Usually a new revelation excites me, this time it
disappointed me. Last night I was puzzling over the idea that something about my
understanding of the American political mind was wrong or missing. As usual, I
invariable trying to reduce problems to their simplest form to understand them better,
which is what I had done many years ago with the political mind set. I saw the
political landscape as divided into altruists (Democrat) and conservatives
(Republican) and then these I divided further with social and economic
subdivision, pretty much placing the socially tolerant in the Democratic Party
and economic greedy in the Republican camp. In addition, there is the
propensity for hierarchy dominance of one-person or one group over the other
with Republicans having a stronger sense of order, almost a moral order, while
Democrats are accepting of a more loosely organized society. In social
situations, nothing is all one way or another meaning there are a few greedy
Democrats and a few socially tolerant Republicans. When I introduced
evolutionary psychology into the mix, I concluded greed is innate or bestial;
thus, is something we all share whether Democrat or Republican. A need for
social order, hierarchy dominance, or peck order, is also innate. We share
these things with all living creatures but they are things we have modified by
our humanization. People choosing one or the other, of the political parties,
was no more than a refinement of this basic truth; a tacit acceptance of the
need for government.
As disturbing as it can be at times, I enjoy reading the
opposition press. Therefore, I am reduced to reading Personal Liberty Digest
from time to time. The articles in this paper have slow digressed or devolved
to a “hate Obama” theme. It seems the more successful Obama became, and he is a
very successful, the more hate was generated and intensified. There seemed to
be no logical explanation: this puzzled me, why would success in governing
generate such intense hate. Although there has always been the Republican
propensity for individualism as one pole of the hierarchy dominance scheme,
that too has become more and more extreme. Senator Rand Paul, for example seems
to fit into the Republican mold more that the Democratic mold. However, from
the evolutionary psychology point of view, people seem to recognize
individualism as being “dominate” over group, which is in conflict with a long
held belief that Republicans are more faithfully to group orientation. As
evidenced by such Darwinian inspired thoughts as “survival of the fittest” and
“self-preservation is the most primitive instinct”, individualism is deeply in
the human psychic.
With all of this as background, I was encountering something
foreign in comments made in respect to articles published in the Persona Liberty
Digest. More and more I was reading comments that did not fit my notions of the
political divisions I had set in my mind. I was seeing people, who were obviously
Republicans, expressing hate for Obama while at the same time decrying the
greedy and expressing hate for successful business people—the two positions did
not fit; Republicans are greedy and love success. For example, in my ingrained
scheme Republicans love the Koch brothers, economically successful people—in
fact, wealth defined success—and hate Obama’s leftist policies. To read in the
same comment that someone hated socialistic policies, usually called communism,
but also despised billionaires made no sense to me.
Last night, a sleepless affair, I realized the problem for
me was that another division to the political spectrum exists over and above
the classic division of Republican and Democrat. I had not recognized, or at
least given weight to a third political “hate all government” group; neither
Republican nor Democratic but associated more closely with Republicans. Thus, a
growing third division on the American political landscape, neither Democrat
nor Republican made up of people who deny the innate truth of hierarchy
dominance by denying the utility of government. The phrase, “the best
government is the government they govern the least” came to mind. The members
of this group unified in their hate for government can either love or hate
wealth and economic success; it makes no difference. The important thing is
that there is absolutely no one to tell them what to do and when to do it, nor
do they want to tell anyone one what to do and when to do it; they see
themselves as standing alone, independent of hierarchy dominance of any sort.
They can hate political parties, billionaires, or the police; anyone in
authority who wants to or feels the need tell them what to do. They hate their
fellow citizens telling them what to do by voting, which implies majority rule
when it is the “rule” the object to, which is in direct conflict with
democracy. In other words, “We the people” has no difference in significance
than a dictator telling them what to do.
I reject this philosophy. I have written about it in terms
of isolated hermits who think they can live in New York City as independents
but I had never thought about “them” as a political force or party. To me, to embrace
individualism is a blatant denial of reality. In reality, they chose to live
lawlessly among those of us who choose make and follow the laws—live in civil
order in the embrace of hierarchy dominance. Nevertheless, I read comment after
comment in the Personal Liberty Digest adamantly declaring just that as if it
was a well-established political philosophy.
Obama is a success and being a president of the people
because he and most Democrats see the government as necessary and being there
to do what individuals cannot do for themselves. Republicans differ only in
believing that they can do almost everything for themselves and if they can’t
do it for themselves they would “save the money” by denying assistance to
others—the Ayn Rand philosophy. These “no government” folks are different; to
hell with everybody. Both Democrats and Republicans chose to live in ordered
civil society even if we fight about that order. Now we have the “no government
at all” individualist totally denying reality, the ultimate in self-centered greed.
What everyone else has done is there for him or her to exploit as “they” see
fit. Elizabeth Warren famously said if someone builds a factory or a successful
business, he or she, didn’t build that business alone, society helped; she may not
have realized it but she was recognizing the individualist as a political force.
It is the individualist, not just the classic Republican, who hates Obama for
his success in making the government work. We have a congress that is not working
at all; however, the individualist looks at this as being a form of success and
votes for more of the same. There are Republicans and Democrats and then there
is this peculiar type individualist, the swing voter we all saw in action
during the last election.
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