Author Archives: Sheila

Patriotism and Taxes

Much of today’s angry rhetoric is constructed around two dubious claims: (1) taxes are unjust, because my money is the result of my own hard work; and (2) people helped by government are indolent leeches.

 One problem with the latter claim is that people who look down on welfare recipients who are poor have a remarkably benign view of welfare recipients who are rich. They see nothing wrong with paying USA Funds and similar enterprises lots of money just to give away federal dollars for student loans—a cushy deal with absolutely no downside risk—or with politicians who rail against government “handouts” while raking in big farm subsidies. (Tennessee Congressional candidate Stephen Fincher, a darling of the anti-tax folks, gets $200,000 a year from the government; “anti-socialist” Rep. Michelle Bachmann gets $250,000.)

 The more insidious claim, however, is the first: I worked hard for my money and government has no right to tax it for anything other than police and armies to protect me and my property.  

 Ian Welsh points out some “inconvenient truths” about that claim. He compares the average American to the average citizen of Bangladesh. The average American makes $43,740 annually; the average Bangladeshi, $470.

 Why the difference? American children are less likely to suffer from malnutrition, which adversely affects intellect later in life. American children are far more likely to get good educations. When a Bengali child grows up, there are fewer available jobs. If he starts a business, the market will be much smaller than the equivalent American market. As Welsh says,

 “The vast majority of money that an American earns is due to being born American. Certainly, the qualities that make America a good place to live and a good place to make money are things that were created by Americans, but mostly, they were created by Americans long dead or by Americans working together. ..Since the majority of the money any American earns is a function of being American, not of their own individual virtues, government has the moral right to tax.”

 Welsh isn’t the first to come to this conclusion. Thomas Paine, perhaps the most eloquent of the Founders, expressed similar sentiments in his pamphlet “Agrarian Justice.”

 “Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.”

 Patriotism isn’t just about being willing to die for your country. It’s also about being willing to pay your fair share to maintain the social infrastructure that makes life more pleasant—and more profitable—for us all.

Comments

Times that Try Us

It seems to be increasingly fashionable—at least among angry Teabaggers—to quote (selected) Founders. So perhaps I should begin this column with Thomas Paine’s famous “These are the times that try men’s souls…” 

Of course, Paine was writing during some of the darkest days of the Revolution, not during a sustained snit by people with a very tenuous grasp of American history. Whatever the temptation to over-react to the over-reactions all around us, those of us who haven’t yet lost all our marbles should probably exercise some restraint.

And yet…as Charles Blow recently wrote in the New York Times,

“The far-right extremists have gone into conniptions.

  The bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health care reform have been shocking, but they’re only the most recent   manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation.

 It’s an extension of a now-familiar theme: some version of “take our country back.” The problem is that the country romanticized by the far right hasn’t existed for some time, and its ability to deny that fact grows more dim every day. President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.”

 We are experiencing a perfect storm—a confluence of rapid social change, economic stress (or worse) and electronically distributed demagoguery that could easily ignite into something profoundly ugly. And lest we forget, minorities and marginalized people do not fare well at such times.

 Angry and frightened people want someone to blame. In the past, it was Catholics or Jews or blacks. To a considerable extent, those groups are still “on the line;” anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism and racism all spike upward when times get tough. But today, the targets of choice are those most in the news: immigrants and gay Americans.

 In the “old” America that these people are so nostalgic for—those better days that exist primarily in their imaginations—Americans all looked pretty much the same. Sure there were black people, but they knew their place. They certainly weren’t occupying the White House and Congress! Women were in the kitchen or nursery where God meant for us to be—we sure weren’t in charge of American foreign policy, or presiding over the House of Representatives. Gay people—out ones, anyway—weren’t chairing the House Banking Committee, or hosting popular television programs, or holding elective office. And they certainly weren’t marrying each other! And everybody who wasn’t black was white and spoke English without an accent.

 For a great many Americans, the resentments they have harbored over these signs of change have simmered below the surface, waiting for some trigger that would release them. And now, the demagogues on the Right are providing that trigger, many of them knowingly. The rhetoric that has been employed during the healthcare debate has been deliberately provocative (and the purported grievances mostly fabricated, but that is a somewhat different issue.)  As I write this, the media is reporting on an epidemic of brick-throwing, aimed at windows of Democratic party offices around the country. The instigator has shown no remorse; he is proud, he says, that he is leading a protest against a big government that is taking over responsibilities that government shouldn’t have. Ironically, he lives entirely on Social Security Disability.

 When people are this delusional—when protestors are screaming things like “keep government out of my Medicare!”—it can be a short trip to murderous dementia. And the first attacks won’t be against the “good ole’ boys.”

 They’ll be coming after you-know-who.

Comments

Debate and Hate

Coincidences over the past few weeks have made me think a lot about civility.  A colleague and I were asked to lead an after-play discussion on that topic at the Phoenix Theater; we disagree politically, but have often commiserated about the increasingly toxic tone of public argumentation.  I later participated on a panel at Butler University on the same subject.

And then there was the appalling conduct of the anti-healthcare Tea Party demonstrators in Washington who greeted Andre Carson and John Lewis with the “N” word, called Barney Frank a “faggot” and actually spit on other Representatives.

Locally, we’ve had another eruption of nastiness aimed at people who work at Planned Parenthood. Not satisfied with picketing the organization’s clinics, these protestors have taken to disrupting residential neighborhoods by screaming obscenities and threats at the homes of Planned Parenthood staff members and volunteers.

Now, I would be the last person to deny these folks their First Amendment right to express their opinions, and to do so in ways that I personally find repulsive.  But I can’t help but wonder what these angry and hostile people think they accomplish with such behaviors.

Take the attacks on Planned Parenthood. I understand being opposed to reproductive rights for women (and let me hasten to say that most opponents of abortion rights do not engage in these tactics), but Planned Parenthood is primarily about women’s health, not abortion. It provides cancer screenings, testing and treatment for STD’s, along with contraceptive advice and education. (In fact, nearly 95% of Planned Parenthood’s work is focused on pregnancy prevention; ironically, that means that no organization does more to reduce the actual incidence of abortion.)

Do the people screaming all night in front of the homes of Planned Parenthood staff members and volunteers really believe that Indiana would be a better place for women and children and families if the organization stopped serving its nearly 90,000 mostly low-income patients with pap tests and birth control and treatment for STDs?  Do they really think any other provider would fill that void? Or are they simply willing to sacrifice women’s health in order to get their way? 

For that matter, do they really think these tactics will help them get their way? Do they think this is how you persuade other people of the merits of your position?  

I sometimes have to remind myself that we live in uncertain and anxiety-filled times; a certain amount of irrational behavior is understandable, if unhelpful. I do recognize that a very tiny percentage of Americans actually engage in these despicable behaviors. My concern is that these expressions of bile are doing real damage to our ability to engage in genuine debate.

While few partisans are spitting on elected officials or threatening local volunteers, many more are engaging in fact-challenged arguments and distortions in an effort to win political points. Health insurance reform will not allow government to euthanize granny. Planned Parenthood is not encouraging young women to abort.

It’s time to get a grip.

Comments

Law and Marriage: a Case Study

Indiana is sometimes called the “buckle on the bible belt;” we are a socially conservative state. Nevertheless, while so many states have amended their constitutions to include prohibitions on same-sex marriage, Indiana has managed to beat back similar efforts. The natural question is: how? What is it about the legislative process and/or the strategies employed by the LGBT community that have allowed Indiana—at least, thus far—to duck the bullet of a constitutional amendment?

 Undoubtedly, the most important ally of the pro-equality forces has been the Indiana Constitution itself. The Indiana Constitution isn’t easy to change—in order to get an amendment on the ballot, both houses of the legislature must pass an identical measure in two successive sessions. That buys opponents some very valuable time, and places a procedural roadblock to any hasty or ill-considered measure.

So our Constitution has helped. It also helped that the Indiana LGBT community joined forces to fight the amendment.

Indiana’s gay community is not much different from communities elsewhere—there are multiple factions, organizations, bloggers, malcontents—you name it. (In fact, the gay community today reminds me of something my mother used to say about the Jewish community when I was growing up: that there are three organizations for every living Jew, and the only thing two Jews can agree on is how much the third should contribute.)

Nevertheless, despite the factions, the strategic disagreements and the inevitable backbiting, the major gay organizations in this state were able to come together to form and support Indiana Equality, an umbrella organization that facilitated the forging of a single, focused strategy. You can assess the importance of that by looking at states where strategy squabbles between and among gay organizations really hurt efforts to promote equality.

That strategy included some of the obvious things: forging coalitions with other progressive groups, and working in informal partnerships with the lobbyists for those organizations, for example. It also included some less-obvious aspects, including a cogent political argument to Democratic legislators: Did they really want a “hot-button” anti-gay measure on the ballot when they were running for re-election? Accurate or not, there is a perception that in 2004, GW Bush was able to get out the Republican vote in a number of crucial states because measures against same-sex marriage were on the ballot. Democrats in Indiana almost certainly would be damaged if there were a similar measure on Indiana’s ballot, and they’d be hurt whether or not they had personally voted for it. That is because such a measure would be highly likely to bring out straight-party Republican voters who otherwise might not show up at the polls. I think there is evidence that a number of Democrats who might not otherwise have been supportive took that warning very seriously. 

Probably the two most important strategies pursued by Indiana Equality, however, were the decisions to reframe the debate and to aggressively court the business community.

By reframing the debate, I refer to the decision to emphasize the effects the language of the proposed amendment would have on all Indiana marriages. While accurate, this line of argument was also intended to give legislators an excuse for opposing the amendment that didn’t require them to take the moral high ground. They could say, basically, “I’m with you, fellow homophobes, but I’m worried about how this language might affect us ‘normal’ folks.”

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the community was able to get testimony opposing the measure from some of the state’s largest employers. In a very real way, the ability to enlist such high-profile allies is a sign of widespread cultural change, not entirely a testament to Indiana Equality’s persuasive powers. But IE’s lobbyists were able to obtain strong public statements from employers like Eli Lilly, Cummins Engine, Emmis Communications and others, who took the position that passage of the amendment would hurt their recruiting and interfere with their benefits policies. Here were pillars of the community—mainline, mainstream, sober business interests— implicitly saying that efforts to amend the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage are attributable to the political fringe. Their testimony helped IE marginalize proponents of the amendment and frame them as intolerant extremists so intent upon keeping gays second-class citizens that they didn’t care what damage they did to Indiana businesses or  heterosexual couples in the process.

Now, all of this could change; the marriage amendment people certainly haven’t given up. They tried again this year, and they’ll keep coming back—at least for the next few sessions. But Indiana Equality began this fight with an overarching goal: to “kick the can” down the road until the accelerating pace of change to the broader culture makes the issue irrelevant.

So far, that’s worked.

Comments

No More Susie Sunshine

Anyone who has read my columns over the years knows I am a resolute optimist. My general theme is something along the lines of  “Yes, this bad thing or that has happened, but overall, look at the progress America is making.” And it’s true—over the long haul, we have seen progress in the general culture, at least when it comes to issues like women’s rights, gay rights, same-sex marriage, religious tolerance, etc.

 But to be honest, I’m checking out of the “look on the bright side” brigade. I’ve had it.

 During the Bush Administration, I was hysterical on a daily basis. We had this goofus in the White House who clearly had never read the constitution, had a very tenuous grasp of public policy and political philosophy—not to mention the English language—and was obviously being manipulated by Dick Cheney aka Darth Vader. As he dug the nation into an ever-deeper hole, fiscally and morally, I became more and more morose.

 Then, during the Obama campaign, I saw what I thought was a redemptive wave of political activism. Young people, in particular, came out to work for a candidate who didn’t pander to the haters, who spoke in complete sentences, and who promised a new dedication to the old principles of transparency and accountability in government. And that candidate won! An African-American intellectual actually won. Maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought!

 And then came the backlash.

 Anyone who is minimally fair recognizes that the government Obama inherited last January was a huge mess.  Even those who supported the Bush Administration, those who didn’t give a rat’s ass about civil liberties violations or gay rights or international condemnation, admitted that Bush’s policies created a fiscal nightmare. Not only did this new administration face financial meltdown, two “hot” wars, and a near-depression, it also faced a Republican party whose only goal was to see to it that nothing the new President wanted would get through Congress.

 Am I happy with everything that the administration has done? No, of course not. On civil liberties issues, this Administration has too often retained Bush policies—on State Secrets, detention, executive privilege, etc. On issues that matter to the gay community, Obama may not have been able to get DOMA repeal through a Senate paralyzed by GOP threats of filibusters, but he could have overturned Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell through Executive Order. He hasn’t. But how many of the pundits and wingers and other self-righteous critics could have handled what he walked into?

 I have been absolutely appalled by the immaturity of the loudest voices on both the right and left. The crazy right-wingers and Tea Party wackos—many of whom are clearly animated by racism—insist that Obama is Hitler, or at the very least a socialist trying to destroy The American Way of Life. (How dare he try to give everyone access to healthcare! How unutterably evil!) For their part, the ideological left is hysterically charging Obama with being a sell-out. The healthcare bill doesn’t go far enough, he spent too much to bail out the evil banksters (so what if there was a real risk of world financial system collapse) and not enough to bail out the auto industry. He didn’t put out a contract on Joe Lieberman. (Okay, I’ll give them that one.) And on and on.

 Meanwhile, the general public is just generally mad. Granted, they really aren’t too sure what they are mad about, or who’s to blame for whatever they are mad about. They just know things suck and they want to take it out on someone.

 All in all, it’s ugly. And unutterably dispiriting.

 It’s one thing to have good-faith disagreements about what ought to be done. It’s another to go off the deep end—to engage in fact-free fulmination, to lash out in the fashion of cranky four-year-olds everywhere. This country is facing huge, huge problems. One man—I don’t care how well-meaning or talented—isn’t going to fix all of those problems overnight, or in a year, or even in eight years.

 So Susie Sunshine here is checking out.

 Until the American public shows some sign of growing up, of understanding our own role in digging this hole, of giving some sign of a willingness to assume responsibility and help turn things around, I’ll be locked in my office, without newspapers, blogs, or television—and I’ll be in a very bad mood.

Comments