[dropcap size=small]F[/dropcap]ull disclosure: I really like Greta Christina. I’m a fan. She and I have a lot in common – we are both irreligious, we are both sex-positive feminists, and we both seem to value the power of critical thinking and skepticism more than many of those around us. She even has a kick-ass blog that I highly recommend if any of the descriptions so far possibly relate to you, dear reader. But for all her awesomeness in all these regards, there is one aspect of Christina’s character that is undeniable – she is really, really liberal.
Like any personal bias, political affiliation can sometimes take someone who is otherwise extremely fair-minded and intellectual and reduce him into a baseless apologist for a cause – and, transparently, with no objectivity to offer. All of us political types fall victim to it – conservatives, liberals, and yes, even my fellow holier-than-thou libertarians. But each time this happens, most of us, regardless of our ties, would try to utilize facts and logic to get to the bottom of any given dispute and end up with the clearest image possible of what in fact is going on. With Greta, however, she seemingly cannot separate her own liberal perspective and the reality that sometimes conflicts with it.
Nowhere was this more clear recently than a few days ago when Christina, writing for the Raw Story, produced a list of 7 things she claimed could prove that socially liberal, fiscally conservative people like myself are “W-R-O-N-G” in our views (apparently we are illiterate, as well). In my estimation, she failed at this task. I admit I found it a little saddening to see a fellow skeptic stumble so horribly in this case, but I also found it my duty to point out (in not nearly an exhaustive fashion, admittedly) some of the most glaring issues that stood out to me from Christina’s article.
So, without further ado, I give you my reluctant-yet-necessary rebuttal to my respected fellow writer’s list. Pull up a chair and stay awhile.
Starting off on a baseless tangent claiming that fiscally conservative policies do “enormous social harm,” and adding (as if to give credibility to this claim) that “even” David Koch calls himself a social liberal, Christina goes all-out and postulates the notion that such policies are, in her own words, “racist, sexist, classist (obviously), ableist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise socially retrograde.”
Woah! These policies must be just horrible!
Christina also suggests that because one cannot separate social issues from economic issues, one cannot in fact be on two ends of the spectrum, respectively. Keep in mind that so far, no evidence has been cited to back up any of these claims – broad or narrow – yet already the damning proclamation of horrible things like racism and other bigotry has tainted any of the issues Christina could possibly focus on in her list – this is a rhetorical trick that is designed to precondition the readers to already be antagonistic toward the opposing view, even before the details of which have yet to be revealed.
Finally, we get to the list itself. For the sake of easy comparison with the original article, the rebuttals to each item on said list will be likewise numbered.
1: Poverty, and the cycle of poverty.
What Christina refers to as “the big one” is this cycle of poverty that she claims the statistics show is really, really difficult to pull oneself out of. Well, yes, that’s true – a straight reading of statistics will always show that most people born into certain situations in life will likely always stay there. But does that indicate that there is anything innately wrong with the system as it currently is? Do we want a socialist-based system where everybody is given an equally minimal amount of everything, or do we want to have the freedom of social mobility within this stratified system that absolutely abides by Thomas Jefferson‘s immortalized words promulgating the right to only pursue happiness?
The problem with Christina’s point is that she actually doesn’t seem to have one. She talks a lot about different issues such as transportation, education, etc. that affects the poor, then she cites an article that talks all about how minority groups lack access to the best options among these things. Curiously enough (and very telling), she fails to mention that big government overreach and artificial limitation of choice of such opportunities in impoverished areas is largely to blame for these conditions in the first place. So if she’s trying to argue for even more government overreach and regulation as a solvent to this problem, she is sorely mistaken. And none of this directly connects to poverty like she promised it would, but never fear – she has an answer for that. “Well, duh,” she writes with true intellectual fervor. Everything about poverty, she argues, is affected “by fiscal policy.”
Well, I’m glad she cleared that up.
In the end, Christina attempts to bring her point back around to how being fiscally conservative is evil:
“Fiscal policy affects poverty. And in the United States, “fiscally conservative” means supporting fiscal policies that perpetuate poverty. “Fiscally conservative” means slashing support systems that help the poor, lowering taxes for the rich, cutting corners for big business, and screwing labor — policies that both worsen poverty and make it even more of an inescapable trap.”
Once again, no sources are provided to support this claim.
2: Domestic violence, workplace harassment, and other abuse.
Here, Miss Christina literally just tells her readers to appeal to her previous “point.” No, really. “See above, re: cycle of poverty,” she writes. Apparently building a whole separate argument to support a whole separate point is just not fashionable with liberal readers these days. Well, to be fair, she does try to make a new point about something – it just happens to be about something completely different than what the numbered heading promises. Christina ends up making some very fair points about how women of color and/or members of the LGBT community are disproportionately the victims of workplace discrimination, harassment, domestic violence, and so on. But what is Christina’s response to all of this in relation to us social liberal conservatives? Well, don’t get rid of the safety net, of course!
Wait… What?
I don’t know about you, but I hadn’t read something quite so incoherent in weeks, so this startled me a bit. Perhaps this was an attempt to chastise the GOP for targeting welfare and benefit programs with their budget cut proposals. But on that front, she will get no contention from me – me, one of these socially liberal, fiscally conservative numbskulls Christina claims don’t actually exist.
Two points in, and so far all Miss Christina has managed to do is throw out non-sequiturs and platitudes in a very disjointed manner that seems to beg the question far more often than it gives answers. But the list is young, yet, so let us proceed. Maybe she’ll hit me with a real head-scratcher with the next item on her list to be reckoned with…
3: Disenfranchisement
Once again, Christina begs her audience to be ignorant and not acknowledge the fact that her supposedly libertarian foes in these points are either just right-wing extremists who don’t actually represent libertarianism, or just entirely made out of straw. Here, she picks off various issues such as voter suppression and big money controlling politics, then she cites Republican politicians as her reason for blaming this stuff on the fiscally conservative, socially liberal crowd.
But why?
I can speak for only myself, here, but as a libertarian I certainly am not in favor of limiting voting power to the individual or rigging elections with rich highest bidders. In fact, I support efforts such as Wolf PAC, which fights to get money out of politics. Why wouldn’t Greta Christina just quote actual libertarians on these issues to better represent what we stand for? Well, frankly, because we might just end up agreeing with her, and she would have no case to make against our socioeconomic outlook. So instead, she frames Republicans as us and misrepresents our positions as a result. This is not only bad scholarship; it is nearing the realm of dishonesty.
4: Racist policing
Let me ask my dear readers a question: Where can you find the most comprehensive, extensive list of police misconduct cases on the internet today? At http://www.policemisconduct.net, of course. And who runs this project? Why, the libertarian CATO Institute – funded in no small part by those boogymen Koch Brothers.
Now, isn’t it interesting that we socially liberal, fiscally conservative types (many of us self-identitfying libertarians) seem to be among the most passionate anti-police misconduct/racist policing advocates, and yet Miss Christina avoids that fact entirely? In her version of things, police brutality just happens, and we fiscal conservatives are to blame:
“You know some of the programs that have been proposed to reduce racist policing? Programs like automatic video monitoring of police encounters? An independent federal agency to investigate and discipline local policing, to supplement or replace ineffective, corrupt, or non-existent self-policing? Those take money. Money that comes from taxes. Money that makes government a little bit bigger. Fiscal conservatism — the reflexive cry of “Lower taxes! Smaller government!” — contributes to racist policing. Even if you, personally, oppose racist policing, supporting fiscal conservatism makes you part of the problem.”
Seriously?
First of all, being fiscally conservative does not necessitate a belief that one must cut funding to absolutely everything, and strong cases for necessary goods remaining in place even if major tax reform occurred would surely result in many of the things Miss Christina talks about in her point being preserved. If one is socially liberal and also fiscally conservative, this simply means he might want to invest more of our existing tax dollars on these very things (like body cameras and the like) and not on wasteful, evil things like the illegal wars we wage on phantom enemies every few years. This does not require raising taxes, nor cutting them – it requires simply shifting the money to something more objectively useful. At that point, if any tax funding remains with no projects in which to invest, that will be the time to start considering cuts. Is Miss Christina truly incapable of wrapping her head around this? As if all libertarian types truly believe that absolutely no taxes should ever fund anything at all.
This is an absurd accusation, and does not line up with reality. While some anarchists might consider themselves libertarian, not all libertarians are necessarily anarchists. To conflate these two groups in order to make a shaky point about police brutality is wrong-headed and lazy, to say the least.
5: Drug policy and prison policy
Once more, a general overview is given of a very real crisis that plagues certain communities and corrupts certain systems, then an arbitrary connection made between that and libertarian-minded fiscal policy. And once again, this tactic shows its hairline fractures. I once wrote a paper in college all about how libertarian policies were in fact the most beneficial to oppressed minorities when it comes to issues such as social mobility, the criminal justice system, the drug wars, access to education, etc. As my exhibit, I utilized a bill that presidential candidate Rand Paul (one of those libertarian-leaning Republicans Christina doesn’t want you to know exist) wrote alongside Democrat Cory Booker with the express purpose of expunging the records of black and impoverished youth after being wrongfully imprisoned for victimless drug crimes. The bill was called the REDEEM Act, and it was absolutely libertarian through-and-through.
Sorry, Miss Christina, but once again your personal bias shows through anything else, and what remains is not a coherent debunking of the fiscally conservative, socially liberal position.
6 & 7: Deregulation and “Free” trade
This can really be classified as one big argument, since both points ultimately talk about the same thing – lack of regulation is bad for the market, and no market system is ever truly “free.”
This is patently absurd, but it can get a bit complex when trying to explain why. Therefore, I have chosen to focus on just one of many potential current affair issues that this can be applied to: healthcare.
Back in 2011, Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul sparred over whether or not healthcare should be viewed as a right. The video is linked conveniently below for your leisure:
Okay, so this really amounts to a difference of perspective and definitions between these two views. Sanders, like most modern liberals, seems to think there is something inherent in the goodness of humanity that should force the hand of the healthcare industry. That’s fine on a philosophical level, as Rand Paul already concedes as a physician himself.
The problem, however, comes from a couple of different points: one, what is being implicated when the word “healthcare” is used, and two, what is really responsible for the lack of access already seen.
When Rand Paul says everyone has access “healthcare,” he’s really talking about actual healthcare – albeit, as he admits, of varying quality when ERs and clinics are involved. When Bernie Sanders speaks of “healthcare access,” he’s really talking about access to healthcare insurance, and that the limited coverage of such is what causes so many Americans to receive either inferior or no care.
So, with those lines being drawn, why does Rand Paul say that seeing healthcare as a legally guaranteed right is the same difference as seeing all the laborers involved in the industry as slaves? Because as he says, forcing an individual of any profession to do whatever the state deems him to do is slavery to a certain degree, and most physicians truly want to help people anyway, so it’s not really a requirement to do so. But forcing doctors and hospitals to see every patient regardless of whether or not it can bring in money is at some point a problem – because, like it or not, hospitals still need money to stay alive.
Everybody deep down knows this, including Sanders – that’s why the politicians behind healthcare reform these days aren’t really trying to reform healthcare; they are trying to get more people covered by health insurance so that hospitals can still get their money and pay the bills, but more sick people can also get better quality care. Nothing wrong with that in theory, but there is one problem – the very entity seen as the savior in all of this (big government) is also a main culprit behind rising medical costs – and, subsequently, the need for insurance – in the first place.
There is something known as “Certificate-Of-Need” (CON) Regulation. It’s a government program that blocks competition between lucrative hospitals and other alternatives (home health care, smaller operations that have no friends in D.C., etc.) and allows the former party to monopolize the industry. Basically, its function was to allow the big greedy hospitals the autonomy to deem for themselves whether or not any competing entities were really “needed” in the surrounding district. In other words, if one hospital were already exchanging money and deals with its buddies in congress, then the reward would be the ability to legally obliterate any newcomers who could potentially steal away business (and profits).
Let me ask you in business terms: when you become the only game in town and you have successfully built a monopoly for yourself in any given market (always with govt’s help, btw), do you still care about competitive prices? Or, with no competition left, do you then factor in all conceivable costs of your operation, apply them to the prices of your goods, and then throw it all on the customer? Of course you do the latter. That’s why monopolies are evil things. Yet the very same government that is already helping the medical field turn into a greed-powered industry is now going to suddenly make things better by regulating even more?
Insurance companies certainly do take advantage of this crisis of rising cost (much like college tuition, needless government incentives have caused the cost to rise exponentially faster than inflation), but they are merely trying to do good business, and they are not the source of this problem. They are a red herring for Washington to point to because Washington doesn’t want to point to itself. And it’s more than just the CON regulation that has f*cked up medical costs in the U.S. – there are regulations that keep competition from happening within the medical insurance world, as well. For instance, Americans can’t have their pick of any insurance company – it has to be an insurance company that originated in their current state of residence. If you move between states and had great insurance rates before, you are forced to switch to the “best” insurance company of your new state, which could be significantly more expensive. Also, certain states impose weird mandates on their own insurance companies which then affect their costs needlessly.
There are a few good books that go well more into detail than I can here, but trust me when I say this information is easy to find once you know where to look – no thanks to the likes of Sanders.
So when Rand Paul says he doesn’t want to be enslaved, he’s speaking about how even more govt. regulation is very unlikely to solve a problem that was largely created by govt. regulation to begin with. It’s silly to keep trying the same course of action to “fix” something as what broke said thing in the first place. Competition allows for lowering of costs and the lessening of necessity for pricey insurance policies, then subsequent rise of options for the patient; regulation only leads to rising costs and monopolies. Historically, this has always been true, especially where the health industry is concerned. Rand Paul understands it. Dennis Kucinich even understands it. Bernie Sanders, as usual, parrots what the ignorant general public wants to hear.
So, does deregulation always amount to disaster? Of course not – sometimes it amounts to salvation. But again, Miss Christina has a bone to pick and an agenda to push. Therefore, in her article, regulation, just like all her other issues, are rendered as black-and-white.
Don’t, my fair-minded readers, be fooled.