The choice is self-interest or fairness in this election. Thirty years of self-interest has doubled the wealth of the top 1%, and left the middle class gasping for breath. "Greed is good?" Bullshit!

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“Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.”Erich Fromm (1900–1980), U.S. psychologist. Man for Himself, chapter 4  (1947).            

Fifteen years ago, an acquaintance of mine stated he had a very simple test for determining whether a person was a liberal or a conservative.   Ask the person which he found the more objectionable in a movie: sex or violence?  If the answer was sex, he was a conservative; if the answer was violence, he was a liberal.            

A simplistic statement, but there is some truth to it.  The differences between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, are out there on display, more apparent than ever, for all the world to see.            

Let us look for example, at the two major parties national conventions: the Democratic Party here in Denver, and the Republican in St. Paul, and the protests and police reactions that took place at each.            

Here in Denver, there were (according to The Rocky Mountain News) 154 arrests related to protests of the Democratic National Convention.  There were few reports of police brutality, and most of the arrests fell into three categories: 1) being arrested as a political statement; 2) contempt of cop; 3) felony stupidity, e.g. smoking a joint right under a cop's nose.            

In St. Paul, there were over 800 arrests related to the Republican National Convention.  There were incidents of police brutality, even against the members of the press; Amy Goodman and her two producers being the best known.  Even the residents of St. Paul were afraid to go out in a city they no longer recognized as their own.  There are reports that the United States Department of Justice helped the St. Paul and Minnesota authorities to ruthlessly repress dissent.            

So, although the number of protesters were roughly the same (according to news reports), and the protesters were kept well away from both convention sites (a situation which I personally abhor, and which I am also certain has Jefferson and Madison spinning in their graves), some dissent—at least—was permitted at the Democratic Convention in Denver, while it was brutally put down at the Republican convention in St. Paul.            

This difference in the conventions should spell out to the perceptive among us what to expect from the two parties if they are elected.  If the Democrats are elected, we may not see a full return of our Constitutional rights immediately (and it is incumbent on We the People to keep up the pressure to insure the reversal of our current curtailment of rights), but I do not think we will see any further erosion of our rights.  If the Republicans are returned to the White House, you can expect the creation of a theocratic police state where difference, let alone dissent, will not be tolerated.  Think of the movie V for Vendetta.  We will have a nation that we are no longer able to recognize.            

Both conservatives and liberals believe in “the rule of law.”  But what the two sides mean by that term are two completely divergent ideas.              

To many conservatives, “the rule of law” pertains first and foremost to the acquisition, retention, and protection of wealth and property in any form.  All other rights—particularly the civil rights of others—are of secondary importance to this type of conservative.  When this attitude is taken to its logical end, all laws controlling business—the primary means of acquiring property and wealth—should ideally be limited to contract law and “caveat emptor,” let the buyer beware.  At its most extreme (represented by men like Grover Norquist), anything else—especially taxes in any form other than a use fee—is a form of noxious interference by government.            

Many conservatives also believe that this rule of law should include some sort of ruling class.  They define this as a group of individuals who will steer the nation in the “proper” direction, to ever escalating glory and power in the world, until the United States of America is as far above other nations as these individuals are above their fellow Americans.  The test most often proposed for membership in this ruling class is that of wealth.  The plutocrats justify this by saying that since the rich have the most to lose, it naturally follows they should have the greatest control over the nation.             

Liberals on the other hand are generally more egalitarian, wanting no man above the law, nor any advantageous laws or rules to protect you because of your position, your birth, or your wealth.  In the eyes of liberals, a thief is a thief, whether he is a kid from Harlem or the Vice-President of the United States.  Only the degree and scope of your crime makes a difference.                       

You hear a constant refrain from conservatives that human beings are ultimately motivated solely by self-interest, and that liberals have an unrealistic view of the world if they dare to believe anything else.  Liberals, on the other hand, see conservatives as having a limited, irrational view of the world.  Liberals believe that conservative Weltanschauung is so colored by their borderline paranoid assumption that everyone is out for themselves, it makes conservatives' judgment questionable.            

Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to Thomas Law in 1814) called self-interest “egoism.”   I would put it more bluntly; it is selfishness, pure and simple.            

If pressed, most conservatives will admit that their own motivations arise solely from self-interest.  Most conservatives will also try to claim that their self-interest is “enlightened;” that they often set aside their immediate self-interest for some probable (and more substantial) long term personal benefit.  Thus do they justify their own more generous or seemingly altruistic actions, as well as others acts of generosity or mercy, claiming that they are truly neither.  Altruism, after all (according to conservatives), is contrary to human nature—which is that of a selfish absorbed brute who does nothing except for personal reward or self-gratification.  They leave the possibility of an inherent contradiction to the self-interest/altruism dichotomy to the liberals.            

I say contradiction, because altruism is no more the opposite of selfishness than love is the opposite of hate.            

“What?” you ask.  Ah, the slipperiness of the English language.            

In a practical sense, love is when you deeply care what happens to a person or a thing in a positive or constructive sense.  Hate is when you deeply care what happens to a person or a thing in a negative or destructive sense, which is love turned inside out.  The real opposite of love is apathy, where you do not care what happens, positively or negatively, to a person or thing.            

The same is true of selfishness and altruism.  Selfishness is when you place your needs ahead of everyone else's.  Altruism is when you place everyone else's needs ahead of your own; in other words, altruism is selfishness turned inside out.  The true opposite of selfishness is fairness, where you desire to see that everyone's needs are met, at least to some extent.                       

Thus, the essential moral sociological difference between conservatives and liberals is this: conservatives believe that all human beings are primarily motivated by selfishness; liberals believe that with the slightest encouragement, fairness is most of humankind's primary motivation.            

In the electoral process, this difference manifests itself in the following manner:            

Liberals want to win, fairly.            

Conservatives want to win, period.            

This explains why conservatives, when electoral irregularities either in Florida in 2000, or in Ohio in 2004, are mentioned, have as their reaction, “Get over it.”  In other words, we won, it doesn't matter whether we cheated or not, and there is nothing you can do about it anyway, so get over it.              

This also explains the real moral assumptions behind former Senator Phil Gramm's comment about the American people being whiners.  The proper translation of his statement is as follows: “The conservative campaign to destroy the middle class—a middle class which was so carefully created and nurtured by that class traitor FDR and his successors, and scared the crap out of the ruling class in the 1960's—has succeeded.  We even got you idiots in the middle class to help with that destruction, by appealing to your greed and your sense of fairness at the same time.  So quit complaining, you bunch of whining losers, learn your place, and don't sass your betters, you fucking bunch of peasants.”            

I think Gramm is wrong.  The plutocrats and their right wing allies may have beaten down the middle class: they have not yet destroyed it.  Rebuilding will take time, but it will be worth it in the long term, both financially and morally.            

The ultimate expression of selfishness is greed, or more generally covetousness.  The greed of the plutocrats and their lapdogs in both the Republican and Democratic Parties has left the United States teetering on the edge of the worst economic abyss since the Great Depression.  The social safety net established—but never fully realized—under Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson has been shredded by the greed driven administrations of Reagan and the two Bushes.  Our nation currently faces its greatest challenge since the Great Depression, possibly since the Civil War.            

We have been told all of our lives that life isn't fair.  And the examples of mothers dying of cancer, and children dying in accidents—among others—seem to give ample credence to this statement.  However, just because life is not fair, does not mean that we as human beings shouldn't be doing something to make it less unfair.            

In my experience, the people who most vociferously say that life isn't fair are usually the ones who go furthest out of their way to make it unfair.  This is the reason conservatives want as few rules and regulations as possible, especially in business.  Rules inhibit the conservatives' ability to 1) game the system (cheat), 2) try and satisfy their personal desires for wealth and power, and 3) achieve their ultimate desire, winning at life, a nebulous and transient concept.            

This desire to win explains the conservatives' intransigence on leaving Iraq, just as they fought so hard against leaving Vietnam.  It is a direct assault on their self image to admit that they were wrong in their desires, and undertook a plan they could not complete.  They try to dress up their intransigence as patriotism or fear of some enemy, and throw billions of good dollars after bad, all the while making certain their cronies wring every penny of profit they can from the war, so they can win economically at home.            

I finished reading Thomas Frank's new book The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule; just before I sat down to write the last eight paragraphs of this article.  Mr. Frank lays out in detail the evolution of conservative politics from Barry Goldwater to Karl Rove.  The modern conservative movement relies much more on the destructive political strategies and morals of Stalin, Brezhnev, and Mao then it does on those of Edmund Burke, John Adams, Benjamin Disraeli, and Robert Taft.  The modern conservative does not care who or what they destroy, as long as they win.  His last chapter says much the same thing as this article, although we arrived at our conclusions independently from different directions.  I recommend the book highly.            

It is time that we force the plutocratic conservatives and their Republican lap dogs to play fair once again.  First and foremost, the Republicans must be turned out in November, and any and all reports of election fraud thoroughly investigated.  Bush and Cheney must be impeached and prosecuted, stringent ethics laws must be instituted, the election season shortened, and mandatory public finance of elections made the law of the land.              

We must break the power of the corporations in politics, and force their Republican stooges to fight fair, and their Democratic stooges to remember the best traditions of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.  We must re-establish the power of the working and middle class that the plutocrats have spent the last three decades trying to destroy.  Their corrupt desire for wealth and permanent power has brought the United States to the brink of an economic abyss.  We should not hesitate to show them the brink of a similar political abyss.            

After all, it's only fair.

Authors Bio:

Richard Girard is a polymath and autodidact whose greatest desire in life is to be his generations' Thomas Paine. He is an FDR Democrat, which probably puts him with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the current political spectrum. His answer to all of those who decry Democratic Socialism is that it is a system invented by one of our Founding Fathers--Thomas Paine--and was the inspiration for two of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, who the Democrats of today would do well if they would follow in their footsteps. Or to quote Harry Truman, "Out of the great progress of this country, out of our great advances in achieving a better life for all, out of our rise to world leadership, the Republican leaders have learned nothing. Confronted by the great record of this country, and the tremendous promise of its future, all they do is croak, 'socialism.'