April 25, 2005
The “Protectors of the Weak” fallacy
If you look at the conventional wisdom about the right and left, the left is the party of the weak and powerless, and the right is the party of the corporations and well-connected. I’ve always thought that this is nothing more than a big, steaming pile of BS. I personally believe that everyone, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, wants to set up a world that helps everyone as much as possible. In my post about wealth creation, I laid out my reasons for believing that free-market economics will bring that world about. And I’ve often mentioned that libertarians are not against helping others with charity, it is that we are against being coerced to do so.
But Scott Scheule posted, in a gripe about one of his leftist law professors, about how the idea that the left is the party of the weak assumes that the right is a bunch of cold-heartless bastards. And that is as insulting as it is untrue:
2. Liberals as the guardians of the weak.
I resent Peller’s implication that liberals are the only ones who care about the poor. Granted, he never stated as much, but phrases like: “If you’re a liberal or progressive and want to protect the powerless then…” clearly imply it, indirectly or no. Why qualify the statement? Why not the simple: “If you want to protect the powerless…”?
So fuck you.
Friday, Rush Limbaugh, the most heartless of the conservatives, held his annual telethon for leukemia. He personally donated $300,000 to leukemia research, and solicited God knows how much more.
Perhaps the reason conservatives constantly rebut: “If you instate a minimum wage, you’ll hurt the very people you mean to help.” is not because we are evil people, willing to do whatever possible to bolster the rich, but rather because it’s true. You will hurt the people you mean to protect (taking full note of Kennedy’s assertion to the contrary: the elasticities of the supply and demand curves only predict how much you will hurt the buyers and how much you will hurt the sellers; it remains inescapable that a minimum wage will create unemployment amongst the most destitute. The only question is how much.)
And maybe conservatives care about those people, too. I certainly do.
Conservatives protest outside of abortion clinics–leaving to the side whether or not the act is murder–conservatives believe it is (and I freely admit I agree). And they sit out there protesting, protecting those they see as the most innocent and helpless amongst us.
The libertarian public interest group, the Equal Justice Foundation, is funding an attack on this country’s eminent domain jurisprudence. They are trying to protect the most powerless from the State.
So fuck you. The leftists have no monopoly on kindness and charity, and damn whoever implies otherwise. You think my heart doesn’t ache when I pass homeless shelters? You blame capitalism, and I blame federal regulation. One of us is wrong–but we both care.
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Brad, It’s frustrating isn’t it. Lucy Stern
I have absolutely no doubt that there are many conservatives/right-wingers who are genuinely interested in helping people. I engage in discussions with a lot of people on the other side of the fence, including you Brad, and frankly I wouldn’t do so if I thought you were just a bastard who didn’t care about anybody. We can both agree on what a desirable result would be (e.g., the elimination of poverty) and disagree about the best means to that end (e.g., you might say free markets, I might say socialsim). What’s good about this is that we are not fundamentally at odds; if one of us did manage to convince the other regarding the best means to our shared end, we would immediately cease to have any disagreement.
One thing I would point out, though, is that the CW that says that liberals/progressives are the only ones that care about the ‘underdog’ can’t be entirely laid at the feet of biased left-wingers who think all conservatives are evil. There are some conservatives who contribute to this image themselves.
For instance, there are some conservatives, like this guy, who really don’t seem to give a shit.
But more importantly, the most prominent conservatives, the people who, for better or for worse, are the public face of conservativism, are often people who either seem to be hostile to the ‘underdogs’ of the world are just indifferent. Scott talks about Rush giving money to charity, but how often does Rush talk about the poor on his show? How often does he exhort his listeners to give to the needy? I’m sure he’s done this on occassion, but there’s no denying that in general Rush simply doesn’t have much to say in defense of the underdog.
In fact, many conservatives seem to have made it their mission to act as advocates for the ‘overdogs’ (or whatever the opposite of underdog is)–e.g., people like Ann Coulter or Rush’s brother or Bill O’Reilly who spend most of their energy defending white people, Christians, Americans, etc.–i.e., not the people ‘on the bottom.’
Now, this doesn’t mean there’s anything intrinsic about conservativism as such that makes one indifferent or hostile to the plight of the poor; Scott has a point there. But if conservatives don’t want to be seen this way, one thing to do would be to affect a ‘regime change’ among the right-wing media elite. Because Ann Coulter simply does not give a shit about poor people or minorities. It’s not because she’s a conservative; it’s just because she’s an evil bitch. But when you’ve got an evil bitch as your public spokesperson, it’s not too surprising that some people will get the idea that evilness is what the movement is all about.
Ann Coulter is our public spokesperson? Just like Michael “The Whale” Moore is yours, right?
Seriously, Rush Limbaugh, I’ll give you that. Hannity, sure. O’Reilly is right of center, but I wouldn’t call him hardcore right-winger. But Coulter? Somehow it seems the only people who don’t know that she’s not to be taken seriously are the left…
I do see your point though, too often our parties are identified by the worst among us. Largely, that’s because (like Coulter and Moore) they’re the loudest and most brash. How to fix it? I only hope that the blogosphere can bring back the actual exchange of ideas, but I’m not so sure.
Well, yeah, like it or not, Moore is the face of contemporary American leftism. And believe me, I’d love not to take Coulter seriously, but people listen to her, people buy her b.s. I mean, the fact that she was on the cover of Time alone is reason enough to worry about her, so to speak.
As for the blogosphere being an improvement: it has to be better suited to substantive discourse than television is. Without television, you and I have never even heard of Ann Coulter.