...shine the biggest light on the superiority of Democratic morality. Of doing unto others as we would wish to be done unto. Of respecting the challenges others less fortunate face. Of fighting injustices toward women, toward children, toward our armed forces, toward our workers, toward the elderly, toward minorities. Toward V**ERS! Always, ALWAYS talk the morality of our politics, of our humanity. Its the biggest, best argument we can make, and it resonates - LOUDLY - beyond every boundary drawn on a map.
But here's something I find almost as frustrating as Republican deception: the unwillingness or inability of Democrats to smash Republican lies and myths with simple American history. One of Karl Rove's tenets is to attack your enemy's strength. And I think that is exactly what we should do. I think we should start calling Republicans' and conservatives' adoration of "market economics" what it actually is - the glorification of selfishness, the celebration of exactly some of the worst aspects of human nature. It is not Christian, nor is it American. And their hatred of a strong central government is neo-Confederate, plain and simple. Every statement a Rick Perry or a Newt Gingrich makes about secession and states rights should be flung in our foes' faces as treasonous and s*******s. I'm tired of playing nice with Republicans and conservatives who openly say stuff like bi-partisanship is like date rape - with Democrats as the victim.
Well, about two weeks ago, I happened to be in a restaurant in Yanceyville, NC, about 25 miles from my home. It's the seat of the next county over, typically southern conservative Caswell County, which I am proud to say my wife was on a local phone bank here in heavily Democratic Orange County that helped swing Caswell into the Democratic column in 2008. I picked up the most recent copy of the local paper, the Caswell Messenger, and my eye settled on a letter to the editor from some local conservative named Mr. R., raving that Obama's proposal for free college tuition was evil government redistribution, theft, blah, blah - the usual wrong-wing crap.
Now, ever since it became clear to me around 2009 or so, that President Obama was unwilling to buck Wall Street and fight for policies that would dramatically shift the balance between capital and labor, I have been reading a lot of American history in an attempt to find the answers to two questions: What is a republic supposed to be? And, what policies of political economy should a republic follow? In other words, is there a republican political economy? As distinguished from a plutocracy, or oligarchy, or monarchy.
So, I determined to take the LTE by Mr. R. and write my own letter to the editor refuting him point by point, including some of what I've learned the past six years. A couple days after I faxed and emailed my letter, I received an email from the editor asking me to shorten it quite a bit. It was originally just under 1,400 words, and I was able to trim it to about 900. I received another email, apologizing that they were looking for letters of about 500 words. So, I got it down to about 600 words, and emailed it to the editor, noting that I did not feel I could cut it any further.
Today, I needed to return some books to the Orange County library. I decided I would check if they carried the Caswell Messenger to see if my LTE had been printed. I had thought to post one of the shorter versions here on DailyKos, but decided they simply were not strong enough. So, I was delighted to find that the editor had made an exception, and printed my original, uncut letter in its entirety. So, forthwith, I present it to my fellow Kossacks, below the orange squiggle of intergalactic righteousness and t***h.
I was distressed to read Mr. R.s letter Free Education in the February 4, 2015 issue of The Caswell Messenger. It is one thing to espouse a philosophy of political economy that protects selfishness and the rich; it is altogether another thing, and entirely unacceptable, to claim that such a philosophy is moral, and was condoned by the Founders.
Mr. R.s assertions are based on the now widely accepted misconception that the money a person has is theirs. But did they print it? Did they make it? Did they put it into circulation? They may have earned their money, but it is really not theirs. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars. By classical Christian teaching, nothing a person has not their money, not their property, not their talents is theirs. All has been given them by the Lord, and their role as good stewards is to use that which they have been given to serve Him. And as Benjamin Franklin liked to say, the most acceptable service to God is doing good to men. Even Andrew Carnegies Gospel of Wealth recognized this concept.
Mr. R. attempts to frighten us with the dreaded heavy hand of government redistributing wealth. God only knows how many billions of dollars the selfish rich have given to think tanks like Heritage Foundation or Club for Growth to gin up the scary bogeyman of redistribution. But redistribution is exactly what governments have always done, through all of history. Recall the bread and circuses of ancient Rome. James Madison addressed this issue in his classic Federalist Paper No. 10, noting that political factions most often arise from economic interests. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, Madison wrote. Yes, REGULATION.
Redistribution of income dates from the very beginning of our republic, when the funding of the national government came almost entirely from import duties. In 1811, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Thaddeus Kosciusko, "The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied.... the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." This redistribution of wealth was entirely intentional: in a letter to James Madison dated October 28, 1785, Jefferson wrote, "Another means of silently lessening the ine******y of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." It was understood at the time that large inequalities of wealth made the rich as dangerous to the republic as a standing army, because of the disproportionate political influence the rich could buy with their money.
Interestingly, the strongest opposition to the progressive taxation of using only import duties to support the federal government came from the s***e-holders of the South. And just as interestingly, it was not until the s***e-holders withdrew from the U.S. Congress with secession that our country was able to move forward economically with widespread development of the technologies developed before the Civil War. The telegraph had been invented and demonstrated in 1844 (with a direct appropriation of $40,000 to Samuel Morse), but it was not until Confederates were absent from Congress that legislation was passed that enabled a t***s-continental telegraph system. And, a t***s-continental railroad. And, land grants to create new public universities. And a Department of Agriculture to promote the use of science in agriculture (the 1920 discovery of photo-periodicity in plants by USDA scientists Harry A. Allard and W.W. Garner is just one of hundreds of examples; the introduction of winter wheats to the upper Plains by USDA agronomist Mark Carleton is another).
Just like the extreme property rights doctrines of the Confederacy corrupted many Christians a century and a half ago, today, the love of self and love of mammon have again corrupted many -- and have similarly r****ded the scientific and economic progress of the republic. The constant denunciation of redistribution by todays property rights extremists has made it politically impossible to raise taxes to levels needed to fulfill the Constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare. We cannot even afford to maintain our roads, bridges, waterways, and airports in good working order. Modern day Confederate economics have again crippled governments at all levels.
Finally, Mr. R. declares anyone desiring free education or free health care are thieves. But the real thieves are those selfish rich who fund anti-tax movements but who never would have amassed great wealth in another country, such as Somalia or Ethiopia, without the protections, promotions, incentives, and economic structure provided by a strong national government. The real thieves are the Wall Street traders and hedge fund managers who buy and sell stocks and bonds within split seconds, and then insist their capital gains be taxed at only 15 percent. What real wealth is being created by such high frequency trading? What benefit to the economy? The real thieves are the employers and managers who are unwilling to pay their employees the $20 to $30 an hour actually needed to raise a family, and save for the kids college education and retirement. How is such thievery different than Pharaoh forcing the Israelites to make bricks without straw (Exodus 5)?
As Benjamin Franklin wrote, in his 1783 essay Reflections on the Augmentation of Wages, Which Will Be Occasioned in Europe by the American Revolution, To desire to keep down the rate of wages
is to seek to render the citizens of a state miserable, in order that foreigners may purchase its productions at a cheaper rate; it is, at most, attempting to enrich a few merchants by impoverishing the body of the nation; it is taking the part of the stronger in that contest, already so unequal, between the man who can pay wages, and him who is under the necessity of receiving them; it is, in one word, to forget, that the object of every political society ought to be the happiness of the largest number.
Mr. R. is free to believe wh**ever historically ignorant economic theories he wants, even if they justify selfishness and a disregard for our fellow men and women, but he should not be allowed to pass off such theories as either Christian, or American.
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