In my time, the idea of conservatism has been turned upside down. Men in my family wore neckties even when just reading the paper at home.
Conservatives such as Dwight Eisenhower were moderate and modest. Vice President Richard Nixon illustrated this by telling how his wife favored a respectable cloth coat. One could believe we had government of the people, for the people and by the people.
Our country had real upward mobility. There was a relatively smooth continuity from lower to higher income. Any one person's niche was within a spectrum of respectable achievement and better possibility, which encouraged hard work and hope.
Children seemed able to stand on their parents' shoulders and rise to greater heights. Of course there were political differences. But there was a balance between union organizations and business, and blue-collar workers could sustain and advance their families.
Now we have moved from dissension to outright division in our society. The poor are poorer, and the rich are much richer. The gulf between is wider than ever. And the workings of the Congress have moved from debate and compromise to dispute, disparage and standoff. Conservatives say, "My way or the highway!"
A lot of us are in pain: economic, social and personal pain. It is like a cloak of demoralization that suffocates our grasp of options, even our sense of what is wrong. It sponsors the yearning for a target.
The Republican primary candidates are roaring with energy, shining their flashlights into these dark corners to prove that their party is not at fault. Each one has a kind of answer. The conservative agenda is becoming radicalized.
Some thrash about at President Barack Obama, saying he is weak and a socialist. Others proclaim an urgent need for the leadership they want to offer.
They gloss over how their party reaches to craft stumbling blocks for every idea not its own, or how their own president ran the government from surplus into gaping deficit with two reckless wars on the charge card while reducing taxes for those most able to contribute.
The thrust reaches to entice the rich into rewarding politicians who help them garner their wealth. Political dependency and corrupt collusion with lobbyists are condoned.
Nevertheless, the dependency is "bad" when those forced into poverty have to rely on government benefits for unemployment or health or disability.
Those desperately going into debt for food are irresponsible and should tighten their belts and let their children go hungry. The Scrooge-like advice from the rich for the poor is too often such.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says his goal is to reduce deficits, but underneath this holy mantra is the determination never to raise taxes.
In the balancing of taxation with government services -- services are what he would cut. This hollow "freedom from government" tops freedom from hunger for the conservatives.
They seek to glorify the self-made man, as if leadership is not basically a collaborative achievement.
We have a society in which the wealthy are hoarding everything that their power allows, not what the constructive dictates of fairness would suggest.
The power of corporate employers wants never to be confronted by any corresponding coalition of working people. This worsens our dysfunctional disparity of incomes, of fairness and adds to the increasing division of our society.
So when you hear that the government is too big, know that programs provided to protect the health and well-being of average working Americans are being challenged.
Similarly the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was challenged by trying to prevent the appointment of a person to head the agency. Conservatives claim the agency is not accountable for its actions.
Mitt Romney divisively said that Jon Huntsman disqualified his candidacy by having been an Obama ambassador. Ron Paul unashamedly asserts that property rights trump human rights. Rick Santorum opposes "giving money to others who did not earn it," and Newt Gingrich suggests that food stamps go disproportionately to blacks (most, in fact, go to working whites). Perry wants to "take America back" from those who have "no work ethic."
What they all harangue about is the redistributive and regulatory governance we have constructed since the Depression.
As E.J. Dionne points out in The Daily Star published for the weekend of Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, the president's defense of principles that helped make ours a society for all also makes Obama the conservative candidate "in the truest sense of that word."
William Masters can be reached at wmasters@thedailystar.com. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Daily Star and its editorial board.
William Masters
Government no longer about power of people
- William Masters
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
Richard Lugar, after six terms as a Republican senator -- known for his middle of the road rationality and his foreign policy finesse -- has been ousted by a Tea Party extremist backed by outside right-wing funding.
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War not worth gambling with lives of soldiers
Are you not tired of our war in Afghanistan? It had a point, once, after 9/11. Bush couldn't distinguish his myopic personal agendas from the nation's needs and let Osama escape, dropping the ball entirely, causing many deaths.
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Titanic was a microcosm of U.S. economic disparity
Haunting reminders of the Titanic tragedy have wafted over us with the centenary of its sinking. The maiden voyage of an impressive, state of the art vessel, was a little like that of the Challenger space shuttle, at the cutting edge of developing technology. But the shuttle carried our pride in science and space exploration, not hundreds and hundreds of people.
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William Masters: Nation stands divided between 'us' and 'them'
In February, Trayvon Martin was shot dead as "suspicious" by a volunteer neighborhood watch man. The case has aroused community reaction in Sanford, Fla., and is still echoing across the country.
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A quarterback can't win the game alone
What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
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Playing Left Field: Some blur lines between laws of church and state
We have freedom of religion in this country. A clear separation between churches and governmental agencies is constitutionally mandated. Government power may not favor or advance a particular religion.
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Humans need to look at long-term impact on Earth
Global warming is real and we are smugly oblivious. I recall the USS Nautilus making a journey to the North Pole decades ago, and poking its conning tower dramatically up through the ice right at the pole itself, an arrival theretofore possible only by dog sled and arduous effort.
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Playing Left Field: Meaning of 'liberty' lost in GOP's translation
COLUMN BY WILLIAM MASTERS .... Now, during the Republican presidential primaries, we hear a lot about liberty. It is a leave-me-alone type of liberty, suggesting the license to do what one may choose in the sacred call of business activity. Much is sought in the name of freedom.
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Government no longer about power of people
In my time, the idea of conservatism has been turned upside down. Men in my family wore neckties even when just reading the paper at home.
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Americans should respect right to bear arms
Early one morning a while back, I answered a phone call from Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, warning that the sky is falling _ no worse: that the U.S. is participating in a U.N. treaty effort to deal with the irresponsible international transfers of small arms.
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Inequalities breed social dysfunction
In my most-recent column, I presented recent epidemiological evidence that the inequality built into a society underlies the sense many of us have that the country is going in the wrong direction.
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Inequalities breed discontent in our modern society
So many Americans feel a dispirited sense of complaint. The conservative ranks have gravitated to Tea Party anger, while more lately, a less-defined segment has turned out to "occupy" public areas for mutual support as the amorphous "99 percent" is filled with discontent about the elite 1 percent reaping the lion's share of wealth.
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Freedom should not belong to the rich alone
"I pledge allegiance to the flag ... " intones every first-grade kid, in unison and sincerity. When I was in the first grade, we faced the mortal crises of Pearl Harbor and fascism in Europe.
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There's no such thing as completely clean energy
Some local people cry "Drill, Baby, Drill," reminding us of our nation's need to be freed from dependency on foreign oil. And we are regularly treated to TV ads praising "clean coal" in generating electricity.
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Consider competence, congeniality when voting
NetSummary
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'People are scared, angry' that the country is going down the drain
There is a widespread discontent among most of us that the country is going down the drain. People are scared and angry. Too many people can find no work at all, and unemployment is not going down.
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'We are all dependent: Both upon the Earth, and on an economy'
If we don't change, change will bury us. That will be because of the changes we ourselves inflict so causally upon this one and only Earth.
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'Corporations are not people; they are tools that entrepreneurs use'
"Corporations are people, my friend," quipped Mitt Romney, in rebuttal to a crowd shouting that corporations should be a source of revenue instead of taxing people.
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Thoughts of a 'bleeding-heart' liberal
This is the beginning of a biweekly column, as The Daily Star strives to remain fair and balanced in relation to the opinions of the day.
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
