From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Derailing the Reagan Revoltion, part I: Reverse Reaganism
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 18:26:45 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <Bt8HE2.6GF@news.cso.uiuc.edu> bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman) writes:
>demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
>>	Four years ago, when we interviewed you, our cover line was "Why
>>liberalism"--in the American sense of interventionist government--"is
>>obsolete."  Well, if liberalism is dead, why won't it lie down?
>
>>	There are too many good jobs at stake.  You have this enormous
>>bureaucracy in Washington, and also in every city and state, all dependent upon
>>the continuation of New Deal and Great Society kinds of programs.
>>	Instead of Licoln's government of the people, by the people, for the
>>people, we have government of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the
>>bureaucrats--including among the bureaucrats the elected bureaucrats.
>
>Agree. Excellent point.

   No, it's bullshit.   Liberalism hangs on because people are genuinely
   suffering and liberals are the only ones who acknowledge their suffering.
   The liberals in their own pointy-headed, ivory tower, big-government-
   bureaucracy style are at least trying to address issues like health care
   affordability and access, children growing up in poverty, and so forth.   

   The conservatives either pretend these things don't exist, or they 
   blame the victims.

   I have a relative in rural North Carolina with 4 children under the
   age of 8, whose husband rammed a police car and resisted arrest for
   DWI and ended up with a nice slong tay in jail.  My relative survived
   on AFDC and attended a community college to become a nurse on a Pell
   Grant, while the state provided day-care.  While she was there two
   of her children had medical problems requiring hospitalization which
   was paid for under Medicaid.  This weekend she graduated with an
   LPN and I'm very proud of her. 

   But all these things: AFDC, PELL grants, community colleges, Medicaid,
   state-funded daycare are the kinds of liberal social programs that
   conservatives criticize but offer no real-world alternative to.  All
   they ever do is try to cut funding for them, which merely has the effect
   of reducing benefits and overworking providers, but does *nothing* to
   alleviate the stupider aspects of them (for instance if my wife and
   I were to send money to this relative, or if she gained any outside
   income it would have been deducted 1:1 from her AFDC -- not exactly an
   incentive to reduce dependency on AFDC!    This is because the 
   conservatives *refuse* to become intellectually engaged in these 
   issues -- it's easier to just nay-say the liberals.

   Those few conservatives, like Jack Kemp, who do take a sincere interest
   in poverty issues are attacked as much by other conservatives as by
   liberals, for breaking the conservative code of silence on poverty.
   Kemp acknowledges that people are suffering; something you would never
   know listening to Bush, Reagan, or Quayle.

   Waxing nostalgic about the bucolic lifestyles of preindustrial people
   with their huge, supportive, extended families, small tight-knit
   communities where everybody knew one another and cared for and
   about one another, and clear unambiguous and consistent ethical
   values is pointless in 1992.    (not to mention the fact that much
   of this is romantic ca-ca to begin with -- I invite anyone to 
   peruse _Tombee_ (Rosengarten) or _The Eastern Frontier_ (Clark).

   The conservatives have an intellectual obligation, a political
   obligation to their side, and a moral obligation to those who
   are suffering, to come up with their own solutions to these
   issues which are practical and politically feasible in 1992.
   Their failure to do so is why the liberals own these issues
   The conservatives have no one to blame but themselves.


---peter






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