PhD Thesis on DU and Free Republic

[RainDog]

83. The conservative view is that family should do these things

And, yes, families do do these things. But not all families have the same resources and some families are broken, due to no fault of any child that is part of it, or the adults, too. There is no reason for people to suffer when this nation has so much wealth. No reason other than hatred and greed. Well, except that such a view is also highly patriarchal and repressive for women and children and also breeds racism and jingoism rather than openness and appreciation of the creativity of difference.

The conservative view seems to be that, if you experience misfortune, too bad. Deal. Pick yourself up. Well, yes, we all want to deal and pick ourselves up and go on - the conservative seems incapable of understanding that sometimes things happen to people that impact their capacity to do these things. It's like... my experience is the only one that counts. But, realistically, anyone with the slightest bit of "common sense" knows that's not how the world works.

Conservatives also use the family as a way to continue systems that are highly dysfunctional for some people. For most people. They view children as property and think they should be able to determine reality for that child. That's not the thinking of a good parent, but they don't see that, either, because they're so protective of their worldview - they have to be because their worldview doesn't correspond to reality. The consequence is that they hurt all children, and society, by trying to force their erroneous views of the world on everyone.

Economic arguments - I cannot tell you the number of times conservatives have claimed Western Europe was failing while the U.S. was thriving - in spite of data that indicates this, too, is bullshit. But, for 20 years, conservatives have made this same argument, simply because they have demonized social democracy - or the mix of individual effort and a social safety net. A nurturing society also nurtures entrepreneurs and frees them from health care via an employer, or total devastation if someone does try and fail. This is not the way a reasonable society functions.

So, yeah, a debate about the actual value of one system vs. another would be great - but, when you have people who can't tell the difference between Sweden's social democracy and Stalin's totalitarian oppression and total state control - well, it's hard to have those conversations. The biggest irony, of course, is that Americans favor a nation with income distribution like Sweden - and they think this is what it's like in the U.S. when the reality is that America has a feudal system of income distribution in place. Because conservatives have created scare quotes for social democracy, people refuse to accept that the way a nation achieves that more equal nation, in terms of income and opportunity and safety, is through taxation on wealth.

I've mentioned here, before, a great book I read a while back called The Divine Right of Capital. A businesswoman wrote about the way that this nation failed, during the Enlightenment era that created this representative democracy, to overthrow the myth that wealth deserves its privilege (and this failure is America's "original sin" in the form of slavery.)

We were able to grok that there is no "divine right of kings," no logical claim to hereditary power - and this holds true for those who, through the accident of birth, are treated as privileged beings who deserve better treatment than anyone else in this nation.

Since a strong middle class is the best indicator of a strong democracy, and since a strong middle class was created by the New Deal and the opportunities made available to those from all parts of society, I have to conclude that conservatives, ultimately, despise democracy. Those who are not wealthy who vote for conservatives vote for their own servitude. I suppose they think their supplicating deference to wealth will give them an advantage when scrambling for crumbs that fall from the table of wealth.

No wonder they loved Reagan who told them to beg and deal with it. He just left out the part where he laughed about the scam he was selling.