You will forgive me if I don’t address the “gaffe du jour”, whether it be Todd Akin’s bumbling regarding “legitimate rape”, or Joe Biden’s vocal equivalent of blackface as he warned of the Republicans putting “y’all back in chains”, or even Romney’s little birth certificate joke. I trust these have all received ample attention from “gotcha” journalists and political foes. The unending hammering does little to change the debate on any of these issues, or even elucidate the candidates’ positions. O.K., politicians can be stupid, or at least say stupid things (they are people, after all), but there are more substantial things to pursue, and having spent a brief time snickering at the candidates’ dumb gaffes, can we not move on to the weightier discussion of dumb policy positions?
When is a gaffe not just a gaffe? When it reveals something much larger beneath the surface. Todd Akin’s remarks, while demonstrating some level of ignorance regarding sex-education, hardly enlighten us as to some ominous secret plan or position…. Oh my God! He’s pro-life! Biden’s gaffes, so frequent that one wonders if gaffes can be habit forming, are generally excused as one would dismiss that weird old uncle… “Oh, that’s just Joe being Joe!”; blunders that would not be pardoned in a younger or more conservative man. And Romney’s “birther humor”; well, this is why you don’t see many Mormon comedians, but geez, relax! …I guess he’ll have to pull the “dog-eater” joke out of his convention speech!
I won’t make hay about when the President said he had been to all 57 states, or even when he apparently referred to his “muslim” faith… these are slips of the tongue, or poorly articulated thoughts; all of which are the fodder of the intellectually lazy or comedy show hosts. And while a man appearing stupid may make us laugh, for the same mysterious reasons as him taking a whack to the crotch does; higher criticism should include more in-depth investigation into the things he says and does on purpose. One such example was the President’s infamous “You didn’t build that” comment. As I hope to illustrate, an action related to this comment was President Obama’s short circuit of Welfare Reform in signaling a relaxation of the work requirement. Then came the administration’s animated protestations over being accused of doing what they did. Even putting the comment “in context”, and allowing for the dubious explanation that the President had flubbed his grammar and was actually referring to the previous sentence about roads and bridges, the message of the admonition was clear; if you’ve been successful in life, you’ve had help from society at large, and as such, you should “pay society back” for your success. Since people are inherently selfish and greedy, in Obama’s view, it will inevitably be necessary that Society (in the form of a strong and benevolent central government) organize, facilitate, and ultimately mandate the “paying back” process. Remember his revealing response to “Joe the Plumber”? “It’s not that I want to punish your success…I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody”.
Having been a behavioral specialist, it’s hard for me not to smile at this explanation, as I recall a patient asking me once if he would be punished for some proscribed behavior. I gently explained that we didn’t punish our patients, but that there would be restricted privileges for a period of time. Though mentally challenged, the patient looked at me with knowing eyes and perceptively replied, “So you’ll punish me in your own way?” Whether the President intends to punish success with higher taxes is immaterial, it is punishing. Whether he intends to diminish the value and prestige of hard work, and supporting oneself is of less consequence than the fact that this is exactly what he is doing. The one branch of Psychology that can truly be deemed a science is behaviorism, and the unrelenting scientific reality is that we increase behaviors that are positively reinforced, and decrease behaviors that are ignored or punished. Whatever your intentions may be, this is a reality that needs to be accounted for when setting policy for entitlements and taxation. As demonstrated with the Laffer Curve, tax increases need to be moderated so as not to discourage success and investment, or else tax revenues will actually decrease as rates increase. At the other end, providing for the needy is a laudable function of charity or government, but free money is a powerful motivator, and consideration must be made for how we avoid increasing the dependence we should be seeking to decrease.
IMHO: The American work ethic was at one time something we took pride in. If there was a criticism it was the half-hearted one that maybe we worked a little TOO hard. Hard work and it’s reward was considered the American way of life. Individuals were judged on their ability to hold a job, work hard, and be successful. That ethic is being questioned today, and in many ways being discouraged. Some of the President’s rhetoric at once diminishes achievement, and lumps honest well deserved success in with ill-gotten gain, and dumb luck. The value of work is increasingly replaced with “gaming the system”, as the financial advantages of the “hardworking” narrow in relation to the “hardly working”, or those able bodied who don’t work at all. I don’t so much blame those caught in this “safety net”, as much as the engineers of the system whose actions often seem more politically motivated than societally uplifting. Central planning of Society is a tricky business; if you’re going to do it, at least do it right!
— Next week I’ll continue this discussion of the American work ethic, its decline, and its importance for the future.—
