I just want to thank everyone who read or participated in this dialog. I certainly appreciated your attention and input. Although the presidential election is over, I sincerely hope that our conversations around these important topics and their corresponding ideas will continue.
(originally posted here)
I won’t bother giving the cliché Webster’s definition of justice to introduce my argument. I am sure most if not all have some idea in their head already of what justice means and, I imagine, some dictionary phrasing will have little to no impact on that idea. My hope in writing this is two fold: to challenge the commonly accepted definitions on justice (social, economic or otherwise) in relation to politics and to hopefully give pause to those, both Christian and non-Christian, who find themselves wondering who to vote for this Tuesday. I have seen the amount of blog posts, Facebook notes, internet traffic, editorials and friendly (and unfriendly) email exchanges in the last few months leading up to this election increase dramatically as the perception of the importance of this election has seemed to escalate to the highest level of significance since the Great Depression. I figured I would add to the arguments in the slight hope that my opinion or words may strike a chord with some who read this. I do not portend to have the answer nor do I accept any other person’s opinion as fact. I suspect my disclaimer on not claiming to be any sort of authority is relatively unnecessary as most who read this have either already made up their mind or are not so naïve to think that I am any different than the countless others who have shared their beliefs and opinions. That being said, following are my thoughts.
Before I jump into the political and socio-economic issues, let me give you some background on my philosophical journey over the last few years of my life. I was born into a working class family with a firefighting father and a teaching mother. Both parents could not have been more blue collar. They were married extremely young and both came from similarly hard working households. They worked hard all of their lives. When my brother and I were born, my mother chose to stop working and raise the both of us. My father made this possible by both keeping a steady good-paying job with the Los Angeles City Fire Department and working with my mother to keep living expenses low and following good financial practices such as never buying anything we could not afford and avoiding spending money on non-essential amenities. At no point in my young life did I ever feel as though we were poor or lower class. The truth is that we were neither. It was not until Junior High that I started to see the differences in class and socio-economic status that existed in the small Ventura County society in which I had been raised. I started attending a private school in 7th grade where I had the opportunity to meet a number of students from fairly wealthy families. My parents enrolled me in the school in the hopes that the Christian curriculum and instructors’ beliefs would serve to provide an optimum learning experience combined with a protection from the secular distractions of public school. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, I enjoyed my time there and made a good number of lifelong friends and managed to get into UCLA. Needless to say, I have no complaints and am grateful to my parents for the financial sacrifice they endured to send me there.
My parents were (notice the past tense) registered Republicans all through my young life. I came to understand that the reason our home voted red was because we were anti-abortion and pro-small government. That is a very simplistic way of describing it but goes to the heart of the issue I am hoping to address. Based on a misunderstanding of the UC application form, I entered UCLA as a declared political science major. I never changed my major and graduated (sans honors) with a B.A. in a subject that ultimately serves no purpose should one decide to follow any career path other than politics or law. The unexpected effect of my choice of major was a more detailed understanding of our political process and how it plays out both within the corridors of Washington and throughout the diverse households of our country. Without going into an extensive thesis on politics in the United States, I will cut to the chase and posit that politics, government and the rest of the machine that comprises what should be taken under consideration as we prepare to dimple, hang or otherwise manipulate our chads in the voting booths is a broken system that, while painfully ineffective most times, is arguably better than most other alternatives found throughout the globe. I suspect my suggestion is neither a fresh perspective nor particularly revolutionary as far as simplified and succinct definitions of US politics go.
“Why so autobiographical?” you may ask. If I have managed to keep your interest, despite the verbose narrative of my political journey, do indulge me a smidge as I attempt to get to the point. My background, while potentially excessive, serves a particular purpose. The mistake, I believe, many people make when trying to solidify or justify their political leanings is to apply whatever limited life experience they possess and/or utilize those life experiences of the miniscule amount of people they have had the opportunity to meet in their relatively sparse years spent both alive and cognisant as some sort of legitimate source of reference that gives weight to their particular opinion. As I have already disclaimed, my opinion is in no way exempt from this same argument. For this reason, I am hoping to avoid infusing any personal or non-personal experience into my theory so as to possibly provide an idea that transcends people’s need to apply such experiences to their decision making. In short, my giving you my background is an attempt at full disclosure that will hopefully disarm those who might be inclined to presume my intentions for introducing my theory.
So what am I trying to say? How can we as a society define justice while removing any personal experiences or the relayed experiences of others from our attempt at such a definition? This question, in my opinion, requires some sort of fundamental understanding (or at the very least an attempt at understanding) of what is good and/or right and/or empirically (for lack of a better word) just. This question applies to virtually every political concept or platform in our current and future vernacular. How do you define social justice? How do you define economic justice? How do you define criminal justice? Those of us who proclaim a belief in God have somewhat of an advantage (or disadvantage, depending on how you look at it) in attempting to answer these questions. Our combined resources of the Bible and the community of believers provide a significant source for reference. The disadvantage is made painfully obvious when one takes notice of the fact that there are a substantial amount of contentious issues within the church when it comes to politics. If we all have the same reference materials/sources, why don’t we all agree on how to vote?
I think that the truth is that we all have an inherent need to feel good about the choices we make and the way we live our lives. Nobody likes to be accused of being a bad person. I am no exception to this rule. Political parties are no different. It is in their best interest to be viewed as “the just party.” It is no accident that the Republican Party has gone to great lengths to align itself or rather convince its constituents that it is aligned with the basic tenets of the Bible. For a more comprehensive look at this phenomenon, read David Kuo’s Tempting Faith, a troubling portrayal of the failure of compassionate conservatism. Another good read that provides some insight into the seemingly inevitable link between religion and government is Jim Wallis’ God’s Poltics. Instead of listing all of the ways that Republicans and their platform have failed to accurately represent anything close to Biblical or godly governing or, alternatively, attempting to do the same for the Democrats, I will humbly try to demonstrate why voting blue may actually better serve one’s conscience should one feel so inclined to use their enfranchisement as a means to promote justice (accepting, of course, my theoretical definition of justice suggested within this dialogue).
In order to make my argument, I will need to (finally) give you my definition of justice. At the risk of losing the undoubtedly decreased audience who managed to read this far into my little opus, I am sad to say that my definition will most likely disappoint or even inspire legitimate scorn by Christians, non-Christians, Republicans, Democrats and every other imaginable group of people who willingly admit to such categorizations. Are you ready? Here it goes. Justice is a non-existent construct formulated by humankind in order to justify a particular ideology, regardless of whether such ideology conflicts with other individuals’ or groups’ concepts of what is right or good. In short, there is no such thing as justice. Justice is an idea that people need to believe in so that they can feel good about themselves. A person needs to say to themselves, “I am a just person” or they need to understand whether or not that is true so as to find some kind of fundamental grounding in order to know how to feel about themselves. This concept most likely does not apply to sociopaths, who do not suffer from the same need to define one’s self (at least that is my best understanding of sociopathic behavior gleaned from my Sociology of Deviant Behavior class I took in college). Now before you throw my argument out the window, let me explain a bit more what I mean when I say that justice does not exist. Look at it this way, if you have competing arguments for what justice means within a society with no source of authority to legitimize either argument, there is no way the concept can ever be defined. Christians will argue that God or the Bible is the authority. If this were a feasible solution for resolving the issue, we would not have so many disagreements within the church. People interpret the Bible differently. Some churches teach a “prosperity theology” where the wealthy are viewed as the “most faithful.” Ronald Reagan believed poverty was a sign of weakness and not something worth his sympathy. Some believe capital punishment is just. Some believe abortion is just. How are we to agree which side of these countless opinions on these controversial issues is just? Is it so outlandish to suggest that one might be inclined to convince oneself that they are just in order to legitimize the way they live and the choices they make? Isn’t it easier to say that God is rewarding me for my hard work with wealth and therefore it must stand to reason that those less fortunate or less wealthy have not worked as hard? I am certainly not trying to paint every middle to upper class citizen as some miser looking for any way to hold on to his or her money. I do, however, think that we are constantly in danger of finding ways to modify our perception of justice so as to accommodate the status quo and remove the need for personal change or sacrifice.
That being said, I would like to take another look at justice and politics in light of this proposed new paradigm where no one can use supposedly “just” arguments for supporting one side of the aisle or the other. If we do not use the traditional methods of determining how to vote, what choices are we left with for picking our candidate or party? This is where my theory/proposal gets really controversial as well as very gray. In my opinion, everyone has two choices on how to vote: vote for what is best for you or vote for what is best for everyone. My inference at controversy is due to my belief that many people who vote Republican or more to the right, do so for personal reasons. Let’s just suppose for a second that all the right wing arguments for why small government is better are true. Let’s suppose that if welfare really was eliminated that those people who were “stuck” in the system would truly rise out of their current state and better themselves as long as they put in the effort. Finally, let’s put a number out there for what that will mean in terms of money saved by the average American. Let’s say instead of seeing only 70% of your paycheck after taxes that you now see 80%. Let’s say you make $50K a year so you are now seeing a net pay of $40K instead of $35K. You now have $5,000 a year more in your pocket. What are you going to do with that money? You don’t need it to help the poor anymore because they have supposedly been saved from their welfare captivity due to the elimination of the program. Let’s say you spend it on yourself. I’m guessing that 90% of you are going to spend it on yourself. Now let’s jump back to reality where the number of poor people does not change just because the average tax payer get’s to keep a little more money each year (I say reality because, if anything, Reagan’s administration proved that small government does not decrease poverty...in fact, quite the opposite). Does that excess money now go to help them? I think not. I say that 90% are still probably going to spend it on themselves. The reason this little hypothetical situation is so gray is because it is extremely limited as far as examples go. There are plenty of people who will give all of the money away. There are plenty who will see substantially more than $5,000. There are plenty who will see less. The argument on the right says that we should let people’s conscience be their guide and give them the right to give their money away if they want to do so. Government should not be the one to decide for you. Fair enough.
What do you think would happen if we really let that happen? Here is what I think. I think you don’t have to look any further than Wall Street, corporate off-shore tax havens, golden parachutes and hunting trips on the eve of bankruptcy to answer the question of what people do when you let them decide how to spend or handle their money. Don’t get me wrong, not everyone is Enron or AIG or whoever. But it is naïve to think that these are just a few bad apples that give the rich a bad name and for every Ken Lay there is a Bill Gates who gives so much back to charity. Yes, there are some compassionate people out there and there are some evil people out there. Be honest with yourself, what is your knee jerk reaction when faced with the choice to do something good for yourself or sacrifice on behalf of someone else? What do we do when no one is watching? I know I am a very selfish person and am very much pointing my finger at myself right now as well as the rest of society. We want to be just but in the deep down dark parts of our souls, we are selfish. Some (many actually) of us, have managed to overcome our selfishness enough to advocate for the voiceless and fight for those who haven’t the strength to fight for themselves. There are philosophical theories for why we do this. Whether our altruism comes from a belief in God, a need for acceptance or a sense of guilt, the fact is we have not devolved as a society to a point where it’s every man for himself (not yet anyway). This does not, however, mean that we will always do right by each other.
So back to my hypothetical where you get to keep a little more of your money. Now let’s suppose that the left wing arguments are true and the government programs set up to help people are truly effective and can make the difference between poverty and eventual financial stability. Let’s say that not only will the slightly less money in your pocket go to help the poor and less fortunate but will also require larger financial entities such as Enron and AIG to be more financially ethical and, at least to some degree, reduce the gap between the richest of the rich and poorest of the poor. My question is this: Is the extra money really that important? Do you really think you deserve it? Sure you work hard and you make financially responsible decisions. Is it so hard to imagine that there are people out there who work just as hard or harder and never make a bad financial decision in their life and yet still find themselves in need of assistance? Do you deserve to keep your money more than they deserve to get help? Is that just? How do you decide who deserves what? I recognize that by giving government the money, we place the decision in their hands. Isn’t it better than placing it in the hands of Corporate America or individual citizens who are limited in their exposure to the rest of the country and even the world and the myriad problems and needs found throughout? A government like ours has the resources to reach more people both within and outside our borders. One of the prices we pay for centralizing control is bureaucracy and the ineffectiveness and corruption that come with it. I wouldn’t dare try and argue that our government programs are flawless or without their share of problems. What I am trying to argue is that it is worth that price for the good it brings to those who truly need it and when we are honest with ourselves, we can afford the reduction to our bank accounts.
If you were to boil down my basic argument, it would be that we as individuals are overall more prone to be selfish than we are as a collective group. I am betting on the collective better angels of our national conscience over each person’s individual sense of compassion. It is risky to propose a theory that I don’t trust those reading this to be good…but the truth is that I don’t. I don’t trust myself to be good. I have my days but I am human. We are all human. Those of us who need help are human and those of us who can help are human. Is it such a bad idea to force the less compassionate of us to help out even if it means the more compassionate are equally burdened and even if it means that some people will abuse the system? I don’t think so. I feel that I can afford to risk it. I think most of us can. Think about it. How will you measure your individual sense of justice? Even if you put your money where your mouth is, there is no guarantee that everyone else will. I wish I could write more about this and fill out my thoughts even more because I know there are still probably a lot of holes in my logic that I may be able to address. Unfortunately, I wanted to get something out there before tomorrow so that people would have one last chance to think about who they vote for and why. I am hoping that even if I don’t change any minds before this election is over, maybe the discussion that may or may not follow will lead to healthy dialogue on this subject. For those of you who made it to the end, thanks for reading, don’t forget to vote and don’t take it too personally. Just keep an open mind.
I saw Willie May's
at a Scottsdale home depot
looking at garage door springs
at the the far end of the fourteenth row
his wife stood there beside him
she was quiet and they both were proud
I gave them room but was close enough
that I heard him when he said out loud
this was my country
and this was my song
somewhere in the middle there
though it started badly and it's ending wrong
this was my country
this frightful and this angry land
but it's my right if the worst of it
might still somehow make me a better man
the sun is unforgiving
and there's nobody who'd choose this town
but we've squandered so much of our good will
that there's nowhere else will have us now
we push in line at the picture show
for cool air and a chance to see
a vision of ourselves portrayed
as younger and braver and humble and free
this was our country
this was our song
somewhere in the middle there
though it started badly and it's ending wrong
this was our country
this frightful and this angry land
but it's my right if the worst of it
might still somehow make me a better man
I've started something I just can't finish
and I barely leave the house it's true
I keep a wrap on my sores and joints
but yes I've had my blessings too
I've got my mother's pretty feet
and the factory keeps my house in shape
my children they've both been paroled
and we get by on the piece we've made
I feel safe so far from heaven
from towers and their ocean views
from here I see a future coming across
what soon will be beaches too
but that was him, I'm almost sure
the greatest center fielder of all time
stooped by the burden of endless dreams
his and yours and mine
he hooked each spring beneath his foot
he leaned over then he stood upright
testing each against his weight
for one that had some play and some fight
he's just like us I wanna tell him
and our needs are small enough
something to slow a heavy door
something to help us raise one up
and this was my country
this was my song
somewhere in the middle there
though it started badly and it's ending wrong
well this was God's country
this frightful and this angry land
but if it's his will the worst of it might still
somehow make me a better man
--------------
By Joe Henry, Listen to "Our Song" for free here
In August, before McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, The Economist featured this article on McCain:
Bring Back The Real McCain
This article above also highlights weaknesses in Obama.
Conservative writer David Brooks, who I have come to appreciate quite a bit, disagrees with the Economist in this article saying, "when people try to tell me that the McCain on the campaign trail is the real McCain and the one who came before was fake, I just say, baloney."
Today, The Economist, in what I feel is a fair and even-handed article, officially endorsed Obama for President: It's Time
When John Mayer released this song, it struck a chord with many people in my generation through these lines:
"Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could
Now we see everything is going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it
So we keep waiting on the world to change
It's hard to beat the system
When we're standing at a distance
So we keep waiting on the world to change
Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They woulda never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on the door
When you trust your television
What you get is what you got 'cause when they own the information
They can bend it all they want
That's why we're waiting on the world to change
It's not that we don't care
We just know that the fight ain't fair
So we keep waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting on the world to change"
And now, perhaps sooner than expected, the time for waiting is over. Essentially, the two groups that will decide who will become our next president are undecided voters and first time voters, the vast majority of which are under 30 years of age. Historically, campaigns have had trouble getting young voters to follow through, actually cast a ballot, and make their voice heard. In the past, we could have perhaps used the excuse that our vote simply did not matter, but in this election, if you take young voters out of the equation, Obama's lead on McCain in the polls is essentially nullified as it then falls beneath the margin of error. So the time for waiting is over, and the time for change (at least in a generation's attitude toward participating in the American democratic process) has come. Irrespective of which candidate you support, please make sure you vote before or on this Tuesday, November 4.
Here's an article posted yesterday on the same theme as the previous article I posted written in June:
David Brooks (Conservative writing for the NY Times): Ceding the Center
Posts
All Comments
