K-I-S-S—Keep it Simple, Stupid!

Monday, March 9, 2009

When life, relationships, finances, world events, and social issues become bewilderingly complex, American seek simple answers and even simpler explanations. In April of 2008, trying to explain the culture of Working Class Americans to a group of much wealthier Californians, then-candidate Obama said:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

We will recall that he was soundly criticized for being elitist and out-of-touch, even effete, for making a comment like that. His California audience understood his complex explanation. Those about whom he was explaining, however, did not. Fox News and right-wing radio, pretended not to understand him so they could be righteously indignant for the disrespected "true Americans" Obama so callously insulted.

Candidate Obama was correct. Small-town America does like it simple. They do cling to guns and god and the blaming of those they see as less powerful than themselves to vent frustrations. They did it then; they are doing it now.

I received the following, copy-and-past-and-send-to-everyone-on-your-email-list, message last week.

What a profound short little paragraph that says it all:

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931-2005

It certainly does not get any simpler than that—or any more ridiculously illogical.Let's look at it point-by-point.

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom."

What initially sounded reasonable is confused nonsense. First is the confusing and undefined use of the word "freedom." How is there a different law that provides freedom based upon socio-economic class? He could be referring to Jim Crow, or Poll Taxes, or institutionalized segregation. But how could that take freedom from wealthy people? It is Orwellian. It's like saying that the Emancipation Proclamation made free white men into slaves by declaring black saves free men. At its best, that statement is foolish, at its worst, it is bigotry. Either way—it's class warfare. What I mean is, it would be class warfare, only that term is reserved for instances where the lower classes cry foul against the upper classes—not the other way around. When the wealthy cry foul against the lower and middle classes, that is just capitalism.
Anyway, who the heck is taking away freedom? That was the PARTIOT act.

"What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving."

I thought this was a central aspect of Christian teaching. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 7, is where Jesus instructs:

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. "

Did noteth they covereth this in preacher school? Or was Dr. Rogers sick that day?

"The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. "

True, that is what governments do. That is how we get the funding necessary to build hospitals and libraries, to hire police and provide for the defense, to support education, to provide clean water . . . the list goes on. Am I missing the point?

Then Dr. Rogers says something really ridiculous:

"When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for."

Seriously? Fifty percent? Fully half of the population of the United States is operating under the assumption that they do not have to work because they will be provided for? And the other 50% is on the brink of joining in? Not one man or woman in this great country is intrinsically motivated? No one finds dignity in work? All of us are one lame excuse away from sloth?

"That, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. "

I am really not trying to be cute here, but what does that mean? It's one of those lines meant to enrage and frighten rather than be coherent.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Adrian Rogers was single-handedly responsible for Southern Baptists' hard turn right in the 1970. And for a man-o-the-cloth, he seems incongruently preoccupied with the accumulation of wealth. "Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). Another sick day?

Eighty percent of the wealth on this planet is in the hands of about 220 people. That seems like more of a cause for a Southern Baptist preacher to champion than complaining about the wealthy not being wealthy enough.We all know that the motivation for the copying-pasting-and-forwarding of this and other emails like it is in reaction to President Obama's tax proposals.

The ironic thing is, I bet that no one on the mailing list makes over $250K a year. No one who receives, and reads, and forwards this absurd nonsense is going to be negatively affected by Obama's tax plan.

Why are people unaffected by this so willing to shill for the wealthy at the expense of the poor? I guess that is easier than taking the time to think about it. It's even easier to copy-paste-and forward.

Grab a Shovel

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

British Labour party politician, Denis Healey, is credited with the saying, "If you're in a hole, stop digging." Apparently, that advice was not offered to the audience and speakers at last weeks' Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Quite to the contrary, they seemed to be handing out shovels at the door.

The situation has not been this bad for Republicans since Watergate. They are out-of-favor, and out-of-touch. The Democratic-controlled Congress has its best approval ratings in two years, despite GOP obstructionist politics. In fact, approval of Congress recently went up 12 points. Actually, approval of Congressional Democrats went from 18% to 43 while the Congressional Republicans dragged overall Congressional approval ratings down as they went from 23% approval to 19%.

Yet, they keep digging.

Even before CPAC, it was shaping up to be a bad week for the GOP with Gov. Bobby Jindal's embarrassing performance as the GOP's savior-in-waiting. While President Obama was looking like a cross between Reagan and Kennedy, Gov. Jindal looked like Fred Rogers. "Insane, Childish, Disaster," were a few of the kinder terms conservatives and liberals alike used to describe the televised train wreck.

Then CPAC came. What can one say about an event where Joe-the-Plumber was a draw and the party's last presidential candidate did not even attend?

They trotted out the usual line up of suspects. The loudest applause seemed to come from questioning President Obama's citizenship and patriotism. Ron Paul drew loud cheers from half the overly-young crowd while the others sat on their hands. I'm not sure what it means that about 57% CPAC attendees were between 18 and 25. These youngsters ate-it-up when Newt and Huckabee uttered the dreaded word, "Socialism." Have they no new material? Do they know what the word means? I think I just found another use for that shovel.

There was a curious moment when Former Governor Mike Huckabee insisted, "We've got to get out the word that the Republican Party is not just a haven for rich white guys who want to get richer." That will be a tough sell when at the last party convention there were only 36 black delegates out of 2261 total. Even tougher when the winner of the presidential straw poll is a rich white guy who told the police they would have to speak to his wife's jewelry consultant to figure out what exactly were the "between 15 and 20 pieces of jewelry from Mitt Romney's Park City mansion," the Romneys refer to as their "cabin."

Speaking of the Straw Poll, Romney won that last year, too. That didn't work out too well for his presidential campaign. Here are the final results to the question of: "Thinking ahead to 2012 presidential election, who [sic] would you vote for as the next Republican nominee for president?"
Mitt Romney - 20 percent
Bobby Jindal - 14 percent
Ron Paul -13 percent
Sarah Palin - 13 percent
Newt Gingrich -10 percent
Mike Huckabee - 7 percent
Mark Sanford - 4 percent
Rudy Guiliani - 3 percent
Tim Pawlenty - 2 percent
Charlie Crist - 1 percent
Undecided - 9 percent
These data need no comment as they speak for themselves. Newt!!??

The biggest, and I mean biggest, speaker of the conference was Radio-Shock-Jock, Rush Limbaugh, who, according to Rahm Emanuel, is the current leader of the Republican Party.

Curiously, Limbaugh's listener ratings are best during his commercials. Apparently, people get into their cars to go to lunch and the radio is still on the same station as when they drove into work. Once the noonday news and commercials are over, and the drone of The Pretenders, "My City was Gone" comes on, his "listeners" can't get to the dial fast enough. Yet, he is the one repentant Republicans kowtow to when they dare disagree. I guess the CPAC organizers are unaware that Limbaugh is less popular outside their bubble than the despised Jeremiah Wright. He's right down there with Republican congresspersons in the nation's esteem. Yet, they keep on digging.

Clearly playing before a home-town crowd, Limbaugh-the-sophist used his trademark logical fallacies to distort and confuse, to incite and enrage, to defame and demagogue. Obviously in love with the sound of his own voice, he took his 15-minute time slot and magically expanded it to a full 90-minute stem-winder. While saying he hopes the president fails, he counters with, ""I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed." He called the Democrats' disagreement with George Bush as evidence they "hoped George Bush failed," and dared to draw a moral comparison between his treason and Democrats' disagreement.
He warned his followers in the Congress that cooperating with Democrats to craft legislation is tantamount to being "co-opted by liberals."

Apparently, there is no worse crime in the USA than being a liberal. Of the president, Limbaugh blustered, "It doesn't matter to me what his race is. He's liberal, and that's what matters." He went on, "The racism, the sexism, the bigotry that we are all charged with . . . doesn't exist on our side," he then added, "We want everybody to succeed."

Well, almost everyone—just not the president, or the Congress, or anyone he deems to be liberal. But everyone else.

In tortured reality what would make Orwell jealous, Limbaugh insisted, ""The racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. We didn't ask if he was authentically black." Apparently, I asked, we all asked, if our candidate was black. I must have forgotten, sorry.

But Limbaugh's real objection is the "bastardization of the Constitution that the Obama plans are." He didn't bother to elaborate. That wasn't his goal. He just likes to see the way the flames grow when he adds the gasoline.

Last Saturday, RNC Chairman, Michael Steele said,"Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment," Steele continued, "Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly." Let's see if the RNC Chair Steele now finds it necessary to apologize to the intellectual and philosophical leader of the Republican Party Limbaugh.

Tuesday Update: Steele folded like a lawn chair. He even uses now the job description Rush suggested for him in post-woodshed interviews.