The past eight years has seen the growth of a culture war between traditional values, like marriage and religious belief, and cultural attitudes toward gay rights, gay marriage and the environment. Some of these differences have become heated, such as animosity toward religious believers by gay marriage advocates. Another set of values that is under attack could be called “fiscal prudence” or “The Protestant Ethic.” We work and save and get an education and eventually we own something like a house and a car and some money in the bank. Recently the latter value system has come under attack by a political party that believes in “spreading the money around.” When I was a child, there was a nursery story called “The Three Little Pigs” which emphasized the point that the prudent person is safest in the long run.
Of course, John Maynard Keynes dismissed this idea by pointing out that In the long run we are all dead.
The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.
We can see that our present leadership is firmly of the belief that short term plans are best because who knows what the future brings ? What we see right now is a war on capitlalism and saving and investing.
There is a major cultural schism developing in America. But it’s not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise — the principle at the core of American culture.
Despite President Barack Obama’s early personal popularity, we can see the beginnings of this schism in the “tea parties” that have sprung up around the country. In these grass-roots protests, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans have joined together to make public their opposition to government deficits, unaccountable bureaucratic power, and a sense that the government is too willing to prop up those who engaged in corporate malfeasance and mortgage fraud.
The data support the protesters’ concerns. In a publication with the ironic title, “A New Era of Responsibility,” the president’s budget office reveals average deficits of 4.7% in the five years after this recession is over. The Congressional Budget Office predicts $9.3 trillion in new debt over the coming decade.
The US educational system has been busy re-educating the youth about capitalism and the free market.
Just 35% of American voters believe that a free market economy is the same as a capitalist economy. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 38% disagree and 27% are not sure.
This helps explain earlier data showing that 77% prefer a free market economy over a government managed economy while just 53% prefer capitalism over socialism.
That is surprising since I don’t know how a free market operates in any but a capitalist system. I expect that this is a consequence of Marxist professors teaching college students that capitalism, a word coined by Marx, is bad. They aren’t completely stupid, though, because they don’t think the government can run the auto companies. Only 18% expect Obama to do a good job with them. I guess that’s his base. Democrats, as expected, are clueless.
However, two-thirds of Democrats (67%) say it is at least somewhat likely that Chrysler and GM will become profitable again under union and government ownership, a view shared by just 34% of Republicans and 33% of unaffiliated adults.
What is going on ? We are seeing the Chicago Way in action as the Obama people threaten those, like the Chrysler secured creditors, who would like the law to apply instead of Obama “spread it around” favoritism. Megan McArdle, who voted for Obama, has reservations but a little late. We could have told her.
This is troubling, because it’s now clear that the worry many of us had at the time of the bank bailouts has come true: the government is using its intervention in the banking system to pressure banks to give special deals to the government’s special friends.
(The government is apparently still taking the line that they are only intervening because the automakers are splendid, robust companies that got caught in a “perfect storm”. If so, Chrysler must be stuck in the Bermuda Triangle, because owners have been playing “hot potato” with its dying brands for most of the last decade.)
Countries that use their banking systems this way don’t get good results. If you’re a fairly uncorrupt developed country, you get slower growth and bloated “critical” sectors that are usually more critical in providing campaign support, lavishly remunerated make-work jobs, and photo ops, than any products the public actually wants. Then, if something like Japan happens, you have a twenty-year “lost decade” while everyone pretends as hard as hard can be that everything is all right, in the sincere but misguided believe that wishing hard enough will make it so.
If you are a badly managed country, you end up like much of Latin America or Africa, with a dysfunctional economy that booms only along with the price of some commodity you happen to produce.
We are hardly Zimbabwe, or even Venezuela. But if we keep using TARP to create a sort of “Most Favored Borrower” status, we’ll erode the safeguards that keep election to office in America from being the kind of giant spoils system that’s common in much of the world. What the bankruptcy judge did was entirely right and proper–it’s his job to allocate losses among creditors. And it’s always true that some of the credtiors won’t like the deal they get. On the other hand, what the administration did really wasn’t. It got its pet majority stakeholders to screw both their own shareholders, and the other creditors, in order to give a powerful union a sweetheart deal.
Imagine even having to say that “We are not Zimbabwe” under the last president.
This will not end well.
You pretty well covered it.
I’m thinking the rise of the gay rights cabal and the financial looters are akin to the opportunistic infection that rises in an organism with a weakened immune system. I’m wondering what weakened our social immune system.
Part of the weakening comes from the Liberal triangulation of society via journalism/academia/entertainment.
There seems to be a basic corruption in the human condition that expresses itself over time. Eg Pakistan, whose rulers don’t let any crisis go to waste when padding their corrupt practices. I think we’re seeing the flowering of such in this country.
Doombuggy,
There is no parallel with the gay rights “cabal” and the assault on the free enterprise system. Such bigotry is really unbecoming of you. It also distracts from the real problem — people who want to leech of the work of others.
Bradley, I think he was referring to the two issues that I posited, a culture war on both traditional morals and on free enterprise. Gay rights has been an interesting phenomenon. It seems to have been radicalized by the AIDS crisis but, like all revolutions, it began as a result of tolerance. Prior to the 60s, gays were socially ostracized. Everybody knew someone who was gay (or homosexual as we said then) but it was a personal matter and could be quite harmful to a career if it became public knowledge.
The French Revolution has long been attributed to the loosening of the oppression of the poor as a result of the Enlightenment. They responded, not with gratitude for the moderation of their oppression, but with rage at the weakening residual of their second class status. In fact, the French REvolution was a revolution of the educated classes and Bourgeoise. Marat, for example, wasn’t even French !
I think the gay rights movement is capitalizing on the tolerance of the majority. This could go too far, as we see in the Prop 8 situation, but they think they have the cultural trend on their side and they may be right, at least for a while.
The more serious problem is the attack on the free market. That may be very difficult to reverse and will be very dangerous. Argentina was the richest country in the world in 1938.
Mike K.,
I readily agree that large elements of the gay rights movement have adopted an extremely destructive and intolerant attitude. David Ehrenstein and Perez Hilton are stellar examples of that hatred and intolerance for differing views.
It was the manner in which Doombuggy referred to gay rights, with the reference to a “cabal” and “opportunistic infection”, that struck me as extremely insensitive. That went far beyond mere disagreement with gay rights. Opposing gay marriage is one thing; implying that gay rights is a consequence of a disease, which frequently happens to be AIDS, is quite another.
“Gay rights cabal” = Perez Hilton and his ilk who are trying to destroy Miss California USA.
I wasn’t thinking of a gay/disease isomorphism, and on reflection maybe I was too cute with my analogy.
I don’t think that gay marriage arises directly from its merits, but rather the institution of traditional marriage has been weakened to the point where gay activists see marriage as a way to grab for more acceptance of their agenda.
doombuggy,
Thank you for the clarification. I think the best way to look at gay marriage and gay rights is from an individual rights perspective. People should have the freedom to associate with each other, draw up contracts (marriage is legally a secular contract, not a religious rite) and business deals and personal relationships — as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to the same freedom.
The flip side of this freedom of personal association is that people have the right not to associate with each other or engage in contracts. That means, for example, the Catholic Church does not have to recognize gay marriage. It has the freedom to decide the rules of its membership.
That is a conservative/Libertarian alternative to the group rights theory espoused by leftists for gay rights., or for any rights. As Ayn Rand has said, the smallest minority is the individual, and you can’t be for minority rights if you’re not for individual rights.
Bradley, I would support a law that allowed gay marriage but barred lawsuits against churches that declined to participate. I doubt it would survive the Supreme Court, though. I fear that this is the agenda.
You might be right, although the First Amendment is still a barrier. It should be fortified by justices who respect individual rights and reject group rights.
Of course, that is the opposite of what Barack Peron will do.
“I would support a law that allowed gay marriage but barred lawsuits against churches that declined to participate. ”
Might surprise you, Doc, but me too.
However: can you legally make a federal law that bars civil suits against private institutions? Not a rhetorical question — I really don’t know. Seems like dodgy legal territory though.
Under the principle of equal individual rights, the right not to associate with someone is indivisible from the right to associate with someone. Personal liberty trumps anyone’s desire to force someone else to live by their beliefs.
Any legal philosophy founded on individual rights, as opposed to group rights, will see no contradiction between the right of gays to marry and the right of those who disapprove not to endorse such unions.
And since we have civil marriage, religious endorsement is legally meaningless anyway.
Ah, but Bradley, we have spent decades teaching ourselves that identification with a group trumps any individual ability.
Oh, to be sure, opponents will bring up (rightfully) racism. But you can see how intolerant “members of a group” can be, even when they themselves were victims of intolerance.
I used to call what we are getting to be a new aristocracy–rulership based on who your parents were, not what you could and could not do.
Again, opponents will sneer and say “same as it ever was,” but our nation is nearly unique in that it didn’t HAVE to be that way.
That is changing now. For the better? I think not. But then, I think that the rights and responsibilities of the individual trump membership in any group at all.
But then, I think that the rights and responsibilities of the individual trump membership in any group at all.
So do I. That’s why I oppose anti-discrimination laws for the private sector. You have the option of finding another employer, place to live, restaurant, etc. And people can always boycott such businesses if their policies become too unpopular.
I support anti-discrimination laws for government-related functions, such as voting, because the government doesn’t allow you to boycott its authority.
The attacks on churches will be attacks on their tax exemption. The Boy Scouts have suffered similar attacks for the past 15 years and many local politicians, to curry favor with a wealthy group that donates to campaigns, have lined up to trash the Boy Scouts and deny them use of civic facilities, etc.
Fortunately for the churches, the gay radicals have been very stupid and have piled up lots of examples of intolerance and hateful behavior. Still, few politicians are creatures of courage.