Don't Blame It on Incompetence
Over the last few years, I have heard people of various ideological stripes blame the Bush Administration's malfeasance on incompetence. However, I would argue that there is a different problem that makes the problem of incompetence possible. That problem is anti-government conservatism.
There are three basic types of conservatives in this country: big-government conservatives (think Bill Kristol), small-government conservatives (think Barry Goldwater) and anti-government conservatives (think Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and George W. Bush). Big-government conservatives are a problem all there own, because they have a misguided notion about what big government should do. In other words, instead of protecting the people, they believe that the goal of the government is to fight the big wars and other things that the government should not be doing (For example, Dinesh D'Sousa wants the government to embrace the thecoracy of the Taliban to create a Christian/Islam alliance). I'm not too worried about small-government conservatives, because most of them usually abandon this track as soon as they become the party in power.
However, anti-government conservatives are a different animal altogether. The main belief of the anti-government conservative is that government can't do anything right. This is exemplified by Ronald Reagan's "ten most frightening words in the English language" (I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.) and his insistence in his 1981 inaugural that government is "not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem." The main goal of these conservatives is deregulation of business. The subgoal of the Grover Norquist type of anti-government conservative is to manage the government so badly that they destroy people's faith in government and eventually cut so many taxes for the wealthy and raise the debt so high that the only thing government can actually pay for is interest on the national debt and maybe defense. Think I am being cynical? Norquist is on the record saying, "The goal isn't to get rid of government. The goal is to reduce the government to the size that we can take it into the bathtub and drown it."
How does this play out? Let me give you a few examples:
Iraq War There are a lot of people who complain about the incompetence displayed by former (Oh, what a joy it is to add that word!) Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in relation to the management of the Iraq War. However, a read of Plan of Attack points out the problem is really, to invert the Michael Dukakis argument, one of ideology and not competence. Rumsfeld was determined to surround himself with yes-men who believed that the Iraq War could be won with 150,000 troops or less and a very short post-war invasion. In the book, Woodward writes that Rumsfeld liked Franks because he was the one who believed that a smaller force could do the job. However, Franks initial war-planning put the needed troop strength at 245,000-300,000. Rumsfeld repeatedly challenged Franks to find ways to shrink the force. It is obvious that there weren't enough forces in Iraq to secure the country, but ideology ruled the day. Ideology also ruled the day when Rumsfeld was asked about looting and vandalism in post-war Iraq, and he gave the infamous reply, "People in a free society are free to do whatever they want." In other words, Rumsfeld didn't believe that the government could or should act to keep law-and-order, thus giving his tacit approval to the insurgency.
Hurricane Katrina OK, let me make this clear. I do not believe that George W. Bush caused Hurricane Katrina. However, I do think that he is to blame for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It had been reported for years that the levies in New Orleans were not prepared to handle anything over Level Three force hurricanes. However, despite years of the Army Corps of Engineers asking for the levies to be fortified, these requests were ignored. President Bush also took five days after Hurricane Katrina to fly over Hurricane Katrina, after attempting to play a G chord in California, thus providing the modern equivalent to Nero's fiddle. He also imfamously insisted, when talking about FEMA head Michael Brown, whose previous experience was running the Arabian Horse Association, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," days before being forced to fire Brownie.
However, we found at later that as clueless as Brownie was, he tried to warn President Bush about the problems in New Orleans and he did nothing. In other words, it seems to me like Kanye West was accurate when he said, "George Bush does not care about black people." This is not to say that he actively hates black people, but let's just say that they aren't a concern.
The last major hurricane to hit New Orleans under a Texas President (albeit a real one) shows the difference between someone who believes in government and someone who doesn't. In 1964, when Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans, President Lyndon B. Johnson flew to New Orleans almost immediately, actually bothered to land, and holding a flashlight to his face (in a big contrast to President Bush landing in New Orleans eventually for a press conference with plenty of generators that were turned off as soon as the cameras were, showing his true indifference to the people) and told the people, "Your President is here to help." In other words, Lyndon Johnson showed us how a President should handle a crisis, and just about any President who actually believed in government would have done this.
VA and Military Hospitals As a veteran, I take this one personally. The Bush Administration has repeatedly underestimated the needs of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which have had a huge spike in demand because of the haevy reliance on reserve components in the Iraq War. (Reserve Component veterans are ineligible for any VA benefits unless we served in a combat zone, 180 consecutive days active duty, or 20 years active service in the Reserve Component.) As a result, the VA hospital system, which was supposed to be free, went from $2/month co-pay for prescription drugs when President Bush took over in 2001, to $15/month for prescription drugs and an annual user fee of $250 for those who make at least $26,000/year. In other words, the VA has gone from costing those who laid their life on the line $24 to $430 in the last six years. Is this something someone who believed in government would allow?
Even worse is Walter Reed Hospital, considered to be the premier military hospital. However, those who were at the residence had to endure rats in the rooms, feces-stained matresses and old food. Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to make heads roll, especially after the commanders insisted there was nothing to see in a scene reminiscent of Officer Barbrady in South Park. While this seemed to be a sign of better things to come, the soldiers were required to wake up every morning for inspection as a reminder of what happens to those who squeal.
Each of these are well-documented examples of the failures of anti-government conservatism. It is easy to see why cronies who don't care about their jobs and couldn't do them properly even if they wanted to are put in such positions. If someone doesn't believe that the government can work, what is wrong with letting some of your buddies make some money off the system? This is why we should make a pledge to refuse to vote for anyone who insists that the government can't do anything right and is the problem. Hopefully, this is the time when liberals stand up and make 2008 the year of transformation to a government that works for the people. The problem isn't the government, or incompetence, it is the anti-government conservatives who are trying their darndest to run the government into the ground.
There are three basic types of conservatives in this country: big-government conservatives (think Bill Kristol), small-government conservatives (think Barry Goldwater) and anti-government conservatives (think Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and George W. Bush). Big-government conservatives are a problem all there own, because they have a misguided notion about what big government should do. In other words, instead of protecting the people, they believe that the goal of the government is to fight the big wars and other things that the government should not be doing (For example, Dinesh D'Sousa wants the government to embrace the thecoracy of the Taliban to create a Christian/Islam alliance). I'm not too worried about small-government conservatives, because most of them usually abandon this track as soon as they become the party in power.
However, anti-government conservatives are a different animal altogether. The main belief of the anti-government conservative is that government can't do anything right. This is exemplified by Ronald Reagan's "ten most frightening words in the English language" (I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.) and his insistence in his 1981 inaugural that government is "not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem." The main goal of these conservatives is deregulation of business. The subgoal of the Grover Norquist type of anti-government conservative is to manage the government so badly that they destroy people's faith in government and eventually cut so many taxes for the wealthy and raise the debt so high that the only thing government can actually pay for is interest on the national debt and maybe defense. Think I am being cynical? Norquist is on the record saying, "The goal isn't to get rid of government. The goal is to reduce the government to the size that we can take it into the bathtub and drown it."
How does this play out? Let me give you a few examples:
Iraq War There are a lot of people who complain about the incompetence displayed by former (Oh, what a joy it is to add that word!) Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in relation to the management of the Iraq War. However, a read of Plan of Attack points out the problem is really, to invert the Michael Dukakis argument, one of ideology and not competence. Rumsfeld was determined to surround himself with yes-men who believed that the Iraq War could be won with 150,000 troops or less and a very short post-war invasion. In the book, Woodward writes that Rumsfeld liked Franks because he was the one who believed that a smaller force could do the job. However, Franks initial war-planning put the needed troop strength at 245,000-300,000. Rumsfeld repeatedly challenged Franks to find ways to shrink the force. It is obvious that there weren't enough forces in Iraq to secure the country, but ideology ruled the day. Ideology also ruled the day when Rumsfeld was asked about looting and vandalism in post-war Iraq, and he gave the infamous reply, "People in a free society are free to do whatever they want." In other words, Rumsfeld didn't believe that the government could or should act to keep law-and-order, thus giving his tacit approval to the insurgency.
Hurricane Katrina OK, let me make this clear. I do not believe that George W. Bush caused Hurricane Katrina. However, I do think that he is to blame for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It had been reported for years that the levies in New Orleans were not prepared to handle anything over Level Three force hurricanes. However, despite years of the Army Corps of Engineers asking for the levies to be fortified, these requests were ignored. President Bush also took five days after Hurricane Katrina to fly over Hurricane Katrina, after attempting to play a G chord in California, thus providing the modern equivalent to Nero's fiddle. He also imfamously insisted, when talking about FEMA head Michael Brown, whose previous experience was running the Arabian Horse Association, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," days before being forced to fire Brownie.
However, we found at later that as clueless as Brownie was, he tried to warn President Bush about the problems in New Orleans and he did nothing. In other words, it seems to me like Kanye West was accurate when he said, "George Bush does not care about black people." This is not to say that he actively hates black people, but let's just say that they aren't a concern.
The last major hurricane to hit New Orleans under a Texas President (albeit a real one) shows the difference between someone who believes in government and someone who doesn't. In 1964, when Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans, President Lyndon B. Johnson flew to New Orleans almost immediately, actually bothered to land, and holding a flashlight to his face (in a big contrast to President Bush landing in New Orleans eventually for a press conference with plenty of generators that were turned off as soon as the cameras were, showing his true indifference to the people) and told the people, "Your President is here to help." In other words, Lyndon Johnson showed us how a President should handle a crisis, and just about any President who actually believed in government would have done this.
VA and Military Hospitals As a veteran, I take this one personally. The Bush Administration has repeatedly underestimated the needs of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which have had a huge spike in demand because of the haevy reliance on reserve components in the Iraq War. (Reserve Component veterans are ineligible for any VA benefits unless we served in a combat zone, 180 consecutive days active duty, or 20 years active service in the Reserve Component.) As a result, the VA hospital system, which was supposed to be free, went from $2/month co-pay for prescription drugs when President Bush took over in 2001, to $15/month for prescription drugs and an annual user fee of $250 for those who make at least $26,000/year. In other words, the VA has gone from costing those who laid their life on the line $24 to $430 in the last six years. Is this something someone who believed in government would allow?
Even worse is Walter Reed Hospital, considered to be the premier military hospital. However, those who were at the residence had to endure rats in the rooms, feces-stained matresses and old food. Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to make heads roll, especially after the commanders insisted there was nothing to see in a scene reminiscent of Officer Barbrady in South Park. While this seemed to be a sign of better things to come, the soldiers were required to wake up every morning for inspection as a reminder of what happens to those who squeal.
Each of these are well-documented examples of the failures of anti-government conservatism. It is easy to see why cronies who don't care about their jobs and couldn't do them properly even if they wanted to are put in such positions. If someone doesn't believe that the government can work, what is wrong with letting some of your buddies make some money off the system? This is why we should make a pledge to refuse to vote for anyone who insists that the government can't do anything right and is the problem. Hopefully, this is the time when liberals stand up and make 2008 the year of transformation to a government that works for the people. The problem isn't the government, or incompetence, it is the anti-government conservatives who are trying their darndest to run the government into the ground.
posted by Albert McStephenson at 9:46 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home