Hold Your Heads Up
By BOB HERBERT
Ignorance must really be bliss. How else, over so many years, could the G.O.P. get away with ridiculing all things liberal?
Troglodytes on the right are no respecters of reality. They say the most absurd things and hardly anyone calls them on it. Evolution? Don’t you believe it. Global warming? A figment of the liberal imagination.
Liberals have been so cowed by the pummeling they’ve taken from the right that they’ve tried to shed their own identity, calling themselves everything but liberal and hoping to pass conservative muster by presenting themselves as hyper-religious and lifelong lovers of rifles, handguns, whatever.
So there was Hillary Clinton, of all people, sponsoring legislation to ban flag-burning; and Barack Obama, who once opposed the death penalty, morphing into someone who not only supports it, but supports it in cases that don’t even involve a homicide.
Anyway, the Republicans were back at it last week at their convention. Mitt Romney wasn’t content to insist that he personally knows that “liberals don’t have a clue.” He complained loudly that the federal government right now is too liberal.
“We need change, all right,” he said. “Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington.”
Why liberals don’t stand up to this garbage, I don’t know. Without the extraordinary contribution of liberals — from the mightiest presidents to the most unheralded protesters and organizers — the United States would be a much, much worse place than it is today.
There would be absolutely no chance that a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin could make a credible run for the highest offices in the land. Conservatives would never have allowed it.
Civil rights? Women’s rights? Liberals went to the mat for them time and again against ugly, vicious and sometimes murderous opposition. They should be forever proud.
The liberals who didn’t have a clue gave us Social Security and unemployment insurance, both of which were contained in the original Social Security Act. Most conservatives despised the very idea of this assistance to struggling Americans. Republicans hated Social Security, but most were afraid to give full throat to their opposition in public at the height of the Depression.
“In the procedural motions that preceded final passage,” wrote historian Jean Edward Smith in his biography, “FDR,” “House Republicans voted almost unanimously against Social Security. But when the final up-or-down vote came on April 19 [1935], fewer than half were prepared to go on record against.”
Liberals who didn’t have a clue gave us Medicare and Medicaid. Quick, how many of you (or your loved ones) are benefiting mightily from these programs, even as we speak. The idea that Republicans are proud of Ronald Reagan, who saw Medicare as “the advance wave of socialism,” while Democrats are ashamed of Lyndon Johnson, whose legislative genius made this wonderful, life-saving concept real, is insane.
When Johnson signed the Medicare bill into law in the presence of Harry Truman in 1965, he said: “No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine.”
Reagan, on the other hand, according to Johnson biographer Robert Dallek, “predicted that Medicare would compel Americans to spend their ‘sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.’ ”
Scary.
Without the many great and noble deeds of liberals over the past six or seven decades, America would hardly be recognizable to today’s young people. Liberals (including liberal Republicans, who have since been mostly drummed out of the party) ended legalized racial segregation and gender discrimination.
Humiliation imposed by custom and enforced by government had been the order of the day for blacks and women before men and women of good will and liberal persuasion stepped up their long (and not yet ended) campaign to change things. Liberals gave this country Head Start and legal services and the food stamp program. They fought for cleaner air (there was a time when you could barely see Los Angeles) and cleaner water (there were rivers in America that actually caught fire).
Liberals. Your food is safer because of them, and so are your children’s clothing and toys. Your workplace is safer. Your ability (or that of your children or grandchildren) to go to college is manifestly easier.
It would take volumes to adequately cover the enhancements to the quality of American lives and the greatness of American society that have been wrought by people whose politics were unabashedly liberal. It is a track record that deserves to be celebrated, not ridiculed or scorned.
Self-hatred is a terrible thing. Just ask that arch-conservative Clarence Thomas.
Liberals need to get over it.
Aside from the blanket statement about Republicans, which do nothing to further the American political discourse, Mr. Herbert speaks of the second Amendment as if its negativity were a foregone conclusion. It is a fact that gun ownership saves lives every year that might not be saved if the would-be victims of crime were forced to resort to calling the police. It is a fact that in countries in which guns are banned, like Britain, deaths by stabbing have increased dramatically. (Fancy that -- some people will kill others, regardless of whether the government steps in and bans their method of choice.) Personally, were I robbed, I'd prefer to be able to equalize the level of force-potential with a gun than have to worry about my personal strength in a gun- or knife fight. But I disgress.
And fancy a liberal, changing his or her status to support the death penalty? Wonder of wonders! It's apparant that Mr. Herbert didn't bother actually researching the issue. In studies of this issue, the death-penalty has been found to be a statistically significant reducer of crime (fancy that! Criminals are worried that they'll get killed!). Though it is a morally contentious issue where one could make grounded arguments on either side of the issue, by making a blanket statement and deriding his opponents Mr. Herbert only shows the weakness of his own views.
Mitt Romney made an insulting statement about Democrats at the Republican convention? The surprises just keep coming! I can't believe that he would do such a thing, in a ceremony that 99% fluff and 1% actual politics. Well, at least the Democrats didn't do anything of that sort...
Civil rights? Yes, liberals fought for equality among races, against other Democrats. While there were Republicans opposed to the Civil Rights Act, a quick examination of the percentages of Democratic and Republican support reveals:
"The original House version:[9]
- Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
- Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
The Senate version:[9]
- Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
- Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:[9]
- Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
- Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)"
As can be clearly seen from a quick examination of these percentages, the Republicans were more for the Civil Rights Act than the Democrats. And let's not forget which party Abe Lincoln was from. Nor ought we to forget that the Southern Democrats were the ones largely responsible for the Civil War; those same Dixiecrats voted in droves against the Civil Rights Act.
Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare and Medicaid were all Democratic endeavours, true, and were all fiercly opposed by Republicans. And such programs unambiguously decrease the incentive to work, and increase adverse selection and moral hazard amongst the 'insured'. It has been proven -- proven -- that unemployment insurance, like Welfare, decreases the incentive to work, thereby prolonging the very unemployment it seeks to relieve. Remember Welfare reform in 1996? That was a Republican initiative. Social security is a benefit to society only in that it forces present-consumption-biased consumers to save a lttle -- a very little -- for the future. Let's remember that the real value of the money a citizen puts into Social Security over a lifetime actually decreases. Significantly. All of Mr. Herbert's social programs are net detriments to society, and all have had consequences far beyond their original reach. Google Medicare / Social Security / Welfare deficit, if you want to teach yourself something.
I agree with one point the author makes, that "[w]ithout the many great and noble deeds of liberals... America would hardly be recognizable to today's young people". But in my view, the author has failed to mention a singal significant accomplishment that liberals can be proud of, aside from part of the Democratic party's noble support of the Civil Rights Act. All of his examples follow a simple formula: restrict basic liberties and rights, and attempt to legislate around the consequences, with an ultimate 'solution' that is worse than the problem it was originally trying to fix.
I could go on. In fact, I think I will. Head Start was a noble cause, for certain, aside from the fact that it has been econometrically demonstrated to be a failure. Food Stamps restrict the freedom to purchase of the poor, forcing them to spend their handouts on food rather than what they really want. I have a feeling legal services were provided in this country with the advent not of Liberals, but of lawyers. I have no idea how Liberal government has made children's toys safer. The workplace is safer, yes, but with the cost of a restriction of individual freedom. (For the record, this is one thing that I think Liberals can be proud of, but I'm on a rol, and just wanted to point out the two sides to this issue.)
As a last point, I would like to say that there are many, many things modern of which Liberals (or more rightly termed Progressives) can be proud. I am not a Republican, though I'll admit that of late I vote like one. The reason this article so infuriated me is that it actually weakens Liberals' position on issues where they have a lot to contribute towards a bipartisan conslusion. Far from helping his party I believe Mr. Herbert has pushed undecided voters away from the Democratic party.
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