Am I a ‘Progressive?’
As always, I’m trying to make sense of local, state, and national politics. And, as always, I tend to be confused about where I ought to stand on the political spectrum. I’m not in favor of current tax policies that encourage multi-generational dynasties made up of wealthy non-workers, because they inevitably lead to nasty revolts. (See French Revolution for details.) I’m not big on government handouts for those who want to ride on the backs of working Americans, so I regard the soon-to-be-reality Homeless Service Center in Bradenton — two blocks from my house — as a slap in the face to everyone who stays straight and tries to make it instead of going on the bum, but at the same time I detest big business handouts like publically-financed sports stadiums.
I don’t like governments telling me (or you) what kind of god or gods — if any — to worship or deciding who we should sleep with. In that sense I am a (small “l”) libertarian. Basically, I suppose, more than anything else I want competence in government, and I will sacrifice many ideology points to get it. Right now, I see little evidence that either major party can field and elect candidates who can read a balance sheet and make honest decisions about what government can and can’t do. Call me cynical, call me realistic or call me a typical 21st Century American. But whatever label you hang on me, please note that people who share my beliefs are on the edge of becoming a (not necessarily silent) majority in our country.
My lack of sympathy for the bums hanging around my neighborhood marks me as a 100% non-progressive hard-hearter. I’m not even willing to pay the lip service George W. Bush pays to the idea of “compassion” toward people who choose a life of drugs and drinks and handouts over one where they pay their own way.
At the same time, I detest the greed-fueled real estate insanity that has all but wiped out low-cost rental housing, especially of the boardinghouse or other single-room variety, that has traditionally been the refuge of last resort for people who are down on their luck for whatever reason. My grandmother ran a boardinghouse in Los Angeles many years ago. It was neat and clean. There is no reason why shared living environments must be unsanitary — unless they are owned by people who regard their tenants as less then human and there are no inspections to make sure they are habitable. So I’m somewhere between the progressives (give ‘em a free place to live) and conservatives (regulating rental housing is bad) on this issue.
I will always look first for a private enterpise solution to a societal problem, but I also recognize that some problems get out of hand unless government steps in. I don’t like paying taxes any more than anyone else, but I recognize that taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society — and that it’s one heck of a lot easier to pay 30% or 40% on a $200,000 annual income than it is to pay 5% on $20,000. I also understand that people who have more have more to lose, so they (we) should be willing to pay a higher percentage of their (our) income to keep society functioning than those who are barely hanging on.
I see success carrying responsibility with it, an attitude Bill Gates (whose software business shenanigans I detest) shares with me. But the idea of wealth creating a societal obligation seems to be a minority view today. The idea that maybe, just maybe, the ability to create that wealth depends on a healthy society, and that some payback is in order for those who have become wealthy while belonging to that society, seems to be as dead as Tom DeLay’s conscience.
I don’t like the fact that we are fighting in Iraq. If our hard-on was for Saddam Hussein, why didn’t we assassinate or depose him and his inner circle? But we control Iraq now, even if we decided to invade that sullen country on false pretenses, and it is our reponsbility to leave it at least as well-off as we found it. Cutting and running now would ruin what little international credibility we have left. I tell people who work with me, over and over, that they should not make promises they cannot keep, and I say the same to the U.S. government. We have made a promise to leave a safe, democratic Iraq behind us, and we had better keep that promise.
All the Progressives in the world telling me we should immediately pull out of Iraq won’t change my mind on this matter. I regret every death — American or Iraqi — in the pursuit of a better Iraq, but sometimes you need to stay the course, and this is one of those times.
What is “Progress,” anyway?
Progressives must believe in progress. Otherwise they would call themselves “Regressives” or some such. I believe in technological progress, up to and including a well-funded, tax-supported space program and government-financed basic scientific research. But I am leery about how we harness much of that progress. My parents belonged to an obsolete political class I call “Techno-Liberals” who believed that as machines took over the drudgery of society we’d work shorter and shorter hours, and as a result of our additional leisure time we’d see a huge outpouring of creativity in our society that would make life better and more beautiful for everyone.
This utopian ideal seems to be dead. We have decided to accept ever-increasing slum populations and pollution in places like Mexico City and to regard migration from Mexico to the United States as both normal and inevitable instead of coming up with ways to solve the problems that create the impetus for that migration.
In the United States, we have decided that a life full of disposable gadgets made in other countries is fuller and richer than one where we strive for freedom from financial worries for ourselves and those around us. We accept the fact that a small percentage of our population will live in larger houses than anyone outside of self-declared royalty has owned throughout human history while we happily jam increasing numbers of people who do our scut work into smaller spaces than were common back when boardinghouses and other single-room housing solutions were considered adequate housing for “the poor” — and even for middle-class strivers trying to save up enough to buy their own houses.
So on some fronts I am certainly a Progressive, because I still hold some of those old liberal ideals, especially the ones about progress leading to a better life for all.
At the same time, I get tired of many rants from self-described Progressives and some of the financial unreality that comes from our current Democratic Party leadership, all of whom seem to be as poor at reading numbers as our current Republican leadership. The reality of life is that — believe it or not — there really is no such thing as a free lunch. Whether the food is paid for directly or its cost is included in the price of the beer you drink along with it, someone is putting out money to buy the ingredients and prepare them.
If we are going to have a health insurance system that covers every U.S. citizen (and most likely most immigrants, legal or illegal), that’s fine with me and I’m willing to pay my share to support it. But I am not willing to have politicians tell me we can pay for universal health care — or increased prescription drug coverage for senior citizens — without raising taxes (or “user fees” or whatever we want to call them).
If we are going to engage in foreign adventures like our current one in Iraq, we must be prepared to pay for them, not shove their cost onto future generations by borrowing the funds needed to carry them out. And if we are going to invade oil-producing countries, oil companies and their shareholders, who get the most benefit from our military’s actions, should pay a higher share of the cost than the rest of us. (I threw this last one in as a joke; bought-out politicians of both parties will keep this from happening.)
Where we seem to have trouble is deciding what “progress” we want, who should benefit from it, and who should pay for it.
Right now, in a Republican-controlled America, it seems like “progress” is supposed to benefit only those who can afford to buy a Congressperson, and it should be paid for strictly by people who work for a living instead of relying on dividends or inheritances. This is wrong, and I suspect that even the hardest-hearted “conservatives” are starting to figure out that a bunch of fat-butts (figuratively) sitting on top of people who work for their money is not good — and sooner or later will trigger a revolution by the workers.
We need to define “progress” better before we can decide whether or not we want to have a “progressive” government. But first, we need to have a competent government.
The Competence Party
What I really want, instead of choosing between impossible promises from Republican candidates and equally impossible ones from Democrats, is to have a new political party whose platform might be, “Giving the Taxpayers Their Money’s Worth.”
A lot of the “Government can’t possibly be efficient” nonsense we hear from the “Don’t tax me, I’m too greedy to share a dime” crowd would get cold-shouldered by the rest of us if we saw where our tax money was going and agreed that we were getting a decent value in return.
Think New Orleans. Not many disagree with the idea that we should have levees there or that we should somehow help those whose homes were ruined by hurricanes last year. What pisses us all off is that the levees were built poorly in the first place, and that the after-the-fact relief effort was handled so poorly that almost any decent fast-food restaurant manager could have done it better.
A delayed sidewalk paving project near my house — and we’re talking about a delay of nearly a year, now — was shrugged off with a “that’s bureaucracy for you” comment by the man responsible for it.
We too readily accept excuses for government non-performance. Here in Florida, for example, despite many citizen dissatisfactions with state government, our state-level representatives of both parties have a near-100% re-election rate. Electoral districts have been carefully drawn to keep it this way, but I think it’s time we started fooling the manipulators who think we vote only in ways they want us to vote, based on race, religion, and economic status, and start crossing party lines whenever we see a more competence-oriented challenger, even if we don’t agree with that challenger on issues like abortion or the death penalty for overpaid corporate chiefs.
I’m at the point where — and I’m serious about this — I am more concerned with a candidate’s business and financial acumen than with his or her position on “issues.”
So let’s think about forming the Competence Party — conservative in fiscal matters, “live and let live” in social ones but above all capable of running government efficiently, and see what happens.
Meanwhile, we can vote for candidates from the current major parties who come closest to the Competence ideal, not only in the general election but also in the primaries, even if we need to re-register as members of the “opposition party” to do it.