Ergo Dubito

We have a persistent federal budget deficit because Americans consider themselves consumers, not citizens. Hence, we want what we want. And what we want is stuff. We want stuff from the government. So no one wants any middle-class entitlements cut, or a smaller army and less interventionist foreign policy, or poorer schools. We want the economy to always grow, the prisons to be full, and the freeways to be traffic-free.

And as consumers, we want to pay as little as possible for all this stuff. No one wants taxes to increase, and any tax cut is a good tax cut because it means we get our stuff for less.

Most politicians get elected by promising us more stuff for less money. It used to be the Democrats that promised to give us more stuff without us having to pay higher taxes. So they financed increased spending and people were happy. Then the Republicans started promising us that the same amount of stuff would cost less. So starting with Reagan, they kept cutting taxes without ever quite managing to cut spending (actually, Bush dramatically increased spending). And the electorate is happy. The same stuff, or better yet, more stuff, for less.

The debt has grown under both Republicans and Democrats, but I would argue it has been far worse recently under Republicans. Just look at the national debt at the beginning and the end of each administration. Clinton ended with a surplus, but Bush blew a hole through that by giving huge tax cuts. Obama’s stimulus and TARP are not paid for, because we’re in a recession and increasing taxes would hurt the economy. It’s basic Keynesian economics that is working as it should. But the health care reform package is paid for. So between Republicans increasing debt because of tax cuts or Democrats increasing debt because of spending, I think the Democrats have been more responsible over the past 30 years.

But neither is ideal. If you want to solve the problem, then that means we have pay for what we get — every increase in stuff the government provides needs to be matched by an increase in taxes. I would be happy with a system where every year the marginal tax rates floated to precisely match the spending, as long as there was an out for economic stimulus during recessions. People wouldn’t like paying more taxes or getting less stuff, but they’d be forced to choose what government spending was worth paying for. You want to give corporate farmers subsidies? It will cost you another $x in taxes. You want to send casual pot smokers to prison? It will cost you $y.

But I would argue this alone isn’t enough. People have to see themselves as citizens, not consumers. A consumer wants what they want for as little as possible. A citizen realizes that we’re all in this together and we have to make decisions for the good of the whole country, i.e. the common good. So maybe I don’t benefit directly from a given government program, but it makes our country a better country, and is therefore worth paying for.

Of course Tea Partiers will argue that I just want to pick their pocket. That’s because they view themselves as consumers, not as citizens. They seem not to care about the well-being of the country as a whole, just their personal bubble. They don’t want to pay for stuff that they benefit from every day, like an economic system that has produced the greatest concentration of wealth in the history of humanity. They’d be happy to have poor people die in their homes from treatable diseases instead of helping to pay for their health care, because they are not members of their tribe.

But we are all in this together. And “we” in the United States means people that don’t look like us, speak like us, or worship like us. So it can be very difficult to think of the entire US as “we”, but to be a citizen demands exactly that. It means we not only pay for the stuff we get, but help pay for stuff that other people get because the common good, the well-being of the entire country, demands it.

I just completed a Systematics Theology course at Fuller Seminary. Class assignments included a term paper, which I decided to do on the confluence of physics and the theology of divine time, omniscience and providence. It’s a fascinating subject. The term paper had a limit of 10 pages (which I exceeded a tad) or I could have gone on longer. As it was, the limit forced me to be concise and focused.

Click here for a pdf of my term paper.

Are these people nuts?

As a passionate follower of politics, I have railed on this blog about political stupidity from time to time. I think without exception it has been about those on the right. But just to prove I’m not biased, this one is about crazies on the left.

I happened to catch a snippet of The Ed Sullivan Show on MSNBC (I’m not a regular viewer). Ed Schultz was interviewing Dennis Kucinich, who was bragging about his vote against the House health care reform bill. Kucinich talked about how we need a single-payer health care system, health insurance companies need to be cut out of our system, and this bill is a sell-out to the insurance companies. And Ed Schultz was agreeing with him that passage of this bill was not a victory for progressives.

Politics is the art of the possible. The bill passed by a narrow margin. Kucinich was the only Democrat voting against it from the left, while 38 Democrats voted against it from the right. Do Kucinich and Schultz really believe Congress could ever pass the bill they want? Do they really believe the status quo is better than a first step towards reform? Would they prefer the current bill fail rather than pass the best bill that could actually get a majority of votes in the House?

Yes, these people are nuts.

Update: Schultz and Kucinich were not talking about the Stupak Amendment, and neither am I. My thoughts apply to the based health care reform bill itself.

Update 2: Some similar thoughts from Ezra Klein.

A Sully quote for the day. Given the name of this blog, I have to pass it along:

“Faith means doubt. Faith is not the suppression of doubt. It is the overcoming of doubt, and you overcome doubt by going through it. The man of faith who has never experienced doubt is not a man of faith,” – Thomas Merton.

The libertarian wing of the conservative movement has two intellectual problems, it seems to me.

The first is their canard that taxes is the moral equivalent of stealing. US economic growth, i.e. our income, is to a large extent thanks to government. The low cost of raising equity capital? Government (SEC). Low friction commerce within the US? Government (enforcement of regulations means we don’t have to worry that we’re being lied to or sold worthless drugs, lead paint, tainted milk, infected meat, etc etc). The fact that we aren’t all left penniless because our banks failed? Government (Fed, Treasury, FDIC). Like the low cost of pretty much any commodity? Government (FTC preventing monopolies and price-fixing). Like being able to buy cheap plastic stuff from China? Government (trade deals). So much of our personal wealth and standard of living in the US is directly due to government.

Disagree? Let’s look at countries that don’t have such government mechanisms. Mexico, Russia, Turkey, where graft and bribes are required to get anything done. China, where the drive for profitability of party members’ companies leads to tainted milk. Every single one of the prosperous countries in the world have effective government regulation of commerce. Every one. And every country that does not is stuck in poverty.

But anti-government anti-tax conservatives don’t want to pay for what they’re getting. They’re selfish that way. They insist that what the rest of us consider “paying your own way” is “theft”. The government (i.e. the people) say that if you are going to receive all of these benefits, you’re going to pay for them whether you like it or not. And rightly so. To do otherwise would make all of us worse off. Think Darfur, where as I understand their marginal tax rates are rather low and regulatory burdens fairly light.

Problem #2: libertarian conservatives live in an either/or world, as though there are only two choices: pure libertarianism, or pure communism. Put differently, we either exalt the individual and ignore the community, or exalt the community and ignore the individual.

But it’s not an either/or proposition. We must find a balance between individualism and communalism (not communism). France, say, has found a balance that is too far towards communalism for me. Among developed nations, the US is the furthest towards individualism. I believe we should nudge it a bit towards communalism in some things, but not many and not very far. The world is analog, not binary, and I just want to turn the dial a tad to the left.

That doesn’t make me a communist, and doesn’t mean I don’t care about individual freedoms. I care very much. I care about civil liberties that many on the right are happy to sacrifice to communalism: privacy, protection from unlawful search and seizure, freedom of speech (flag burning, say), and many more. So the anti-government libertarians too are somewhere in between pure libertarianism and communism. We’re just at different points on the spectrum.

The libertarian conservatives view the left as godless, as if our political beliefs are unchristian. So is my view compatible with Christianity? Oh my yes. I want a community where people aren’t ruined financially because they get cancer, or where they die from cancer needlessly. Where, while we treasure individual liberties, we also balance them against a communal desire to care for the least of these. And we do these things together, as a people deciding these things democratically, under the rule of law. As a people realizing that we can do some things together that none of us can do alone. As a people understanding that, while we are all individuals, we all suffer or benefit from the well-being of the entire community.

The Tea Party right, however, seems to want a world in which they benefit from the vibrant and thriving society all around them, but don’t have to pay for it. Now that’s not Christian.

Here we go again.

Conservatives have been ignoring reality so long they wouldn’t recognize it if they were stuck in an elevator with it. Not all of them. There are still plenty of conservative Republicans with integrity, but they seem to be fighting a losing battle.

It started with Clinton Derangement Syndrome in the 90’s when conservatives believed Bill Clinton was a drug-runner and Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster. It continued during the 2000 election, but really came of age with the run-up to the Iraq War and the swiftboating of John Kerry. It continued with the Obama is a Muslim, a socialist and a fascist memes. But now it’s getting really bizarre: Obama wants to kill off seniors, the healthcare bills in Congress will outlaw private insurance, and Obama is a Nazi born in Kenya. This disconnect with reality has been getting worse and worse and is at risk, I believe, of imperiling our democracy.

I happen to like truth, or as the ancient Greeks would say, Truth. Many things in life cannot be boiled down to a binary true/false dichotomy, but many things can. We can find the truth for ourselves — we can read about the healthcare bills coming out of committee, we can look at Obama’s birth certificate, we can visit non-partisan fact-checking websites like factcheck.org. Truth is good, and we should pursue it aggressively and embrace it wherever we find it.

Democracy relies to a large extent on an understanding of reality shared by the electorate. We can’t debate whether a public option is a good thing or a bad thing until we understand that it won’t outlaw private insurance. We can’t discuss the benefits of healthcare reform with people that believe it’s a plot to kill our seniors. Without an agreement on what is objectively true and what is not, we can’t talk with each other, as the August congressional town halls are demonstrating. The tea-baggers at these town halls are denying reality, and trying to drag the rest of us into their fevered hallucinations. They are shouting down objectively true statements as though if only they shout loud enough, their reality will become true. If only they clap hard enough, Tinkerbell will live and the union be saved.

Truth matters. It matters a lot. And a large swath of our citizenry has abandoned truth. While the left has departed from reality often enough in its history, today conservative untruth is far more widespread. My fear is that this departure from reality will lead to violence. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pacifist German Lutheran theologian, participated in the plot that almost succeeded in assassinating Hitler. He did so because after long consideration and prayer, he believed he was called to do so. When so many people are claiming that Obama is just like Hitler, how many will decide that assassinating Obama is their calling? It’s terrifying.

Blame can be placed various places. Conservative talk radio, Fox News and Coulterian demagogues. A mainstream media that is afraid to inform us on what is really true and what is not, instead covering the debate while remaining agnostic on each side’s claims. A conservative movement that has been ruthlessly enforcing uniformity of thought.

But I think there’s a deeper cause. I think the problem is us. For a democracy to succeed, voters need to work to be informed, to educate themselves on the issues and to resist settling on the emotionally satisfying yet factually challenged opinion. We need to test our ideologies against reality, and modify or abandon them accordingly. We need to read and listen and think. We need to be adults.

Change is hard and our country has been undergoing cultural and demographic change at what seems to be an accelerating pace. But the viability of our democracy relies on our ability to understand the reality we find ourselves in and to vote and act accordingly. We need to return to a shared sense of what is true, a reality we can all agree on, while we disagree on how to respond to it.

We will get the government we deserve. Or perhaps a better way to say it is that we will get the government we earn through the effort we expend to seek truth. And we desperately need to earn a better democracy than what we’ve been experiencing in these town halls.

Soundtrack for my run today:

1. Lie to Me (Live), Jonny Lang, Live from Austin City
2. Blue Train, John Coltrane, Blue Train
3. Born With the Blues, Lonnie Brooks, Live from Chicago – Bayou Lightning Strikes
4. When You Got A Good Friend, Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings
5. Ocean Avenue, Yellowcard, Ocean Avenue
6. Crucifixion, Rev. Gary Davis, Heroes of the Blues
7. Shoot That Curl, Chris and Kathy, Cowabunga: the Surf Box
8. Boot Hill, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The Sky is Crying
9. Crawlin’ King Snake, Peter Green Splinter Group, From Clarksdale to Heaven
10. Season of the Witch (Live); Bloomfied, Kooper, Stills; Super Session Live at the Filmore East

The Earlybird Cafe by Lane Teegan
(courtesy of Backyard Steve, performed by John Mellencamp on Fresh Air)

Everybody’s laughin’ at the Earlybird Cafe
I’ve been headed there since yesterday, I believe I’ve lost my way
Charlotte’s there in organdy, Billy’s there in suede
Y’ know that money’s in their pockets, & all their dues are paid
there’s wine on every table, & food on every plate
well I hope I get there pretty soon, before it gets too late

Someone asked me what time it was – I told him it was now
he asked me just what that might mean, but time would not allow
so I gave away my watch to a passing businessman
I hope he understands me now – I’ve done the best I can
But it was getting early, as I rushed away from there
with that ancient earth beneath my feet
and new dust in my hair

So I went on down the highway to the other side of town
my clothes was gettin’ wrinkled, & my socks was fallin’ down
but I could not stop to pull them up, for fear that I’d be late
so I kept on runnin’ down the road until I saw the gate -
of the Earlybird Cafe, glowin’ golden like the sun
everybody they laughin’ & callin’,
“Come on in, we’ve just begun !”

So I went on in, & I set right down, & I ordered me up some wine
y’know the talk was fast & clever, & the women all was fine
Charlotte asked me where I’d been with my jaded ivory eyes
I told her I’d been hung up, with some beggar in disguise
She laughed like temple bells,
she kissed me on the cheek & said:
” It’s hard to be alive sometimes…….
but it’s easy………
to be dead!”

A few days ago, Hilzoy brought to my attention the latest fad among wingnuts. It appears all the cool kids on the right are talking about going Galt. Boy, this brings back some memories.

You see, I was once a libertarian. Hard to believe, I know, but true.

Like many college students, I read Ayn Rand when I was in college, which like the gateway drug that Rand is, led me to read some books on libertarianism, and I was hooked. There is something so perfect about libertarianism, especially when viewed through a Randian lens. Poor people are poor because of their laziness and moral defects. Rich people are rich due to hard work and virtue. Government bureaucrats are leeches trying to take what is not theirs. In the end, there is justice: everyone gets what they deserve, not in some after-life, but here and now on this earth. How romantic. How perfect.

Yes, but.

Libertarian thinkers have added to this a whole theoretical edifice explaining how free markets can price anything and everything can be privatized all to the ever-increasing welfare of the virtuous citizenry and to the detriment of the shifty poor and controlling government autocrats. Through college and business school I was enamored of this ideology. This was how the world should work, and if it didn’t, it was because vested interests were depriving us of our freedom. Capitalists unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains!

Yes, but.

There was another ideology running through my college and grad school years. I had been raised and confirmed Lutheran, but was wandering in the desert during those years. I had many late night conversations about God and religion, and read a smattering of books on theology. I had several of what I would call conversion experiences, except that they didn’t really lead to any enduring conversion. It was all rather cerebral. But there was something profoundly true to me about all this Christianity stuff.

The Christianity I knew had nothing to do with today’s moral judging from the religious right. It didn’t depend upon a church hierarchy throwing around its weight in the name of ecclesiastical authority. It wasn’t defined by the drama of today’s fights over gay rights or attempts to sneak creationism into the schools. There was no political grandstanding. It was a deeply humble, self-emptying, other-serving Christianity.

Still today, the Christianity I know is virtually invisible to those not looking for it. The leaders of my denomination issue a stream of press releases about the need for relief for disaster victims, funding for food stamps, or services for the homeless. There are always urges to do more for the hungry around the world. Micro-credit, mosquito nets, schools, health clinics, water projects, goats (yes, goats!) for the global poor. But none of it ever makes headlines. The AA meeting in the church basement isn’t newsworthy. But there it is all the same.

As an adult, I had to decide between these two ideologies. I tried to reconcile them, and thought I had succeeded for awhile. But I was once asked to sign a petition to “end world hunger”. I wouldn’t sign it because it went against my libertarian ideals. Later, I thought about that decision. How could any Christian not lend their voice to the effort to end world hunger? What about the least of these? I came to realize that this world, the real world, the one we’re stuck with, isn’t just. There are both poor and rich who do not deserve to be so. Even the best of us are not quite as noble as Ayn Rand would have us believe, and the worst are not quite as evil. Markets themselves are sustained and thrive because of government regulation, not in spite of it. There are things none of us can do alone, and which we must come together to accomplish through government. While we must always be on guard against the excesses of government, we all need government to do what only it can.

This need for government isn’t just pragmatic, it’s also moral. A Randian libertarian utopia would rapidly turn into a morally unjust dystopia. And I don’t speak of morality the way the culture warriors do, but the way the Christianity I know does. I’m not talking about sex, drugs or wardrobe malfunctions, but morality as a glimmer of the Kingdom of God. Without that kind of moral justice, we would live in a world where power begets more power, disregard for others is rewarded, and justice isn’t available for those without the ability to pay for it.

So I am now a political independent, but in the current environment aligned mostly with Democrats. And my religious wanderings have brought me to the religious home I left as a teenager. And Ayn Rand is left where she belongs: to gather dust.

You really don’t need to know anything about The Watchmen to see the irony. All you need to know is that one of the characters in the movie, and the graphic novel it is based on, is named Rorschach, as in the psychological inkblot test. That, and that an Objectivist sees in Rorschach an Objectivist hero.

Why else would you create a character named “Rorschach”, except to invite each reader to decide just what it is they see in him?

This is one, but only one, of the fascinations of The Watchmen. (I haven’t seen the movie yet, but just finished reading the novel.) What we believe about Rorschach has more to do with what we bring to it than the character itself. I am sure that someone to the left of me would see a tragically broken man who, through a horribly screwed up childhood, has become a vengeful vigilante full of hate and anger, desperately in need of healing. And they would be absolutely right. Meanwhile, our libertarian friend at Reason magazine sees a noble Objectivist right out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, or even better, The Fountainhead, ready to blow up any building that violates his architectural principles. And he’s right.

Rorschach’s ability to evoke in us what we want to see isn’t because he is a mushy gray character. There is no ambiguity — his every action, and every action taken towards him, is black and white. But it is the complex combination of black and white that allows us to see in him what is already in us.

Just like an inkblot.

So what do I see in Rorschach? A brilliantly post-modern character, full of good and evil, hatred and hurt, noble moral principle and foolish stubborness. He’s both protagonist and antagonist, horribly complex, humanity’s vices and virtues all in one person. There is no moral to Rorschach’s tale, no heroic example to follow. Nothing but permission to accept that we are all also full of our own contradictions, at the same time both sinner and saint. And that’s enough.