Today’s Rant: Dismissing Small-Government Nonsense
May 22, 2010
You know, this country is turning right wing at a rapid pace. Or at least the politics is leading it in that direction. Why? Because our elected officials (cough Republicans cough) continue to play the fear card. A favored tactic is to say that Bill Y is a “government takeover of X.” They don’t even have to say “which is inherently a bad thing.” It’s implied, because everyone in their base has been brainwashed into having an instinctual aversion for the idea that some bureaucrat in Washington is going to suddenly and severely invade every aspect of their life. The main problem with these small government arguments is that they present a false dichotomy: of Government vs. Citizens.
In a monarchy, this dichotomy holds – the government consists of a ruler (and most likely noble class) which has responsibilities and priorities towards it’s citizens, but these are determined by the ruling class. In similar governments, like dictatorships, the social policies and institutions are likewise tuned to the aims of the leader, and not necessarily the aims of the citizenry as a whole.
But in a democracy, the government IS the citizens. I know this is a naive-sounding simplification, but if you believe in democracy then you implicitly accept that our elected officials are there to represent us in the business of governing the country. I know representative democracy does muddy this a little bit, but this is fundamentally about how democracy BY DESIGN eliminates the historical divide between the ruling class and the others. We, each American, are simultaneously in the ruling class (by proxy) as well as ordinary citizens. That’s the whole point.
Because of this fundamental democratic connections, it is foolish to paint government as an enemy of the people by default. It’s true that there is no small risk of corruption, inefficiencies, mistakes, and other problems, but those are inherent risks run by a system where anybody can be president. And admittedly, the risks are far greater when anyone with a huge amount of money can become President.
My point is, the only way to have a sane discussion about implementing social programs is whether we think that it is better left to private industry or to us. When people say “I’m against government-run healthcare” what they are effectively saying is, “I don’t want to be in control of my own healthcare. I don’t want an agency, created by me and only looking out for my best interests, in control of getting me the care I need. I don’t want a system that operates at a fraction of the overhead because their only goal is to efficiently dispense claims. What I want is a for-profit corporation to take my money, deny my claims, drop my coverage, and just generally fuck me around because god damn it, this is the United States of America!
People who are against government are such cowards. They have no understanding of any of the issues surrounding democracy, or even shed a single thought as to what it being a citizen of a democracy actually entails. They are certainly right to be wary of excessive government, but as citizens it is our duty to create a system where those things are minimized because WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. All right-wingers want is a king to tell them what’s what, so they can just align themselves with the leader and collapse the difficult process of improving government into a simple, emotional jingoistic loyalty to a person. Think Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh. Like moths to a flame, these personalities gather fanatical followers because they appeal to people who don’t understand the actual issues on a purely emotional level. It’s less about what they say (much of which is pure nonsense) and more about how they say it. Some people have been, and still are, guilty of this with Barack Obama. (He’s a great speaker isn’t he… So it’s not even just on the right. Eep!) Sometimes I think this business of self-governance is so far beyond the average American’s imagination that they don’t even understand it.
And sometimes, in the dark of night, thinking about the millions of barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf, I crave, in the recesses of my soul, a philosopher-king.
Man this democracy thing can be tough sometimes.
