The Problem with Liberalism
Dec. 29th, 2003 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
richardf8Ted Rall, a liberal cartoonist and political commentator, recently wrote this article about Bush's notion of an "ownership society."
While I agree with much of what Rall says in the article I feel compelled to take apart this paragraph in particular:
Bush says he wants Americans to adopt a "responsibility culture." But his Ownership Society concept requires more responsibility than most folks should be asked to bear. The health insurance tax credit, for example, would come in the form of a big refund check after taxpayers file their 1040s. Many workers, hit hard by stagnating wages and unexpected expenses, will spend the government windfall on other bills. The same thing goes for reemployment accounts. If a guy blows his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender, he and his family could end up out on the street. You and me, we might spend the money on computer classes. But for too many people, it's too big a temptation.
In this paragraph, Rall makes the classically paternalistic liberal argument that the American worker cannot be trusted to handle his money, while completely missing the opportunity to point out the REAL problem with Tax Credits as an approach to funding anything for the working poor: namely that in order to get the tax credit at all, one must be able to come up with the money to lay out in the first place.
Because of that, most working poor are never going to see a "government windfall [to spend] on other bills" because they will not have been able to afford the outlay in the first place. The result? They remain uninsured while the administration can make the claim that it has "done something for them." In short, tax credits are a cynical ploy to appear to be solving a problem while doing nothing, because the administration can rest assured that food and rent will take a higher place in the budget of the working poor than an individually held health insurance policy.
The second half of the paragraph is even worse, since it assumes that the American worker will blow "his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender." Now if I were a conservative political commentator in the tradition of Rush Limbaugh, I would take this paragraph, read it on the air, and then say "see that folks, liberal intellectuals think that you're too stupid to manage your own finances." And I'd be right. This paternalistic attitude is symptomatic of liberalism's most significant problem - the feeling of superiority over the very people they claim to advocate for. To liberals like Rall, the poor are a type of "noble savage," deserving of compassion and protection, but certainly not of respect.
William Blake wrote of John Milton that he "was of the Devil's party, and didn't even know it." With Rall handing such tasty morsels as this to conservative political commentators, one wonders if something similar can be said of him.
And welcome,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athelind and makovette. I hope you find my pratings both edifying and amusing.
While I agree with much of what Rall says in the article I feel compelled to take apart this paragraph in particular:
Bush says he wants Americans to adopt a "responsibility culture." But his Ownership Society concept requires more responsibility than most folks should be asked to bear. The health insurance tax credit, for example, would come in the form of a big refund check after taxpayers file their 1040s. Many workers, hit hard by stagnating wages and unexpected expenses, will spend the government windfall on other bills. The same thing goes for reemployment accounts. If a guy blows his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender, he and his family could end up out on the street. You and me, we might spend the money on computer classes. But for too many people, it's too big a temptation.
In this paragraph, Rall makes the classically paternalistic liberal argument that the American worker cannot be trusted to handle his money, while completely missing the opportunity to point out the REAL problem with Tax Credits as an approach to funding anything for the working poor: namely that in order to get the tax credit at all, one must be able to come up with the money to lay out in the first place.
Because of that, most working poor are never going to see a "government windfall [to spend] on other bills" because they will not have been able to afford the outlay in the first place. The result? They remain uninsured while the administration can make the claim that it has "done something for them." In short, tax credits are a cynical ploy to appear to be solving a problem while doing nothing, because the administration can rest assured that food and rent will take a higher place in the budget of the working poor than an individually held health insurance policy.
The second half of the paragraph is even worse, since it assumes that the American worker will blow "his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender." Now if I were a conservative political commentator in the tradition of Rush Limbaugh, I would take this paragraph, read it on the air, and then say "see that folks, liberal intellectuals think that you're too stupid to manage your own finances." And I'd be right. This paternalistic attitude is symptomatic of liberalism's most significant problem - the feeling of superiority over the very people they claim to advocate for. To liberals like Rall, the poor are a type of "noble savage," deserving of compassion and protection, but certainly not of respect.
William Blake wrote of John Milton that he "was of the Devil's party, and didn't even know it." With Rall handing such tasty morsels as this to conservative political commentators, one wonders if something similar can be said of him.
And welcome,
athelind and makovette. I hope you find my pratings both edifying and amusing.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 11:09 am (UTC)And your analyses is spot on too - that's two for two in my book! It's good to be "here", thanks!
CYa!
Mako
no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 12:40 pm (UTC)Liberals also tend not to challenge any of the basic American middle-class assumptions about the nature of work. Everyone is assumed to subscribe to the "work smarter not harder" ethic, where work that requires formal education is seen as "better" than work that requires lots of physical effort but less education. And since intelligence is falsely equated with formal education, it's easy to make the assumption that people in those less-formal-education-required jobs are dumb. Vocational schooling and trade apprenticeships don't really count as education after all. And working your way up to a position of greater skill and responsibility in a factory setting is just off the radar. "Everybody" knows that if you were smart enough for college, or smart enough to realize the importance of college, you wouldn't be working in a factory. Which is why Ted Rall thinks that "you and I"--fellow college-educated liberals--might be able to responsibly handle a lump-sum payment, but for "too many people" (ie. the too many people unlike our educated middle-class selves) there would be too much of a temptation to blow it on a spree on the casino.
And just for the record, I don't think that conservative pseudo-advocates for the interests of the working man have any more real respect for blue-collar workers than Rall does. The conservative approach to the blue-collar sector seems to be all about fanning/creating paranoia and feelings of persecution, and that isn't the way you approach people if you think they have a brain.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 01:00 pm (UTC)Precisely!
Date: 2003-12-28 04:36 pm (UTC)I agree. I have been raving over David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series for some time in my own journal. But one thing I have failed to mention is the subtle political commentary which forms the warp and woof of the collection. Our hero's star nation, Manticore, is a capitalist, parliamentary monarchy. Other star nations include the Anderman Empire (think Hapsburgs at the height of their strength, without the bloodthirsty expansionism) and the Silesian Confederacy, which is rather similar to the Eighteenth Century Caribbean, complete with pirate raiders.
Meanwhile, Honor's enemies, the People's Republic of Haven, is in a state of chaos. The old government had created a system called the "dole", where basically its citizens were paid to sit on their duffs and remain ignorant. As the number of Dolists grows, the nation gets poorer, and is forced to turn to conquest to get more money. This of course, also brings in new Dolists.... It is exactly this kind of liberal thinking you mentioned above that leads to such foolish behavior, and the same in the behavior of the Nazi/Stalin-esque control group that overthrows them. I shudder to think what it would be like if the US were to adopt such a policy now.
-=TK
Re: Precisely!
Date: 2003-12-28 05:42 pm (UTC)In short, I think that social welfare is a good thing. But I also think that we must guard against a condescending attitude towards those who do or might find themselves in need of it. It is this condescension that I detect in Rall's article, and as a liberal myself, it makes me want to say "shut up Ted, you're makin' us look bad."
Re: Precisely!
Date: 2003-12-29 11:36 am (UTC)But I did like the New Deal. And I actually rather like the socialist democracy established in the Bundesrepublik. I'd happily pay 40% tax if it meant the government took care of my health and welfare needs, rather than paying 10% tax and being unable to get any health and welfare at all because I can't afford the bills.
-=TK