Cognitive Dissonance: Conservatives and Government

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I have a pretty simple question. This is not meant to alienate anyone, but I’m curious about the answer. If you consider yourself a conservative, and claim government as the enemy, why would you want to be a part of the system?

I’m not quite sure when conservatism became synonymous with spending no money and dismantling government as we know it, but here we are. If you’d like to reform the system in such a way that it better serves people, to make it more efficient, I understand that. That does not, however, mean destroying the Environmental Protection Agency, privatizing all education, and taking a sledgehammer to unions. It doesn’t mean cutting food stamp programs by billions of dollars to starving children and families because Ayn Rand gave you the idea that you could pull yourself up by your bootstraps and, you know, ideologically, it just doesn’t sit well with you that there are people out there “getting handouts”.

Recently, I was attacked by someone as I know as being the kind of person who “loves government”, and who defends its practices. While this is a blanket statement–I don’t support everything the federal government of the United States does–yes, I tend to support government. Since when should that be an insult?

This is a word of warning to the anarchists and the so-called libertarians and all the others who fancy themselves modern day revolutionaries. We live in a country comprised of approximately 320 million people. Among those 320 million, there are varying states of education, income, opportunities, and health conditions. Even from state to state, living conditions vary widely. We live in a patchwork society of diverse demographics, from age to culture to ethnicity.

But more important than even our differences are our connections to one another. Even if you don’t believe in a kumbaya ideal or attach the words “communism” or “socialism” to anything that remotely resembles cooperation, you have to admit that we must interact with one another in society. We merge on the same roads. We go to schools and workplaces with others. We purchase goods and services on a daily basis. These are the basics.

And we all benefit from services provided by the government from traffic lights to mail delivery to public libraries. It was often cited in the direct aftermath of the recent government shutdown that the biggest winners were the National Parks. Even the most self reliant among us love our national parks. And who can resist nature? Thoreau did write about Walden Pond, after all.

Government–from the lowest levels to the highest–has a role to play. This role is a significant one. Whether we’re talking about “entitlement” programs or passing the very laws that enable us to live in a stable society, we need government.

Grover Norquist’s colorful imagery of shrinking government to the point that we can “drown it in the bathtub” is disgusting. I’d really like to see where all these people would be without government services.

You can’t say “hands off my guns” (and my taxes and my religion), and then decide that government overreach is non-existent when it comes to “pension reform” or controlling reproductive choices or shutting down marriage equality or denying atheists and secularists the same respect as religion (often mainstream Christianity) is afforded.

Is that the real aim: to remake society in one’s own image? To so fundamentally alter the landscape of the United States as to comport a self-styled combination of the Bible and the “good old days”? To decry diversity and change and progress? Perhaps the most effective way is to declare the evils of the monstrous government that swallows all of our money, that ever-growing Leviathan run by the evil corporatists and opportunists who work in a place worse than hell. This place–gasp–is called Washington, D.C., and it’s where dreams go to die. Worse yet, it’s where the government bogeymen are killing all of your dreams too.

…Except that many of the government haters work there too. From local governments to state houses, thousands of people who won elections on the idea that government is the root of all evil are reaping its benefits in the form of salaries, health care, jobs, contracts, success, relative levels of fame, and the furtherance of their agendas using the tool that’s supposed to be their kryptonite.

I’m a vegetarian. I hate the entire system that goes into the production of killing animals so that people can eat them. Do I continue to eat meat, and say how horrible the system is? No. If it’s so abhorrent to you, government haters, how can you be a part of it? Are you trying to change it from the inside, out? That begins with a respect for its very existence and the admission that you want to be a part of that system, at the very least. If principle is so important, at least be honest with the public and yourselves.

Voluntary Blindness

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The recent dramatic escape of blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has shone a light on the cruelty of the practices used to employ China’s infamous “One Child” policy, and the desperation and barbary a government with unchecked power can utilize in the face of an ever daunting problem such as population control. Chen Guangcheng puts a face on China’s human rights problem. The activist and self-taught lawyer was jailed for four years for publicly protesting the forced abortions and sterilization of women in his country. (Read about these practices here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/world/asia/china-forced-abortions/index.html) He was then transferred to house arrest, where he remained for 19 months prior to his incredible escape to the American Embassy over 300 miles away. Over the course of his imprisonment under house arrest, he had decried the abuse he and his family suffered at the hands of guards. He recalled an instance in which guards broke into his house and held his wife inside of a comforter for hours while they mercilessly kicked and punched her before doing the same to him

Chinese officials are ashamed. They know how things like this look to the outside world, and they know how their restive population will react. This is why they censor. Widespread and immediate censorship was practiced in relation to Chen, especially after news of his escape spread on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. “Ashamed” might be the wrong word. They just don’t want a public relations disaster on their hands. They needn’t worry, though. United States officials have not significantly responded to any of this, and now, a week after Chen’s asylum-seeking mission to the U.S. Embassy, he has been surrendered (aka “brought of his own volition”) to a Beijing hospital, where Chinese officials have made no attempt to conceal the fact that they’re very angry with him and the attention he’s caused.

International Relations 101 is that the international system is anarchic. The actions of individuals within this system couldn’t be farther from the truth. Individuals, just as the nation-states they comprise, act in rational self interest within the system–to an extent. By its very nature, the system of nation-states that dot the earth necessitates cooperation. This is becoming more evident every day, as an increasingly globalized world proves that no country is a (proverbial) island–unless that country is North Korea, and it isn’t actually isolated; despite its constant claims of “juche”, the country is held up by the aforementioned human rights abuser, China.

I mention all of this because I see Earth’s population as a single entity: that of human society. International law, for all of its failings, exists for a reason. This is to exert order on an otherwise “anarchic”/chaotic world and to set standards for the behavior of members in the society. Apologists fearful of stepping on toes will employ the ethic of moral relativism, claiming cultural imperialism and the like, frightened of offending a subculture within world society, and therefore not reaping the individual benefits for their home country. Case in point: The United States’ unwillingness to intervene in a very obvious instance of a human rights abuse by China. Journalists reported that President Obama remained “tight lipped” on the issue of Chen Guangcheng’s detention, daring escape, and limbo-like existence as he took refuge in the American Embassy in Beijing. The American Embassy! Could there be a clearer appeal to aid from the United States?! Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former advocate of Chen Guangcheng, remained silent on the issue, even as she arrived in Beijing for an economic summit with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. In fact, both parties–the U.S. and China–deliberately informed the world that the summit would not focus on Cheng, that the triviality of his plight should not get in the way of larger economic issues. You know, issues of global significance, unlike the issue of human rights. Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/02/world/asia/china-clinton-visit/index.html

President Obama offered up this single comment on the situation: “Every time we talk to China, the issue of human rights comes up”, he claimed. Does it? Perhaps. Or, perhaps, the idea that America owes China money (an issue which isn’t quite that simple and America could actually use to its advantage) has cowed America, and made it China’s bitch. Not very diplomatic? Looking the other way while a country tortures its people while the first country loves to proclaim its “shining beacon on a hill” status every chance it gets, is much less diplomatic. It is shameful, disturbing, but, perhaps, worst of all, it is unflinchingly hypocritical. Some countries–those with less strategic importance, perhaps–are punished, while China is given a gold star. Even if American representatives don’t approve of China’s treatment of its citizens (citizens of the world, fellow human beings), they issue their tacit approval by not speaking out on such matters. There are a select few people in positions of power whose voices carry a disproportionate amount of weight, yet they choose to remain silent because silence is easier and more convenient than standing up for human dignity when it counts.

What will Chen Guangcheng’s fate be? What does the future portend for the millions of women who have been forced to undergo painful, sometimes life-threatening abortions and forced sterilizations? What about the women and girls who daily exist as members of a society in which they are told they are unwanted, if they are lucky enough not to have been killed at birth or abandoned? A society of 1.35 billion people–females and males alike–is scarred by the destruction wrought by the Chinese Communist Party. A worry of the Party is the disproportionate number of boys to girls born in the country: 118 boys to 100 girls, the only country in the world with a significantly higher proportion of boys than girls. A telling statistic, but why does the Party mention it? It is worried about the “many unhappy bachelors” of China’s future. This type if statement is emblematic of the prevailing view in China of men as substantially more important than women. Some efforts have been made to curb violence and cruelty against women, particularly women carrying a second child or a female child, but these efforts are half-assed at best, and not uniformly enforced. This is why figures like Chen Guangcheng emerge. Courageous individuals attempt to protect their fellow human beings because the government–whose first duty is to protect its people–has failed them. Worse yet, it is the perpetrator of violence against its own. Other countries Iike the United States have a moral obligation to try to aid these suffering people, fellow citizens of our global society. The United States could certainly facilitate protection for Chen and his daughter, mother, and wife. US State Department officials reported that Chen did not seek asylum in the United States, but it has been widely reported that he was coerced into leaving the U.S. Embassy because his family’s life was threatened.

Articles on Chen’s coercion to leave the U.S. Embassy and the reaction of Chinese officials:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17920910#TWEET136101

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/05/chen-guangcheng-coerced-to-leave-embassy-dissidents-say.html

Instead of attempting to secure the safety of Chen Guangcheng and his family, and using this situation as a springboard from which to discuss the brutality of China’s One Child policy and its crackdown on dissidents, U.S. officials chose not to help. A single blind man has seen more than powerful sighted people who have averted their eyes.