I recently reconnected with an old friend. It says right on his facebook page that he is a republican christian. So after the obligatory whats-gone-on-in-your-life-over-the-past-five-years exchange, I asked him what being a republican means to him. I meet very few republicans, you see.
His answer was brief and mostly about taxes, corporations and entitlements (I won't get into the details without his permission). And then he asked me what I mean when I say I am a liberal. My response is below the fold.
I called myself a liberal, but it’s probably not the best fit as liberals are too far right for me. I’m probably more accurately termed a liberal progressive. As in I want to progress towards liberty.
I believe with my whole heart that every person should have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And sadly, I think this country has traveled far afield of that affirmation. I think that having a free and open market is one of the best ways to actually obtain these things for people. However, I believe that most capitalists don’t agree with me about what a free and open market really is. Free and open means to me that anyone can start any business and the market can decide what succeeds and what does not. Our system is not set up to provide for this, and no amount of deregulating corporations, or lightening their already measly tax obligations is going to make that happen.
We are one of the only industrialized nations where our workforce comes out of college so massively in debt that they must work for corporate America to pay off that debt. They need to get a job to pay the debt for the education they needed to get the job. I can’t think of a better way to squash entrepreneurism that making sure we don’t have entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurs are a key to a free market.
Corporations have a monopoly on everything and the individually owned business does not stand a chance. We have set up a system where you either work for corporate America, or youre fucked. No health care for you if you don’t! and no paying off those student loans either.
I do not believe that health care and education should be on the free market. I believe these are two of the cornerstones of freedom. We stated so long ago that our people would have the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is the compact we made when we formed.
However, you can’t have those rights without education and healthcare. And, currently, you can’t have education and healthcare without giving up those rights. We have created a system wherein people MUST work for corporations to be guaranteed those things. Sure, you can get them without working for a corporation, sometimes, if you are lucky and born wealthy. I think we should be guaranteed those things by virtue of being human beings.
I think corporations should have to pay MORE taxes, in actuality. With all of the progress in technology over the past three decades productivity and profit has gone up, but wages have not, and time off has not. I can do the same amount of work in 40 hours now as I could in 80 hours 10 years ago. Am I getting paid double? No. Am I getting more time off? No. Wages have been stagnant for decades. I am producing way more, and getting no compensation for that. Neither are any of the workers of America. The corporations are reaping in all the profits for it, and leaving us high and dry.
So I think it is only fair that the corporations which make their massive profits off of my labors have to pay taxes at a higher rate than they currently do (and in some cases, none of these places are really paying taxes) to provide the social framework that is needed to give every American the rights to Life, Liberty and the POH. I fear that America is turning into the white collar wage slave nation, much as India turned into the call center wage slave nation. Multinational companies give their European employees much more paid time off than their employees in America. Why? Two reasons, one in Europe health benefits are not provided solely through work, so they can afford to. Two, they are required to by law.
The world has changed a lot in the past 200 years and it is time for a new compact. Instead of this "taxes for security" thing that we are trying to cling to.... I want the world to recognize that governments are merely the middleman between corporations and people. I want my compact with the government to be that in exchange for my labors, in exchange for the population offering up its fathers, sons and brothers to be the boots on the ground, in exchange for all of my contributions, they will ensure that corporations do not stomp on my rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by profiteering off of health care and education. That corporations need to pay you for what you produce, not how many hours you put into it. That corporations need to pay more taxes as a way to compensate an entire nation for its contributions to their profit margins. Those taxes should be used for things like healthcare, and college, and roads, and the Army Corps of Engineers.
As far as entitlement programs, I am not sure they are easy to game at all. In fact, I think they are damn near impossible to leverage in any way. My mother, who is 55 and now unemployed, is now living with me. She applied for Medicaid and foodstamps and was denied. The woman’s income is less than 10k a year. So I moved her in with me. What kind of sick place are we living in where a woman can work and pay taxes her whole life and then when the economy tanks as a direct result of the actions of corporations (who really are the ones running this country), she is left high and dry, depending on the kindness of those around her?
When Katrina hit, who saved everybody in those first few days? The government? No...regular people. Who continues to provide the most assistance to our needy? Charity does. If floods come to Illinois, who is going to helicopter me and my family out? I’d put it at 50/50 that it would be the government, rather than a neighbor. Everything we should be able to count on government for, they have failed at. And we are starting, as a nation, to count on each other more and more each day for survival.
I am more pro-life than any conservative you will ever meet, I just define it differently. To me, pro-life means people are free to live their lives as they will. Without stomping on the rights of others of course. And I do not consider a bundle of cells residing in a womb to be life, by the way. I think being pro-life in the common vernacular (ie pro-birth) does nothing but restrict rights for half of our population. And I refer to it as pro birth because typically those who are pro life don’t give a damn about what kind of poverty an unplanned baby may be subjected to. They don’t give a damn about what kind of life our sick, our disabled and our poor might be living. As long as they push for abortion to be illegal they can tell themselves they value life. However, their actions speak otherwise to me.
So as far as being a liberal, I think it means I want liberty. I want Americans to claw their way out of the indentured servitude of wage slavery they have been tricked into. I want people to stop with their TVs and Cars and Insurance and Houses and Hot Button Issues and Stuff and look around at the deal we have made and ask themselves if this is truly acceptable to them.