How Far Back Does the Right Want to Go?

In a Facebook post, I asked why the Right seemed so anxious to be be behind the trends of history. For example, gay rights appear to be inevitable, yet the Right fights every gay rights provision that appears, from gay marriage to simple anti-discrimination in employment laws. In response to my comment, a friend said he thought the Right was hoping to live in 1855. This got me thinking. The Right is clearly unhappy with the current social, political and legal situation in the world. The Right hates gay rights. It hates the New Deal legal framework. So, I asked myself, what would be the perfect time for the Right; when would it feel most at home.

Using Google and Wikipedia I have reached a conclusion. First, I clearly had to choose a date prior to 1932, when the public was clearly enamoured with FDR. To establish an earliest date, I chose 1920, the year of the 19th Amendment. Nothing I have seen suggests the Right wants to eliminate women's suffrage. Hell, the Right is actually considering Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann as Presidential candidates. So I began by trying to find the appropriate date between 1920 and 1932. This range is also logical as we were still in the Lochner era. Lochner was the Supreme Court decision in which the Court concluded that a New York law limiting the number of hours bakers could be forced to work to 60 was an "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract." The same theory was later used to invalidate minimum wage laws.
So, 1920-1932. But where do we go from there. In 1925, the Scopes Trial in Tennessee was a nominal victory for the anti-evolution crowd but the fact that anyone would even think that a teacher had the right to teach evolution suggests the Right would prefer a pre-1925 world where anti-scientific laws were accepted without question. I have noted earlier that the Right is not a fan of science.

In Decemeber 1922, the Soviet Union was founded. So let's choose a date prior to that. Woodrow Wilson was President until March 4,1921, when Warren Harding was inaugurated as President and Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan's favorite, as Vice-President. Stalin became head of Russia on April 3, 1922. So now we are down to a range between March 4, 1921 and April 3, 1922.

It starts getting harder now. I'll give the Right some credit and assume it would like a world where insulin was available to aid those suffering from diabetes. The first successful use of insulin to treat diabetes was on January 11, 1922. That narrows are possible date between January 11, 1922 and April 3, 1922.

What could possibly make me choose a single date in that small three-month window? It wasn't easy, but I figured it out. As we now know, the Right is anti-anti-colonialism. Therefore, it cannot be happy with the world after February 28, 1922, when Great Britain ended its protectorate of Egypt (which clearly led to the current situation in Egypt which the Right cannot find in itself to support). But on February 27, 1922, the Supreme Court upheld the 19th Amendment. Therefore, I hereby claim that February 27, 1922 is the date foe which the Right longs.

The Danger of a Legal Challenge to Health Reform

A current argument made by the Right Wing against health care reform, is that the Democratic plan is unconstitutional. They rely on the oldie but goodie that the Constitution does not say anything about the regulation of health care, so the founders must not have intended to allow the Federal Government to have much of a role, if any. Since the New Deal, The courts have held many times now that the Federal Government has a great deal of power via the Commerce Clause. The current Right Wing argument is, in essence, that those cases were wrongly decided. While the claim is interesting, it is ridiculously outdated. To return to such an interpretation would lead to the economic collapse of this nation.

The debate over the constitutional federal power to regulate has been going on since 1789. One of the most significant early arguments was the debate over "internal improvements." The Federalists believed the federal government could build roads and canals to aid the new nation. The Democratic-Republicans, led by Jefferson, disagreed. Early on they believed the federal government had no such power. A good history of this debate can be found here. If we were to go back that far in our Commerce Clause interpretation, we would not have the Interstate Highway System. Those trucks you see late at night bringing your food and clothes to your local stores, would not be there. You couldn't take that drive to Grandma's house. Luckily, the Jeffersonians reached a somewhat tense compromise with themselves and agreed to a limited approval of internal improvements. I can only assume that the Right Wing would not wish to turn back the clock to pre-Eisenhower and let the interstate highways go to pot.

But I do believe the Right Wing sees a future that pre-dates the New Deal on non-transportation federal powers. I think they hope to see a court disapproval of national health care as the stepping stone to the eventual destruction of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the EPA, and probably even the SEC. Read this, and note that it applies to many things other than health care. They long for the days when there were no labor unions and the owners of a factory could do whatever the hell they please. For some reason, when they think of the good-ole-days, they forget the basis for the lyric "I sold my soul to the company store," and the hellish conditions depicted in "The Jungle."

In short, while there might be policy reasons for killing national health insurance reform, a legal victory based on the Commerce Clause would be extremely dangerous to the economic fabric of the country.

Maybe Obama Was Telling The Truth. Have You Considered That?

Fred Barnes tells us that Obama might be a "secret centrist." Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive is upset that Obama hasn't thrown a bone to the left - actually suggesting Obama should have appointed Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State. You don't see the silly right and the ridiculous left agreeing very often, but they seem to on this issue. I'm most disappointed with the Left, however. When McCain/Palin were accusing Obama of being a Far-Left pacifist-socialist, I thought all of us on the Left knew it to be ridiculous. But, to my surprise, some bought what Palin was selling, with glee.

Guess what. McCain/Palin's accusations was absurd. If you were paying attention, you knew Obama was a pragmatic Center-Left politician. Finally we have a President whose words mean something. Obama said he would govern with help from all, and that is what he appears to be doing.

Soon To Be Fox News Host Needs History Lesson

Glenn Beck, a Right Wing loon who will soon have a Fox News show, has asked, on his radio show, "do states have the right to secede anymore?" I think that question was answered in a little thing we call the Civil War. In fact, even before the Civil War, during the Andrew Jackson administration, South Carolina attempted to "nullify" a Federal tariff. When the Federal government held that nullification was unconstitutional, South Carolina came very close to attempting secession, and Jackson (hardly a Big Government kind of guy - he did not believe the Federal Government had the right to establish a National Bank or spend any money on state or local infrastructure) threatened force to keep SC in the Union. So, the answer to Mr. Beck's question is "States never had the right to secede. But idiotic, self-important blowhards are free to go."

Bush Infatuation Syndrome at the Corner

If you ever had any doubts about the Right Wing's Bush-Infatuation-Syndrome, consider David Freddoso's comment about the Energy Bill. The key quote:

Recall that when President Bush came to office advocating an energy bill, the whole point was to increase the amount of energy available. Given that the pending bill will not make even a single extra KiloJoule available, there is really no reason the American public should care at all whether this bill passes.

Consider what that means. Americans should not care if the energy bill passes because it is not what President Bush advocates. Anything less than the President's goals and programs are simply a waste of time.

Republicans, Children, and Macro Thinking

I am reminded of a time many years ago when I was still in High School and my parents had gone to visit my older sister at college (not Annie). I got a call from the Electric Company saying that unless we paid the bill by the end of the day, we would be cut off from the grid. I informed the caller that I was a minor whose parents were out of town, and asked who the Electric Company wanted to punish by shutting off the electricity. Because if the company intended to cause my parents to suffer, it was failing desperately as they were out of town. After some discussion with a supervisor, I received a temporary reprieve until the day my parents returned.

What reminds me of that story? The Republicans attitude towards children. Consider, for example, the S-CHIP debate. As I have noted before, some parents might not enroll their children in an insurance program because of cost. SCHIP can be used to create an incentive to financially reluctant parents to get their children insurance. The Right Wingers oppose this concept, as David Fredosso said to me, "health care is a private choice." But, like the Electric Company in Vermont, Fredosso would keep insurance from children because their parents are screwing up.

Similarly, consider the current movements in many areas to take away benefits from illegal immigrants, including some that benefit the children of illegal immigrants. For example, Prince William County in Virginia has chosen to deny housing assistance to illegal immigrants. Who gets hurt by this? Certainly the adult illegal immigrants do. But so do their children. Why do we punish the kids for the behavior of the parents?

I think the difference between my thinking and that of the Right Wing on these issues comes from the Right Wing's macro way of looking at things, while I consider things from a more individual way. Just like the Right Wing thinks our economic problems are solved if the GDP rises regardless of individual problems, it tries to solve other problems in easily measurable ways where a a more appropriate response might be difficult to implement and measure. Illegal Immigration? Cut all benefits. Some middle class parents shouldn't get SCHIP? Don't give it to any middle class parents. They don't seem to care who gets hurt, as long as it might solve whatever problem they perceive.

This might explain the Iraq war actually. The bluntest of instruments is a war; and the most subtle is diplomacy. Will people get hurt if we invade? Sure, but who cares. Its the price we pay for the easiest of answers to our problems.

Authoritarianism From the Right

I have been wondering lately whether the Right Wing is more susceptible to modern Totalitarianism than the Left. Jonah Goldberg would likely disagree, but I wonder. To oversimplify, the Right Wing seems to be more open to Government control of moral values, and less open to Government control of economic systems; whereas the Left has the opposite leanings. In the modern world, dictatorships appear to be more likely to come from a moralist authority, and not an economic one. China is a womderful example of a moral dictatorship, with a lessening of economic control. Robert Reich eloquently points out the Capitalism of China combined with the authoritatianism of its Government. As he puts it, in the war between Communism and Capitalism, "Capitalism won hands down." Is it possible that the US is, through Right Wing control of the Executive - and complacency of the Legislative branch - in danger of reaching a simlar (although distinctly American) situation. The Right Wing is clearly much more concerned with the loss of economic rights than the loss of civil rights. See, for example,the terrified response of some conservatives to the Kelo v. New London decision, as opposed to their equally terrified response to the possibility of civil rights for gays. It seems to me that if the Right Wing had its way, we would have an unfettered market economy combined with what Andrew Sullivan might call a Christianist state.
I am led to this worrisome thought by the Right Wing's unthinking adherence to the "World According to Bush." Apparently, the Right Wing's capacity unquestioningly to accept authority is large. Consider Fred Barnes' hagiographic opinion regarding the President's place in history. The Right Wing is unabashedly fond of executive power in times of war - even an undeclared war against a tactic like "terror." Note Andrew McCarthy's statement:

In wartime, in response to threats against the body politic, all the might of government would be embodied in the president. This alone would ensure that if an adept enemy took unanticipated action, the nation could swiftly respond; or that if the enemy exhibited some sudden vulnerability, the nation could quickly capitalize. It was how wars would be won.

I don't know about you, but that scares the s*** out of me.
So here's what we have. A world-view accepting of Government control of morality but not government control of economics, and blindly accepting the authority of its "Dear Leader." Are we heading towards an autocratic theocracy? No. Are we in danger of giving up many basic human rights so that an economic elite can flourish? You bet.