The Story of an Angry Voter

[Richard]

Something well worth pondering during this election cycle...

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

The Story of an Angry Voter
David Brooks, NYT, 20 May 2010

Let’s imagine a character named Ben. A couple of decades ago, Ben went to high school.

It wasn’t easy. His parents were splitting up. His friends would cut class to smoke weed. His sister got pregnant. But Ben worked hard and graduated with decent grades and then studied at East Stroudsburg University and the University of Phoenix.

That wasn’t easy either. Ben would like to have majored in history, but he needed a skill so he studied hotel management. Others spent their college years partying, but Ben worked hard. After graduation, he got a job with a hotel chain. A few years later, he got a different job and then a different one.

He didn’t have lifetime security or a fabulous salary, but Ben worked. He filled in for the night manager, hired staff and cleaned up the breakfast area when that needed doing.

In other words, in school, he labored when others didn’t. At work, he sacrificed when others didn’t. He bought a house he could afford when others didn’t.

This wasn’t a robotic suburban life. It was a satisfying, moral way of living. Ben lived according to an ethos of what you might call “earned success.” Arthur Brooks has a good description of this ethos in his new book “The Battle.” As Brooks (no relation) observes, the key to happiness is not being rich; it’s doing something arduous and creating something of value and then being able to reflect on the fruits of your labor.

For Ben, right and wrong is contained in the relationship between effort and reward. If people do not work but get rewarded, that’s wrong. If people work and do not get rewarded, that’s wrong. But Ben believed that America is fundamentally a just society. He loved his country because people who work hard can usually overcome whatever unfairness is thrust in their way.

But when Ben looked at Washington, he saw a political system that undermined the relationship between effort and reward. People in Washington spent money they didn’t have. They just borrowed it from the Chinese. People in Washington taxed those with responsible homes to bail out people who’d bought homes they couldn’t afford.

People in Congress were caught up in a spoils system in which money was taken from those who worked and given to those with connections. Money was taken from those who produced and used to bail out the reckless, who were supposedly too big to fail.

This was an affront to the core values of Ben’s life.

Once there was a group in the political center that would have understood Ben’s outrage. Moderates like Abraham Lincoln believed in the free labor ideology. Their entire governing system was built around encouraging labor and rewarding labor.

But these days, the political center is a feckless shell. It has no governing philosophy. Its paragons seem from the outside opportunistic, like Arlen Specter, or caught in some wishy-washy middle, like Blanche Lincoln. The right and left have organized, but the center hasn’t bothered to. The right and left have media outlets and think tanks, but the centrists are content to complain about polarization and go home. By their genteel passivity, moderates have ceded power to the extremes.

So when Ben looked around for leaders who might understand his outrage, he only found them among the ideological hard-liners. In Arkansas, he saw a MoveOn candidate, Bill Halter, crusading against the bailouts and the spoils culture. On the right, he saw the Tea Party candidate Rand Paul crusading against runaway spending and debt.

Ben wasn’t naturally an extremist sort of guy. He didn’t live his life for politics or go in for the over-the-top stuff he heard on talk radio. But he did have some sense that the American work ethic was being threatened by debt and decadence.

It was going to take spit and vinegar to turn things around. So he voted for one of the outsiders. This is not time for a tinkerer, he figured. It’s time for a demolition man.

In a few years’ time, Ben is going to be disappointed again. He’s going to find that the outsiders he sent to Washington just screamed at each other at ever higher decibels. He’s going to find that he and voters like him unwittingly created a political culture in which compromise is impermissible, in which institutions are decimated by lone-wolf narcissists who have no interest in or talent for crafting legislation. Nothing will get done.

In a few years’ time, Ben is going to look for something else. It will be interesting to see if, by that time, any moderates have had the foresight and energy to revive and define the free labor tradition — a tradition that uses government to encourage work, to reward work, and to uphold the values at the core of Ben’s life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/op...me&ref=general

[Paslode]

Good read sir, thanks for posting it.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Richard

....... This is he and voters like him unwittingly created a political culture in which compromise is impermissible,.....

I completely disagree with the story based on the one above line.

Compromise on a sack of crap bill is getting 1/2 sack of crap.

Time to stop loading your crap into the sack and giving us a full sack of crap just so you can say you compromised.

[JJ_BPK]

Thanks Richard..

I fear the intended target audience for Mr Brooks (does his wife teach) will not read nor be enlightened by his prose.

They will become disenchanted, disillusioned, and disenfranchised.

They will slowly and inevitably sink into the morass along with those that are feverishly entrenched in the Faith of the Rite-Now Rite-Here I-Want-Mine Entitlement Church...

The Left-Honorable Reverend for Life,, BHO in the pulpit, with assorted and back-up TelePrompTers..

My $00.0002,, and not in the basket,, yet...

[Peregrino]

Nice that the NYT which has worked so dilligently to create the current conditions should now bitch about the inevitable results. And no - I'm not interested in compromise either.

[greenberetTFS]

WTF, Compromise is not a word in my vocabulary.............

Big Teddy

[Richard]

Historically - this democratic Republic was formed and has flourished beyond expectation through compromise, and I think Mr Brooks offers a valid bit of insight into the potential dangers of a willingness to haphazardly abandon that important concept in a short-sighted pique of anger.

Personally, however, I also feel a compromise can be wrong when it means sacrificing a principle - something Mr Brooks' OpEd piece doesn't address and something I think many of us perceive has been happening with our elected representatives and political leadership all too frequently of late.

As for those who staunchly proclaim their disinterest in or unwillingness to compromise - are you married? Ever raised children? Because if you are - or just happen to live on this planet - compromise is a definite part of your vocabulary.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by Richard

Personally, however, I also feel a compromise can be wrong when it means sacrificing a principle - something Mr Brooks' OpEd piece doesn't address and something I think many of us perceive has been happening with our elected representatives and political leadership all too frequently of late.

We agree on the point of principle. Unfortunately (for the NYT OPED), most of MY principles are grounded on the Republic and its Ideals, a position diametrically opposed to the Liberal/Progressive agenda. I will not compromise them.

And if more parents had "line in the sand" principles they were willing to instill in their children, most of the Lib/Prog BS agenda would be irrelevant and ignored for the drivel it is.

My .02

[Richard]

And if more parents had "line in the sand" principles they were willing to instill in their children, most of the Lib/Prog BS agenda would be irrelevant and ignored for the drivel it is.

You mean like Jerry Kane who instilled his 'parental principles' in his son and claims his son has never attended school in his life?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgASUudIblA

Richard

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Richard

Historically - this democratic Republic was formed and has flourished beyond expectation through compromise, ............

And that "compromise" is going to get us over 300 tag-ons to the Senate Finance Reform Bill. Almost all having nothing to do with Finance - but hey, a little compromise and some more pork is oinked out.

Just say "NO".

[Richard]

Well - there's compromise and then there is pork - all pork is compromise but not all compromise is pork...nor should it be.

The bath water is dirty and needs to be thrown out - but, personally, I do not advocate throwing the baby out with it.

However...YMMV...

Richard's $.02

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Richard

Well - there's compromise and then there is pork -............................

Where does compromise on 100 guns bills get you? No guns.

Compromise is a death of a thousand cuts.

A bad bill does not get better through compromise.

Time to just say "NO"

Congress is so wrapped up in screwing us with compromises they seem to be failing on their job of producing a budget.

So the massive "wrap it up all in one bill" will have something for all politicians and plenty of red ink for the tax payer to try and cover.

[nmap]

Let us consider the health care bill.

Was this an example of compromise? It seemed to me that one side jammed it down the throats of those that didn't want it - and then dared them to try to repeal it.

Were the contents examples of compromise? The bill, among so many things, has a new requirement for businesses that changes filing requirements with the IRS. It's a big issue - and no one seems willing to say who put it in the bill. LINK.

And then there's the Salami Technique. LINK. One gets the other side to give a little on many points, over time, and thus wins big.

We see this with gun laws. With privacy. With taxation. With fundamental issues of life and liberty. Each small increment is accepted in the spirit of getting along, of letting everyone win a little - of compromise. We continue to compromise until we are undone.

Good as the original post is, the author of the editorial fails to see what Ben will experience, what the wages of his reasonable behavior and compromise might be. His savings and earnings have already been devastated by inflation. The current profligate spending will extract its costs from those who generate wage-based income, but lack the legal and accounting help to mitigate the the costs - in other words, Ben gets the bill. Ben can expect the Social Security payment he was promised to be sliced. The Medicare he was promised will be diced. And his retirement savings that he invested - whether in stocks, bonds, or rental properties - will be both sliced and diced. Ben will have worked his entire life and he will wind up with nothing. There are lots of Bens out there.

Does Ben even get any thanks? No. Look carefully at Ben and his kind as they are depicted in literature, film, and on television. They are buffoons mostly, villains sometimes, ignorant bunglers generally. Ben's values are anathema to the social elite, who regard Ben with a contempt that can scarcely be verbalized.

Ben is patient. He is forgiving. He wants to be liked and to be a nice fellow. Will he, in the end, react with anger? Or will he simply fade away - along with his contribution to the society? I don't know. It should be interesting to observe.

[GratefulCitizen]

A poor liberal and a poor conservative are walking down the street.
They both see a rich businessman riding in the back of a limo.

The poor conservative says: "One day, I'm going to be rich and ride in a limo like that guy."
The poor liberal says: "One day, that rich guy is going to walk like me."


A rich conservative businessman hires two workers.
One of the workers is more productive; he gets promoted, gets paid more, and has better benefits.
The less productive worker is still getting paid fairly.

A rich liberal gets elected to political office.
He sees the pay inequity and offers a compromise:
Some of the businessman's and higher paid worker's money is taken in taxes, the liberal politician takes his cut and gives the rest to the lower paid worker in the form of direct payment and mandated benefits.

The businessman changes his operations to increase efficiency.
The less productive worker no longer has a job.
The more productive worker works even more to take up the slack.

The businessman now has more money.
The more productive worker now has more money.
The liberal politician now has more money.
The less productive worker is now broke and jobless.

Should the less productive worker vote for more of the same in the next election?

[Richard]

I think - naively, perhaps - that good government is dependent upon a balance of the quality of the office-holders and the quantity of the freeloaders - more of the one and fewer of the other. Although it appears as if that trend has been reversed of late, I am personally thankful that we don't seem to get as much government as we pay for...which may change, but - based on its past performance - I don't think so. However, whatever direction our government goes and whatever its faults - of which there have always been many - we seem unable to grasp the concept that we are primarily to blame, if blame is to be affixed, because it is our government.

In that light, I think Mr Brooks has presented a valid concern to think about - the potential consequences backlash voting could bring if such voting is based purely on emotion and the potential to throw the baby out with the bathwater if such a course is fed to the voters in a bland buffet of public discontent - but is not seasoned with a pinch of reason and a dash of caution.

I found his piece to be of particular interest and relevance to the times and the upcoming mid-term elections, but that is MOO and YMMV.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02