the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

part i

I asked Becky the other day what she believes, as a conservative. She said it was a good question, and has been considering her response. I admit that my initial reaction was surprise that she had to give it so much thought. I mean, if she were to ask me what I believe as a self-styled “liberal,” I'd have something to say.

Then I sat down to do it myself, and...I take all that back. :) Expressing one's belief in clear, unequivocal terms is surprisingly difficult. One reason for this is the fact that clear language is, by its very nature, restricting. Abstract concepts are unwieldy and language forces them into boxes when in fact they are more than we are able to express. Our other choice is to employ general and vague language, which is just a sort of audio illusion: it sounds meaningful, but when we try to parse it, we find it surprisingly ephemeral.

Take the idea of fiscal conservativism, for example. At its most basic, this means doing what is necessary to keep a balanced budget. Sounds smart, right? It is in contrast to the notion of mainstream economics that says (and I grossly simplify here) that the occasional deficit is fine as along as such deficits are only cyclical; in other words, as long as everything evens out occasionally, it's okay to spend on the deficit. Save for the hard times as much as possible. Basically, this is most people's economic plan, anyway—individually and federally. The problem is, we all come to points where we have no reserves and believe we have a good reason, like recession or war, to spend on the deficit. With my admittedly oversimplified definition of this term, we're all more or less fiscally conservative—at least in belief. We just disagree when exceptions should be made, and how much money to borrow for those exceptions. So the person saying X is not a reasonable exception to the “don't spend on the deficit” rule is a “fiscal conservative” compared to the person who believes X is a reasonable exception. If both believe X is a reasonable exception, then the person who believes less money should be borrowed for the problem becomes the “fiscal conservative.”

What else does the term entail? A belief that government spending should be kept to a minimum. Again, doesn't everyone believe this? You may believe that welfare is not necessary, and I may believe we need to throw more money into national defense, but in the end, we both want to keep government spending to a minimum. For that matter, I've never met a person who believes government spending should not be kept to a minimum. We just disagree in the particulars.

What else do fiscal conservatives believe? They believe in “free trade.” That sounds straightforward enough, but what do we mean when we advocate free trade? (Oooooh. This one is really mucky, so put on your boots.) Essentially, the idea is that the market is allowed to function naturally without any artificial control of goods, labor, or prices.

That sounds great! We all agree! Right?

Of course not. We have bans on some things being imported which I think most “free trade” advocates agree should be banned. Drugs spring to mind. Even when we all—or most of us—agree that this import ban is a good thing, it is a violation of “free trade.” It artificially controls the market.

Free trade includes support of the free movement of labor between and within countries. How do we feel about that? If we don't have a problem with our jobs being sent to India, we probably do believe someone should keep all that Mexican labor from “freely moving” up here to do that cheap manual labor we can't outsource. We like our cheap stuff at Walmart, but when we buy it, we probably feel a twang of guilt for the poor kids in the Chinese sweatshop who made it.

How about subsidies? They upset the normal flow of the market. We don't want them, either. Right? Just imagine what would happen if we removed our agricultural subsidies.

When push comes to shove, even the most staunch “free trade” advocates believe in some exceptions to the rule. What we end up with is the fairly-accurate-but-completely-unhelpful observation that we all believe in free trade, except when we don't.

How about “lower taxes”? We all believe in this, right?* Well, yeah, but no. We believe in lowering our own taxes, certainly, but most of us understand that that means raising someone else's. It's the NIMBY problem, really. Yeah, we need a way to dispose of nuclear waste, but Not In My Back Yard! Yes, someone has to pay taxes, but it should be That Person Over There. Not me.

* I'm reminded of a time, many years ago, when Barb and I were driving cross-country and happened to stop at a restaurant outside Nashville. A woman came through hawking tapes of her singing. As part of her spiel as she tried to get us to buy one, she said, “I'm against drugs and I believe in the family.” After she walked away, Barb looked at me and said, “Well, I'm in favor of drugs and against the family. I mean, you aren't going to make any enemies announcing that you're against drugs and for the family, are you?”

Back to fiscal conservatism. We may all believe we want deregulation of the economy until we find ourselves being scalped by the only utility company in town, which is too deeply entrenched to permit the growth of competition. We don't think twice about the implications of monopolies and government's role in protecting us from them until the major oil cartels buy out the little ones then band together to control price, at which point we wonder why someone doesn't do something about the price of gasoline.

So. I will lay out some of my beliefs. I will do my best to use specific language. I will also try to avoid becoming married to my own words, which is another risk we run when we write them down. I acknowledge that you may point out exceptions to my position which I'll agree with and either attempt to recraft my beliefs accordingly or refine how I express those beliefs, depending upon the reason behind the need for correction.

Which reminds me: saying what you believe naturally opens yourself to criticism—or worse. I think humans tend to shrink from this (or perhaps the lady doth project too much :) ) because it puts your neck out there, and it's only a matter of time before someone stomps on it. It's not only tough to express, but it's psychologically challenging. I understand that.

That's why I'm doing it first. At least, I'm trying to.

d

NOTE: Definitions and "facts" about free trade and fiscal conservatism drawn shamelessly from Wikipedia's general write-ups. They more or less admit that these terms mean different things to different people, which is only part of my point.