Surprise! Conservatives and liberals have very different attitudes and values when it comes to the "social contract", particularly when it comes to the issue of taxes and the purpose of government. Do you know which way your own attitudes and values lean... and why?

This morning I read Thomas Friedman's op-ed piece in the New York Times from a couple of days ago, entitled Palin's Kind of Patriotism. Though there were the usual notes on her lack of qualifications for "the heartbeat job", I was especially focused on these words from Friedman:

Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn't from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans? That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.


Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization."

It's the point made in the second paragraph above that seems to me most poignant. I had never heard the Holmes quote before but it sums up the difference between modern-day conservatives and liberals, when it comes to taxes and government, quite succinctly. George Lakoff, author of the classic book on category theory Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, and (more recently) Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, tried to codify the differences between the liberal and conservative value systems. He noted that liberals/progressives think of taxes as the dues one pays to be a part of society, to gain the benefits society and the government provide to people. Conservatives pretend that taxes (like the government itself) are something best avoided or dispensed with entirely. When they say "there should be less government", they mean "I should pay less taxes".

Actually, the not-so-hidden agenda of those drumming the idea into the public's head that taxes and government are a bad thing is that they want to pay less taxes and make more profit. So they frame it all to make sure we all know that taxes basically pay for socialism--you know, the roads, the police, the armed forces, the body armor for our armed forces, education, health care... all those things their target audience wants no part of contributing to. Do the people buying into these ideals have the same resources as those who are promoting thesm—to build their own roads, employ their own police and armies, and get their own education and health care? Do they get that? Do they really believe all of this would be best taken care of by... the private sector?

Or maybe not at all. After all, Governor Palin is a moose-hunting tractor-driving gun-toting (how could I forget "gun-toting"?) meat-eater who clearly knows how to take care of herself. (Except of course when someone "attacks" her by asking her a simple direct question.) And the attitude is that we should all just be taking care of ourselves. This is the whole mindset, that "I know how to skin a deer, filet a fish, shoot a rifle, trap a bear, build a cabin, perform brain surgery on myself, and set up my own wireless network," and so should everybody else. And if you don't, the hell with you. (Well, that last item may be a bit much for even the most diehard libertarian mountain-person.)

For people who don't believe in evolution, they sure have a mighty Darwinistic approach (the social Darwinist kind) to society and civilization. It's "Survivor: Wasilla", where it's every man, woman, and moose for themselves! Hell, check out the Wasilla web site!! The town Palin was mayor of didn't have a police department until 1993!!! Well, gosh, y'know when everybody carries a gun, crime takes care of itself, know what I mean? Who needs government services that support the public welfare when you've got... well...

I don't watch "Survivor", but one edition of the show I'd be sure to catch would be one where all the libertarian survival whacko self-made heroes are put together on their own island, and really have to actually... survive. In a world they share with (horror of horrors) each other! And no one else. No cooperative folks who contribute to the common welfare (you know, those dues-paying types who pay taxes and stuff) that they could appeal to. Just themselves. But hey, since they can all do everything, no problem, right? LOL, that would be fun to watch, wouldn't it?

This is what Hillary meant when she said "it takes a village". Contrary to Atlas Shrugged, there are no "self-made men", we are all made by the combined synthesis of whatever is innately "us" plus the inlfuence of those around us, the support network that got us where we are. Families in non-WASP cultures (particularly Hispanic and Indian families) work as extended units with grandparents and aunts and uncles exchanging child care functions regularly. Pretending that it is otherwise demeans those who actually "get it", who work communally knowing that we don't own our own small piece of the world in isolation, we share the whole world with others. But hell, thinking and working communally, well, that's just... commune-ism. And we know we can't have that!!

So, we can pretend we exist in isolation, and imagine that we have a right to complain about paying taxes, or we can recognize what paying those dues buys us - civilization. We must ensure that we get our money's worth for those dues, of course, but imagining that you have the right not to chip in and still reap the benefits of a society? That's just heinous. If that's how you view your role in society, have I got a reality series for you to star in...