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Opinion
ENLARGE
It was George Washington who first inveighed against the evils of party politics in his 1796 farewell address. Admired though he was, no one listened, and here we are today with two major, polar-opposite parties whose adherents tend to regard one another as species from other planets. Surely, though, some conservatives can see some value in some liberal positions, and vice-versa, right?
It used to be conservatives staked out one position, liberals another, and through negotiations, something resembling a compromise position emerged. Things too far left or right were discarded as unattainable, and the messy process continued to move forward. In Washington's current partisan gridlock, it's hard to even remember how this used to work, but perhaps by giving an inch or two here and there, liberals and conservatives can find some of that middle ground that used to, sort of, make sausage-creation possible.
As the liberal on the page, here are a few things I like (or at least understand) about conservative thinking:
1. A huge national debt is, no doubt, a bad thing. While some government debt is natural and unavoidable, charging too much on the national credit card is a recipe for disaster down the road. How much to charge and how we pay off that credit card, of course, is what no one can agree upon.
2. Giving things away too easily can indeed make people overly dependent on government. As a society, we should be there to help the less fortunate when they're in trouble, but a strong program should be in place to compassionately regulate and monitor who's getting what — and for how long. When possible, some sort of disengagement plan for removing folks from the government teat should be in place. “Teach a man to fish” — that sort of thing. (That said, conservatives should get over the idea that they're the only ones who understand or appreciate hard work.)
3. Regulating the crap out of everything can have a stifling effect on business and innovation. Bureaucrats on just about any level with time on their hands will always find stupid things to create regulations around. Sometimes even well-intentioned regulations can mushroom into ridiculous and unsustainable red tape that can, indeed, kill jobs and strangle innovation.
4. A bloated government too massive and overreaching isn't good for anyone except all those government workers. I like the fact that conservatives are always railing about this, since every government worker is being paid in part by us all. One thing I really liked about John McCain was his crusade against military waste, and the Pentagon is one area I'd love to see fiscal hawks focus on even more.
5. Suspicion of government in general is a good thing. In a democracy, keeping a wary eye on the state is a critical function of the elected official, and conservatives tend to be quicker to point out when government appears to be veering off course.
Where we run into trouble with agreeing on some of these principles in a workable way is when one side stakes out territory from which no budging is possible. Sorry, but when unemployment is 10 percent, it's OK to incur some debt if it creates jobs or keeps people from starving. Over-regulation can be bad, but that doesn't mean lax or no regulation is the answer, either. Even if it adds X number of jobs to the economy, I'm not OK allowing industry to add extra pollution to the atmosphere. Corporations may, unfortunately, have too many of the same rights as people, but let's remember their primary goal is to make money, not make correct moral decisions. That's where regulations created by living, breathing people come in. True, not all regulators or lawmakers are pillars of good ethics, but there's at least a better chance than relying on corporations exclusively (see financial markets, 2008, for more on how that went).
The one overarching thing we can all agree upon, I'm pretty sure, is that we want the U.S. to be a good, strong country founded in fairness and ripe with opportunity. It's difficult to believe at times that such a goal doesn't have more intersecting points between conservatives and liberals (neither of which, by the way, are bad words). Perhaps if we can just extract all that money from the whole process …
Nah!
Summit Daily editor Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@summitdaily.com or (970) 668-4618.
It used to be conservatives staked out one position, liberals another, and through negotiations, something resembling a compromise position emerged. Things too far left or right were discarded as unattainable, and the messy process continued to move forward. In Washington's current partisan gridlock, it's hard to even remember how this used to work, but perhaps by giving an inch or two here and there, liberals and conservatives can find some of that middle ground that used to, sort of, make sausage-creation possible.
As the liberal on the page, here are a few things I like (or at least understand) about conservative thinking:
1. A huge national debt is, no doubt, a bad thing. While some government debt is natural and unavoidable, charging too much on the national credit card is a recipe for disaster down the road. How much to charge and how we pay off that credit card, of course, is what no one can agree upon.
2. Giving things away too easily can indeed make people overly dependent on government. As a society, we should be there to help the less fortunate when they're in trouble, but a strong program should be in place to compassionately regulate and monitor who's getting what — and for how long. When possible, some sort of disengagement plan for removing folks from the government teat should be in place. “Teach a man to fish” — that sort of thing. (That said, conservatives should get over the idea that they're the only ones who understand or appreciate hard work.)
3. Regulating the crap out of everything can have a stifling effect on business and innovation. Bureaucrats on just about any level with time on their hands will always find stupid things to create regulations around. Sometimes even well-intentioned regulations can mushroom into ridiculous and unsustainable red tape that can, indeed, kill jobs and strangle innovation.
4. A bloated government too massive and overreaching isn't good for anyone except all those government workers. I like the fact that conservatives are always railing about this, since every government worker is being paid in part by us all. One thing I really liked about John McCain was his crusade against military waste, and the Pentagon is one area I'd love to see fiscal hawks focus on even more.
5. Suspicion of government in general is a good thing. In a democracy, keeping a wary eye on the state is a critical function of the elected official, and conservatives tend to be quicker to point out when government appears to be veering off course.
Where we run into trouble with agreeing on some of these principles in a workable way is when one side stakes out territory from which no budging is possible. Sorry, but when unemployment is 10 percent, it's OK to incur some debt if it creates jobs or keeps people from starving. Over-regulation can be bad, but that doesn't mean lax or no regulation is the answer, either. Even if it adds X number of jobs to the economy, I'm not OK allowing industry to add extra pollution to the atmosphere. Corporations may, unfortunately, have too many of the same rights as people, but let's remember their primary goal is to make money, not make correct moral decisions. That's where regulations created by living, breathing people come in. True, not all regulators or lawmakers are pillars of good ethics, but there's at least a better chance than relying on corporations exclusively (see financial markets, 2008, for more on how that went).
The one overarching thing we can all agree upon, I'm pretty sure, is that we want the U.S. to be a good, strong country founded in fairness and ripe with opportunity. It's difficult to believe at times that such a goal doesn't have more intersecting points between conservatives and liberals (neither of which, by the way, are bad words). Perhaps if we can just extract all that money from the whole process …
Nah!
Summit Daily editor Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@summitdaily.com or (970) 668-4618.
