e-Claire

Values and Vision

in politics?!?!? People out here in the sparsely populated West* and Southwest tend to value freedom, independence and self-sufficiency. The individual is primary and things move out from there. Keeping gubbmint the hell outa people's way is a good thing. In the crowded East and Southeast, people tend to value tolerance, interdependence, and the ever-elusive concept of social Justice. Keeping other people outta people's way requires lots and lots of government.

David Brooks: Adam Wolfson argues that the foreign policy debate between George Bush and John Kerry is really a conflict between two values: freedom and internationalism. That's a clarifying insight. When Bush talks about the world he hopes to create, he talks first about spreading freedom. What he's really talking about is a decentralized world. Individuals would be free to live as they chose, in their own nations, carving out their own destinies. The optimism built into this vision is that free people would be able to live in basic harmony. There would not need to be any central authority governing their interactions.

Yeah -- like adults. Adults who are capable of cooperation in the interest of both parties and who are capable of keeping their noses outta their neighbors' business believing that that neighbor knows how to manage his own life and business just fine.

When Kerry talks about the world he hopes to create, he talks first about alliances and multilateral cooperation. He's really talking about a crowded world. People from different nations would gather to work out differences and manage problems. ...Kerryesque liberals are concerned by the possibility that some nations will go off and behave individualistically or, as they say, unilaterally.

The individual members of this multilateral group grope would be forever at the mercy of the least self-disciplined members -- those unable to keep their hands out of the cookie jar or sell out their co-groupers to the highest bidder to save their own ass. Rule by the lowest common denominator. It all becomes about who is on top, who wrote the bylaws, who can tweak 'em better and who can find the loopholes and how well does one play club.

It's a conflict between two value systems. One is based on a presumption of a world in which individuals and nations should be self-reliant and free to develop their own capacities - forming voluntary associations when they want - without being overly coerced by national or global elites. The other is based on the presumption of a crowded world, which emphasizes that no individual or nation can go off and do as it pleases, but should work instead within governing institutions that establish norms and provide security.

And there is that Red Flag Word : should. Should is someone else's opinion on one's choices. Should is not a free choice. Shouldcomes with manipulation and divisiveness. Should is about control.

This formulation also explains why, in The Times Magazine on Sunday, Kerry compared terrorism to domestic organized crime, gambling and prostitution. In his mind there should exist an effective body of international law. It is a law enforcement problem when some group violates that law.

And there ya have it. Bush believes in the basic goodness of humans and our ability to work things out based on mutual respect and shared interests. Kerry believes in the essential weaseliness of Man and the desperate need for overall governance to control and shape his behavior and beliefs and thoughts. Me -- I'd rather take my chances on being able to figure stuff out with others of good will, stay the hell outta their way while they maintain an equally respectful distance, cooperate at will and coerce not at all, except when consequences are needed for overstepping that respectful distance. Yep -- a difference at the most profound level. Demonstrated by the methods evident in both campaigns. *Yes, I know the West is physically about 400 miles east of where I live -- but *that's* where I live. dammit.

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