More and more people are using the word “entitlements” these days. It’s become a sort of shorthand for Medicare and Social Security. And this would be fine if words were neutral. But they’re not. Think of the last time you used the word entitlement. Was it to praise someone? My guess is no.
The word “entitlement” activates a wide variety of narratives in our brains, mostly subconscious, but the effect is the same. It’s not a good effect for strengthening the institutions of Social Security and Medicare since the villains in most, if not all, of these narratives floating around in our heads are the ones with this undeserved sense of “entitlement.” You could probably make a decent argument that all “entitlements” come with a hint of undeservedness automatically attached. Here’s a great example.
In the video below Cenk Uygur — a regular user of the word “entitlements” in the context of Social Security and Medicare — uses the word 9 times in it’s more common setting, and creates yet another excellent “entitlement” narrative including a common villain — the insidious Wall Street banker — and an innocent victim — an unsuspecting taxi cab driver. I’ll give you one guess who gets the “entitlements” in this story and who gets screwed. Liberals may want to consider less loaded terminology next time they want to make any arguments for strengthening “entitlements.”
1) Andrew Breitbart dies. Cenk hates what Louie Gohmert says about it on the House floor. Gohmert is just spouting off about ACORN and Breitbart’s “moral crusade” against them because the “ACORN is evil” frame fits the “if liberal, then evil” equation deep inside Gohmert’s conservative brain.
Yes the goal is to defund liberal allies, like ACORN, for electoral reasons, but the reason conservatives want electoral defeats against liberals is because “liberals ARE F-ING EVIL” — seriously, they hate us! And in the conservative mind, sometimes you have to use the devil’s own means to destroy people, nations, political opponents, corporate competitors — sh*t this is a lot of collateral damage. Someone should point out how evil this philosophy really is. Oh wait, Cenk kind of did.
2) Rush Limbaugh calls Sandra Fluke a slut. And Cenk calls Rush a slut. This standard hypocrisy angle ignores the fact that conservative morality puts men above women making the hypocrisy charge irrelevant. Cenk could use this story to pull back the curtain on conservative, strict father morality.
The real shock here is that this very radical position is BUILT IN to the conservative worldview. It would be awesome if liberals would use this birth control debate to point out that the entire abortion issue is nothing more than a proxy for conservatives to control women’s sex lives.
The conservative worldview is dependent on a hypothetical natural order — a moral order where men are above women. This “moral order” is at the heart of conservatism — God above man, rich above poor, men above women, whites above non-whites, America above all other nations. Without this obnoxious “because I said so” or “because God said so” or “because the church said so” logic, conservatism falls apart.
3) Roy Blunt amendment. As touched on above, this debate is really about a**hole strict fathers intent on ruling their wives and daughters, and by extension, ALL women’s sex lives. But Cenk also never touches on the moral authority of rich people in this f-ed up moral hierarchy conservatives are constantly defending.
In strict father morality, the rich people (employers or “job creators”) are our societies winners and therefore at the top of societies moral hierarchy. The real shock here is that this very radical position — rich people are the moral authorities in our society — is BUILT IN to the conservative worldview. How f-ed up is that?
That’s right. Conservative logic dictates that your rich employer not only signs your paycheck, he is the moral authority in your community — hence the one best equipped to decide if your wife should have birth control or not. We have more than 50% of the country calling themselves “conservatives.” Why are we not attacking this radical worldview and destroying the glass-jawed, conservative brand?
4) Muslims get their phones tapped. In conservative morality, the father is head of the household. His authority is unquestionable. This is how conservatives feel about their family structure so it is easy for them to see America as a family, where the president is a father and everyone else is a family member. This is done subconsciously and saves a ton of time thinking and reasoning about national governance — surprise, surprise, conservatives (as well as Obama-bots) don’t actually think. Oddly enough, this is also probably the biggest factor in so many conservatives losing their sh*t over Obama being black — OH F-ING shit!!! Our nation has a black daddy!!! Funny how the subconscious mind has the power to torture us all.
How this relates to Muslims getting their phones tapped is that this would be perfectly acceptable in a household where a strict father did this to his morally inferior children e.g. the Muslims. In a nurturant parent household, this kind of thing could still happen. But I could easily see Cenk’s lib-ass torturing himself over invading 16 year old Prometheus’ privacy by spying on him over the phone.
Maybe I’m wrong but in the idealized liberal family, where empathy and nurturance rule over the “because what I say, goes” moral superiority of the strict father in the conservative household, you can see how liberal people mapping their ideas about family governance onto the state would be pissed that daddy was listening in on us all, and find this idea and policy morally repugnant. While conservatives would just say, WTF? My dad listens to me on the phone all the time. Shit he told me he was going to do it. He even said, “If you ain’t doing nothing wrong, then you ain’ts got nothing to worry about.”
We all as Americans understand this metaphor. A whore is a person, male or female, who has sex for money. Pretty Woman is a prostitute. The mousy girl from Hustle & Flow is one too. Deuce Bigalow is a whore with a heart of gold. This storyline is pretty easy. We all understand it.
So Cenk’s weak sauce argument here is that rich people hire Grover Norquist to do their bidding. Grover, like the metaphorical hooker, knows what he’s doing is wrong, evil, immoral — whatever you want to call it — but he needs or wants the money so he’s going to do it anyway.
Leaving aside Cenk’s non-existent evidence for Norquist’s bedroom alliances, let’s just assume that Cenk is right, and Norquist is taking money to effect tax policy.
There is still no evidence that what he is doing is immoral. I — a liberal — would argue that Grover Norquist is closer to Pretty Woman, or that teenage succubus from Risky Business, just because I think Grover genuinely likes his bedfellows and honestly believes in the mission that he and the rich have common cause against. I might even go a step further and say that Cenk himself might fight equally hard to effect tax policy in the exact same way if he felt all taxation was immoral theft and that all social programs were the immoral redistribution of wealth.
So while calling Norquist a whore may feel good, it is not an argument against conservative morality. Many conservatives — and not the bright ones — make this exact same prostitute argument against Al Gore. They say Gore has made millions off of climate change as if making money off a movie magically erases 40 years of climate research — I call bullshit! Everyone knows only Jesus can erase science!
So guys — TYT army core of re-framing engineers — why not show a little respect for Grover’s brilliant strategy? Blowing up the budget as a means to drowned all of these immoral social programs in a bathtub is pretty f*ing genius. How about a little discussion about why Norquist thinks social programs are evil and all liberals are parasites? Or how about some time knocking down this Norquist myth that everyone has access to the metaphorical “ladder of success” — man that shit is BS! Any of these discussions has to be more helpful than this weak sauce hooker nonsense. Besides, aren’t we — the libs — the ones who like hookers?
Here’s another great Grover video where he admits the goal of his Tax Pledge is simply to help the Republicans win…
Cenk Uygur’s “tax the rich” argument, showcased regularly on The Young Turks, plays directly into the conservative frame for taxes. Conservatives view taxes as punitive when in reality they are intended to be a collective investment in America’s future. Cenk isn’t changing any minds with this punitive argument: the rich have more money then they could possibly spend, therefore we should steal it from them.
A more moral argument to make is that we all work hard, some of us get lucky and some of us toil away, but we are all Americans. American stick together. It’s easy for someone with a lot of power and success to say, I don’t need America. America’s future is no big deal. If the chips are down I can always go live in Sweden. And since everyone “knows” taxes are punitive, not paying them is the rational thing to do. But this is the same as a Marine getting captured by the enemy and deciding — dude, torture really sucks. Maybe I should just join the other side.
Cenk’s show is really great, but I’ve heard the argument again and again. It’s become a one-liner in the TYT lexicon. Cenk should really reframe his “Tax the Rich” argument from a better perspective. Taxes suck. Everyone knows that. But the tax debate is not going to change until progressives destroy the prevailing conservative frame. America is about stepping up when things get tough. That’s the right thing to do. It’s the moral argument. And it will win.
