Nothing about hard work.
“A meritocracy,” Bernanke said, “is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate — these are the folks who reap the largest rewards.”
What’s the solution to that natural imbalance? Bernanke explained: “The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world and to share their luck with others.”
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ReplyDeleteA meritocracy, like free market capitalism and communism, is something that does not work in the real world. In a true meritocracy, access to education would not be based solely on the ability of parents to pay. Once in the work field, promotion would come based on how good of a job you do, but I'm sure all of us have seen that in the real world the promotions go the ass kissers, the attractive people and those who are connected.
ReplyDeleteWhen I hear the talking heads of the business world bemoan that we don't have pure free markets or true meritocracy, what I really hear is that what they want is a world where there are no counter balances to concentrated power. IE, if you are born into wealth and connection, you should not have to truly compete with others who may be substantially smarter then you but who were born into poverty and live in an area where schools are shitty. Nor, should you have to compete for advancement with those who were not born into "the ruling class".
Liberals are accused of wanting to equalize outcomes, and that's bullshit; it's a soundbite to avoid talking about what a bad thing it is to let power become concentrated in just a few hands. Part of what attracted me so much to reading Ayn Rand when I was younger was the idea that in a capitalist world, a kid like me who was born into a very blue collar existence could climb to the top. The real world, however, showed me a much different reality. People who don't have much want to compete with those who do. Those who do have much don't want to compete with anyone lest they lose their standing.
Max,
Delete"in the real world the promotions go the ass kissers, the attractive people and those who are connected."
I think that's a bit too general.
Your second paragraph seems to be a bit overly encompassing, yes?
"in a capitalist world, a kid like me who was born into a very blue collar existence could (try to) climb (as far as his or her ability would allow, if determined enough)"
That's our perspective. Neither of us were born into any wealth. Hardly.
Jean
"Liberals are accused of wanting to equalize outcomes, and that's bullshit; it's a soundbite to avoid talking about what a bad thing it is to let power become concentrated in just a few hands."
ReplyDeleteBullshit?.... In one sentence you killed the ability of communism, free market capitalism and you might as well not try cause you will never get anywhere..... Just what should we do.... give ourselves over to the Fed's printing press and call ourselves the 'New Federalists'?
In hind sight I let slip through my fingers two really great opportunities to succeed at a very high level....Handled properly both would have put me in a high 6 figure income and walk among industry leaders. But for my own lack of knowledge going in (my failing) and a momentary lack of courage 'I' lost the opportunities... they weren't taken away .... but I did loose a promotion in the Army and a position at a civilian job because of affirmative action.....
I don't fully understand what your second para is saying, or what you are keying in on from my post. My point, in my first para is that we have all these wonderful philosophies that people identify with, and then we have the real world where things work much differently. Tying that to my last para, I believe that those who don't have much, like me growing up, want to compete with those who do and when I win, I want to take some of what they have. Those who already have something don't really want to compete with "townies" or put themselves in any position really where they stand to lose something.
DeleteWhat do we do is a great question. Just about every white dude can point to some specific point in time in their life and say, "Well, I coulda got ahead but I lost out because of affirmative action". In my teens, I worked for a large grocery store operation in Chicago that is now part of the Albertsons empire. I can readily remember the things my bosses said when no black people were present. This was the 1980's still. How many people of color were passed over by those white idiots solely because of the color of their skin? Was that any less objectionable then affirmative action?
I don't like affirmative action. But, in the real world, those who are born into money and privilege have their own program of affirmative action which is to just promote within their ranks. None of you here might hire a communist like me, but I have done fine in the real world because I have had some things going for me. I've always been a good worker, but I've also well understood the game of politicking and I've been given several opportunities where the deciding factor was that someone "liked" me regardless of whether I was the best candidate or not. I'm not saying we should strive to end that reality, but I am saying we should stop pretending that reality exists when we talk about affirmative action.
Max
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting subject and one with a multitude of side issues that cannot be adequately covered in a few words.... besides, as you can probably tell, brevity isn’t my strong suite. This forum frustrates me to no end because it is almost impossible to carry on a good discussion. Either the topic gets pushed off the page and you forget which one it is or as often happens people will talk in generalities and platitudes but don’t defend their thoughts. I have, on many occasions, taken the time to put together what I perceive to be a considered response only to have it go unanswered. Many times I think (it might be an arrogant assumption on my part) that people don’t respond because they are too lazy to clearly articulate their opinions in writing or don’t have a defendable rebuttal and refuse to admit that they are wrong. You and I started one some time back and it got buried in a previous month and died.... sad as it is a rarity.
The depth of my response to you would open many avenues of discussion that would be lost because of the forum structure and the lack of considered input by the few remaining people on here so...... unfortunately my response to you will be:
Max my last sentence was much more about what 'I' personally failed to do than what I lost to affirmative action. The problem with success is that you have to go out and make it....
Paul Orfalea – Lebonese – dyslexic – ADD – failed two grades in school-fired from numerous jobs – Kino’s
Howard Schultz-Jewish – grew up in the projects of New York – focused on sports and got a university scholarship – worked for a manufacturer of coffee brewing equipment- boss wouldn’t listen to him- he quit – Starbucks
Amadeo Giannini – first generation Italian immigrant – parents ran a 40 acre farm – father shot and killed when he was a child- mother and siblings worked the farm-used saved money to loan to poor immigrants during the depression because established banks wouldn’t lend to them – Bank Of America.
Berry Gordy ll – Black-high school dropout – drafted to Korean war – developed an interest in writing songs – Motown Records
Mary Kay Ash – Sold books and Stanley products door to door- frustrated by the fact she got passed over for promotion by a man that she trained... she started writing a business how to for women – book became a business model – just before business was to start her second husband died of a heart attack – at 45 and with a $5000 lone from her son .... Mary Kay Cosmetics
Larry Ellison – unwed mother – adopted – unsupportive first generation immigrant step father - long history of trying that culminated in the founding of Oricle
As a foot note, researchers Victor and Mildred Goertzel wrote a book called ‘Cradles of Eminence’. The research surprised them because the conclusion is that adversity and poverty more than anything else has been responsible for the success of a large percentage of highly successful people.....
Even when I don't agree TS, I have always appreciated your reasoned responses and I share some of your frustrations of posting here. It's not just here though, much of what passes for discussion these days in this country is really nothing more then emotional outbursts or regurgitation of talking points. I see it primarily as a matter of choice but it's also fear and ignorance. I will always respond to your posts and if there is a thread you post something in after the fact, just let me know in a current topic.
ReplyDeleteI had wanted to start a bigger discussion when I posted a link to Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" and though there was some chatter I was grateful for, there was never a discussion of the topic. That topic and this one, seem to go hand in hand. There are many side roads this topic could go down, but I guess I would have to ask, "What do you want to see?" What end result do you want to see happen? If what we want is the absolute highest reward to go to those who are best at competing, pure capitalism seems to be the way to go. If we want people totally dependent on the government and we want to remove all rewards for drive, then communism seems to be the way to go. If instead, you want a stable society where there is room to move up but also an ability to take care of your family if you choose that over working 70 hours a week, then neither of those pure philosophies works and instead, you need to put some limits in place.
I can't type more right now, but I'd be happy to continue this thread if you are interested.
First we need to learn how to talk to each other. Everyone on this forum speaks a different language and they don’t know it. Even people who agree with each other are banded together, in many cases by very thin strings.
ReplyDeleteLet me say from the outset that my opinions are from the color of the glasses that I wear which includes the perspective that the United States of America is now and always has been a nation of laws, with a separation of church and state as a basic tenant and while it is adopted as a segment of various state constitutions, the provision in the U.S. Constitution was intended to be directed at Federal law only. While the country was indeed founded on Judeu-Christian ‘principles’, it was never intended to be run by its or any other religious ‘doctrine’ nor given the right to intervene in the running of a religious order.
The left complain about religion as an evil force... complain about the number of deaths ‘caused' by religion but the perversion to this story is that almost without fail religion was merely the conduit of a king or emperor. Nations states have been glad to have religion under the control of the state with priests and preachers to spread the word that would ‘guide’ the parishioners to action. The wisdom of the founders cancelled that benefit and the secular government has worked to use religion where it could and minimize it where it couldn’t.... uncooperative religion is a direct affront to every government that seeks absolute control of its people...
I get extremely frustrated with the left because they hide behind a notion of secularism. Secularism, which was literally ‘an uncrossable division between the powers of the church and the powers of the state’, was given an expanded definition only recently. With the clear intent of excluding anyone from the public square who even puts forward a value that came from religious doctrine regardless of its relevance to a secular society, the left have strategically tweaked the definition.
The religious right, by in large, do themselves no favors by standing on scripture to write laws in a secular government with few able to articulate the real meaning behind the scriptures that they, through faith, have been told to follow. This will, and should exclude them from any debate about secular governance as no one should be able to propose a law, without clearly defining its purpose, goals and long term effects. Having said that, I would suggest that it is largely the aggressive nature of the left who push to codify morality at the federal that has given rise to the right resorting to the same arms race to counter.( I.E. Defence of Marriage etc.)
The left and the right (more so with the left) are fragmented bands of people with differing objectives. Unfortunately most of the people who choose to stand on one side of an issue or the other are pretty uneducated about the real positions of the .... ‘evangelists’ that preach on these issues..... You see, the left is full of ‘isms’ that describe their outlooks and approaches to various issues. They stand as a choir supporting a revolving list of solo singers who step forward to use their particular ‘ism’ to justify the stance of the whole and are a moving target that is impossible to pin down..... It is almost like a bunch of escaped convicts.... none of them care about each other but must but depend on each other to stay alive. Feminists don’t care about gays and gays don’t care about abortion and the uppy doesn’t care about the environmentalist and the naturalists don’t agree with the humanist and the humanist only has loose affiliation with the communist... etc... etc. Throw in the Pantheist, the freethinker, the nominalist and essentialist and we have quite a bunch of... religions?.... No, sorry philosophies....
Perhaps you will understand my confusion in talking about issues with such a schizophrenic lot.
Your turn......
Thank you for the response and the time it took to write it. Such descriptions are dismissed today as having too many words, taking too much time to read and way too much effort to dissect and respond to. As for my take on what you posted here. I agree with a lot of it, but I think you are describing groups who are a little further out. I know a fair amount of Christians and we really don't have drastically conflicting world views. But here is where it gets a little dicey. How can either of us really get a feel for where the true mainstream of America is? Honestly, part of why I come to THIS site is to read differing views.
ReplyDeleteI try to look at issues on a case by case basis. I'm sure some can attest here that there have been multiple times when snow balls were spotted in hell because I agreed 100% with someone on the right. The agenda of the far left and far right is rigid and inflexible, IMO, and that is why I don't support either of them. What sustains them, to some degree, are people who are willing to become emotionally attached to ideological fights. Ideology keeps things in nice tidy boxes and allows people to not think very hard about what they are consuming. Once they find their trusted sources, they don't question much of what they say and before they know it, they have signed on to supporting many things that they don't really agree with but won't stand up and say anything about because "their guy" agrees on many of their core issues. However, when the dig a little deeper, they find out that even that isn't true. While I get annoyed at the lack of investigation from many in America, I also admit the manipulation is very calculated.
I have my days of castigating "The Right" or "The Left", but I realize there is a futility there. While I don't pretend to believe the founding fathers saw much of anything the way we do today in a modern world, I do believe they meant for us to be allowed to speak our dissent and come up with compromise. I don't like everything that comes from compromise, but I'm generally pretty willing to accept what a true majority of Americans are willing to accept. I can agree with your grievances above, but I still wonder, is it the hammer heads of left and right who are causing our problems, or is it a lack of willingness to be civil and compromise?
Because I have read a lot of things from both left leaning and right leaning authors, neither fits me completely. Couple that with watching how people act in real life, I have even less faith in ideology then I do in judging others by their actions. When I discuss things here, I generally try to discuss what was presented. I am interested in what others genuninely think, and could care less about the cut and paste shit they throw up because they are too F'n lazy to think for themselves. So, if you post something, that is how I will respond to it. As for the others here, well, I think we've reached a point where most are predictable. As you've seen, when you push for details, most turtle up.
TS, Max,
DeleteI've been following this conversation, in case either of you were interested in knowing that. Very refreshing. Admission that none of us have all the answers to everything, expression of frustration at extreme views from both ends; I bet that is more mainstream than we think.
Max, that statement about communism and pure capitalism being the best fit for total dependency and most competitive, and the implicit need for something in between? Bingo.
Likewise, TS, with your musing on isms.
Thank you both.
Jean
TS, Max,
ReplyDeleteI've been following this conversation, in case either of you were interested in knowing that. Very refreshing. Admission that none of us have all the answers to everything, expression of frustration at extreme views from both ends; I bet that is more mainstream than we think.
Max, that statement about communism and pure capitalism being the best fit for total dependency and most competitive, and the implicit need for something in between? Bingo.
Likewise, TS, with your musing on isms.
Thank you both.
Jean
TS, Max,
ReplyDeleteI've been following this conversation, in case either of you were interested in knowing that. Very refreshing. Admission that none of us have all the answers to everything, expression of frustration at extreme views from both ends; I bet that is more mainstream than we think.
Max, that statement about communism and pure capitalism being the best fit for total dependency and most competitive, and the implicit need for something in between? Bingo.
Likewise, TS, with your musing on isms.
Thank you both.
Jean
TS, Max,
ReplyDeleteI've been following this conversation, in case either of you were interested in knowing that. Very refreshing. Admission that none of us have all the answers to everything, expression of frustration at extreme views from both ends; I bet that is more mainstream than we think.
Max, that statement about communism and pure capitalism being the best fit for total dependency and most competitive, and the implicit need for something in between? Bingo.
Likewise, TS, with your musing on isms.
Thank you both.
Jean
TS, Max,
ReplyDeleteI've been following this conversation, in case either of you were interested in knowing that. Very refreshing. Admission that none of us have all the answers to everything, expression of frustration at extreme views from both ends; I bet that is more mainstream than we think.
Max, that statement about communism and pure capitalism being the best fit for total dependency and most competitive, and the implicit need for something in between? Bingo.
Likewise, TS, with your musing on isms.
Thank you both.
Jean
TS, Max,
ReplyDeleteI've been following this conversation, in case either of you were interested in knowing that. Very refreshing. Admission that none of us have all the answers to everything, expression of frustration at extreme views from both ends; I bet that is more mainstream than we think.
Max, that statement about communism and pure capitalism being the best fit for total dependency and most competitive, and the implicit need for something in between? Bingo.
Likewise, TS, with your musing on isms.
Thank you both.
Jean
We have a considerably different perspective on several things here Max.
ReplyDelete“. I agree with a lot of it, but I think you are describing groups who are a little further out.”
The core group is well out to the fringe but not the message. While the feminist movement, for instance, touches every woman, most never hear the core message that drives the movement. As each small issue in mainstream society is resolved , a new one is put forth as ‘necessary’ for women’s rights but the goal of the core message while not acceptable to the mainstream of women is THE GOAL of the leaders. This is why I say that the left will never stop its continual need for compromise.
I almost posted this for Father’s day but found it to be grotesque a message to be read by fathers who work hard and care about their children...
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/louise-pennington/fathers-day-waste-of-time_b_3426832.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
People like this motivate and drive the feminist movement... they write things like the Vagina Monologs that get such wide play at universities.
“The agenda of the far left and far right is rigid and inflexible, IMO, and that is why I don't support either of them.”
The agenda of the right is fairly rigid as you say because much of it comes from scripture that is, if interpreted correctly, fairly structured. I do think that much scripture is grossly ill read and delivered in ‘sound bites’ to further a political rather than a moral goal. As for the left, I find them to be infinitely variable in what is important to them. After all, for progressives to settle... would mean the end of progressivism... It is not in their DNA. The egalitarian mission has no end because a truly equitable society, though frightening to consider, will always be an unachievable and require a continually changing goal.
A simple look at what started out to be fair 100 years ago now becomes totally inadequate to the diehard progressive/egalitarian... sufferage, labor unions and social security extend to welfare, child health care, a whole host of employment and discrimination laws and the progressive movement hasn’t even gotten started.... you yourself mentioned the advantages of ‘pretty people’ in society....
I recommend -Facial Justice, by L.P. Hartley. The synopsis should be good enough to understand the ghastly scenario that you propose.
Plenty to read about depth and breadth of the egalitarianist philosophy
An interesting fact of the left is that it dismisses the right because of religious dogma and belief in the supernatural and will throw Darwin and evolution under the bus when it doesn’t justify their position.
We talk about the horrors of the free market yet no one I know has ever seen a business opened or operated in a free market, certainly not in the last 100 years. No rule of law, no ability to start and run a business as envisioned by the person who paid for it... etc...
“While I don't pretend to believe the founding fathers saw much of anything the way we do today in a modern world...... I can agree with your grievances above, but I still wonder, is it the hammer heads of left and right who are causing our problems, or is it a lack of willingness to be civil and compromise?”
Again, I disagree. In my opinion the founders only got two things wrong and that was because of the perspective of the time.... They missed the scope of the words ‘Man’ and ‘Religion’. Everything else they got right and, IMHO it is the constant creative interpretation that has gotten us into so much trouble.... Nothing is equal... not everything is fair.... and few things in this life are really a right.
I also hold one other opinion about the left in general as most use the federal government to consolidate their particular wants..... Few if any really care about the autonomous sovereign of the United States of America.... because to truly ‘spread the word’ there can be no borders.... convince me otherwise Max
TS, I will always continue to read your posts and comment. After reading this, however, I've been convinced that ultimately, all discussions will lead to useless right and left dogma. Why is it my job to convince you that something you believe about the left is wrong? If you believe it's truly that simple TS, God bless. Enjoy the rose colored glasses and keep praying that we all see the light and live as the bible tells us to while rejecting the egalitarian left.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how many times I say that I couldn't give a shit about a left movement any more then I do the right, you keep asking me to defend everything left of center you don't like. I'm not going to. I don't think my views are that complicated. I've been fed plenty of Christian teaching and while it sounds really good, I go into the real world and find that people operate under a much different motivation. No matte what you believe TS, it can and will be taken to an extreme if there is no counter balance.
Not much else to say. How people act in the real world eventually contradicts every philosophy I have ever studied and the real world is what interests me. If you want to continue schooling me on why the left has it wrong, be my guest. Responding will give me something to do between the period when the Stanley Cup is over and when school starts.
Sorry you feel that way but I find it happens all too often with people who aren’t able or willing to defend their positions. Many on the right are that way which is why we get the dialog and discussions on this site that we do.
ReplyDeleteI am certainly not trying to ‘school’ you. The only way that we find that workable middle ground is to understand the position of each other and the only way to that understanding is by learning the errors of our thought process. If I can’t see it and you won’t explain it the best you can expect from me is to say the same. Like I said before, it was you who brought up the injustices of people getting ahead because of their looks.... and to me that comes from a pretty fringe position.... Maybe it isn’t ‘fair’ but to deny biology is a pretty far out there.
As for myself, I am no right wing bible thumper. I was indeed raised Baptist but am much more concerned about the reasons for biblical admonishments and not the admonishments themselves and I like to look at the real world. I personally don’t like abortion for the message it sends about the sanctity of human life but I realise, in some cases, the necessity of it and as much as I don't like it, liberty would dictate that it is indeed an individual choice...but that mean that I don't think that we should be stressing responsibility over the lifestyle choice that it is... That is my compromise but it isn’t the compromise of the ‘liberated’ woman.
My whole point about the fringe that drives the left is that you constantly repeat the same mantra of ‘compromise’..... yet neither you or anyone else on the left can or will give a definitive point to compromise from. Nearly every compromise is no more than an interim to another compromise... everything needs further modification which means a larger federal government and yet more taxes and federal regulations... and the expenditure ‘flavour of the day’... surveillance.
I understand the you are have tired of the conversation so... no reply is needed Max...
For what it's worth, I can defend what I personally believe. I come to my beliefs through a combination of life experience, reading various things and by sitting back and trying to make some sense of it. At times, my general outlook is in line with what is considered a left leaning outlook, other times it is in line with something right of center. I really don't care for either larger agenda just because a particular view I may hold on one subject is in line with a larger view of left or right.
DeleteThat, to me, is the difference. If you want to know my feelings on abortion, I can tell you. I can't justify a bigger view that is left leaning that I probably don't agree with. I believe it is a matter a choice, I believe there are too many abortions and that we should be working to reduce them. I do not agree, however, with the agenda to de facto outlaw of abortion through creating special regulation. Once it gets to that point, it starts to become less about abortion to me and more about abusing power. But, if the argument remains framed in some moral tone, it allows people to say, "Well, abortion is so horrible that abusing power to shut it down IS a situation where two wrongs ultimately make a right." Also, for what it's worth, I don't particularly believe that abortion is something that empowers women. I don't believe that my "compromise" on this issue is any less nuanced than your is, but I think we come to a similar conclusion for different reasons.
As for people getting by on looks, again, just because that is typically a part of some bigger left view, it doesn't mean I fully embrace that bigger view. I believe it's something real. Can it be proved beyond a doubt? No. Does it mean less then attractive people never get ahead? No. It's not always a sinister thing, but it's something that I believe is prevalent enough to be a bias. The compromise to me is that I would not waste the effort waging a war against that particular bias. I would say my beliefs about it and move on to much bigger bias issues like lack of equal access to quality education.
Robert Murdoch, the tea party candidate encapsulated what annoys me so much about the attitude in politics today when he said (paraphrasing) "We've got to stop compromising, it's simply wrong. People need to decide one way or the other". I could make an argument that I see this attitude in many right leaning people, but that goes for the left as well. I really don't care about his bigger philosophy, I just think he's kind of a cock for saying that. The fear of this tsunami of government coming if we don't make it so shitty it can't do anything is something I simply don't buy. We can and have at times gone to far trying to solve the worlds problems with government. But, we also HAVE solved some problems through government programs. That is why I continue to suggest there are times we should make the effort despite the risk or the fear that tyranny will be here tomorrow if we make an effort to fix something we don't like.
Where I think I am disagreeing with you TS is in feeling a need to dissect right and left views. I don't think I need to first pin your views to some bigger dogma before I can say I agree or disagree (or understand for that matter) with any single view you may have on the subject. Can you do the same?
Its nice that we can still talk. I thought we had come to an point where many people arrive in talking about politics. Sorry it took a while to respond but I had to take the time to mull over your post.
ReplyDeleteSure I can just tell you my position but without context what does it mean. As with abortion, you and I arrived at a similar place technically but we are miles apart as to why we took that decision. That in turn goes directly to the types of candidate that we support. Firstly I am not a single issue kind of person and at 63 I am much less concerned about the world as it is today than I am about the world as it will exist for my granddaughter and her children. That means that I look at most issues from the standpoint of liberties verses rights.
Very few things were innumerate as rights .... one of them was the right to pursue happiness. ‘Pursuit’ is very different from a ‘Right’ because the way I view happiness in a society can be very different than the way you see happiness. The state (certainly the federal state) has no authority to dictate who’s happiness is right... that is left to the individual states and most appropriately to the people. That doesn’t mean that anarchy reigns... it means that we have the ‘right’ to express our dislike for certain behavors in our communities. We don’t have the right to beat or hang anyone but we have (should have) the right to associate or dissociate ourselves from anyone or behavor that we dislike and collectively as a society we decide the social direction of our communities which in turn guide them atmosphere of the states and the nation as a whole.
Today ‘rights’ of decent are replaced by special interest laws that force us to serve, hire, live next door to and socialize with people we just do not share the same social mannerisms.... Does that make us a better society? Personally I think that while it might seem to, it creates an underlying tension and lack of real cohesion that permeates throughout the nation. In that respect, multiculturalism is a failure.
From your point of view it is probably unequal and prejudicial... but to me, fairness is an illusion but the ability to have distributed government allows us to create communities of like minded people that can conduct themselves as they wish. If I come to your community, I have the right to disagree with you... and you have the right to shun me if I refuse to conform, I then have a choice to make... conform to the community, try to change the attitude of the community or find somewhere else that is agreeable to my sensibilities to live. This carries on as to how neighboring communities deal with each other and states all the way to a nationally accepted morality. That is how you pursue happiness.... not through national laws that try to flatten and homogenise the very diversity and freedom we supposedly embrace.
I will give you an example of what I mean. In Germany, they have no public nudity laws. That is, you will not be arrested for walking down the street naked. You will however be publicly ridiculed for doing it in places that, over time, society has deemed it to be inappropriate... Society has decided that it is good to have clothed beaches and nude beaches.... not some law that forces people to be clothed all the time or forces people to accept nudity where they do not want it. Society dictates the morals and values of the society, not government pushed by special interest.
Anyway, context is very important because I would never vote for someone who pushes a moral agenda via the law and prevents decent with the use of law. I will however support someone who pushes laws to the least common denominator and prevents laws that force people to believe and act a certain way.... That is a form of tyranny that we have today... right now.
The context I typically view just about everything through is utilitarianism. But I still strongly support individual rights. Happiness, of course, is not equally defined by everyone and therefore, the role of government should not be to create equal happiness for everyone. Frequently, those left of center, such as myself, are portrayed as seeking this unattainable goal. Where I do believe government can and should play a role is in maintaining a society that is stable, where rules apply equally to all and where there is reasonable access to the sorts of things that help people to be successful, such as good education, healthy food and medical care. We don't have this right now.
ReplyDeleteThe context I typically see are far left and far right bombastics that are allegedly for the soul of the country. They are anything but. What they are basically about is special interest and I am no bigger fan of the special interest that supports the right then you are of those who support the left. The result is a loss of democracy. Some believe that it is better to see our dysfunctional state rather then tyranny and respectfully, I simply cannot buy the premise we live in tyranny. We do not. There is nothing I want to go do on a daily basis that is impaired by the nasty gubmint.
In looking at things through a context of utilitarianism, I believe we can create a stable society wherein there is enormous freedom to pursue happiness. There should be room for dissent and even shunning as you suggest. I don't have a problem with that. At some point, however, it can be taken to a ridiculous extreme. In the Republican nomination debates, there was that moment when Ron Paul was asked if a person in a motorcycle accident should be allowed to just die because he chose not to carry health insurance. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, shouldn't he have the choice?" and the crowd erupted in cheering. That, to me, is just one step removed from anarchy.
In our current state of affairs, however, I believe we have reached a point of gamesmanship wherein both the minority and the majority parties abuse rules of procedure to prevent the other party from getting things done. At the moment, the Republicans have blocked all but the most basic legislation from coming to a vote in the Senate unless the Democrats can wrangle enough votes to shut off a filibuster. That's not democracy. Of course Democrats have done it too and that doesn't make it right. Then throw in gerrymandering of voting districts and so on. The new way of doing things is to first attempt to create districts where the view is homogenized. Then when that doesn't bring the right results, use local legislation to create your own kingdom that plays by vastly different rules of other states. Is this really superior to an alleged forced multiculturalism?
Every action has unintended consequences. Under my grandparents generation, personal greed and belief "This is MINE" did not drive the soul of the nation. The people of that generation literally defended the country and they collectively decided they were not going to let a small segment of America deny the rest of the country the ability to participate in the wealth they were creating. It wasn't just handouts. The government taxed the shit out of the rich, but they built roads, schools and hospitals. This is a rose colored view of course as discrimination was still brutally rampant. Regardless, the country grew and thrived. Decades later, or course, many of those programs that helped the country thrive were subsequently abused by scammers. The result, we go into hysterics about 10 years of unintended abuse after something worked very well for 30 years or more.
I'll wrap it up for now and say that I agree context is important, BUT that the tight context of left and right simply does not fit my views.