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Democracy, in the American tradition

On August 11, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Lakoff: How to Rescue the American Dream from the GOP’s Nightmare

The Republicans are redefining “democracy”–but it’s time to remember
what the real dream of democracy meant. By George Lakoff and Glenn Smith
/July 28, 2011/ |

Democracy, in the American tradition, has been defined by a simple
morality: We Americans care about our fellow citizens, we act on that
care and build trust, and we do our best not just for ourselves, our
families, our friends and our neighbors, but for our country, for each
other, for people we have never met and never will meet.

American democracy has, over our history, called upon citizens to share
an equal responsibility to work together to secure a safe and prosperous
future for their families and nation. This is the central work of our
democracy and it is a public enterprise. This, the American Dream, is
the dream of a functioning democracy.

Public refers to people, acting together to provide what we all depend
on: roads and bridges, public buildings and parks, a system of
education, a strong economic system, a system of law and order with a
fair and effective judiciary, dams, sewers, and a power grid, agencies
to monitor disease, weather, food safety, clean air and water, and on
and on. That is what we, as a people who care about each other, have
given to each other.

Only a free people can take up the necessary tasks, and only a people
who trust and care for one another can get the job done. The American
Dream is built upon mutual care and trust.

Our tradition has not just been to share the tasks, but to share the
tools as well. We come together to provide a quality education for our
children. We come together to protect each other ¢â‚¬â„¢s health and safety. We
come together to build a strong, open and honest financial system. We
come together to protect the institutions of democracy to guarantee that
all who share in these responsibilities have an equal voice in deciding
how they will be met.

What this means is that there is no such thing as a ¢â‚¬Å“self-made ¢â‚¬ man or
woman or business. No one makes it on their own. No matter how much
wealth you amass, you depend on all the things the public has provided ¢â‚¬”
roads, water, law enforcement, fire and disease protection, food safety,
government research, and all the rest. The only question is whether you
have paid your fair share for what we all have given you.

We are now faced with a nontraditional, radical view of ¢â‚¬Å“democracy ¢â‚¬
coming from the Republican party. It says democracy means that nobody
should care about anybody else, that democracy means only personal
responsibility, not responsibility for anyone else, and it means no
trust. If America accepts this radical view of democracy, then all that
we have given each other in the past under traditional democracy will be
lost: all that we have called public. Public roads and bridges: gone.
Public schools: gone. Publicly funded police and firemen: gone. Safe
food, air, and water: gone. Public health: gone. Everything that made
America America, the crucial things that you and your family and your
friends have taken for granted: gone.

The democracy of care, shared responsibility and trust is the democracy
of the American Dream. The democracy of no care, no shared
responsibility, and no trust has produced the American Nightmare that so
many of our citizens are living through.

Nightmare it is, but there is no denying credit to Republicans for their
skills at framing. The recent Republican ¢â‚¬Å“Contract from America, ¢â‚¬ for
instance, begins with a statement of their moral principles. The
recommendations are special cases of those principles. It is a strategic
initiative. Instead of a laundry list, each recommendation is a special
case of a general strategy ¢â‚¬” to defund our American government.

Furthermore, they understand that about 20 percent of the electorate
consists of people who are conservative in some ways and progressive in
others. These are biconceptuals, sometimes referred to loosely by
political professionals as ¢â‚¬Å“independents ¢â‚¬ or ¢â‚¬Å“swing voters. ¢â‚¬ Republicans
know their job is to activate the conservative part of the brains of the
biconceptuals, and they do that by sticking strictly to conservative
moral principles and a clear conservative strategy. They never make the
mistake of ignoring biconceptuals.

Progressives too often fail to clearly state the moral principles behind
the American tradition. Our arguments often sound like an abstract
defense of distant ¢â‚¬Å“government ¢â‚¬ rather than a celebration of our people,
our public, and the moral views that have defined our tradition and the
real human beings who work every day to carry them out.

There is a distinction between government as the administration of what
we, as a public, provide each other, as opposed to government control.
The Right wants to focus only upon control, not upon all that our
tradition has given us. They do not just hide the vast positives, but
they also hide the fact that governmental control, control over our
daily lives, is more private than public. Private government for profit
runs our lives ¢â‚¬“ the health care we receive, the food we eat, the cars
we can drive and the gas to fuel them, the news we get, loans for our
homes, and on and on. Public government is for the benefit of all of us.
Private (especially corporate) government is for the private profit of
top management and stockholders. If you are concerned about your life
being controlled for the benefit of others, look to the private sphere.

The institution of government, however, is not the point. We must
instead defend the moral principles we seek to advance through our
American government ¢â‚¬” and through ethical business practices, voluntary
associations etc. The traditional view of American democracy sees
government as embodying these moral goals, to protect and empower
everyone equally.

If we are to successfully overcome the Republican demonizing of
government and shared responsibility, we must restore faith in the
mutual enterprise itself. Rather than simply defend government or
government programs, we must positively advance the moral values of
American democracy and the Dream, not the Nightmare.

That is why we support a renewed focus on public life, a public life
that includes all Americans. We should focus on the public nature of our
shared responsibilities.

Public life means meeting our shared responsibilities, caring for one
another, and building the mutual trust upon which democracy depends. The
recommendations below are special cases of these moral principles. They
also represent a special case of a general strategy ¢â‚¬“ to restore public
life to American democracy.

1. We must return the public to our political system and end the
corrupt influence of selfish interests that have abandoned our
shared responsibilities. This means public finance of campaigns,
strict enforcement of the highest ethical standards in public life,
and protection of the sacred right to vote.

2. Our nation has vast national wealth: a huge continental landmass
with wealth in minerals, agricultural land, forests, cities,
beautiful places, as well as its public wealth, that is, the
creative wealth of its educated citizenry and the collective wealth
of all its citizens and corporations. We, the public, can put our
nation ¢â‚¬â„¢s vast wealth to use in creating jobs that make the lives of
all better: building, educating, curing, and imagining. That is the
Dream. To realize the Dream, we must end the Nightmare.

3. We must turn back the Right ¢â‚¬â„¢s assault on public and higher education
and meet our traditional commitment to education. Our children are
tomorrow ¢â‚¬â„¢s public. The future of democracy depends upon them.

4. We must rebuild our public infrastructure, a fancy term for the
necessities we share: roads, bridges, dams, parks, fair grounds,
water mains, sewers, and the power grid; public agencies that
monitor disease, weather and food safety. Government that works for
all of us can and should create jobs that serve us all by rebuilding
our shared necessities.

5. We must come together publically to mutually ensure the health of
all America. Health is not a private matter. It is a public one.

6. We must protect the prior earnings of American workers set aside in
Social Security or private pensions. They have been earned through
hard work and discipline. Taking these earnings away is theft,
despite the Right ¢â‚¬â„¢s use of the word ¢â‚¬Å“entitlements. ¢â‚¬

7. A public of unequal voices is not a democratic public. We need a
progressive tax system through which all Americans pay their fair
share and a business ethics that fairly rewards those whose work
creates productivity and profit.

8. We must put the American individual above abstract corporate
entities. We must end ¢â‚¬Å“corporate personhood, ¢â‚¬ which gives
transnational corporations a greater voice than individuals in our
public deliberations.

9. We must end the move to ¢â‚¬Å“privatize ¢â‚¬ institutions through which we
meet our shared responsibilities. When the public is removed, the
private sphere takes over, charging more, and often creating
unaccountable monopolies that bilk the public. Privatization of the
public typically means that most citizens just pay more, often a lot
more.

10. Discrimination of all kinds must be overcome. Public life depends
upon recognition of our equal humanity.

This is why Democracy is, and must remain, public. This is why America
has traditionally been a beacon to the world. This is the example
America has set. We dare not give it up. The alternative is the Nightmare.

George Lakoff is the author ofDon’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your
Values and Frame the Debate
<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=TSsYvQHrM2CQAkPBcwjwouwVBT%2BvtrHU>’
(Chelsea Green). He is professor of linguistics at the University of
California at Berkeley. Glenn Smith is the author of “The Politics of
Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction.” He
runsDriveDemocracy.org
<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=uj3hTz7QDDGjINYDgsbD%2F%2BwVBT%2BvtrHU>and
the Texas Progress Council, a message and political research lab in
Austin, Tex.
Reprinted from Alternet.org
Want to be part of the solution? Join the
Network of Spiritual Progressives, sign the
endorsement for the Global Marshall Plan and the ESRA Environmental and
Social
Responsibility Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution–all at www.spiritualprogressives.org
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