Townhall.com | George Will | July 8, 2007
WASHINGTON — Some mornings during the autumn of 1933, when the unemployment rate was 22 percent, the president, before getting into his wheelchair, sat in bed, surrounded by economic advisers, setting the price of gold. One morning he said he might raise it 21 cents: “It’s a lucky number because it’s three times seven.” His treasury secretary wrote that if anybody knew how gold was priced “they would be frightened.”
The Depression’s persistence, partly a result of such policy flippancy, was frightening. In 1937, during the depression within the Depression, there occurred the steepest drop in industrial production ever recorded. By January 1938 the unemployment rate was back up to 17.4 percent. The war, not the New Deal, defeated the Depression. Franklin Roosevelt’s success was in altering the practice of American politics.
This transformation was actually assisted by the misguided policies — including government-created uncertainties that paralyzed investors — that prolonged the Depression. This seemed to validate the notion that the crisis was permanent, so government must be forever hyperactive.
In his second inaugural address Roosevelt sought “unimagined power” to enforce the “proper subordination” of private power to public power. He got it, and the fact that the federal government he created now seems utterly unexceptional suggests a need for what Amity Shlaes does in a new book. She takes thorough exception to the government he created.
Republicans had long practiced limited interest-group politics on behalf of business with tariffs, gifts of land to railroads and other corporate welfare. Roosevelt, however, made interest-group politics systematic and routine. New Deal policies were calculated to create many constituencies — labor, retirees, farmers, union members — to be dependent on government.
Before the 1930s, the adjective “liberal” denoted policies of individualism and individual rights; since Roosevelt it has primarily pertained to the politics of group interests. So writes Shlaes, a columnist for Bloomberg News, in “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.” She says Roosevelt’s wager was that, by furiously using legislation and regulations to multiply federally favored groups, and by rhetorically pitting those favored by government against the unfavored, he could create a permanent majority coalition.
. . . more
In this morning’s Gospel reading Christ heals a paralyzed man lying on a pallet. My priest, in his sermon that followed, explained the paralysis is not only a physical condition in the Gospels, but a metaphor for a spiritual affliction as well. We have erected in our minds that prevent us from helping others, and prevent us from helping ourselves. God’s love empowers us to tear down those barriers, push away all excuses and act. As we act we become conduits of God’s love, helping others on HIS behalf.
The power of government must be exercised carefully and prudently, not wastefully or abusively. However, we must not allow anti-government ideology to become an agent of paralysis either, one that prevents us as a nation, from using the power of government to assist others, in those isituations where individual or small scale charitable efforts are insuffiucient to address the scale of specific problem. We have the capcity to act for good collectively as well as individually and we should not be paralyzed by simplistic dogma that says otherwise.
George Will’s analysis is “will-fully” incomplete. With one-third of the nation unemployed during the Great Depression, and the economy is a state of “negative investment” because people no longer trusted Banks as places to keep their money, and hid it in their mattresses instead, clearly some sort of government intervention was required. The term “redistributionist” has to be understood in this context. The US economy in 1933 was in a sharp downward spiral that would have gotten far worse if some ‘redistribution’ had not occurred. That deterioration would certainly have been accompanied by more strikes, riots and other severe social disorder. There would have been support economic policies far more radical than anything Roosevelt contemplated.
The problem with Roosevelt’s New Deal, was not that government programs were implemented, but that some were kept in place long after the need for them had passed. Conservatives should take a lesson from that – instead of oposing government they shoud fight for smarter, more efficient government, that provides value to taxpayers for the tax dollars they pay.
Dean –
You’re arguing against the facts. The facts are that when the Supreme Court struck down much of the NRA legislation, the economy began to rebound. When Roosevelt succeeded in re-enacting that legislation, the economy nosedived.
Not only were many of his policies stupid, they were also immoral. Roosevelt was destroying food in an attempt to raise prices while people starved.
Yes, you read that right. Research it.
Roosevelt’s actions were ill-conceived and had disastrous consequences, as have Bush’s Global War on Terror.
Large government programs enacted in the heat of passion when politicians have to ‘do’ something almost always lead to disaster.
Note 1. With all due respect to your priest Dean, we do not have license to psychologize the scriptures. Pyschologizing scripture is a particularly modern affliction that allows us to create any “metaphor” we want but leads to the dead end of private interpretation.
So no, the reading has nothing to do with Roosevelt’s domestic policy. In fact, if you look at the text closely and read it on its own terms, you discover that the healing of the paralytic stands in contrast to Jesus’ affirmation that the paralytic’s sins are forgiven in the context of speaking to the Scribes.
Who were the Scribes? Part of the religious establishment of Israel and thus well versed in scripture. How did Jesus respond to them? He said, “that you may know that the Son of man (this is important, more below) has power to forgive sins, I say unto you, rise up and walk.”
If you want to personalize this reading, don’t psychologize it. Instead, read was the text says. Jesus healed the paralytic in order to show that He also had the power to forgive sins. Further, that fact that He forgave the sins of the paralytic before He healed him, shows that forgiveness is even a greater miracle than the healing.
Moreover, by referring to Himself as the “Son of man”, Jesus was all revealing to the Scribes (who knew the scripture), that He was Messiah sent by God. How? By using the term first coined in the book of Daniel (which scholars say was the last book written in the OT) that described the one sent by God as “…like unto the Son of man.” IOW, the Scribes, being well versed in scripture, would have heard this as Jesus saying that He was the one of whom Daniel prophesied.
The irony is that when the Scribes responded to Jesus’ forgiveness of the paralytic with “He utters blasphemy, only God alone can forgive sin,” they were absolutely correct. They just didn’t see that Jesus was the Christ — until he healed the paralytic (also an act only God could do). That brings us back to where the passage opens, which was affirmation of the faith of the paralytic and his helpers. Jesus was telling them (and us), be like this paralytic.
Be wary of “metaphors” unless the metaphor exists in the text.
Father – I’m the one who is guilty of extending the metaphor into the political realm. My Priest was using it only in the context of individual action – that animated by faith we overcome our fear, uncertainty and inaction and rise up to begin serving a useful purpose as agents of God’s love.
Let’s not discount the pyschological impact of what Roosevelt did. Clearly the devastion resulting from war reparations, hyper-inflation and the Depression set the stage for rise of Hitler in Germany. Fascism also took hold in Italy, while Civil war broke out in Spain. Hopelessly naiive American intellectuals returned from Potemkin-village like tours of Russia and declared the Soviet Union to be the New Utopia. So, it is not unreasonable to ask what radical political movement could have emerged in the United States if economic conditions in 1933 had deteriorated further.
Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” and New Deal programs had a calming and reassuring effect on the American people. It let them know that “we are all in this together”. My grandfather’s family went through some hard times during the Great Depression and a picture of FDR sat on his fireside mantle, afterward until the day he died. Because of FDR, millions of Americans coping with hard times saw their government as their friend and ally, and not and their enemy or tool of the rich.
No doubt, some of the economic programs introduced under the New Deal were wildly ill conceived. But many more were not. You can drive from one end of this country to the other and see the the results of one of the largest public works building programs in American history, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams, the Tennessee Valley Authority. Much of the the rural south received electricity as result of this building program. So it’s hard to argue that the economic effects were negative when we are still enjoying the benefits of those efforts today.
One could argue also that the government regulatory structures put in place during the thirties made possible the rapid mobilization of industry in the early years of WWII, thatenabled the US to produce the massive amounts of war material that provided the decisive edge over our German and Japanese adversaries. In Citizen Soldiers, Stephen Ambrose writes that green US soldiers arriving in Europe faced tactically superior German forces with years of experience gained fighting on the Eastern front. Massive US air power helped neutralize that advantage. Likewise massive amounts of war material provided to Britain and Russia under Lend Lease, also helped keep those nations in the fight against Hitler.
Dean
You would do better to read a current history on the “Great” Depression and the New Deal. You’re statements show that you’re buying into a mythologized interpretation of history than a factual one.
I recommend reading Amithy Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression that George Will discusses in his article. She looks at the effects of FDRs economic policies and many times shows that it was individuals who made the difference and not the New Deal.
You can watch the interview concerning her book at BookTV.
Here’s an article she wrote which questions the reverence held for FDR:
Dean
your critique by Rauchway would be valid if Shlaes book only dealt with numbers (and even then it’s pretty questionable). Her analysis of the New Deal was more than just numbers, it looks at the consequences the policy had on businesses. Plus, where government interference was a hinderance more than a help (especially in the TVA). Check out the posts I put up that are live interviews with Shlaes and come back with your own analysis Dean instead of google searching for responses.
JBL – After listening to that interview with Amity Schlaes one is left with the strong impressin that she is one of those academics who seeks to make a career out of soothing of the egos of the very rich, while catering to their conceits, prejudices and and vanities. Among these conceits and prejudices is the belief, still surprisingly found in somne conservative crcles, that America’s wealthiest families and scions of industry were deeply victimized by Rosevelt’s attempts to help lift the rest of America out of poverty, and that they were right to try and stop them in the first place.
It is a ludicrous, contrarian, revisionist history – a sacraligious act of intellectual vandalism directed at one of the greatest President’ in American history. Not only does Ms. Sclaes present her data in a selective and misleading manner, as I pointed out before, she attempts to magnify mistakes of the New Deal out of all reasonable proportion, while either minimizing or ignoring Roosevelts more numerous and far more significant successes.
There is no doubt that the NRA exercised a heavy regulatory hand which unfairly interfered with a number of buusinesses, such as the Schecters, whom Schlaes decribes in great detail. Even Rooselvelt later described some of the NRA’a actions as a mistake. However this is a tiny molehill compared Franklin Roosevelt’s successes.
Roosevelt calmed and reassured an American people deeply traumatized by the economic fear, hardship and suffering. His efforts prerseved social order and prevented more radical political movements from exploiting the suffering of the American people, and taking root. The public works programs initiated during the nineteen thirties not only yileded positive economic benefits at the time, but constinue to do so today.
Lastly, government regulatory structures put in place during the thirties made possible the rapid mobilization of industry in the early years of WWII, a mobilization that enabled the US to produce the massive amounts of war material that provided the decisive edge over the Axis enemy.
John Updike, describing his father’s experience during the Depression, writes:
Laissez-faire Is More
#8
Dean S. – Do you realize that everything in Updike’s paragraph involves feelings and not facts? He uses the words “impression”, “cheerful”, “caring”, “inspirational”; he made people “feel less alone”. All the while putting in place policies that prolonged the pain.
In this respect, while he probably acted out of sincerity and does not deserve harsh criticism, Roosevelt was truly the founder of modern liberalism, in that what makes people feel good takes precedence over what brings about a well-ordered society.
Updike’s most telling phrase is this
I admire the aliteration, but this is absolute nonsense. The mathematics of economics is the whole point! It is not moot, and miscalculations hurt real people.
Finally, Hoover was a man of great compassion and generosity. I would recommend that you read about his life. Ironically, though, he embraced many of the same fallacious economic ideas that Roosevelt did, and he also made mattersworse as a result
Tom C – The response of Amity Schlaes’s hero, Treasury Secretary Mellon, to the Great Depression was to do nothing, but allow the downturn to run its course regardless of the human toll.
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Crash14.html
He sound’s like Mr. Potter from Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
In Mellon’s view the Depression represented a moral rather than economic crisis. But this view led him to ignore the political ramifications of economic suffering. Frightened, angry men worried about how they are going to feed their hungry children become receptive listeners to demagogues and dangerous radical messages. Communism had emerged in Russia from the economic chaos of WWI. War reparations, hyper-inflation and unemployment set the stage for Nazism in Germany. Fascism took hold in Italy and civil war in Spain. Throughout Europe, parties of the political center collapsed and nations became polarized between a commuunist-led left and a fascist right.
It is not inconceivable that some more radical political movement could have taken root in the United States had the economy deteriorated further. A bonus army of thousands of unemployed WWI veterans encamped in Washington and had to be dispersed by federal troops. Labor strife was frequent and often violent. In Louisiana, Huey Long built a political career out of vicious demagoguery attacking capitalism.
“Feelings”, as you call them are not without political ramifications. Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” and New Deal programs had a calming and reassuring effect on the American people. It let them know that “we are all in this together”. Because of FDR, millions of Americans coping with hard times saw their government as their friend and ally, and not their enemy or a tool of the rich. For this reason I think Roosevelts actions had a very strong impact in preserving social order and stability and maintaining our democracy intact.
The record shows that while some programs enacted during the New Deal were misguided, others played an important role in lifting the nation out of depression. Federal Deposit Insurance, for example, restored confidence in the banking system, resulting in new funds for lending and investment. Public works programs created a supportive physical infrastructure or roads and electricity that stimulated the economy. Workers with paychecks from WPA projects spent money that helped small local businesses trying to hold on and recover. New Deal programs, and post WWII programs that followed, such as the GI Bill helped build the strong American middle-class of productive workers and energetic consumers, upon whom much of our national prosperity rests.
By 1944 FDR was gravely ill with congestive heart failure and probably should not have run for a fourth term, or have been sent to negotiate with Stalin at Yalta. By the 1980’s a number of New Deal programs had either outlived their usefulness or were in need of revamping. The failure to properly administer, Federal Deposit Insurance for example, and actually control the high-risk lending practices of some lending institutions, rather than just guanteeing depositers against loss, probably worsened the impact of the Savings and Loan crisis of the late nineties.
But this does not diminish the fact that Roosevelt successfully guided the nation through two of thes most dangerous crisis in its history, the depression and WWII. For this reason FDR should be honored as one of our greatest leaders, and not cruelly caricatured as some clever, scheming agent of socialism.
#10 Dean S.
As I said in my post, I do not think that Roosevelt deserves harsh criticism, and I think he was a great president. I do think that our knowledge of economics continues to advance and that we should learn from the past in order to avoid problems in the future.
You listed all the social ferment that could have become more serious, but fortunately didn’t. But think how much better it would have been if all the unemployed had found work. No fireside chats would have been needed.
Try this thought experiment: which would you rather do, 1) something that did not make you feel virtuous (even made you feel greedy) but led to someone becoming employed as a result, or 2) something that made you feel like Mother Theresa but did not lead to the person getting employment?
For this reason FDR should be honored as one of our greatest leaders, and not cruelly caricatured as some clever, scheming agent of socialism.
Well, he DID put socialism first. As a liberal, you are more concerned about intentions rather than consequences. As long as FDR intended to do some good, it does not matter what his socialism actually does. It’s not cruel to accurately describe FDR as the father of the modern state – something which is too often cruel. The grandfather of course is Lincoln…
How important is the existence of a strong, economically secure middle class to the social, economic and political stability of our nation?
To what extent are government interventions and economic redsitribution justified in order to maintain a strong, economically secure middle class?
What length of time should should be allowed for the economy to work itself out of an economic downturn without counter-cyclical government intervention? One year? Five years? Twenty years?
If as result of a severe recession the economy appears to be in a self sustaining downward spiral, contracting in upon itself as investment disappears, demand falls, and the money supply decreases, and the velocity of money slows, should we wait for the economy to touch bottom, where-ever that is, or initiate some sort of goverment intervention to stimulate the economy and reverse the trend?
How much unemployment should we tolerate during an economic downturn before we say that goverment intervention to stimulate the economy is required?
What level of deterioration to physical infrastructures, like roads and bridges, and public institutions like schools, hospitals, police and fire departments, due to underfunding, should we tolerate during an economic downturn before we say that goverment intervention to stimulate the economy is required?
What is the potential for a severe economic downturn to impact our national security in terms of making national defense more difficult to afford?
Should goverment intervention to stimulate the economy be initiated only after the economy begins to go into a tailspin, or should goverment intervention to stimulate the economy occur in a preventative and ongoing manner to keep the economy buoyant and on an upward trend?
Not only did redistribution of income make economic sense during the Great Depression, it makes sense now.
Kenneth F. Scheve and Matthew J. Slaughter, writing in Foreign Affairs, argue:
Summary: Globalization has brought huge overall benefits, but earnings for most U.S. workers — even those with college degrees — have been falling recently; inequality is greater now than at any other time in the last 70 years. Whatever the cause, the result has been a surge in protectionism. To save globalization, policymakers must spread its gains more widely. The best way to do that is by redistributing income.
Over the last several years, a striking new feature of the U.S. economy has emerged: real income growth has been extremely skewed, with relatively few high earners doing well while incomes for most workers have stagnated or, in many cases, fallen. Just what mix of forces is behind this trend is not yet clear, but regardless, the numbers are stark. Less than four percent of workers were in educational groups that enjoyed increases in mean real money earnings from 2000 to 2005; mean real money earnings rose for workers with doctorates and professional graduate degrees and fell for all others. In contrast to in earlier decades, today it is not just those at the bottom of the skill ladder who are hurting. Even college graduates and workers with nonprofessional master’s degrees saw their mean real money earnings decline. By some measures, inequality in the United States is greater today than at any time since the 1920s.
Advocates of engagement with the world economy are now warning of a protectionist drift in public policy. This drift is commonly blamed on narrow industry concerns or a failure to explain globalization’s benefits or the war on terrorism. These explanations miss a more basic point: U.S. policy is becoming more protectionist because the American public is becoming more protectionist, and this shift in attitudes is a result of stagnant or falling incomes. Public support for engagement with the world economy is strongly linked to labor-market performance, and for most workers labor-market performance has been poor.
Given that globalization delivers tremendous benefits to the U.S. economy as a whole, the rise in protectionism brings many economic dangers. To avert them, U.S. policymakers must recognize and then address the fundamental cause of opposition to freer trade and investment. They must also recognize that the two most commonly proposed responses — more investment in education and more trade adjustment assistance for dislocated workers — are nowhere near adequate. Significant payoffs from educational investment will take decades to be realized, and trade adjustment assistance is too small and too narrowly targeted on specific industries to have much effect.
The best way to avert the rise in protectionism is by instituting a New Deal for globalization — one that links engagement with the world economy to a substantial redistribution of income. In the United States, that would mean adopting a fundamentally more progressive federal tax system. The notion of more aggressively redistributing income may sound radical, but ensuring that most American workers are benefiting is the best way of saving globalization from a protectionist backlash.
A New Deal for Globalization, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
Dean, your argument makes no sense whatsoever. If indeed “redistribution of income make economic sense now” and has been practiced by the gov’t in the 2000 through 2005 period, then it should have “helped” the middle class and it hasn’t according to the article’s own claims. So what went wrong?
It still amazes me to see free individuals embrace communism still not realizing that the “redistribution” approach NEVER worked and NEVER will. It simply spreads misery all around and punishes the hard working and responsible members of society while simultaneously rewarding the laziest and most irresponsible ones (outside of the young, the sick and the old). All it does is continue to focus power into the hands of fewer and fewer unaccountable individuals. “WHO DECIDES?” is the key question here. With any redistribution scheme it’s always those without the resources, least accountable, who steal it from those who work the hardest and arbitrarily give it away to whomever they deem “worhty.” That’s universally unethical and unfair. As I always see, it’s easy to be generous with other people’s money.
Growing income inequality carries inherent risks, economic, social, and political.
Not really. As long as the middle class are not suffering, are getting all of what they need and most of what they want, then the fact that the richest 2% are relatively getting richer, does not matter. Fact is, in America, even the poor have almost everything they need, if not most of what they want. In fact, there really are not poor people in America. You can tell a truly poor person by their lack of nutrition. All of our poor people are fat. Fat people are not poor.
Are we to actually believe that the tiny percentage of very rich who have reaped the overwhelming majority of our nation’s economic benefits in recent years did so because they were more virtuous and harder working than the rest of us?
Well, maybe not “virtuous”, but harder working? Yep. Have you ever known a “rich” business worker, or executive, or doctor, or lawyer? They work insane crazy hours. They deserve their riches.
Are we to believe that the overwhelming majority of middle-class Americans whose incomes are stagnating aren’t getting ahead because they are just lazy and stupid?
Basically yes. It’s laziness on my part. I am only willing to work so hard, take a limited risk, and thus my income is limited to the middle parts where most of us sit.
Basically, your economics is of the socialist, marxist type. It argues that the economy is a zero sum game, the pie is only so big, and that there is not really enough to go around, especially when some have such big pieces. The reality is that the economy grows, the economy (and life) is not a zero sum game, and the everyone’s slice is basically limited to how much they are willing to put into it. Thus, you justify in your own mind “redistribution”, which is really just legalized theft. You even have the nerve to call it “christian”…
All of our poor people are fat. Fat people are not poor.
You’re just a catalog of popular misconceptions. The one above is too appalling to let pass without comment.
Poor people suffer greater levels of obesity because:
1) Poorer people eat more fast food which contains many calories and more fat, because fast food it is less expensive. The new triple cheeseburger on the dollar menu at Wendy’s costs more than a large apple from the produce section.
2) Poorer people eat more fast food, which contains more calories and more fat, because sometimes they are working two jobs and don’t have time to cook.
3) Poorer people may suffer from a lack of education that impacts thier understanding of the nutritional content of food. They may not know how to read the label on the back of a food product, or know that the number of fat grams, transfat, or presence of high calorie ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, contributes to obesity and high blood sugar and cholesterol.
4) Poor people don’t have the time or money to join the local health club. Their neighbrohoods may be too dangerous to go jogging through.
5) Many poorer people of Hispanic or African-American ancestry have a genetic predisposition to obsesity and diabetes. One scientific theory holds that the reason we know human evolution is still going on is that some humans have developed a genetic tolerance to lactose and highl;y processed foods while others have not.
Dean,
I suffered and lived under the communist “utopia” you so love an embrace. Many generations of my family were terrorized, imprisoned, and lost everything under the evil you cheer for. So for you to call it dogma is pathetic and an unimaginable insult to the 100 million souls that perished at the hand of individuals that spewed the same corrupted and evil lies you keep regurgitating about the “rich” and the “poor” and the class warfare you promote. The ignorance you show of history and truth is a testament to the clouded reason and inability to see reality.
Chris – While I am sympathetic to your experiences in Eastern Europe they do not serve as an appropriate frame of reference for analyzing economic or political policy in the United States.
You associate the term “Statism” with Dictatorship because you come from Eastern Europe. Here in America we have a democracy and choose our own leaders. When we look at our government we are really looking in a mirror. Therefore in America “Statism” is a neutral term because the power of government is only as good or bad as the leaders we select to implement it.
When we have good leaders, Statism produces beneficial results. In the United States, Statism gave us Social Security, Medicare and the GI Bill, programs that enjoy widespread approval. Statism put a man on the moon in less than 8 years. Statism ensures that we have clean water, uncontaminated food, safe medications. Statism keeps the streets safe from crime, and comes to our aid after natural distaters like tornados and floods. Statism provided the funding for the research that led to the intenet, and the development of thousands of amazing new drugs that cure illness and prolong life.
Therefore we must reject the negative connotation for Statism that some heve tried to advance.
@Dean S.
Dean, this (#18) was your “best” post ever….
These juxtapositions and conclusions are precious:
Poor people:
Must eat fast food, because it’s less expensive. (The infamous Cheese Burger vs Apple dilemma)
Can’t read labels, because they’re stupid. (They may not know how to read the label on the back of a food product)
Can’t join the local health club because of “time constraints” and jogging (is that after they would have finished the second job? Or after the Soap Opera has ended?) is too dangerous in their neighbourhoods.
Many (insert race, gender, political affiliation or religion) have genetic pre-dispositions for some illnesses which conservative, Christian, white people do not have (I assume) and thus can’t help being fat. It’s a curse! It is pre-ordained!
This pre-ordained curse, of course, can only be remedied by redistributing other people’s money, (stealing, vox populi) through the able, but sticky, hands of politicians into “poor peoples’ pockets” by means of a new government programme.
Oh yes, and while we’re at it, thanks for the proof that evolution works. Your contribution to that topic was the last evidence I needed to throw out that preposterous idea of creation…
You’re such a special character. I can’t wait for Christopher’s response….
@ Chris Banescu
Amen…!
Caneel – Allright, I will play the nerd to your bully. Snickering and sarcasm may work well in stand-up comdedy, but serious people discussing serious public health or public policy issues
There is data to support every point about poverty and obesity I cited. Also, I volunteer at a community garden to grow fresh produce for clients of the local food bank whose director informed us that their clients suffer from a lack of access to fresh food.
Here are just a few excerpts from the literature:
Researcher Links Rising Tide Of Obesity To Food Prices
Science Daily —
Hunger in the USA
Obesity and Poverty, Medscape
Dean, this (#18) was your “best” post ever….
LOL! I also vote that this is in the top 5 at least. I can’t improve upon this Caneel, it stands on it’s own 🙂
So Dean,
Fat “poor” people (known as “rich” people to most of mankind) are not responsible for the food they eat, the education they get, or their habits concerning health. It’s a wonder they can get out of bed in the morning, ah with no help from the state and all to pull down the sheets and tie their shoes….:)
Tell me, what in your view are they responsible for? Oh wait, I forgot your a marxist who believes they are all victims of class, race, gender, genetics, etc. Not only that, your an evolutionist also. When are you going to drop the facade of being a “Christian”??
#18 and #23
Dean S. – There comes a point when one has to make judgements based on experience and sound reasoning. One can link to “experts” all day long to prove whatever proposition is under discussion. In the end, persuasion depends on appealing to what persons know most intimately to be true.
Regardless of food price data and statistical correlations, I think you should just know, in your gut, that most poor people don’t go to the grocery store, pick up a bunch of broccoli, exclaim “wow, look how expensive this stuff is!”, and then head over to Burger King.
You would just know this in your gut if you spent time with real poor people, had ever been poor yourself, or at least examined your own tendency toward certain behaviors. I eat more fast food than I should, but probably because I am not as disciplined as I should be. I like big juicy burgers and salty fries because they taste good. I can well imagine others with less self-discipline than I have doing a little more eating at Burger King than I do.
Good grief, this is common sense. You should spend more time thinking and less time linking.
The larger point is that even if the diets of poor people in the US are not as healthy as they should be, the poor are not underfed, which in most times and places has been nearly a definition of poverty.
One can link to “experts” all day long to prove whatever proposition is under discussion…..Good grief, this is common sense. You should spend more time thinking and less time linking.
lol! Tom, we have already been through this with Dean, for years now. You have fallen into the trap. Let us know if you need a clue to get out…:)
You know what they say common sense and objective facts to a marxist are like holy water to a vampire; except marxists are real and vampires are fictional characters. 😉
Note 23, Dean, obesity and poverty, the link exists
I think your point is correct. If you visit inner city grocery stores, the produce department is smaller and the quality of the produce is lower. Frequently the smaller grocer cannot afford to stock the higher price premium vegetables and fruits and he sells what is considered in the produce world as “seconds.” One of the marks of higher income neighborhoods is the glorious grocery stores. If you want to see a cornucopia of beautiful produce in the grocery store go to an upscale neighborhood. It is the upper classes that, for the most part, concern themselves with carbs, calories, and other nutrition issues. Poor people, by contrast, are just trying to get as much stomach filling food as they can for the money they have. If you want to stay full and slender and healthy you need to eat lots of fruits and vegetables.
I have one poignant memory of a small family standing in line in a grocery store behind me. They were shabbily dressed and their grocery cart was full of the cheapest bread, pasta and canned goods sold by the store. It dawned on me that they were trying to get the highest amount of “stomach-filler” they could for the money they had. the problem with fresh vegetablees and fruits is that is only lasts a couple of days. It doesn’t keep well. I doubt they had a plot of land on which to garden to supply fresh vegetables and fruit. There were none in the grocery cart.
America has done very well in providing a very high percentage of its people a decent standard of living, better than any other nation in history, but, we still have needy people and we, as Christians, still need to be concerned about them.
Where Dean and I differ is how to act on that concern, not that the concern is legitimate
#29 Missourian
The issue here is whether the poor in America are suffering from “hunger”, not whether they have a healthy diet. The simple fact is that if one is fat, one is getting more than enough food to survive. In fact, in most cultures and at most times throughout history, being overweight was a sign of wealth.
You can count the ribs on poor people in China and India.
Even on the issue of nutrition, it is not true to claim that it is simply a matter of food pricing. It is expensive to smoke but low-income people smoke more than their high income neighbors. Unhealthy food can be quasi-addictive (it is for me at least), so it is no surprise that persons who have a difficult life, psychological problems, lack of discipline, or whatever, will turn to the comfort of unhealthy food.
I don’t think it is helpful to think of an issue like this in terms of the poor being victimized by grocery stores, food companies, etc. which I believe was the thrust of Dean’s comments.
This is timely. Apparently we are all wrong, at least as it pertains to the UK.
Poor Diet
Don’t you think that it’s time we begin pressuring our Congressmen and Senators to begin Congressional hearings on the North American Union and the Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement President Bush made with Canada and Mexico without any oversight by Congress? It seems that this agreement has the real potential to be very harmful for the sovereignty of the US. And, frankly, it seems wrong that any President should be able to make binding agreements of any kind with foreign countries without Congressional oversight.
The problem with this reasoning is that it presupposes that no one will ever be persuaded of something counterintuitive, because they will ignore the evidence in favor of what they “know to be true.”
#33 Phil –
This is often true in the physical sciences, but rarely true in the social sciences. There is a “wisdom of crowds” in regard to questions of how people should live that does not work for, say, particle physics.
obesity and poverty, the link exists
Yes, but what is the cause? Is it Dean’s neo-marxist “they are all victims of the upper class/education/evolution”? Or is it, as Tom says:
Unhealthy food can be quasi-addictive (it is for me at least), so it is no surprise that persons who have a difficult life, psychological problems, lack of discipline, or whatever, will turn to the comfort of unhealthy food.
Also, when you said:
It dawned on me that they were trying to get the highest amount of “stomach-filler” they could for the money they had.
I read that food stamp policy often is a “cause” of what poor people purchase. Some things are encouraged and others are discouraged. When I have watched people use food stamps, they almost ALWAYS pull out the cash for the beer and cigarettes they purchase (as these are not allowed to be purchased by food stamps).
poor people are not fat and they do not use cash to purchase massive amounts of liquor and cigarettes…
Christopher,
Well, you haven’t been around very long if you think that I agree with Dean’s Marxism. I don’t.
Americans should be proud that we have reduced poverty to the low level that exists in our country.
There will always be some people who don’t do well economically, we can’t create a perfect world. My policy recommendations would look something like this:
a) Promote the traditional family by
1) teaching abstinence. This would require a united front by teachers, administrators and parents.
2) returning to policies which favor marriage, which means reject policies which tend to equate any other relationship with marriage. This should be carried out in the tax code and other laws.
3) Stop articificial insemination except to married couples.
4) Allow states to regulate abortion and roll back policies that normalize the convenience killing of human beings.
5) Eliminate the death tax, which blocks a person’s ability to give his after-tax wealth to his own family, thereby strenghthening the family
6) Keep “no-fault” divorce but make it more costly for the departing partner if no fault can be proven.
7) Provide financial help to married parents who want to stay home to raise their children
b) Promote real education by outlawing teacher’s unions and promoting
competition in education
c) Reassert the power of parent’s to guide their children’s education in matters of morals and religion and reduce the power of school administrators to “teach against” parent’s moral guidelines.
d) Attack poverty by stimulating the economy and creating jobs. Provide aid to the poor by subsidizing internships where they can learn marketable skills and compete in the job world.
e) Promote policies which help families care for their own elderly as long as possible.
Missourian – Because I am not as rigidly ideological as you I can admit that some of your proposals have merit. We should definetly promote policies which help families care for their own elderly as long as possible.
I’m currently reading Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. In July 1995 a severe heat wave killed 739 people in Chicago in one week. A demographic analysis of the victims revealed that nearly all of the dead were elderly people living alone.
Even more striking were the differences among ethnic groups. Most of the victims were White or African American; the Latino community, constituting nearly a third of Chicago residents, represented only 2 percent of the deceased. While the elderly white or African-American victims, isolated in apartments, housing complexes and SRO hotels, had mostly lost contact or been abandoned by their children, older Latinos were integral members of larger family units.
The author writes:
The Catholic Church also played an important role in protecting elderly Latinos, much better than city agencies protected residents in other parts of the city.
“In addition to the informal ties that connect Little Village (a Latino neighbrohood) neighbors powerful church networks provided cricial forms of protection to local residents.”
It should also be noted that government policy placed many African American seniors residing in public housing projects in even greater danger. Many died because they were too afraid to leave their units or even open a window.
So yes, strong families and active churches are preferable alternatives to government interventions which are often introduced with inadequete consideration of their unintended consequences
..
Dean, how can I be “rigidly ideological” if, twenty years ago, I agreed with you
Dean, in Note 37 you describe me as “rigidly ideological.” I find that interesting because 20 years ago I was a liberal and I agreed with nearly everything you promote today.
What changed? In order to defend my ideas, I researched issues in depth. I also lived long enough to observe the consequences of Leftist policies on people’s lives and on the country as a whole.
So I was sufficiently ideologically flexible to change my ideas a great deal.
Well, you haven’t been around very long if you think that I agree with Dean’s Marxism. I don’t.
I know – just was confused (it happens too often 😉 by what you said 🙂
Love your list. I have a question for you counselor. You say:
6) Keep “no-fault” divorce but make it more costly for the departing partner if no fault can be proven.
How would that be different then placing the fault on the departing partner?
RE: #38–See Christopher, there might be hope for Dean.
Note 39, Christopher, there is general confusion about “no-fault” read below for clarification
The term “no-fault” divorce is not a legal term and it causes great confusion. At the risk of putting everybody to sleep here is the clarification in legal terms.
The law distinguishes between the question of whether a divorce will occur AND how post-divorce rights and responsibilities will be assigned. A divorce- standing alone- changes marital status from married to single. Marital status has a big impact on one’s life. If you are single you can remarry, for instance.The second set of legal questions concern whether or not alimony will be awarded, how property will be divided, how much child support will be required and how custody will be set up.
Prior to the 1960’s in order to get a divorce you essentially had to prove that your partner did something seriously wrong. Hence there was a great deal of discussion about what constituted “grounds for divorce.” Adulterywas on the list, but, spouses could condone adultery if they didn’t act on it. Abandonment and failure to support were also on the list. No grounds, no divorce. One spouse could “give” the other person a divorce by essentially lying and signing a document admitting that they had committed acts constituting grounds for divorce. There was a good deal of hypocrisy in this system as there was no straightforward type of mutually consenual divorce.
I don’t think that anybody should have to stay married if they truly do not want to do so, hence I recommend keeping “no-fault” divorce. You don’t have to prove grounds to get a divorce. However, I think that if there are no grounds for divorce, that the post-divorce arrangements should strongly favor the non-departing spouse over the departing spouse. In other words, it should cost alot (really sting) to leave a spouse who has done no wrong. The price of the exit should be truly daunting.
We now have laws which make DUI’s very, very costly. We have those laws because people have demanded them and people support them. We can do the same with divorce if we cared enough.
Michael, thanks for cheering me up, you suggest I could be an inspiration for others,
I am not proud to say that I can’t think of a time in which someone has said I was an inspiration for others. HMMMMM…… maybe that is a lesson and I should change my ways. Probably.
Dean, Note 37, “unintended consequences” are not accidental
The consequences are intended. The Left has been at war against the Church and what its teaches since its beginning.
As to the history of the United States it is quite clear that the welfare state has destroyed the Black family and changed the status of the Black community from economically impoverished but morally strong to a criminal subculture which is permanently dependent on the State for its continued existence.
While some Blacks escape this criminal subculture and join the middle class, most remain mired in the poverty that the Democrats love to perpetuate, it gives the Dems votes for more welfare. There is the bargain, votes for corrupting easy money from the state. Meanwhile the Black family struggles to exist. The Black crime rate is 9 times that of non-Blacks.
Not content with destroying Black families the educational institutions are working on the remaining families. Schools teach 4 year old that homosexual conduct is normal, that marriage is oppressive to women and that casual sex is liberating and normal. Marriage is treated as unnecessary for parenthood and children are reduced to the status of entertaining pets. Suggesting that anyone should limit sexual activity or decline to act on sexual urges is defined as oppressive. Suggesting that children should only be cared for by a married man and woman is described as oppressive to the “rights” of gays to adopt.
None of this is unintentional. Marx and Engels wrote about it as did Hillary’s ideological mentor Saul Alinsky. Try reading Rules for Radicals, the topic of Hillary’s senior thesis and you will find open advocacy for subversion of American culture including subversion and destruction of the Christian influence the society.
Missourian: You listed a number of very important goals that I strongly agreed with. But you also added other goals that were in conflict with the worthy goals you listed, and undermined the nation’s ability to attain to attain the worthy goals by arguing for a further weakening of the power of government.
For example, strengthening families is a very important goal. Don’t you think any consideration of the state of the family has to consider the increasing economic pressures middle class families find themselves under today? The last several decades have seen wage stagnation for the middle class and rising health care costs. Parents are spending more time working and less time with their children. Medical expenses are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy. Increased employee health care costs are one of the main reasons employers have been unable to raise wages.
Government could help by passing health care reforms and legislating a more progressive tax system. The inheritance tax should not be abolished, but increased, in recognition of the increasing share of national wealth concentrated in the hands of the wealthy few. Warren Buffet constantly remarks that he pays 15% of his income in taxes, while his secretary pays 30% of her income in taxes. Why do Hedge Fund managers earning millions of dollars from huge deals get to treat their income as capital gains, and pay a lower tax rate than someone earning a policeman or teacher’s salary?
Education is important to families also, but instead of increased college tuition assistance and greater accountability from local school administrators, you favor siphoning money away from the public school system to pay for charter schools, which have yet to demonstrate that they produce results any better than the public schools. It’s not the teacher’s unions that are responsible for poor performance from some public schools, but the overpaid and unaccounatble school district supervisors they work for. Where I live school district administrators are making six figure salaries, while starting teachers are earning less than the janitors. If anything it seems like the teacher’s union should more, not less to protect people considering a career in education.
We can weaken and emasculate our government so much that we seriously impair our nation’s ability to respond to urgent national crises. There are no shortage of urgent national crises looming on the horizon. They include our inefficient and collapsing health care system, peak oil and the need to develop alternative energy sources, coping with the environmental effects of global warming, caring for an aging population, and our need to rebuild our manufacturing sector (which has been dismantled and sent to China) so we can remain competitive in the global marketplace.
However, in the last few years, as conservative policies have taken hold government has proven increasingly unable to deal with national problems.
James K. Galbraith writes:
The Sins of Affluence, The Washington Monthly
#38 Missourian
I am a recovering liberal as well.
The biggest thing that got me on the road to recovery was learning from the inside out how free-market economics works. Twenty years of experience with businesses of all shapes and sizes lead me to realize that von Hayek was right.
Then I discovered the paper trail that proves how the Left wants to destroy the family. Indeed, how the family is the only thing that stands in the way of the Left impementing its vision.
The best thing, though, has been the discovery of how ideologically flexible I am now compared to back then. It’s a great feeling to think for one’s self.
So Dean, let me see if I got this right. Gov’t has been a dismal failure at solving key problems despite a huge increase in size and spending under both Democratic and Republican control, therefore we should have more gov’t. Add this to the trillions of dollars wasted on the “war on poverty” that got us more poverty and we have a perfect picture of the idiocy of the left and the complete lack of common sense. No the answer is NOT more gov’t, but less, more privatization, more capitalism, less bureaucracy, more competition, more freedom, less centralization, less taxes, reduced and smarter regulations, stronger enforcement, more accountability in the public sector, etc. etc…
Look at how Ronald Reagan dealt with Carter’s legacy of 70% marginal Federal Tax rates, 11-17% inflation and 6-8% unemployment rates. Look at how Ireland got itself out of a huge recession and is now the fastest rising economy in Europe. That’s how you fix bad gov’t. You trust the people, not the politicians. More economic power, resources, and control by everyone is orders of magnitude more effective, ethical, and fair, than more control, power, and oppressive taxation and regulation by a few.
Chris B – This is where conservatives like you are missing a great opportunity to revitalize your political movement, and beat the Democrats at their own game.
The answer isn’t less government, but more efficient and effective government. The objective should be government that delivers value to citizens for the taxes it collects. A wasteful inefficient government does not provide value. It’s time for Republicans to return to the sensible Eisenhower era, when Republicans didn’t try to destroy governmment, in a mindless, knee-jerk manner, but took government seriously and tried to operate like an efficient business.
Clearly Bush doesn’t take government seriously or else he wouldn’t appoint unqualified political hacks, like Michael Brown, who mismanaged FEMA during the New Orleans Hurricane, to run government agencies. Bush has mismanaged government because he doesn’t believe in it – asking him to run our government was like asking a vegetarian who hates meat, to make a great steak dinner.
There’s a strong case to be made that large entrenched bureaucracies can be replaced with a lighter, more flexible agencies that manage services rather than actually provide them. In California, where Proposition 13 limits property tax increases, local governments have been forced to be more efficient. There is a strong case to be made that poverty can sometimes be more successfully addressed by local faith-based non-for-profits than by distant government bureaucrats, and that government should work more closely with them. These are the arguments conservatives like you should be making. But first you have to take the concept of government seriously.
Instead what I hear from conservatives today are passages from the propaganda manual mindlesly recited as if from brainwashed automotons. “Government is bad, Government is bad, All Hail Hayek and Milton Friedman, Government is bad”.
There are crises looming on the horizon that will require a government response. They include our inefficient and collapsing health care system, peak oil and the need to develop alternative energy sources, coping with the environmental effects of global warming, caring for an aging population, and our need to rebuild our manufacturing sector (which has been dismantled and sent to China) so we can remain competitive in the global marketplace.
When these crisis arrive a kneejerk anti-government approach will be irrelavent and useless. A political movement interested in reforming government to prepare for those crises on the other hand will be extremely timely and useful.
Tom, I had no excuse
I was raised right, ergo, I had no excuse to stray. Feminism was the bait that attracted me. Not too long after becoming interested in feminism I started to have doubts about the underlying assumptions and actual goals of today’s feminists.
Mainly I saw the results of the Left’s recommendations, this prompted me to abandon the Left, the democrat party and their friends and fellow travelers.
We left Viet Nam and after a few years professional grade armies from North Viet Nam and China with support from Russia invaded South Viet Nam. I understand that in the last battle for Saigon the South Vietnamese troops suffered massive casualties. This means that they were actually fighting very nearly to the death to defend their city from Communist takeover. There was no “people’s revolution” ushering in the Communists in the South. Millions died in Cambodia and at sea. This was the legacy of the smug and self-righteous Viet Nam war protesters. Still today some members of my ignominious generation believe that they hold the “high moral ground” by opposing the Viet Nam war. Tell me again, why was that war supposed to be “immoral?” Because overindulged middle class kids were drafted to fight it?
If you are a female and you follow the feminist recipe for life, you are virtually guaranteed to end up poor, alone, old and childless. Now there is a great end-of-life senario. My husband’s grandmother recently holsted a Christmas celebration in which over 50 people came to her home as children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, along with spouses. We were all there to celebrate our love for her and the family she nurtured. The feminists would have spat on Grandmother Walters.
A good friend of mine has hit her mid-forties. She was and is a ardent feminist. Her distrust and hostility towards men inevitably meant that she has not found a lasting relationship with a man and has not married. She has no children. She has rejected the private sector and only worked at very low-paying job in leftist oriented social service organizations. The future is not really rosy for this lady.
How many times does Communism and Socialism have to fail before people recognize how pernicious it is? Richard Pipes has written a 186 page book on Communism and he details its history in the 20th century. He shows that, as time passed, the Communists had to get harsher and harsher and harsher on their own citizens (slaves) in an effort to make Communism work. It never worked and it only brought real oppression and real tyranny.
Oh well, preaching to the choir. I would just say that when Leftist policies are put into effect the result is always failure, but, that doesn’t stop them from pushing the same policies over and over and over again. Essentially it feeds on the naive concept that we are capable of creating a perfect society in which no one suffers in any way, and if we don’t do that, it is because we are selfish and greedy.
Eternal battle to preserve freedom. You will note that Dean never mentions freedom as a value when he discusses public policy issues.
Michael, Tom & Missourian:
I was raised a Unitarian Universalist. As member of the UU Youth & later UUYAC (Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Club), I participated in Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International, and several pro-abortion rallies. I was firmly in the left.
However, in college I ran into several people who challenged me (most importantly a history professor who was Orthodox). Turn’s out, I was not ideological so much as a sponge of my family/culture till that time.
I wonder how truly “ideological” you folks were also.
I am not sure Dean falls into the same category, as I sense a certain “stubbornness” and “proactivity” to his ideological commitments. He has been exposed to contrary information for years (assuming his claims of Orthodoxy to be true – I openly question even this). He has been “countering” the blog and the spirit of this web site for years.
I believe this web site (and blog discussion in general) have the ability to inform and get someone to question their premises. However, somewhere along the way, Dean has become stuck in middle school debate – and can’t escape (a sort of living purgatory ;).
I fear this web site has probably just hardened his heart. Still, Michael is correct, there is always Hope…
Tom, I’ll debate but not judge the condition of anyone’s heart
Don’t think I am in any position to judge the condition of anyone’s heart.
I’ll debate with Dean on topics that I am interested in, if I think I know something about the topic.
Missourian – Your characterizations of economic policies designed to protect and strengthen America’s middle-class, policies enacted by FDR and supported by Republican Presidents from Eisenhower to Reagan, as “Marxist”, says more about your political views than mine.
My political views are fimly within American mainstream. According to the Pew Research center:
Surge in Support for Social Safety Net: Sympathy for the Poor and for Government Aid Programs Returns to 1980s Levels
Likewise, Business Week reports:
.
“I Want My Safety Net” Why so many Americans aren’t buying into Bush’s Ownership Society , Business Week, May 16, 2005