Basically, Glenn Beck starts out with the following scenarios, all of which we've heard the likes of before (sadly) and make a great point for what is WRONG with America today:
"#1 A woman who says she lost more $1 million gambling in Atlantic City sues some casinos for $20 million, claiming they should've stopped her compulsive gambling.
#2 People who bought houses they couldn't afford with loans they didn't understand want their lenders to change the terms.
#3 Congress authorizes a war and then tries everything it can think of to get out of it.
#4 Our country gets addicted to oil and then blames OPEC when it doesn't like the price.
These stories prove how personal responsibility has all but vanished in America, and our government is leading the way."
Glenn Beck makes an excellent point: just as children learn from their parents, we the American people are taking the government's example to heart and are doing everything in our power to avoid taking the fall. People want their cake, they want to eat it, and they want to avoid paying full-price for it.
This attitude drives me nuts. Unfortunately I am more than aware that I am in the minority here. How am I supposed to live an honest life, doing what is right by my fellow man, trying to be an upright citizen who upholds the law of the land when the majority of other citizens just don't care about being honest? Or they don't care about working hard for what they have, preferring to do whatever it takes to get as much handed to them on a silver platter as possible?
The answer, to me, is to be honest anyway. Even if I know that other people are going to do everything in their power to get ahead (meaning that they are willing to bend the rules, lie, cheat, [insert more descriptors]) I still need to maintain my personal integrity and refuse to be persuaded to join them.
This leads to me to a bigger question: how is the populace supposed to function from day to day in a country where people cannot be counted on? The government cannot be counted on? Everything is taken to an extreme in order to avoid potential lawsuits?
The answer to this, in my opinion, is that it can't. Functioning on the grand scale will cease; at least, it will become more inefficient and sluggish than it is now. Hard to imagine that isn't it? Interactions and deals will be brought to a minimum due to a lack of trust and fear of losing everything to pay court fees, and people will reduced to minimal interaction with any group mainly due to lack of trust.
Think about it. The whining, complaining, ill-will, mindset that ripping off big businesses is ok because after all, they are just a big business that can absorb the loss, getting away with not paying debts and boasting about it...what is this teaching our children? What does this say about our society?
So perhaps the biggest question of all is this: how do we bring integrity back to America?
*If you'd like to read the actual article I'm quoting, click here.
The Government's Current Affairs, quoting Glenn Beck
Posted by Amy on 5/07/2008
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16 comments:
Oh, come on.
Point #1: Anyone can FILE a suit over pretty much anything. Let's all relax until this woman actually WINS her suit.
Point #1a: There are something like 300,000,000 people in this country. If a mere one tenth of percent of them lack any sense of personal responsible, that would provide the media with 300,000 sensational examples. But it would not in any way prove anything about "what is wrong" with America as a whole. It's called cherry picking the evidence, and it's a bogus procedure used by people like Beck for grinding their political axes.
Point #2: I agree, Amy. Individuals who make stupid choices ought to suffer the consequences, within reason. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also criticize the lenders, nor that the government should not regulate the lending industry (again within reason). We don't simply say, "Well, individuals should make smart choices about drugs and alcohol" and leave it at that. We recognize that many people are weak, and we regulate alcohol and drugs. And we criticize drug pushers as well as drug users. Yet you criticize venal borrowers without also criticizing venal lenders. Is morality only for individuals, and not also for businesses (which after all are run by individuals)?
Point #3: I'm not sure what this is supposed to prove. Congress (or better, individual Congressmen) could plausibly argue that authorizing the war was simply a mistake and that it's not worth throwing good money (and American lives) after bad; or that it's satisfied with the removal of Saddam but does not wish to pursue any more nation-building; or that, as the servant of the people, it authorizes war when the public wants war and seeks to end war when the public no longer supports war.
If someone honestly believes the war was a mistake, isn't it just as problematic to keep supporting it rather than simply admitting the mistake?
I just can't see putting this in the same category as #1.
Point #4: I agree, Amy. But I'm not sure what's so new about this sort of thing. Does Beck think that silly whining didn't exist in the past? Maybe back when he walked five miles to school, uphill both ways?
To say that "These stories prove how personal responsibility has all but vanished in America, and our government is leading the way" is pure hyperbolic bunk. Anybody can cherry-pick enough examples these days to "prove" just about anything. Beck could have cited many examples of crooked cops and then claimed they prove that there's no integrity left among America's police officers. It would be a piece of cake. Thanks to Google, I could do that in 20 minutes. But wouldn't my doing so say more about me than about the police? False generalization is a fallacy and we ought to be able to see it for what it is. Beck is a hack, pure and simple. Just because he slings his hash doesn't mean we have to eat it.
Don't get me wrong, Amy--I agree with part of what you say. Where this post loses me (in addition to its unoriginal recycling of the old theme of the world going to Hades in a handbasket) is its apocalyptic tone. I mean, come on:
"The government cannot be counted on?" Funny thing, I counted on the government to deliver my mail, and my mail came yesterday, right on time. I count on the government to deliver clean water every day to my tap, and my government delivers. My uncle got his usual treatments down at the government-run VA. I pay my federal gas taxes at the pump, and I drive on the world's best highway system. I don't know what country *you* live in--but here in America, in a thousand different ways, my government works. The examples of its everyday success far outnumber those of its failures. It's that cherry-picking thing again.
True, my government also acquiesces in illegal torture, etc., etc.--but that's not the sort of thing that's going to bring everyday life to a halt.
So what in the world do you mean, "The government cannot be counted on"? (If I was Matt I would now accuse you of "hating America." But I won't go there. I'll merely remind everyone that when conservatives hate America, which they do, all the time, they don't call it America--they call it "the government." And I'll suggest that maybe our sourpuss cherry-picking pundit Glenn Beck is causing his readers to hate America. Lock him up as a traitor!)
So, "Everything is taken to an extreme in order to avoid potential lawsuits?" EVERYTHING? Nah--what happens is that lawyers create new legal instruments (such as the many kinds of waivers) to allow life to go on as before. Or practices that truly are dangerous are stopped, as they should be, by the fear of lawsuits. And what's wrong with that?
Finally, there's the silly "good old days" idea implicit in the question, "how do we bring integrity back to America?" Because, you know, there was so much more integrity in the days of the bootleggers and the slave owners and the turn-of-the-century meatpackers and the old-style union bosses and the Indian-killers and the lynch-mobbers and the Chicago political machine and the Pinkerton detectives, and there's no integrity today.
The world changes all the time. Some complaints are legit, some aren't, but it's not as if the past was a Golden Age and the present is the Eve of Destruction.
Unless, of course, we're complaining about nuclear proliferation. THAT apocalyptic scenario just might be real.
--David
Thanks David! You truly entertain me. Thanks for making me laugh out loud more than once while reading your responses. :)
I don't have any answers, Amy, but I am disheartened at the general lack of integrity we see around us.
David says, "Point #1a: There are something like 300,000,000 people in this country. If a mere one tenth of percent of them lack any sense of personal responsible, that would provide the media with 300,000 sensational examples. But it would not in any way prove anything about "what is wrong" with America as a whole. It's called cherry picking the evidence, and it's a bogus procedure used by people like Beck for grinding their political axes." Hmmmmm.....kind of sounds like someone else I've heard of. Does the name Al Gore and global warming ring a bell?
"False generalization is a fallacy and we ought to be able to see it for what it is. Beck is a hack, pure and simple. Just because he slings his hash doesn't mean we have to eat it." That dirty conservative Beck! I wish he had as much integrity as Al Gore.
David, you say, "The government cannot be counted on"? (If I was Matt I would now accuse you of "hating America." But I won't go there." Let me take this opportunity to apologize for ever suggesting that you hate America. You see, I didn't know of your great love of the U.S. postal service.
My uncle got his usual treatments down at the government-run VA. Count him as VERY LUCKY, most VA's don't run so well.
"Finally, there's the silly "good old days" idea implicit in the question, "how do we bring integrity back to America?". Amy, you silly mislead conservative, don't you see how integrity is abounding everywhere? I would hate to have lived back in the "good ole days" of my great grandfather. You know, back when you had to worry about the HPV virus for girls in grade school, and using condoms was a must to prevent STD's. Oh yeah, and let's not forget all of the waivers that had to be signed to prevent lawsuits, and the contracts that had to be signed because a man was not as good as his word. And of course those nasty video games, like Grand theft auto 4, where you could rape women, cut them in half with a chain saw and let's not for get the cop killing. No wonder Gramps had to lock his door at night. Poor great grandpa!
FWIW, Matt, I don't lock my door at night. Only when I leave town for awhile.
So, let's see. People in the past just brimmed over with personal integrity.
Hmm. I'm guessing your great-grandpa was white. In the first decades of the 20th century, something like 4-5 million American men were in the KKK. Now, maybe your great-gramps wasn't a member, but quite possibly he saw a lynching or two. Lynchings, which are nothing but cold-blooded murders, often took place in broad daylight in the middle of town and were attended by hundreds and sometimes even thousands of people. Sometimes lynching photos were turned into postcards and mailed off to friends and relatives by people proud to have been a part of the murderous festivities. Tens of millions of white Americans knew about lynchings and did nothing to stop them. Personal integrity indeed!
Hmm. Where do you suppose the great majority of the 18th and 19th century's light-skinned African Americans came from? From white men (like Republican icon Strom Thurmond!) raping black girls. Personal integrity indeed!
Where do you suppose all those tens of millions of Native Americans went? What proportion were simply murdered, and how much personal integrity does it take to murder people on such a scale?
How many hard-working, patriotic late-18th-century frontier farmers got fleeced by some rich speculator who bought their Revolutionary War bonds for a song, then bribed a corrupt Congress to buy them back at full value?
How many bootleggers in the 1920s did exactly the same things that drug dealers do today, right down to the drive-by shootings?
How much personal integrity was there in the old political patronage machines of the 19th and early 20th centuries?
How many Union soldiers died because of the corruption in Civil War military contracting? How many compliant Indians on the reservations died from the same cause?
How many young Americans rioted against the draft in WWI? How many American soldiers came home from that war with the clap?
Perhaps your great-gramps was in the Philippines during the Spanish American War. Maybe he helped torture and murder some of the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos this nation's armed forces tortured and murdered. Or maybe he joined the Marines and was summoned by United Fruit Co. to Nicaragua to bust some poor banana-pickers union, and while there left behind, in addition to a tidy pile of corpses, a couple of illegitimate children. Ave, Maria!
Maybe your great-gramps earned everything he got. Then again, maybe he benefited from the greatest affirmative-action program of all time, the one that in his day reserved 100 percent of the best jobs for whites and males only. Talk about quotas!
True, today's entertainment industry features a lot more sex and violence than yesterday's. Then again, it features a lot less racism. Watch Birth of a Nation sometime.
True, Ken Lay (that Republican mega-thief and friend of Mr. Bush's) was utterly lacking in personal integrity, but at least he was not an openly Jew-hating Hitler-lover like Henry Ford.
People doing archival research in my own rural area have found the most amazing things in the county court and county clerk archives. They've been able to piece together the ways that lawyers and Boss Hog-style politicians stole the titles to hundreds of illiterate farmers' land, mostly between the 1880s and 1910s. Because, you know, back in those good old days you didn't need contracts. You could just take a man at his word!
The "silly idea" implicit in the question, "how do we bring integrity back to America?" is the idea that the old days were so much better than our own. For me to maintain that they're not is NOT the same as for me to maintain that today "integrity is abounding everywhere"--merely that the old days weren't so great either. It's to caution you against the bias that historiographers call "presentism."
Let me ask you this, Matt. Suppose a bunch of excitable members of an LDS ward were to go out today and massacre 120 men, women, and children in cold blood. (Pretty unlikely, I know, which itself supports my point. But anyway, bear with me for a moment.) If that were to happen, do you think President Monson would cooperate with law enforcement authorities? Do you think he would do everything in his power to see the murderers brought to justice?
Or would he stonewall the investigation and obstruct justice in order to protect the murderers, like President Young did after Mountain Meadows? Personally, I think Monson would exhibit MUCH more personal integrity than Young.
So you see--even in the Church there's more personal integrity now than there was then!
--David
I just saw on the news that the nation's largest dairy co-op is being investigated for price fixing. If allegations are true, here is an example of dishonesty costing our society. The cost of a gallon of milk (considered a "necessity" to most) is higher because of dishonest business practices. My question is: how much is dishonesty costing our society? How much more expensive are all the goods and services we consume because of dishonesty? I suspect the answer is very high. The credit crisis, the housing crisis, the high cost of oil, even the cost of milk - we've got issues of speculation in each of these markets that are driving up the cost, and to go with that speculation, I do believe we have issues of dishonesty. Sure, I am a free market gal, but manipulating the markets, manipulating paperwork, etc. for personal gain is dishonest.
And how many people would be up in arms about price fixing with regard to milk, but don't see it as a problem if they cheat on their taxes or don't return the extra change they accidentally receive from the store?
I think a general lack of integrity is a big issue in our society, and I think it is sad.
So it seems like price fixing essentially screws with the natural flow of a free market?? Is that correct?
Or does having a free market mean that price fixing is to be expected? I didn't ever take classes that went over this concept in my undergrad.
Price fixing interferes with a free market. Price fixing is when the group of companies secretly agree to all charge the same high price rather than letting supply and demand (free market forces) determine the price.
Right on, Stephanie--you've nailed it. I would add only that "free market" is not quite synonymous with "unregulated market." Most free marketeers I know support basic government regulation designed to ensure that markets work. Such regulations include those against price-fixing, monopolies, cartels, etc. They also include laws such as those designed to ensure the honest reporting of assets, profits, etc. to shareholders, and those designed to ensure the honest labeling of ingredients. For the free market to work, investors and consumers need to be able to make informed choices, which means they need accurate information.
I mention this because sometimes (so-called) conservatives object to any and all government regulation of business. But optimal markets do not always arise spontaneously--sometimes they need a little help.
--David
I agree David.
I have to say, that, besides the opening shtick with Mr. Beck, and the closing statement, I quite liked this post, Amy. I personally have a hard time stomaching Mr. Beck (I actually was in his ward on my mission, when I was conservative, and he rubbed me the wrong way then - he's quite greasy and schmoozy), so I didn't really pay much attention to what he said. But I like you better, and I like your point - how do we mainatain our personal morality amid a morally bankrupt society?
I also like what David expounded upon regarding the good-ol days. There never was a golden age in America. Though we might look back to a golden age, it is a matter of perspective.
Good discussion.
FWIW, how about this?--
If I regulate my own behavior, I'm being a good individual.
If I teach my children good behavior, I'm being a good parent.
If I demand ethical governance from my political representatives, I'm being a good citizen.
But if I try to regulate my neighbor's behavior, so long as it's legal, I'm just being a busybody.
--David
David I think it depends on how you do it. If you regulate your own behavior with hard drugs, that might be a good thing. Regulating schizophrenia with prescribed drugs is probably a good thing.
Regulating your kids behavior through positive reinforcement, hugs, high fives=probably good thing. Regulating them through bars on the windows, slapping them around, verbal abuse...well, imo you'll end up with an empty house on Thanksgiving in 20 years.
Trying to influence government behavior through petitions, peaceful demonstrations, etc: good. Influencing them by blowing up abortion clinics: completely unacceptable.
Influencing your neighbors by setting a good example, opening up your home, taking an active, concerned, heartfelt interest in their lives...I'd say that was a good thing. Walking into your neighbor's home and telling them what to do and how to do it without any kind of foundational friendship is asking for trouble.
ok, I can't type. I meant regulating your behavior with hard drugs (such as cocaine) = BAD thing.
Not to change the subject, but yay!
--David
I agree, David - YAY! Yay to both posts news posts you have "linked" us to the last few days.
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