Bill Moyers on the Tavis Smiley Show (5/13/11), talking about the elite bias in the media:
Television, including public television, rarely gives a venue to people who have refused to buy into the ruling ideology of Washington. The ruling ideology of Washington is we have two parties, they do their job, they do their job pretty well. The differences between them limit the terms of the debate. But we know that real change comes from outside the consensus. Real change comes from people making history, challenging history, dissenting, protesting, agitating, organizing.
Those voices that challenge the ruling ideology—two parties, the best of all worlds, do a pretty good job—those voices get constantly pushed back to the areas of the stage you can’t see or hear. You got voices like those on your show. You got them on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! and a few other places like that, but not as a steady presence in the public discourse.
Later in the program came this exchange about the mission of public broadcasting:
Smiley: I say this—and this might be politically incorrect to say on PBS—but we are not living up to that charter. We’re not living up to it on public television; we’re not living up to it on public radio when it comes to a diversity and inclusion of other voices. We’re not living up to that. So I wonder whether or not, in some ways, we deserve being pricked a little bit, pushed a little bit, if we’re not living up to the charter, but you tell me.
Moyers: I don’t think we’re living up to that charter that Lyndon Johnson proclaimed. No, I don’t. The conservatives have won to this extent. Too many people in public television and public radio are looking over their shoulders, fearing that the right is after them. We don’t really have a left in this country. There’s no organized left that comes after journalists the way that the right comes after journalists who offer a different alternative.
This is an old story, Tavis. Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan, his communications director, tried to do it in public broadcasting back in the early ’70s when they accused us of being liberal when, in fact, we were just offering an alternative view of reality, something they don’t want.
Then Bob Dole when he was Senate minority leader came after public broadcasting. Newt Gingrich came after public broadcasting and, of course, under the George W. Bush administration, you had a Republican Corporation for Public Broadcasting more responsive to Karl Rove than they were to the stations out here.
So that constant harassment creates a kind of caution and self-censorship on the part of people who just don’t want to—you know, we don’t get but about 17 percent of the total budget from the Congress, but that’s enough to leave a big hole in what the local stations do if we don’t have it.
But it creates almost a Pavlovian response, and I think there is an unintended, but inevitable, censorship that takes place on the part of people who are running the programs, booking the programs, lining up guests, to make sure that we don’t give the right wing another opportunity to come in and accuse us of being liberal.
Read FAIR’s recent study of public television, or FAIR’s response to the news about Jim Lehrer’s semi-retirement.
As if there were something wrong with being liberal. As if one should be ashamed of it.
“We don’t really have a left in this country. There’s no organized left that comes after journalists the way that the right comes after journalists who offer a different alternative.”
That’s not really true. The difference is that those on the right had obvious shared interests with those in power, whereas those on the left don’t, and so the right naturally has an easier time exerting power.
When pretty much all corporations are on your side, and that includes media corporations, then you have powerful allies and powerful tools at your disposal.
So IMO, the difference between the “left” and “right” in America is that the right has control over the levers of power and access to institutional power, whereas the left doesn’t. Any time anyone on the right wants to mack an attack or get their point of view across they have powerful media corporations ready, willing and able to hold up the megaphone for them.
On the other hand, there is nothing at all like this on the left, for obvious reasons. Even organizations like MSNBC or Comedy Central only go so far and are really very limited in their efforts, trying clearly only to “serve a market”, whereas corporations in general have a much greater interest in supporting right-wing views than simply serving a market.
Even MSNBC or whatever the most “liberal” corporate media outlet is, isn’t going to have any real leftists on or express any real leftist positions that challenge the fundamental economic system or certain the institutions of corporations themselves.
The right is useful to the people in power, by its very nature, the left is not, and that’s the real difference here. In order for “the left” to have an equal influence as “the right” the left would have to work 100 times harder and develop its own massive infrastructure outside of the corporate world, and be able to become peers with the corporate world, with equal power to corporate America. That’s not exactly easy. All that those on the right need to do is say things and hold positions that are beneficial in some way to corporate interests, a heck of a lot easier.
There’s “an elite bias” in “alternative media” represented by folks like Smiley and Goodman and Moyers, as well, isn’t there?
The parameters of acceptable discourse may be wider, but they, with rare exceptions, don’t include truly radical ideas, such as an end to profit, and the transformation to a cooperative, rather than competitive, paradigm, for the sake of justice, and simply for the sake of survival.
How many times has a socialist, broadly defined, appeared on DEMOCRACY NOW!, or BILL MOYERS’ JOURNAL – or been quoted here, for that matter?
However one wishes to rationalize it, the disconnect between the stated principles of these media entities and their actions can’t be justified.
I’m not coming at this from a “pox on all your houses” position. All of the above have done valuable work from which I and many others have benefited.
But when you don the mantle of “fairness and accuracy”, or being “the exception to the rulers”, you have a obligation to live up to those claims, don’t you?
And that entails an uncircumscribed intellectual arena.
Trotting out Chomsky every so often don’t feed the bulldog, does it?
Doug,
You make a good point.
One place to go for a more radical perspective is blackagendareport.com. Any other radical media channels out there?
That should be http://www.blackagendareport.com.
Whatever – you get the idea.
Well said, both of you. Thank you.
What I find frustrating about a lot of the liberal press is the way they let the mainstream largely dictate the subject of discussion. They always offer an alternative viewpoint to the usual Company Line that we hear so much of, and they do sometimes sponsor another topic. And that’s good. It’s great. But too often, I think, they are talking about the same topics as the mainstream press, when those topics — the “issues” themselves –are so often so much smoke in our eyes. In my opinion, the liberal conversation needs to grow past simply responding to what are, supposedly, the most pressing concerns of the day and begin to lead the conversation to the things that are more important to us all.
To take just one topic, Global Warming. This is not just another issue, is it? And yet polls show less interest in it, both here and in Europe, and less confidence in the science that proves it. This is because it is getting less press, being pushed out of consciousness by stories of movie star’s dogs dying (today) and petty debates over whether or not Newt Gingrich has any brains or not. FAIR is watching how the news is reported, and that’s important, but who is bringing up the stories that are not being covered?
I’m also concerned about who will say the things that Chomsky says once he is gone. Who will speak up with his authority and erudition? We lost Howard Zinn last year, and Chomsky is not a young man anymore either…
Yoram, Glen Ford’s work is indeed solid, and I don’t think I’ve ever failed to repost anything of his I come across at my dinky little blog.
And credit where it’s due, Peter Hart did source Ali Abunimah in a blog item yesterday. He’s one of a rare few who see the moral imperative for a one-state solution in Palestine.
But, again, it’s slim pickin’s, innit?
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass along a few folks I think are worth a read or listen, with the caveat that I don’t unreservedly endorse every one of their views.
By no means a complete list, but check out Malalai Joya, Mumia Abu Jamal, Ronnie Cummins, Chris Hedges, and Chomsky, of course.
I might add more as the synapses fire.
Public TV and radio are destined to follow a downward spiral to irrelevancy. It has already happened, to a great extent. 17% of funding comes from the government, 30% comes from corporations, and 50% comes from small donors. The more funding they receive from government and corporations, the more cowardly they become and the less people contribute to their stupid pledge drives. The less people pledge, the more corporate funding they receive and the more timid they become, and on and on and on…
One more: Norman Finkelstein.
Doug W, that’s an imperative point. We tend to be reactive to ruling class attacks, trying to hang on to the few crumbs we have, rather than proactive in daring to envision, and then struggle for, a truly just world.
Many would say that’s “pragmatism”, but tell that to the tens of millions here, and billions around the world, hanging on by their fingernails.
And ultimately, that doesn’t wash for any of us, does it, as this is the only home we have, and the only way we’ll keep a perverted Nature from foreclosing on it is to drastically transform our relationship to it, and to each other.
Doug I read what you wrote with interest.I would ask you- who is the ruling class?I would ask you what is a truly just world?Who espouses this perverted nature?And practically speaking how do we transform our relationship to each other?And lastly what do you envision as governments role in all this?
Did you actually recommend Mumia Abu Jamal?I will be honest with you that Im not sure, but are you talking of that cop killer?Is there another Mumia abu jamal?
as one person here already said: it is in itself questionable that people would be afraid of being called liberal. how is it that being conservative on the other hand is acceptable?
and this hole liberal/conservative-debate in itself should also be revealed as the bullshit that it is. because conservatives call anybody who happens to disagree with them “liberal”. or a nazi. because we all of course know the history of the third reich, which was obviously really a leftist regime… i mean, COME ON!
which actually also once again would bring one back to where the real root of the problem is. in my opinion, it is not necessarily media – even though a big factor, the by far BIGGEST problem is the education system. you can’t bullshit people if they learn first and foremost to think critically (where i come from, we compared newspapers multiple times at school and were made aware of psychological tactics – and that was all the way from about grade 6 to 10). and also of course if you teach them actual history, not some politicized nonsense where they leave out stuff of school books because of complaints by the right.
and speaking about “the right”. i also find it questionable when people argue too much about left and right and how there is no force on the left. how about no force for truth? because i think there are plenty of issues that are not necessarily about left and right. for instance, there have been quite a couple of left regimes in the past where torture was simply a “nice and handy tool” like it is to a lot of people on the right in the US. so… how is arguing against torture exclusively an issue of the left? because i heavily doubt it is. it is simply an issue of people who happen to believe that humanism is the right way to go in terms of morals, not e.g. utilitarianism.
and referring to this last paragraph, one again: you can’t even debate such things if people are neither aware of what “left” and “right” ACTUALLY means and what examples there have been in the past -> education, education, education!
oh and… even though i jump around a bit in my comment, obviously i am aware that liberalism and leftism are two independent concepts. it’s just that i suppose a lot of people identify with parts of both. stressing the “parts” – because it’s also nothing new that NEO-liberalism has been pushed quite heavily by the right…
@edwardh
“and speaking about “the right”. i also find it questionable when people argue too much about left and right and how there is no force on the left. how about no force for truth? because i think there are plenty of issues that are not necessarily about left and right. for instance, there have been quite a couple of left regimes in the past where torture was simply a “nice and handy tool” like it is to a lot of people on the right in the US. soâ┚¬Ã‚¦ how is arguing against torture exclusively an issue of the left? because i heavily doubt it is. it is simply an issue of people who happen to believe that humanism is the right way to go in terms of morals, not e.g. utilitarianism”
well edwardh, those “left” and “right” distinctions, while limiting, are useful distinctions when we are discussing actual torture committed by the american govt in our name. not historical torture, or imaginary hypothetical historical torture., etc., If you can point out where the left – right line is (in actual reality, not in imaginary made up reality) blurred, that is, where it fails (actually, in reality) then let us know.
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) may not be so â┚¬Ã…“Publicâ┚¬Ã‚Â!
Tavis himself has a “keep the faith” push to his message. During any “News” event media paints the picture of the event as if it is behind a curtain that we cannot pull aside. This is true of any media, corporate or otherwise! Whether it is PBS, DemocracyNow!, CNN, Fox, or NBC our “Consent is Manufactured” to some degree as each media biases the view toward what has actually occurred.
Chomsky will correctly tell you that the truth is the truth, regardless of the filter. If by chance the curtain is raised; most of us because of past trainings have to overcome our own filters to get to the truth that people like Chomsky and Zinn have valiantly offered us as existing. However, as Chomsky points out; getting to the truth is no small task in most cases.
Recent domestic and international events, such as the democratic revolutions in Madison, Wisconsin or Cairo, Egypt are “curtained events” worth considering. The reality that the “average Joe” will pay the price for each event is the real tragedy, and the “elusive truth” may never be ascertained.
There is one truth that is always filtered; that most tend to categorize events and people, rather than looking at each as an individual occurrence. “Of the People” is of each person, in each event, in each situation. It is not “American Democracy” for Hamas, or for the people of Egypt; it is their democracy. It is not “of the people” in the United States when the majority of those in the “Madison Revolution” are “publicly paid” types. However, it is â┚¬Ã…“of all the peopleâ┚¬Ã‚ when those who aim to control attempt to take away our â┚¬Ã…“Collective Voiceâ┚¬Ã‚Â!
If I as an individual want smaller less intrusive government in my lifetime; then I must assume my voice and the voices of any in my surroundings must be heard; not herded! Yet, if I categorize I too will only hear a filtered voice. The din of democracy demands that we hear each individual; collectively! I’m no Chomsky; but that paradox-to hear each with the aim of a collective outcome-is no small task!
PBS too must not herd us, but simply let each be heard!
Demanding Term limits for Public/Private Broadcasting System employees and political types will then, and only then, help the word Public not become a private undertaking. If we don’t weed Public Gardens they too will become entangled and messy!
If we ask this of those who serve, then the faces that attempt to control will change; and we should welcome such change.
If all public service is temporary; then those who serve will be respect the fact that they serve for all, not just the few. They too will then have to find jobs in the private sector, just as do most who serve in the military. We need to push for term limits of those in Public Broadcasting and in Politics?
This is my country….but it is also yours!
Hopefully, starting on June 20th, there will be another voice on TV to challenge the ruling ideology: http://current.com/countdown/
http://youtu.be/r5abzLSeJ3Q
I very much agree with RationalRevolution. Why would power want to listen or contribute in any way to those who would cut it down to size? Our battle is indeed uphill. Just last week we lost another great program, GritTV, because it speaks to the issues of ordinary people who can’t afford to contribute enough to keep their type of news programs going. It is a horrible situation for us.
I’m having a hard time however with the comments here about media on the left not being “left” enough or “socialist” enough. Dem Now has had a lot of coverage on the rise of socialist societies in South America. They are constantly airing the side of the Palestinian issues and just this last week had on Norman Finkelstein with a very powerful interview. They have also had on Angela Davis and had Adu-Jamel speaking many times from his prison cell. They even had on the great radical himself, Julian Assange, and they actually let him state his case. So come on people, I think our underfunded leftist media is doing a pretty good job. Are you guys sure you are watching them????
It’s all well and good to comment about an issue that needs the attention of citizens. It’s even more important to ACTUALLY DO something significant that will allow necessary changes to be made to improve our country.
Here is a link that will interest many of you.
http://signon.org/sign/public-funding-of-elected
To whomever said it: actually, Democracy Now! does have on self-identified socialists fairly frequently. Big names that come to mind are Chomsky and Tariq Ali.
As a socialist, I do think there is something to be ashamed about in the “liberal” label, but it’s not what most people seem to think it is. As Hitchens said once in more principled days, American liberalism is a dangerous compromise.
I am one of the few whose television went black when the airwaves went digital. Now you know that I live in a very rural area. I do not miss it. When I partake of TV in restaurants etc. I wonder what was so important. Newscasts like Fox still emphasize items that originated in Mad Magazine. What is surprising, is the weight given to commentators who, through the luck of the draw, landed a job as a television news reader. Do they know what they are saying? I doubt it. Are they intellectually superior to their listeners? Well, they can read! If their listeners read a bit more, maybe television might not have as much influence as it has.
PBS is a a treasure. Both Left and Right complaining about bias is a testament to its fairness. It is charged with presenting ideas and voices that are overlooked and programming that is accessible but not dumbed down for the brainless. It is intelligent, interesting, child friendly. It has a serious daily News Hour, investigative reporting, free Archive access to great shows, info and support for parents and homeschoolers and students, and the sponsor ads are mostly short and tolerable without program interruption. NPR is always interesting. I hope we will protect public, non-corporate media. Accept that the right is charmed by big money and that corporations now control elections while corporate media greases the wheels for an agenda. Our commercial ‘free’ Press censors and rations news to manipulate markets. I hope someday Moyers can reveal what happened to the CPB under Bush and FCC when it seemed deliberately watered down from the old Frontline, Now and Moyers Journal (which was most thoughtful and soulful). There are good news sources online. But net neutrality has already been comprimised so it’s not unthinkable that other voices and ideas may be edged out in a monopoly and tech coup. Especially since we’re all too broke now to increase our Public media contributions.
I think Smiley and Moyers are trying to illuminate where we are at. It is only a beginning. “What is to be done” is up to the American people. Since our political system has failed us, it is up to us to build the institutions that will represent the majority: unions, third parties, community organizations that challenge the current configuration of “representation”. Maybe the Spanish and the Greeks, the Tunisians and the Egyptians — even the Iraqis — have it right: it’s time to get into the streets. Do more than vote and write our Congresspersons.
Is there any real hope of cleaning up PBS’s Punch and Judy news shows?
Here’s an article from FAIR’s own annals — as of November 2010 — which gives as good a perspective of corporate news on PBS’s news productions as any:
https://fair.org/index.php?page=4175
Best quote from article:
“The program [PBS NewsHour] known as ‘public television’s nightly newscast’ (New York Times, 3/21/84) is in fact owned by a private, for-profit conglomerate, Liberty Media, that bought 67 percent of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions in 1994 (L.A. Times, 12/5/94).
Liberty Media is controlled by John Malone, who in 1994 was the owner of TCI, the country’s largest cable operator. (TCI was subsequently bought by AT&T.) Malone and TCI were infamous for â┚¬Ã…“ruthless policy designed to muffle critics, smother competition and saddle local governments with huge legal billsâ┚¬Ã‚ (Rocky Mountain News, 12/13/94), collecting the title of â┚¬Ã…“worst discriminator in the telecommunications industryâ┚¬Ã‚ from the NAACP and League of United Latin American Citizens along the way.” [End quote.]
Not that I’m advocating it — but if somebody blew up PBS’s News Annex tomorrow — the building would probably collapse into its own footprint. And the ensuing fire sale would be of nice, neat, news production packages.
John Malone’s Liberty Media goes well beyond the pale for conservative bias. The “bottom line” at Liberty Media is that Liberty wants to buy the Navy’s Guantanamo Bay facility to “house” independent news advocates and any and all “corporate-demonizing” journalists. In other words, not the Wolf Blitzer types to the right of Ayn Rand who’ll still have their jobs. And — just as nauseating — you’ll still see the same pundits who can rotate into and out of K Street’s PR lobbying firms between their TV and radio gigs.
The only other change since last November seems to be that the mere discussion of PBS’s “unbiased-ness” will mention Tavis Smiley as “first among equals.” Corporate ownership of PBS’s news shows has already become a taboo subject. Or — at best — it’s become some kind of Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy in reverse. The programs list all their corporate ties but will not readily distinguish their corporate sponsors from the program’s actual ownership. How weird is that? The real owners can still say “sure — we own the show but we’re just another ‘sponsor’.”
Meanwhile, Jim Lehrer’s retirement is already being hailed by many as a “return to the center” for PBS HewsHour. Go figure.
Hey, Carol, I’d heard that GritTV was changing their format to a weekly thing for PBS, instead of their daily stuff, I didn’t realize it was because of a lack of funding that they made the move. The new show will be The Laura Flanders Show.
Is it not going to be on the web anymore? Everytime Laura made requests to call and write the local PBS stations and request that the PBS station carry her show, I complied everytime, and when I would get a response, I forwarded the email, as a feedback for her. I’ve donated to GritTV frequentlyover the years. I was not aware they needed money to carry on. As I understand it, the new show won’t start until the end of the summer, is that true?
When Laura was on Real Time with Bill Maher the other past week, she called Andrew Breitbart a con man, not a journalist. That was really gutsy of her, but I would not expect anything less from her. I emailed her and told her thank you for putting that fraud in his place. He should not have been on the show at all. He was on Dylan Ratigan’s show a few weeks ago, it was disgusting, Ratigan was eating his ass the whole time, when he should have been exposing him for the dillweed that he is.
Hey, Doug L., you said something truly important here: “truly radical ideas, such as an end to profit, and the transformation to a cooperative, rather than competitive, paradigm, for the sake of justice, and simply for the sake of survival.” What you just said counters the neoliberalism that has been going on for about 30 years now. The free market transaction system in which the goals are for everyone to be in competition with everyone else for their own advantage, this includes cities, counties, states, countries, continents, as well as people. Here is a link, you might find irritating but informative, because it is what privatization is all about. In the Netherlands there is a Bill introduced that would ban poor people from the cities, in order to impress the corporations who may want to invest and move there.
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html
The IMF has had as policy this neoliberalism and has destroyed local means of production for some poor countries in Africa. And now these countries do not grow their own rice, but instead inport rice from the US. The same was done in Haiti, local farmers have been put at a disadvantage having to rely on imports from the US, and are now reliant on the West for food and though I am a vegan, Haiti had a big local Creole wild pig population that roamed around in the wild there, but they were all killed off, due to a false notion of spreading disease. These pigs were sometimes used for food when farmers had bad years, they could exploit these pig populations for local food when times were bad, but now they are all gone, decimated by Western ideas. and control. The US is only interested in creating new markets, neoliberalism at work, and at its worst.
The IMF almost collapsed the country of Argentina, and luckily Hugo Chavez was able to come to their rescue with a loan which they have paid off. These big indtitutions like the World Bank and the IMF and the World Trade Organization have all contributed to the economics deaths od many poor countries, who have been held hostage with no recourse, not unlike the maid that was attacked by the IMF guy who was pulled off a jet that was getting ready to take off. The IMF leader is known for his womanizing and forcing women to have sex with him, or simply making unwanted advances on the women, by rubbing their ass or some such attacks like that and he did so without impunity, he knew the women were in desparate situations and they knew he had the power to take away their jobs, or simply to make their lives hard, so he exploited them in this manner, he acted this way at all times with women, that is, at least until the understanding New York City cops believed the hotel maid. Kudos to the NYC law enforcement for believing in her story. It would have been much easier for her to just stay silent, she took a big risk in reporting him, a wealthy Manager of the IMF and possibly the next Leader of France.
Neoliberalism on steroids is the Republican plan, for which the sacrificial lamb is Democracy. Neoliberalism has no use for Democracy, a cooperative, “we’re in this together philosophy” is not what they want. They want Fascism.
Benito Mussolin said, “Fascism should be more appropriately called corporatism, for it is the merger of the corporations to the state.”
Raymond, I’d don’t have any illusions that our species, the only one wilfully incapable of reason, will easily become aware of the moral and logical death march a profit-based, competitive system sets us on, but I do believe that we can respond en masse to our better angels, if we can give folks the intel they need to do so.
That’s why the failure of the “alternative” media to provide that information and inspiration is to me the most important factor in the apathy so prevalent in our society. Ignorance breeds amorality. The light won’t go on for everyone, but I’d like to think we can reach a critical mass that can overcome the agitprop forced down our throats from childhood, and move us off the literally dead end street we’re on.
I don’t have an easy-folding roap map for how to get us from our current state of woefully inadequate alternative media resources, and resolve, to one where the message has the visibility vital to our survival.
I just know that there’s precious little time to plan our route, and begin that journey, because at some point, perhaps very soon, our efforts will be moot.
Again we return to what i have stated is the wish of all true liberals today. Not the “tweeking” of our system as an acknowledgement that it is the best created by man yet….but a tearing down of that system that “they” feel is worthy only of apology and self recrimination.As Eisenhower once said…”.you may not know what you are fighting for;at least now you know what you are fighting against.”Whenever liberalism is articulated ,I know what it is as a tea party member that i am fighting against.
Hi, michael, Are you fighting aginst the idea that we’re all in this together? Do you truly believe that caring about others is a bad thing? That “every man for himself” makes a better world? Just wondering…
Martha i deeply feel and care for people.I believe we all must help one another. Charity is a part of my life and always has been instilled in me by my parents.I instill it in mine.I do believe people are in pain…. and some just cant cut it ,while some are at such disadvantage.I simply do not believe in the methodology of liberalism to address those problems.I think those problems are a faint to gather power.I do not believe a man is charitable who has never given(Obama/Biden)though they have had the means for decades.
Look at how the left hates Sarah Palin.Hates her like she is a baby killer.Wishes she were a baby killer to explain their hatred.(Actually come to think of it she is not a baby killer.She had the baby.Maybe thats why they hate her)Point is she has always given to charity.Always.Even when she had much smaller means.People like Glen Beck.Rush Limbaugh.Huge givers always.Yet the leaders of the left- never(well actually Obama just started for political reasons, no doubt)Yet somehow they claim the mantle of being caring because they are comfortable with forcing peoples wallets open and giving other folks money away.Almost always to dubious self promoting causes that expand their own power.And at the same time crippling charity in the tax codes causing an alarming drop.
The left would have people think the right believes that only the fittest need survive.Bulldoodles!We know you care….and we hope you believe the same of us.The argument is over what means are the most effective situation for effective governance .
Im gonna drive this home.Check Sarahs charitable givings since graduation(college).Draw a percentage.You will find it has always been between 10-15%.What are we talking….. 25years?
Now do the same for Obama.Certainly he has had more means since day one after graduation.I think you will see it scraping that point that registers……. “barely registering”.Really lets stop the games.
Michael E, thank you for posting. I’d like to drive your point even further:
Let’s pretend we know someone is in need. I mean, everyone reading this knows there’s this, say, family, that is in need. We have two ideas on the table about how to help them:
1) Let’s agree to have everyone put $100 in a fund. We’ll have an election to see who will collect the money and deliver it to the family. We’ll provide that person with a few percent of the fund in return for making sure everyone contributed. If anyone refuses, either we’ll get their employer (or whoever owes them money) to put it in the fund before paying them, or else lock them in a cage for a while. Maybe both.
2) Let’s each provide whatever we feel like providing, directly, to the family.
Many people very strongly believe that the family will benefit more if we use the first idea, which is the one our government has implemented. Whether or not it’s an ethical plan is something they haven’t considered (isn’t it obviously unethical?) because the amount isn’t $100. It’s more like 30 cents or maybe three cents.
We can pretend for a moment that there isn’t anything immoral about it, and find another reason that idea #1 is no good. Pretend you’re a member of the family in need. Do you have dignity? Do you have honor and integrity? What is your response to the elected official bringing you money to help you out? A fund, you have to remember, that you were forced to contribute to when you weren’t needy enough. Are you grateful? Or would “expectant”, “entitled”, or “demanding” be more accurate? Perhaps you are grateful. Now suppose that we used idea #2 instead, and you didn’t get enough money, because people just aren’t generous enough. Are you more “demanding/expectant/entitled”, or more grateful? Let’s suppose that you are more demanding simply because your needs haven’t been met. You sarcastically say “Gee, Thanks A LOT!” to the people who give you quarters and pennies. But because of that need, wouldn’t you be pretty motivated to find and engage in useful work to earn what you need? Now let’s switch back to idea #1, where you do get enough, and it comes from an official fund. How motivated are you in that case?
Ok, so you can argue that you would be just as grateful and kind with #1 as with #2. You can also argue that you’d be just as motivated with #1 as with #2. If that’s true, then you’re an angel. I know that I’m a pretty good person, but not that good, and I can’t believe that anywhere close to half the people in need are that good either. So idea #1 kills motivation, which makes it impractical. It also requires what most would consider stealing or kidnapping. It’s an immoral and impractical solution to the problem of poverty.