Win At Any Cost

Most Americans I�ve met, regardless of their political or religious affiliation, want an America where they and their families are safe, where all children are educated and cared for, where the American values of democracy, fair play, equality, a level playing field, community, creativity, and generosity are reflected in the world around them on a daily basis. They have�at least�tolerance for views and ideas different from their own, compassion for those who are not as lucky as they are, and an understanding that while everyone has different ideas about how things should be run, nothing is perfect and in the end we need to work together or nothing gets done.

Grover Norquist, one of the most powerful men in Washington, leads Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), probably the most influential Conservative think tank and party loyalty enforcerment group in the country. He says:

�My ideal citizen is the self-employed, homeschooling, IRA-owning guy with a concealed carry permit� Because that person doesn�t need the goddamn government for anything.�

So what�s the problem with that? On a certain level, that strong a sense of independence sounds great but the devil is, as always, in the details. While �smaller government, less taxes, individual responsibility,� and the other slogans of the right sound beautiful, the details get uglier and uglier all the time. Take a closer look at just that one sentence of Norquist's�which I'm sure even he would say sums up his politics�and see how ugly it gets.

1) Self-employed
Sounds great. But in reality, everyone can�t be self-employed, or who would do the day-to-day work that businesses of any size need to get done? Especially the big businesses who are receiving all the tax and legislative breaks from the corporate-controlled Republican party Norquist speaks for and to, and to a significantly lesser extent, the corporate-controlled Democratic party.

The theoretical �supply-side economics� idea that people are all �independent contractors� or the like, individually negotiating the terms of work with others is just unrealistic. The world has never been like that. The theory that an employer holds no power over and no responsibility for an employee and visa versa; that everyone is free to do whatever they want, doesn�t take reality into account. And supply-side adherents, while believing all that, also claim that organized labor is an aberration of supply and demand relationships. Amazing but true.

The fact of the matter is that there are vast differences in power, money, resources, social status and connections, education, health, intelligence, creativity, discrimination, and just plain god-given talent. All this affects both what people are capable of and which starting line they begin from. To claim that everyone has the same opportunities is just an outright and very convenient lie.

What winds up happening without government regulation of employment, and has throughout history, is one version or another of Dickensian and Victorian England, current-day sweatshops throughout the world, and ancient Rome. The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must. Without regulation, those who do the work are at the mercy of those who pay them. It�s not easy to find new work, especially when you�re on the lower end of the economic spectrum. And it�s difficult enough even when you have a few month�s savings in the bank. For millions, looking for another job is just not a reality, it's a minor tragedy. Starting your own business is a great alternative, but often not a viable one.

Weekends, health insurance, the increasingly rare eight hour work day and forty hour week, sick days, holidays, and much more, are a result of workers demanding them, and demanding that government ensure certain basic rights for all. Collective bargaining was (and is) necessary because we do not all have equal access to money and power. Government regulations (and therefore fair employment practices) are necessary so that we don�t have to recreate the wheel everyday, everywhere.

[For the record, Grover Norquist�s father was a high level executive at Polaroid, and while his father was not self-employed, that solid financial foundation gave Grover numerous and obvious opportunities that are not available to most children. Yet he acts as if he�s no different than anyone else.]

2) Homeschooling
First of all, not everyone wants to homeschool their kids, and not everyone sees it as the best alternative. Many homeschooled kids are isolated from other children, aren�t forced to see lifestyles, economic situations, and cultures other than their own, and are limited to what their parents are able or willing to teach.

More pragmatically, most people don�t even have the economic option of homeschooling their kids. To homeschool, one parent has to stay home fulltime. Most people are busy working during the day. Or, I suppose, they need to be successfully self-employed enough that they can take the time out of their work schedule to teach their children properly. (See #1).

3) IRA-owning
Of course having an IRA is a great idea. Everyone should. But having an one requires having enough extra money to put in the IRA, outside of a regular savings account, outside of rent, food, clothing, school supplies for kids, etc. While individual saving habits of course make a huge difference, having the money to put aside from $5.65 or $8 an hour is very different than having money to put aside from $50,000, $500,000, or $50,000,000 a year.

[For the record, Norquist claims to make $120,000 a year from ATR. That�s the over-the-table amount, not including any speaking fees he may get, donations, favors, or the like. And as one of the current most influential men in Washington, that�s a lot. So believe me. He doesn�t live on $120,000 a year. Although if he did, his taxes would not increase under Kerry�s economic plan.]

4) Concealed carry permit
There�s an old saying that �A good neighbor is better than a good gun.� The bottom line on this is what kind of world you want to live in? Do you want to live in a world where you so distrust and are so alienated from and have such different economic realities from parts of your greater community that you need to carry a gun?

In many ways, this is the most symbolic and telling of all the positions of the right. While values of family, faith, community, charity, and fair play are touted, they apparently aren�t enough. What seems to really make a difference in the world is having a gun. To the right, it seems, having a gun is more important than having a country that takes good enough care of its more desperate so that violence and crime isn�t the best option people see. Poverty and hopelessness, which often go together, contributes directly to violence. There is no question.

No other modern country has the level of gun violence found in the United States. Here, where concealed carry permits are common, we have over 11,000 gun deaths a year. Contrast that to the rest of the western world, and you�ll see that per capita, our rate of gun deaths (not even gun violence that doesn�t result in death) is far higher than average for our peers in developed and post-industrial countries, and more along the lines of places like Afghanistan.

Why? Common sense and a good look at the world tells us that violent crime is a symptom of entrenched poverty and hopelessness, and usually poorer education, not to mention poor resources for law enforcement. I won�t quote statistics. Just take a look around you to confirm this. Sure, there will always be exceptions, but address those issues, and the streets will be far, far safer.

Cutting education funding, law enforcement budgets, and social services, contribute to a more violent and hopeless society. Prison funding and building is one of the largest and fastest-growing segments of government. Education is often the most frequently cut. It�s our choice: $9000 a year for twelve years of education or $50,000 a year for many more years of prison, because prisons don�t create good citizens�they create more hardened criminals. Look at who�s in prison for violent crime. Typically poorer, poorly educated, often black or Latino. Look how often they go back. That alone should convince you to spend the money on education, not punishment. Not to mention the difference to society between a successful, contributing life and a tragically failed life.

The facts on the ground, if anyone were to look for them, is that right-wing schemes for social improvement don�t work. They haven�t, they don�t and they will continue not to in the same way that Iraqis didn't meet our troops with candy and flowers, the theories sound great but fall flat every time.

De-funding schools only results in more poorly-performing schools and greater divisions between the education levels of rich and poor districts.

Deregulating corporations leads to abuses, excesses, and employee mistreatment. From Enron to the Savings and Loans, to the Steel and Airline companies using bankruptcy laws to release themselves from their agreed pension obligations to their employees.

Cutting taxes leads to cutting law enforcement, health services, and education. All of those things lead to tragedies�and greater costs down the line to take care of things that could have been avoided for a lot less early on.

When gun violence kills thousands, gun advocates say that new laws shouldn�t be made, �existing laws need to be enforced.� When there are problems in education, the same people tend to advocate for private schools and, more or less, the destruction of public education as we know it through vouchers or the like. The same with public health, welfare, or other social services. So on the one hand, when it suits their agenda, the system is seen as potentially effective, only needing a chance to work. When it doesn�t suit the agenda, the system is condemned as fatally flawed and needing to be discarded. A closer look at the agenda of people like Norquist will show that most of their positions are usually hypocritical and philosophically inconsistent in the same way. Not to mention cynical.

My theory is that it�s really about money, power, and selfishness. These are part of the �leave me alone� coalition, as Norquist calls his people. What that translates to is isolationism and greed, or, �give me everything I want and screw everyone else.� And their politics confirms it. It�s a politics of cynicism, not of hope. It�s a politics of selfishness, not community or cooperation.

The Bush administration�and the right in general since at least the early 90s�has been one big divider, not a uniter. Yet when their divisive, cynical, and mean-spirited policies are fought against, they call their political opponents �obstructionist,� �backwards,� or worse. They claim the mantle of �reform� while doing everything possible to dismantle historically popular and effective reforms such as overtime pay, worker�s compensation, social security, public education, and on and on. Opponents who properly participate in Democracy by questioning, challenging, compromising, and negotiating, and you are blamed for the country�s failures. The right blames the divisiveness on the Democrats, doesn�t take responsibility for it�s own arrogance and single-mindedness that has led to the polarizing. Doesn�t sound much like accountability to me.

The current strategies of the right are to ignore the rules of governance, do what you want, and �win at any cost.� In Iraq and the rest of the so-called �War on Terror,� doing what you want and finding whatever rationalization you have to is spinningly called the �Doctrine of Necessity.� And it starts at the top.

Kingmaker Karl Rove, the chief political advisor to both the president and the Republican Party said so much in an interview with CNN: �I don�t care about process, I just care about results.� To not care about process means that the law and the rules and fair play don�t matter. Ever. That our history and our sacred documents, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the body of American law which has taken centuries to create, are all meaningless. Which is in sharp contrast to the public face of the �conservative� law-and-order book thumpers.

�Compassionate conservatism� seems to me just a marketing phrase like so many others used, on the right especially. As does �law and order.� �Values.� �Integrity.� And sadly, even �God.�

If you look below the surface, the actions of the right are in sharp relief to what they are selling to the public. Every time.

Thank you to Paul Aaron for the initial idea for and outline of this article

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