Immoral imposition on their liberty

Over the last couple of years I've developed the guiding principles of improving mental health and improving community. Those two principles have held up well under scrutiny even though I don't always do all I can to fulfill them. That's why I keep circling back to what the GOP has been doing lately and why I see their actions as so offensive.

Essayist Terrence Heath has a couple posts on his blog about the Sequester (an odd name for sweeping federal budget cuts, but we seem stuck with it). Heath provides a bit of background in how we got there. I'll summarize that part by saying these budget cuts were designed so that nobody would like them -- the Dems wouldn't like the program cuts the GOP wouldn't like the defense cuts -- and thus prevent them from taking effect.

But enough of the GOP members of Congress (though not in the nation) decided that defense cuts were less of a problem than the federal deficit. That threw the political calculus off. The GOP may think these aren't the best cuts to make, but they're the cuts they can make happen.

Heath reviews the things that will be cut. It is an alarming list. Which makes me wonder… Dad, when we go to Texas in May, perhaps we should drive.

And why is the deficit so important? Because enough believe the government shouldn't work so they are doing everything possible to make sure it can't work. And why that?

Progressives tend to believe that democracy is based on citizens caring for their fellow citizens through what the government provides for all citizens — public infrastructure, public safety, public education, public health, publicly-sponsored research, public forms of recreation and culture, publicly-guaranteed safety nets for those who need them, and so on. In short, progressives believe that the private depends on the public, that without those public provisions Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them.

Ultra-conservatives don’t believe this. They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them. They take this as a matter of morality. They see the social responsibility to provide for the common good as an immoral imposition on their liberty.

Their moral sense requires that they do all they can to make the government fail in providing for the common good. Their idea of liberty is maximal personal responsibility, which they see as maximal privatization — and profitization — of all that we do for each other together, jointly as a unified nation.

They also believe that if people are hurt by government failure, it is their own fault for being “on the take” instead of providing for themselves. People who depend on public provisions should suffer. (emphasis in the original).

So the GOP is doing all it can to trash community. Which is why they are offensive.