JONATHAN CHAIT MARCH 26, 2010
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
This brief interview with a conservative protester outside President Obama's health care was telling:
"Yes, we need health-care reform, but why couldn't we have taken it step by step?" asked Kitty Rehberg, a 71-year-old farmer from nearby Rowley, who held a colonial-era American flag as she protested near Mr. Obama's speech. She said the president's policies would cost her "a lot from my pocket book" to help people who "just want freebies."
Rehberg begins by repeating the GOP's poll-tested line that the concept of health reform is terrific, but we should do it "step by step" instead of all at once. Yet she soon transitions to the view that truly lies at the heart of the conservative view, which is that health care reform is unfair because it redistributes resources from people like her to no-good freeloaders.
Note also that, in this instance, contempt for people who "just want freebies" is being expressed by a Medicare recipient and farmer. Agriculture, of course, is the most-heavily subsidized industry in the United States. Talk about getting freebies!
This complaint from an agriculture-receiving Medicare recipient reminds me of something. I've written quite a bit about the Ayn Rand-ism that has become the dominant Republican domestic policy creed over the last year or so, and how the apotheosis of this vision can be found in Paul Ryan's Roadmap, a document that has been received by conservatives as if delivered by Moses at Mount Sinai. Ryan's roadmap attacks the functions of government that mitigate against risk and bad fortune:
Ryan would retain some bare-bones subsidies for the poorest, but the overwhelming thrust in every way is to liberate the lucky and successful to enjoy their good fortune without burdening them with any responsibility for the welfare of their fellow citizens.
What I failed to note when writing that is that there are actually a fair number of government programs that liberals don't support, but which survive because they serve powerful constituencies. Agriculture subsidies are a prime example, but there are others, especially delivered through the tax code. Sweeping plans to reshape government that ignore political realities, like Ryan's, usually clean out these kinds of subsidies, which lack support from policy analysts across the political spectrum. The remarkable thing about Ryan's roadmap is that he leaves them all standing. He proposes to eliminate progressive taxation, balkanize the health care market and gut social insurance, but leave every penny of corporate welfare in place. It's a remarkable exercise in throwing out the baby and leaving the bathwater, and a telling window into the ideology driving Ryan and his party.
Update: Ezra Klein writes to note that, to Ryan's credit, he has supported President Obama's plan to cap crop subsidy payments. Still, his Roadmap remains the definitive statement of his economic vision, and increasingly that of the party, and it lacks any such reform.
5 comments
We really need to develop much sharper language for speaking of Ayn Rand and those who follow her false and evil ideology. Something along the lines of a more honest first-reference description, such as, "... an avowed follower of the anarchist cult created by the radical atheist and foreign sexual deviant Ayn Rand, a Russian immigrant who denounced Christianity, conservatism, and the government of the United States." It continues to amaze me that Rand-worship remains acceptable among conservatives, since among the things Rand denounced were tradition, conservatism, the American system of government, Christianity, private charity, democracy, and representative government. In addition, her novels consistently express the belief that right knowledge gives one mastery over the property and lives of others, which is radical totalitarianism in a nutshell. Literally everything that conservatism has ever claimed to stand for, Ayn Rand denounced. Her ideology is simply a restatement of radical anarchism with a gloss of atheism and cultivated sociopathy; how then is it possible for her followers to be welcome among conservatives?
- rhubarbs
March 26, 2010 at 11:01am
My dad had an argument with an aquaintance about his age (both in their 70s) about HCR. Dad, the retired business owner, believes we should have single-payer that's run by the gov't, basically Medicare for all. The other guy he was arguing was against all of this "socialism", while drawing Social Security, Medicare and some gov't disablity benes. Dad confronted him with this hypocritical stand and told the guy "You're stupid; I always thought you were stupid but this proves you're stupid". I love my father. :-) He gets right to the point. All of these old farts on the gov't dole that protest against gov't takeover of health care need to be given a taste of what they're asking for. I'd start with Ms. Kitty and see how she likes it.
- tnmats
March 26, 2010 at 11:06am
rhubarbs, in response to your query, "how then is it possible for [Rand's] followers to be welcome among conservatives?" I would suggest the following. Rand's novels are enormous, poorly written, and difficult to read, oscillating between thirty pages of tepid romance and another thirty of soapbox philosophizing. I'm guessing that the vast majority of people who claim to like her ideas have never actually read them. What they "know" is that Rand stood for a small government that leaves the energetic alone to make their success in the world. What Rand actually called for, as you've pointed out, is NO government at all, its vacuum filled with an idealized, fascistic meritocracy denuded of any moral commitment to anyone, least of all society. In fact, in Rand's ideal world, the whole concept of society disappears. This is not a system that most people -- and in particular, small-town Republicans like Kitty -- would advocate if they truly understood it and its consequences.
- bacchant
March 26, 2010 at 11:33am
rhub. I agree with what you wrote, except that many, many Conservatives denounce Ayn Rand. Nearly every writer at NRO has done so. And Mike Huckabee calls Club for Growth Club for Greed. I don't think Paul Ryan is really taken seriously, he is patronized to keep the wingnuts happy. The guy has been in Congress for 6 terms, can you state any legislation he proposed that has been enacted? I can't because there isn't any. He co-sponsered a lot of things, like this: H.RES.34 : Recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Sponsor: Rep Pelosi, Nancy [CA-8] (introduced 1/8/2009) Cosponsors (116) And his roadmap is being proposed now? It took him 12 years to come up with it? Lets remember, for 8 years Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and 6 the White House too and he has made zero impact. Obama as a State Legislator in Ill. made more national impact because he actually passed things.
- blackton
March 26, 2010 at 12:00pm
But blackton, isn't that a bit like "denouncing" Hitler and then partying with the Aryan Brotherhood? Our values are what we do, not what we say. While the more ideologically consistent conservatives do denounce Rand and her perverted philosophy, they nonetheless happily make common cause with those who claim to be Rand's acolytes. So even the minority of theoretically anti-Rand conservatives embrace Rand and her cult in practice.
- rhubarbs
March 26, 2010 at 3:52pm