Lincoln: "Government is the coming together . . "

*

Pick a government program you can't stand! Now show evidence that the problem/s addressed by that program, what's solutions were previously unobtainable by ". . groups or individuals who could not or would not . ." can now be handled fairly, within the confines of the Constitution, by those same individuals and groups! 

It's a simple and personal test of your understanding of a functioning democratic community!

Go ahead pick a program! Comment your opinion below, based in evidence of course. Simple! I won't comment back!

*Congressman Lincoln gave this explanation to a reporter in his freshman term. It is too liberal of a statement to appear in Lincoln biographies! It is also an example of how the Republican Party of his day was comprised of representatives who favored a liberal agenda, especially the very liberal idea of his time of abolition of slavery. Yes I'm saying President Lincoln was a liberal. Few biographers or historians will touch the issue of the liberal and conservative divide of Lincoln's time. That would be bold and result in losing book sales to nearly half the population of readers, who would hear about this partisan statement. 

No Lincoln comments. Pick a program!

#biggovernment #smallgovernment #conservative#liberal

To Glenn Beck and the Tea Party new comers:

"Government is the coming together of people to do for one another collectively what they could not do as well or at all privately through the market system or philanthropy." - Abraham Lincoln (liberal!)   

“People” coming together as a “collective,” disrespecting our market system and the failures of “philanthropy?” Does that quote sound like something a conservative would say? No of course not. It sounds socialist and practically communist. In the 1860s the fairly new Republican party was comprised mostly of members with Liberal ideals. And the Democratic party members had conservative ideals. A lot of people who study American history know that, but you newbies to politics choose to not find that out, or you are just in denial. Even your leader Glen Beck didn't know that when he chose the Lincoln memorial for your fall rally in 09. There have been party ideology switches this century in the baby boomer generation, such as the conservative democrats flight to change parties after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (the act that effectively ended legal segregation in our nation). Go ahead ask somone! The quotation above is famous in Liberal circles and was said by Abraham Lincoln (See "Lincoln's Hands," his original manuscript). If you folks, who praise President Lincoln, and think he represented your party today, knew this to begin with, you would not have been making fools of yourselves in front of the Lincoln memorial and in the minds of US historians, intellectuals and liberals, 8 out of 10 Phds, 94% of all scientists, and half of our politicians. It is apparent to me that Tea Partyers and conservatives really only like Lincoln because he freed the slaves (something that Liberals had wanted for for decades). And if they praise Lincoln then that provides cover from the media so that the conservative right doesn’t look as if they are racists. And with President Lincoln in their pockets they can attract more African American members, from somewhere. The racism of the right wing is pretty clear because of the right’s hatred for a black president who is doing less damage and more reform, that helps all citizens, than the white conservative president before him had ever done in 8 years. Where was the tea party while the white President Bush was adding more than 3 trillion dollars to our national debt for two wars that were not even necessary? Where was the Tea Party when that white President Bush gave tax cuts to rich people without even making up for it anywhere else in his budgets! President Bush was a tax and spend Republican. So was the white Ronald Reagan who tripled our national debt. Why were the Tea Partiers not carrying posters of the white George Bush as a black African witchdoctor with a bone through his nose at their tax day march? Answer: deep down inside, hidden from political correctness of our society, a black president is an affront to the sensibilities of a true conservative.

By pretending to embrace Lincoln’s party politics you conservatives are warping history. Don’t you care that students learn true facts about our past? Or does that concern mean less to you than boosting your roles by hiding behind a liberal. A liberal Lincoln who clearly used “big government,” to better the United States as whole, when the states had continuously failed to better themselves and bring fairness to their citizens?

Our government representatives have not spent 234 years passing laws willy nilly for the fun of it. Tea Partiers and other conservatives go ahead and study President Lincoln’s record of laws passed. While you are studying Lincoln’s ideals and ask yourselves which federal government laws existing today used to be run just fine without Lincoln’s ideal of what our government really is? Ask yourselves which federal laws can you honestly say were not even needed before they were created, and why were they needed, and do those problems that cause us to write laws, remain today? What were the continuing failures of small governments and individuals that caused our representatives to come together for nationwide solutions? You can also contemplate which specific laws you want to get rid of now that you think that the problems that they had addressed can be handled well at the local level? Look at your past and find evidence that supports your beliefs that the big bad government can’t do anything right. The truth is our Democratic Republic has a centralized government that does a hell of lot more good for its citizens than a pack of conservative governors running around in circles, mostly ending up where their state had started from.

At your convention last year, 80% of the audience when asked if “you have ever been involved in politics before?” raised their hands to answer no. This ignorance is really making you guys look foolish. Tea Partiers and other conservatives should return to school, take civics and United States history. Perhaps you could make a new website called Government as Seen through Tea Party Tainted Glasses.”It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.”

-- Abraham Lincoln, chiding the editor of a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper

A Liberal’s View on the Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives

I should state here that because I am a liberal it is difficult to examine the differences between liberals and conservatives without being biased against conservatism, and I apologize for this almost inescapable context.

There are distinct differences between conservatives and liberals. Most of the behavioral differences seem to be philosophical in origin. The causes of particular behavioral traits can only be speculated. Parenting, environment, emotional life events and perhaps even the organization of the brain can all be contributors in the differences between liberals and conservatives.

As neurology relates to behavior U.C.L.A. has provided some evidence resulting from studies using magnetic resonance imaging, in conjunction with imaging, to observe levels of emotional response in subjects. From a New York Times Magazine article, 2007:

" our most compassionate (or even cowardly) feelings are as much a product of the brain as ''rational choice'' economic theory is. They just emanate from a different part of the brain -- most notably, the amygdala, the almond-shaped body that lies below the neocortex, in an older brain region sometimes called the limbic system. Studies of stroke victims, as well as scans of normal brains, have persuasively shown that the amygdala plays a key role in the creation of emotions like fear or empathy. . . . as The Times reported not long ago, a team of U.C.L.A. researchers analyzed the neural activity of Republicans and Democrats as they viewed a series of images from campaign ads. And the early data suggested that the most salient predictor of a ''Democrat brain'' was amygdala activity responding to certain images of violence: either the Bush ads that featured shots of a smoldering ground zero or the famous ''Daisy'' ad from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 campaign that ends with a mushroom cloud. Such brain activity indicates a kind of gut response, operating below the level of conscious control.”

That the amygdala reacts with greater compassion and fear in those identifying themselves as liberals makes some sense when considering liberals are known to be concerned with elements of society that may harm the vulnerable. In addition to empathy, fear of those elements can create a healthy drive to change the harmful. In this editorial I will focus only on the evident philosophical differences that can almost predict the behavior that would arise from these two frequently opposing and distinct personality traits.

Conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. Both hold family of great importance. Both have faith. Both are patriotic and want what they feel is best for their country. Both see hypocrisy in much of the actions of the other. Both feel the other is morally corrupt and each blames the other for what is wrong in society. Many liberals and conservatives accept as literal fact what they are told is true, often due to biased and selective news presentations on both sides helping to cement dichotomous views of the world. Both tend to exaggerate numbers in their favor. Both experience righteous indignation and can be zealot on an issue.

A conservative tendency is to value one's self, more so than he or she values others. On reflection at end one’s life, a liberal will be most satisfied or not, with the way that he has treated others and his family in his life time, the good that he has done for other people. A conservative will be most satisfied, or not, with what he has done for himself and his family in his lifetime.

A conservative wears rose colored glasses to see the past, forgetting the negatives and imagining a past society of Norman Rockwell appearance, of traditional conservative values where Donna Reed is a good housewife and Marcus Welby is the family doctor, where kids are good and wars winnable, and centralized government plays a minor role in the order of society. A liberal is likely to view the past with red flags that remind of poverty, sickness, inequality, and businesses run amok without regulation or labor laws.

A conservative is less likely to have an open mind when facing something new or something changing when preconceived judgments take priority over critical thinking and general intellectual curiosity. A good example of this is the David comparison. Suppose a liberal and a conservative are viewing Michael Angelo’s statue of David at the same time. The liberal is more likely to be impressed and intellectually satisfied with the nearly perfect depiction of the male human body. Quickly drawing on past lessons of shame and humility the conservative is instantly embarrassed at the full nudity before his eyes and would chose to hide David from the eyes of children.

Their differing views on entitlement programs such as food stamps are stark. A conservative will say “teach a man to catch fish and he'll fish for a life time. Give a man fish and he'll never learn to fish on his own.” While a liberal would say “teach a man to fish, but show him where the fish are and give him fish when he is without.”

Conservatives believe in “trickle down economics,” the socio economic hypothesis that tax breaks for the few wealthy will cause unselfish generous spending that will fall upon the many poor and provide jobs and happiness. Whereas a liberal subscribes to “a rising tide lifts all boats.” That providing more economic advantages (lower taxation) for the less affluent citizens benefits all – lifting all boats. This redistribution of wealth is a major point of contention between conservatives and liberals. The conservative believes that a wealthy person deserves every dime they have. Where the liberal sees that the poor have to spend every dime they have to survive.

There are foreign policy differences. While both sides exhibit patriotic behavior the conservative position in the world is jingoistic, arrogant, and proud and the good ole’ U.S. of A can do no wrong. Extravagant spending on the military is unquestioned and given priority in every budget. We have a spiritual manifest destiny guiding our place in the world because God has blessed our country above others less well-off then we are. When we act militarily we were right to do so. The U.N. is a socialist plot toward one world government. Immigrants take our jobs and are changing our way of life and we should close the borders completely. The liberal takes a more humility garnished pathway to foreign policy, realizing that we are one of many nations, one no more deserving than the other. Though a liberal is not shy about funding the military, a liberal leader is more likely to dispatch our military to end suffering such as genocide, starvation, or to keep peace. A liberal sees the U.N. as what it is intended to be, a peace orientated democratic body providing a neutral ground for nations of the Earth to settle differences.

Conservatives and liberals have distinctly differing views of what is justice and how it is hindered or progressed. Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed and want change and justice, even at risk of chaos. Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions and want order even at cost to those at the bottom. A liberal would be more likely than a conservative to come to the defense of the prosecuted or incarcerated. A liberal might argue that the founders of the United States wanted to place great emphasis on protecting the innocent from the tyranny of bad criminal justice, including unlawful incarceration. Conservatives continue to place greater importance on prosecution and increased incarceration than on the defense of the prosecuted.

Of course there are large and many governmental differences between the two dichotomous and alike thinking groups. Many conservatives will claim to be in favor of smaller governmental size and less governmental control over society to promote liberty and the general welfare. Some conservatives go so far to suggest that the government should only be in charge of the defense of the nation. While a liberal would more likely be more optimistic about the abilities of the people through government to promote liberty and the general welfare by a necessary and lawful amount of intervention into society.

Do liberals and conservatives need each other like night needs day, like ying needs yang? Just like a force needs an opposing force to define it’s properties, liberals and conservatives need each other to define each other when each is judging and evaluating the other.

The Mad Haters Tea Party

When the simple folk rise up from political obscurity, be wary for they know not exactly what they want, but they do know what they hate. For the past couple of years the Tea Party out of the United States has been a confused and dissembled group of disenfranchised, disillusioned, economically frustrated, scared of change, narrowly informed, non critical thinking, religious and simplistic conservative bigots and very likely a smattering of racists.

In a measure of their naivety of complex issues and ignorance of how politics works, in a room of some 600 people at the recent Tea Party convention, nearly 80% raised their hands when asked if they “had never been into politics before.”

Mob: a large or disorderly crowd; especially one bent on riotous or destructive action.

The original tea party of 1773 were a mob of merchants and locals concerned with taxation by England without representation (or favor) of the local populace of the colonies. But it was not just tea taxes that upset the Massachusetts colonists; it was a build-up of tension brought about by the Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts, and the Boston massacre. The modern Tea Party is a mob made up of right-wing “pure” conservatives angry and hateful at taxation without representation (in Tea Party meaning: taxation without their support) and debt. But it is not just taxes and debt that upsets the modern day Tea Party, it is a build-up of tension brought about by years of watching liberalism and socialism take increasingly prominent positions in society. For an outlet of this tension the Tea Partiers have found scapegoats of programs and people with little ability to defend themselves within the media of the right-wing. Scapegoats like president Obama, government run anything (except for our military), infrastructure based earmarks by congresspersons, gun control laws, regulations of the “free market,” health care reform, welfare and entitlement programs, government overreach into the business of the states, same sex marriage, economic bailouts, abortion rights, RINOS (republican in name only), and religious restrictions by mandate of the U.S. constitution and it’s pesky separation of church and state.

“We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country!” – Tea Party Nation web site

To the Tea Party “limited government” means that government should only protect us and keep us militarily secure from our enemies. They use a Thomas Jefferson quote to justify this ideal: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others,” (found on a Tea Party web site). Jefferson was speaking in generality of the purpose of United States government. “Injurious,” in this quotation does not only mean physical harm by a foreign military, but in all matters which could be injurious and in which government intervention, enforced through written law, can protect individuals from harm. Such government interventionist laws as making slavery illegal nationwide, workplace laws that protect the vitality and safety of the worker nationwide, civil rights laws that protect minorities and individuals from harm and unfair treatment nationwide, and business regulation which protects the populace from monopolization and unfair business practices across state borders.

“Free speech” in Tea Party nuance means that the religious should be able to express their faith through government entities like in a public school. Support for the 2nd amendment, means all gun control laws are unconstitutional (never mind that pesky Militia part). Support for the military is support for supreme United States power, empirical status and interventionism toward the favorite enemy of the moment. “Secure borders” is all about immigration, illegal and legal, and supporting English only in all government communications and in the schools especially. Their love of country is jingoism pure and simple (extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy).

The movement and the members of the Tea Party were indeed born yesterday. But their ideas are as old and as wrong as conservatism itself. From Birthers to Gun Nuts to Pro Lifers, the Tea Partyers revel in their own justification of their conservative ideals. Despite the successful history of U.S. style liberalism they are certain they are right. They have even made their own media to further cement their right thinking ways. They now live in a bubble of right-wing media. A comfortable place for a Tea Partier to be
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The world we live in is not black and white and unfortunately we do not vote by jelly beans in jars labeled with issues as the Tea Partiers might wish. We vote on a huge sundry of modern issues, some complex and some simple, using representative democracy in a republic. And unfortunately for the Tea Partiers we do not live by the literal words of the U.S. constitution, we have a Supreme Court which relates our modern day problems to solutions offered under constitutional foundation – that is clearly how the founders thought it should be.

On United States Socialism

Afraid of socialism? It’s been here a long time. Somewhere between Capitalism and Communism lies the never fully achieved idea of Socialism. The United States is an experiment in combined socialism and capitalism, in a Republic using the tools provided through the practice of democracy.

In socialist fashion the citizens of the United States have collectively determined the need for publicly owned and operated entities such as the local police and fire departments, publicly owned and operated school systems, postal services, and even the military is socialist. All collectively created rules and regulations administered on businesses are socialist practices. All unions are practicing socialism. The shopping clubs are a socialist idea. Our collectively owned and maintained roads and highways are a socialist idea. Social Security is a socialist idea. Medicare and Medicaid is a socialist practice. Collective stock ownership is a socialist practice. So is progressive taxation because it strives toward equality in taxation.

A true conservative in the modern United States favors eliminating all rules and regulations on businesses, privatizing our school systems, tolling our roads and highways, enacting a flat tax system, fully privatizing medical delivery and leaving assistance to the poor entirely up to private charity. A true socialist democratic citizen is optimistic about our collective ability to solve problems after laissez-faire methods have failed; such is the case with health care reform and the rather socialist idea of a publicly owned and operated not-for-profit health insurance company.

Taking Responsibility for the Bad Stuff in Society

There is a visible distinction between some people who tend to feel responsible, or who feel a shared responsibility, for the world’s, the nation’s or their community’s bad stuff that happens. From gun violence, to global climate change, to endemic chronic diabetes and obesity, some people want to continue with their lives with no guilt and thusly no responsibility. Those who read my blog know; here comes another difference between Liberals and Conservatives opinion!
 

Those not feeling responsible tend to attack the determinations of the cause by the other side. Perhaps there is no better current example of this than the wordy battle over global climate change. The opposition to the very premise that global warming and its associated climate change is caused by mankind’s carbon and other gases output, likes to state that the “jury is still out (on man made global warming).” Although essentially 98% of all scientific, peer reviewed articles, having to do with the subject agree that global warming is a man made phenomena. It could very well be that the opposition does not want to take shared responsibility, does not want to share one inkling of guilt for having polluted all their lives.

Were those who deny responsibility punished too harshly as children? Developmental psychologist Erik Erickson may have something to say about this behavior using his classic theory. Operant Conditioning is a form of learning in which the consequences of behavior produce changes in the probability that the behavior will occur, and occur again given similarities in circumstance. Similarities like taking responsibility, sharing responsibility for what effects us all.

 

This same opposition doesn’t want take responsibility for obesity or diabetes. “Its their own damn fault, not mine!” But if their child’s high school has high fructose corn syrup soda machines in its cafeteria, that’s not their fault. “Hey other parents can tell their kids to stay away, that’s all, its that simple, its not my fault, sugar Nazis!”

Gun control is another clearly defined issue which separates those willing to take responsibility for all our behavior and all of our problem, and those who want to ignore their guilt, shun their responsibility and cast blame on a different causality. Tell a gun owner he should put trigger locks on his handguns at home and he’ll tell you “I teach my kids how to shoot, they are responsible with our guns, they don’t need trigger locks!” This brilliant response both takes away responsibility and places it firmly on the shoulders of his children and attacks the causality of gun violence in the home by suggesting that it is caused, somehow, by children who have not learned “gun safety,” from their parents (“gun safety” is the code for teaching your family how to shoot the shit out of a “target.”)

The gun owner, rather than agree to most sensible suggestions of control over firearms sales and shipping, will attack using a new root cause. A favorite target is the courts and law enforcement who don’t keep criminals locked up long enough, or don’t enact the death penalty with wild abandon to scare off the criminal element. Its as if the only answer that won’t cause their guilt, won’t cause them to have to share some responsibility is to do away with justice and law and order almost completely, or change it into some kind of draconian Dark Ages justice.

Examine where your (usually) conservative opposition gets his or her causality for problems, and their reasoning for solutions (or lack of), for opposing a fix, or ignoring a problem. Notice the words form a meaning that says “no responsibility for me, no guilt. Dammit Liberal I’m sleeping good tonight!”

Also read my earlier related article titled Cognitive Dissonance Around 9/11 Questions is Understandable.

Conservative Psych-Out . . Whoops!

If you’re a politically apprised liberal you may have already heard the reference to conservative policy as “everyday is opposite day.” That refers to their actions resulting in the contrary of their rhetoric, or of their legislative initiatives with titles designed to fool the large segment of the public, that is not paying attention. But there is another kind of opposite the conservatives practice, which could be called “Freudian Theory Gone Wild!” It’s the general acknowledgement that all people resist and revert, or resist and convert, or just run the other way when faced with an action to initiate that resistance. It’s the Republican Psych Out! It requires arrogance and hubris and goals which have secondary and self serving outcomes.

Usually the outcome is not what the conservatives had planed on, and might have been prevented just by knowing more of what they were talking about, or by consulting with non-partisan experts. But it also comes about by believing the postulations of conservative think-tanks that publish suppositions on everything from social policy that deals with the poor, to foreign policy that prepares for war. Of course the authors of these well dressed documents had never fought in a war, or for example had never gone grocery shopping with a poor family. These misguided preclusions occur almost entirely when the conservatives try to estimate the reactions of people.

Remember when you were a child and you thought you had the world figured out? There was a short while when it seemed that opposing action seemed to be the results of most actions. That everything had a resistance which caused it to move in the other direction, go up instead of down. As we entered adulthood some of us came to learn that complexity dictated reactions and they are individualized in nearly all matters, especially among people. But there were others among us (conservatives) that decided that these rules seemed to apply broadly, and they kept that belief, and became policy makers.

Examples:

• If you fight that school yard bully who has been pestering you; then he’ll respect you and stop picking on you. Child Psych!
  
  Whoops. The bully is into revenge and wrath and protecting his dominance. He beats the piss out of you the very next day. Mom was wrong.
  
• If you leave your bike unlocked on the sidewalk, it won’t get stolen, because the thieves will be surprised and think that your watching them, and assume that it’s a set-up. Criminal Psych!
  
• If you cut the beejeezus out of the Welfare programs, the lazy bums will all run-out and get jobs, saving the taxpayers millions. Republican Psych!
  Whoops. Poverty has increased exponentially, with four million more families living below the poverty line, and almost two million more children living below the poverty line. Apparently the reasons for having welfare to begin with, were not addressed when attempting to get rid of it. The Republicans were wrong.
  
• If you bomb the hell out of the nation’s infrastructure, killing several thousand civilians (as collateral), invade the nation, then occupy it, the people will “greet us with candies and flowers.” (Dick Cheney, February, 2003). War Psych!
  Whoops. The conservatives forgot to ask the population how they might feel about being invaded and occupied. The bombings really pissed them off. The deaths even more so. The invaders never gained control of the streets and mayhem ensued and never really stopped. Infrastructure has never been fully restored. The candies and flowers became Improvised Explosive Devices and car bombs.
  
• If you stop teaching sex education in schools, the kids will stop having sex. If you stop allowing them condoms, they’ll stop getting diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Education Psych!
  
  Whoops. It turns out kids weren’t having sex due to the presence of, or absence of, condoms or sex education anyway. All the data was available, but the conservative’s hypothesis were just so convincing! In fact the numbers of sexual diseases and unplanned pregnancies among teens went up. Apparently the taboo factor was increased for the teenagers. Also those teens were far less likely to discuss sex with their parents, being the subject was literally off-the-table.
  
• Arrest and incarcerate over four million men and women for drug offenses and eventually drug use will go way down or stop completely. They’ll realize the error of their ways! Fear Psych!
  Whoops. Conservatives and Republicans continued, year after year, to fail to provide proper funding for drug treatment clinics. They didn’t want the psych-factor to occur among drug addicts. The addicts might see those carpeted clinics as a reward for breaking the law. Drug use went up, selling drugs became more profitable because the incarceration possibility was more likely. The majority of the imprisoned are minorities as they are the easiest to arrest, living more poorly, more visibly. New and cheaper drugs were invented in the streets to better feed and begin new addictions.
  
• Criminalize abortion services and that will cause pregnant teens and women to realize they love their fetuses, and then they will carry their little babies to term, and will probably keep them and wrap them up in soft pink or blue little blankets and will great parents. And we can indoctrinate them into Christianity while they are staying at our “women’s health center.” Criminalization Psych-Out!
  Whoops! Several newly pregnant young mothers committed suicide in each state that has severely restricted abortion each year. Many others mutilate themselves in attempts to abort their own fetus. Doctors establish hidden clinics to perform illegal abortions, risking their careers. Raped women, and those determined to abort are held in quasi jail-houses to carry to term forcefully.
  
• If you bomb a nation, killing civilians and destroying their homes, in order to get to an enemy faction within that nation. The people in that nation will rise up against the enemy faction, blaming them for the bombing and not you. War Psych!
  
  Whoops! Those people turned out to not be idiots. They knew who was dropping bombs on their heads, they experienced the death and destruction, and they saw no excuse good enough to pardon the bomb-droppers from their actions. In fact they now hate them with a vengeance and most of the regular populace has joined the enemy faction.

Often to carry out a Conservative Psych-Out, the conservative policy maker requires the presumption that the effected persons will be stupid, or just ignorant. But the policy begins focused upon people assumed to be so from the start – or else there would be no policy.
A conservative policy wonk might say: “Those stupid welfare mothers, those stupid Arabs, those stupid teenagers, those stupid pregnant sluts, those stupid drug addicts. They don’t know what’s best for them. We can concoct a solution which favors us primarily, them secondarily, and give the appearance to the population that we’re handling a problem. Why we’ll use psychology! Television psychology!”

If today’s Conservatives did not exist. We would have to invent them.

Fate Expectations

Ahh the glory years! Those hopeful times between the years of ten and thirty, when all was possible, when turning around a misfortune was always possible, when that feeling in the gut told you that one day, you could be rich! You the reader are a relatively young American Conservative who supports all efforts to better the economic plight of the wealthy and corporations, because they are like you, or so you think. That feeling you could be rich, has set you apart from the crowd of coupon cutters below you, and that separateness was well justified because society seemed to encourage it. You’ve carried that destined feeling with you into your young adulthood.

To defend that feeling of promise of fortune, you find that ignoring the plight of the poor helps in maintenance of the egocentric ball of future-fantasy that is embedded behind your daily thoughts. Your coldness for those riff-raft, in a way, proves that you are very different. “Why I’m obviously country club material!” You may tell yourself.

Rhetoric from the principle speakers for the political right wing aid you in justifying your attitude, and you have used these one-liners whenever someone questions your detachment to the poor. “They lack responsibility for themselves!” “They need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps – like I did!” “Anyone in this great country can make it – they just need the drive and the discipline!” “Its all those government handouts, its weakened their ambition, they’ve all become complacent!”

You grew up watching movies and television shows that reinforced the fortune destiny. At least once a week you watched some portrayal of a poor kid making it big – like you were certain you would one day. An impoverished Arthur pulls the sword Excalibur from the stone and his fortune is changed. Willy Wonka turns over his chocolate factory and fortune to the young and desperately poor Charlie Bucket – because of his honesty. The King of Persia falls in love with and marries the modest school teacher, her fortune changed dramatically. The tattered and common Eliza Doolittle is sculpted into a society lady and marries her mentor into a charming and wealthy life. Poor Aladdin finds the treasure of gold and a genie to grant his wishes.

Criminals also appear in these portrayals of poor gone rich. Steve McQueen in the Chase, escapes with a large cash booty and the pretty girl. Clint Eastwood kills off his competitors, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, to win the buried cash fortune. In Oceans Eleven, Frank Sinatra robs casinos and escapes with millions. Of course there are dozens more examples to find. This genre’s theme is that a likeable criminal character (who must also be handsome or beautiful), is identified with by the viewer or reader, and he or she makes good in conflict against the odds of society.

As you, the American Conservative, travel through your life, recurring clues maintain the destiny myth within you; like the nice looking used car your grandfather just gave you with no questions asked. Or that four hundred dollars you won in the lottery, just one number short of the big multi-million dollar jackpot. That twenty dollars you found on the floor of the grocery store. Certainly these are signs of the fortune to come, right? It is a form of superstition, no doubt. It is so engrained you wouldn’t recognize it as such if a psychologist strapped you into a couch and worked-you-over using everything in the book.

It will take defeat for you to lose this self aggrandizing characteristic of destiny of fortune. Not just any defeat, but a type of which you clearly see that you controlled the conditions from the beginning. You’ll have to take responsibility for the defeat. If you don’t you’ll just continue expecting the pot of gold to fall in front of you, and mentally spitting on the poor when they come into sight.

If you reach the age of forty, and you find yourself in big house, with a big car, and a country club membership. You’ll meet with your friends at the club and bark derogatory criticisms at the poor and liberals and the ACLU, and mostly you’ll complain about taxes. You’ll have an ego as hard as steel what’s origins are buried in your brain behind a dense foliage of nerve bundles. That ego will be fortified with certainty that you were destined to live like this anyway, that it was just waiting for you.
On a summer night by your backyard pool, at a cocktail party, someone you know will call you a “world class asshole!” right to your face. It is likely to be your wife. They’ll be absolutely right.

Now its thirty years later and you are on your deathbed. You had a carpenter engrave the headboard with the word D-E-A-T-H, just to verify the bed’s purpose. You are alone and starring at the ceiling and thinking while the morphine is doing its work.

“What was the purpose of my life?”

“It must have been collecting all this crap. Yes that’s it, all the crap, good crap.”

“I knew I would make it good.”

“Stinking IRS! They’ve taken me for a ride!”

“Now I’ll have to pay that wretched Estate Tax after I’m dead. That’s gonna hurt!”

“If I hadn’t collected all this crap and money I wouldn’t have to worry about the stinking IRS.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have to worry about the IRS. Huhh.”

“The purpose of life . . . was not to collect a bunch of stuff and money. It was to contribute to everyone else. To take a roll in bettering lives as my own got better. That’s where the satisfaction is . . . . was.”

“I’ve wasted these seventy years on myself alone. The world could sure do without me.”

Then, bitter and disappointed, you shut your eyes and your heart stopped.