Liberalizing University and College Students

In his Feb. 27 piece, "The New Conservatism: Don’t Bother With College," http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/the-new-conservatism-dont-bother-with-college/   New York Times writer David Firestone says GOP presidential hopeful  Rick Santorum called President Obama "a snob" for urging students to go to college, that he called for a reduction for a reduction in the number of people who seek higher education, and that students who attend a four-year college will emerge fully indoctrinated as liberals.

Perhaps this is another case of what the meaning of is is, but if the purpose of attending college is to learn things you don't know yet, to expand a person's body of knowlegde, to consider information, ideas, philosophies and worlds previously unknown, to open students' minds to new fields of study and expose them to people who have had access to broader knowledge and experiences the students haven't had, then, yes, attending college is a very liberalizing experience. It isn't intended to be an echo chamber, cheering section or rubber-stamping exercise for ideologies and beliefs the students or their parents already have.

To me being liberal equals being openminded. And I am truly conservative about bashing the liberalizing mission and experience of college/university life. Particularly if it means maintaining a highly educated and strong nation. And I am truly conservative about Santorum's attempt to expand ignorance as a national policy.

Want Smaller Gov't? Elect Democrats

The GOP mantra, particularly among candidates for elected office, is that the Democratic Party is the party of big government and that the electorate should trust the GOP to reduce the size of government.

Historical facts, however, belie that.

I've often heard/read that the federal government has actually grown in Republican presidential administrations. An article that provides statistics says:
 
"Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both increased the size of the bureaucracy, whether or not you count military personnel.  Reagan increased the non-military workforce  by 238,000 employees, and the federal workforce including military personnel by 324,000.  George W. Bush increased the non-military workforce by 53,000 employees, and the federal workforce overall by 77,000.  Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, reduced non-military employees by 8,000 and the federal workforce overall by 6 37,000. Carter came in third behind George H.W. Bush as a small-government practitioner."

This article, as http://www.brendagrantland.com/Blog/BlogRepublican.html, includes a little quiz the results of which are quite interesting and that Democrats should pounce on like a frog on a fly.

President Obama isn't included in this quiz because he wasn't in office long enough when the article was published. But he has been now and while he Obama is constantly accused of bloating the federal government, according to the article "Big Government? Obama Has 273,000 Fewer Federal Employees Than Reagan" at
http://www.politicususa.com/en/big-government-obama-reagan, it seems that Obama has not increased the size of government.

Plus, he has either cut or proposed cuts in wasteful spending. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57321244/obama-to-cut-federal-swag-wasteful-spending/ And his federal deficit reduction plan -- which the Republicans rejected after previously backing many of the same policies -- cut more spending the the Republicans alternatives.

Historical facts show that Republicans' claims of being the small government party are false. While they're absolute hawks about cutting spending on public programs that benefit middle and poor Americans, they passionately protect government spending on the much more costly tax breaks, subsidies and other welfare for the rich.

Republicans who promise to cut the size of government remind me of men who beat their wives and girlfriends. They're so sorry and promise to never hit them again. We all know how that goes.

The difference is, Republicans never say they're sorry.

Standing up to an "Occupy" Disser

I have an acquaintance who has strong moral and polical beliefs, but is seldom moved to write about them or respond to countering opinions that appear in the mainstream media.

An opinion piece by a Nevada academic attempting to marginalize the Occupy Movement that was published a few weeks ago in a Milwaukee newspaper proved to be an exception.

The grabber in the Nevada professor's piece for my acquaintance was the assertion that, "What really motivates the Occupy movement is not resentment against the 1% but a sense of futility in grappling with a weak economy. With unemployment hovering around 9%, and with all the recurrent plant closings, foreclosures and cutbacks in public services, there is a lot of anger to vent. But class warfare isn't the solution."

The newspaper, for whatever reason, chose not to publish my acquaintance's rebutting letter.

So here it is, unedited. I share it because I think it knocks the proverbial ball clean out of the park so far as illuminating the faulty reasoning of the Nevada professor is concerned:

"Bradley Schiller’s ('The 1%', December 11) misrepresentation of the Occupy Movement as a disaffected group taking the anger of their circumstances out on rich folks demonstrates the kind of disconnect that makes people wary of Ivory Tower academics. Schiller, in an apparent attempt to solidify the myths of the self-made man and fluid social mobility, would have us believe that America’s millionaires and billionaires are just like the rest of us and the Occupy Movement is, at hear, merely railing against the American Dream.  Though I cannot speak for all who identify with the Occupy Movement, my understanding of it is that it has arisen from anger at a system in which people who have acquired wealth and power attempt to manipulate the political and economic structures to close the door to opportunity behind them, anger at those who use their wealth and power to create a dual justice system in which manufactured threats are used as a basis for curtailing the rights of many, while the real crimes perpetrated by some of the rich and powerful against wide swaths of the populace are ignored, if not condoned, anger at the scarcity mentality that makes some people willing to do apparently anything to jealously guard what this country has afforded them with complete disregard for their debt to it and the opportunities, infrastructure and resources it has provided them.  Schiller’s attempt to belittle the Occupy Movement as a naïve, “us or them” class warfare, in the end, says more about Schiller’s lack of intellectual depth and/or honesty, than it does about people’s serious grievances about systematic complexities that promote and perpetuate injustice."

Schiller's entire column is at: http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/the-1-833b5br-135692753.html

I'm far too conservative to buy Bradley's kind of "envy" argument that is so liberally bandied about by shills of the rich and privileged, who, oddly, are shouldering their tax burden and whose taxes further enrich them via subsidies and other publicly funded largess.

Lawmakers Pass Laws that Enrich Lawmakers

New York Times headline two days after Christmas:

Economic Downturn Took a Detour at Capitol Hill

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

"Rarely has the financial divide appeared so wide, or the public contrast so stark, between lawmakers and those they represent."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/us/politics/economic-slide-took-a-detour-at-capitol-hill.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

No wonder Congress -- particularly some members -- consistently pass legislation that favors big biz and the rich to the detriment of the rest. Shouldn't an elected official work for his/her constituents and not those who will fill the Congress members' coffers? This sure looks like a cronyism/quid-pro-quo/conflict-of-interest form of government, not democracy.

I am very conservative about people who are elected to represent the people getting rich in their elected positions by passing laws that make themselves richer. Sounds like a corrupt banana republic to me.

Libertarian Freeloaders

New York Times article teaser: "The Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank, plays an outsize role in setting the agenda in Arizona and is helping set up similar litigation outfits elsewhere."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/goldwater-institute-an-aggressive-conservative-watchdog.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24

Would that the news media and politicians would deep six the "libertarian" label!

The only real "libertarians" in the U.S. live in a cave and never come out. Everyone else benefits every day from government benefits and services, including the roads they drive on, safe commercial flight, potable water, breathable air, and so much more that makes for healthy, convenient, sustainable living that taxes fund and is made possible by those "regulations" they hate so much. All these so-called libertarians really want is the freedom to do whatever heck they want without having to pay for it and without regard to the harm to any/everyone else.

I'm way too conservative to want my taxes to fund these wanna-be freeloaders follies.

Ayn Rand's Absurd Death Grip

Ayn Rand keeps rising from the muck to infect the thinking of what otherwise might be rational, intelligent people. National Public Radio most recently stirred the vat with a piece it labeled on its website as "On Capitol Hill, Rand's 'Atlas' Can't Be Shrugged Off" http://www.npr.org/2011/11/14/142245517/on-capitol-hill-rands-atlas-cant-be-shrugged-off?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20111120.

I've ranted in this and other spaces before about Rand, but the pieces of the chopped-up snake keep growing new heads. We've seen them affixed to politicians like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul, for whom I think she was actually the namesake.

Here's the NPR promo blurb that bubbled up in my email inbox today touting its story that aired last week as one of its most emailed stories:

"In the 1950s, Rand felt that her ideal of unfettered capitalism was missing in politics. But today, her ideas are alive and well-represented in the U.S. Capitol. Her philosophy has sunk so deeply into our political thought, many people don't even recognize it as hers anymore."

First, anyone old enough to remember the 1950s, which I am, can recall that the 1950s was one of the most, if not the most, prosperous decades--at least for a vast swath of Amercans, not just a minute sliver of the richest--in the country's history. It is also nostalgically romanticized as the "good old days" and that time the TPers of today seem to want to take our country back to.

So if unfettered capitalism was missing, meaning that capitalism functioned, but with some semblance of responsibility that included controls, regulations, restrictions or whatever that enabled the nation to flourish economically, then that must have been a GOOD policy.

Beyond that, though, my view of Rand and her adherents/admirers is that they are nothing short of delusional. I won't go into all the flaws in Randism philosophy, politics and thinking, but here is my reaction to just one line in NPR's blurb:

"(Rand's) philosophy has sunk so deeply into our political thought..." That explains the greed, me-ism, hypocrisy and shallow, vapid thinking that has this nation in its destructive grip. Rand's path is a greased slide into the same fate that's bankrupted today's Greece, where Greeks refuse to pay taxes, and has led to the anarchy of Somalia, which has no central government. Randites are in complete denial of the very definition of "society" and the vital elements of a healthy, vibrant society. Take all the government services and benefits that Rand and her acolytes use and enjoy--including Social Security and Medicare, which Rand applied for under her married name to keep from being found out--and they wouldn't make it out of their front door. Heck, they probably wouldn't even have a front door or a house for a front door.

I posted a comment on this NPR story when it aired on Nov. 14, focusing on Rand's assertion that socialists and people on public assistance or who take money from the government are "moochers." Here's my comment:

"Ayn Rand and her ilk, whether called libertarians, anarchists or something else, are the real moochers. They want all the benefits of living in a society--public roads, breathable air, drinkable water, safe food and drug supplies, an energy grid, etc.--but don't think they should have to pay for it. The very regulations they eschew are as necessary for Americans' safety and well being as a strong military is for national security. The most frightening aspect of Randism these days is that so many are falling under its fatal spell. We can view the U.S. of the future by looking at Greece of today,where Greeks blow off paying taxes, and Somalia, which has no central government. Although Rand's hypocrisy is stunning (read her novella 'Anthem'), she was at least honest about being an atheist. Her politician acolytes of today, however, claim to be Christians, yet there is nothing in the philosophy Rand espoused that in any way resembles what Jesus taught."

It's gratifying to note that my comment got 65 "Recommendations", more than any of the other thousand-plus comments.

America, a Randian nation?

This blog post was prompted by a piece on today's National Public Radio's Morning Edition, which an NPR website headline writer dubbed "On Capitol Hill, Rand's 'Atlas' Can't Be Shrugged Off."

Ayn Rand, a mid-20th Century writer whose me-ism philosophy was informed by the political and social upheavel of her native Russia's Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent fallout, has become The Way for a plethora of today's Republican leadership. We should all have the right to keep all of our money and not to have to give any of it to that evil bottomless maw they call the government. (Nevermind, that the loudest of those Republican critics, such as John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc., ARE the government and, thanks to getting elected to Congress, will be very nicely taken care of for the rest of their lives by the very government they love so much to hate.)

Rand and her ilk, whether called libertarians, anarchists or something else, are the real moochers. (Moochers is what Rand called Americans who benefit from living in--and paying taxes to have--a vibrant society, even though Rand herself applied for and collected Social Security and used Medicare for her healthcare.)

Randians want all the benefits that come with living in a society--public roads, breathable air, drinkable water, safe food and drug supplies, an energy grid, etc.--but don't think they should have to pay for them.

The very regulations they eschew (see Illinois deadbeat dad and GOP Rep. Joe Walsh's rant) are as necessary for Americans' safety and well being as a strong military is for national security.

The most frightening aspect of Randism these days is that so many are falling under its fatal spell. We can view the U.S. of the future by looking at today's Greece, where Greeks won't pay taxes, and Somalia, which has no central government.

Although Rand's hypocrisy is stunning (read her novella "Anthem"), she was at least honest about being an atheist. Her politician acolytes of today claim to be Christians, yet there is nothing in the philosophy Rand espoused that in any way resembles what Jesus taught.

NPR's headline writer is, in fact, dead wrong. Rand and her "Atlas" CAN and should be shrugged off--or at least be seen for what they are: Architects of the demise of democracy.

I'm way too conservative to think that that is a good idea.