Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Schiavo - Bush - Stalin (2)
I did the check: it was indeed Joseph Stalin, evildoer par excellence, who said "one death is a tragedy; a million deaths are just statistics".
A long time ago, the Republican party felt that Big Government was the problem; that it had become too invasive. The great theory behind the current administration is in the writings of Friedrich Hayek, the Austrian philosopher-writer, who argued that ALL government interventions in the working of a society are inherently evil. This meshed with the libertarian wing of the GOP's beliefs, and off we all went. Unravelling social security with 'personal accounts' is -- and I mean this literally, and not to be disparaging -- part of a idealistic attempt to overturn social programs that are seen as contrary to this philosophy.
Except that, somehow, the plot has been lost. Government grows bigger and bigger: the government deficit is higher now than ever, with not even half-baked attempts to rein it in. And it has become more invasive in our lives than ever before. Thus, the second layer of hypocrisy about the Schiavo tragedy is that the politicians who would pose as Schiavo's savior (& I pick that word carefully) ostensibly favor more power for individuals, talk about the sacred bond of matrimony, and say they want to devolve power from central government.
Unless, of course, the individuals don't adhere to the Republican's dogmatic script, in which case the politicians feel that THEY know best and DO need to interfere, to save us all from our little selves.
A long time ago, the Republican party felt that Big Government was the problem; that it had become too invasive. The great theory behind the current administration is in the writings of Friedrich Hayek, the Austrian philosopher-writer, who argued that ALL government interventions in the working of a society are inherently evil. This meshed with the libertarian wing of the GOP's beliefs, and off we all went. Unravelling social security with 'personal accounts' is -- and I mean this literally, and not to be disparaging -- part of a idealistic attempt to overturn social programs that are seen as contrary to this philosophy.
Except that, somehow, the plot has been lost. Government grows bigger and bigger: the government deficit is higher now than ever, with not even half-baked attempts to rein it in. And it has become more invasive in our lives than ever before. Thus, the second layer of hypocrisy about the Schiavo tragedy is that the politicians who would pose as Schiavo's savior (& I pick that word carefully) ostensibly favor more power for individuals, talk about the sacred bond of matrimony, and say they want to devolve power from central government.
Unless, of course, the individuals don't adhere to the Republican's dogmatic script, in which case the politicians feel that THEY know best and DO need to interfere, to save us all from our little selves.
|| Unknown, 2:21 PM
1 Comments:
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WRT to the other tragedy referred to, I hesitate to even comment given the complexity of the issue, only to say that we (i.e. the entire social structure) suffer with any number of "life" issues when the status of life is not black and white; and with good and appropriate reason - god forbid any ones life would become a statistic.
That there is this much energy exherted on one life, when so many others are dieing (in so many ways - wars, car crashes, aids, starvation,....), is clearly worthy of reflection though.........but given that we seem to allow tens of thousands of people to die in a number of ways may indicate that Stalin knew something about ourselves that we have yet to fully appreciate. Perhaps Tip was right - all politics is local.