Tag: liberal

Categories
Editorial Opinion

What’s in a Word?

CREDIT: Danziger

We have been thinking a lot recently about the fashions in language and how the meanings of certain words have evolved to accommodate changes in outlook.

Take the word “reform,” for example, which means whatever the user of it wants it to mean. Fair enough, since, strictly speaking, the term is neutral. To re-form means to “construct again,” to significantly alter the nature or function of something, and, in practice, that can be for good or ill, although the word is rarely, if ever, used in that latter, pejorative sense.

When the British parliament imposed a “New Poor Law” in 1834, for example, it was presented as a “reform,” but what it entailed was a fairly Draconian system whereby the impoverished of the realm were deprived of independently administered doles and were herded into workhouses that were little more than prisons. The aim was to reduce taxes — or rates, as the British say — for the well-to-do. What that reform netted for the unfortunates who had to inhabit the workhouses is fairly well chronicled in Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

Similarly, we find ourselves wondering about the much-ballyhooed educational “reforms” of the Haslam administration in Nashville. We’re not certain now, and weren’t certain when they were first proposed and enacted, about the positive effect of tighter tenure requirements for teachers, for example, recalling that the concept of tenure came into being in the first place as a “reform” meant to ensure the freedom of educators from undue pressures. Nor are we certain that the new panoply of state-operated super-districts, for failing schools and achieving schools alike, is anything more, ultimately, than a layer of bureaucracy that operates at too great a distance from the institutions and local populations these new hierarchies are set up to serve. We know for sure that the internal legislative rivalries that — as of this writing — seem to have doomed, at least temporarily, a voucher system whereby public money would end up being channeled into private hands, have resulted in nothing less than a reprieve for a theory of public education that we still favor.

And what is tax reform? Was it the attempted creation of a state income tax during the administration of former governor Don Sundquist? It was fashionable for the legislators who backed that concept to use the term “tax reform” as a euphemism for their (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to achieve a less regressive system of taxation. Or is it tax reform when conservative spokespersons propose versions of a flat tax that manifestly work in favor of the economically well-off? Same lingo, different direction.

At least the word “reform” is one that probably won’t go out of fashion the way “liberal” did at one point, when it was the harshest of insults the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, et al could utter. Republicans, even those who believe in the purposes of government, still run from the word in horror, eschewing even its harmless second cousin, “moderate.” Now, as pundits such as Paul Krugman and a few others are reclaiming the moniker and proudly touting themselves as liberals, Democrats who tend toward caution will go out on a limb and call themselves “progressive,” which, like “reform,” seems safe enough.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Less Government is More

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” — P.J. O’Rourke

I promised last week (The Rant, October 18th issue) to propose a solution for the competing desires of the liberal Vermont Republic and conservative League of the South to secede  from the union. So here are my ideas for what we really can do to make this  work:

First, let’s face it. We live in a divided country. Every recent national election has been close to 50-50 splits, and we are also split on how we want to run the ever-expanding federal government. As European countries such as Great Britain and France become more conservative and pro-capitalist, we in the U.S. seem poised to elect Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, who want to expand the  powers of Washington into healthcare and beyond. It will not work.

I held out hope in 1994, when the Republicans swept into a majority in Congress. They did force a few good things, such as welfare reform and  lower taxes. But over time the Republicans preferred power over principle, and they have been a bitter disappointment.

The federal government provides us with one important service, which is national defense. Lately, to let us know how important they are, the feds have been using our military in wars of choice that never  seem to turn out well. In fact, it is no longer “defense;” rather, they seem to take pleasure in deploying our troops for offense — while  confiscating 38 percent of our incomes in taxes to do so. Congress also run up trillions in deficits because they have no collective sense.

On the other hand, our state and local governments take much less of our income, and they balance their budgets, because they have to. They then provide us with services we actually use and count on: schools, roads, libraries, trash pickup, parks, airports, police, and  fire protection. They tend to do so in a manner that suits local priorities. And if you do not like what they do, you can simply move to another state.

The federal government, on the other hand, seldom does anything that pleases locals. It is more concerned about preserving and expanding its powers. Realistically, most of us can’t move to another country if we don’t like what the feds do. Movie stars sometimes threaten to do it. But most don’t follow through, which was a pity in the case of Barbra Streisand and Rosie O’Donnell.

So my solution to the unworkable-yet-appealing idea of secession is to grant more powers to the states and fewer to Washington, D.C. It is, after all, what our founding fathers intended in the first place. If you read the Federalist Papers, you will realize that they never intended for our national government to be expansive and overbearing. They wanted the states to be in charge. That way, if, for instance, you want an abortion on demand, then you move to a state that allows it. If you want to smoke weed, then you go to a state with liberal pot laws. If you think that we should pay for everything for people on welfare, you go to a state that provides flat-screen TVs and offers an assortment of French cheeses that are both delicious and  presented in a pleasing manner.

The basic reason that we fought for our independence is so we could do what we damn well please as long as it doesn’t harm others. Yet at every turn, the federal government seems to want to make us do as they think we  should, whether it comes to using windmills, driving a Prius,  or being forced to join the Hillary Healthcare Plan. (It’s interesting to me that the Democrats, who complained loudest about the  inept federal response to Katrina, are now advocating a federal takeover of  healthcare.)

The U.S. government spends our  money to make us increasingly dependent on the U.S. government’s programs.  Unfunded mandates, (which is not Larry Craig going to the bathroom without his wallet), are not good for states either. They not only waste federal money, they waste states’ money, too, with legislation that forces states to implement programs without providing funding to run them.

The Republicans did it with the expensive prescription drug-benefit giveaway. When a product that the private market should sell, such as prescription drugs, is taken over by the government, the first thing — and perhaps the only thing — that the drug companies need to buy are congressmen.

Our free-spending federal government officials think they are filled with enough hubris to believe that they should even tell other countries what to do. They call it “foreign policy.” The real answer to fixing foreign and domestic policy is allocating less money and power to the federal government and more to to state and local governments.

Ron Hart is a Southern libertarian who writes political satire. He lives  in

Florida and is an investor. His e-mail is

RevRon10@aol.com.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Carsten Reisinger | dreamstime.com

The League of the South met recently in Chattanooga. Like its liberal cousin to the north, The Vermont Republic, the League of the South wants to secede from the Union. While it is not necessarily a bad idea, I vaguely remember a Ken Burns PBS documentary that makes me think that this has been tried before.

The League of the South says that it is not racially motivated. (And what better way to demonstrate this than to have the Confederate Flag as your symbol on your Web site?)

The liberal secessionists in Vermont want out of the federal government for other reasons. They want gays to be able to marry and accessorize freely — and they do not want to fight wars.

The South, and in particular my home state of Tennessee, the Volunteer State, enjoys fighting and will do so at the drop of a hat. In fact, most Southern men will sign up and be on the battlefield well before they ask what the war is about — and that includes bar fights. Our warring predisposition will certainly serve the South well when we inevitably invade Vermont someday.

If you think about it, breaking up the United States into a different alignment makes sense. Corporations make markets and companies more efficient by buying them and breaking them up into more cost-effective pieces. The rock-and-roll group Grand Funk Railroad, for example, could be bought and broken up into several more valuable bands, perhaps ones that employ less cow bell in their music.

The possibilities are endless. We need to ask ourselves, for example, do we really need both a North and a South Dakota?

And Southerners can quickly get past being split off from the North as long as it does not affect the SEC football playoffs. Another plus for us is that a secession might finally eliminate the Bowl Championship Series.

The real reason there is a movement in the liberal North and the conservative South to secede is a simple one: We disagree on everything.

We in the South do not think that Congress always has our best interest at heart, like when they are in session making laws. We believe that the fundamental failure of the federal government and Congress (with its 11 percent approval rating) is its unstoppable propensity to spend our money.

Hillary Clinton, for example, recently made a campaign proposition to give $5,000 to every child born in the U.S., including illegals. (Not to be outdone, and in an effort to jumpstart his failing campaign, John Edwards said he would match the $5,000 per year and throw in a lifetime supply of Robitussin.) Offering just any “tussin” would be viewed as unacceptable by the Democrats since, if the rich get Robitussin, no generic form of “tussin” should be forced upon the poor.

When you get down to it, the South and North differ fundamentally on two issues: abortion and guns. Southerners think abortion should not be legal after the first trimester. Northern liberals think abortion should be legal up to age 12.

On guns, we Southerners want our assault weapons in the glove compartment of our trucks, ready to blow away anyone who poses a threat to us, real or imagined.

Northerners believe that only the police, gangs, and the Mafia should have guns.

If we do split, the South could finally realize its dream of no separation of church and state and govern by religious denominations instead of political parties. The Baptists would be like the Shiites and the Methodists like the Sunnis. That has worked well in Iraq.

As we in the South know, as long as our leaders go to church and sing hymns on Sundays (and especially if they tell us about it enough), they prove both their moral superiority and leadership credentials. We will need no laws, just the Ten Commandments. And we certainly do not need zoning laws, as proven by driving through Panama City, Florida, or any Atlanta suburb.

The North will be aligned and beholden to every half-assed organized special-interest group that can afford a microphone. The overriding theme will be that if enough special interests — be they teachers’ unions, cab drivers or plaintiffs’ lawyers — get together in any seemingly victimized fashion, they can get something free from the government. Liberal Democrats love this country, much like O. J. Simpson loved his ex-wife and his sports memorabilia.

The North can keep the United Nations, and we in the South can learn about the rest of the world the way we always have — by visiting Epcot Center in Orlando.

Ron Hart is a libertarian columnist who lives in Atlanta.