Commonweal Institute Blog

Progressives believe we are a community, all in it together, taking care of each other, helping each other. Conservatives believe we should each be on our own, and responsible only for ourselves ("personal responsibility").

There is a good articulation of conservative philosophy today at the conservative movement's Townhall.com: It's Time To Get Over Katrina Already. Some excerpts:

Two years after Katrina, everywhere you turn, there are people carping, whining, and kvetching. Just why hasn't the pity party for the citizens of New Orleans run out of booze and chips yet?

... we're all supposed to eternally sit around and weep tiny little tears of sadness for the people who really took it on the chin in a hurricane because they chose to live in a city shaped like a soup bowl on the coast. Let me tell all the citizens of New Orleans something that should have been told to them 18 months ago: it's time to stop playing the sympathy card and get over it.

Nobody is owed a living for the rest of his life because he had a bad break two years ago.... How sad and pathetic is it that these shiftless people are still leaching off their fellow citizens?

... Guess what, buddy? You're right; nobody does "give a s*** about New Orleans" any more other than a few saints and a lot of manipulative Democrats looking for a political issue they can exploit. That's the nature of life. [emphasis added]

[Ed: Democracy, the process of creative and collaborative decision-making, is something I'm particularly passionate about and something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. I'd written before on why real democracy works and what we can do to make it work for us and I thought this piece would be relevant to the discussion here. This article was previously published on Pacific Views. ]

Winston Churchill declared that Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. In the United States, we pride ourselves on being the oldest constitutional democracy, yet many people believe we need to limit our democracy, especially during perilous times. Many people in the US find they are frustrated with democracy and think that things would be better if we just let a few smart people make the decisions. Besides we are all too busy and too cynical to get involved.

Today the war on terrorism has created a situation where many important decisions are being made unilaterally and without consultation with even our elected representatives or our allies, much less checking in with ordinary Americans. The fear of terrorism has encouraged people to blindly support the President because they believe he must know more about what is going on and so can make the right decisions for us. Many people are looking for a strong leader who boldly makes decisions even if these decisions go against the will of the majority of people. Many people define this as leadership.

Yet, is it true that a few smart people or one strong leader will do a better job than groups that make decisions democratically? Should we entrust our future to a small group who will make the most important decisions for us? Decisions such as whether we will go to war or not, or how our economy is run? The answer is no. And here is why that is.

Democracy is just stumbling along to the right decision instead of going straight forward to the wrong one. -- Laurence J. Peter

I'm posting here a short article by Thomas Atwood, one of Commonweal Institute's supporters. In a time when fundamentalism is on the ascent in America, many progressive Christians find it difficult to know how to speak with the fellow Christians about how their political values relate to their faith. Thomas' article was an eye-opener for me.

Thanks to the recent obvious failures of conservative policies when played out on the national scale, progressives now have an opportunity to win over many to their cause and redefine the political spectrum for generations to come. However, their potential will not be realized unless they move quickly. David Brooks’ new piece, The Republican Collapse, signals some of the tactics the conservative movement will use in defending itself and undermining the progressive advantage.

This piece originally appeared at Speak Out California

As an experiment, try substituting the words, "We, the People" every time you read or use the word "government." Or use the word "our" instead of "the" when you say "the government." Our government, us, we, the people. This really does change the way we understand the relationship between our government and ourselves, doesn't it?

The other day I brought up the example of Ronald Reagan's famous saying, "Government is the problem." When you look at that saying in this new way, he is saying "We, The People are the problem." Doesn't that sound like he is expressing a profoundly anti-democratic sentiment? Is that really what we want our leaders to be promoting?

How many other places do we discover similar anti-democratic sentiments? How about when we hear about "limited government?" Are conservatives saying that they want to limit the power of the people? What about when they talk about getting rid of government regulations? Do conservatives want to stop the people from regulating what corporations do? When you think about what their words really mean, it sure starts to sound that way.

Conservatives have worked hard to make "government" a bad word. They complain about "big government." They complain about "government schools." But what happens when we substitute a form of "We, the People" into their slogans? The whole meaning seems to change.

Behind-the-scenes conservative leader Grover Norquist is known (to some of us) for having said, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Think about what he is saying about democracy there. He wants to drown it!

Besides fewer decisions made by "the government," another thing conservatives say they want is more decisions made by the "private sector." Let's examine what these words really mean. Business.com offers this definition of "private sector": "Part of national economy made up of, and resources owned by, private enterprises." Wikipedia offers, "In economics, the private sector is that part of the economy which is both run for profit and is not controlled by the state."

So when conservatives say more decisions should be made by the private sector than by the government, aren't they saying that instead of We, The People making decisions we should hand the decision-making power over to the corporations? Is this really what we want?

Sure, the words about "smaller government" and "deregulation" sound good, but when you really think about what they are saying, maybe it isn't such a good idea after all. At least, if we think democracy is a good idea, that is.