As SCOTUS debates Gay Marriage, I thought I'd spend some time discussing the future of the Liberal-vs-Conservative debate ( BTW, I have no problem with the term "Progressive", but I can't help but think that liberal folks only started to use that term after Conservatives tried to turn "Liberal" into a dirty word. I'm not ready to abandon the word "Liberal", so I intend to used the word "Liberal" rather than "Progressive" in this blog. ). As much as I'd like to see the Republican Party continue to shoot themselves in the foot over social issues, I know that this won't continue indefinitely. It may take a few more lost presidential elections, but regardless of what SCOTUS does regarding Gay Rights, the Republican Party will get on the right side of history on the Gay Rights issue. Sure, the GOP will need to be dragged kicking and screaming before they'll support Gay Rights, but in the long run the people who really run the Republican Party ( wealthy folks and corporations who want lower taxes and less costly regulations ( because lets face it, why safely dispose of your industrial waste and have a nice boat when you could dump your waste in the nearest river and have a big yacht ) ) will make sure that the GOP will support the social policies that will lead to electoral victories. The real rulers of the GOP have used the Christian Right to their advantage for 40 years, but as soon as the Christian Right strategy stops working, the wealthy rulers of the GOP will dump the Christian Right like yesterday's garbage. As I said in an earlier post, a Republican Civil War is coming, and I no longer have any doubt about who's going to win it.
In the long run, all these social issues won't matter nearly as much, and issues related to the economy, taxes, spending, and the role of government will begin to dominate the debate between Liberals and Conservatives.
I started to think about this during my run this morning because of something my father's girlfriend said this morning just before I walked out the door.
Hmm, perhaps that last sentence requires a little bit of context. I'm writing this post from my Dad's retirement community in Florida. We are visiting my Dad to celebrate his 70th birthday. A few years after my mother died, my father met a woman, and they've been together since then. They never married, but for all practical purposes, they are a married couple.
His girlfriend is quite conservative politically ( not crazy Tea Party Conservative, but she is definitely part of the Fox News crowd ) and it has definitely rubbed off on my Dad. This is a little bit distressing to me, because while he's never been as liberal as I am now, there was definitely a point in my life when he was a lot more liberal than me. Back in the mid-80's I was a Reagan-loving Conservative, and my Dad played a small roll in changing my way of thinking. I still distinctly remember a night at the dinner table when I told my Dad that the Federal Government should only be spending money on national defense and should allow complete laissez-faire capitalism. My Dad told me he disagreed, and explained that a government has a responsibility to take care of the poor.
I'd like to think my Dad still feels that way, but I haven't see much evidence of it lately. He was a two-time Clinton voter, but he's definitely been anti-Obama in the last two presidential elections. When I'm at the home he shares with his girlfriend, Fox News seems to be the news channel of choice. This morning, his girlfriend was going on about Social-Security, Medicare, Welfare, food stamps, and unemployment, insurance, and saying stuff like "no wonder why some people don't want to work" and "too bad he had to make that 47% comment", while my non-confrontational wife politely nodded. I'm not so non-confrontational, but didn't want to be drawn into a fight either, so I was glad to get out of the house at that moment to have a morning run.
As I was running, I started to think about why people like my father's girlfriend feel the way they do. I've always gotten impression that she ( and perhaps many conservative folks ) feel that many government policies are unfair.
For example, back in 2008, I remember my Dad's girlfriend was complaining about how Obama wanted to give college kids a few thousand dollars a year for college expenses. She was upset because "nobody ever gave me money to go to college". I remember thinking about how short-sited that was. I remember thinking that the money given to an individual by the federal government for college tuition would be returned several times over in increased tax revenue when that individual got a good paying job that only a college graduate could get. However, then I had an epiphany that I was just reminded of today.
Conservatives don't really care if a policy works if they think the policy is unfair. It really seems like they would rather have an ineffective "fair" government than an effective "unfair" one.
For example, college money for the poor certainly helps society, and increases tax revenue in the long, but conservatives would like to reduce college aids to "takers" who haven't done anything to earn that aid.
It costs far less for a government to put a person through college than than to keep a person in prison, but conservative would rather spend money on prisons than given money to "lazy" people to keep them out of prison.
Okay, perhaps I shouldn't sugar-coat things. There certainly are lazy poor people. There are certainly some poor people who "deserve" to be poor. However, even if these people do nothing but sit on their asses all day and collect government checks, they are still less a drain on society than they would be if they got so desperate that they turned to crime. If you drastically cut assistance to the poor, lots of hard-working poor folks are going to be hurt along with the "lazy" ones. It simply make no practical sense to let poor people fall through the cracks of society. Poor people have families. Needy families can't gives their kids all the advantages they need to succeed in life. How can kids focus in school if they are wondering where their next meal is going to come from? How can kids with single moms on Welfare get the attention and nurturing they need when their "Welfare Moms" ( or as Reagan called them "Welfare Queens" ) are being forced to work at the expense of properly caring for their kids? Poor, under-nurtured, and under-educated kids generally grow up to be poor under-employed adults with the same problems are their parents ( assuming they don't end up in prison ). How does it benefit society to perpetuate a permanent underclass? How is this possibly cost-effective? Cutting money to the poor makes as much sense as trying to save money by never changing the oil in your car. It's a penny-wise, but pound-foolish move.
Conservatives don't want to hear any of this. They just want things to be "fair". They can't bear the thought that somebody might get something without earning it.
The same thing applies to Affirmative Action. All Conservatives want to do is scream about examples of "reverse racism". All they want to do is point out the white girl who didn't get into the college of her choice or the white guy who got passed over for job in favor of a black guy. Let's forget for a moment that this "unfairness" argument about Affirmative Action is complete bullshit ( The next time a white person tells you that Affirmative Action has tilted American society in favor of black Americans over white Americans, ask them to honestly tell you whether they would rather be born black in America or white in America. Ask them whether they would rather be born into the circumstances of the average American black family or the average American white family. Honestly, a white person complaining about affirmative action is like a guy who was handed a Cadillac at birth complaining about another guy being given a Chevy. ). I'm willing to admit that Affirmative Action can be unfair to selected non-minority individuals. However, I also feel it has a positive influence on society as a whole. However, Conservatives won't even consider the potential societal benefits of Affirmative Action. They can't get past the unfairness of it.
I could go on and on with examples, but it's getting late, and I think you probably see what I'm getting at here. In the end, the battle between Conservatives and Liberals for the the heart of America may boil down to "What's fair?" vs. "What works?". I don't know about you, but I'm going for what works.
Rich
