I intentionally avoid adding anything to this blog that isn’t strictly related to its stated purpose to explore the ways in which capitalism and culture intersect (and often diverge). I consider libertarianism infinitely more than a political party platform, and certainly much more than a specific set of beliefs. Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, even the more rational and objective among us seem too willing to abandon those qualities in favor of trying to reduce any political candidate to a few short, woefully inadequate platitudes and cliches. And, now that Ron Paul is once again a candidate for president, we’re confronted with a great deal of media that tries to mitigate the value of his candidacy because it’s so much more difficult to distill the essence of actual ideals than that of rhetoric. So, I feel like putting this this phenomenon in perspective for anyone who may be interested.

To start with, the term “libertarian” describes an ideal– not a party or a specific set of positions. At its core, it’s the idea that a government should not have the power to hinder the right of any individual to live his or her life as he sees fit as long as it does not hinder the right of any other individual to do the same. There is plenty of literature available from The CATO Institute (among other places) that will carefully explain the rationale that leads up to this, but, essentially, a libertarian nation would protect its citizens from harm and mediate the disagreements that may arise between any two entities who feel that ideal has been breached. The economy that would drive such a society would be one of free and open markets– often referred to as “capitalism.” If that sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because it is the ideal upon which much of this country’s sovereignty was originally based. It’s what inspired the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, as well as the three branches of our government as we typically learn about them as children. One may disagree with this ideal, but that is basically what the libertarian ideal is about. Many libertarians disagree about how that paradigm should be applied to some of the most difficult questions that face this country, and that’s why it’s folly to try to ascribe a specific set of political positions to anyone who identifies as libertarian. Ron Paul is a libertarian politician who is seeking the Republican nomination for the Presidential candidacy.

The truth is that most people buy in to a certain style of rhetoric more than they truly buy into a political philosophy, and this is dangerous. Any cursory examination of a year’s worth of voting records in the US Congress will show that most Republican and Democratic politicians are often not fighting over ideals at all. In spite of this, they lead American voters to believe that anyway when they campaign by using a rhetoric which they may even believe in themselves, but their actual actions in Congress belie that rhetoric. And yet Americans continue to vote for candidates based on the rhetoric they’re fed, rather than evident fact. And after more than a century of this, a culture has developed that encourages us to avoid objectivity and instead vote for the candidate that espouses the rhetoric we find most palatable.

When a presidential election includes an “odd ball” candidate whose actual rhetoric is too close to their actual behavior, it often makes people uneasy. Examples in recent history include Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, and Ron Paul. Now, fidelity to one’s ideal is admirable, but, of course, it doesn’t mean you should vote for them. But it does force you to consider the ideal itself, and, unfortunately, many Americans would rather write these candidates off than assume the hard and unfamiliar duty of actually weighing out the merits of these candidates’ ideals– without all the rhetoric that goes with it.

The Boston Globe just published a piece claiming that Ron Paul’s appeal to an independent strain of Republican voters and the possibility of a third-party or independent candidacy if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination could guarantee a win for Barack Obama in 2012. I’m reminded of all the political commentators who publicly blamed people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 for George W. Bush’s win, because they assumed that these were truly democrats who would have otherwise voted for Gore. And how stupid is that? Those voters were no more to blame than all the people who voted for Bush. That’s how elections are supposed to work in this country! You are supposed to choose the candidate you want to do the job. But the aforementioned culture has reduced our choices, in many ways, to candidates of two different strains of rhetoric– Republican and Democrat. And those strains are highly muddled at that.

The fact that commentators at The Boston Globe and other pundits want to place blame for an election outcome on a small set of voters who may be more objectively aware of their candidate’s true ideals and thus vote in a manner that is more mature and reverent of their duty puts the problem with this two-party rhetorical culture in sharp relief. The voters who know what they believe and vote for the candidate they truly understand are a persecuted minority. It’s a shame, and it leads inevitably to elected leaders who place far more value on the rewards rhetoric can bring than to any particular ideal. These people are hard to trust, and it’s a system that is not likely to make the most qualified candidate rise to the top.

News Commentary Shows are made extremely popular by relatively sensationalist/biased examples such as The O’Reilly Factor. Most of these shows make a mockery of journalism and confuse the definition of news. But, there is one that I like: Bill Moyers Journal, which airs in New York City on the public Channel 13. Incidentally, the production of his show is paid for entirely by fundraising, and not by PBS. While Bill Moyers holds some political views that I oppose, his conversations with guests and his commentary in general is critical and in-depth. Last night, however, he drifted into the more stereotypical territory of the format, as he criticized Alan Greenspan who recently testified before Congress about the current economic crisis.

I’m essentially glad that Alan Greenspan was willing to admit that he was partly to blame for the state of the economy, and I hope Americans were listening, but Bill Moyers used Greenspan’s somewhat honorable admission of complicity to take potshots at Capitalism, and, for some reason, at Ayn Rand– a dead philosopher whose followers pose absolutely no threat to what passes for conservatism these days. If you read this blog regularly, you may remember that I blogged about Greenspan’s warning of a recession over a year and a half ago. My disappointment in Moyers’s commentary led me to send him the following e-mail through his website last night:

Dear Mr. Moyers,

I have enjoyed watching “The Journal” for a few years now, and I have a great deal of respect for you as a journalist. However, as I watch tonight while you criticize Alan Greenspan for his culpability in the current economic crisis (and, indeed, he is culpable), I’m somewhat disappointed.

Yes, it is true that Ayn Rand was one of Greenspan’s early influences; but, there really isn’t any reason not to believe Greenspan when he mitigates that influence, since his behavior as chairman of the Federal Reserve was far more meddlesome than Rand would have ever liked. Greenspan’s culpability in the current economic crisis actually stems from his involvement in President Bush’s “Ownership Society” initiative– launched several years ago– which, among other things, actively encouraged banks to make loans to riskier prospects. Don’t believe me? The White House website used to say this about “Expanding Homeownership":

In June 2002, President Bush issued America’s Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities.

The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade.

Under his leadership, the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent.

How was Greenspan involved? The rate of increase in the US money supply (the paper, not the gold) doubled from 2004 to 2007– the years in which we ramped up to the problems we’re now facing. That meant that banks had more money in their coffers and the President telling them just what they could do with it.

So, I’m glad you’re pointing a finger at Greenspan, but disappointed that you’re only using the occasion to attack a philosophy that he wasn’t very faithful in practicing in the first place. You may not like Ayn Rand’s philosophy, and that’s okay by me, but I expect you to put that aside when you’re doing your job. That is, if you want to remain credible. There are already too many people like Bill O’Reilly, who exploit the news for spite of opposing ideas. Let those guys have their fun– none of their viewers are really hearing anything they don’t already want to believe anyway.

Your characterization of Greenspan’s shock at the economic downturn was inaccurate as well. In his testimony before Congress, he said he was surprised by the breadth of the problem (a clip which you included in your commentary), but if you’d done a little more homework, you’d know that he was warning of a recession as early as the beginning of last year. The AP Story was picked up by the International Herald Tribune and other major news outlets, and, if you’re interested, you can read it here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/26/business/AS-FIN-ECO-Hong-Kong-US-Greenspan.php

It’s important that people like you find and report the truth in the difficult issues that we face. Nobody’s listening to me, but some people are listening to you, Mr. Moyers. That’s a privilege you should handle with care. It’s far more important that we know how we really got into this mess than it is to exploit the situation for short-term gain and a chance to badmouth our philosophical or political opponents.

My best regards to you, and my sincere hope that you’ll try a little harder next time.

Sincerely,
Scott Crumpler

Here we are, 4 years after the Katrina Disaster, and the first hurricanes to pose any serious threat to gulf coast communities have finally arrived. This was, of course, inevitable, and the networks seem to have been prepared for the day when such media frenzy could be justified again. As Hanna, Fay, and Gustav blew into town relatively uneventfully, I began to think the press might get over themselves. That their dripping wet lust for disaster would subside after the first few near misses. But now, with Ike ready to make landfall upon the gulf shores of Texas, I can see that I was wrong.

I’m out and about in Brooklyn today, and every commercial establishment I’ve entered has had a different network tuned to their flatscreen, and every one has featured wall-to-wall coverage of the hurricane. Could it be that the mass media truly cares about the fate of these communities? That would be easier to believe if they’d spent the last 4 years devoting a small measure of coverage to the changes (or lack thereof) in FEMA’s operating procedures, or the emergency preparations of at-risk communities. So, one is obliged to deduce that this year’s hurricane season is just another of what is (so vulgarly and appropriately) referred to in New York as an ad fuck.

But, is it the networks’ fault that disaster is so lucrative? We consumers don’t have to pay attention to this. But, we do, and so I think about the way in which we collectively affect the quality of content in the mass media… and the way it affects us. This insidious, clockwork orange in which we all thrive like parasites, souring the fruit that has so much potential. This society.

There are those, of course, who would blame the universally evil “corporation” for this. But those people are part of the problem. They shut their eyes to the fact that all corporations are run by living, breathing people. The establishments which are the instruments of their mass-marketed theater are just that– instruments. It always goes back to people. To human beings and what we’re capable of. To offer up any kind of scapegoat to replace recognition of that fundamental truth is, to my mind, just as insidious. In fact, maybe more.

The July 28 issue of Time Magazine reported the results of a poll by the Rockefeller Foundation, which revealed that 85% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. That percentage climbs dramatically when the polling sample is limited to ethnic populations. More than half of Generation Y, according to the poll, had to borrow money just to survive last year. None of this is at all shocking to me, except when asked about the solution to these problems, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that Government Expansion is the answer. 70% said that government programs should be helping more people, and 82% said they favor public works projects.

This, in the face of 78% who believe their financial future is at greater risk now than in the past. I’m led to wonder if respondents were asked if they knew whether government was spending more money now than in the past. I would be very surprised if such a question didn’t reveal that Americans believe the government is actually spending less. The fact is that the United States Federal Budget has consistently grown throughout the past under 2 different administrations.

From 1992 to 2000, President Clinton’s budgets grew from 1.4 trillion to 1.8 trillion, and under President Bush, spending has further grown to 3.1 trillion dollars (for 2009). Where do Americans think this money is coming from? It’s coming from us. We’ve been funding the expansion of government steadily, and, now that we’re at the point where nearly all Americans have lost hope in the “American Dream,” what do we propose to do? The exact same thing we’ve been doing.

The problem, at least in part, seems to be one of perception. Americans think the government hasn’t been doing enough for them, when, in reality, it’s been doing more and more. And whether we put a Republican or a Democrat in the White House next year, it’s unlikely that anything will change in that regard. Why can’t more Americans embrace the concept of a broader exchange of ideas? If things are going so horribly wrong, why is this nation about to nominate two of the most homogenized, shapeless candidates to choose between to fix things?

What I’m asking, really, is why we can’t be more open to multiple candidates with more radical ideas. Anytime a candidate comes forward with a non-mainstream proposal for change, he’s called a crackpot, and he gets shut down by these very same people who are lamenting about the state of things. We keep going back to the same genetic pool of mediocrity for new leaders, and it feeds into Americans’ complacency. If we keep doing this, things will worsen. I’ve no doubt about that.