Binary Politics

There are four kinds of people in American politics today, and they can't be easily pigeonholed as either 'conservative' or 'liberal' or 'radical' or 'nut-case'. That by itself could automatically make the following distinctions far too complex for most people who claim an interest in matters of public policy, for whom heroes and villains, good guys and bad guys, Us and Them make it so much easier to assign credit and blame.

I haven't figured out what to call the four types yet, but surely some pundit is on the case. Sadly, because it frames a multitude of issues as a trade-off between foreign and domestic spending, this argument reinforces the notion that Barack Obama is a latter-day Lyndon Johnson figure. With LBJ the prevailing issues were 'Guns and Butter' - large federal expenditures on the war in Vietnam and/or the Great Society social programs. With BHO it could come down to 'Insurgents and Insurance' - whether to spend megabucks to bring a semblance of humane order to Afghanistan and/or to the health care industry.

To be more specific, the four types of people are really segments of the small percentage of folks who have actually given some thought to what they want to pay for with their taxes, not just what they want someone else to do something about. So we might be talking about five percent of registered voters. Which would make an interesting statistical sample in itself: How many poll respondents consider the cost/benefit of a program or policy when asked to support or oppose it, rather than scoring political points for the Good Guys (us) against the Bad Guys (them)?

Expanding the war in Afghanistan is one expensive policy that Americans can either support or oppose. It's binary; you're either fer it or agin' it, and it's gonna cost ya either way. National health insurance - whether you call it a "public option" or "nonprofit coops" or "Medicare buy-in" or some other euphemism - is another. It's big, it's expensive, you either support it or oppose it. Many boatloads of money will likely be spent on one or both of these large-scale projects, and the money has to come from somewhere. The rumor is that you and I will foot the bill.

Citizens, if you want the government to provide more services, you have to pay more taxes. The binary nature of yea or nay questions means the four groups in question would: a) spend the money needed to win the war in Central Asia but NOT to provide national health insurance; b) spend the money needed to provide national health insurance but NOT to win the war in Central Asia; c) spend the money BOTH to win the war AND provide insurance; d) do neither, save the money, and see what other consequences ensue.

There are some obvious problems. Options (a) and (c) beg the question of whether two years or ten years and many lost lives CAN win a war in Central Asia. Options (b) and (c) offer no guarantee that Congress can "fix" health insurance. Are you kidding? While this admittedly leaves out many complexities of policy making and its limitations, it also has the advantage of cutting through much of the nonsense spouted by those who want to have it both ways, waging endless wars, saving investment bankers from themselves, underwriting entire industries, deregulating other, all while cutting taxes.

End of rant. I have a friend who is fond of saying there are two kinds of people - those who believe there are two kinds of people and those who don't. That pretty much discredits everything I've said above. Or not.