Libertarianism with benefits

The title of this entry is from “The Tea Party: A Brief History” by Ronald P Formisano.  He uses it as a subtitle for the chapter “Frustration with Politics as Usual”.  He defines “Libertarianism with benefits” as taking government payments while decrying too much government.

Formisano’s little book packs a big wallop to the inconsistencies of Tea Party politicians.

His final paragraph describing the original Tea Party resistance includes:

"In doing so, [Bostonians and their fellow colonists] looked not backward but forward, to an uncertain future.  Theirs was a populism of ordered community, in which liberty meant individual freedom to pursue one's destiny as well as responsibility and a regard for the common good."

Republican Party and community

In 2009, David Brooks chided the Republican Party for learning the wrong lessons from Hollywood Westerns.

"Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order."
"The Long Voyage Home", New York Times, 2009-05-04.

It seems with their obsession with gun ownership and worship of large corporations, they haven't heeded David Brooks who is called a conservative by many.

On how movie Westerns are not a reflection of life in many western communities, see "How the Gunfighter Killed Bourgeois America" by Ryan McMaken.

Place, community, and politics

Ross Douthat is a different breed of conservative, and I almost always read his columns with satisfaction.  He tries to cut through all the political grandstanding of either party to get to some basic truths.  One of these was "When Place is not Enough".

I posted the following as a comment to his article:

We've lived in the same house now for 14 years, and we still don't know the names of all our neighbors. We chat with a few, but we either are inside or out and about. We belong to some various groups and form our relationships within them.

I think stay-at-home moms have contributed to neighborhood or town cohesion, but as kids grow up and interests diverge, more activities outside the neighborhood draw people away from their neighbors and towards others with similar interests all over town.

In Duluth we have three choices for getting around - car, bus, and walking. We use each according to conditions. The car obviously doesn't let us connect to our neighbors other than a friendly wave. The bus is less than a block away and there are few people out to meet. We can walk to several places within a mile and do in nice weather, but we rarely meet anyone regularly. It is the people at these various destinations that we know better than those in our block.

I grew up in Cleveland in mostly lower middle-class neighborhoods. In the 40s and 50s I knew only half the kids and no more than 10 percent of the adults on the same block.  My network was through school, community center, and a church, all within a mile of my house but past dozens of houses whose occupants I knew not.

I do laud the Front Porch Republicans and communitarians for striving to make where we live better places.  If more of us do that maybe we can organize better to put the Masters of the Universe in their place!

I highly recommend at least taking a peek at the About page of the Front Porch Republic.  It looks like a good basis of a new political party.  Or at least for independent candidates to use as an inspiration.

Terrorists win the skirmishes but not the war

Terrorists never win in the long run where there is a strong functioning government and a sense of community.  Dennis Lehane wrote a beautiful op-ed on the resiliency of Boston.  See "Messing with the Wrong City", New York Times, 2013-04-16.

Commerce without connection

"Historians will tell you that nothing changed the American retail experience in the 20th century more than the shopping mall. Once developers clustered hundreds of stores in a single place (with ample parking), the American Main Street all but disappeared. People stopped seeing each other in the center of town. They felt less connected to their community — certainly less connected to its businesses."

Mitch Albom, Duluth News Tribune 2013-04-08

This quote was in "'Just browsing' may become a memory" also published on his website on 2013-03-31.

His article is on how the shopping on the web is changing our shopping habits as much as or even more than the shopping malls changed our shopping habits.

I grew up walking or taking a street car or bus almost everywhere I went.  At one place we lived there were three locally-owned groceries on our block and two store-front chains a bit farther.  At another place we lived there were three locally-owned drug stores in walking distance.

Now almost everything is chains.  The only locally-owned stores are restaurants, bottle shops, hardware stores, and some gas stations.  I really appreciate the few of these places where I can walk in, know the names of the people behind the counter, and be known by them.

God, civility, and the Golden Rule

Some letter writers to the Duluth News Tribune have recently been calling for God in our lives to solve many of our problems.  Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisitor, believed in God, and he had thousands murdered because they didn’t believe as he did.  The Puritans believed in God, and they had dozens murdered because the innocent victims would not admit to being witches.  Plantation owners believed in God, and they kept slaves who they would whip for whatever cause.

The problem with a belief in God is that too many “believers” are very selective in what they believe.  Too many ignore a central tenet of monotheistic and other religions.

“Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.” – Hillel, a Jewish teacher in the first century, B.C.E.

“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.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7:12

“...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” _ Qur’an (Surah 24, “The Light”, v. 22)

"What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." – Confucius

“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him." – Plato’s Socrates (Crito, 49c)

You can find many more variations and sources of the “Golden Rule” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule.

What these religious and ethical variations call for is for us to be part of communities.  These communities are at neighborhood, city, national, and world levels.  They are as informal as holding a door for a stranger at a public building or as formal as churches and civic associations.

Unfortunately, many of us don’t act as if we are in some of these communities.  We walk out of our houses to our car on the street or in the garage and drive somewhere else without even seeing a neighbor.  We don’t bother to shovel our sidewalks because we don’t use them, completely ignoring all the footprints in the snow.  As we drive we are focused on thoughts elsewhere, whether in our heads, on our radios, or even on our cell phones.  We drive over crosswalks without even looking for pedestrians.  We drive through red lights ignoring any traffic or pedestrians waiting at the cross streets.  We race through parking garages without headlights and without watching for vehicles backing out.

Our first try at building communities should be to consider doing unto others what we appreciate others doing unto us.  Do we want to walk on clear sidewalks?  Do we want other drivers to be attentive to vehicles around them?  Do we want drivers to be attentive to us as we cross a street?  Do we want other drivers to wait for us to back out of a blind spot?

If we start with these small changes, maybe we can look at how we treat others in a larger context.  Do we talk about public employees as “they” or do we consider them our neighbors.  Did “they” make a patch on our street, or did a city crew make the patch?  Did “they” plow our street, or did an overworked city plow driver make our street more drivable?

Remember that the Good Samaritan of the Book of Luke was an “other”.  To build communities, we need to be open to including the “other” as our neighbors.

Save money by spending?

I just received a message from AbeBooks about saving money by buying now.  Um!  Sorry, but I don't see how buying books now will save me money when I already have several unread books.  The best way to save money is to not spend it.

That makes me think of Menard's slogan, "Save Big Money".  Same argument about spending.  The next question is saving from what.  If all the retailers of building supplies and hardware are large corporations, how can I "save big money" from what the now-mostly-gone local building suppliers and hardware stores would have had to charge to stay in business?

We as communities probably lost a lot of money by saving big money.  We have to drive further to the store.  We have lost the taxes that the small retailers would have paid.  We have lost control of how our communities function, their having been made "all the same" by corporate interests, interests who consider any restrictions as "anti-business" and "job-killers".  These interests forget how they themselves have destroyed businesses and jobs.

We have lost communication with the owners; the big box folks may be friendly and helpful, but how many of our suggestions will go up sufficient corporate levels to bring about change?

Banks, what efficiencies of size?

Many say that mergers and acquisitions provide greater efficiencies in operations. Then how do you explain:

"Moebs Services Inc., a research firm in Lake Bluff, Ill., estimates that it costs the giant banks about $350 to $450 per year to maintain a checking account. In contrast, smaller banks incur costs of $175 to $250 a year per checking account." - "Credit Unions Poach Clients", Suzanne Kapner, Wall Street Journal, 2011-11-07 via Yahoo! Finance.

Maybe it's because bigger companies have more levels of management, and the guys at the top "have to" get bigger bucks than the guys at the top of smaller companies.

You are being manipulated, lied to, and bamboozled! Here's how

So you think the U.S. has the best health care system in the world, that free enterprise made this country great and any government intervention stifles free enterprise, and you think that we don't have global warming but maybe climate change, then you are being manipulated, lied to, and bamboozled by the spin doctors of large corporations.  They are putting out big bucks in advertising to get us to see things their way and big bucks in campaign contributions and lobbying to have governments do things their way.  Forget, "We the People".

The writers of the U. S. Constitution used "people" in the sense of communities.  When they meant individuals they used "persons" or "citizens".  Large corporations don't want communities, whether they are unions, co-operatives, or any other group where people come together for their common economic interest.  They want isolated individuals to whom they can target their messages.

I've long suspected that corporate interests aren't my interests, or even many others interests, but I've become strongly aware of this after reading three books on corporate manipulation of us and our elected officials.

The first was "Deadly Spin" by Wendell Potter on how the health insurance companies work to minimize their payouts and maximize their profits, even if it gives bad health outcomes to their customers.  I have already written about this book; see "Benefits - Getting mad at the wrong people?"

The second is "23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism" by Ha-Joon Chang.  Chang's first Thing is "There is no such thing as a free market", that is individuals acting in their own best interest.  This free market idea simplifies individuals into economic entities without complex personalities.

The third is "Life, Inc., How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back" by Douglas Rushkoff.  His starting point is how limited liability corporations started and what they enabled.  Like any good idea, this has morphed into a monster that "The People" can't control.

If you can stomach reading about the manipulations, you might find these books very informative and fascinating.  If you're reading this blog, you probably see the world as a more complex place than the spin doctors would have us believe.  These books might give you more information to counter the spin doctors.  If you think the world is relatively simple, then please read these books before you vote again.

An irony in politics

It is rather ironic that the party that claims it is for individual freedom supports corporate interests more heavily than its opposition and punishes its members who do not follow the party line.

On the other hand, the party that has some semblance of balance between individual interests and community interests follows suit with members having many different ideas on where the balance is.

Cutting health care costs, one economist's view

The "Naked Economist", Charles Wheelan, bared his soul and writings to the slings and arrows of his critics with "Here's how we can cut health care costs" published on Yahoo! Finance, 2010-01-11

Is a moderate major party coming soon?

David Brooks doesn't suggest a coming party realignment in "The Long Voyage Home", New York Times, 2009-05-05, as much as he gives a prescription for how the Republican Party can get back to its own basic message of people working together. He complains that the Republicans have become too much the party of individualism and freedom and have lost sight that most people live in communities that they want to see work. The Republicans have also elevated means like capitalism and tax cuts to holy principles and ends in themselves.

What is interesting is some of the comments that the editors selected for separate listing. Most were thoughtful on the idea of our need to build community and work more at the local level than have the federal government solve everything.

Will this reasoned view of possibilities lead to the formation of a more pragmatic party as a counter to the two parties that are controlled more by ideology than making things work?

Which is most important? Individual, community, or capital?

The answer is none of the above. Without individuals there are no communities. Without communities, individuals cannot thrive. Without individuals and communities, there is no capital. Without capital, individuals and communities cannot increase their material and social wealth.

I was inspired to write this blog after listening to Catherine Austin Fitts on "The Dismal Science" January 30, 2009 podcast of "To the Best of Our Knowledge" from Wisconsin Public Radio.

She spoke about the "Popsicle Index" as a better measure of the financial health of a community than any other measure. That is, how willing are parents in a community to let children go off by themselves to get a Popsicle or other treat?

She also spoke about capitalism versus communities. Think about BigBox coming into a community. BigBox promises jobs to induce the community to allow BigBox to have its way. But BigBox builds out in the middle of nowhere so that people must drive to shop rather than walk. The community is also required to build new water mains, sewer lines, roads, and other amenities. Then BigBox decides that it didn't make enough profit from the store and leaves town.

But capitalism is also members of the community pooling their resources to build a business, say a tomato canning plant. Maybe the local plant doesn't have all the whizbang efficiencies that a BigFoods plant has, but the plant will be controlled by members of the community, not by some overpaid executive forty floors above the streets of a city a thousand miles away.

Communities can be overbearing, enforcing codes of conduct that have no relation to the welfare of the community. An overbearing community can stifle innovation and creativity. Think of all the people who went to the "big city" to get away from a real or imagined controlling environment.

Individuals can be cantankerous and dangerous. Some take individual freedom to ridiculous lengths, taking freedom from others. Think of speeders. They rush down the highway, damning anyone who dares to go the speed limit. In fact, our culture tends to reward the speeders by claiming those who obey the law are holding up traffic. Aren't the speeders pushing traffic?

Unfortunately, neither "major" party seems to understand the need for balance among these three "interests". Both favor certain categories of individuals to the detriment of other categories of individuals; both favor certain corporations over others; and both favor communities only when it serves their parties' agenda.

When, oh when, will those who understand the need for this balance bolt the "major' parties and form a long overdue "third" party with wide support?