Motley Moose – Archive

Yesterday, Cassandra asked about the source of the quote in my sig line. I had already written an article on Yahoo Voices, but I retained rights to republish, so here it is:

Rabbi Israel Salanter once said:

“Most people worry about their own bellies and other peoples’ souls, when we all ought to worry about our own souls and other peoples’ bellies”

To me, this is the essence of progressivism: Your soul is not my business but your belly may be.

Part One: Bellies

But why must the government do this? Why not rely on individual charity?

When most people lived in small towns or villages, everyone knew their neighbors. People knew who was hungry and who was not. Even so, charity often failed. Sometimes, as in times of famine, no one in the local community had enough to share and everyone starved. Other times the hungry person was a member of some group that was stigmatized. In different places, different groups were stigmatized, but there were usually some groups that were.

Today, with more and more people living in huge cities, many people do not know their neighbors. If someone is hungry, we may not know; and if someone is begging, we do not know if that begging is legitimate. There certainly are organized charities that attempt to ameliorate some of this problem, but they have too few resources and are not always able to reach everyone. There is a food pantry near where I live in New York City, and I donate to them. But they can’t reach all the hungry people; and they can’t provide other necessities of life such as shelter or clothing, and they aren’t open every day.

The only organization large enough to organize efforts to feed and shelter the poor is the government. Therefore, I support government efforts to do so, and I am willing to pay taxes to enable the government to do so. I go further: Not only do I think no one should be hungry or homeless, I think people should have the opportunity to be educated, and so I support public education and am willing to pay taxes to do that.

And further, I am concerned about pollution because I take a broad view of “belly”. I think it includes lungs. Air pollution harms people’s lungs, so it is a legitimate concern of mine and of my government’s.

Part Two: Souls

On the other hand, I do not think your soul is my business, much less the government’s business. If what you are doing does me no harm, nor harms others, then it is not and should not be the government’s business. As Thomas Jefferson said

It does me no harm for my neighbor to believe in many gods or no god. It neither robs my pocket nor breaks my leg

This applies equally well, I think, to such issues as gay marriage. It does me no harm. Some people will claim that it is morally wrong; that it is forbidden by the Bible or the Koran. That may be. I will not argue that point (although certainly some Jews, Christians and Muslims will argue about that). But it does me no harm. It neither robs my pocket nor breaks my leg. It may (or may not) be about your soul, but it is not about my soul; thus, it is not my concern or that of my government’s. (Beyond cases where I know the people involved, in which case I wish them happiness).

This quote from Salanter does not cover the whole of the progressive-conservative split. But it does a remarkably good job of covering it.

This song pretty much sums it all up for me. The message in this song and the feelings it invokes are at the heart of my political beliefs.

Last night, in the wee, dark hours, I was doing what all good liberals do – examining my beliefs. I came to what I thought was an interesting insight about my political beliefs.

Almost every political discussion in this country eventually refers to the Founders. They left us a lot of wisdom. It would be foolish to ignore that wisdom or the history they left us. That’s where I started my search.

The political spectrum in this country is usually divided into 3 broad groups: Left, Center, Right. This is a very simplified description. Because of that simplicity, the media loves to break the country down into those three groups.

While I disagree with this simplistic approach, my main disagreement is what the media claims constitutes the center.

The recent cuts in the Senate to the House version of the stimulus bill have been hailed as an effort lead by centrists to hold the line on pork and spending. That’s the media’s interpretation of events. In reality, these cuts look like a wish list from the Right.

Most of the cuts can be categorized in five main groups: education, science, health care, the environment, and law enforcement. All of these, except for law enforcement, are areas that the conservative right has fought against. Even law enforcement is starting to get short shrift from the Right. They prefer privatized prisons, so prison funding had to go.

Photo courtesy of CuriousGeorge81

Some of the other cuts are completely nonsensical.

Full list after the break.

Super Bowl Sunday naturally brings lots of articles and columns about the game. None of the sportswriters who will type those articles and columns is better than Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press. Mitch has been voted national Sportswriter of the Year more than once. His articles are read nationwide in guest columns and articles in publications like Sports Illustrated. I had just watched a great game and was online looking for commentary about it so it’s not surprising that I decided to see what Mitch might have said about it.

When I got to www.freep.com and looked at the list of columns by Albom I was quickly reminded that Mitch is much more than a sportswriter. He’s one hell of a sportswriter, of course. He won Sportswriter of the Year 13 times and Feature Writer 7 times. No other writer has won it more than once. Mitch has also written plays and songs, both lyrics and music. But what Mitch is probably most famous for are his novels. He wrote three NY Times best sellers including, Tuesdays with Morey,  The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and For One More Day. All of them have been made into movies.

Mitch could be writing for any publication in the world. I have no doubt that he has turned down offers from papers like the NY papers or the LA Times. For some reason, he never accepted one of those offers. He seems to have fallen in love with Detroit since he first came here in 1985. Instead of taking his trophies and popularity and cashing in he decided to stay in Detroit. He’s highly respected in this state for his loyalty to Michigan.

It’s hard to turn the channel to a cable news station these days without hearing some conservative pundit making the claim that America is a center-right country. They have been making this claim for a long time. It is one of the core beliefs of the conservative movement stated with the same assurance given to the belief in supply-side economics. Unfortunately, for them, neither claim is valid.



One thing that I’ve come to recognize about the modern conservative movement is that the more forcefully conservatives claim something is true without offering any substantiating proof the more likely it is to be false. That’s the case with the center-right claim.

This country hasn’t been center-right for a long time. Oh sure, there are some issues that pull the electorate to the right, mainly Gays, God, and guns. However, the majority in this country favor moderate to liberal stances on almost all of the major issues. The conservatives are obviously in the denial stage of grief after losing power.

The recent addition of the Rachel Maddow Show to the MSNBC nightly lineup has added a highly effective voice to the liberal arsenal. Ms. Maddow has proven herself to be a witty, highly intelligent, and effective commentator. Her show has garnered rave reviews and wide viewership. I, for one, am grateful to MSNBC for giving her a platform.

A recent article in The American Prospect gives a full background on Rachel and the path she took to her present prominence in the political commentator world.

Maddow’s self-deprecating, wry wit comes across clearly in the article, just as it doesn on her radio and television shows.

“I think I have a fear in general about whether being a pundit is a worthwhile thing to be,” Rachel Maddow tells me over dinner at a Latin restaurant in lower Manhattan. It’s more than the ordinary self-deprecation of someone who just got her own cable commentary show. It’s an insecurity essential to the on-air style that’s powered the 35-year-old’s rapid rise from a wacky morning radio show in western Massachusetts to the liberal radio network Air America and now to her own prime-time show on MSNBC.