The Conservative Reality

It's easy to talk about concepts and ideas, and easy to make arguments about hypotheticals and statistics. What's harder is understanding reality and empathizing with people who are different than you. As a well-educated white man in America, when I hear political discussions amongst my peers I too often hear a pseudo-academic sheen applied to what conservatism means and where its heart lies. For 'conservative' in this sense, I'm talking about the Republican Party, both in its official capacity and in the minds of the members of the party who support its positions, as demonstrated in their policy positions and arguments. They are heartless.

The general arguments on welfare are a clear example. The conservative position is that welfare only breeds more welfare, that people become dependent upon the government, and that the free market is the solution to any economic ills (this last is the favorite of those with a libertarian bent). So when they talk about the poor they see no need for the government to help (no food stamps, no medicaid, no Planned Parenthood, no after-school programs, no decent education). But instead of The Poor, lets look at one poor young woman. What about her? Well, if that girl ends up pregnant, she made a bad choice and needs to take responsibility for herself. If she has to drop out of school to care for her baby, she just needs to work hard. If she can't get a decent job without education, she needs to educate herself, if her job doesn't pay well or provide time off to care for a sick child, she should find a better job. If she ends up on drugs, if she has overwhelming medical bills, if she feels nothing but despair and hopelessness that is evidence of her poor moral character. The conservative view is that we all have opportunities (whether or not they are all equal), and we all need to make the best of our situation regardless of how difficult it might be. The government's role is not to help out.

Let's accept that for the moment. Let's put aside the government assistance that small businesses gladly welcome in the form of government loans and grants, let's put aside the corporate welfare that allows many of the largest companies in this country to avoid paying any taxes, let's put aside the great respect conservatives show the millionaires who have inherited their wealth. Let's admit that the young woman made some bad choices. She shouldn't have gotten pregnant in high school. She should have taken better care of her health and worked harder to educate herself. She certainly shouldn't have tried drugs. Maybe she could indeed have become a better person. But she didn't. She should face the consequences of her actions.

In the free market utopia of conservatives, what are those consequences? First, there shouldn't be any minimum wage, so an uneducated person who needs to care for a child has no right to expect a well-paying job. If healthcare is strictly for-profit she certainly can't expect any healthcare she can't pay for (which means cancer is a death sentence and a moderate car accident would put her in debt for the rest of her life). If she can't afford food then she will have to go hungry. If she can't afford rent, she will be homeless (but not in my neighborhood - that's a crime in these parts). Sure, she will be miserable, but that's what happens to those who can't compete in a market-place world. It's the only thing that encourages people to work hard - she serves as an example for everyone else to avoid.

That young woman brought the misery on herself and it simply isn't the government's role to ameliorate it in any way. But what about her son?

This is where the religious-cum-libertarian bent of the American conservatives really fails humanity. First, that child must live because to terminate any pregnancy is not allowed. If the mother can't take care of the child they can give it up for adoption (of course, that will probably mean foster care, which is heavily government subsidized, so we really shouldn't allow that either). Either way, that child won't have a true family to support him. He won't have a mother who can nourish him because she can't feed herself. The child won't have a roof over his head or be able to receive medical care. He won't be educated because public education is not capitalism. He will suffer in misery that is every bit as bad as his mothers but he will have had no choice in the matter - until he grows into an adult. If he manages to survive that long, then he will be expected to make good choices, to have educated himself along to way to find a decent job, to work hard and contribute to society in spite of all the suffering his life has entailed. And if he fails, if he repeats his mother's mistakes and becomes a burden upon the good folk of the world, that will be his failing, his poor decisions and our government bears no responsibility to help him in any way.

People do make bad choices, even those who have every advantage and plenty of opportunity to make good choices. but even those people do not deserve unlimited suffering. And those who never had a chance, who face harder choices every day than those who have the luxury to sit and pontificate about the nature of political philosophy, they deserve a safety net. We have the capabilities as a society to eliminate extreme suffering among all our people, even those who may deserve it. To choose not to do so in the name of some abstract concept of an economic system whose practical failings are numerous and obvious is disgraceful.

We can afford to educate everyone. We can afford to offer everyone healthcare. We can food, clothe, and house all our peoples. Many comparable societies in the world have shown us how it can be done. We can even do all of that while running a market-based economy that allows for competition and innovation. It's a little harder to do all that while spending ten times more money on defense spending than any other nation on the planet, but it would still be possible. But first, we need to show humanity and compassion, and we need to do it through the representation of ourselves that is our government. We need to choose who we want to be and how we want to treat each other. Not as class segments, not as statistics or demographics. But as people. One person to another. That is the philosophy that should guide a government. From there it is free to use data analytics, to use market-based forces to figure out solutions to the problems of society. But no one deserves misery. Not that young woman. Not her child. No one.