The GOP is all about individualism right now: if you are poor it is your fault; there is no War on Women, it is all about individual choices women make (bad ones typically); if you are doing poorly in this economy you need to borrow from your parents and start a business; and so on. All freedoms are defined as individual freedoms and collective action is bad, bad, bad. Unions are bad. Bleeding heart social programs are bad. The social safety net is bad, and so on.
The other day, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas screwed members of his own caucus by filibustering the debt limit bill. Consequently members of his party trying to get re-elected had to vote “yea” on a bill unpopular with their conservative bases. Why did Cruz do this to his own Party? His reasons are due to his personal (individual) ambition.
What is driving all of these displays of support for individualism.?
Just maybe it is part and parcel with the 40-year campaign to reshape this country to one more to the liking of the very rich. There are very few very rich people investing in politics. To counter their prestige, power, and influence would take a great many ordinary citizens working together to have any effect at all. So is “working together” now the target? It seems so.
College students used to demonstrate in the streets for issues of social justice. Four decades into the Conservative Class War and students have huge financial debts hung around their necks, debts that make them beholden to the system and less likely to oppose the plutocrats plans. Unions, especially teachers’ unions, used to support progressive agendas and candidates with both the cash and their bodies. Four decades into the Conservative Class War and teachers have had their social positions eroded substantially (all education woes are due to bad teachers, if we could just get rid of the bad teachers, et. al.) and their unions are under duress in state houses in red states.
The success of these efforts have lead to the battle plan of taking the idea of the “Me Generation” and embracing it in the form of more and more focus on “you” as an individual. Narcissism is promoted (Take another picture of yourself and post it on Facebook; it is all about you!). Collectivism is pooh-poohed. We aren’t all in this together. You have to think about yourself. You have all of that debt to pay off. Keep your nose to the grindstone and shoulder to the wheel. There is nothing to see here, just move along.
Uncommon Sense 
Barack Obama has been in power since 2008.
When are atheists and other leftists going to start holding him accountable for the policies that have destroyed the economy and widened the gap between rich and poor?
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Comment by silenceofmind — February 14, 2014 @ 12:18 pm |
As soon as we have the proof that Obama was running the country from 2001 to 2008.
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Comment by List of X — February 15, 2014 @ 1:23 am |
Republican Ronald Reagan cured Democrat Jimmy Carter’s mess in only 18 months.
That is proof that it takes less than two years to cure the effects of bad economic policy.
Meanwhile, 6 years later, you folks are still blaming everyone else but the man who promised to fix the problem but can’t.
Blaming is an admission of powerlessness.
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Comment by silenceofmind — February 15, 2014 @ 5:07 am |
“Blaming is an admission of powerlessness.”
And you don’t see the hypocrisy of you blaming Obama for not fixing everything as a sign of your own powerlessness SOM? You blame Jimmy Carter for messes that were the result of more than one person. You blame atheist for the problems we have yet claim to believe in an all powerful God, who apparently seems incapable of stopping those people you blame. I suspect too that you will blame someone else for putting that log in your eye that clearly obscures your world view.
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Comment by lbwoodgate — February 15, 2014 @ 7:00 am |
You have an interesting concept of proof. By your logic, winning a lottery once proves that all you need to win again is to buy another ticket. I’d like to see how Reagan would do if every Democrat in House and Senate voted (and filibustered) against him on every bill. Since I hope you credit specific laws passed during the Reagan era rather than just the result of Reagan being elected, you can find the vote counts on each and see if there were 40 Senate Democrats to filibuster these laws or a Democratic majority in the house.
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Comment by List of X — February 15, 2014 @ 11:02 am |
Well stated Stephen. David Kaiser on his “History Unfolding blog touched on this yesterday. He noted that the mass shootings we experience today appear to be the result of the need to promote the individual over society as a whole.
“Half a century ago such individuals (mass shooters) were far more likely to be institutionalized than they are now. In addition, citizens could not easily acquire weapons, and they could not acquire semi-automatic rifles at all. Despite widespread dissent, society as a whole, insofar as the political process reflects its views, is willing to allow virtually anyone to get their hands on these weapons and accept the consequences of a period mass attack. “
I duly noted that it does appear, sadly, we have come to point in our history where the individual it seems must always prevail over the greater social needs.
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Comment by lbwoodgate — February 15, 2014 @ 6:50 am |