My first post will be dedicated to the idea of fairness. Undoubtedly, fairness is an indispensable word in politics. It is one of the many ambiguous abstractions that provide political scientists with something to endlessly debate about. Fortunately, there are very few of us that publicly declare a stubborn allegiance to unfairness. We are all inclined to support policies we think are fair. The debate, of course, is about what fairness looks like, not whether we should work towards it.
I think Brad is right concerning the intent of most (if not all) liberal policies. They are all about control. This diction, to be sure, is bothersome to those who would support these policies. No one wants to be labeled an authoritarian. No one wants it to be said of them that they are all about control. (Just like no one wants to be for unfairness.) Despite the word's derogatory connotation in the world of politics, it is a sine qua non of government. This should go without saying, of course. Governments are instituted to control society. One might want to state this same fact more positively and say that governments are instituted to protect society. But regardless of the way one might describe this fact, the unavoidable truth is that politics has been, is now, and will always be about control.
This means, by the way, that Republican policies fall victim to the same fate, although "fall victim" may not be the correct phrase. To say that one "falls victim" to something implies a possibility for escape. For any political agent, however, there is no escape from this fact. One cannot simply step out of the political game, so to speak. That is to say, one cannot will oneself to a state of neutrality. We always care who wins in this struggle to control the political world, especially when the struggle concerns the values that are most dear to us.
I've learned that it is not the original sin of political action to have self-interest. In other words, it is perfectly okay to desire to win. That is, it is alright to want to govern (a nicer word for control). Nietszche would say that this desire is inevitable and that it is an amoral phenomenon. How one directs this impulse is up for moral critique, not the impulse itself.
I generally support conservative policies because I prefer the injustices, dangers, and anxieties of freedom to the constraints of "fairness." Exactly what the freedom I prefer is and who actually has it is something I will try to address later. For now, I simply want to suggest that a government (such as Obama's administration and the current Congress) that intends to control society and claims the ability to order things in a way that will produce fairness is kidding itself. Fairness is simply not possible for human beings. This is not, I admit, a reason to abandon the quest to realize it. But it is a reason to consider what it means to hand over so much power to men who profess a divine vision about what fairness is as well as the know-how to produce it. I don't think Obama claims to have perfect comprehension of what fairness is or how it can be realized, but I do think he believes he is more capable of mitigating unfairness than most anyone else.
It seems to me that a fundemental question one must ask oneself when making political decisions is, Are my political leaders capable of alleviating enough unfairness to make the surrendering of a portion of freedom worthwhile? I should add that it is not always personal freedom that is lost (it might be someone else's).
I plan to blog on the valuation of abstract goods like freedom and fairness at another time.
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