The uber-significance of Obama
Omitted from all the furor of the brownshirt behavior of the right, the rabble, and the Rush is the more important governmental philosophical perspective that Obama made explicit in his quotation from Sen. Kennedy’s letter and his invocation of national character. The prime distinction between the FDR-LBJ era to the Reagan-Shrub era was the shift from a Social Gospel, “I am my brother’s keeper because I am my brother”, “we’re all in this together” v. the Neo-Puritan, every man for himself, social Darwinism. Obama throughout the campaign and in his policy approaches is moving public policy back to the Social Gospel. He made it clear in the speech that his Health care interest is in government as helping those who can’t help themselves and need some assistance. Not the Bush approach of only giving help to those who “deserve” help based upon some, generally, theological moral basis. The book “Hellfire Nation” by James Morone elaborates on these themes, though for a pre-Shrub era.
Comment by j.a.prescott on 11 September 2009 at 9:35 am:
Are you serious? You are invoking Social Gospel doctrine in relation to the Democratic party? The ideology premised on post-millennialist thought? A movement which was originally dedicated to bringing forth the second coming of Jesus Christ?
The point of the earliest stages of Social Gospel was not to “help my downtrodden brother,” but to ensure that a certain standard of Christian morality was applied to the country through the enactment of state mandated programs. While some of the products of this movement were beneficial, the motivations of the Social Gospel movement would seem to be in opposition of the standard of the modern democratic party, which is against the imposition of one religious based moral code.
Also, in your rush to make tired jokes about the Republican party (really, Shrub? You are that hard up for original thought you are making agriculture puns? Really?), you make the implicit assumption that government intervention is the best way to be a “brother’s keeper,” which is questionable at best. It is not like Republicans do not want to help the less fortunate; they just choose to do it through Nonprofit organizations, donations to their church, and contributions to local charities. This is borne out by studies that show those who identify them as Republicans (although it may be as conservative, and there is a difference, I know, but I am too lazy to look it up right now), donate a higher percentage of their income to charitable organizations than their democratic counterparts.
So please, in your zeal to gain cool points with your Democratic friends, do not confuse conservatives desire to not make government the answer to every question as indifference to the plight of the poor or disadvantaged. It is just not true, nor is it borne out by evidence if you deign to look outside of the political arena.
Comment by mark d. on 11 September 2009 at 10:16 am:
what an idiotic post. who is running this blog?
Comment by Rendleman on 11 September 2009 at 11:48 am:
I must have overlooked the exploding scoreboard as I didn’t realize we were trying to gain points. You may choose to use a narrow archaic definition of “social gospel”; I was drawing mine from the book cited which draws on historic analysis to construct it as a notion of communal vice and virtue rather than the moralist Neo-Puritanistic perspective that “you are a sinner and therefore are not entitled to help.”
You are the one making implicit assumptions; I make the distinction between deciding how to distribute governmental benefits or decide when government should be involved–is it based upon “earning the right” such as proving you’re rich and therefore get a big tax break?
Or, should it be because it’s the best for everyone one such as a healthy nation and therefore government should play an active role in making health care available to everyone. That has no impact on who donates what percentage of their income to charity or how much of a tax benefit they get for doing so because they itemize while lower income contributors most often do not.
So if you want to discuss the philosophical point, go read the book “Hellfire Nation” which I cited and then we can talk intelligently instead of you yelling “You Lie” in the midst of a salient presentation of ideas.
Have a nice day.
Comment by j.a.prescott on 11 September 2009 at 2:05 pm:
Wow…you are just one big bundle of democrat cliches today aren’t you?
For the record, I didn’t say you lie…I provided arguments and reasons for why I believed your statement was misleading. And I don’t need to read Hellfire Nation because a) I have studied enough American History to be able to follow along and know the key terms, b) I am familiar enough with Morone’s argument to understand the underlying point, and c) this ain’t class, you ain’t my professor, and despite its nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, nothing suggests that this book is vital for understanding anything.
If you thought that your original post in anyway constitutes a “salient presentation of ideas,” you need to go back to school. You offer no evidence, no logical arguments, and no statistics. You merely make a statement, use terms that come out of a book, and instead of defining them so that everyone may participate in a conversation you tell us to read the book, as if you are Plato and we are lounging at your feet and should take everything you say as fact. This is not that type of Agora, Rendleman. If you expect to make statements like that without taking some sort of crap, you better think again.
Don’t go claiming the intellectual high ground when your entire argument was inept, tired jokes and few actual points. The entire premise of your argument is premised on a philosophy rooted in traditional christian morals and objectives, and to say that its origins are irrelevant as to its general character and application in the modern day boggles the mind.
But the question you pose in your most recent post is a false one, in that what I think government intervention should be premised on is reflected by none of these statements; both are lacking any practical value and are therefore pretty much useless for determining policy objectives.
I reject your first principle outright, cause you slanted it so much that it is just ridiculous. When the top 50% pays 98% they are going to benefit more from a tax cut than the 50%. Thats just math. As for benefits that are not tax related, through subsidies or preferential treatment, thats an American democracy problem, and only tangentially a money problem. You want to fix that, go out and get your grassroots on and motivate your constituency. But when most voters are apathetic, its hard to combat the sheer power of the rich. That is not government’s fault, or even a political fault – that is ours. Hoping that politicians will have a change of heart and go in another philosophical direction is pretty cowardly.
Lets focus on your second choice which is governments should intervene “because its the best for everyone.” That is the one that should win, obviously, because you could hear the violins playing in the background when you read the sentence. Ok. Who decides that? What is the basis? What is “best”? Living longer? Quality of life? The nexus between the two? Or is it keeping costs down (Obama referenced that as a primary goal)? Is it the type of health care system that stimulates growth and development? This is an economic world, so there are tradeoffs. Obama wants to outlaw insurance companies for denying coverage based on preexisting conditions. Thats great. However, its going to drive prices up. But what if prices are supposed to be kept at a certain level by mandate? Well then, insurance companies are going out of business or are limiting their doctors in what they can do. But Obama wants doctors to be doctors, with no limitation on best practices…unless the government enforces a best practices standard, which he hinted at in his address. So what is the underlying series of goals, in order? Everyone wants to do everything, no one can despite what LBJ said. What goal loses out to what. None of this has yet been addressed in any concrete way.
Your second point assumes that the government can provide adequate coverage as defined by the American people under its regime; that it can be a market player and regulator in a complex, rapidly evolving industry. No one here contests that in a better world every American would have health insurance coverage. But it is arguable that government intervention would have the beneficial effect you envision. In fact, I can sum up my argument with two names: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Like the government health insurance provider envisioned by President Obama, the FMs were not “funded” by taxpayer dollars but were implicitly guaranteed. As soon as a bubble hit, it went down. In the financial markets, it was a housing crisis. In health care, it could be an epidemic…like Swine Flu.
So what I am saying boils down to this; your second standard has merit if it considers what the government can do. The policy determination cannot be solely based on whether the possible outcome would be beneficial but on whether it can be achieved by centralized action and whether that accomplishments would be worth the costs. Your underlying argument lacks any of these considerations and therefore is pretty worthless.
One last point. Your perfect world envisions a government composed of selfless, community minded men and women who would legislate for the societal good as opposed to their own benefit. It is obvious you think the current group has those qualifications to a degree. However, if and when the federal government undertakes these new programs, it will be vested with new powers as well to achieve those ends. Eventually, your team will be out and eventually Republicans or something like them will be in, with their “Neo-Puritan, every man for himself, social Darwinism.” Do you really want a group like that with more power?