The "Small Government" Fraud

Watching the recent Republican debate, the third so far of the season, one is reminded of one the Republicans' favorite things to do: attack the size of the government. In that debate alone, you can find numerous examples of candidates talking about how much they just hate the federal government while the Democrats love it.

When asked about his plan for climate change, Chris Christie started off by saying "Well, first off, what we don't do is do what Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and Barack Obama want us to do, which is their solution for everything, put more taxes on it, give more money to Washington, D.C., and then they will fix it." Carly Fiorina told the moderators that "every time the Federal Government gets engaged in something it gets worse." Jeb Bush said that "It's always a solution of the left to create more Government from the Federal Government. It is broke, it is not working."

This sort of rhetoric has a long tradition in the Republican Party, going back at least to Ronald Reagan, who regularly derided the government and talked about his desire to shrink it, famously quipping, "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"

Ronald Reagan (source)

But here's the thing: the Republicans don't hate the government, federal or otherwise. By and large, they love it. Let's start with Reagan. As president, he invaded another country, ramped up military spending, ushered in a draconian new era of the War on Drugs, and helped pave the way for the modern surveillance state. Somehow, that doesn't quite sound like the record of someone who hates the government.

The big-government Republican legacy continued and expanded in the Bush era, when we got the invasion of Iraq, the USA PATRIOT Act, the prison in Guantanamo Bay, and a prescription drug plan for Medicare that prohibits the government from negotiating for a better price on the drugs it's paying for. That's a quite a few holes for the government to pour taxpayer money into, and quite a few abridgements of the individual rights that the Republican Party claims to be so intent on protecting from big government.

The people standing on the stage at the latest debate were no different; Jeb Bush wants to expand our offensive against ISIS and loves the NSA's surveillance programs, Carly Fiorina wants to expand military programs and conduct exercises to intimidate Vladimir Putin, and Chris Christie wants a federal crackdown on marijuana usage. All three of them, and many of the other candidates, clearly love big government. It just has to do the things that they personally want.

So why this facade about wanting to shrink the federal government? Simple: the Republicans have a long history of rolling back welfare programs and federal regulations, that goes back to--surprise!--the Reagan era. It's a pretty tough sell to argue that spending money to help poor people is bad, but giving it to big corporations is good; it's not much easier to convince people that banks and big corporations should be free to do as they please, but everyday people should see their rights eroded. America has a long history of distrust toward the government, as one can see just by looking at quotes from some of the Founding Fathers. Thus, it's easy to exploit this distrust to push for an agenda of cutting regulations and aid to the poor, while just ignoring the fact that other programs you're pushing for would actually expand the government.

The Republicans have mastered what George Orwell termed "doublethink:" holding two contradictory ideas to be true, simultaneously. So at the same time that the government can't do anything right, it needs to act more aggressively against ISIS and Russia, do more to prevent terrorism, and protect our children from the toxic influence of marijuana. While the elites probably know that this small-government crusade is a hoax, their propaganda campaign has had the interesting effect of creating legions of people who are honestly sure they hate the government, but then turn around and support strict laws against abortion, constitutional prohibitions on gay marriage, city-wide bans on mosques, and any other number of blatantly big-government policies.

I'm certainly not the first person to observe this, which I'm well aware of, but it's a cognitive dissonance so stunning it's hard not feel as if you're being beaten over the head with the absurdity of it. Unfortunately, I think many liberals have failed to adequately address the situation, instead trying to argue that big government is a good thing. That's a strategy that, for reasons I've detailed before, is doomed to failure. The simple truth is that there are policies that the government can enact which will help people and make things better, and then there are policies that will simply waste money and/or restrict personal liberties. Of course, we can debate which policies fall into the first category and which fall into the second. But first everyone has to have the intellectual integrity to admit that there are some government policies they like (that includes you, libertarians) rather than pretending they are consistently opposed to everything the government does or can do--virtually no one actually is. That's particularly the case with modern "conservatives," who have done a lot to expand the influence of government in negative ways. But, unsurprisingly, that admission doesn't seem to be forthcoming.

America's Culture of Violence

"America puts killers on the cover of Time magazine, giving them as much notoriety as our favorite movie stars. From Jesse James to Charles Manson, the media, since their inception, have turned criminals into folk heroes. They just created two new ones when they plastered those dip-shits Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris' pictures on the front of every newspaper. Don't be surprised if every kid who gets pushed around has two new idols."

Marilyn Manson, being interviewed by Michael Moore
(Dog Eat Dog Films, taken from Business Insider)

So wrote Marilyn Manson in a 1999 Rolling Stone article, responding to dishonest attempts to blame the Columbine massacre on his music. In the 16 intervening years, regrettably, little has changed in this area. Chris Harper-Mercer, the perpetrator of the shooting in Oregon on October 1, commented of Vester Flanagan,

I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are... A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.

 Flanagan, as a reminder, was the perpetrator of yet another shooting earlier this year.

The response to the Umpqua shooting has largely been a call for increased gun control. Understandable, and important. But not the only thing we should be examining.

Bobby Jindal, a man still laboring under the delusion that he may be the next president, blamed the shooting on a culture of violence, giving the familiar examples of video games, TV shows, and music. But if he wants to see the real ways in which our culture desensitizes us to violence, perhaps he should look to his fellow presidential hopeful Ted Cruz. A few weeks ago, Cruz stated that "we may have to help introduce [the Ayatollah of Iran] to the 72 virgins," meaning, of course, kill him. Or perhaps Ben Carson, who's polling second to Donald Trump, and has tacitly endorsed allowing war crimes.

When Chris Harper-Mercer was thirteen, the United States invaded a country that posed no threat to it. By conservative estimates, one hundred thousand civilians would die as a result. Even in the recent Democratic Party debate, the worst any candidate could say about the Iraq War was that it was a "blunder." Perhaps some of them wanted to condemn it more strongly. But by the rules of "decency," one can't accuse their political opponents of committing major war crimes.

"Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example," wrote Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Timothy McVeigh would later use that quote in explaining his actions. Somehow, those who are concerned with the pretend violence in video games and music are less concerned with the all too real violence that has been normalized in society.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that mass murderers achieve such a level of celebrity. Once society has accepted and even glorified violence on the part of the state, it's easy to see how at least some degree of fascination or admiration for the violence of private citizens may follow. Given the frequency of mass shootings, each shooter can't expect much more than the metaphorical fifteen minutes of fame. But they'll certainly get more media attention than they would for volunteering at a homeless shelter or donating to charity.

Rolling Stone's cover featuring Tsarnaev
(Taken from The New Yorker)

In a society with such an untenable double standard in regards to violence, it's not surprising that the media ends up glorifying mass murderers, perhaps without even realizing they're doing so. Take Rolling Stone's controversial cover with Dzokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two Boston Marathon bombers. The subtitle refers to him as a monster, but a person who hadn't followed the news closely could, upon a brief glance, be forgiven for thinking he was some up-and-coming star. By helping to set off a bomb, Tsarnaev earned the right to appear on the same magazine cover that innumerable celebrities, and even the current president, have been featured on. Is there not some degree of glamour to that?

It's understandable that, as a sort of morbid curiosity, people want to understand the thinking and the personal history of killers and other criminals. But there's a difference between investigating those facts and lavishing attention onto the killer, transforming them into some sort of celebrity. Perhaps the line between "good attention" and "bad attention" could be a bit clearer to society if only it had a more consistent stance on violence. As it is, it's hard to see how people who cheer for war and capital punishment can be taken seriously when they turn around and warn about the pernicious effects of violence in the media. Nor is it surprising when the same media that deliberately glorifies "approved" forms of violence ends up doing the same even with the kinds we supposedly shun.

Should There Be a Right to Die?

Quite recently, California--the most populous state in the nation--legalized physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients of sound mind. This provides an opportunity to discuss a controversial issue that's been debated for quite some time now, so I thought that I might as well weigh in while the issue has re-entered the spotlight. To state the obvious, the "right to die" is a difficult issue that's likely to raise strong emotions on both sides. And I understand both sides, as my position on the issue has changed over time. So, as in my blog post on the death penalty, I'll try to make an argument based on rationality rather than emotion.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, noted advocated of
assisted suicide (photo taken from here)

According to critics of assisted suicide, it runs against the idea of the sanctity of life. They aren't wrong; it certainly means that we have embraced the idea that society has a more fundamental cause than keeping alive the largest possible number of people. In my view, though, that's a reasonable idea. If we required everyone to stay inside and away from physical contact with other people at all times, and simply delivered food and other necessary supplies to everyone (assuming this was a practical idea), perhaps that could increase human longevity. But it's not exactly anyone's idea of a great society.

A premise more fundamental, in my view, than the idea that human life should be protected (even against those to whom the life in question belongs) is that each person should have autonomy--that is, the right to make decisions about their own body. This principle has also been referred to as self-ownership, although I've previously voiced my problems with that term and concept. Why should autonomy be such a valuable concept? Because it's the central nature of human existence--the ability to make decisions and act accordingly. Certainly, when those decisions impact other people, it's justifiable to restrict or regulate them. But when those decisions impact only the actor themselves? That, in my view, is far less justifiable.

Ultimately, to restrict someone from stopping their heart from beating and their brain from functioning does not seem to me, in principle, any different from telling them what food they are allowed to eat, or requiring them to exercise a certain amount of time each day. In practice, of course, restricting one's ability to take their own life is far less authoritarian than either of those examples. That's because of how infrequently one seriously wants to take their own life compared to how frequently those regulations would impact a person's behavior. But, in my view, all are impermissible because of the same principle--the principle of autonomy.

In fact, I wouldn't restrict one's right to take their own life simply to cases in which they're terminally ill. Rather, any person of sound mind should, in my view, be allowed to kill themselves. By sound mind, I mean any person who has the mental capacity to rationally make their own choices, is not suffering from a treatable mental condition that is likely to be affecting their decisions, and who has not had some event in their life that is likely clouding their judgment (such as the death of a close friend). These conditions, of course, would exclude many of the people who take their own lives, which is a good thing. However, there are some conceivable circumstances--aside from terminal illness--that could lead to someone deciding to commit suicide. They could be suffering from a non-terminal but severely painful condition that has drastically reduced their quality of life, for instance. Or they could want to make a political statement, a la the self-immolating Buddhist monk. Ensuring that everyone who is given permission to commit suicide is of sound mind is a different matter; but if we can do so with a high degree of accuracy, then I would support the legalization of suicide for anyone who meets that standard.

Certainly, this right could be abused; even people of sound mind could make decisions based on bad information, or with total disregard for their friends and family. But, ultimately, neither of those reasons override the importance of autonomy. People are free to make potentially harmful decisions based on bad information, and free to do things that upset others, and rightly so. In my opinion, there's no reason for those factors to trump the importance of autonomy here if they don't elsewhere.

To anyone concerned that my proposal would lead to some massive societal disregard for human life or the normalization of suicide, I would like to strongly argue that it will not. It is a fundamental, natural urge to stay alive; of course, it can be overpowered by other urges--the urge to escape suffering, for instance--but it is, in a healthy person, a very strong urge. Perhaps my proposal could even help reduce the rate of suicide, by encouraging suicidal people to come forward in order to be evaluated (since, if they are determined to be of sound mind, they will be given permission to commit suicide in, ideally, a near-painless and surefire way), detecting those who are suffering from mental disorders (as many suicidal people are),
and helping them get appropriate treatment.

To some, the involvement of doctors in the suicide question is an issue, because of the maxim that a doctor should do no harm. But harm is quite subjective--we already acknowledge that if someone is dying naturally and wants to be allowed to die, a doctor would not be permitted to force them to stay alive through extraordinary means. How different, then, is it for a doctor to help a person to die? Further, if a doctor were to perform a surgery on a person who didn't want it, that would certainly be considered a form of harm, but it is entirely permissible to do so on a person who does want it. What constitutes "harm" comes down to the desires of the patient. Certainly, no doctor should be forced to be involved with assisted suicide. But those who are willing to do so, in my view, are not contradicting the principles of medicine.

As I said before, I fully understand the rationale of people who oppose legalizing assisted suicide, and I invite anyone, agree with me or disagree with me, to comment on this post. The concern that assisted suicide would devalue human life is certainly a comprehensible one to me, even if it's not a concern that I share. So are concerns about the impact on family and friends, and whether the decision will always be made wisely--those concerns I do share, in fact, but they're not enough to change my position. I will openly acknowledge that, as usual, my opinions on this issue are far outside the mainstream, and I don't expect everyone to agree with them. And I can certainly respect the opinions of those who disagree with me. But hopefully my opinion and rationale is of some use on this issue.

NOTE: Originally in the fifth paragraph I had said the conditions I specified would exclude the vast majority of people that kill themselves; I changed this to reflect the varying estimates of how many suicides are related to mental illness.