"A Climate of Hatred or a Climate of Frustration?"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“A Climate of Hatred or a Climate of Frustration?”

January 13, 2011

While civility in politics is a wish devoutly to be realized, it is unlikely ever to come to pass. Politics has long been both personal and vitriolic. Late 18th century political pamphleteers make many of today’s commentators seem mild in comparison. In 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner into unconsciousness with a cane. President Truman famously said if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Nevertheless, the idea of Congressmen carrying weapons as self-protection in the wake of last Saturday’s tragic shooting seems an irresponsible response.

Paul Krugman, while admitting that the Arizona killer who badly wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords last Saturday was mentally deranged, nevertheless concludes that Jared Lee Loughner was motivated by the hatred spread by the right, notably his nemeses: Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Fox News and the Tea Party. He is joined in his own inflammatory remarks by others on the radical left, notably MoveOn.org and even the editors of the New York Times. Hypocrisy on the Left is rife. To suggest that hate emanates only from the Right is just wrong. President Bush was perhaps the most reviled president in recent history. Is it their conclusion that the term “Bush lied” was not inflammatory? Tony Blair, in his book A Journey, refers to President Bush: “Of anyone I ever met at a high level in politics, he was the person least likely to be rude or offensive.”

President Obama yesterday in Arizona attempted to damp the vitriol and cooler heads now seem to prevail. However, in the immediate aftermath of the crime, in a statement that seemed incredible at the time, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik attributed the shooting to the “vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” Other than to deflect attention from his own failure to apprehend Mr. Loughner prior to the incident (and, given Mr. Loughner’s drug use and abusive behavior in the class room at Pima Community College, Sheriff Dupnik had plenty of cause), one cannot imagine a law official making such a prejudicial statement before the facts were in. He should be removed from office.

No matter how crass it may seem politicians will, with soaring rhetoric, use this case to further their own advantage. It is the world we live in. Unfortunately the Tucson massacre serves to distract attention from the real cause of dissent that infects our politics and society today. It has nothing to do with a deranged schizophrenic on a murderous rampage, other than the fact our laws no longer permit the coercive institutionalization of patients with serious mental problems. Perpetrators are now provided more protection than victims. According to Dr. E. Fuller Torrey writing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that there are over 21,000 individuals in Arizona with untreated schizophrenia - about 10% of whom are capable of violence.

However, to draw a link between the actions of Mr. Loughner and elements of the Republican Party does a disservice to the root cause of dissatisfaction that seems to permeate our society today. What people like Krugman fail to acknowledge, and yet what Tea Party members instinctively understand, is that the American people sense themselves to be the victims of a giant Ponzi scheme that is being foisted on them by politicians (and a few others) who put re-election ahead of seriously dealing with a problem that risks driving our nation over a cliff - the problem of promises, in the form of entitlements, that are proving impossible to keep – an example being the teacher’s unions of New York City which guaranteed pension returns of 8.25% (Madoff-like returns) regardless of what the investments really earned.

Whether at the household, business, or government level future obligations must be accounted for honestly. For too many years, the government’s promises for retirement (Social Security) and healthcare benefits (Medicare and now the new healthcare bill) have had the consequence of increasing the dependency of the American people on what they have been led to believe is a beneficent government. At the same time, it has made them less dependent on their own resources. Further, it has fostered a cavalier and dangerous attitude of living well today, letting the future bring what it will.

Deficits are simply the result of borrowing from the future, so that we can live better today. Most of us incur debt to buy homes, cars and education, and most individuals and businesses do so reasonably and responsibly, as they understand the consequences of a failure to repay. Not so government and not so unions who, in return for a vote, have sold a promise of future economic security in return for loyalty. Ironically and perversely, the standard set by government – of promising more than could be delivered – infected millions of people. The result was a principal cause of the housing bust in 2007-2008. (Wall Street, banks and mortgage brokers all played a part, but nothing would have happened without the willingness of people to participate.) Deficits, per se, are not the problem; it is when financial obligations become too large to be serviced by income that problems occur.

Millions of Americans have come to recognize that the path we are on is unsustainable. They have come to the conclusion that the king has no clothes. We saw it in the November elections. Their concern reflects a growing frustration with a government that everybody knows cannot meet the obligations they have promised. This, in my opinion, is what prompted the ground swell that became the Tea Party. It is not so much a “climate of hate,” as it is an acknowledgement that the current path leads nowhere, but to bankruptcy. It has created a climate of frustration. Government, thus far, has failed to acknowledge the seriousness of the issues. Short term solutions for long term problems, including kicking the bucket down the road, are no answers...and the people know it.

The partisan passage of the healthcare bill served as the match that lit the tinder. “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” so famously spoke Abraham Lincoln. Liberal politicians and union leaders thought they could. No matter the rhetoric from the White House, Congress, the New York Times and Paul Krugman, the people instinctively understand that another entitlement is not a way to balance a budget.

Krugman and his political brethren are wrong. It is frustration, not hate that has driven millions toward the Tea Party. It is frustration with a political system that will not acknowledge it has made promises it cannot keep. The king is naked. Jared Lee Loughner is no doubt consumed with hate, but hate driven by internal demons, not a consequence of politics. To assume otherwise makes a serious misjudgment.