offered definitions of progressive and conservative that shed more light Derbyshire's post.

I think that the primary difference between conservatives and progressives is that:

Conservatives believe in tribally-shared narrative myths that comfort them in perpetuating a world of inequality, while

Progressives believe in a universalist, critical-empirical approach to creating a world that works for everyone.

This is not an all-encompassing explanation. There are other important factors as well as a host of secondary ones. But I believe that this captures a "good enough" central core of the difference between the two worldviews. (emphasis added) By its very nature, conservatism's tribalism, focus on narratives, attraction to comfort and acceptance of hierarchy provide a strong impetus towards a relative simplicity of political self-concept.

The exact opposite is true of progressivism. The universalist tendency means everyone is invited in, and tribalism is always distrusted to some degree or other — even the idea of establishing a progressive identity. Having a critical-empirical approach means that what a given progressive individual or group believes is highly mutable, depending on the latest research — or at least, the latest information available to them, as it fits into their pre-existing understanding of the world.

Rosenberg underscores a nuance that Derbyshire either misses or ignores. Derbyshire paints progressives as naive idealists pursuing a perfect world, so starry-eyed that they can't see the the "real world," that clear-eyed conservatives — in Derbyshire's view — obviously do. But, as Rosenberg spells out, it's not a question of a perfect world vs.the "real world," but whether "better" is possible or the status quo is "good enough."

For progressives, the possibility of a better world makes inevitable a moral responsibility to work towards achieving it. It means looking at situations as neither black nor white, but to discern what can be changed and ought to be changed through advocacy, social organizing, and (yes) political action.

It's that process of questioning the status quo that has catalyzed progressive movements — from the labor movement, to the women's movement, the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, the LGBT movement, etc. — that strove for inclusion of those who were excluded from the status quo, and led to the growth of the (now endangered) American middle class, the presidency of Barack Obama, and the gavel in Nancy Pelosi's hand.

Justice vs. "Just Us"

Think about where we are now and how far we come since the birth of this country, when its promises were reserved for a narrow portion of its population. Yet, its principles provided the basis for ever progressive movement that had as its goal the extension of those promises to the full spectrum of the population.

I'll even go so far as to say that only progressive movements could have led to such changes, because of how we answer that first question. A conservatism primarily concerned with preserving the status quo could never and would never have produced them. In fact, the progressive movements responsible for these changes were opposed by conservative movements that were yelling “Stop!” as every one of those movements marched passed them towards greater freedom, enfranchisement, and equality.

They were yelling "Stop!" as the country moved closer to determining whether millions of American's having no access to quality, affordable health care was an injustice or merely unfortunate. For progressives health care reform is comparable to other movements for social change, like the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, or the LGBT movement. Each sought, and still seeks, to extend the basic rights of citizens and human beings to an ever wider spectrum of people than were afforded such by the status quo.

As Al Vivian, CEO of Basic Diversity wrote a year ago, "Privilege can be a dangerous thing. It releases you from the task of thinking about things that others must." Though many progressives — past and present — are privileged by the status quo, progressive movements seek change that meant a lost of privilege or a change in status for the individuals engaged in these movements. The choice comes down one of justice over the preservation of personal privilege; or rather, justice over "Just us."

To do less is to let injustice stand. Letting injustice stand unchallenged is not an option. That's a major difference between the progressivism Rosenberg describes, and what I call "complacent conservatism." Last year, a Pew Research survey found that conservatives were "happier" than liberals, but that "happiness" bore a close resemblance to complacency.

The authors argue that a conservative belief acts as a psychological buffer in a world of increasing inequality. The idea is that conservatives tend to rationalize inequality as the result of a fair process in a meritocracy, whereas liberals tend to see inequality as inherently unjust.

Being happy is a cinch, if you can rationalize inequities as right and just. Then, no matter how bad things are for someone else, you can be assured that things are as they ought to be.

On the other hand, someone more progressive, and lacking rationalizations for injustice and inequality might question why they exist and why they persist — and keep questioning, even as the answers become more challenging — rather than simply accepting that they exist and that they persist because they ought to.

Derbyshire's brand of conservatism, for example, says "the poor shall always be with us," in order to justify not only not bothering to anything about poverty (or unemployment, or hunger, etc.), but to questioning the roots of inequality. (Though he easily concedes that at least one progressive movement — the abolitionist movement — got something right.)

It's a conservatism that is willing to let some injustices stand. Some people will always be poor, so why try save them all? Some people will always be racist and there will always be some degree of discrimination, so why keep strengthening or expanding civil rights legislation? Derbyshire's conservatism says "Stop!" or "No further!" to movements addressing injustices that it sees as inevitable and un-fixable. Better to let them stand than endanger the status quo with futile efforts to correct them. Utopia is a pipe-dream that cannot attained, and perhaps should not be attempted.

Bending the Arc of Justice

At least Derbyshire's "Stop!" is less bewildering than moderate refrain of "Wait!"

Bewildering, because shallow understanding of the “why” of health care reform (unjust vs. unfortunate), inevitably has its basis in what [Martin Luther] King calls a “misconception of time,” and its role in social change. In fact, he might be speaking directly to present-day moderates whose exhortation to “Wait” is based in a belief in the inevitability of justice.

...Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

In other words, the man who said “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” would probably add that it bends not of its own accord, or because it can do no other — but because of countless hands reaching up to bend it towards justice sooner rather than later.

And, ultimately, that’s the moral question at the whole of the health care reform debate. Do we wait for the long moral arc of the universe to bend inevitably towards justice, or do we work to bend it ourselves?

Either a better world is possible or it isn't. For progressives, if it's possible, then working to achieve it is a matter of conscience. To do otherwise is to let injustice stand, and require people to continue to suffer injustice indefinitely and without remedy, to preserve privileges that rely on the perpetuation of injustice and the suffering accompanies it.

Yes, We Can.

Where we encounter injustice or inequity in the status quo, progressives ask "Can we bend 'the moral arc of the universe' further towards justice?" Conservatives, faced with the unjust or merely unfortunate realities of the status quo may ask themselves a similar question.

For progressives, the answer is always the same: Yes, we can.

That leads to the second question, which sheds more light on Derbyshire's "No, you can't," changing it from an assertion to an admonition. For even Derbyshire is aware that, yes, much can be done about the problems even he is aware of and catalogs in his post.

Having answered the question, "Can we?", the next question is "Should we?" The obvious answer for progressives is "Yes, we should." For conservatives, even if we can, the clear answer is "No, we shouldn't."