Usually we felt guilty and frightened, because there was something wrong with us, and we didn’t know what it was…
–Denis Johnson, “Jesus’ Son”
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the need for “takers” to stop taking so much and start showing more gratitude towards the Galtian “makers” who keep our economy humming. When people write this, it’s clear that they see themselves as makers rather than takers, that they believe that churning out predictable conventional wisdom, curating glibertaria and (admittedly excellent) joke videos for a “neocon guy’s” money-losing vanity project, and doing whatever it is that the guys at OTB and League of Ordinary Gentlemen do for work (they have day jobs, right?) are all highly productive activities that benefit our society. That’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with professional pride. But it’s strange that they’re so sure everyone would agree with them about this, that Real Murka will never condemn them as moochers and looters and send them off to reeducation camps in the Yukon (something that I think may happen to me eventually).
The image of a young buck buying T-bone steaks with food stamps is the most potent image in modern American politics. Its brilliance is that it turns the embarrassment of having to use food stamps at a grocery store into the revenge of the non-white underclass. When I’m in line and the person in front me uses food stamps, it slows things down, some people roll their eyes and I think to myself “I’m glad I can pay for groceries with a credit card.” When I read about an African-American woman being kicked out of a hotel lobby for no reason, I think “that could happen to me too”.
I say this not because I’m especially empathetic or because I’ve ever suffered any terrible injustice in my life, but because based on my experiences with human beings, as well as what I’ve read about them on Wikipedia, I think that they often make illogical value judgements about each other and then use these value judgements to justify humiliation and cruelty, if not slaughter and imprisonment.
Do some people honestly believe that their high place in our awesome meritocracy is so secure and so well-deserved that they have no reason to fear and no reason to feel guilty about their privileges? What on earth could have gone on in their lives to make them feel this way? Would we all be much happier if we thought the same way they do?
Lysana
Those guys are drowning in their privilege. Also kissing the asses of those who really have the power in hopes they’ll maintain or improve their station. It’s even more pathetic than it looks.
Unabogie
This is the appeal of the right wing yakkers. They tell you over and over that even though you have no money, drive a piece of shit pickup truck, live in a trailer, and send your sparse extra dollars to grifters like Palin, you are one of the makers, since at least you’re not the Other.
Powerful juju, that is.
Davis X. Machina
Being born. Take it from the good Bishop of Hippo — deep down inside people are shits.
Probably. It requires an positive exercise of will to not be a shit. And that means work.
The Moar You Know
Doug, hate to tell you this, but pretty much everyone feels this way. From the low to the high, it’s human nature to believe that you earned everything you have, and that no one else worked as hard as you have for it.
Linda Featheringill
This feeling of security and invincibility is very normal at age 10. Teens are by definition psychotic but they frequently feel this way and that’s [relatively] normal for them too.
Adults feeling this way? That’s another story.
Somewhere, a lot of people have found the idea that deserving good things and having good things happen to them are connected. You remember the book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”? This popular book addressed the question of Why me? It was directed at people who thought that deserving and having were part of the same continuum.
The inverse of this philosophy, of course, is that if you don’t have good things, you obviously haven’t deserved them. You brought your misery upon yourself.
I’m not sure where people get these ideas. The Bible certainly doesn’t teach such nonsense and yet tons of Christians cling tightly to that philosophy.
It is a mystery.
SciVo
Crowd-sourced editing, last paragraph:
“no reason to feel guilty [about] their privileges” or possibly “of”, “for” or “over” instead of “about”
“make them [f]eel this way”
Zifnab
It’s just another round of the endless bullshit parade. The miser needs to justify his miserly ways.
monkeyboy
This link here is broken. I have no idea what it might refer to other than it involves “Bradley”.
gbear
They don’t even see it. They don’t see it AT ALL.
…and by ‘they’, I mean most of ‘we’.
Most of us have had the luxury of taking it all as a given for our entire lives.
Napoleon
@monkeyboy:
Bradley is the guy who owns the Atlantic and he has described himself as a Neo-con.
Yukoner
…Real Murka will never condemn them as moochers and looters them off to reeducation camps in the Yukon (something that I think may happen to me eventually).
Kindly keep your moochers and looters to yourselves. I’m sure you have plenty of room for reeducation camps in Real Murka.
srv
DougJ, you have seriously misunderestimated how many sociopaths there are in this country.
Maybe you need to check Wiki on that.
Nicole
In my more charitable moments I tell myself it’s a defense mechanism against going into a bottomless pit of despair at the sheer amount of poverty and desperation in the world. In my more realistic moments I tell myself that a lot of people are just selfish assholes.
Though it’s probably the effect of the bullshit rugged individualism of which most Americans seem to labor under the delusion they are shining examples. I know one Ayn Randite who, after a career in the Coast Guard, a degree from a state university, and a job in the oil industry, earnestly explained to me that he’d earned everything he had himself, with no help at all from the government. And really believed it.
sherifffruitfly
“Do some people honestly believe that their high place in our awesome meritocracy is so secure and so well-deserved that they have no reason to fear and no reason to feel guilty about their privileges?”‘
The aggregate answer of white folks is: “Whatever. As long as we’re not brown.”
DougJ
@monkeyboy:
I fixed the link, thanks.
Just Some Fuckhead
Gimme a fucking break dougj. You will never be in the fault lines of the Fault Line Framework, the Maynard Institute’s diversity tool that teaches people to talk to each other with the goal of understanding.
Dream On
Hmm, food stamps “slow things down”?
EBT cards do not act any slower then a credit card.
DougJ
@Dream On:
I’ve been in lines where the person in front of me rolled his eyes and said “food stamps” when the person at the front was slow. They might have been wrong.
Dream On
Fair enough, Doug J. I appreciate the post. I’m actually one of the unfortunate ones who use EBT cards, and I think a lot of the resentment is from other people who are also just scraping by and don’t qualify for EBT. I knew things were changing in this country one day when 3 people including myself used EBT cards in a row. Lots of people are getting economically screwed right now, that’s for sure.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@The Moar You Know: Which is why, on those occasions when I see a college or high school friend say something stupid/offensive about people on public assistance, I make a point to let them know that I’ve been on it myself, and that I’m really only a lost job away from being there again. These people know me, know I’m smart, know I have multiple degrees, know I’m a hard worker–it drives home to them just how precarious life in the working/middle class really is, and if nothing else, putting my face on that potential fate makes them shut up about it for a little while. I hope it makes them recognize just how lucky they are, even though I have no real expectations of that, but I’ll take the quiet if nothing else.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@sherifffruitfly:
Reminds me of a Chris Rock bit, He said something along the lines of “there’s not a white man in the room that would trade places with me, and I’m rich. Even the white dude mopping the floors is thinking ‘someday this white thing is going to work out for me.'” There were probably a few motherfuckers thrown in there for emphasis, but you get the gist.
DougJ
@Dream On:
That’s my take as well, the “young bucks buying t-bone steaks” was aimed at people who had trouble affording t-bone steaks, though also at general racist fears.
JPL
@DougJ: Wow! I tend to be vocal so probably would have replied “there but for the grace of God goes I.”
OT Monday Doug and Patrick are taking questions about their column. I want to ask Patrick how he could criticize democrats for not wanting to interfere with the wishes of Terri Schiavo’s husband especially in light of the fact that she had no functioning brain but I don’t think he would answer.
BGinCHI
I thought we were past this after “Do the Right Thing” came out.
MikeJ
Regarding the woman who was thrown out of the hotel, it might not have been racism. From reading the story I’d guess sexism. Unescorted woman approaches men in hotel lobby. He thought she was a prostitute.
Which isn’t any better.
MattR
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): It was a one legged bus boy IIRC. I am also reminded of the Louis CK bit about how great it is to be white (“I’m not saying that white people are better, but being white is clearly better”) and how black folks can’t mess with a time machine whereas he can go back to any time. Of course he clarifies that he can’t go forward because he knows what karma has in store for his race.
Martin
@The Moar You Know: I don’t think that’s true, though. If it was, we’d see it in other cultures, and you really don’t – at least not in the manner you have it in the US.
Maybe it’s just that we’ve had a quite long history now of being able to operate seemingly independent of society. Long gone are the ‘it takes a village’ days for most people.
El Cid
It’s not just about a sense of privilege or coldness — it’s a lack of any concern for empirically determinable facts of who is out there doing what, and for the actual conditions which people live under which tells you what’s going on with the economy as well as the quality of life issues that saner humans might care about.
And why calculate your actual impact on the viability of the nation and economy (i.e., if you were to go Galt or be phased out or just canned) when you can just assume that you yourself are an invaluable producer? After all, no one will likely ever disagree with you other than your employer when they toss your ass onto the street, especially if they can figure out a way to get an Indian worker to do your same tasks for far less.
If people have known a few people in their lives who were bums exploiting welfare or lazy and grifting off relatives or defrauding disability insurance, well, then, it’s obviously a gigantic problem in the overall economy and work force, it’s bringing the country down, and this is where all the government spending goes.
Most by far of the people I know then go on to conclude that the social programs that do exist — like Social Security (including disability support) and Medicare and Medicaid — are dominated by lazy bums and breeding women (including foreign Mexicans) and that if you were just harsher and threw more of these bums out of the system, why, you’d suddenly have all the money in the world for these programs.
A number of grocery stores I go to are in poorer neighborhoods and each time there’s a person in one or other check-out line (always a mother as far as I’ve seen), and there always seems to be some sort of hassle due to this or that not being included and the food assistance card user having to put a little or a lot back. They aren’t buying steak, either.
It’s humiliating to them and the people in the line often start exhaling or mumbling complaints. I’ve felt that same way, just wanting to get out quickly, but I’ve never said or indicated anything.
wmd
My most recent food stamps experience was at Trader Joes in Santa Cruz.
Older white guy was buying a rib eye steak with EBT card and a bottle of two buck chuck with cash (pan handled or odd job money?). He clearly had some issues with using the EBT, not running it through the reader correctly, then re running it and not being approved. After the fourth attempt he got his steak, paid for his wine and was on his way.
He said he was planning on eating the steak raw. Not sure if this waas because he didn’t know how to cook it over a camp fire, had no source of fire or what. It certainly made me think he was homeless.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@MattR: Love that bit too, especially since he follows up what the future has in store with “and we deserve it too.”
Chris
There’s a need for Andrew Sullivan to stop being a pretentious twit, but like many needs in this economy, it must go unaddressed, especially because being a pretentious twit for The Atlantic is a tough job to keep, since the competition is fierce. Hell, it’s fierce just among his fellow bloggers; I wouldn’t want to have two people like McArdle and Goldberg chasing me down so closely for the title of “biggest jackass on the blog” if I were him.
Though the thought of someone giving the “Glengarry Glen Ross” speech about the impending necessity of staff cutbacks to Sullivan, McArdle, and Goldberg makes me smile.
Lots of people, better than them, are out of jobs, worse than that.
Corner Stone
@srv:
As witnessed by anyone who has ever been to a Whole Foods grocery store, as I made the mistake of doing one time.
Villago Delenda Est
Strong evidence that the United States is not a meritocracy: the installation of a deserting shitstain into the Presidency by five very activist judges of the US Supreme Court.
Montysano
During the health care reform debate, there were strenuous objections. That’s understandable. But the tone was never “Yeah, universal health care would be wonderful, but we just can’t afford it.” It was “NO. FUCK NO.” All of the other wingnut garbage was bad enough, but worst of all was this complete lack of empathy. That someone can feel this way on Saturday and then go sit in a church pew on Sunday is what sent me running from religion decades ago.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@Montysano: If you go to the right church, that “no, fuck no” attitude is reinforced, not chastised.
Martin
@wmd: Actually, if you compare prices across products, two-buck chuck isn’t that expensive. Yeah, a 2L bottle of soda is cheaper, but the two-buck chuck will beat all of the water and juice in the place – and it won’t go bad if not refrigerated. And it’s better for you.
And the steak isn’t that bad of a purchase, provided it was cheap. It’s high in protein (enough to be competitive with the bodybuilding products – Beefcake!) and you can eat it raw if it’s fresh, unlike other meats. On sale, we can buy cheap steak for much less than a comparable volume of other protein rich foods.
Citizen Alan
One of the defining moments in my life growing up was, of all things, an Ann Landers column from the mid-1980’s. Ann had previously published a letter from some old bitch complaining about how she stood in line in a grocery store and watched some awful poor person buy an expensive cake with food stamps.
Two weeks later, Ann published the rebuttal — a letter from another woman who said (paraphrased from memory): “That woman on food stamps was me. I remember the sanctimonious woman behind me clicking her tongue at my purchae. What she did not know because it was none of her damn business was that the cake was for what would probably be my 8-year-old daughter’s last birthday. She has advanced leukemia and is not expected to live past the end of the year.”
I resolved then that I would never judge someone I didn’t known who was likely just trying to get by in circumstances I didn’t know and probably couldn’t imagine.
Martin
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): Actually, it’s reinforced at most churches. It just varies based on what they are saying ‘Fuck No’ to.
licensed to kill time
__
I don’t think so. I’d much rather have a well-developed core of empathy than a tamped-down core of fear and resentment that someone, somewhere, is getting “something for nothing”. The ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes is something we’re all supposed to learn in kindergarten.
The people who condemn social programs because a few game the system ignore the fact that ALL systems get gamed by the few who are so inclined.
El Cid
@Martin: These days steaks aren’t some sort of exotic meat. It may be in some stores USDA “Select” instead of choice (like the farmers’ market and Asian supermarkets here in Atlanta), so it’s tougher, but it’s usually less than chicken wings.
Amanda in the South Bay
@El Cid:
FWIW, if you want to know what really holds shopping lines up, its upper middle class/wealthy people fishing for goddamned exact change out of their pocket (especially in express lanes). I figure its some sort of bizarre blue collar fetish-if you’re affluent, then fishing for change makes it seems like you’re on a budget, or something.
Customers always bitch about how long lines are, but don’t take a moment to think about how their annoying attitudes and behaviours play into that. Just blame the poor people with EBT cards!
El Cid
@Citizen Alan: Well, then, there was even less reason to get the cake, ’cause it’s not like the daughter would miss it the next year. Right? Cuts down on the surplus population.
El Cid
@Amanda in the South Bay: I’m pretty sure that what holds most grocery store checkout lanes up is the fact that I’m in a hurry.
Amanda in the South Bay
@El Cid:
Speaking from personal experience, I’ve come to develop zero sympathy for affluent customers who are in a hurry. Unless you’re reliant on public trans, and the last bus/train leaves in 5 minutes at 11pm and if you miss it its a 2 hour walk home or having to wait overnight till the next trip at 5am, people need to STFU and realize how blessed they are.
Douglas
Adam C
That’s why they all hate the inheritance tax.
Douglas
@Douglas:
FYWP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tDxVRw6yec
There But for Forture – Phil Ochs
Show me a prison, show me a jail
Show me a pris’ner whose face has grown pale
And I’ll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me an alley, show me a train
Show me a hobo who sleeps out in the rain
And I’ll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me the whiskey stains on the floor
Show me a drunk as he stumbles out the door
And I’ll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me a country where the bombs had to fall
Show me the ruins of buildings so tall
And I’ll show you a young land
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
You or I
Just Some Fuckhead
In my experience, it’s old people holding us up everywhere. They are driving as slow as possible on our roads. They’re apparently trying to take out a second mortgage at the ATM machine. They just stop in the middle of the fucking aisle at Walmart and do the 50 yard stare at nothing. In the checkout lane, they act like it’s the first time they’ve ever seen a credit card scanner, despite shopping there weekly. I was in line behind one old dude who tried to scan cash through the credit card scanner. Another time, leaving FYE, an old dude in front of me got a call on his cell phone and just stopped in the doorway to take it, apparently unaware of his surroundings or the fact he was blocking the door. I got up real close behind him and said softly “Do you fucking mind!?”. You should have seen him scatter.
Old people are ruining the world. I bet they’d pick it up a little if we were allowed to shoot at them.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Eh, just relating my experiences from currently working as a cashier, but everytime I get upset at an elderly person, I figure they are doing the best they can.
Honestly, if i had to make a blanket statement concerning which demographic is the most annoying…the elderly wouldn’t be at the top of the list.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@Just Some Fuckhead: Oh, so you live in south Florida too?
Seriously, though, there’s some truth to what you say, especially when it comes to the way we deal with social issues.
Paris
The defensive of the monied class, OTB, and the League suggests that contrary to believing they deserve their status, they realize they don’t deserve it – even if its at a subconscious level. They keep trying to justify themselves.
Adam C
@El Cid: +1
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: Is this related to people who drive Buicks?
9 times out of 10 when some really bad, slow driving happens it’s a Buick, and there is some oldness involved.
Can someone please explain? And please don’t just blame it on the Oldsmobile.
Lewis Carroll
Hey Citizen Alan,
Thanks for making me go hug my 8-year-old daughter and think how lucky I am. Just ’cause…
In case any of y’all haven’t read it, the chapter entitled “Supply -Side Jesus” in Al Franken’s book LIES AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM is worth the price of the book by itself.
Lewis Carroll
Did I commit a foul in that last comment? Why is part of it crossed out?
Linda Featheringill
@El Cid:
OOOOOOH. Put a snark notice in that.
Linda Featheringill
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You should live so long.
Jack
I think susan of texas put the unshakable belief of libertarian types that they’re not the expendable ones best with: Conservatives are authoritarian followers. Libertarians are authoritarian followers who think they’re authoritarian leaders.
General Stuck
Nothing like a rousing round of Saturday afternoon senior bashing to get the Genx pecker hard.
Linda Featheringill
@Amanda in the South Bay:
That’s a hard job. And thankless, too. Full of complaints, with very little good will.
Note to everybody: The next time you buy anything from anywhere, express your wish that the cashier will have a good day or some other equally benevolent thought. Do it. It won’t cost you anything and will probably make him/her feel better.
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI:
I’d say 9 out of 10 times it’s someone on their cell phone, without a care in the world for anyone else.
Corner Stone
@Douglas: I nominate this for comment of the year.
James E. Powell
@Montysano:
If you have not already, you should check out some of those churches. They are not exactly preaching Christian love in there. It’s mostly “Go Us!” and “The Devil is Outside Your Door!” and “Liberals Are Satan’s Pawns!”
Corner Stone
@El Cid: The price of chicken in all its varied forms is out fucking rageous.
I can buy a porterhouse on “last day” sale and get 3 meals out of it for about the same as a package of chicken breasts.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: All the brevity of John Cage, but with the body of a grinning Cheshire cat.
Corner Stone
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
To this day my mom and I discuss the time at one of her bible study meetings some old coot said, “I just don’t see how you can call yourself a good Christian if you don’t vote for GWB!”
And how infuriating and sad that was to her at the time.
ETA – in 2004
PanAmerican
@Corner Stone:
You see what they’re getting for the fucking Arugula?
Corner Stone
Oh God. I made the mistake of clicking one of DougJ’s links at the top and it’s Broder at WaPo. Please note the headline:
“Sober suggestions from Obama’s debt commission”
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@Corner Stone: I suppose an adequate response would be “I don’t see how you can be a good Christian unless you do,” punctuated perhaps with a punch in the mouth.
whetstone
I don’t read Sullivan, because someone has to not do it… but has he ever shown any evidence that he’s read any books or articles about the financial crisis? And the role of the FIRE industries in it?
Because anyone who knows the first fucking thing about it would never, ever write that.
Napoleon
@Citizen Alan:
Isn’t it weird how the most unusual thinking sometimes have such an impact on you? A huge part of what I think when it comes to religion comes out of spending time when I was 6-8 stamping out red ants on my parents driveway day after day during the summer until I had an epiphany as to what Gods relationship to man must be.
Jager
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
Does every Camry sold in S. Florida come with a turn signal hard wired on?
El Cid
@Amanda in the South Bay: I’m way, way, way not upper class, I’m usually in a hurry for some external factor (not just impatience), and I don’t say anything unless it’s some real and obvious knuckle-headedness by the employee and management.
Yutsano
@Linda Featheringill: The cashiers are one of the big reasons why I shop regularly at the store I do. They are always smiling and willing to help anyone, and I have seen more than one of them exhibit the patience of Job with multiple payment methods. One time a guy rolled through four different ones, then at the very end pulled out his coupons. The cashier just rolled with it. Someone else ended up helping me, but I thought the way he kept a level head was very awesome.
ruemara
Do some people honestly believe that their high place in our awesome meritocracy is so secure and so well-deserved that they have no reason to fear and no reason to feel guilty about their privileges?
They’ve never heard the word guilt nor even considered that other people don’t live and think like them.
What on earth could have gone on in their lives to make them feel this way?
Wealthy family, wealthy schools, wealthy world and we’re all just outside looking in.
Would we all be much happier if we thought the same way they do?
If I recall my halcyon days as a merit scholar in fine NYC private schools, there isn’t enough booze, heroin, pot and pills in the world to make them fucking happy. Which is why they inflict their self-righteousness on us.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: Unless I need to for some special occasion, I only get and cook with thighs and drumsticks.
300baud
God, the makers and takers shit KILLS ME. Because so much of that comes from people who DO NOT MAKE FUCKING ANYTHING.
Financial traders? Most of them are a drain on the economy. Lawyers? Ditto. The politicians and the pundits and the lobbyists and the PR people and the whole goddamn advertising industry? NO NET BENEFIT TO HUMANKIND. The seven bajillion real estate agents and mortgage brokers and homebuilders and lenders and rating agencies and bond traders who appeared during the great housing boom? MOSTLY A WASTE OF MONEY AND PRECIOUS LIFE. The business owners and banks and credit card companies and their locust army of MBAs who extract cash from people through power and trickery rather than delivering value? PARASITES ON ACTUAL PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS.
And I say this as a business owner and an ardent capitalist. I am tired of all the world’s parasites glomming on to a perfectly good system for the creation of wealth and fucking it all up. And they lying about it so they can double- and triple-dip.
Ok. End rant. Thanks for listening!
jcricket
Doug – I feel the same as you. I grew up well inside the upper-middle-class, haven’t really had any life-threatening struggles or problems, yet I’m absolutely, passionately liberal and totally empathetic to the plight of those less fortunate than me. It didn’t take a crisis for me to think, “boy, people on welfare or food stamps or SSD or bankrupt b/c of health care costs, they sure must be suffering – I think we should be helping them out.” Perhaps it’s because I see my good fortune not solely as a result of my hard work, but also of circumstance and luck and timing, etc. I also like to think of it in terms of “there but before the Grace of G-d go I” – something you think supposed Christians would embrace.
As I see it, this article at the Daily Paul perfectly highlights how ignorant conservatives as to just how precarious and out-of-their-control life really is. Failure to truly “grok” that message is what drives a lot of people to buying into the “we don’t need no stinkin’ safety net, that’s for shiftless losers” sentiment.
Of course, complicating this is the Republicans serving up a potent cocktail of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia + “you can have your services with no taxes”. Throw that in a pot + mix with 40 years of anti-government propaganda and here we are.
If we had a Republican party like the conservative parties in Europe, we’d be arguing whether we should have the Canadian (single-payer) or the Swiss (non-profit, private, regulated) healthcare model. Or whether 40% or 50% was the best top tax rate. Instead we have “welfare queens”, “government is the problem”, “lazy wetbacks” and other such nonsense.
jl
Nice sentiments expressed here, but I am not particularly interested in appealing to anyone’s emotions on the basis of empathy.
Not sure it will work, since the most powerful self proclaimed ‘makers’ are ruthless con men, who never think they will be taken in by, or caught in, the con.
The ‘makers’ have been full of horseshit for 30 years, have run a long con on the middle class, have successively peeled off and sold out factions that they had previous conned or tried to con before (trade unions are only one example).
Those who bray loudest about the ‘takers’ versus the ‘makers’ are powerful interest groups who have been engaged in unproductive rent seeking off of the public and private wealth this country accumulated since end of the Great Depression. They are parasites. They need to be attacked and defeated.
The most notorious example of their long cons is supply side tax policies, the notion that the US tax rates are so high and that they discourage productivity so much, that an decrease in the tax rates would significantly increase economic activity, enough to contribute to the solution of the budget problem.
It is a nice theory, and maybe in the UK in the 1970s the theory was applicable. But it has been debunked in the US over and over again for 30 years now, at both the federal and state levels (in states where it has been tried).
Another is the con that private outsourcing will significantly increase government efficiency and reduce costs, even when extended to extremes, in what used to be public functions, such as education, and military logistics. This has lead to massive theft.
And of of course, the latest disaster is a product of the financial deregulation con.
jcricket
@300baud: I’m not going to disagree about the hatred of the makers/takers construct. I’d also like to note that since 75% of the GDP depends on consumer spending, the supposed “makers” wouldn’t have 2c in their pocket if not for us good-for-nothing “takers”.
Frankly, if not for households gorging themselves on debt (credit card + home equity), the economy probably would have been in a recession since the mid 90s – and then where do you think the stock market and executive compensation would be?
People like my very well-of brother-in-law, who votes Republican are amazingly ignorant. First, he rants about how Republicans are fiscally responsible (not sure how “borrow and spend” qualifies). Second, he simply can’t make the connection between his continued income and the available disposable income of everyone else. His entire livelihood is dependent on lots and lots of average joes having enough money to pay for his services. But to that, his answer is usually something like “trickle down economics”, or other such nonsense.
I think the answer is to stop making it possible for the poor and middle class to go into so much debt to continue to subsidize/prop up the rich. Once the poor and middle class have to live within their means (note this doesn’t mean we cut social services or infrastructure spending or what-not), we’ll see how the rich feel.
jl
The most interesting and evidenced based thing I can think to say about the self proclaimed reactionary ‘makers’ is that they have been, are, and will be, wrong about everything.
They are almost like inverse prediction machines. If they predict A, you know that ‘not A’ will be true.
Remember Bush holding up the dollars bills and explaining how the tax cuts would not produce a deficit?
Remember all the promises of the paradise of financial deregulation?
These ‘makers’ consist of fools con men and thieves, and their paid lackeys. They use their money and power to influence public debate. Their ideology is a pile of stinking BS.
I do not worry about them ‘winning’ in the end, because they cannot win. The reason for that is that they are, as I said, wrong about everything. So they will in the end defeat themselves. The most powerful among them will throw whoever is most vulnerable out of their rent seeking lifeboat as they use up the exhaust the wealth of the country. Ever more ‘makers’ will be declared ‘takers’, when the time comes that a more powerful faction finds taking their money convenient.
So, it will end badly for them.
The only problem is that we will sink with them, unless we can defeat them before they can defeat themselves and take the rest of us down with them.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
Aung San Suu Kyi, my hero, is released from jail. We can haz open thread plz?
Bill Arnold
@300baud:
The phrase you’re looking for is “non-productive professionals”.
A surprising percentages of such people will have a carefully worked out justification of their value to society, if you ask.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@jcricket: I think about this every time one of my high school/college friends from Redneckville LA posts one of those “get a drug test before you get food stamps” things on Facebook. I’ve been there, so I know it sucks, but they don’t seem to understand just how bad it sucks, and what’s more, don’t seem to understand that when it’s that bad, a joint might ease the suckage just enough for you to make it to the next day, or help you sleep through the night. It goes back in part I think to the ridiculous notion that being poor means you’ve done something wrong.
Again, that’s why I tell them my story when they get ranty, because if they’re going to talk shit about poor people, then they need to know they’re talking shit about me, or at least where I was once. It’s a little bit like the move to get women who’ve had abortions to say it publicly. Say it loud and you might not remove the stigma completely, but you’ll make people who are casting judgment do it to your face at the very least.
Mnemosyne
Maody on ABL’s thread above linked to an interesting essay by Robert W. Jensen called “White Privilege.”
Also, though I’m sure you guys are sick of me dragging Slacktivist into every damn thread, he has some interesting stuff on how making people less empathetic by feeding them End Times crapola isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Citizen Alan
@Corner Stone:
I stopped calling myself a Christian in 2004 after some jackass told my (then) 72-year-old father that he wasn’t a good Christian because he voted for Kerry. After my initial anger died away, I realized that the jackass was right. Since mainstream American Christianity worships Satan and calls him Christ, I realized that my father — a kind, humble man who believes we need a strong social safety net and a damn good reason to go to war — isn’t really a Christian at all. He is better than that.
Citizen Alan
@Mnemosyne:
I’ll never be sick of dragging Slacktivist into a conversation. If more “Christians” were like Fred, I might still be a church-member.
Corner Stone
@PanAmerican:
What do you take me for? Some kind of effeminate elitist fop?
bjacques
I just cheerfully tell them the Chinese have put them out of business or taken their jrbs; they just haven’t gotten the news yet. And neither the Republicans nor the Democrats nor the Tea Party will save them.
Batocchio
Some of them know, or have the nagging suspicion, that their position is not secure, which is why they lash out. The folks trying to rig the game further in their own favor don’t really believe in meritocracy – at best, their believe in their own superiority, and special rules.
Shell Goddamnit
@300baud:
DO YOU HAVE A NEWSLETTER??
Or possibly an opening for a casual worshiper?
Because I thought that was a tasty morsel of rant.