Thursday, January 05, 2006

One man's view of liberalism

I have been asked about my view of government and why I am a liberal. Well, I haven't always been a liberal. In college, I was quite taken with classical liberalism and libertarianism. I've read Atlas Shrugged multiple times, and I've seen Rush in concert. However, my thinking has evolved a lot as I've grown older. And instead of becoming more conservative, I've become more liberal. A lot more liberal.

To start getting philosophical - I am responsible for every action I take. What I can't control is what happens to me. I'm free to do anything I want, anytime I want. However, there are consequences to every action - if I break a law, there is a price I will pay. So, in essence, I, and everyone else, willingly sacrifice some freedoms in order to provide a stable and safe (as much as possible) society in which to live. I can't build interstates or run a military or produce television shows or acquire food from all over the country or any number of other things all by myself, so I join a society where I can exchange my labor for goods and services (via the accepted exchange of money). In doing so, I accept some responsibility for the welfare of the other members of that society. Therefore, I believe in a shared responsibility that is as fundamental as our freedom - our responsibility that we let no one, regardless of perceived worth, suffer without the basic needs of life. I would list those as food, shelter, clothing, access to quality education, and access to quality health care. What people do with those things is their choice - they don't have to do what the doctor says. They don't have to learn anything in school. But I believe that providing that access is as basic a human responsibility as there is.

I also in no way believe that business, left to it's own devices, would come anywhere near meeting this responsbility. Businesses exist to make money for the owners and stockholders, not to share responsibility for societal needs. There are certainly counter-examples, and one well-known one, Bill Gates, has done incredible things (ask him what his view of taxes is - he actively supports the continuation of the estate tax, for example). But what business is going to provide health care to poor children if there's no one who will pay for it? None. And so those children will grow up less healthy and less likely to be able to manage their own lives.

So, to me, we have to agree that, since we cannot trust businesses and private citizens to meet the needs of so many people, and that we have this responsibility, as I described earlier, that we will set up an entity which will do these things for us - that will provide national infrastructure as well as meet societal responsibilities. And we won't let anyone share in the benefits of such a society without sharing in the responsbility. None of us are self-sufficient, so we all have to share in paying for everyone else.

As I've said before, to me one of the goals of liberalism is to work towards a perfect society. What I've never understood is why everyone doesn't want that. Why should I be content that some still fall through the cracks? In my view, we should all keep working to make the cracks smaller and smaller so that as few people as possible fall through them.

When we talk about the effectiveness of government, there are two different questions being asked - 1) should the government exist in the form it does right now and 2) are the people in the government doing a good job? I believe that the answer to the first question is yes, but the answer to the second question is no. That means the current government is not being effective. In my opinion, it would be far better to replace the people in the government with some that can do the job better than to replace (or remove) the system. The failure of government to serve the citizens of the country is our fault as well as theirs - we elected them, and continue to elect them, even though they fail often.

Some ask what the government has done well. Obviously, different people would differ on what "well" means. What I can say is that governmental programs make my life, and the lives of many of the people I care about, better. Without Social Security Insurance, my parents and grandmother wouldn't be able to afford a place to live or food to eat. Without Medicare, they wouldn't be able to go to a doctor if they were sick. Without Medicare or Medicaid, my sister, who works as a Physical Therapist in a nursing home, would be out of a job because few of the patients would be able to pay for their care. Without the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, or the Department of Education, I, my wife, and many of my friends would not have been able to afford to go to college, do research, or go to graduate school. Without federally guaranteed student loan programs, the schools I, my wife, and my sister teach at would close.

Without government, many of those things might still be possible. Perhaps, but for many reasons, I think things would be very different, and hence very much worse for me and people I care about. None of the people I've discussed are freeloaders, living off their government - and I'm not going to get into a discussion of personal habits.

I feel like this got a little disjointed along the way, so if anyone has any suggestions or comments, I'd love to see them.

4 comments:

drmagoo said...

Simply put, if everyone didn't contribute to SSI, those who need it would lose it. You go to people who've been told their entire lives that there is this insurance for them if, when they're too old to work, or too old to get a job given widespread age discrimination, they find themselves without any viable means of support, and tell them the streets are waiting, and there's a nice cardboard box out there. And if you don't know anyone who would be in that situation, you need to meet more people. Good people, who worked for 50 years and still have nothing to show for it, for reasons internal and external. You throw them out. Me, a small chunk of my check is worth knowing my parents will never be on the streets, that I will never be on the streets, that there is a safety net for all of us, regardless of what ills befall us. I have a retirement account that should provide much more income for me than SSI. But I've seen too many financial institutions fall to greed and corruption to trust it entirely. And you should have the same concerns, unless you're independently wealthy. Even then, if you care about anyone other than yourself, you have to be willing to sacrifice to help them in their times of need, even if you've never met them, wouldn't like them, and they wouldn't say thank you in a million years. It comes with those chromosomes that make us human.

drmagoo said...

For the last time, because I think we should move on to other discussions, we're operating on different assumptions. It's not theft to me, it's everybody fulfilling their responsibility as humans to their fellow citizens. You don't want that responsibility, change the rules or leave.

But if you're going to change the rules, tell me how you're going to do so and what you're going to replace them with. And it's got to be better than "Well, without governments around, people will figure it out." Tell me how they'll figure it out.

drmagoo said...

For one thing, you've made some sweeping generalizations about how I reacted to things previous administrations did, when you really have no idea. Just because I'm a liberal doesn't mean I worship at the feet of Bill Clinton.

I have no problem with the country taxing me to fight a war, even if I think the war is unjust. My responsibility as a voter is to make my displeasure known at the polls, which I did, although since more people voted for the other side, the war continued. Life in a representative democracy.

On the other hand, I do have problems with taxing me to teach ID, since it's been expressly ruled numerous times that federal funds can't be used to teach religious doctrine in public schools. Besides, it's crap, scientifically.

I strongly oppose any sense of only paying taxes for programs we agree with. Most people are stupid enough to only vote for the things that clearly benefit them, not seeing how other things also impact their lives. Also, in the votes I've seen, people tend to vote for more programs and lower taxes. They're kinda dumb that way. You pay the same way as everyone else, if they do stuff you don't like, vote em out of office.

drmagoo said...

Um, what?