Paul Krugman: A Tale of Two Moralities

[babylonsister]

A Tale of Two Moralities
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 13, 2011

snip//

What are the differences I’m talking about?

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

There’s no middle ground between these views. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose.

This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. Commentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it. As many analysts have noted, the Obama health reform — whose passage was met with vandalism and death threats against members of Congress — was modeled on Republican plans from the 1990s.

But that was then. Today’s G.O.P. sees much of what the modern federal government does as illegitimate; today’s Democratic Party does not. When people talk about partisan differences, they often seem to be implying that these differences are petty, matters that could be resolved with a bit of good will. But what we’re talking about here is a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=1

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. K and R nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Let's try to empathize and carefully listen to this person

Hey I was going to McDermott my name’s Charles uh, Habermann, uh my number is 312-59 uh, 312-59X-XXXX. I was calling Jim McDermott because I saw him on television the other night and I realized what a disgusting, filthy, murderous cock-sucker he was. What a criminal was, the idea that he said that uh, poor people’s uh, money, poor people’s money that the Government gives belongs to him. That, that, that, that reducing taxes on rich people is, is in effect a tax cut in effect, it effected the Government spending program. Jim, Jim McDermott’s uh, theft of tax payer dollars, the less he steals, means that the, that the less the Government spends. Uh, I, I, I’d like to remind you McDermott that if you read the constitution all the money belongs to the people. None of it belongs to Government. Okay! So, if Jim McDermott says they’re spending money on a tax cut, he’s a piece of human dog shit, okay. He’s a piece of human filth. He’s a liar, he’s a communist, he’s a piece of fucking garbage. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, if any of them had ever met uh, uh Jim McDermott, they would all blow his brains out. They’d shoot him, in the head. They’d kill him, because he’s a piece of, of, of disgusting garbage. He’s a piece of filth. He’s a criminal. He advocates stealing people’s money to give it to losers. That’s a criminal conspiracy to commit fraud, okay., That is what the majority of the democratic party engage in every day of every week of every fucking year because they’re scum bags. They are disgusting filthy fucking scum bags. And you let that fucking scum bag know, that if he ever fucks around with my money, ever the fuck again, I’ll fucking kill him, okay. I’ll round them up, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he fucking knows. Alright! So if you want to fuck with me, you go ahead but you let that fucker know, the next time he fucks around, I’ll kill him, okay! Good night and good bye, you fucker.

This is the kind of people about whom we're supposed to "expand our moral imaginations".

[DCKit]

4. Please refrain from posting Winger Porn on this site. We're all about teh family values. nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. Here's what bugs me; I don't have a "moral imagination". I have a moral code.

"die because you're poor" is the opposite of that code, and I have no intention of revisiting that.

[DCKit]

7. Teh UGLY side of Winger porn.

Yeah, nobody wants to go there - 'cept them.

[Jakes Progress]

10. Maybe if we promise to be nice and ask them sweetly

to not be mean, it would do the trick.

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. Yes. Perhaps if we meet him somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps if we liberals all voluntarily accept a permanent debilitating injury. :shrug:

[fiorello]

3. A great article, calls for thoughtful responses.

My first reaction: This is the cause of so much hate? Whether the richest 1% should pay a 39% versus 35% marginal tax rate? Or even whether it is a proper role for government to help poor people/average citizens/etc???

After all, the libertarian stream of thought is an honorable one in US history, only needs to be moderated by common sense and compassion.

So why the hate?

Here are theories, ranging from the kindest to the nastiest view of the Boener-Bush-McCain-Palin crowd (blandy, dopey, cranky and ... oh never mind)

(1) Guilt feelings over the cruel results of you're-on-your-own capitalism; mean response to cover own guilt.

(2) Libertarian gospel raises lots of money, launches political career, becomes habit, own words become meaningless.

(3) Poor people deserve it, they're cheats, slackers and welfare bums. (Sadly, I do know some middle-class kids who treat welfare as a clever way to get money... but a lot more people who use politics to vent their personal antagonisms.)

(4) Uh, dislike of - you know - THEM.

PS.
("The big spenders... even drove God out of the classroom" - Ronald Reagan. When challenged to name the "big spenders", a spokesman replied "They know who they are". What a great summary of all the streams of American prejudice... in 1978, 14 years after the "big spenders" enacted the Civil Rights Act, no more needed to be said. Quote from "There He Goes Again", a collection of Reagan gaffes)

[Swagman]

6. he is so right. The vast majority of the westernised

world now sees the welfare state as the normal way of events and only works to better it. The 'New Deal' actually made the US middle class wealthy and thus increased all wealth in the US but a concerted right wing cabal has been defaming it since Reagan and trying to dismantle it for pure greed.

[olegramps]

8. This is, the Conservatives claim, a Christian nation.

Christianity, like Communism, which Jesus actually advocated has never been tried except for brief moments. Greed is too powerful a force of human nature. The citizens of the United States have only accomplished in replacing the Aristocracy of Divine Right with the Aristocracy of Wealth. Neither has ever had any regard for the plight of the less advantaged. In fact, many of these so-called Christians actually claim that their wealth is a divine reward for their righteousness. If people believe that the wealthy will willingly share their wealth with the less fortunate they are delusional. Anyone who actually does is an aberration and likely to be condemned as delusional.

The New Deal was successful in the working class getting a fair share of the wealth that they create solely because it struck down laws that prevented collective bargaining. These were the very laws that the wealthy had been able to enact when they controlled Congress. Unions empowered the working class to demand and get a seat at the banquet table. A living wage along with a number of programs including the GI bill opened up an opportunity to pursue a higher education that had been a reserve of the wealthy. Representatives to congress listened carefully to the demands of organized labor regardless of their party affiliation. The GOP platform of the Eisenhower administration was as pro-labor as the Democrats and took pride it advancing what today's Republicans condemn as socialism. I would encourage workers to read the Republican Platfom of that period and compare it to the swill that the Republican now propagate.

Wealth can only be pried out of the greed hands the Wealthy Aristocracy by force. The only effective force that has demonstratively accomplished this has been when workers united and demand their fair share. If workers want job protection from out-sourcing, health care and a decent pension then they will have to fight for it. There is nothing more dreaded by the greedy unrestricted capitalists then unions. Unions get representatives elected who actually represent their interest. They prevent the passage of laws that reward corporations for out-sourcing their jobs. They prevent destructive so- called Free Trade Laws by corporate lobbyists that only led to global poverty of the working class.

It is unfortunate that the workers have allowed themselves to be disillusioned by the corporate propaganda that unions are their enemy and laws that protect their jobs are un-American plots by liberal anti-Christian anarchists. It is past time that they wake up to the reality that they have been duped by the wealthy who have seized control of the Fourth Estate whose spokesmen a nothing more than highly payed shills who demonize anyone who challenges the massive transfer and concentration of wealth that has taken place within the last few decades.

[Enrique]

9. video of Tea Party morality:

(the guy flinging cash at the man with Parkinson's)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ik4f1dRbP8

[wishlist]

11. But they're hypocrites, still wanting full government benefits and services

They are delusional, focusing so much anger about their tax money being wasted or spent on other people but they still want strong military, flawless infrastructure, law enforcement and security, border protection, and a full range of government services. When something happens to them they don't hesitate to seek help from government agencies all the while espousing abolishing government and taxes.