Billionaires

Like anyone on Earth is actually "worth" billions of dollars. For those who believe that the rich earn their money, just look at the difference between one of these people and a wage slave working two jobs for close to nothing. Go ahead and tell me that just one of the super-rich is as important as a million other people. They're not. I'm sure many of them are brilliant and have made great contributions. But it's also true that they were in the right place at the right time, they had certain connections or money, they took advantage of others, they had help from taxpayers (loans, infrastructure, education), or all of the above. They did not do this alone, and for each of them there are hordes of others who are just as smart and work just as hard, without the reward. So stop putting the rich up on a pedestal and try thinking outside that box.

On Creation

For purposes of discussion, I will use a somewhat broader definition of creation than is usually used when considering the origin of the Universe. Here, creation is the coming into existence of something as a result of some cause, either the actions of a supremely powerful being or some physical process outside our Universe, e.g. whatever may have existed prior to this Universe. The alternative, that the Universe was not created, implies that it has always existed and will always do so.

If the Universe was created, there must have existed something prior to or outside of the Universe that is the cause of its creation, some creational precursor. The question then arises, "Was the precursor created?" If we say "yes", we are led down an infinitely long path of precursors, never to find the ultimate creator. This seems highly unsatisfactory. If we say "no", we make a distinction about the kind of existence that the Universe has versus its precursor. While the Universe had to be created, the precursor did not. It has always existed and always will. But why allow this asymmetry?

There is no particular reason to assume that the Universe was created if you're willing to believe that a possible precursor needed no creation. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to think that if the Universe must have precursors, the number would be one. Why not 10? Or 49? No, it's much simpler and satisfying to Occam's Razor to make the Universe the thing that doesn't need to be created. That it has always been, in either a cyclical fashion or a linear one, and that there is no compelling reason to insist that it must have a precursor.

As to What the Proper Role of Government Really Is

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;" By using the words, "among these are" instead of simply "these are", Jefferson makes it plain that there are other unalienable rights belonging to all men, although he has declined to state them here.

The mere fact that such additional rights exist creates an imperative that we secure them for all men, and as Jefferson makes plain, this is the reason the government was instituted. But how should we identify what these other rights are? Jefferson did not come out and make them explicit, perhaps for brevity, but just as likely because he felt their identification would best be left to the governed themselves. After all, Jefferson was a big fan of democracy.

This is only one illustration of how our Founding Fathers intended us to clarify the proper role of our government in a way that was consistent with our understanding at any point in time. So when you hear someone complain that there "is no right to privacy/health care/a dignified death", you can ask them, "Isn't that for all of us to decide?"

The Purpose of Government

What is the proper role of government? There is a lot of debate over this, but really it's very simple to understand if you look at it properly. In a democracy, representatives are elected to positions of power so that the government will do the will of the people. So the proper role of government is quite simply to be whatever the people want it to be.

Now, if the government stops fulfilling the will of the people, we are no longer in a democracy. We're now in a situation where the government is acting in the interests of someone other than the people, meaning we could have devolved into an oligarchy or a dictatorship. This is, I'm afraid, what has happened to our government. It seems to be controlled by big money interests far more than it is by American voters.

Is the Government Taking YOUR Money?

So often these days I hear some conservative, often a Tea Partier, complain about how the Government shouldn't be doing such-and-such (helping the poor, insuring the uninsured, protecting the environment, etc.) with their money. "How dare they use my tax dollars for that!" Well you know what? That's not your money!

Tax dollars belong to the United States of America and should be used however she sees fit. If the U.S.A. is benefited by using that money to help someone other than you, then that's how it should be used. As long as the overall welfare of the nation, in the form of its citizens, is improved through greater freedom, equality and opportunity, it shouldn't matter whether you benefit or not.

"But the government doesn't have the right to my money!", they protest. Actually, it does. It has that right because We the People gave it that right through the laws passed by our democratically-elected representatives. And every citizen owes their contribution to the United States in exchange for the benefits they reap by being one of its citizens. For you 'free market' advocates, consider it the money you owe in exchange for the benefits you receive by virtue of being American. And if you think the value of your citizenship isn't what America is asking for it, consider the millions of people who risk their lives for the chance to have just a piece of those benefits: the availability of living-wage jobs, quality goods for sale, and safe homes to live in. If living in America is worth the lives of some people, why isn't citizenship here worth the 20% effective tax rate you pay?

What is Conservative?

At the root of what makes conservative thought conservative, regardless of whether it is economic, social or religious thought, is a black-and-white world view. Conservatism's ultimate failure, which prevents it from passing any real-world test of its correctness, is that it overgeneralizes the world in an attempt to cope with its complexities. Social conservatives, only able to deal with a world made of people like themselves, treat anyone significantly different with an "us vs. them" mentality. Economic conservatives insist on rigidly following a single economic theory: free market capitalism, which they define so as to make any concessions to other (e.g. more socially beneficial) economic models heresy. And religious conservatives (not all religious people, however) understand the world in a way that takes the guesswork out of right vs. wrong. There are the converted and the heathens. Existence is a battle of good vs. evil. Our ultimate reward or punishment will be found in heaven or hell. While such simple philosophies make it easier to feel that you've got your life and the world around you under control, that is just an illusion. And you do yourselves and your community a great disservice by holding on to this illusion, because it ultimately creates unnecessary suffering and injustice in the world.

Obama the "Socialist"

It's become very popular among conservatives to label President Obama a socialist because of the recent government intervention in the financial and automotive sectors of our economy. However, the use of the term 'socialist' in this context is incorrect. In order for the bailouts of Wall Street and Detroit to be truly socialistic, the government would have to 1) own the affected institutions, or at least a controlling interest in them, and 2) run them as not-for-profit corporations to maximize production at a given cost. Neither of these is true in either case. In fact, I would go so far as to say that President Obama has been a staunch defender of capitalism. The amount of money that has been invested by the government for the benefit of these huge corporations is staggering, while the amount of direct economic relief to individual citizens pales in comparison. Whether you feel this is right or wrong, it is clearly aimed at ensuring the health of our capitalist system.

But the sad truth is that this lopsided intervention has at least as much to do with corporate influence in Washington as it does with a desire to preserve our economic system. And this influence is on display in Congress much more than it is in the White House, with Republicans and Democrats alike defending the corporate-influenced status quo. This was evidenced most recently by the health insurance reform debacle, where lobbyists and special interest groups used corporate money to dilute the proposed legislation until it is now little more than a mandate to drive new customers to insurance companies.

Our government is broken, yet the people who are clamoring most vocally for change would only make things worse. The current anti-government movements (e.g. Tea Party, Libertarians) fail to understand that scaling back government and reducing regulation only serves to give the monied elite more power, ultimately leading to lower wages and benefits for the average American and a shrinking middle class. And this is exactly what has happened since the days of downsizing and deregulation in the 1980s. Should it continue, this trend toward ever more "free" markets will have the opposite of the desired effect, drying up the pool of consumer capital that drives our economy and ultimately leading to its demise.

At the turn of the 20th Century, when corporations most dominated our nation, it took Republican president Teddy Roosevelt to see the threat contained in such lopsided prosperity and to act before worker revolts led to revolution. We need another leader as visionary, independent and strong to fix the government so that it again works in the interests of the people, rather than tearing it down as so many are now trying to do.