I attended the "Speed Debate" event this week, co-sponsored by the Duke Political Union, Duke Democrats and College Republicans. The discussion was great, and brought up some interesting points that liberals and conservatives disagree on. Yet what struck me most had nothing to do with the statistics thrown back and forth, but rather with the premises of the debaters.
One reason why Democrats are having such a hard time regaining the ideological high ground is because the premises upon which we, as a society, argue issues have taken a hard right turn. For example, the 1960s nonpartisan value of social well-being has taken a back seat to the perceived sanctity of individual wealth. Creating a more equitable society framed the social debate from JFK through Carter. Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation was merely an innocuous vehicle to accomplish this goal.
When was the last time you heard a Democrat or Republican advocate redistributing wealth to help the poor? If the main social goal were still to create a more equitable society, then Medicaid would have offspring today, not be on the chopping block.
Similarly, we would not be talking about the estate tax-50 percent of which affects only the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans yet provides $70 billion annually to government coffers to pay for social programs like Medicaid-as an unfair tax on individual profits. Instead, the majority of Americans would still see it as a reasonable means toward fostering a more equitable society.
The difference is that in today's conservative paradigm, even Democrats start with the baseline rule that government exists first to protect individual interests and then to serve the needs of society at large.
Take the current tension between private property and environmental regulations raging across the nation. Thirty years ago, we accepted that it was the government's duty to regulate private activities to protect the general public. Under this ideology, a Republican president signed the Clean Water Act (CWA), Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the sweeping National Environmental Protection Act, all of which put constraints on what landowners could do with their property.
Fast forward to 2005. As Americans have grown increasingly attached to the perceived-though categorically wrong-inviolability of private property, a movement has emerged advocating either the abolition of "punitive" regulations or monetary compensation.
Take the Michigan landowner arguing before the Supreme Court that the government cannot stop him from filling his wetlands under CWA. Or take Congress's "revision" of ESA, which states that the government must compensate landowners prohibited from harvesting their timber because of ESA protections. Or consider Oregon's passage of Proposition 37 last November, which severely restricts local governments' ability to set land-use regulations without compensating landowners.
I'll bet a lot of you think that paying a landowner for potential profit losses due to regulations is reasonable. But in the ideological paradigm of thirty years ago-and in my view, the correct one-doing so is essentially paying people to follow the law. And isn't it the government's duty to pass laws ensuring we all have clean water to drink and clean air to breathe?
The most important take-home point is that the new ideological paradigm represents a false consensus. While conservatives act on the premise that government should protect individual wealth, they somehow do so in the name of societal well-being, creating a latent ideological schizophrenia.
Just look at the ludicrous Republican logic post-Katrina. In searching for an excuse to slash $35 billion from Medicaid, food stamps and student loans, House Republicans and the Bush administration are asserting that the poverty-ravaged region only proves that social programs don't work; apparently, so many New Orleanians are poor because they depend on government help.
Their solution? Cut funding even more. In other words, benefit society not by touching the $1.6 trillion worth of tax breaks that padded the bank accounts of America's richest but by slashing social programs.
Huh?
Let's stop pretending that budget-hacking and tax-cutting aren't aimed at protecting individual wealth.
At a time when the ideological dynamic of the Supreme Court is in the balance, now is when we must ask ourselves, "What is the role of government: to protect individual interests or promote the general well-being?" When Judge Alito goes before the Senate next year, the most critical test will not be to determine his stand on abortion rights or gun control. It will be to infer his position on the role and rights of government.
Jared Fish is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.