Government is the problem

In his 1981 inaugural address Ronald Reagan made on of his most famous quotes;

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.

Reagan was warning America of the dangers of an uncontrolled, large, government that is looked upon by its citizens as the source of answers to the problems they face. This was, of course, a rebuff of the liberal policies that Reagan saw as a threat to our country. While I may disagree with President Reagan on the source of the governmental threat, I am beginning to see that he may have been very right in seeing government as threatening to our way of life.

In Tennessee we have experienced a bit of a revolution. Members of the far right have taken over our government and now hold the governor's office along with majorities in the state house and senate. They are now using their position of power to push through legislation that is not in any way limited by Reagan's desire for smaller, more limited government. No, they are expanding the powers of the state government, limiting the powers of county and local governments, and positioning government as the artificial head of Tennessee households.

Last year the state stepped in and passed a bill sponsored by Glen Casada, HB 0598, which removed a city or county's right to decide who should be included in anti-discrimination ordinances. This bill was directly aimed at the city of Nashville which had passed a law requiring companies that contracted with the city to have a non-discrimination policy that included sexual orientation and gender identity. Instead of letting the people of Nashville decide what was best for their city the state moved in and told them what was best for them. Rep. Casada defended the bill by saying its intent was not to promote discrimination, but instead to make it easier for small businesses to operate in Tennessee by not forcing them to deal with a patchwork of laws that varied from city to city or county to county. Of course most small businesses operate out of a single location and would only have to work within the laws in their own city or county so it is hard to say how many, if any, small businesses actually benefit from Mr. Casada's law but to me it shows a lack of respect towards small business owners as Mr. Casada obviously doesn't think they are smart enough to deal with laws that vary slightly from one location to the next.

Mr. Casada is using this line of reasoning once again this year with a bill that would prevent a county from instituting a higher minimum wage than the state and another bill that would prevent counties and cities from establishing their own zoning regulations. Again Mr. Casada claims that these laws would help small businesses even though there is no evidence for his claims. It is easy to see, however, how large businesses and corporations, who are more likely to have operations in multiple counties and cities, would benefit from restricting local government officials from doing the job we elected them to do. These bills are nothing more than big government on the state level. Our local governments are where we, as citizens, have the most influence, where we have the greatest power and so these laws don't just muzzle our local governments, they muzzle all of us in a rather dramatic way. They are designed to help the few at the expense of the many and they represent, in a strong way, how government is the problem.

Tennessee law makers aren't happy with simply crushing the power of local governments. No, they also have their sights set on limiting our rights as individuals and as families.

Imagine, and I pray that no one will ever have to do more than imagine this situation, that a female member of your family was raped or sexually abused. Now imagine that this violation leads to a pregnancy. It should be up to the person carrying that baby and her family to decide on the best course of action. That woman should be able to rely on the traditions and experience and beliefs of her family to help her figure out the best way to deal with a terrible situation. She may decide to carry the baby to full term or she might decide to take another course of action. Either way the decision should not be one controlled or influenced by Tennessee state legislators who have never met the woman in question and know nothing of her suffering. What if a woman in your family became pregnant only to find out that carrying the baby could threaten her own life. Isn't this something that her and her husband should discuss and come to a decision on? We would expect her to consult her doctor and her parents and siblings. She might ask the advice of her friends and her pastor, we would never expect her to have to get a permission slip from her state representative though. It seems as though Tennessee state representative Mae Beavers thinks that our government should have some say so in her decision. HB 3808 would make coming to a decision in these terrible circumstance much more difficult. First it would put unnecessary restrictions on which doctors could provide abortion services and then it would institute health department reporting requirements that could make it possible, in more rural areas, to identify the women who have had to make such a hard and personal decision. If this law passes our big, over reaching, state government will take a personal. family, decision and turn it into a matter for public discussion. This is not small government, this is more than big government, this is government that is stomping on sacred traditions in our country. This is bad government. We see once again, government is the problem.

These few pieces of legislation are just the tip of the ice berg. There is a constant stream of legislation circulating through the chambers of the Tennessee State Capital that will not only limit liberty and subvert justice, but that will do so at the expense of a particular group of Tennesseans. Which group is that? The majority.

Hard work is the path to success. That is a sacred truth to most Tennesseans, but it seems that our government wants to turn that path into a toll road and hand control of that road over to a few select individuals. Now working hard, being smart, doing your best, and being a little bit lucky isn't enough for success. Success has been changed from something you strive for to something you pay for and those at the top seem to want to make success an option for as few as possible. Many worry that social programs make it to easy to not work and inspire some individuals to take more from our system than they give to it. I think the greater danger, the greater cause of avoiding the hard work needed to succeed is to see that no matter how hard you work, not matter how hard you strive, that success will always be out of your reach. We used to have a system that allowed everyone a chance to succeed, now we offer that chance to just a few. Even worse those few with the chance seem hell bent on limiting the chances of success even further. They want to change the rules mid-game to favor only them. They want us on their team, but they have no intent of letting us enjoy the victories we all work hard to achieve. Our government is helping to make this happen. The problem is government.

I can't claim to be a big fan of Ronald Reagan's, but I will happily admit when he got something right. Right now, in the state of Tennessee government is the problem, our bad government. Luckily we can fix the problem. Let's work hard to get a wider representation of views into our state government. Let's bring market principles into our political market place by encouraging competition and innovation. We need ideological competition in our government so that neither side can win. Because if one side wins, the rest of us will probably lose in many ways. Lets make government less of a problem.

Please sign my pledge

In 1986 a man by the name of Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, created a pledge for politicians to sign. This pledge states that the signer, if a member of the US Congress will;

ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses;

and TWO,

oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.

If the signer is a member of a state legislature the pledge states;

I will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.

So, basically anyone who signs this pledge is stating that they will not raise taxes in any way, shape, or form no matter how economic conditions change, no matter what kinds of challenges face our country, no matter what may happen in the future that we can not predict and that might completely surprise us, the signers say they won't raise taxes.

Imagine someone started up a new pledge. Just like we all hate taxes, we all pretty much hate war. So signers of this new pledge agree to never use military force. If our country is attacked, no military force. If one of our allies is invaded, no military force. If our national security is threatened, no military force of any kind will be used. It would probably be a bit of a challenge to get many signers for this pledge because all of America could see what an insane restriction this would put on our government. No one wants to go to war, but we realize that sometimes we have no choice and that removing the option of military force could lead to the destruction of our country.

Guess what, taxes are pretty much just like military force. We don't like taxes, we would all like to see our tax rates reduced, but sometimes we have to use the option of tax increases to keep our nation functioning. When we were drawn into World War II our nation was faced with a great financial expense that wasn't expected by many in our country. To pay for our actions in WWII our government had to raise taxes. We, even after the tax increases to help fund the war effort, wound up with a high level of debt which required high taxes to pay off. Sometimes we have to raise taxes, it is an unfortunate but simple fact of life. Since this is so obvious it seems rather doubtful that politicians would be rushing to sign Grover Norquist's not tax increase pledge. Right?

Sadly no. Currently 41 out of 100 US senators have signed this pledge. 238 out of 435 members of the US House of Representatives have signed this pledge. People that we elected to run our country have decided that one of the major tools they can use to help fix our debt crisis, one of the major tools that they can use to fund our nation in an emergency, one of the major tools that they have to effect our nation's economy is completely off the table. How could individuals who are this stupid get elected? Easy, we, the American people, voted for them.

Pledging to not raise taxes is a great way to pander to voters. No one wants to see their taxes go up and so it makes sense for a politician to say that he or she will never raise taxes. Yes, from a strictly political standpoint it makes sense, but for our country it makes no sense. Politicians should be honest (I'm not dumb enough to think they will be, I'm just saying that they should be) and tell voters that sometimes it is in our nation's best interest for taxes to go up. They should explain to them that there is no evidence, despite what some will claim, that raising taxes automatically hurts our economy. There is also no evidence to show that cutting taxes automatically helps our economy. What we need in government is honesty and realism not absolutist pledges designed to pander to voters. So how do we start moving towards what we need instead of the garbage we currently get?

I have an answer to that question. You see I am starting my own pledge, not for political candidates, but for voters;

I ____________ pledge to not vote for any political candidate in a local, state, or federal election who has signed an absolutist pledge to do or not do something.

So come on people, show that you care about our country. Show that you are intelligent enough to realize that things can change quickly and that our politicians need some flexibility in order to govern effectively and efficiently. Show that you are sick and tired of political pandering designed only to further one person's political career. Let your friends and neighbors know that you care about America and don't want to see any limitations put on its ability to succeed or respond to an unexpected situation. Show everyone that you are smarter than the idiots who would sign an absolutist pledge of this sort by signing my pledge...

OK, don't worry about signing my pledge, but I do encourage you to put it to action. We need effective politicians, not pandering, and we should take the time to look deeper into the promises being made to us. Sometimes politicians actually keep their promises. That can be pretty frightening when you think about it.

Birthers, a second look.

Last week I wrote a post about an encounter I had with a birther. I was rather shocked to meet someone who still held on to the false belief that President Obama was not born in the United States. All of the available, real, evidence shows that President Obama was born in the United States in Hawaii, (read the evidence here, here, here, here, here, and here) so how could anyone still believe he was born anywhere else? As a liberal my mind went to the same place that many liberal's minds go to when confronted with a birther, that the birther movement is populated by nothing but stark raving mad racists who hate the President simply because of the color of his skin but who want to hide their racism behind Section 1 of Article 2 of the US Constitution. I mean that is the only logical explanation as to why someone would believe such a ridiculous story... or is it?

Last week I also mentioned the work of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt in a post. Ever since I first learned of Dr. Haidt's work, researching how we make moral judgments, I have been reading everything I could find that he has written. Well last week a new book by Dr. Haidt was released, The Righteous Mind, Why Good People are Divided by Religion and Politics. In this book Haidt not only looks at how we make moral judgments, he also looks at why we make the judgments that we do. Haidt uses a metaphorical "graphic equalizer" (the set of sliders on your old stereo that you could move up and down individually to adjust the sound) with six sliders. Instead of representing a value of sound each slider represents a moral concern in Haidt's metaphorical example, Care, Liberty, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. After years of questioning individuals to see how strongly they react to each of these moral concerns Haidt was able to see a pattern form that showed how liberals and conservatives responded differently. Liberals set the slider for care (or reducing harm) as high as it would go, liberty and fairness were also set quite high, but loyalty, authority, and sanctity were all very low on the scale. In contrast Conservatives set all of the sliders reasonably high and at almost identical levels. So while care didn't register quite as high with conservatives as it did with liberals, authority rated much higher with conservatives. Of course there is variation shown in individuals of both groups (and libertarians have to be considered completely separate from either liberals or conservatives) but the results were more than consistent enough to make a very strong generalization.

So what does this have to do with birthers not being racists?

It is no secret that most conservatives are not big fans of President Obama, in fact many detest him. They see him as disloyal to their vision of America. He violates their emphasis on sanctity by not holding as sacred many of the things that they do. They believe he cares too much about certain groups while blaming other groups for harm done to the groups he supports, and on social issues they see him too willing to expand liberty to include things they disagree with. So even if a particular conservative places more emphasis on one of the moral concerns than others there is a good chance that they will find disagreement with President Obama in that area. With one possible exception.

I can't remember hearing a loud chorus of conservatives claiming that the 2008 presidential election was rigged. There wasn't an entire movement of conservatives claiming that Obama stole the election and so it seems that conservatives, in general, do accept that Obama was fairly elected. In our country a person can gain authority over others through many ways, including being elected to the office of President of the United States of America. Conservatives tend to hold authority in great esteem and feel that it should be granted due respect. Some conservatives will put even greater emphasis on the importance of authority than other moral concerns, for these conservatives President Obama (truthfully any elected liberal) poses a serious problem.

You see if someone is fairly elected president and you strongly value authority it creates a problem for you if you want to vocally oppose that president. As I mentioned in the previous blog posting Haidt shows us that we do not arrive at moral judgments through reasoning and thought. We arrive at moral judgments through quick intuition and then use reasoning to come up with an explanation for the judgment we made. We have to have a good enough explanation that it satisfies others, and our own sense of values. We are so adept at performing these acts of post-hoc reasoning that we aren't even aware that we are working through the possible explanations for the judgments we have already made. This is what the birthers are trying to do. They know they don't like Obama, but they support the authority which Obama holds since he was fairly elected and so standing up against him would be disrespecting his authority. Unless his authority isn't real, isn't legitimate.

When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 conservatives claimed he wasn't legitimate because of his lack of military service and the fact that he had won the election with only 43% of the vote. They couldn't build anything resembling a logical argument for him being born outside of the US, but they still questioned his legitimacy. Herman Cain did quite well in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination for a while, Michael Steel was elected to be the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Alan Keys was drafted to run as the republican candidate against then Illinois Senate member Barack Obama for the US Senate. All of these men are African Americans which makes it hard to claim that conservatives in general hold racist beliefs against African Americans. It is hard to say that it is an issue of xenophobia as well when you remember the initial popularity Austrian born and raised Arnold Schwarzenegger held among conservatives when he was first elected as governor of California. It would have much easier for me as a liberal to just see the birthers as crazy racists, but I can't find a way to make their actions equate with racism.

I have the feeling that if Barack Obama's father had been from Spain or France instead of Kenya there would be a fake Spanish or French birth certificate circulating on the internet today. Barack Obama being the legitimate leader of the United States is a very hard thing for many conservatives to deal with as it brings into conflict several of the moral concerns that they use to guide themselves through life. They cling to this false idea because without it their world starts to crumble a little at the edges. Most don't make these claims for attention, or for fame, they make these claims to try and help make the world a place they can understand once again. Their actions have much less to do with simple mean spiritedness than they do with moral self preservation.

I dislike the birthers less now than I did before. I feel I have a better understanding of why they do what it is that they do and I also realize that my previous beliefs about them reflected a bit of bigotry in myself towards conservatives. Truthfully I find myself pitying them a bit now. Of course a conservative would say that I am just being a typical liberal. There would be a considerable amount of truth in what they said.