Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Our friends the Republicans

The more I study the current crop of Republicans the more convinced I am that there is one common trait which seems to run in the majority: selfishness. It was well characterized by the British in the comment "I'm all right Jack – the hell with you".

Republicans seem to feel that if they are fortunate, hard-working, and skilled enough to have a good life or what they think is a good life, they should denigrate and scoff at those who were not fortunate or hard-working or skilled or all of the above.

They point out that this attitude is what made this country great and the more I think about it the more I agree with them. During most of the 19th century expansion, development and industrial growth were in the hands of single-minded entrepreneurs whose only goal was success in their endeavor and cared little if at all for the people they brushed aside or stepped on in the process.

But the side effects were disastrous, leading to a severe and deprived underclass, labor strife up to and including attempted murder of factory owners (such as Henry Clay Frick), and a dramatic gulf between the very rich and the working poor. The Republican Theodore Roosevelt recognized this social disaster and began the process of government regulation which has been expanded ever since as the entrepreneurs found more and more devious and clever ways of getting around regulation.

So the Republicans would like to return to those days with no income tax and little regulation so that they could again trample on the less fortunate, aggressive or ambitious of our citizens, without a single thought of what got them to be successful and whether it was indeed morally justifiable.

From the standpoint of creating a great nation, the Republican state of mind was extraordinarily effective but from the standpoint of creating a just and smoothly working society is totally disastrous and that's where we stand today, on the brink of a disintegrating social contract. The Democrats are not very effective in countering this since some of the emphasis of the party is controlled by plaintiff's attorneys whose primary goal is tort litigation against industry and its leaders rather than support of and aid to the working poor, the disabled, the mentally disturbed and deficient, and the chronically ill and dis-functional.

This could all be nicely taken care of by the voters, especially those who do not want to see our country deteriorate into the situation we found in the 19th century. But I keep hearing, from people who would agree with the above, that they have "given up on politics" and are not interested in redressing the problem at the ballot box. Talk about your self fulfilling prophecies! There are so many nonvoters whose hearts are in the right place but who sincerely believe that politics is merely a game and they're not playing. That attitude is so scary it makes my hair stand up and it is a major cause for the mess we are in now. I don't know what can be done about it except to express my opinion, so there it is. What do you think?