Sphinx: "Paul--what is the most confusing thing in the world?"
Paul: "Politics."
Sphinx: "That's a pretty good guess...I'll let you have it"
I just don't understand politics. I see politics as the place where human values and interests vie with each other for acceptance and dominance over other values and interests. But what the issues are, and how they matter, tend to elude my grasp. Very few of the pivotal issues important in politics today mean anything to me. I am confident in my stance on a handful of issues, like that abortion is wrong, and that communist totalitarianism doesn't work, but the rest seem to me to be a matter of personal preference. I've been a conservative all my life, but issues like government spending, the invasion of Iraq, subsidized healthcare, etc. don't seem to have decisively compelling solutions.
For example: welfare. From my perspective, the positions seem to boil down to these--and I can't choose between them:
Conservative: "Everyone should be free to do as they please with their own money. Sure, there are poor, disadvantaged people that need our help, but
even so, the government shouldn't be the one to see that they are helped. After all, the government's just the middle man--if I give $100 to the poor family down the street, they have $100 to offset their poverty. But if Uncle Sam takes $100 from me to give to the poor family, he (at the very least) has to skim off some of it to pay his own workers, so the poor family ends up seeing only $60 or $70. To begin with, it's a financially unsound method.
"Most importantly, when we allow the government to distribute funds as they see fit, we give them an unacceptable level of power. Sure, it's seems hard to argue that giving money to poor people should be cause for concern, but who's to say that Uncle Sam will always be so altruistic? I don't have such a high view of human nature. You can't divorce the power of the government from the people who compose the government--and people are susceptible to corruption. If the government has the power to take our money and give it to the poor, then by the same token they have the power to take our money for other, less benevolent reasons. We've been spoiled by having a fairly munificent government for the last 225 years, but you'd be foolish not to realize that this has been an historical anomaly. Have you ever been to post-communist Russia, or eastern Europe? Have you seen what too much governmental authority can do to people, to entire nations of people? All individuality, all art, all personal joy for life was stripped away for two generations. Millions are left without hope for the future, and with a deep-seated mistrust for any kind of authority--even God's authority. They've been too deeply scarred and are left without tools or even a vision for rebuilding what's been destroyed. If you think that this future isn't possible for us also, then you're deliberately blind.
"The principle is, keep money and authority out of the hands of the government. They may seem philanthropic today, but tomorrow they'll be tyrants."
Liberal: "The people who live up on Lookout Mountain talk about the poor, and how it should be the responsibility of individuals to care for them--not the Federal government's. But then instead of actually doing anything for the poor, they come right back with justifications like 'the only way the poor can escape poverty is by getting jobs and getting out of their culture of poverty.' Conservatives want to remove the burden of caring for the poor from the government and take it themselves--or so they say. I don't have such a high view of human nature. I mean, the very reason the government seeks to help the poor is because the poor haven't been helped by the populace (or by the church). People say that we must keep power out of the hands of the government because they'll use it incorrectly when they become corrupt. It's sort of a first principle for conservatives. But they forget that the government--like themselves--is just people. We don't need to be involved in government or politics to become corrupt--we already are.
"The important point is this: conservatives forsake the poor because of their allegiance to a principle. The principle is basically that permitting government funded welfare (or any Federally direction of tax money) gives a dangerous level of power to the government, who then may use it for tyrrany in the future. But how does that hold up in the face of actual poverty? Would you defund millions of poor and dependent people and just hope that the benevolent populace will step in and pick up the tab? 'Well,' you might say, 'I'm helping them in the long run by insuring that they won't be screwed by an out-of-control government in the future.' Do you see what you're saying? You're choosing to mitigate against the possibility of future governmental tyrrany by excercising tyrrany against the real, live poor today. If you're a conservative on this issue, then you're improving odds on the future by letting people starve today. You've chosen a principle over the people."
See what I mean? How do you know what the right position is? Politics just confuses the heck out of me.
Wow Paul, I really identify with where your coming from. I kinda opted out of politics a few years back, I guess when I started getting into my philo major.
Growing up it was kindof the assumed thing that if you were a thinking Christian you were well, into politics or doing YWAM. I knew YWAM was kinda fruity, so I spent alot of time getting into politics.
But now, well, I pay attention, but I don't see it black and white nor do I see politics as the fulcrum on which good and evil tilts. I guess I feel that people are the lowest common denominator, and nobody ever got saved by legislation coming out of congress. Doesn't mean I shouldn't care or that its wrong to care, I'm just fairly certain I'm not particularly called to be into politics.
And I'm voting for Bush.
Posted by: JosiahQ at March 11, 2004 10:13 AMInteresting...but let me toss something else into the mix. Historically and today, what does government provide? Hint, it is the very thing that the framers of the constitution were running from and attempted to write out of our system of government. POWER!! The very nature of government is power over people and it has come in many fashions. Before the French Revolution government was the power of one social class over another. Shortly after the American Revolution (industrializing North...south was still trying the social class thing) government power was more obvoiusly tied to the equally powerful Dollar. And it wasn't long before government was economic power over others. In the mid 1800's another force grew which has been battling for top spot, sometimes winning and sometimes not. This other forceful idea is that government is power to bring about social change. (if your really good...like the Kennedys...you can make the people love you by hearing their cries and make millions in illegal liquor at the same time - so you get best of both worlds). Government is increasingly shifting towards a vehicle for social change rather one for economic betterment (even for the poor). The problem is that our form of government is not designed to change social values, it is designed to provide a liquid social structure giving each individual the chance to move in and out of it using any fair means possible. Notice there are two very different goals that are sought. Liberals, in general, seek to use government to change social values so that everyone is "equal" in every way (regardless of how he or his family has lived his/their life). Conservatives tend to believe that government should be used to allow each individual to make of his life what he may with as few hinderances as possible, thus moving up or down in the social structure based on what you've done with what you've been given. Broken into economics, if you have $11 and I have $3, liberals want to take $4 from you and give it to me so that we are both equal at $7 (regardless of who hard you may work or how lazy I may be). Conservatives on the other hand will say, "hey, there's more than $14 in this world. If you use your capital ($11) and I use mine (ability to work) we can both make more money and both be better off" and be able to move within the social structure based on what we do with what we've been given. Now, if you are still following this, a key element to the conservative platform is personal responsibility to use what you've been given. With freedom comes responsibility, but relenquishing responsibility is giving up freedom. The conservative view of life cannot survive without the freedom to use personal capital as one chooses to better his position in the social structure. Conversly, the liberal position is a complete negation of personal responsibility and hence personal freedom. As we hand over more responsibility for social change to the government we hand over our personal freedom as well, that's why middle class americans work for free for the government until the middle of May (tax liberation day, until that day every dollar you make goes to taxes and not to the one that did the work...you). Our financial freedom is not the only thing we are giving away however.
So how does any of this answer your dilema? What do we do about the people that are poor right now? We empower them with the freedom and responsibility to use what they have been given and then we leave it up to them, that is what our government is intended to do. It's a common saying in the legal world that a tough case makes bad law, that is that sometimes the law cannot be applied in a new fashion to allow recovery for an injured person because the future consequences would lead to a degredation of the system. Thus, the injured person must fall to uphold the system and the society/you that it supports. Likewise,tough social cases/needs make bad government policy.
It may sound like letting someone fall for the betterment of the structure/society is an unchristian view. Please keep in mind that I have spoken only of the role of our particular government structure and have said nothing of the role of the church to pick those fallen up.
Paul, I don't understand the trackback system, but I have a post on my blog that this made me think about.
Posted by: rob at March 11, 2004 01:00 PMTimmy, I see what you're saying, but I'm not convinced that it's the way to go.
Everything I know about economics I learned from talking with my college roommate Cooper (the last Covenant econ major), so I'm not going to hold myself out as an expert. That said, Cooper used to say that economists tend to think that, in a vacuum, people always make perfectly rational, maximally informed economic decisions. Ideally, people would behave that way when freed from the hindrances that hold them back, but that doesn't seem to be the way it works in real life. Not everyone thinks like an economically informed, college educated entrepreneur, even though doing so seems (statistically) to be the best way to build capital. A lot of poor people can't build wealth even if they wanted to. They've been denied the requisite tools by the choices of their parents and the education they weren't able to get. They're trapped in a disempowering system--so the phrase goes--a culture that only knows how to spend capital, not make it. Simply withdrawing government aid and expecting them to wake up and start behaving like entrepreneurs won't work.
And at any rate, I seriously doubt that the church is either capable or willing to pick up the slack when the poor fail to build capital and break out of poverty on their own.
Posted by: paul at March 11, 2004 04:15 PMSo true. You nicely framed the conflict.
Posted by: dan at March 11, 2004 04:54 PMyou bring forth some very valid points and it's a prime example of the bind our society is in. I personally don't think that the disempowering system argument holds as much water as people try to make it, granted it does account for some. My reason is this - My family comes from a very long line PA miners. My grandfather has an 8th grade education and my grandmother had an 11th grade education. Following 8th grade my grandfather went to work in the mines to support his family. After 11th grade my grandmother went to factory and sewed shoes together on an assembly line. The mines closed down and my grandfather got a job in the factories too. But the two of them worked their butts off to provide for my dad and his brothers, sometimes working two jobs. My uncle was the first of our family to graduate highschool, my dad the first one to graduate college (which he worked his way through b/c the family had no money). Now, years later after continued hard work, sacrifice, and dicipline my dad is a doctor (which he paid for) and my uncle owns a commercial construction company (which he started). My point is this - through continued hard work, sacrifice, and dicipline from one generation to the next (often synonymous w/ fulfilling responsibility), I believe people can better their possition when given nothing to start and having the cards stacked against them. How does one learn how to be responsible person if not from your parents? Enter; the church. But again, you bring forth a good point and a destinct problem with the church today. We, as the church, have shirked our responsibility so that we no longer want to (as called by God) and probably can't help the destitute if the gov. were to just drop the ball. Very, Very tough issues, and as I noted on Rob's page, I'm not sure our system can respond to the pressures for much longer.
Posted by: Timmy at March 11, 2004 05:09 PMIf Cooper told you that economists believe that people act rationally, then Cooper sort of left out telling you part of the story. Assuming that people behave rationally is generally a useful presupposition, but, as was proven by the guy who won the Nobel Prize in Economics a few years back, people don't actually behave rationally.
Plus, even if everyone was behaving rationally, they are acting rationally based on the information that they have, which is, more often than not, insufficient. So, for someone who is poor and who doesn't have access to the financial and social structures of the middle and upper classes may, based on the information that they have, act in a way that seems to be in their own best interest in alleviating their impoverished condition, but which someone with more information would recognize as counter productive and further entrenching poverty. Both people are acting rationally, but one has more information than the other, and thus is able to make better choices.
Posted by: kathryn at March 11, 2004 11:47 PMCooper said economists "tend" to believe people behave economically rationally. My guess is that they (economists) have to assume some norm of human economic decision making for theorizing/modeling purposes, and that the economic rationality concept works well because people in general do try to make economic decisions that are in their best interests.
About the "maximally informed" bit--Good call, Kathryn. Now that I think about it, Cooper didn't say that. I should start a regular post series on my economic thoughts entitled "Cooper Says..."
There's this guy on Chattablogs named Scott Cunningham, who I believe is an economist. It would be cool if weighed in on this and set us all straight.
Posted by: paul at March 12, 2004 09:12 AMWow. Ok, I hope it's not too late to jump in on this discussion.
There are many facets to this argument that have been left out thus far. This is the first one that leaps to mind.
MYTH: Liberals are forsaking sound political principles but at least they are helping real, live, poor people TODAY.
I highly doubt that very many poor people are being helped by the liberal agenda. In fact, I would go as far as to say they are being kept poor by the liberal agenda.
Here's why:
#1. There is a reason that poor people are poor aside from the fact that they don't have very much money. It has been my experience (working with church mercy ministries) that giving poor people money rarely fixes their problems. 99% of the time they thank us for the money and then turn around and spend it unwisely (just like they always have) and end up poor again within a few months.
#2. Passing legislation that forces money out of the pockets of upper and middle class people and into the pockets of lower class people not only penalizes the upper and middle class for making sound financial decisions, but also rewards the unwise decisions of the poor. In short, this leads to an incentive system that makes everyone poorer. (ie: We are taking as much money as we can and funnelling into the hands of the people who handle it the worst.)
3. Many people tend to vote more "liberally" because they are being paid to do so. Yes, that's right, they are trading their vote (which costs them nothing) for money to be "legally stolen" from the other classes and handed to them. For this reason alone, there will always be support for the liberal agenda. And the liberal politicians will always be happy to pay people for the POWER that they give in return. (by the way, for more extended comments about this point read, "Why America Doesn't Work" by Charles Colson and Jack Eckerd.)
Ok, those three points are enough for now. Let me wrap up by saying, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to buy and sell on the internet... well you get the point."
Oh yeah, and one last comment, the church (which can do all things through Christ, it's head) is certainly CAPABLE of picking up the slack when the poor fail to build capital.
Posted by: Mario at March 17, 2004 11:45 AMI appreciate all of the discussion on economics, but as a theocon, that is one the issues that bothers me the least. In fact, I believe that the federal government's system of taxation is largely incidental to the way that I live and organize my own life. It doesn't neccesarily bother me that the government is taking 15% of the money that I worked hard for and put it into a big shiny City hall building. That is their responsibility and not mine.
Economically speaking, what really bothers me is when the government uses that money to promote a social agendas that runs counter to my own. For example, I really don't like it when the government pumps money into programs like the NEA and groups like Planned Parenthood. The only moral dilemma that arises for me is the fact that many of the programs that I do support benefit from the largesse of the Fed. For example, the fact that churches and religious organizations aren't taxed.
Finally on the welfare thing, I think that I disagree with the way that the government is wasting the money, but I'm not sure yet that I have a good alternative. I was once in a speech class where the teacher said that you can't give a Persuasive speech about a problem without offering a solution, and I don't have that solution for the welfare thing.
Oh, and as to trusting the church to take care of the poor, don't hold your breath.
Posted by: Josh at March 18, 2004 11:45 AM