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FEAR: THE ORIGIN OF "MINE" AND "NO"
09/01/2009
Conservatives say they want to keep government small, taxes low and the military strong. Their ideology all centers around those three goals, while the radical right also wants the freedom to own and carry all types of guns, the exclusion of those they consider undesirable (immigrants, the poor, dark skinned people, homosexuals, and even "liberals") from equal participation in the public conversation as well as equal rights, and the enactment of laws to prohibit abortion for any reason whatsoever, even the life of the mother.
What these goals boil down to are actually two words, words that are the favorite words of two year olds: "mine" and "no." And the tears and temper tantrums at the "town halls" this summer also remind one of two year olds. Conservatives are shouting "mine" when they protest any kind of taxes, when they insist only heterosexuals have the right to lifelong, committed relationships, when they hold tight to their health insurance even if it means others will have none, when they carry weapons and refuse to accept reasonable limits on gun ownership and use, and when they demand that government "stay out of my business."
Conservatives are shouting "no" at town hall meetings this summer, blubbering about wanting their representatives to vote against health insurance reform because they claim "the America I know" is disappearing. They shout "no" when they demand votes against environmental protection, or the lessening of carbon emissions, a public option so the poor and uninsured can buy health insurance, equal rights for women and minorities, and protection of Social Security as a government program. They generally shout "no" to any expansion of rights, any government program to help the less fortunate, or any attempt on the part of Congress and the president to enact laws to create a more just and equitable society. "I've got mine" they shout and regardless of how I got it (from daddy, from government subsidies or programs, from being born white or wealthy, or from an education that they can afford or someone else pays for), "I don't want certain other groups or individuals sharing in my good fortune. I don't care that I drive on government roads or reap the benefit of government funded medical research or have a government funded education or drink government mandated clean water and government regulated safe meat. I don't care that the government has been a force for good, for safety, for equality, for prosperity, I don't want anyone to have as much as I have if it might mean I have to give up the tiniest bit of what I deserve."
The shouting of "mine" and "no," however, are simply symptoms, outward manifestations of what is going on inside the psyches of conservatives. What really drives conservatives is fear. In fact, what differentiates conservatives from liberals is fear vs. hope. Conservatives are people who jump to a fear mentality whenever there is something new or different on the horizon. (One reason why so many people are succumbing to fear right now is because of something they have never seen before, something for which they have no template of understanding: the election of a black man as president.)
Liberals, on the other hand, are always looking to the future, always believing that things can be better, always hoping that difficulties can be overcome, and that if problems arise within a given reform, changes can be made to solve the problem without throwing everything good away. Liberals simply are not driven by fear. Rather, they are driven by a wish to have a more perfect society, a more just society, a society where all share in the prosperity and well being of this wealthy nation.
Fear is, of course, totally irrational. It comes from deep within the primitive brain and is a part of our body's survival mechanism. One doesn't think rationally when one sees a bear coming that looks like it's hungry for lunch. The fight or flight reaction kicks in and one simply runs, succumbing to a biological imperative. That is appropriate. But there are many things in life we are afraid of, or are convinced by others to be afraid of, that are really not dangerous. To evaluate the danger of things that are not matters of immediate life or death, we must use our thinking brains, the more advanced parts of our brains that evolved later. And we learn to do that, hopefully, in childhood when our parents and our teachers teach us to reason, to problem solve, to discriminate between fact and fiction, and to have the courage to face the unknown and the willingness to bring about change when change is needed, not just to help ourselves, but to help our fellow citizens as well.
Conservatives want to hold onto the past, because it is safe and predictable for them, or so they think. They don't like change, even if that change has a chance to create a better world for their children. Change is too risky, too anxiety provoking. Even if the status quo leaves out multitudes of their fellow citizens, they prefer the devil they know. Because if things change, something could go wrong.
Freeing slaves, some feared, could lead to violence against the former white slave owners. Giving African Americans a hand up because of how long they were kept down could mean, some believed, the end of white dominance. Gun control, no matter how reasonable, in the minds of some, could lead to the government confiscating all guns and stationing the military on your street. Giving women the right to vote and then equal rights and equal pay (which hasn't yet been achieved) would, in the minds of conservatives, mean the emasculation of the American male. Reducing the size of our military, or reducing our nuclear arsenal, could put us at risk from some aggressive nation that wanted to conquer us. Allowing homosexuals to marry, some secretly fear, will mean the end of heterosexual marriage with nothing in place to stop your son from loving another man. (Reality check for conservatives: prohibiting gay men from marrying will not stop your gay son from being gay and prohibiting all abortions will not end the practice of abortion.)
And now, with the current health care debate, conservatives are screaming that a public or government option could lead to a single payer system, even though there is no evidence that it might, and even though many other countries with universal coverage and a government option have managed to keep a healthy private insurance sector for close to five decades. Conservatives further believe that a single payer system could lead to socialism and that could lead to communism and that could lead to gulags and that could lead to god-only-knows-what. The extent of their irrationality on this last matter (mostly well funded by corporations that know how to fuel these fears in uneducated people) is obvious in their jumping from calling Obama a fascist to calling him a communist. These are two competing ideologies, with very different antecedents and very different manifestations. But in the minds of conservatives, both are bad, bad, bad (in the words of the two year old), and so they see no difference.
Liberals, on the other hand, see how broken the health care system is and believe there is a real opportunity now to make things better for all Americans. Though the system is complex, liberals have some new ideas and a willingness to try a new approach, all the while keeping many elements of the old approach. They are not intent on dismantling the private insurance system, even though it has been raiding patients' savings for decades, because they know this is probably neither feasible nor desirable. But they do want the private insurers to be more responsible, more fair, and less arbitrary. And one way to do this is to force the private insurers to compete with a government system that is non-profit. But the fear based conservatives are saying "no."
Though as far back as Harry Truman's presidency, economists and policy makers in Washington have known our health care system needed reform, it has always been the conservatives who have said "no." They are convinced that any more government involvement in the health care system will mean creeping socialism, even though most of them would scream their heads off if Medicare was not available to them, or we scrapped the VA health system for those who have served in uniform. And even though the biggest creeping socialism we have in this country is government subsidies of corporations through tax breaks and outright giveaways, conservatives still continue the shrill cry of "socialism" when it comes to anything that might help the least fortunate, least wealthy, and least protected among us.
When conservatives say they fear losing the America they once knew, one wonders what they mean. Because the America of the past is an America where white men owned black men and women and kept them as slaves, until the progressive Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionists finally ended slavery. And the America of the past is an America where senior citizens died in their sixties because they could not afford health insurance before liberals passed Medicare, and because they went hungry and were cold because they could not afford food and heat, or even shelter, before liberals enacted Social Security. The America they knew was an America where black men and women could not use public restrooms when driving from Montgomery to Minneapolis to see family, and had to sit in the back of buses prior to liberals like Ted Kennedy demanding passage of a Civil Rights bill.
The most extreme of the radical conservatives, it seems to me, live in Texas, where several gubernatorial candidates and the current governor have said they favored the idea of Texas seceding from the United States. One even pointed to the American flag during a speech and said he "hated this flag" and that he hated the United States. The federal government, he is convinced is no damn good. While this seems insane, it is an idea held by many in the state. In light of these throwbacks to the time of Jefferson Davis, perhaps this is a good time to talk about benefits vs. the dangers of the federal government. And the best way I know to do that is to have the people of Texas imagine being allowed to form their own country and secede from the union. What would happen, should that day come?
Immediately, all United States' military bases would exit Texas and the lone star state would have to form its own military. No federal fence or border patrol would police the border with Mexico. We might have to rename Texas "Northern Mexico." There would be no laws regulating food and water safety and Texas would have to create its own laws and its own legal system. First, of course, it would need its own Constitution and its own voting apparatus. It would get no federal money for social programs. Medicare and Social Security would end for Texans, as would welfare, education funds, disease prevention programs, funding of highways, dams, bridges, and disaster relief. The first big hurricane could finish the state. Texas would immediately become a third world country, and would have to negotiate with the United States for trade arrangements, and military protection. You would need a passport to go to Arkansas or Louisiana. One could go on and on. Frankly, I wouldn't mind giving Texas the opportunity to try being on its own – Texas has produced more nuts per capita than any state with the possible exception of Alaska – but it will never happen. That ship has sailed, as they say, and no state will ever secede from the union, because of all the benefits Texas and every state gets from the federal government which has done far more good than harm.
We need to grow up as a country. We need to get over our fears. Abe Lincoln was not afraid to make us a better nation by changing the laws that allowed slavery. Franklin Roosevelt led us through the Great Depression and the Second World War, with dozens of liberal reforms, and told us not to be afraid. As he said, we had much more to fear from fear than from the economic or military situations confronting the nation.
In the past half century we have seen many heroic liberal figures. JFK was told not to go to Dallas, but he went and paid with his life. RFK, having seen his brother felled by an assassin, went on the campaign trail anyway and was also killed. Martin Luther King Jr. knew his life was always in danger, yet he kept preaching and marching. Ted Kennedy, whose passing we just marked, felt for at least two decades that he was next, yet he kept on helping the people, and he kept on being a proud liberal, even as he was demonized by everyone on the right, even his conservative "friends."
Today, we see another courageous public figure in Barack Obama, who is so hated (because of his race as much as anything) by the wing nut talk radio idiots, that protesters show up at his events with loaded guns. Yet he does not stay away. And while I think liberals by and large tend to be less governed by fear than conservatives, there is one conservative who showed courage as well, and conservative citizens are well advised to remember this. Not only did Ronald Reagan face down the Soviets, and survive a would-be assassin's bullet, he even had the courage to defy his conservative base and raise taxes several times in an attempt to reduce the deficit which had been caused by his huge tax cuts.
Liberals are not afraid because they are clear about their goal: to create a more perfect, fair, and equitable nation for all citizens. They are not at all reluctant to move forward, to bring about change, if it provides an opportunity to make things better. Because it is fear that drives them, conservatives won't even face the future. With their backs turned to what could be, they look only at what has been, and in so doing keep us from that more perfect union, that society where all share in the blessings not only of liberty, but of health and prosperity and equal rights.
What conservatives need is less fear, more rationality, and a lot more courage. They also need to begin questioning why they are so afraid, and recognize that the answer lies partly in the actions and influence of the big corporations. These monstrous monopolies are the real welfare recipients of the federal government, and because of their desire to maintain that status quo, they spare no expense in their effort to instigate fear in citizens, no matter how much it hurts individuals and the country as a whole.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
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