by Libby Sternberg
As noted previously, the mainstream press is dominated by liberals, or at least by journalists sympathetic to liberal talking points. So it often surprises me when a major mainstream news source actually does render a dispassionate, nonpartisan take on a political story. Such is the case with the Associated Press, which offers a "fact check" of President Barack Obama's press conference yesterday in which he complained of Republican opposition to everything in his jobs bill and touted previous bipartisan support for ideas he's offering. Hint: both claims are not true. Read the full article here.
Back to Elizabeth Warren, who is trying to win the Democratic Senatorial primary in Massachusetts so she can challenge incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown for the seat. Ms. Warren made a statement recently that flew around social media and leftwing blogs like, well, a viral post. The original statement can be found in this previous post (along with a parody of the remarks). To summarize: she believes no one in America achieves anything without the help of government-funded programs, which she calls the "social contract."
Conservative columnist George Will demolishes her argument in a very thoughtful, well-reasoned column here. My fave line: using a William F. Buckley quote, Mr. Will likens Ms. Warren to a "pyromaniac in a field of straw men."
All Elizabeth Warren said essentially boils down to the fact that we need taxes to keep a society functioning. Nothing really controversial in her remarks.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact, I can see a Republican making the same argument thirty-forty years ago.
Nothing in her comment suggests that she is talking about confiscation of all wealth, etc. She is simply stating that you cannot pretend that you got rich on your own and that you don't have a responsibility to give back.
C. Risque -- may I call you C? I feel we've reached that point.
ReplyDeleteDid you actually read Mr. Will's piece? I mean read it thoughtfully?
Taxes = confiscation. We, through our elections, decide who will determine how much should be confiscated. Ms. Warren doesn't suggest all of it should be confiscated in her remarks, but neither does Mr. Will say she thinks "all" of it should be confiscated. He merely points out that, taking her "responsibility to give back" (as you put it) argument to its logical conclusion, society has more claim on the fruits of an individual's labor than the individual him/herself.
In case you don't remember it, let me paste below the end of Mr. Will's column, which I think sums things up nicely:
Warren’s emphatic assertion of the unremarkable — that the individual depends on cooperative behaviors by others — misses this point: It is conservatism, not liberalism, that takes society seriously. Liberalism preaches confident social engineering by the regulatory state. Conservatism urges government humility in the face of society’s creative complexity.
Society — hundreds of millions of people making billions of decisions daily — is a marvel of spontaneous order among individuals in voluntary cooperation. Government facilitates this cooperation with roads, schools, police, etc. — and by getting out of its way. This is a sensible, dynamic, prosperous society’s “underlying social contract.”
C is fine, if you prefer.
ReplyDeleteI read Mr. Will's piece. He is taking her position and making it sound like Elizabeth Warren is advocating communism.
As for this:
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Taxes = confiscation. We, through our elections, decide who will determine how much should be confiscated. Ms. Warren doesn't suggest all of it should be confiscated in her remarks, but neither does Mr. Will say she thinks "all" of it should be confiscated. He merely points out that, taking her "responsibility to give back" (as you put it) argument to its logical conclusion, society has more claim on the fruits of an individual's labor than the individual him/herself.
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Yes, through elections, we decide how much we want on taxes, but we also decide much more, such as our commitments to each other, the defense of this nation, and the general direction of the future of this country.
Everyone wants to pay zero in taxes. We get that.
But we also want to make sure seniors don't go hungry, our children are educated, our roads are built, general services are taken care of, etc. etc.
All of this plus simple oversight so that company A. doesn't perform shady nonsense to unsuspecting people or that company B. doesn't put toxic sludge in our water, for example.
THAT's what Elizabeth Warren was talking about. The rich sure don't care either way what happens.
You write: I read Mr. Will's piece. He is taking her position and making it sound like Elizabeth Warren is advocating communism.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he went that far, but he did, as I said, try to take her argument to its logical conclusion, which is a philosophy that places more emphasis on collective achievement than individual achievement, or that believes no individual achieves great things without the general help of society through government-funded programs.
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You write:
Yes, through elections, we decide how much we want on taxes, but we also decide much more, such as our commitments to each other, the defense of this nation, and the general direction of the future of this country.
Unless you are talking about merely passing resolutions saying we support "much more, such as our commitments to each other, the defense of this nation, and the general direction of the future of this country," most, if not all, government commitments require financial backing, the money for which is raised through ...taxes. Taxation is the vehicle through which we express which commitments are our priorities. That's why tax policy -- how much we need to raise and how we raise it -- is so contentious. It really is a debate over how much government we want and what we want it to do.
As a conservative, I believe in small government, a government that, for the most part, does only what we can't do for ourselves or do so well for ourselves. So, national defense should be the priority of government, the foundation of the "social contract" -- that we protect our society and its freedom-loving values against repressive regimes. There are many more government functions I agree with, as well.
Just as Elizabeth Warren's strong belief in the value of the "social contract" doesn't make her a communist, my limited government values don't make me someone who wants to abolish regulations, Social Security, Medicare or other government programs. I might not agree with how they are run. I might think they should be changed to ensure their effectiveness and duration, but I'm not a no-government anarchist or a very, very-limited government libertarian. That's why this blog is called "Center Right Side."
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You write: Everyone wants to pay zero in taxes. We get that.
Who is this "we" of which you speak?
Anyway, I think a more accurate generalization here would be: No one wants to pay taxes they deem too high for projects they might judge as unnecessary or well-intentioned but ultimately harmful.
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You write: But we also want to make sure seniors don't go hungry, our children are educated, our roads are built, general services are taken care of, etc. etc.
I agree with your statement. I suspect where we disagree is on the details. I do not think our current federal spending ensures that "our children are educated," for example, but not because of lack of money.
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You write: All of this plus simple oversight so that company A. doesn't perform shady nonsense to unsuspecting people or that company B. doesn't put toxic sludge in our water, for example.
I agree with that, too. As I pointed out above, that's why this blog is "Center Right" and not, oh, "Libertarian Central!"
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You write: THAT's what Elizabeth Warren was talking about. The rich sure don't care either way what happens.
I'm unwilling to say what "the rich" care about (or don't care about). Although that social strata is not my milieu, I have read articles about many who care about the poor, who invest time and money into social programs, who work very hard to improve their neighbors' lives.
So in reality, you don't disagree with what Elizabeth Warren said. Let's look at the text of her remark, along with edits from either what you wrote or my thoughts:
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Warren: I hear all this, you know, "Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever." No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.
Nothing controversial here. This is a fundamentail truth. Even George Will said this: “Everyone, knows that all striving occurs in a social context, so all attainments are conditioned by their context.”
In short, nothing happens in a void.
Elizabeth Warren: You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.
Again, nothing false. Everyone in your locality pays for the roads and everyone benefits. Same goes with education and the enforcement of regulations. A gasline didn't explode randomly when you turned your stove on, did it? Electricity comes in via a safe standard in your house, right? All regulations. And that's all Elizabeth Warren said.
Elizabeth Warren: You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
You 100% agreed with her here, by saying: So, national defense should be the priority of government, the foundation of the "social contract" -- that we protect our society and its freedom-loving values against repressive regimes.
Elizabeth Warren: Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea—god bless. Keep a big hunk of it.
Would you look at that. Looks like George Will, who you quoted, took her completely out of context. She actually says you can keep a lot of the money you made. Nothing about how all of the money belongs to the system, etc.
Elizabeth Warren: But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
Again, nothing controversial. You benefited? Now your work needs to help benefit.
So, what exactly do you disagree with?
Seems like a lot of people tried hard to erect a strawman over something that is self-evidentely true.
Care to change your remarks?
I will respond to the rest of your comments, but we need to get this out of the way first.
Ms. Warren's use of the phrase "you get to keep a big hunk of it" is telling. It's a nuanced point, but for those of us on the center right, it reads like a collectivist approach to earnings and taxation -- it's the government's money before it's your money.
ReplyDeleteAs to the rest of it, sorry, I'm not going to do a line-by-line analysis with you because the major point she makes is moot -- if everyone benefits from the "social contract" that provides roads, police, schools and defense, then everyone has the ability to become wealthy. But everyone doesn't. The strivers do. And a large portion of their success comes from their own hard work, intelligence and, often, a dose of good luck. They don't become successes, in other words, because of the various public projects she mentions. In fact, some of them might have contributed more to those projects (through higher taxation, military service in their families or their own service, etc.) than others less successful than they are.
As I said, her point is kind of, well, pointless. If she's saying we all need to pay taxes, well, yes. That's obvious. But liberals seem to be using her rant as a way to expose conservatives as hypocrites who use public services yet rage against the government. No, she might be exposing libertarians or even anarchists (who don't want any government) as hypocrites, but not conservatives.
That's why the "pyromaniac in a field of straw men" is so apt.
First, I will be the first to say that I hope this was an informative discussion for both of us. It is for me.
ReplyDeleteNow, you said: Ms. Warren's use of the phrase "you get to keep a big hunk of it" is telling. It's a nuanced point, but for those of us on the center right, it reads like a collectivist approach to earnings and taxation -- it's the government's money before it's your money.
I would say you are reading way too much into that wording. Whether you say it is your money and we are using a part of your money to help fund the government or if you say it is the government's money and you get to keep a large part of it because you earned it; the end effect is the same.
It's making a big contention out of nothing, in my mind.
You also said: As to the rest of it, sorry, I'm not going to do a line-by-line analysis with you because the major point she makes is moot -- if everyone benefits from the "social contract" that provides roads, police, schools and defense, then everyone has the ability to become wealthy. But everyone doesn't. The strivers do. And a large portion of their success comes from their own hard work, intelligence and, often, a dose of good luck. They don't become successes, in other words, because of the various public projects she mentions. In fact, some of them might have contributed more to those projects (through higher taxation, military service in their families or their own service, etc.) than others less successful than they are.
There are folk who work harder than others, but there are people who also are held back more than others. How can person A compete with person B when person B has regulations, taxes, services, etc. tilted in their favor? The answer is that it is darn near impossible.
Coming back to the Occupy Wall Street protesters, say there is ONE person there who we can verify that achieved a 4.0 GPA, worked two jobs, etc. for their degree and accumulated well over $100,000 in debt. Did that person not strive and worked hard for success, yet was denied because factors beyond their control was rigged against them?
This is the crux of the protest, by the way. Not a handout/bailout. Just that we have a fair starting line.
Lastly, you said: As I said, her point is kind of, well, pointless. If she's saying we all need to pay taxes, well, yes. That's obvious. But liberals seem to be using her rant as a way to expose conservatives as hypocrites who use public services yet rage against the government. No, she might be exposing libertarians or even anarchists (who don't want any government) as hypocrites, but not conservatives.
That's why the "pyromaniac in a field of straw men" is so apt.
Well, you are conflating what she said and how liberals took it. She didn't say anything about what conservatives/libertarians believe. Your issue seems to be how liberals interpreted her remarks. So, she didn't really introduce any strawman.
Rather, other people tacked it on.
We're not going to agree on this Warren piece at all, I can see. I disagree with your assessment of how liberals have been using it, and I've read a fair bit of reactions to it.
ReplyDeleteI must comment on this, however:
Coming back to the Occupy Wall Street protesters, say there is ONE person there who we can verify that achieved a 4.0 GPA, worked two jobs, etc. for their degree and accumulated well over $100,000 in debt. Did that person not strive and worked hard for success, yet was denied because factors beyond their control was rigged against them?
This is the crux of the protest, by the way. Not a handout/bailout. Just that we have a fair starting line.
Sure, they worked hard. But why'd they take on the debt? Why'd they think that racking up 100k of debt was a good idea?
Look, I'm not unsympathetic to those in debt -- we all carry some debt, and it causes worry and stress.
But I know plenty of kids who came out of college without debt or with a smaller debt because of smart choices -- for example, choosing to go to their second or third choice institution because it offered a better scholarship deal.
As to "Person B" having things tilted in his/her favor? I'm all for getting rid of favored status, uh, such as the crony capitalism type of deals that led to the Solyndra funding.