Christianity is Killing America

I figure if I haven't driven you away already, you're likely going to start burning me in effigy for this commentary.  No one wants to acknowledge the absolute damaging effect that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has on the founding principles of the United States, not to mention the society that has grown up around us that's supposed to be based on those principles.


So, let's start with some background information.


Christianity, as a religion, did not start with Jesus.  Nor did it start with Paul or any of the other apostles.  Christianity actually started with Constantine I , who ruled the Roman Empire from 306 to 337 CE.  The Empire, which once upon a time had been a democratic republic but had long since become an autocratic, war-mongering military-dominated conquering state, was having a problem.  Namely, the Roman army, made up of men from all corners of the Empire -- men who rarely shared a language, certainly didn't share a background culture, and absolutely did not share much in common when it came to religion -- was having a problem fighting together.  The army brought together Germanic pagans, Mediterranean Jews, old-blooded Romans who followed the Imperial cult -- dozens of religions and dozens of cultures, all supposedly working together under the banner of the Empire, but in actually all rivals and hating each other.

So what was a war-mongering dictator like Constantine to do?  He knew he had to unify his armies somehow, and he knew that religion was the problem, all the while keeping his temporal authority as Emperor.  The old style Green paganism might work, but it lacked a central authority.  Judaism featured a central authority, but the Jews were never one to grant a human being that central power.

And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, a new group arose.  The people who made up this new group weren't particularly rebellious, like the Jews were, and they preferred a central figure ruling over them.  They seemed to willingly go to their death because they were promised salvation after death and not any sort of reward in this life.  They didn't fight and fret over the beliefs of other people, either, it seemed.  They were an offshoot of the Jews, who believed that a Jewish man named Jesus had been the son of God, and followed the supposed teachings of this man.

So, with all this in mind, Constantine made a choice that would best unify the various cultures and people under his rule -- especially those in his armies.  He chose to make Christianity the official state religion.  It was a brilliant and masterful piece of brinksmanship.  Not only would the people in his Empire all share a religion, it was a religion that taught the peasants to accept a life of misery -- because they were sinners by nature -- and only hope for something better in the afterlife.  And even then, they'd only get the afterlife if they behaved and followed the rules in this life!

Now, since they knew that his people would have a hard time simply dropping the pagan life they'd lived up until then, the leaders of the new official Empire-wide church worked traditional pagan chocolate -- the rituals and holidays enjoyed by the pagan people -- into their brand new Christian peanut butter.  The best example would be the story of the death and rebirth of the Greek god Dionysos.  It was was adapted by Christianity, with Jesus in the starring role.

And so the government of Rome created a brand new religion, which would serve for years to convince the people of the Empire -- of whom three-quarters lived in abject misery, oppression, and slavery -- that all the misery and servitude and death was not only acceptable, but to be expected, because they were inescapably sinners and thus suffering was their lot in life.

And as time passed, Rome moved further and further from being the democracy it was founded as and more and more toward an autocratic theocracy, until finally Christianity landed Europe in the depths of the Dark Ages, where religious dogma ruled and independent thought was forbidden.

Rome wasn't the only country to follow this program, by the way.  If you look at every single civilization on earth that turned from intellect and reason toward religion, you find the civilization in question diminishes and becomes more and more oppressive until finally it collapses in on itself.  Take ancient Greece, for example.  The government of Athens executed the great philosopher Socrates for teaching young people how to think critically, intelligently, and independently.  The formal charges made against him was heresy; that is, for having different thoughts, beliefs, and religious views than those approved of by the government.  He taught his students that they, too, could think as they wanted, and thus he was put to death.

Anyone who has read the works of Socrates today knows that there is nothing unholy about them.  Nothing evil or corrupting.  He simply taught logic and independent thought.  And the rulers of Athens -- a group of wealthy, war-mongering politicians known as "The Thirty" -- didn't like that at all.  But notice:  they didn't charge and convict him of sedition, or treason, or inciting rebellion against their rule.  They charged him with heresy.

Its a basic fact.  Religion has always stood against critical thought.  Independent thought.  Rational thought.

Always.

Consider the following.

In order to finally become a true democracy, England had to actively reject the influence of the Church of England on politics.  France today has strictly secular laws that enforce a separation of Church and State that even the United States could learn from -- but they had to go through the Terror -- a very religious, very conservative time when Maximillian Robspierre and his Jesuit cronies sent every person who dissented with them or disagreed with them to the guillotine -- before they embraced rationality again.  Italy, a nation that is perhaps the most stereotypically religious country in all of Europe, exiled the Pope to to an independent "nation" smaller than the city of Rome itself, and thus is a secular democracy.  Even Israel keeps its religion separate from its state as much as possible just to encourage democratic thought.

On the other hand, you have those countries where religion and government are irrevocably intertwined.  Iraq.  Iran.  Saudi Arabia.  Oppressive dictatorships, every one.  Because in reality, religion and freedom are directly opposed to one another.

Which bring me to the United States of America.

Right now, as I write this, the popularity and influence of Christianity has been ascending for about the past 30 years.  Since the Reagan administration, religion has replaced secularism as the American norm.  Americans have handed over their previously remarkable talents for critical thinking, rationalism, and independent thought in exchange for faith-based acceptance of ideas that are not grounded in fact and absolutely are not in their best interest.

The modern Republican party has, in fact, been transformed into a group of preachers, teaching dogma and catechism to their followers instead of political thought.  Republican "policy" is based on a fundamentalist understanding of Christian teachings.  This dogma is spouted from countless sources of propaganda, and rather than discussing it, criticizing it, and molding it using reason and rationalism, the rank and file simple accepts it without question.  They simply swallow what their political leaders -- who are becoming more and more similar to their religious leaders -- tell them, no matter how non-factual, how untrue, and how unbelievable, based on nothing more than faith.

And before you think I'm being one-sided, let me tell you -- the phenomenon is happening with liberals too.  Just more slowly.

The source of nearly every single problem facing American today is the fact that the American people have abandoned critical thinking en masse.  The idea of questioning the popular wisdom and analyzing it based on facts instead of dogma is frowned upon.  Normal people just accept.  They take things on faith.  They don't analyze, they don't examine, and they certainly don't raise doubts or contradict "what everyone knows".  Every single problem faced by the people of the United States right now was easily foreseeable, but only by people who think independently.

Christianity tends to punish and excommunicate independent thinkers.  Christianity tends to shame those who express doubt, or who question the "Word" as given by those in authority.  Christianity tends to discourage education and seeking knowledge for its own sake.  Christianity tends to encourage ignorance and the acceptance of whatever nonsense is handed down from on high.

At least, a certain segment of Christianity does.  Unfortunately, that segment is dominant in the United States right now.

And so, the United States has been slowly, gently been turned into a nation of unthinking peasants.  When their bosses tell them that from now on, they'll be doing the work of two people but won't be getting paid any more than they already are.  When they are given the smallest amount of vacation time of any country in the First World.  When they work more hours but are less and less able to make ends meet.  When all of this happens, the American people accept it, because the Christian dogma they are addicted to has taught them that the problem is them.  The problem is each person, as an individual.  They are sinners, and deserve to be mistreated.  To be enslaved.  If they speak out or stand up they'd simply be whining about things mandated by God.

Talk to your average working-class Christian American.  Ask him why American workers shouldn't be paid more, or be given more vacation time, or why Americans shouldn't complain about how many hours they have to work just to get from week to week and you'll hear rote responses about how Americans are better than those "socialists" in Europe who are treated like human beings by their government and their employers.  Why only losers seek to take better care of themselves and educate themselves.  Why only dorks and weirdos care about things like fairness and quality of life.

To these people, the purpose of the American worker is to slog on without complaint, even as they accrue more and more debt, as they become less and less healthy, as they die younger and younger for easily preventable reasons.

We seriously need to get out from under religion if we are going to survive as a culture.  We need to get back to the days where we embraced intelligent, independent thought.  Where we celebrated intelligence instead of ridiculed it.  Where "great men and women" weren't overpaid athletes or celebrities who were famous merely for being famous, but were men and women who achieved greatness through intellectual prowess:  inventors, scientists, philosophers, explorers, and leaders who were not afraid to question the common wisdom.

America has a Christianity problem.  As a nation, we'd better start doing something about it, or we'll be just another Third World theocracy before anyone here notices.

Government Is Not the Problem

Here's the truth:  governments make mistakes sometime.

Government, like all things, is not perfect.

And when government botches things up, it generally botches things up disasterously.

Especially when the Republicans are in charge.  No, seriously, a study was done regarding events which the government completely and totally messed up on, and the Republicans lead the Democrats for incompetent management of government by a ratio of 4:1.

And of course, government is not the proper solution to all problems, and is hardly ever the entire solution to anything.

Here's more truth for you:  the government is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to handle certain issues.  It is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to stand up to, and stop, the abuses of democracy and other American ideals by those who would attempt to dominate, subjugate, and explot the interests of We the People...   In this sense, the government, especially at the federal level, is very definitely the ultimate solution.

There is a long tradition in this country of carping about the government.  And its not just this government, either.  I'm absolutely certain that somewhere, sometime, way back in Ancient Mesopotamia, somebody was complaining about Sargon the Great and how his administration was doing nothing to assuage the troubles faced by the common man.  Of course, before the rise of modern democracy, those who complained about government generally were those who had been disenfranchised somehow.  The poor and the downtrodden.  The outlaws.  The political enemies.  Because prior to democracy, the rich and the powerful loved the government.  After all, they were the government.

For the poor, it was generally wise to keep your complaints about how the local lord was running his fiefdom to yourself unless you had a real need to discover what torture and execution felt like.  This all changed with Democracy.  First with the United States, then with France, and then slowly with the rest of the world.  Suddenly the age-old tradition of government being the plaything of the rich and powerful was completely flipped.  Democratic governments were controlled, at least theoretically, by We the People...

Unfortunately, this didn't sit well with government's former owners.  They knew that this "democracy" fad had to go, and so they came up with two basic strategies.  First, they tried to buy it back.  Politicians, judges, and public officials of all stripes were generally quite amenable to this idea, selling their time, attention, and loyalty, not to mention their honesty and integrity, to the highest bidder.  But it wasn't enough.  Try as they might, the rich and powerful couldn't ever seen to fully complete their conquest of the government and all those pesky We the People... who weren't interested in just standing back and letting the rich take over again.  So they came up with a second, complimentary strategy.  The second strategy involved dividing and conquering.  If the rich could persuade a bare majority of the really stupid poor people to go along with them, they could tighten their grip on the reins of power.

There are a lot of ways to divide.  Race and religion are the two greatest hits when it comes to causing a population to eat itself, and boy howdy were these put to good use by the rich and powerful in their efforts to divide We the People...  Concurrent with the rise of democracy, however, came a new tactic:  promoting active distrust of the government, so as to lessen its legitimacy.  It also lessened the people's sense of ownership of the government.  A disenchanted and apathetic citizenry, one that doesn't think government works, and doesn't think their vote counts, will tune out the entire subject of politics.  They will not show up at polling places, and thus not exercise their power of control over the government.  This gives a much wider opportunity for the rich and powerful to grab control with only a small percentage of the voters helping them to do it.

This tactic is pure evil.

No, seriously, it's evil.  It's evil because it intentionally risks driving the entire country into the ground.  The wisest leaders know that citizens loving and believing in their government is crucial to the strength and well-being of the entire nation.  Conservatives are willing to abuse this ancient axiom to gain political and economic power.  They rationalize it away by saying that it is they, the rich and powerful, who have always had the "divine right to rule."  But the truth is, they have no interest whatsoever in a nation "for the people, by the people, and of the people."  What they want is a return to the "good old days" when there was no democracy.

With the faith of We the People... in their government wrecked, the rich and powerul can do whatever they want.  They can slash taxes on themselves while increasing taxes on the poor and middle class.  They can deregulate their giant, predatory businesses.  They can write laws and appoint judges who will favor them.  They can loot the treasury.  They can start wars all over the globe.  They can propagate their fundamental philosophy, that "greed is good."  They become what they most crave to be:  rulers of the world.  You know that the ruination of America is not far off when such a philosophy, as utterly lacking in any sort of virtue as it is, gains the upper hand.  The less We the People... believe in their government, the weaker they are, and the better the rich and powerful like it.

The people in the lower and middle classes who support these corporate oligarchs in their take-over of the United States are those who share some of the anger and bitterness of governmental control over their "freedoms."  Again, just as with the rich and powerful, it is their "traditional values" that they believe are being threatened by the government.  These "freedoms", these "traditional values", are things like the freedom to discriminate, the freedom to be as prejudiced and hateful as they want to be.  The freedom to force other people to live as they do.  The freedom to suppress books and movies and television shows and music they don't like.  Those are the freedoms and traditional values we're talking about.  And this is why social conservatives buy into the "government is the problem" bullshit.  They see government spreading and enabling equality, liberty, justice for all, and the pursuit of happiness -- in other words, government trying to live up to its own ideals -- they see government spreading scientific knowledge rather than religious ignorance, and modernity and multi-culturalism being applied to the art of governance, and they dont like it at all.

Why?

Because all of this chips away at the advantages and privileges they have enjoyed for generations.  The actual or perceived loss of being special infuriates them.  Thus, they become willing henchmen for the siren's call of the rich and powerful:  "government bad!" which allows the oligarchs to steal the government away from We the People...

Of course, the concept that "the government is the problem" is a great big lie.

Even the most cursory glance into the history of the United States reveals this idea to be nothing more than a myth.  We the People of the United States, organized into our shared objectives in the form of the federal government, has achieved more in the last 238 years (as of this writing) than the rest of humanity has in the last thousand.  The progress that we, Americans, created has stunned, amazed, and revolutionized the world in ways that cannot be overlooked, ignored, and dismissed.  I may rail about unnecessary military adventurism, but I also have to admit that from the Continental Army all the way up to today, the American military has also been the world's policemen, and the world likes it that way.  From Lewis and Clark all the way up to the Apollo astronauts, Americans have led the world in courage, fortitude, and character when it comes to revealing new worlds of wonder.  Federally funded scientists have led the way in virtually all areas of science.  America's national parks are the envy of the world.  Our dams and bridges and interstate highway system was once one of the crowning achievements of mankind.  The American Post Office still is the benchmark by which all other such services around the world are measured.  When calamity strikes anywhere in the world, it is to the United States that people look to for aid.  Even people who just hours before were badmouthing the government cry for federal help when their world comes crashing down around them.  Oh yeah, and one more thing.

You know that internet thing that everyone talks about?  The one you're using right now?

It was invented, created, and initially funded by the US government.

And even more important than these triumphs were the times when the government was all that stood between some part of American culture and the corruption of our ideals.  When this happens, not everyone is happy with the government, especially those people who are asked -- forced sometimes -- to back down and let other people live as they want.  When a group of people takes a particular dislike to what another group of people are saying, or doing, or even just thinking, and move to actively stop them, it is the federal government whose job it is to stand in the way of the onrushing horde and say, "No.  They have a right to their freedoms just as you do, and your not liking them is no excuse."

Equality.  Justice.  Liberty for all.  The pursuit of happiness.  That's what its all about.

There are those out there who would love to thwart these ideals for other Americans, simply because they don't like the other Americans.  It is the job of the federal government to stand in the way and say, "No."

Racists don't like being told they had to treat black people and Hispanic people and other minorities like human beings.  Chauvenists don't like being told that they have to treat women as equals.  Homophobes don't like being told that they have to be forced to treat gay people as human beings.  Religious zealots don't like being told they have to tolerate people who believe differently than they do.  Polluters don't like being told they have to protect the environment.  Banks don't like being told that they can't run the economy like it was a casino.  Insurance companies don't like being told they can't deny their customers treatment or cancel their customers at will.

People even bitch about such petty things as having to wear their seatbelts or wear a motorcycle helmet.  It's always something.  There is no limit to the carping and griping and bitching that goes on about the government.

Sometimes the griping is warranted, such as the backlash against the Bush administration's utter failure to properly prepare and manage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  For their failure to properly prepare for or react to Hurricane Katrina.  For the housing bubble, the bank bailouts, and, eventually, pretty much everything about the George W. Bush administration.  Still, its a long way from recognizing that one particular segment of the government, at one time, was really, really bad at governing to believing that all government, everywhere, is bad.

Study American history and you find that government actually works pretty well, and more virtuously, when its allowed to govern.  When it doesn't face a lot of interference from conservative business interests.  When the conservatives are in charge, they see to work to make sure their own negative prophecies regarding the "failure of government" come true.  The conservatives make the messes, the liberals then have to fight tooth and nail to clean those same messes up, while simultaneously being blamed by the conservatives for the messes they are cleaning.

So yeah.  The old saw about government being the problem is a huge lie.

Unless, of course, you're talking about a conservative-controlled government. 

Bad Comedy: Conservatives and Small Government

Here is one solid truth that you can take to the bank:  No one with a lick of sense really wants a big, bloated, inefficient government that has been overrun with useless bureaucracy.

Nobody wants that, not even the liberals.

So the basic idea of a small, efficient government is a good one.  The thing is, when conservatives talk about "small government," and how they want to create one, they're basically lying to you.  They don't want a smaller government at all.  No, what both corporate and social conservatives really want is a big, big, BIG government that has its hands all over your life.

It's true.

Even though most literate conservatives (about 38% of the total number of conservatives in the US) are very wary of Thomas Jefferson and his ideals of personal freedom and liberty and the right of an individual to steer his own course, the conservatives have latched on to one Jefferson quote above all others and, if you listen to their rhetoric, made it into a religion:  "The government that governs least governs best."  Of course, Jefferson said that decades before he became president, realized that the idea of a small government was unrealistic, and went out and bought the Louisiana Territory from France without bothering to send Congress a note saying, "Hey, I've had an idea..."  Technically, Jefferson didn't have the authority to buy Louisiana on his own lookout, but you know what?  It doubled the size of the country and maybe quintupled the natural resources available to the still-infant United States.  It was a power-grab the likes of which we have only seen in the actions of the George W. Bush administration after the September 11 attacks.  And it was accompanied by the first really noteworthy enlargement of the government ever.

That's right, Mr. "Government that Governs Least" nearly tripled the size of the federal government overnight.

That was two hundred-some-odd years ago.  To this day, you'd be hard pressed to find a single American who would say that the Louisiana Purchase was a bad thing.  Even back then, when America was only a few hundred miles wide, had less than seven million citizens, enjoyed an economy smaller than the one enjoyed by the city of Cleveland, Ohio today, when "state-of-the-art weaponry" meant cast-iron artillery pieces, there was never a single hope of the United States having a small government.  It just wasn't possible.  There were too many things that needed looked after and managed.

So why would anyone think that the modern United States, whose territory spans a third of the diameter of the globe, with 300 million citizens, an economy worth trillions of dollars that is the clearly most dominant economic force in the world, with tens of thousands of corporations getting into trouble around the globe, with a military numbering in the millions of persons with state-of-the-art weapons the likes of which would have been considered science fiction even 40 years ago, could possibly be managed by a small government?

Seriously, anyone who really, truly believes that needs to report back to High School to attend a remedial civics lesson.

Or maybe needs to report to the nearest psychiatry clinic.

Of course, the only people who would believe that are either social conservatives or libertarians.  Both liberals and corporate conservatives know full well that "small government" is just another form of conservative deceit, just like the idea of a "free market."

Once upon a time, the rich and powerful loved government.  Of course, this was back in the days of feudalism, when the king was the benefactor of the nobility, who were allowed free reign over the serfs and peasants living on their lands.  This was when government and Big Religion were permanently intertwined.  The combined behemoth of political/military power and religious authority controlled every facet of a person's life.  But then, all sudden-like, this new and radically different sort of government popped its head out of the grass, and this new form of government was all aboutWe the People... and all men created equal... and certain inalienable rights and other ideas that threatened to utterly demolish the whole wonderful system of the upper crust having its way and the commoners having to just suck it up and suffer in silence.

A just democratic government stands for the people -- all of the people, not just the rich and powerful.  It stands for the minority against the might of the majority.  It protects all of the people, not just the treasured few.  This ought to be self-evidence for anyone who has the slightest clue as to what America is all about, but surprisingly sometimes those people are really thin on the ground.  It turns out that some Americans really don't much like the whole "democracy" thing, and would like to hijack it if they could in order to bring us back to the days of the rich ruling having ultimate power over the poor.

We call those people "conservatives."

And here I mean both the wealthy, powerful corporate conservatives and the sometimes-loveable, sometimes-not mush-for-brains self-delusional idiots known as social conservatives, who somehow have convinced themselves that their corporate colleagues on the right actually give a shit about them.

These conservatives see the government as "being in their way."  And so is born the idea of shrinking the government.  As tax-dodging felon and conservative cult leader Grover Norquist once said, "I want a government so small we can drown it in the bathtub."  But just like the "free market" that corporate conservatives proffer as the savior of the economy is actually a rigged market, so too the "small government" that the conservatives envision is actually a dragon hiding its true nature by disguising itself as a rosy-cheeked child.

Here is the truth.

What the conservatives really want to do is simultaneously strip the government of its means to protect the common man against the predation of the rich and powerful, while simultaneously maximizing the government's ability to control and coerce the common man.

Think about this:  conservatives have never once supported a budget which reduced military spending by a single penny.  The United States of America spends more than the rest of the world's military forces combined every year.  There are billions and billions of dollars that could be saved simply by removing the bloat from the military budget.  We could make it all more efficient by simply streamlining the process by which military production contracts are handled, and by eliminating overly-expensive and needless boondoggles.  But the conseratives won't accept a single copper penny being cut from the military's budget.  In addition, the conservatives cheerfully advocate and support military adventurism all over the globe.  After all, we've got this gigantic military toybox, we might as well play with the toys, right?

On what planet is this "small government?"

I ask, because this is Earth, where such a system requires a bloated government.

The military-industrial gravy train rolls on, year after year, decade after decade.  In addition, most American military adventurism is nothing more than the promotion of US business interests by way of violent force.  Hiding behind the clarion call to defend America against the boogeyman of fascism, communism, terrorism, or whatever the latest "ism" happens to be is the conservative desire to utterly control and dominate the world economically.  In the cases of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the hatred of communism teamed up with a keen determination to protect and preserve American access to southeast Asian resources and trade markets.  American invasions of the Middle East are driven more by the desire to control the greatest single supply of petroleum in the world than it is the desire to "put a stop to terrorism."

Big business like this requires big government, if for no other reason than to settle the legal disputes the various corporations find themselves constantly engaged in with each other.  Beyond that, Big Business loves government regulations and red tape, because such things make it difficult for newcomers, small fry, and less-dexterous competitors to compete.  And of course, the more bloated and corrupt the government, the more Big Business is able to purchase people inside the government who will work toward the best interests of Big Business instead of the best interests of We the People...  

A small, lean government just wouldn't be able to serve these important functions at all.  A huge and complex governmental system crawling with paid lobbyists and bought politicians -- precisely what the average Joe would describe as "big government" - is absolutely ideal for corporate conservatives.  The average citizen has not a single lobbyist.  The oil industry alone employs thousands of them.

Meanwhile, some of the biggest schemes of the corporate conservatives involve the vast natural resources that are held in trust for We the People... by the federal government.  This land, this air, this water, these minerals, these trees, these animals, all belong to We the People... but Big Business wants and needs them.  A small, efficient government might effectively protect these precious resources.  A big, clumsy, corrupt government can hide all manner of shenanigans, allowing Big Business to get its claws on We the People's... property.  From Warren G. Harding's Teapot Dome scandal, to Ronald Reagan literally giving thousands of acres of old growth forest away to the lumber and paper industries for free, to George W. Bush's attempt to steal the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from We the People..., conservatives within the government are always looking for new, creative ways to steal natural resources from the public and transfer them to the hands of private corporations.

By the way, this includes the public airwaves that conservatives have used so effectively to dominate the media, as well as the internet, Medicade, and the Social Security fund.  They see these things as ripe fruit ready for picking.

So corporate conservatives want and need a big government in order to get away with robbing We the People... blind.  They need a pliant, easily manipulated and purchased government willing to follow directions.  When they wax eloquent about "small government," it's just code for wanting to dismantle all the elements of the government that stand in the way of their exploting the people and the natural resources of the United States.

The eventual goal of some of the more hardcore corporate conservatives is complete corporate control over society.  Anyone who has studied history knows there is a word for this goal.

That word is Fascism.

Pure and simple.  Fascism.  An end of government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" and a beginning of government "of the corporations, for the corporations, and by the corporations."  An end to America as we know it.  And while this seems far off, it really isn't.  Just take a good, long look at certain Supreme Court decisions.  You know, the ones that grant corporations status as a human being, and religious rights, and free speech rights.

Such a government isn't "coming."  Its already here.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

There is a persistent myth going around in the United States.

This myth states that conservatives are the "better guardians" of the US economy.  Everyone knows that its the "Tax and Spend Liberals" who generate recessions and debt, after all.  Everybody knows this.  This so-called "fact" is so well known that even most liberals don't question it.

Problem is, its false.  Not true.  A lie.  A bunch of hot air.  A load of bullshit, in other words.

If you take a close look at the usual conservative strategies when it comes to economic policy in this country, you find out pretty quickly that there are two problems with this myth that make it almost impossible for it to be true.


Those two problems are:

1. Conservatives are greedy.
2. Conservatives are amoral.

Thus, putting conservatives in charge of the economy is like going into business with the Mafia.  If you're part of the Mafia, you're probably going to come out with your pockets stuffed with cash, sitting pretty on top of the world.  If you're not a part of the Mafia, sooner or later you're going to get shanked and left to rot in some alley.

Now, for the sake of fairness I should say that when I talk about conservatives and how they mess up the economy I am not talking about social conservatives.  Social conservatives are the ones who want to restrict a woman's rights regarding birth control, and want to make sure that homosexuals are punished for the crime of existing, and who want to make sure that English is the only language spoken in this country.  Things like that.  I'm not talking about those conservatives right now.

I'm talking about the "professional" conservatives.  The corporate conservatives who represent the real wealth and power of the Republican party.  When it comes to the economy, the social conservatives are passengers just along for the ride.  And its a really bumpy, bumpy ride.

The most important thing to remember about corporate conservatives is this:  they want all governmental economic policy aimed at aiding the richest people in America become even richer.  They want the government to basically be at the beck and call of the corporations so that they can line their pockets with ever-increasing amounts of money.  Now, compare this to liberal economic policy, which is aimed at helping Joe Middle-Class thrive.

That last paragraph is American economics in a nutshell, by the way.

The conservative ideal of coddling the rich is called "supply-side economics."  Its also known as "trickle-down economics" (and, humorously, was once called "Voodoo economics" by then presidential candidate George H. Bush back in 1980 when he was running against Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination).  The core of this philosophy is low, low, low taxes for the rich and the corporations, and utter deregulation of commerce and the markets.

Historically, this policy generates cycles of boom and bust.  Its an "economic bubble" generator that produces no lasting stability and no lasting prosperity.  It gave us the Gilded Age and the economic panic of the 1890s.  It gave us the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression.  And most recently, it produced the Reagan-Bush and Clinton-Bush serial bubbles, the Savings and Loan disaster, the 2008 Bank Bailout, and then of course the Great Recession that the American economy is still very much mired in.

"Trickle down" works great if you start off at the top, but not so great if you're in the middle or, heaven help you, at the bottom.  The famous "trickle down" flood that Ronald Reagan promised would "float all boats" never seens to quite materialize, even as the people at the top of the economic pile, and the corporations they run and own, record record profits.

The liberal economic philosophy based on supporting the Middle Class is called "demand-side economics."  Its also known as Keynesian economics, after its creator and chief promoter, John Maynard Keynes.  Keynes work was adopted by Franklin Roosevent, and his policies created a relative calm in the American economy that lasted for nearly fifty years.  That calm created the largest expansion of the Middle Class in the history of the world.

Remember that "Golden Age" that Republicans are so nostalgic about, when a Middle Class family with only the father working could afford a decent house, a new car every few years, braces and piano lessons for little Susie, and everyone's covered by adequate health insurance and a decent pension was all but guaranteed?  When many companies cared enough about their employees that they paid them a living wage and considered them family and not just replaceable cogs in the machine?  When unions were strong, taxes on the rich and the corporations, not to mention regulation of business practices, were much tighter than today, and yet everyone was thriving economically?

Yeah, all that was created by the liberal economic policies of John Maynard Keynes.

The moral of this story is that the corporate conservative emphasis on making sure that the rich and powerful are taken care of first is compeletely backward if what you want to do is create a strong economy.  It doesn't matter how much "supply" you have, if there's no "demand" for it, you aren't going to sell it and your economy is going to fail spectacularly.  It takes demand to fuel an economy, and it takes a strong Middle Class to create demand.

Bottom line:  when the Middle Class is thriving , so is everyone else!

Think about it for just a moment, please.

• If you are poor, but the Middle Class is doing well, there's a good chance if you work hard and cover your bases that you'll find yourself suddenly a member of the Middle Class.  Economic improvement.
• If you're Middle Class and doing well, there's every chance that you'll suddenly find yourself climbing into the upper ranges of the Middle Class, or who knows, maybe into the Upper Class.
• And if you're already Upper Class, when the people who work for you are doing well, they're spending more on the companies you've invested in, which means you get richer too!

This was the situation enjoyed in America right after World War II:  the economy was humming along like a well-oiled machine, there was butt-loads of upward mobility to be had, and pretty much everyone was doing better than they had been before the War.

On the other hand, when the Middle Class is getting constantly hammered, like they have been since the 1980s, the only mobility is downward.  Middle Class people get laid off and become poor people, and poor people are so poor that they're stuck there with no chance of improving their condition at all.

Of course, no matter what, the rich do just fine, but then they're rich.  They would be prospering even if every non-rich person in America was reduced to economic serfdom.  As the saying goes, its easy to get to home plate when you start out on third base.  But when the only people thriving are the folks who are already thriving, and none of them are willing to share with the less fortunate, you're courting disaster.  Thus, the booms, busts, panics, crashes, depressions, recessions, and bail outs.

So, what you have to do is ask yourself a simple question:  which economic policy works out best for you and your family?  If you're a so-called "one percenter," then obviously trickle-down works much, much better for you.  But if you're in the vast population of people who aren't in the one percent, why the hell would you ever consider voting for people who want to continue keeping you in the poor house?  Seriously, are you insane?

But wait!  There's more!

It turns out that corporate conservatives are lying to you about more than just the effects of trickle-down economics.  Corporate conservatives spend a lot of their time telling you how evil the government is, and how government spending is a sin and how it must be stopped when they're asking you for your vote.  But have you ever noticed that when they're in power, they don't actually do anything about it?

Oh sure, they promise to cut government spending, but once in office they actually do the exact opposite.  They lied to you to gain your trust and to get elected, but they never once had any intention of cutting government spending.  All those platitudes about "shrinking big government" were just that:  platitudes.  Conservatives simply love deficit spending and big government.  The bigger the better, in fact, because it allows them to manipulate things for their own benefit all around the world.

A look at the facts prove that conservatives are the worst money managers and the most profligate spenders of all.  The comparison between conservative spending and liberal spending isn't even close.  Conservatives accuse liberals of being "tax and spenders," but the truth is, conservatives are "charge and spenders," which is much, much worse.  They put everyone on the national credit card without any clue as to how things will be paid for.

"Tax and spend" is a caricature of liberals, just another way conservatives lie, but at least taxing and spending provides some means to pay for what is being spent.  If a conservative ran your personal economy in the same way they manage the national economy, you'd be up to your ears in overwhelming debt within hours of you handing your checkbook to them.

Corporate conservatives continually bleat about this myth of a "small government," as if in the modern world there could even really be such a thing.  Its all a big web of lies.  Conservatives are liars.  They say one thing, and do the exact opposite.

You know which two presidents were the biggest promoters of the idea of small government in the history of the United States?  If you guessed Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, give yourself a cookie.  Now, can you guess which two presidents were the two biggest expanders of the federal government in the history of the United States?  If you once-again guessed Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, you get another cookie.

Even worse than putting everything on credit is the truth about what all that money was spent on.  Rather than spending it on our crumbling national infrastructure, or on health care, or on education, or maybe on cleaning up the environment, it was mostly given away to the rich and the corporations.  And when it wasn't handed out to people who were already sitting on huge stacks of cash, it was being spent on useless and meaningless military adventurism.  We the People... got almost nothing from Conservative largess.

Tax cuts for the rich and a policy of allowing corporations to wriggle out of their fair share of the tax burden are the primary reasons why our government operates under an astronomical amount of debt.  Ronald Reagan went hog-wild on military spending as part of a plan to "kill" the already-dying Soviet Union by way of the arms race.  But that was just a warm-up to George W. Bush's squandering of $3 trillion, most of which ended up in the pockets of his friends and his father's friends.  That $3 trillion includes at least $19 billion that simply vanished.  Oops!  Its gone!  The money vanished and we don't know where it is!  Sorry about that, heh heh heh...

Can you imagine the Republican reaction if someone in the Obama administration managed to just misplace $19 billion?

And then there's the tens of billions that we know -- that we can absolutely fucking prove -- were slid across the metaphorical table and into the pockets of Haliburton, KBR, and Blackwater.  All of which corporations were owned and operated, it must be noted, by friends and family members of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

That's the conservative economic management style.  "Grab as much cash as you can for you and your friends and fuck everyone else."  And they're not even going to buy you dinner first.

Most corporate conservatives know damn well that trickle-down economics just doesn't work.  They know its a lie.  Worse, they know its effectively theft.  But they like getting rich and have no moral center at all, so they stick to propaganda about cutting spending, lowering taxes, shrinking the government, and protecting the so-called "job creators."  The irony is, they are also not doing anything illegal.  They're rigged the system so that it only benefits them, which as I noted isn't illegal.  Its just utterly corrupt and immoral.  Of course, like the horde of bloody-minded pirates they are, they don't care about morals either.

Each time a new election comes around, the conservatives trot out the same old bullshit.  The Republican Lie Machine is currently (as I write this) trying to pin everything bad that's going on with the economy on Barack Obama.  They promise to cut government spending and usher in "small government", ignoring the fact that government spending is the lowest its been since Lyndon Johnson was in office.  We've heard this bullshit before:  Reagan, George H. Bush, George W. Bush... even John McCain and Mitt Romney.  Every single conservative running for office uses this same playbook.  "Let's get government out of the way, and everyone will prosper."

DO NOT FOR ONE MOMENT BELIEVE A WORD OF IT!

Once in power, they won't keep their word, and if they ever actually tried, the crushing weight of economic debt would be borne by the Middle Class and the poor, while the ultra-rich and the corporations -- who caused and then greatly benefited from that same debt -- would continue sucking up all the available wealth they could, and would do so with a smile on their face.

Consider, for just a moment, the absolute mean-spirited hate that drove the most recent (as I write this) Republican-created government shut-down.  Conservatives had absolutely no problem whatsoever with throwing millions of people out of work, cutting off Social Security benefits, shutting down desperately needed government survives, torpedoing the financial markets, and even risking defaulting on our national debt in a childish attempt to force the liberals to give them what they wanted.

Prosecutors call this sort of thing "extortion," and its usually considered a felony.

The conservatives who did this were thumbing their noses in contempt at the very concept of democracy.  They didn't like the fact that the other side of the political aisle won the election, so they threw a temper tantrum.  Problem is, this sort of action is nothing short of economic terrorism.  Never once have the liberals ever come close to doing this to their own nation!  Yet conservatives seem to be embracing such immoral and dangerous acts as a part of their standard economic strategy.  When you don't win, or if a law is passed that you don't like, just throw a temper tantrum and threaten to flush the country's economy down the toilet unless you're given your way.

Al-Queda couldn't have dreamed of a better ally than Congressional conservatives.