By Matt Maul
To be perfectly honest, I had turned off last week’s election broadcasts by 9:30pm. My prediction that it would be decided by nine o'clock was only premature by half an hour. Instead of watching John McCain, my choice for president, get defeated by Barack Obama, I decided that the movie 300 would be a more entertaining lost cause to see played out. Based on what little of the coverage I did catch, including that high-tech news anchor hologram on CNN and those inane electronic touch screens that are more suited for weather reports, I think I made the right decision.
The combination of an incumbent GOP president with ever-declining approval ratings, Obama's near perfect campaign, an economic meltdown, and their own mixed messages, made the McCain/Palin ticket seem as over-matched as Greek King Leonidas' thin Spartan army against the Persian onslaught. Unfortunately for him, McCain didn't have his own campaign equivalent of the narrow pass at Thermopylae to funnel the odds in his favor.
While I’m still waiting to have my first “obamasm,” I resented the notion suggested by my unabashedly liberal cousin that the electoral results had left me holed up in a bunker. I pointed out (perhaps a bit too defensively) that most of the blatant displays of emotional outbursts I witnessed after the Obama victory were exhibited by her side. I’ll be fair and refrain from criticizing verklempt supporters who were savoring an historic moment as long as no one castigates me for remaining dry-eyed. In the same way that a lion tamer should never get too relaxed while in the cage, a real conservative probably shouldn’t get choked up over ANY politician. There’s something to be said for the dispassionate objectivity garnered when taking a healthy arms-length posture toward elected officials.
As they enter the political wilderness for an indeterminable period of exile, many in the GOP brain trust are thrashing about seeking to pin the blame for the loss on someone or something other than themselves. The most common conclusion held in Republican circles seems to be that McCain just wasn’t "conservative” enough. Michael Medved takes issue with that stance in his column that asks the question: “Was the Maverick Too Moderate to Win?”"In fact, the results from Tuesday show that McCain did better than his conservative running mates—and in some cases, much better. In New Mexico, for instance, the Presidential nominee ran three points ahead of the hard-line, anti-immigration candidate Steve Pearce, who ran for an open Senate seat. McCain also drew three points more than incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, six percentage points more than Senator Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, five points more than re-elected Senate leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, two points more than Senator Roger Wicker in Mississippi.
On the other hand, the American University’s Center for the study of the American Electorate reported that Republican turnout at the polls was down by 1.3 percent. So, the numbers Medved cites are probably skewed in favor of “moderates” because of the GOP dogs that chose not to bark and instead stayed home on November 4th.
"For instance, Senator Susan Collins of Maine beat back a well-financed Democratic challenge and drew an amazing 61% in her state—where McCain got only 40%. Likewise, Gordon Smith in Oregon (who may still retain his seat after the long tabulation process concludes) advertised his willingness to work with Democrats (including Barack Obama) and ran four points ahead of McCain."
Right now the Republican party finds itself in a large hanger like a team of FAA investigators arranging pieces from the wreckage of an airline disaster trying to determine exactly what went wrong. Certainly, crosstalk between Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld can be heard prominently over the black box. But that probably obscures a more serious rudder problem for the GOP.
I don’t think it’s as simple as suggesting that we’re a more moderate nation now. The passing of Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage in California, for instance, would seem to belie that notion. This ballot proposal passed in a state that voted for Obama by a twenty-four percent margin. Obama did enunciate “gay rights” as part of his agenda. But, I’m being charitable when I characterize his stance on the gay marriage issue itself as very nuanced.
So, where to begin? I find the suggestion of a battle waging between the moderate and conservative wings of the Republican Party an intriguing, if not flawed, concept. Flawed because I’m not sure I always agree with the current definitions of what a “moderate” or a “conservative” is.
From my bunker the following night, I continued my election recovery therapy by watching Mr. Conservative, HBO’s documentary on Barry Goldwater. In 1964, he was arguably the very first "conservative" candidate for president and author of the ground-breaking The Conscience of a Conservative. Goldwater famously said at his nominating convention that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and (bold added) "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"
There’s that word, “moderate,” again. This time it’s used as a pejorative to chastise those who refuse to take a definitive stance on issues and instead try to split the difference. Love him or hate him, I don’t think Goldwater could ever have been accused of that.
No one’s asked me and I sincerely doubt it will happen, but I can’t help but wonder (or hope) that this downtime could be used to retool the GOP more into the image of Goldwater than the confusing quilt of contradictions it is now. Again, the definitive post-mortem on 2008 hasn’t really been written, but my gut tells me that this would be step in the right direction (no pun intended).
It's important to point out that were he starting his career as a conservative politician today, Goldwater, would probably not pass muster with many of the current crop. For one thing, he was pro-choice. And, when confronted with the question late in his career, Goldwater supported gay rights as well. From a truly CONSERVATIVE viewpoint, he correctly saw these as matters of personal choice that a properly limited government simply had no business injecting itself into. Goldwater wasn’t trying to be provocative or appease the other side. He was just being consistent.
However, one of the reasons for the ultimate success of conservatism as a movement in the late 70s and 80s was its alliance with the “Religious Right” who carried their very vocal stance on social issues into the center of the Republican tent. This has proven to be a two-edged sword as their agenda has often been at odds with the original premise of "conservative" governance.
Here’s the thing. I’m an Eastern Orthodox Christian. Which is sort of like being a Roman Catholic without all the laughs. As such, I certainly understand church dogma on the aforementioned social issues and, truth be told, agree with most of it. However, when push comes to shove, I'm most comfortable following what I see as the founder of my religion’s stance against the mixing of church and state inherent in his admonition to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”
As described in the New Testament, Jesus made that statement while being duplicitously questioned by a group of men over the apparent conflict between church teachings and Roman tax law (it’s always about taxes, isn’t it?). The questioners were attempting to trick Jesus into committing a seditious act by getting the rabbi to preach against Roman taxation. Cleverly (he was GOD, after all), Jesus assessed their motives and effectively sidestepped the issue. Requesting to see a Roman coin, which one of the men produced, he asked them to describe it for him. The coin had a likeness of Caesar, a divinity in Roman culture, engraved on it. As their religious doctrine did forbid the possession of such a graven image, that alone probably caused Christ’s questioners no small level of embarrassment. So, it was probably with a sort of shrug that Jesus uttered his often quoted answer.
To be sure, because it was a tactical, almost political, answer, many find it too ambiguous to be instructive. However, I agree with the interpretation of the incident as a caution to the faithful that the mixing of theology and politics is, at best, a tricky undertaking and should be avoided. Goldwater was a bit less ambiguous and said straight out that religious groups had NO business in the making of governmental policy. So, while I hold pretty strong negative feelings about abortion personally, I hesitate a bit when confronting how to legislate it. I'd hasten to point out that I find any argument against capital punishment that quotes the Pope is equally problematic for that same reason.
Of course, from the Left’s perspective, it often seems that any conservative who takes a pro-choice stance is magically transformed into a thoughtful and reasonable person. I remember one particular Goldwater appearance on the Tonight Show where he was on a roll lambasting the Religious Right. The segment was intercut with shots of another guest that night, Rosanne Barr, who was shown beaming at the senator admiringly. The frequency of the cuts to the comedienne left me with the impression that the television director in the booth felt that Barr’s approval somehow added epistemological weight to Goldwater's position.
I often wonder if those who now would label Goldwater as a moderate, or even a liberal, truly understand his classically conservative views on other issues such as gun control. Goldwater certainly didn’t interpret the Second Amendment as moot because it strictly applied to state “militias” (whatever those are). Of course, based on a Brian Williams interview of Barack Obama that I recently saw, the President-elect interprets the Second Amendment as an “individual right” too. Or perhaps that was another nuanced position.
As I write this, the top economic story today is the question of what to do with the troubled American auto industry. Specifically, should the Detroit based automakers be bailed out, as the banking and mortgage industries were a number of weeks ago? The sight of Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as part of Obama’s financial advisory team (which strikes many of us in this state as laughable) would seem to indicate Obama’s inclination toward such an action. Personally, this is a tough one for me. As a Michigander who drives past the GM building every day, it’s my ox that’s now being gored. But my free market inclination is just a bit queasy about using more taxpayer dollars (which haven't been collected yet) to prop up yet another set of corporations.
Indeed, the repercussions of a failed domestic auto industry could affect up to three million other workers nationwide. Or, as Stella (Thelma Ritter) said about nervous car company executives in Rear Window, “When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country's ready to let go.”
I'm pretty sure that Goldwater would be against the proposed bailout. He didn’t hold back from his criticism of management OR labor when he opposed the passage of the government loan for Chrysler in the 1970’s:"I think this is probably the biggest mistake that the Congress has ever made in its history. I think future historians will register this action as a beginning of the end of the free market system in America. The company was badly run."
This week, Thomas Friedman called for what would amount to a dramatic government takeover of the American auto industry. He correctly assigns blame to management for it's inability to make a profit on smaller, more fuel efficient cars, but mentions the culpability of labor and dealers in the domestic auto cost structure only in passing.
Friedman also fails to give the automakers any credit for their recent accomplishments, which, as pointed out by AP writer Tom Krisner, include “huge progress this decade in cutting costs, raising productivity, and building competitive cars while handling multiple government regulations and a powerful labor union.”
Krisner further writes:"As Honda and Toyota took over the small and mid-size car markets, Ford, GM and Chrysler put most of their resources into trucks and SUVs, which brought in billions in profits that covered growing health care, pension and labor costs...
"…When times were good, the automakers did not take on the UAW, which the companies say drove up their labor costs to $30 per hour more than Japanese companies paid their workers. The figure includes pension and health care costs for hundreds of thousands of retirees.
"When GM pushed for changes in 1998, the union went on strike at two key Flint, Mich., parts plants, shutting down the company and costing it about $2 billion in profits…
"…when the SUV and truck market started to fade in the mid-2000s, executives realized their business model would no longer work and began globalizing their vehicles, streamlining manufacturing processes and developing new and better cars.
"The UAW, realizing that the companies were in trouble, agreed to a landmark new contract last year that nearly eliminated the labor cost difference between the Detroit Three and the Japanese, shifting retiree health care costs to a union-administered trust fund.
"But just as the cost cuts started to take hold and new products were rolling out, gas prices rose rapidly to around $4 per gallon and Wall Street collapsed, virtually eliminating credit which 60 percent of car buyers need."
So, I’m reluctantly forced to choose between two options: a bailout, complete with all sorts of federally intrusive stings, that might make me feel good short-term, or to Darwinistically let free market forces work in the hopes that a stronger automotive organism will evolve. Taking my cue from Goldwater, I’m forced to choose the latter. I can’t honestly see federal appointees doing a better job at running the Big Three if Friedman’s vision were fully implemented. One needs only to look at the U.S. Postal Service, which currently is in the red, to understand my diffidence.
One of the best alternatives to a bailout I'm aware of is a proposal that would give the same sort of tax credits to people for buying American cars that were offered to those who installed more efficient home energy systems such as solar energy panels or up-to-date windows. At least then the cost of such a rescue could be tied more directly to some measure of success.
It’s going to be a tough call and one of first tests of the new Democrat-controlled Congress and White House. While I've tried to keep the focus here on the Republicans, I certainly have feelings (and misgivings) about what I see happening on the other side of the aisle. However, I’m honestly hoping that they do well. My family's future hinges upon their success (or failure) as much as anyone's.
As for the GOP, it looks like THEIR dream of “less government” has finally been fulfilled. Just not in the way they envisioned it.
Matt Maul is author of the blog Maul of America.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
What Would Barry Do?
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20 comments:
McCain lost because he ran a crappy campaign against a brilliant one by Obama, and because enough people finally saw that the Republican/Conservative Emperor had no clothes.
Conservatives (much like Xerxes' soldiers in 300!!) marched in virtual lockstep behind Bush for at least the first five years of his presidency, in which time Republican ideas were allowed to blossom nearly unchallenged: pre-emptive war. The "unitary executive". The gutting of regulations or any kind of oversight on the private sector.
Guess what? The wealth didn't trickle down. Cronyism and the lust to create a "permanent Republican Majority" led to the installation of loyal mediocrities at every level. And we found Government more intrusive than ever, listening in on phone calls, reading e-mails, able to toss citizens (NOT just terrorists, you too) in jail indefinitely for no cause.
Conservatives think their ideas didn't get a fair day in the sun? What? You could have fooled me, as loudly and passionately as they all cheered their Dear Leader on.
But hopefully they'll keep heading for their Thermopylae, spears at the ready for the hordes of CG orcs they love to fantasize about slaying, and marching further and further away from the rest of us -- i.e., reality.
mercury
Mercury/Anonymous,
Contrary to popular belief, being a conservative doesn't mean that you agree with every policy that the Republican president of Congress gets behind. Elections are a "we won/you lost" scenerio, we either all win or all lose. That said, I hope that President elect Obama is successful and gets elected for another term. As long as we all benefit.
I do have one question though: Your comment was that "wealth didn't trickle down" and everyone would agree that the income disparity in this country is one of our biggest problems, but why is that? Why are the rich getting richer why the poor or middle class aren't advancing at the same rate? Those are the questions I want answers to. Unfortunately neither candidate had a real cohesive response to the issue.
josh
Josh, to respond to your points as best as I can: Perhaps not all conservatives backed every policy of the Bush Administration. But claims that "real" Conservatives were lonely voices of dissent in the wilderness over the past eight years rings extremely hollow to my ears. Where were they when we needed them during, say, the run up to the Iraq war? Or during Katrina?
As far as why only the rich get richer, look at tax breaks weighted disproportionately toward the very wealthy, the demonization and busting of unions, the relaxation of anti-trust laws, the liquidation of the American manufacturing base to benefit trading policies favored by multinational corporations...
I can go on and on. The point is, Republicans and Conservatives have championed policies which are designed to consolidate wealth in the hands of an elite investor class while letting the middle class wither and die. Why? Becaause a flourishing middle class has the time, the education and the capital to pose a political challenge to an entrenched power structure.
From what I can see, the only freedom most Republicans and Conservatives REALLY seem to believe in is the freedom for rich people to make money.
Mercury
Mecury said...Perhaps not all conservatives backed every policy of the Bush Administration. But claims that "real" Conservatives were lonely voices of dissent in the wilderness over the past eight years rings extremely hollow to my ears. Where were they when we needed them during, say, the run up to the Iraq war? Or during Katrina?
I'm the last person to defend Bush on Iraq. However, A LOT of people from both sides of the aisle were either silent during the runup or somewhat supportive. Including the person being touted as Obama's new Sec of State, Sen Clinton (for what it's worth, I don't think she'd be all that bad a choice).
As far as why only the rich get richer, look at tax breaks weighted disproportionately toward the very wealthy, the demonization and busting of unions, the relaxation of anti-trust laws, the liquidation of the American manufacturing base to benefit trading policies favored by multinational corporations...
The unions have been just as culpable in their own dilemma as anyone by realizing too late of the inflated costs they've foisted upon domestic manufacturing as compared internationally. Every, and I mean every, commentator I hear talking about the auto industry bailout for the last three days has been using phrases like "ripping up union contracts." While I feel for the workers (many live on my block), these new global realities aren't the fault of conservatives.
And, the counter argument for favoring the wealthy with tax breaks is that it's a lot like giving big players comp rooms in Vegas. Pragmatically speaking you need their action, not just the dollar slots, to keep the casinos running. Is it fair? Perhaps not. But neither is the fact that I'm well under six feet tall :) It'll be interesting to see if Obama makes good on his promise to raise taxes for people making over $250K (or is that down to $150k now?), given the current economic climate.
BTW, the banking crisis was the result of a relaxing of loan approval standards that allowed high risks mortgages to go through. Hardly a Republican effort.
I can go on and on. The point is, Republicans and Conservatives have championed policies which are designed to consolidate wealth in the hands of an elite investor class while letting the middle class wither and die. Why? Becaause a flourishing middle class has the time, the education and the capital to pose a political challenge to an entrenched power structure.
I find that last point a tad too conspiratorial to take seriously.
Gun control? I find it truly strange that when people look back on Goldwater today, whether it's conservatives or liberals, no one seems to mention the issue that actually animated his 1964 campaign---much to his chagrin---which was race.
Goldwater personally doesn't seem to have been a racist, but his federalist convictions led him to oppose the Civil Rights Act. That put him on the wrong side of history, and on the side of the racists, who flocked to his campaign. Goldwater seems to have been privately upset by this, especially in retrospect, but its nonetheless a fact that a vote for Goldwater was a vote for the reinstatement of segregation (and a disturbingly casual attitude towards nuclear weapons), and that made his campaign, like so many Republican campaigns, morally toxic.
Mccain seemed genuinely horrified that his platform was so appealing to the worst elements of American society---from the primary debates of 2007, when McCain was lambasted for saying illegal immigrants are "all god's children", right up to the concession speech when he got booed for praising the new president, I've always thought McCain was a better man than the G.O.P. deserved (though his tempermant would've made him a lousy president).
Like McCain, Goldwater was never able to articulate a real repudiation of the Birchers who were always providing the fuel for his candidacy; all he had was a personal sense of offended dignity, which is insufficient to shift a party whose ideological center is chronically, creepily appealing to racists, theocrats, and the gleefully ignorant. And as a result, the party ends up in those people's hands.
While praising Goldwater, and getting misty-eyed about his real conservatism, you'd best be prepared to have a discussion about how his conservative principles left him supportive, or at least unbothered, but the idea of millions of Americans deprived of basic rights. That's not just a historical anomaly, it's a result of an applied philosophy, and that points to a real problem with the whole conservative outlook---like the similarly good-on-paper, monstrous-in-practice ideology of Communism, when conservative principles lead to such egregiously wrong conclusions (and monstrously wrong people), I think you're obligated to ask if something's wrong with the principles themselves.
To get a little more specific about points raised in the comments:
However, A LOT of people from both sides of the aisle were either silent during the runup or somewhat supportive. Including the person being touted as Obama's new Sec of State, Sen Clinton (for what it's worth, I don't think she'd be all that bad a choice).
Which is exactly why so many Dems decided we didn't want HRC to be president, and have mixed feelings about the idea of her as Sec. of State. And while it's true that many (too many!) Dems were silent in the run up to war, and relatively quiet about torture, the Republicans were enthusiastically shouting in favor of it all, which is obviously far worse.
Thanks to the Republican president and a Republican congress, we live today in a country where the executive can have anyone grabbed off the street, whisked to a secret prison, and tortured, all without the slightest oversight, much less check and balance. It's hard to imagine a more "intrusive government" than that. And this happened with the enthusiastic support of the conservative movement; the lone voice opposing it was the ACLU, the National Review's favorite bogeyman. So conservative talk of small government is now exposed as merely a statement about tax policy, not a political philosophy.
The unions have been just as culpable in their own dilemma as anyone by realizing too late of the inflated costs they've foisted upon domestic manufacturing as compared internationally.
And here we come to the other really major problem with the last 25 years of conservative philosophy (even Bill Clinton thought "the era of big government is over"). In most countries, the costs that the unions impose---health care, primarily, but also severance and vacation time---are picked up by the government. Here, they're picked up by the employer.
This does indeed impose massive drag on the system. And the solution is to get employers out of the health insurance business. The way to do that is not with minuscule tax credits, which are insultingly insufficient to the problem. The solution is to do what every other industrialized nation has done, which is make the government the primary purchaser of health insurance, thus reliving large corporations of a huge extra burden every time they hire someone.
It'll be interesting to see if Obama makes good on his promise to raise taxes for people making over $250K (or is that down to $150k now?)
Matt, this is beneath you. Obama's stated his policy. He's never done anything to indicate that the numbers will change. You're just tossing out snark, with nothing to back it up.
BTW, the banking crisis was the result of a relaxing of loan approval standards that allowed high risks mortgages to go through. Hardly a Republican effort.
Actually, yes it was. The central plank of GOP economic policy, ever since Reagan, is the promotion of investment. This is partly done through frequent reductions in the capital gains tax, but it's also done by using federal reserve policy to make credit cheaper (which is why Republican administrations are characterized by explosive growth of the financial sector, and equally vast expansions of debt).
Among the many deregulations pushed by the Gingrich congress (largely ignored in the Lewinsky scandal) was a loosening of the rules of how much leverage (that is, credit) banks were allowed to have, relative to their holdings. That loosening made the banks more vulnerable to a bubble popping, and also encouraged the sale of credit default swaps, which meant that the same bad debts were held in fifty different places, expanding everyone's vulnerability.
And before you say it: The Community Reinvestment Act has nothing to do with this. First, only about 20% of the sub-prime loans were made by C.R.A. banks. Second, the sub-prime loan industry didn't expand because regulators forced banks into it; it expanded because the practice of CDSes and other debt-sale instruments made it incredibly profitable to have debt on your books, whether or not that debt was ever going to be repaid, because you could just keep chopping up and selling the debt to someone else.
------
The current economic crisis, and the frantic efforts to shift blame, illustrate again one of the great problems with the conservative movement: Its inability to admit error. Like the Trotskyites many of them once were, the major thinkers of the movement are psychopathically incapable of saying "We were wrong"; instead, they try to come up with some explanation for how their perfect philosophy was betrayed by human weakness of vicious sabotage.
This is a pretty major contrast to contemporary liberalism---every respectable liberal can list several times where liberal philosophy led to wrong outcomes (busing; the Vietnam war; a number of Great Society programs), and had to be revised. Conservatives, refusing to see where the philosophy itself (not the people executing the philosophy) led to wrongdoing, are left with an ideology unable to respond to circumstances spitting out the same answers every time like a Magic 8-Ball.
Who was it said above this financial crisis is due to bad low interest loans allowed to go through? Now stop and take in a huge breath of air. Do you really believe that Faux News talking point? Trading in those dangerously volatile Derivatives, which Warren Buffett years ago called "time bombs" has much more to do with where we are at present than those buyers you wish to demonize. But Bill O'Reilly won't tell you that.
FuzzyBastard, you are absolutely correct. The neo-con brigade here should pay attention.
Back in 1999, when the Gramm-Leach act was signed, Americans should be asking themselves why they weren't paying closer attention when such an important part of the New Deal was being dismantled. Let this be a warning when Republicans try to convince you that privatizing Social Security is good idea.
Republicans are bewilderingly obtuse. Just listen to them, crowing already about 2012 and Palin, Jindal and Huckabee. More of the same god-invoking nonsense. Playing to their mouth-breathing base. I hope they bury themselves for a millennium.
Goldwater personally doesn't seem to have been a racist, but his federalist convictions led him to oppose the Civil Rights Act. That put him on the wrong side of history, and on the side of the racists, who flocked to his campaign. Goldwater seems to have been privately upset by this, especially in retrospect, but its nonetheless a fact that a vote for Goldwater was a vote for the reinstatement of segregation (and a disturbingly casual attitude towards nuclear weapons), and that made his campaign, like so many Republican campaigns, morally toxic.
That you don't even think Goldwater was a racist is important point, and one that shouldn't be dismissed so easily.
In point of fact, Goldwater supported the Arizona NAACP and was involved in desegregating the Arizona National Guard. Nationally, he supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and the constitutional amendment banning the poll tax.
However, that he did oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shouldn't be dismissed by conservatives too easily either. In his defense, Goldwater did come to regret that decision which was based on what he viewed as the Constitutionally proper extension of the Federal government's role.
AND for what it's worth, 82% Senate of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act, while only 69% of Democrats did. Twenty out of twenty-one southern Democratic senators voted against the Act. In the House, 80% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act versus 61% of Democrats. Ninety-two of the 103 southern Democrats voted against it.
Like McCain, Goldwater was never able to articulate a real repudiation of the Birchers who were always providing the fuel for his candidacy; all he had was a personal sense of offended dignity, which is insufficient to shift a party whose ideological center is chronically, creepily appealing to racists, theocrats, and the gleefully ignorant. And as a result, the party ends up in those people's hands.
That's a bit strong and somewhat akin to Obama critics blaming him for receiving the endorsement of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakahn. In my state alone, I could also cite examples of Democratic party supporters who are just as racist, creepy, and/or ignorant. But I'd hardly blame the Democrat party per se for that.
But from reading my post, you must obviously realize that I find plenty to criticize the current GOP about.
While praising Goldwater, and getting misty-eyed about his real conservatism you'd best be prepared to have a discussion about how his conservative principles left him supportive, or at least unbothered, but the idea of millions of Americans deprived of basic rights. That's not just a historical anomaly, it's a result of an applied philosophy, and that points to a real problem with the whole conservative outlook---like the similarly good-on-paper, monstrous-in-practice ideology of Communism, when conservative principles lead to such egregiously wrong conclusions (and monstrously wrong people), I think you're obligated to ask if something's wrong with the principles themselves.
I thought I had established myself as "dry-eyed" from the get-go. Nonetheless, as I said above, Goldwater came to regret his 1964 vote (which was anomalous for him on that issue).
Thanks to the Republican president and a Republican congress, we live today in a country where the executive can have anyone grabbed off the street, whisked to a secret prison, and tortured, all without the slightest oversight, much less check and balance. It's hard to imagine a more "intrusive government" than that. And this happened with the enthusiastic support of the conservative movement; the lone voice opposing it was the ACLU, the National Review's favorite bogeyman. So conservative talk of small government is now exposed as merely a statement about tax policy, not a political philosophy.
I really didn't address this in the post. So, I'll only state that I'm no fan of how this policy has been enacted. Frankly, I see it as an extention of tactics used to combat organized crime and the fight the drug war.
In most countries, the costs that the unions impose---health care, primarily, but also severance and vacation time---are picked up by the government. Here, they're picked up by the employer.
This does indeed impose massive drag on the system. And the solution is to get employers out of the health insurance business. The way to do that is not with minuscule tax credits, which are insultingly insufficient to the problem. The solution is to do what every other industrialized nation has done, which is make the government the primary purchaser of health insurance, thus reliving large corporations of a huge extra burden every time they hire someone.
Even IF I were to grant that a workable health insurance plan could be established (which I don't necessarily) I doubt it could be accomplished in time to help the domestic auto industry.
And, of course, it fails to address the massive burden imposed by employee pension plans.
Matt, this is beneath you. Obama's stated his policy. He's never done anything to indicate that the numbers will change. You're just tossing out snark, with nothing to back it up.
Actually, I was referring to a statement made by Biden in Penn -- and I quote: "What we're saying is that $87 billion tax break doesn't need to go to people making an average of $1.4 million, it should go like it used to – it should go to middle-class people, people making under $150,000 a year." Okay, so I was being a wise-ass, but those ARE Biden's own words.
...The Community Reinvestment Act has nothing to do with this. First, only about 20% of the sub-prime loans were made by C.R.A. banks. Second, the sub-prime loan industry didn't expand because regulators forced banks into it; it expanded because the practice of CDSes and other debt-sale instruments made it incredibly profitable to have debt on your books, whether or not that debt was ever going to be repaid, because you could just keep chopping up and selling the debt to someone else.
Fuzzy (and Jim) No doubt there's plenty of blame to go around. But it's not all about GOP deregulation.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke himself (not Bill O'Reilly) stated on March 30, 2007 in a speech entitled "The Community Reinvestment Act: Its Evolution and New Challenges": "Securitization of affordable housing loans expanded, as did the secondary market for these loans, in part reflecting a 1992 law that required the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to devote a large percentage of their activities to meeting affordable housing goals."
Furthermore, Democrats like Sen. Dodd and Congressman Frank, have had Congressional oversight of the banking system for the last two years. Dodd, btw, receiving millions in campaign contributions from financial institutions. Frank, too (but, not so much).
The current economic crisis, and the frantic efforts to shift blame, illustrate again one of the great problems with the conservative movement: Its inability to admit error. Like the Trotskyites many of them once were, the major thinkers of the movement are psychopathically incapable of saying "We were wrong"; instead, they try to come up with some explanation for how their perfect philosophy was betrayed by human weakness of vicious sabotage.
I don't doubt that there's plenty of hubris exhibited by Republicans and I came no where close to apologizing for that.
Jim said... Republicans are bewilderingly obtuse. Just listen to them, crowing already about 2012 and Palin, Jindal and Huckabee. More of the same god-invoking nonsense. Playing to their mouth-breathing base. I hope they bury themselves for a millennium.
I think I was pretty clear on how I felt about the religious wing of the party. Frankly, if the new adminstration is successful in resolving these issues, then they deserve the decades of political dominence it will earn then.
Because I just can't walk away from such things...
That you don't even think Goldwater was a racist is important point, and one that shouldn't be dismissed so easily.
Well, actually, it makes me think somewhat worse of Goldwater, and most Republicans. As Andrew Sullivan noted vis-a-vis gays, most Republican politicians are "closet tolerants". They know that gay people aren't really a threat to marriage, that immigrants don't commit more crimes, that people in New York are patriotic too. They're just cheerfully willing to pander to those who don't, and to encourage their ignorant and hateful beliefs. Goldwater was one of many Republicans to encourage and profit from racists, without being a racist himself---this makes him more, not less, contemptible.
However, that he did oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shouldn't be dismissed by conservatives too easily either. In his defense, Goldwater did come to regret that decision which was based on what he viewed as the Constitutionally proper extension of the Federal government's role.
Right. Which really should move conservatives to wonder if their vision of the Federal government's role is wrong, or at least insufficient. But it never did. Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act got filed away as "just one-a those things", and decades later, Trent Lott can still smilingly wish that Strom Thurmond had been president.
AND for what it's worth, 82% Senate of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act, while only 69% of Democrats did. Twenty out of twenty-one southern Democratic senators voted against the Act. In the House, 80% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act versus 61% of Democrats. Ninety-two of the 103 southern Democrats voted against it.
This is a much less meaningful number than you seem to think it is. As Johnson predicted, the Democratic Party transformed radically after the signing of the Civil Rights Bill---before 1964, the South was solidly blue, after it was solidly red. What happened was that those 31% of Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act became Republicans, which is what transformed the red-blue map from what it was in 1896 to what it was in 1996.
Like McCain, Goldwater was never able to articulate a real repudiation of the Birchers who were always providing the fuel for his candidacy; all he had was a personal sense of offended dignity, which is insufficient to shift a party whose ideological center is chronically, creepily appealing to racists, theocrats, and the gleefully ignorant. And as a result, the party ends up in those people's hands.
That's a bit strong and somewhat akin to Obama critics blaming him for receiving the endorsement of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakahn. In my state alone, I could also cite examples of Democratic party supporters who are just as racist, creepy, and/or ignorant. But I'd hardly blame the Democrat party per se for that.
When Obama was told that Farrakhan had endorsed him, he loudly denounced Farrakhan. He's continued to denounce him every time his name comes up. But no Republican running for national office can afford to denounce Hagee, Falwell, or the Minutemen---McCain, in order to be a credible candidate, had to backtrack on his previous denunciations of all of the above. That's the difference.
I really didn't address this in the post. So, I'll only state that I'm no fan of how this policy has been enacted. Frankly, I see it as an extension of tactics used to combat organized crime and the fight the drug war.
Right, and that's exactly the problem. Republicans got all fired up about the prescription drug bill---every major conservative issued a denunciation of it based on conservative principles. Torture, well, plenty may have quietly opposed it, but they didn't consider it a big enough deal to make a fuss, unlike, say, Harriet Miers.
A party that thinks an expansion of medical insurance for seniors is a terrible violation of principle, but that the legalization of secret torture chambers is dirty laundry among friends... that's a party with a seriously broken moral compass.
Even IF I were to grant that a workable health insurance plan could be established (which I don't necessarily) I doubt it could be accomplished in time to help the domestic auto industry.
No, but it sure would have if it'd been instituted in, say, 1993. As for workability, well, Americans pay more money for less service than any other major nation, so we're at least doing worse than everyone else.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke himself (not Bill O'Reilly) stated on March 30, 2007 in a speech entitled "The Community Reinvestment Act: Its Evolution and New Challenges": "Securitization of affordable housing loans expanded, as did the secondary market for these loans, in part reflecting a 1992 law that required the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to devote a large percentage of their activities to meeting affordable housing goals."
Again, C.R.A.-answering institutions were responsible for 20% of sub-prime loans. Bad? Sure. But not crisis-recession-depression bad. And of course, the collapse of Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac would hardly even register on the crisis-meter, if that was all we were facing. What created a crisis was over-leveraged banks selling blocks of bad debt. And yeah, that was Republican deregulation. For more on the subject, I recommend: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/10/matt_taibbi_and_byron_york_but.html
I don't doubt that there's plenty of hubris exhibited by Republicans and I came no where close to apologizing for that.
Again, it's not hubris that I'm talking about. It's the inability not just to admit error, but to ask why the errors happened. One of the great strengths of liberalism is its results and metrics based approach---there's an ultimate goal of liberty-equality-fraternity, but how you get there is constantly contingent.
Once upon a time, a respect for contingency and uncertainty was the hallmark of conservatism---certainly that was the point of Burke. But starting with Goldwater, solidifying with Reagan, and reaching apotheosis with Gingrich, the conservative movement was taken over by "free-market fundamentalists", disciples of St. Hayek and St. Friedman, with a single philosophy and a single policy prescription: "Government bad."
Now, they've been electorally humbled, and there's a lot of talk about what demographics the party can reach out to. But there's shockingly little talk about where the ideology itself was in error. The GOP is in a lot of demographic trouble, no doubt, particularly regarding immigration, which is going to tear the party apart for a while. But their biggest problem is akin to the problem the Democrats faced in the 70s---they've had their chance, and they have failed. Reagan used to say "The most frightening words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" But after Katrina, no one thinks that any more---today, the scariest words are "You're on your own."
But the conservative movement continues to insist that they just need a better way to sell a message of less government. Maybe after 15-25 years of liberal rule, you'll have better luck with that. But that's apparently what it'll take.
I've never much liked the Republican platform but if they could bring on a fiscal conservative who wasn't tied to the NeoCons nor the radical right then they might have a worthy candidate. The McCain of 2000 was somewhat close and while I would not have voted for him I could respect him then. His 2008 campaign was [in my opinion] a badly run one with bad decisions, pandering to his radical [shrinking] base and too often disgusting with mudslinging innuendo and lies. I know there are good Republicans out there but they don't seem to want to run for the high office. Maybe they are doing something more constructive somewhere?
What Thatfuzzy said.
mercury
I don’t think it’s as simple as suggesting that we’re a more moderate nation now. The passing of Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage in California, for instance, would seem to belie that notion. This ballot proposal passed in a state that voted for Obama by a twenty-four percent margin.
Matt -
Don't really know what Prop 8 has to do with conservatism through the Goldwater lens, as it's one of those pesky social issues that've become so definitive to the GOP (abortion, etc.)
To me, using this as an example sort of hurts your argument - these problems have defined the GOP over the last 28 years as trying to enforce a pseudo-religious worldview on people, while actually de-libertizing (I know that's not a word) citizens. Like gay citizens! I wonder if Goldwater, whose conservatism (including that pesky Civil Rights trubb - property rights anyone?) was based on economic freedom, would have found it legit either.
"Again, C.R.A.-answering institutions were responsible for 20% of sub-prime loans. Bad? Sure. But not crisis-recession-depression bad. And of course, the collapse of Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac would hardly even register on the crisis-meter, if that was all we were facing. What created a crisis was over-leveraged banks selling blocks of bad debt. And yeah, that was Republican deregulation."
I co-sign the above. This is really the crux of this crisis. That so many on the right still don't get it, or refuse to be honest, just makes stronger each and every one of fuzzy's points.
Truthdig is featuring a timeline of the various missteps that have brought here. Give it a look. It's worth your time.
Geez...I wonder what would have happened had I written something PRAISING the GOP rather then criticizing it? :)
That Fuzzy Bastard said... Well, actually, it makes me think somewhat worse of Goldwater, and most Republicans. As Andrew
Sullivan noted vis-a-vis gays, most Republican politicians are "closet tolerants"...They're just cheerfully willing to pander to those who don't, and to encourage their ignorant and hateful beliefs. Goldwater was one of many Republicans to encourage and profit from racists, without being a racist himself---this makes him more, not less, contemptible...Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act got filed away as "just one-a those things",and decades later,
Trent Lott can still smilingly wish that Strom Thurmond had been president.
Seemingly lost in all this is the point I was making as to how the merging of religious based ideology has been, in my mind
anyway, a detriment to the GOP.
We've digressed into a debate on Goldwater's vote against the Civil Rights act in 1964 (a vote he later came to regret) which
we both agreed wasn't indicative of racism on his part.
I'd hasten to point out that JFK pandered to the South during his 1956 run for VP by refusing to endorse the Brown v. Board
of Education Supreme Court decision. And, in point of fact, on that basis, Martin Luther King, Jr. actually endorsed NIXON
in 1960. And, since you force us to relive attitudes from the 1960's, how would you categorize Bobby Kennedy's famous characterization of GQ Magazine as a "fag-rag?"
Furthermore, senior Democrat Robert Byrd, hailed as the "Conscious of the Senate," and recently praised by Sen. Christopher Dodd on that very Senate floor, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan until just prior to the voting on the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Is that "just one-a those things" too?
I'm sorry, but it seems incredibly subjective to suggest that only Republicans pander. In my neck of the woods there's a strain of xenophobia exhibited by Blue Collar Democrats who stress the word "foreign" when criticizing "foreign imports." I've seen it firsthand all my life, up to and including the present day.
Like McCain, Goldwater was never able to articulate a real repudiation of the Birchers who were always providing the fuel
for his candidacy; all he had was a personal sense of offended dignity, which is insufficient to shift a party whose ideological center is chronically, creepily appealing to racists, theocrats, and the gleefully ignorant. And as a result, the party ends up in those people's hands.
When Obama was told that Farrakhan had endorsed him, he loudly denounced Farrakhan. He's continued to denounce him every time his name comes up. But no Republican running for national office can afford to denounce Hagee, Falwell, or the Minutemen---McCain, in order to be a credible candidate, had to backtrack on his previous denunciations of all of the above.
That's the difference.
Please. Obama was associated with Rev. Wright for 20 years. A man who spouts Religious Left tripe just as loudly as Hagee, Falwell, et al spout their Religious Right bullshit. Obama only denounced Wright when it was clear that the issue was going to hurt him against Clinton in the primaries.
For what it's worth, I don't think Obama believes any of Wright's
more crazy theories (such as the CIA inventing AIDS). BUT his connection to Wright's church certainly furthered his career.
But the conservative movement continues to insist that they just need a better way to sell a message of less government.
Maybe after 15-25 years of liberal rule, you'll have better luck with that. But that's apparently what it'll take.
I can't take issue with the fact that it was the GOP "who got high on their own supply" and screwed the pooch these last 8 years.
Matt said ...I've never much liked the Republican platform but if they could bring on a fiscal conservative who wasn't
tied to the NeoCons nor the radical right then they might have a worthy candidate. The McCain of 2000 was somewhat close and
while I would not have voted for him I could respect him then. His 2008 campaign was [in my opinion] a badly run one with bad
decisions, pandering to his radical [shrinking] base and too often disgusting with mudslinging innuendo and lies. I know
there are good Republicans out there but they don't seem to want to run for the high office. Maybe they are doing something
more constructive somewhere?
Agreed.
Steve McFarland said...Matt -Don't really know what Prop 8 has to do with conservatism through the Goldwater lens, as it's
one of those pesky social issues that've become so definitive to the GOP (abortion, etc.)
It was more of an aside and a lead in to the discussion over what I thought a "moderate" or a "conservative" is.
To me, using this as an example sort of hurts your argument - these problems have defined the GOP over the last 28 years
as trying to enforce a pseudo-religious worldview on people
THAT was the point of the post. Again, Obama winning CA by such a wide margin AS WELL AS Prop 8 passed struck me as an irony worth noting.
=======
Regarding the financial crisis and the role of Fannie and Freddie...
I suppose I do deserve to take some lickins for ostensibly pinning it ALL on Fannie/Freddie (I didn't mean to, but I re-read
my comments and, taken as a whole, it did come off that way). As an act of contrition, I'll freely grant that the GOP is up
to their elbows in terms of culpability for this mess.
But, I refuse to leave the Dems out of the equation. As I also said yesterday, Sen Dodd and Rep. Frank were in charge of the Banking Committees in their respective sides of Congress for the last two years (and, BTW, it Pres Clinton who signed "Gramm-Leach" into law). BUT, I heard little from the Democrat controlled Congress on this issue until September of this year when it all exploded.
But Matt, you do know that in 1999, Clinton was faced with a veto-proof House, right?
Sure. But he could have just vetoed it and let it get overriden.
Here's what Clinton said about the bill in Newsweek (9/24/08):
...I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch (MER) by Bank of America (BAC), which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill.
Regarding the rolling back of Glass-Steagall regulations in the Gramm-Leach bill, he continues:
...You know, Phil Gramm and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the Republicans]. This wasn't something they forced me into.
Oops...meant Businessweek.
Jeezus, I don't even know what to say about that Clinton quote. Except that it in no way shuts the door on this discussion. Like everything Bubba does, it's a clever play to cast himself in a better light. Or, maybe he's being honest-- big qualification, there-- and simply couldn't see where his signing of that piece of legislation would lead. Hell, he even cuts Gramm some slack. If you lay down with Gramm, you'll lay down with anyone. But we already know that about Bubba, don't we?
At any rate, Bubba remains a liar and a perjured lawyer. You can do with that what you will.
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