For most of us, the pursuit of moral excellence usually reveals how far we are from attaining it. When Republicans talk about the centrality of moral benchmarks in society, liberals often hear an expression of GOP self-righteousness. In the Grand Old Party, we see those standards as necessary but humbling measures of our imperfections, revealing how far and how often we fall short.
The principled perfection of the left, however, requires little such humility, at least from Katrina vanden Heuvel. In her recent Washington Post column, "Republicans are Causing a Moral Crisis in America," she bathes nakedly in a tub of moral superiority, unadorned by the slightest scrap of embarrassment.
Her essay details the GOP's moral inadequacy: We resist redistributing what the rich have improperly accumulated. Worse, we are not transferring it to the needy with sufficient enthusiasm. Never mind that America's progressive tax system already requires the top 10% of earners to pay 71% of federal income taxes and the bottom 50% to pay 2%, vanden Heuvel still says immoral Republicans deprive the most vulnerable in our society of food and health care because, "...we've got more important things to spend money on. Like a new yacht for that guy who only has one yacht."
In Katrina's World, our moral responsibility to care for those in need is reduced to simple bigheartedness: If people need food, clothing, health care or shelter, we are always obliged to give it to them. Otherwise, we reveal our moral bankruptcy. Though vanden Heuvel has not spent herself into poverty for the benefit of those less fortunate, as has our federal government, she is offended that Republicans are unwilling to surrender more of the well-to-do's possessions. "There is a moral crisis in this country," she tells the GOP. "It's you." I nearly dropped my caviar.
Vanden Heuvel's lack of respect for rival argument is one reason for the decline of critical debate in her magazine, The Nation. Her contempt for opposing views also explains why there is so little hope of bipartisan agreement Washington. This is how liberals argue: Republicans are shamelessly anti-poor and pro-yacht.
The strength of her case, however, is its immaturity. Like many liberals, she reduces moral responsibility to munificence. Charity is her sole measure of compassion. If we really care, we must always give more to others. Apparently, none but our morally sophisticated elite, e.g., vanden Heuvel, can understand this. Republicans like Paul Ryan, for example, cannot grasp this complexity, reducing them to sub-ethical predators. They are pre-human celebrants of a primitive ideology based on "liberty" and "freedom," which vanden Heuvel mocks.
Parents, of course, in our long journey to bring children from infancy to adulthood, cultivate a more developed morality. Though it may surprise vanden Heuvel, even Republicans find we have a moral obligation to provide for and protect our children. Some of us even learn a few things along the path.
When children are young and unable to care for themselves, we believe it is our responsibility to do everything for them. But enabling endless dependence is not a parent's purpose. Moral parenting requires more than open-handedness. If we really care for our children, our most sacred mission is to raise them to grow strong and independent, so they can stand on their own when we are gone.
At some point, genuinely compassionate and protective parents learn we must take a step back so our children can take a step forward. We let go of their hands and watch them cross the street alone. It is the most frightening day of our lives.
Real love is not perpetuating another's dependence. It is freeing them from it. Genuine moral compassion eventually risks detachment. Every parent knows how easy and indulgent it is to say, "yes". Our toughest but most worthy calls are when we are required to say otherwise. Our country's experiment with welfare brought these principles to national life.
In the '90's, welfare reform elevated recipients, treating them as adults, instead of hopelessly dependent children. At the time, vanden Heuvel's fellow liberals ripped the reform's "immorality" and luxuriated in their ethical superiority. Now, the argument is settled: Our tough national parenting ended the perpetual entitlement, required recipients to find work, and reduced poverty and hunger. The left's moral posturing would have produced more, not less, dependence. As Bill Clinton wrote in 2006, "The last 10 years have shown that we did in fact end welfare as we knew it, creating a new beginning for millions of Americans." Clinton concluded, "Welfare reform has proved a great success."
Morality, we learn through life, requires more than giving. At times, it requires not giving. This too, is a test of our virtue: At what point do we care enough to say, "No"?
As Charles Murray notes in Coming Apart, his unblinking study of the erosion of family and community life in America, "People need self-respect, but self-respect must be earned -- it cannot be self-respect if it's not earned -- and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing."
Not long ago in France, the birthplace of cradle-to-grave entitlement, President Sarkozy dared raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 years of age, still the lowest among industrialized nations. French unions, of course, went on a rampage. The morally superior left took to the streets, obliviously marching to the day when life is not regulated by consequences and everyone is entitled to prosperity, though there is no one left to construct it.
The Nation, which vanden Heuvel edits and publishes, remains America's oldest weekly newsmagazine. Its founders' charge was "...to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred." That so much of the exaggeration and misrepresentation in today's political writing comes from The Nation's own editorial desk is every American's loss.
Or perhaps vanden Heuvel is right: It may be hard for Republicans to see those little people on the dock from the lounge of the SS Greed, where all of us languorously cruise, unmoved by anyone else's sorrow. We will never have that debate, however, because vanden Heuvel's arrogant dismissals of all points of view but her own remove her from a serious place in our discourse.
Her bath grows cold, like her politics. That, too, is a shame and a loss.
Follow Alex Castellanos on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alexcast
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...who cares what the name of the person following this statement is? Interesting way to lead into a discussion about a specific person.
I do get your point; however, there are two sides to this issue.
Do you play golf and do you understand the term golf term, "handicap"?
Are you really so simple that you actually do not get that in the economic rat race we do not all start at the same starting point?
Among my first thoughts was to wonder if you taught your own children to swim by throwing them in the deep end and walking away. Then it occured to me that your ilk was likely presiding over the Salem witch trials. If they are not witches then, when held under water, they die; if they survive the dunking test then they must be burned at the stake as witches.
You say you care about children. Do you mean other than your own? If so, then may I suggest your propaganda would be more convincing if your political party indicated it wanted a huge investment in money and interest in improving public schools -- and not just by keeping sex ed out and religion in. With real commitment, within one generation you would see a huge drop in the dependence you profess to loathe.
If you want more discipline in school (likely needed, I agree) then make them more like a military academy or at least provide that option as a charter school for those that actually WANT to learn. Or better yet come up with some idea of your own for a solution.
Hello again, Sue! Actually, the peer-reviewed social science (and as a liberal, your superior brain structure dictates that you MUST accept anything that is put forth as "scientific" lest you be deemed a "science denier") shows that conservatives -- religious conservatives in particular, but all conservatives (political, social, etc.) in general -- are much less likely to believe in the occult and paranormal, i.e., witchcraft, Bigfoot, ghosts, UFOs and other pseudoscientific phenomena than liberals.
How many hard-core conservative GOPers have you hard of who are wiccans? Who are the biggest customers of New Age crystals, "magical" herbs, amulets, and other trinkets sold nowadays to gullible buyers as talismans?
http://www.baylorisr.org/wp-content/uploads/Baylor-Survey-2005-09-29-05.pdf
By the way, your posts are well-written, even I disagree with most of them!
More progressive than conservative on many issues but not all.
I do wish my brain were superior, but you are wrong about that as well.
I do not have a religious bone in my body--invisible "friend" never needed.
I do not believe in ghosts or occult or paranormal or witchcraft or bigfood or UFO's.
I do not own any crystals or magical herbs or amulets or rabbits feet.
I have a set of wood beads (necklace); do they count as "trinkets"?
Religion is a political power tool fueled by fear and need and greed.
Not a wiccan--not sure what they are if they are not those that think they are witches?
Not sure what any of this has to do w/believing that a better education would level the playing field in the economic rat race so you would have less poor people to look down upon from your exhalted high horse.
I used to support , still do , some of the women's causes, but the constant demonizing of males just got old.
Education is the key.
Those without much education--whose parents were without much education--have a long way to go before they even get to the same "starting line" in the economic rat race as the college educated children of college grads.
Even golfers--more rich people that can afford country club memberships than not--can understand the term "handicap"--if they want to. What is needed is to remove as much of that "handicap" as possible. Level the playing field.
Do you play golf? Do you understand the term handicap as it applies to golf?
Then, hopefully, if you strain your brain a bit, you will understand that not all people start the economic rat race at the same starting point.
How about if we each, INDIVIDUALLY (since we live in a society which grants us each individual "freedom") decide what is and isn't moral. I don't know about you, but I don't need religious zealots AND/OR politicians deciding that for me. There is plenty of problems in this country to keep our politicians busy for the rest of their lives, and the various sects of religious zealots can do whatever they want with THEIR lives...just stay out of mine.
While I get the author's point, he seems completely clueless that in the economic "rat race" we do not all start at the same starting line.
If the GOP truly cared for children (other than their own) while they were children, they'd been more interested in investing in and improving public schools--and not just trying to keep sex ed out and religion in. Also, they could pursue policies that favored jobs in the USA rather than mega-profits for the 1%.
If their concern for anyone other than themselves was real--and they acted like it--then in one generation there could be a huge difference in the status quo--but it seems the reason they call themselves "conservative" is because they want to "conserve" the status quo.
Left unsaid was the fact that the top 10% of earners make 80% of the nation's income; I hardly think paying 71% of the income taxes (and much less than 10% of the payroll taxes) is unfair!
Pffft...