Are We Snowflakes?

To follow up on my earlier post about "owning the libs", are we whiny little snowflakes?

That's the opinion of some folks: Republicans think it's true of Democrats, Baby Boomers think it's true of Millennials (a lot of Boomers think Millennials are all pimply-faced teenagers, while the oldest of them are approaching 40), straight White men think it's true of women, Blacks, Gays, Transexuals, and city dwellers, Trumpers think it's true of everyone who isn't a Trumper.  But is it true?

I'm going to concede that some people take it too far, but I'm not going to draw the line for everyone else. That's a discussion for another day. Judging everyone in a certain category based on the outliers in that category is a logical fallacy. Something you hear a lot is how certain movies couldn't get made any more, because someone would find them offensive. You hear that no one has a sense of humor any more. That those people get offended too easily. You hear about "cancel culture", which supposedly is the mechanism by which "woke" (used ignorantly as a pejorative) people punish people who say (or even think) things that they don't like. Let's look at "cancel culture" first. It's undeniable that there are occasions when a public figure makes an offensive statement which is followed by calls from some quarters to boycott that person. Yes it happens, and sometimes the offending public figure finds their career has been wrecked due to the outcry. Those who support the "cancelled" person are shocked and outraged and call it censorship. But the thing is, no one is forced to participate in these boycotts or to join in excoriating the cancellee.  The target of so-called cancelation is still free to perform, to play music, to tell jokes etc, but they aren't entitled to an audience. In many cases the record company, television or radio station or other employer chooses to fire them. This again is called censorship. And again, no one is forcing an employer to cut their losses and bow to popular pressure, but they certainly know how the free market works. 

Okay, sure, "cancelation" only works if enough people are "offended" at you, (there's that pesky free market again) but what about all these people who get offended at every little thing? I'm not saying that there aren't people who are oversensitive, but those are the outliers. In general, people call out offensive words or behavior for several reasons. It may sound incredibly obvious, but it's because it's offensive. The people who deride those who call out offensive language emphasize the one doing the calling out, mocking them for being offended, when the problem isn't that someone is offended, but that someone is being offensive. It's a classic case of victim shaming, even though it may not be obvious that anyone is being victimized - so let's just say that it's similar to victim shaming. A favored tactic of those who oppose calling out offensive speech is to point out old television shows and movies that supposedly couldn't be made today. Two go-to examples are Blazing Saddles and All in The Family. Those who cite them seem to be oblivious to the way they poked fun at racists; All in The Family also mocked liberal Mike, who despite his disdain for Archie's right wing views, had no problem living rent-free under his roof. And the idea that comedians don't push boundaries today - have they never heard of Dave Chapelle or South Park? 

The "good old days", when it was supposedly perfectly fine to say whatever came into your head, were times when Black people, women, and other minorities didn't have the power to speak up. It was legal to sexually harass an employee; it was legal to refuse to serve a Black person; and what passed as humor was often just punching down at people who couldn't punch back without serious consequences. These days, right or wrong, people feel that they can speak up. They feel that they can point out sexist, racist, ableist, homophobic language and insist that it change. They feel that they no longer have to put up with being the butt of jokes or being marginalized by hateful language. 

So no. If we speak up about offensive language and actions, we aren't snowflakes, we're not the problem. 

Owning the Libs

Maybe this has been going on for longer, but I first noticed the politics of "own the libs" right after Losin' Donnie was elected. Sure there was name-calling and mud slinging before, but the politics of schoolyard taunting not coincidently corresponded to the rise of someone who didn't really have any other tools in his political toolbox. 

Donald Trump caught the imagination of Americans who felt that the "other" was overtaking and replacing them. He didn't invent, however, the exaggerated characterization of liberals as whiny "snowflakes" who get offended at anything and everything, the credit for that goes to Rush Limbaugh and his fellow "conservative" media personalities. Trump merely introduced it into everyday political discourse. He was so successful at this approach that it became a hallmark of his presidency. I first noticed the poisonous turn of conversation on Twitter. That social media platform is a bit rough and tumble to start with, but the taunting and insults as kind of shocking. Before long it became normal. Other Republicans, emboldened by Trump's success, began to imitate his approach. Even after his loss in the 2020 election (yes, damn it, he LOST) Republican candidates and elected officials imitated the strategy of doing nothing other than mocking and taunting liberal Democrats. 

The tactic of mindlessly obstructing anything a Democrat proposes in order to deny them a "win" wasn't new to the Trump era. Senator Mitch McConnell, during the Obama administration, used his position to block virtually everything that President Obama proposed, including a Supreme Court nomination. During Obama's first two years the Democrats held a commanding majority in the House and a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate - which was the only reason the PPACA got passed. Once the Senate majority shrunk he was able, by unprecedented use of the filibuster, to frustrate any attempt for the Democrats to get anything done, even though they still possessed majorities in both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. Once the Republicans gained the majority he successfully blocked most of President Obama's judicial nominations. During Trump's final two years, when the Democrats retook the House majority, he refused to even bring to a vote in the Senate hundreds of bills passed by the House. 

What's happening now goes well beyond that.

While old school politicians like McConnell are still playing the long game, many of the newer members of the House and Senate seem content to refrain from legislating and act like media personalities, holding press conferences and issuing statements that are empty of any substance other than insults to Democratic politicians and voters. Liberals aren't the snowflakes that conservatives think that they are. They don't sniffle and whine when things don't go their way, but don't shy away from pointing out hateful and harmful actions and speech. However, a lot of Republican voters think they are, and cheer on the do-nothing Republicans whose whole platform seems to be to "own the libs", no matter what. Even the rare policy of legislative proposal isn't aimed at helping Americans, but rather at dismantling programs that liberals like, simply because liberals like them. Hey, if liberals are for something, it must be communism, right? 

Unlike some, I don't blame the politicians. I blame us, at least the "us" that craves the entertainment that "owning the libs" provides. The great majority of voters are just too stupid, or perhaps just too lazy, to understand the complexities and nuances of public policy. It's easier to boil it down to "it's socialism" than to take the time to understand the pros and cons, as well as the possible benefits and consequences. It's easier to cheer on a Republican Member of Congress who calls a Muslim House member a jihadist than to research the Muslim House member's policy positions. The circus-like antics of today's Republicans continue because they work. 

I don't anticipate it getting any better...there's just too many stupid voters.

Communism, Socialism, Marxism

It seems like every government initiative that aims to help people has been labeled as socialism over the last decade, and now, the opponents on the right have escalated their name-calling to include "communism". And it doesn't matter what Joe Biden or any Democrat comes up with, it's communism according to Republicans and other right wingers. Let's look at what it really is from two angles: (1) Is it really socialism (or communism) and (2) If it is socialism, is it bad?

In the early days of our Republic, the government had a limited role. Many people look nostalgically back to those days as a paradise of freedom (or "freedoms" as the faux patriots of today have taken to calling it). There was no income tax, there were few government regulations and there were places you could escape to where the government couldn't easily reach you, even if it was so inclined. There was also so slavery. And as industrialization grew and spread, freedom became a very elusive concept, not because the government was oppressing anyone, but because a small cohort of wealthy industrialists were. Little by little, often under pressure from unions, and women's rights groups the governement took on the role of protector of those with little or no power. Sure, certain freedoms were curtailed: the freedom to operate unsafe workplaces, the freedom to employ small children, the freedom to abuse workers, the freedom to operate monopolies. Government agencies sprung up to regulate food production, to oversee approval of drugs, to ensure workers' rights. Eventually the New Deal created the Social Security Administration; years later the freedom to discriminate based on race, gender or religion became illegal (although it just went underground - it didn't disappear). By the seventies the government took on the role of protecting the environment by curtailing the freedom to wantonly pollute. All of these things could be categorized as socialism, some more, some less, but can any of them (allowing of course for overreach at times) really be categorized as bad for the country? Aren't they all just establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty? Aren't they good things?

The problem with tagging something as socialism is that most people will conflate social programs in a democratic, constitutional republic with socialist dictatorships. No progressive politician has ever called for common ownership of the means of production, for elimination of private property, or prohibiting the formation of for-profit businesses. No one has called for nationalizing major industries. No one is suggesting that the president should assume dictatorial powers (no one currently in power anyway). Mandating paid parental leave isn't going to turn us into Venezuela or Soviet Russia. With a wide swath of the electorate, all it takes is to call a plan "socialist" for them to be adamantly against it. But even the effectiveness of that epithet is fading, now, in order to really get people riled up, you have to ramp up your rhetoric and call things "communist", which has an even eviler association, especially for people who remember the Cold War. 

So yes, using a broad definition for "socialism", many Democratic programs are socialist, just like minimum wage laws, OSHA, Medicare and interstate highways...even police and fire departments and public libraries. But what they aren't are imitations of socialist failures like Venezuela or Cuba (although it could be argued that much of Cuba's problem is US sanctions) and they certainly aren't a harbinger of a replay of the Soviet era dictatorships. 

As always, thinking is hard work, but I recommend it.

Making the Rich Pay Their "Fair Share" of Taxes - How?

 The problem with the ultra-rich not paying "their fair share" isn't necessarily that they are doing anything illegal (although sometimes that's exactly what it is), it's that the tax code favors the ultra-rich. There are myriad ways to make your income and assets non-taxable, or taxable at lower rates, but most of these methods are only available if you already have a pile of money. I'll use Elon Musk for an example: he claims that he is not taking a salary & his net worth consists of stock, which won't be taxed until he sells it. So how is he living the billionaire lifestyle without any cash?

Debt.

The way our tax code works, income is taxed, but assets aren't. An executive or company owner can be paid in company stock, which isn't taxable until it is sold. The executive or owner then takes out a low-interest loan to finance his lifestyle, with his assets as collateral. Like the assets, the cash obtained through the loan isn't taxable either. Of course eventually these loans will have to be paid off, but in most cases the value of the asset has appreciated much more than the interest that was paid on the loan. Of course, if you're an alleged billionaire like former president Losin' Donnie, you can just default on your loans.

Then there's tax credits.

There are a long list of ways to earn tax credits and book net taxable losses while still bringing in plenty of cash. One shady, yet perfectly legal method is via consulting fees. A real estate developer buys a building and applies for federal tax credits to restore it to historical conditions. The federal government, in addition to awarding credits based on legitimate construction expenses, also allows a "developer fee". IRS standards are that 20% of total rehabilitation costs are reasonable. So the real estate developer creates an LLC for the building. Then, another LLC is created as a developer. The building LLC then pays the developer LLC the developer fee. Assuming the rehabilitation costs, including the developer fee, are $5 million, then the building LLC receives a $200,000 million tax credit for effectively moving $1 million from one account to another, since the building owner is a developer. The $1 million developer fee can also be used as an expense to offset any revenue that the building LLC earns, lowering its taxable income.

The answer isn't necessarily to raise the tax rate on the ultra-wealthy. The answer is to find a way to close the various ways that income and wealth can be shielded from taxation that are only available to the top 0.01%.