Skip to main content

Spending my money to support causes I don't believe in

I'm reading "The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain," by George Lakoff. It fits in remarkably well with all the books I've been reading lately about brain research. I'll have more to write about this as I digest the book. (And I have to get it back -- it's due today, and others are waiting for it!)

But I've had a nagging thought that I wanted to capture. Lakoff frames American politics as a contest, at base, between the Strict Father model, and the Nurturant Parent. He calls the former conservative, and the latter progressive. There are also many people who are "biconceptual" -- whose views vary with the topic.

I guess that describes me. I refuse to let somebody else define my politics. Example: Suzanne read me an article yesterday over breakfast about an attempt to introduce a bill to forbid the use of union dues for politics. I found myself wondering: so, will there also be a bill preventing the private sector from spending money on lobbying? If I'm a member of a union, the union uses those dues for political action. If I buy a tank of gasoline, a significant chunk of that goes to the support of various political causes. Yet it's no more "voluntary" or informed than union support of political activity. Isn't this just a transparent attempt to muzzle unions, while retaining an advantage for business? But the core objection -- use of my money for causes I don't support -- is precisely the same.

As I've written before, I'm a believer in a strong public AND private sector. Both are necessary; neither can be defined in terms of the others; both serve essential purposes. Here's one distinguishing characteristic of the public sector: full disclosure by law. Public budgets. Public meetings. Accountability to the taxpayer. In the private sector, budgets may be hidden, meetings may be utterly secret, and accountability to the consumer a matter of protracted lawsuits (and met often by efforts to secure "tort reform" -- e.g. limits on corporate punishments).

To restate this again in the example above: when I spend a tax dollar for libraries, I know where the money goes, and why. The case is fully disclosed to the public, and decided by a vote of the community. I know there is little excess; the functioning of the institution I fund is transparent. When I fill a tank of gas each week (just one of which equals the proposed increase to my annual library tax bill), that money goes to support extravagant executive compensation, compromises the environment, and directly funds political maneuvering that has led to the occupation of foreign countries, the murder of children, and the torture of innocents. It's times like that that I have trouble defending the moral superiority of the private sector.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Uncle Bobby's Wedding

Recently, a library patron challenged (urged a reconsideration of the ownership or placement of) a book called "Uncle Bobby's Wedding." Honestly, I hadn't even heard of it until that complaint. But I did read the book, and responded to the patron, who challenged the item through email and requested that I respond online (not via snail-mail) about her concerns. I suspect the book will get a lot of challenges in 2008-2009. So I offer my response, purging the patron's name, for other librarians. Uncle Bobby's wedding June 27, 2008 Dear Ms. Patron: Thank you for working with my assistant to allow me to fit your concerns about “Uncle Bobby's Wedding,” by Sarah S. Brannen, into our “reconsideration” process. I have been assured that you have received and viewed our relevant policies: the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, the Freedom to View, and our Reconsideration Policy. The intent of providing all tha

Installing Linux on a 2011 Macbook Pro

I had two MacBook Pros, both 13" models from late 2011. One had 4 gigs of RAM, and the other 8. Both of them were intolerably slow. In the first case, I wound up installing CleanMyMac , which did arcane things to various files, and put up alerts to warn me about disappearing memory. But it made the machine useable again, albeit not exactly speedy. I changed some habits: Safari as browser rather than Firefox or Chrome. I tried to keep tabs down to four or five. The second Mac had bigger problems. Its charger was shot, but even with that replaced, the battery tapped out at 75%. More importantly, the whole disk had been wiped, which meant that it wouldn't boot. Recently, I had downloaded a couple of Linux distributions ("distros") on USB drives. Elementary OS 5.1 (Hera) was reputed to be a lightweight, beautiful distro that shared some aesthetics with the Mac OS. So I thought I'd give it a try. Ahead of time, I tried to read up on how difficult it might be to

The enemies of literature

Every year, apologists for the restriction of reading stumble over themselves to "mock" Banned Books Week. Walther (Oct 1, 2023's " The Enemies of Literature ") upholds the grand tradition. Complaints about banning, the argument goes, are simply false. Walther writes, "In zero cases since the advent of Banned Books Week has a local or state ordinance been passed in this country that forbids the sale or general possession of any of the books in question." Yet Texas HB 900 was passed on June 13 of this year. It requires book vendors to assign ratings to books based only on the presence of depictions or references to sex. If a book is "sexually explicit" and has no direct connection to required curriculum, it must be pulled from the school. (One wonders what happens to the Bible, and its story of Lot's daughters, first offered by their father for gang rape, and whom he later sleeps with.) In Arkansas, legislation stated that school and pu