The unfortunate alliance of religious conservatives and anti-tax ideologues     

For most progressives, there's something that rankles about the longstanding, often successful effort of religious conservatives to appropriate the word "family." The presumptuous notion that one particular band of one religious tradition - in this case conservative Christianity - has the right to anoint itself as the "defender of traditional family values" is simply offensive to millions of loving, caring and family-oriented people who come from lots of other faith and non-faith-based traditions and hold different political views.

Still, as the years have gone by, the competing sides, the media and the public at-large have come to a kind of general understanding - namely that the "family values" banner is not to be taken literally. It is, instead, understood to be a handy code phrase - a shorthand descriptor for religious conservatives who speak out on "social" issues like abortion, prayer in public places, LGBT rights, end-of-life decision making and the like. As a practical matter, the conservative positions on these issues have nothing in particular to do with supporting the "family," but at least, just about everyone knows what they mean by their use of the term.

As used in this context, "family values" means the values of a subset of religious conservatives who generally favor literal interpretations of selected parts of the Bible and the promotion of some of the social practices and hierarchies of an earlier time in American history. That time period is always a little fuzzy and can, depending on the particular subgroup, refer to the 1950's, the 1750's or somewhere in between.

In North Carolina, there are numerous groups that claim and display the family values mantle, but the most active and visible one in state policy debates is probably the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Here's how the group, describes itself:

"Founded in 1992, the North Carolina Family Policy Council is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of the family and traditional family values.

Our mission is to strengthen the family by educating North Carolinians on public policy issues that impact the family and equipping citizens to be voices of persuasion on behalf of traditional family values in their localities….

As an independent 501(c)(3) research and education organization, the North Carolina Family Policy Council is supported entirely by the generosity of our donors. We are engaged in a battle to retain the Judeo-Christian values that are the foundation of western civilization. These are the same values which supported the establishment of the United States and which are embodied in the Ten Commandments and in the founding documents of our nation." (Emphasis supplied).                 

Through the years, the group has been a prolific voice in the General Assembly on a host of issues - most notably of late in opposing any and all efforts to confer equal rights on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. During the past two legislative sessions, the group pulled out every imaginable stop in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to defeat anti-school bullying legislation that sought to make clear that kids targeted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity were deserving of full protection.

Branching out?

Increasingly, however, the group's definition of "traditional family values" appears to be confined less and less to the realm of "social" issues like sex and religion and definitions of life. Indeed, if a recent report released by the group is any indication, the Family Policy Council and some of its allies now feel fully empowered to place the "traditional family values" seal of approval on an unlimited assortment of conservative policy positions.

The report in question (which was actually prepared by a pair of right-wing think tank staffers and "co-released" by the North Carolina group along with a couple of it national partners) is entitled "Repealing death tax will create jobs and boost economy." "Death tax," of course, is the far right's approved propaganda term for the federal estate tax - a tax on very large estates that has already been slashed in recent years.

The hook that makes the piece a "family" issue is that the "death tax" supposedly impacts "family businesses." But this is just a clever bit of packaging by a market fundamentalist group in search of political allies. The estate tax is, in reality, a modest tax on a very small group of rich people.

As the right does with every other progressive tax, however, the authors trot out all of the standard "supply side" (i.e. trickledown) economic theories - that government can raise more revenue by cutting taxes, that taxing the rich stifles economic activity, and that progressive taxes are somehow part of a nefarious plot to "redistribute" wealth. Here is a representative paragraph:

"Eliminating the death tax would increase small business capital accumulation, create a large number of small business jobs, and actually increase tax revenue at the federal, state, and local government levels. It is rare that a policy option that is extremely simple to enact with such clearly identifiable positive effects presents itself to Congress."

In other words the report consists of the same old, predictable anti-tax rhetoric that one could easily find on the website of any number of conservative, anti-government think tanks. The only "traditional family values" really at stake in the debate appear to be the values of the stock market and real property portfolios of the "traditional" (i.e. wealthy and establishment) families who underwrote the report.

Reality check

To read actual, fact-based assessments of the estate tax, readers would do well to explore a pair of reports from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - "The Estate Tax: Myths and Realities" from February of this year, and a more recent piece that directly critiques the Family Policy Council report.   

Among the things that one would discover:

• The estate tax has been an important source of federal revenue for nearly a century.
• Almost all estates (99.7%) owe no federal estate tax at all. Of this tiny number of very wealthy estates that do owe taxes (perhaps 6,000 per year), the effective tax rate averages less than 20%. In return for this modest attempt at a measure of tax code progressivity, the federal government brings in tens of billions of dollars each year in essential tax revenue.
• Repealing the estate tax would weaken the economy by adding nearly $800 billion to budget deficits over 10 years, thus reducing national saving and leaving fewer funds for investment that leads to higher productivity in the long run.
• Repeal would also be likely to harm charitable donations significantly since estates currently redirect billions of tax exempt dollars per year to nonprofits.

In other words, the estate tax is about as much of a threat to the average American family as a tax on private jets or seventh homes. Try as they might to conflate the interests of the super-wealthy with those of average religious conservatives, right-wing think tanks just can't make it make sense.

The sad part about all of this, of course, is that for many rank and file Christian conservatives (most of whom live on modest incomes and have never heard of genuine tax policy experts Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), the pseudo-research from conservative ideologues will be all they hear about this issue.

Like the pathetically misinformed health care reform protesters who decry "government intervention in their Medicare" and do the bidding of insurance conglomerates, these activists are being duped into supporting policies and politicians that work counter to their own economic well-being.

It's enough to make you think that the real, traditional American value receiving protection from the so-called family groups is the robber baron-era aphorism frequently attributed to promoter P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."   

State revenues are $110 million behind projections, according to Barry Boardman, the top economist at the General Assembly.  Most of that is due to the sagging sales tax, hardly a surprise with unemployment hovering around record levels.

Legislative budget writers are bracing themselves for a shortfall of as much as $400 million when the General Assembly returns to Raleigh in May to make budget adjustments.

Though it is little consolation, North Carolina is not alone.  Boardman says that 43 states are concerned or pessimistic about their revenue outlook in the current fiscal year and 38 states report sales tax revenue lagging behind projections.

The national economic downturn continues to take its toll on millions of families.  And it could have been a lot worse. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report Thursday that finds the economic recovery act passed by Congress earlier this year is keeping more than 6 million Americans out of poverty and reducing the severity of poverty for 33 million more.

The report says the expansion of food stamp benefits, tax credits for working families, unemployment assistance, and the one-time payments to people with disabilities and veterans in the recovery act are keeping more than over 200,000 people in North Carolina from falling into poverty.

The Center says the numbers are conservative and do not take into account the parts of the stimulus plan that the Congressional Budget Office says have saved or created up to 1.6 million jobs.

And there is more to do. The House this week passed a jobs bill that will extend unemployment benefits another six months, extend COBRA health insurance subsidy for people who have been laid off, and renew a small business loan program.

As many 200,000 people in North Carolina will lose their unemployment benefits at the end of the year unless the new jobs bill passes the Senate and is signed by President Obama. 

Nobody expects a dramatic decrease in the unemployment in the near future.  Boardman says it will be well into 2010 at the earliest before the employment improves significantly. Those workers can’t make it until the summer without help no matter how much they want to work if there are no jobs available.

The House jobs bill tries to address that problem by investing $48 billion that banks have repaid the federal government in highways, transit, and jobs programs.

It is often popular these days to complain about the government, but public investments and assistance made earlier this year are literally helping millions of families weather the storm of the worst economic crisis in 70 years.  It is not nearly enough but it’s something that is making a difference. 

The new jobs bill will help families too. It’s easy for some folks in Congress and the think tank world to complain about the stimulus plan or the new push to extend unemployment and health care benefits. It runs counter to their anti-government, free-market orientation.

Thank goodness enough folks in Washington are ignoring the naysayers who’d rather do nothing and let families flounder on their own than extend a helping hand.  Rigid ideology doesn’t pay the rent or buy a family enough food to eat.

Maybe it's because progressives are soft and naïve. Maybe it's because they're a frequently divided and disparate movement with a long and varied list of distinct priorities. Maybe it's just because they cling to a shred of human decency and a belief that love and tolerance rather than wealth and greed and meanness ought to be the underpinnings of human society and governance. Maybe it's some combination of all three.

Whatever the reason, progressives are almost always thrown for a loop these days when they confront the cold reality of what the right wing is willing to do and say in order obtain, exercise and hold on to power. Like an abused family member who is stunned into a dumfounded silence when he or she experiences just how low their seemingly civilized spouse or parent is willing to sink in order to exert power and control, modern progressives are almost always slow to respond to the right wing's acts of political hardball.

Whether it's the post 9/11 deceit of the Bush-Cheney administration, the shameless and systematic looting of the national economy by fabulously wealthy individuals and corporations over the last couple of decades in the name of "free markets," or the stunning and seemingly insatiable greed of the modern health insurance industry, progressives have frequently responded with a kind of sheep-like passivity. It's as if they just can't believe the other side would really be doing what they're doing - on purpose, with genuine malice aforethought.

"Come on, they wouldn't really do that," goes the thinking. "This is the United States of America, not some backwater banana republic."

Oh yes they would

But, of course, the truth of the matter is that, with the complete takeover of the modern conservative movement by social and economic fundamentalists, there is very little that the right won't do or say. As with so many other groups of true believers throughout history who have seen the world in "black and white," "either-or," terms, for the modern American right, the ends justify the means.

Think about it for a minute. Look at what's going on in North Carolina of late - especially in Wake County where a new school board majority is moving to dismantle a painstakingly constructed system with scarcely a nod to openness or process, and where a group of conservative county commissioners has shown a willingness to compromise the physical comfort and wellbeing of their fellow commission members in order to consolidate power.

Consider the following inflammatory and dishonest language from a letter authored by one of the chief shouters for the local conservative movement as he attempts to call true believers to action next week for a Wake County School Board meeting.

"The results of the election and the resulting agenda of the freedom loving members of the board is (sic) not sitting well with radical union organizers.

With them the education of students does not come first, politics and payoffs are more important.

Clearly union organizers will stop at nothing to protect the status quo at the expense of our children, taxpayers and the will of the voters….

You will need to arrive early, because the disruptive union organizers and special interests will certainly try to fill every seat to keep your voice from being heard. Let me be clear, union organizers will fight our new school board at every turn and you must join the fight now so the noisy union bosses and special interests do not win the day."

He concludes:

"The question is, will the overwhelming majority of voters who oppose forced bussing (sic), wasteful spending and forcing unwilling parents into year-rounds schools be listened to? Or will union organizers, special interests and defenders of the status quo stop the change voters demanded."

This outrageous, absurd (and poorly spelled) letter comes from the group, Americans for Prosperity, which of course is one of the key rabblerousing arms of the advocacy empire of right-wing millionaire activist, former state House Republican leader (and school board campaign architect), Art Pope.  

Ends justifying the means

In many ways, it should come as no particular surprise that we should see such over-the-top, ends-justify-the-means behaviors. If you (like the denizens of the Pope Empire) really believed that your side has unearthed the inerrant Word when it comes to how our economy should be organized or the supposed inherent evil of most public institutions, you too might feel inclined to do and say whatever it takes to win - even if it means denying bathroom and food breaks to elderly elected officials or spreading malicious lies about those who would dare to stand in the way of your plans.

You might also feel inclined to engage in the kind of one-way, hyper-partisan hypocrisy that so characterizes the far right in North Carolina - a movement in which Republican Party leaders like Pope himself and former Pope-Civitas Institute boss Jack Hawke shuttle back and forth with regularity between nonprofit, supposedly nonpartisan, think tanks and partisan campaign work and in which Democratic politicians (sorry, that would be "Democrat politicians" in the officially permitted conservative terminology) are the only ones ever subjected to  serious criticism (much less, investigations and exposés) from the supposedly nonpartisan think tanks.

Compare and contrast this with the frequent and pointed criticisms leveled at Democratic officials by progressive nonprofits and other activists. Consider the virtual pages of N.C. Policy Watch, where our columnists, bloggers and cartoonist skewer Democrats on a regular basis. Look at the scores of commentaries in which Chris Fitzsimon has lambasted policies and actions of Democratic officials for lack of openness. Look at Democratic activist, Joe Sinsheimer, who has made a name for himself exposing and publicly attacking prominent members of his own party.

This is the kind of honest behavior and genuine analysis that would never be permitted in the monolithic right-wing movement of this state. When it comes to Mike Easley or Jim Black, the Pope Empire will be only too happy to turn its "opinion journalists" loose to dig up and sensationalize whatever dirt it can find or manufacture. When it comes to bullies like Wake County schools boss Ron Margiotta or any other Republican official, however, any abuses of process will be ignored or dismissed as necessary under the circumstances.              

Reality check

So, what should progressives do and say in response? Should they work to become just as mean and nasty? Should nonprofit think tanks like Policy Watch adopt the same level of thinly veiled partisanship as the competition?

The answer is "yes" and "no."

No, progressives don't need to transform the employees of their think tanks and nonprofits into fundamentalist, partisan hacks or adopt the right's ends-justify-the-means approach to every issue. If the heart of your philosophy is based on the pursuit of truth, it would be a grave mistake to start basing your actions on ignoring it. Over time, you'll become just as twisted as the other side.

On the other hand, yes, progressives should become, if not mean and nasty, a hell of a lot tougher. Truth telling need not always be polite. For too long the right has gotten away with murder in North Carolina by simply out-shouting progressives and stunning them with The Big Lie. Progressives have grown so used to hearing absurd whoppers from the other side that they often forget to speak up and remind everyone else - the news media, their friends and neighbors - of the truth.

And one need look no further than the Wake County school board or county commissioners to see what happens when progressives passively allow ends-justify-the-means ideologues to seize power.

One doesn't have to do much digging to be reminded of how uninformed and ideological the far right can be when it comes to the public education. This week's remarkable events in Wake County (in which a newly elected group of school board members conducted a kind of kangaroo session that would have embarrassed the average group of banana republic coup plotters) stand in stark testimony. 

Open meetings laws, basic legislative process, notice and a right to comment, transparency, fealty to one's campaign promises, and plain old human courtesy were all tossed out the window in just a few amateurish and embarrassing hours.

What happens next is not yet clear, but it is clear that newly installed Board Chair Ron Margiotta and at least some of his allies are more than happy to speedily run the system into the ditch. As the former Ridgefield Park, New Jersey school board member told WRAL-TV when asked about members who might differ with his plans to dismantle a nationally acclaimed system that was crafted through decades of painstaking work and compromise:

"If they [the other school board members] don't come on board, then get out of the way, as far as I'm concerned."

The source

Ideologues with an agenda like Margiotta rarely materialize out of thin air. As has come to be the case with so many political bullies of his ilk, Margiotta, his cronies, and his plan can be traced to the same well-fertilized, anti-government soil that completely dominates conservative political circles these days.

Here in North Carolina, that means the right-wing think tanks funded by millionaire activist, Art Pope. For several years now, Pope's think tanks (the Locke Foundation, the Pope Civitas Institute and Americans for Prosperity) have, in close coordination with the Republican Party, been spewing a steady stream of anti-public education invective.

The invariable theme of their "reports" and opinion pieces: public schools are disastrous failures while private schools (and their sometimes acceptable cousins, charter schools) are good and heroic underdogs.

In the Pope think tank world, anything that makes schools accord more closely with the market fundamentalist vision (in which essentially all public structures and systems are privatized or turned into fee-for-service, "market driven" institutions) is to be celebrated. Conversely, anything that undermines public schools, casts them in an unflattering light, or plays to popular fears and baser instincts in such a way as to abet this goal, is a tactic that is to be used at every turn.

"Parent-friendly" schools

Consider, for instance, the latest natural fertilizer spread about the North Carolina public schools this past week by the Locke Foundation - a shallow and deceptive, but cleverly packaged "Spotlight" report entitled "Parent-Friendly Schools 2009: How ‘parent friendly' are school districts in North Carolina?"  

In it, the author purports to offer a data-driven assessment of how each of the state's 115 school districts performs when it comes to being "parent friendly." Hmmm, that sounds at first blush like a worthy goal. Even the most ardent defenders of the public schools would concede that things like race and class issues, bureaucracy and inadequate funding and personnel can conspire to leave many schools doing a less than optimal job of communicating with parents. It would be interesting to see where parents are happiest with the job their schools are doing.

The only problem is, that's not what the report actually examines. In fact, there is zero input from any parents in the "parent-friendly" study at all. None. Zilch. Nada. What the report actually consists of is the author's assessment of several categories in which he has decided what will be the proxy for "parent-friendliness."

To make matters worse, the report trumpets and constantly refers to a national report with a very similar name that actually did collect data from parents (the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Report or "PFIE" conducted by the U.S. Department of Education). The Locke report, however, uses no such information. It merely borrows (sort of, anyway) some of the categories from the PFIE report.

Ironically, one of the categories from the PFIE report that he chooses not to borrow is: "overall satisfaction with the school." According to the author, this is due to "data limitations." 

Got that? In a report that purports to be about which schools are most "parent friendly," the author begins by admitting that he has no good data (or at least data that he cares to share) for parental satisfaction with the schools. He then goes out of his way to constantly refer to a national study that made just such findings - apparently, so that he can garner a little credibility by seeming association. Give us a break!

And so it goes. The author assesses "parent-friendliness" under the broad category of "administrators" by looking at: a) teacher attitudes toward administrators, and b) the percentage of non-teaching staff a school has. In other words, schools get downgraded for having too many librarians, counselors, custodians and audio visual consultants. Huh? How is it "parent-friendly" not to have counselors to talk to? The author concludes this section by making the completely unsubstantiated assertion that:

"As a rule, large school and district bureaucracies typically make it difficult for concerned parents to obtain necessary information or discuss concerns with decision makers."

But wait, there's more. The author then proceeds to give "grades" on each of his four factors: "administrators," "teachers" (measured only by teacher turnover and vacancies), "safety" (measured only by the number of reported acts of school crime and violence), and "academic achievement" (measured by selected test scores and graduation rates).

Lame enough, but it gets worse.

When he gets around to giving out letter grades, the author falls back on the old, lazy teacher tactic of grading on a curve. In each category, the author simply gives 10% of the districts an "A," 20% a "B," 40% a "C," 20% a "D," and 10% and "F." What is this, College Psych 101?

As one education policy expert explained to N.C. Policy Watch:

"No matter how well or poorly districts actually do against objective measures, they're going to be reclassified according to a bell curve. Even if these specious "scores" are very tightly aligned, a district with one score could get a B and one with a very slightly lower score could get a D or F, just because of bell curve distribution. 

Indeed, all of them could be doing really well (or poorly) and you'd get this same distribution. Talk about stacking the deck. And then average those scores over and over again and guess what you get: an even more centralized representation of scores. Like flipping a coin over and over. The results bear this out: his overall rankings give 0% A's, about 15% B's, 70% C's, 10% D's and 5% F's. It's crazy and stupid and meaningless."

Not surprisingly, the author concludes that things are grim and that "North Carolina's school districts are not parent-friendly organizations."

Reality check

Here's the sad reality in all of this: At one level, ideologues like Ron Margiotta and the people who inhabit the Pope Empire are right: our public schools are flawed and often parent-unfriendly. One need only ask some of the poor and minority parents with whom advocates at the North Carolina Justice Center have worked over the years to learn this. These moms and dads will confirm that most school systems need a lot of reform, better teachers and principals, and a lot more services and resources.

But they will also confirm that our schools do not need to be privatized, broken up into hundreds upon hundreds of small and segregated districts (a la New Jersey and other northern states), radically transformed overnight during rump school board sessions or maliciously denigrated in bogus, ideologically-driven "studies."

Let's hope that the light of day exposes these harebrained, "ends justify the means" ideas and tactics (and the ideologues who tout them) to the public derision and rejection that they so richly deserve.  

There’s a persistent myth in a number of circles – particularly on the ideological right – that progressives who call for higher taxes on the wealthy are calling for some kind of crude, socialistic leveling. You know this argument. (Indeed, if you have a progressive streak, a decent sized family and are not careful, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself debating someone on this topic this coming Thursday.)

The standard version goes something like this:

“Of course we shouldn’t let anyone starve, but it’s ridiculous to make me pay taxes to subsidize the lifestyle of some lazy person that doesn’t want to work. Cousin Joe knows a woman that he went to high school with who has five kids by three different men and has never held a job. She’s got a cell phone and a car. Why should I have to pay for her and her brood? Why do you want to penalize people who’ve worked hard and gotten ahead in life? ”

Sound familiar? It’s basically a warmed-over version of Ronald Reagan’s hoary tale of the Cadillac welfare queen and a time-honored, fallback talking point for right-wingers of all incomes and social status.

To see a somewhat gussied up version of this particular myth, you can visit the front page of the website of the Locke Foundation, where one of the philosophizers-in-residence has authored the latest “Free Market Minute.” In it, she lauds an old book entitled “Eat the Rich” by “humorist” P.J. O’Rourke.

Here are a few “highlights”:

If the rich deserve to be stripped of some part of their accumulated wealth or 'excessive' compensation, O'Rourke argues, we are all in trouble, morally and economically. Here's the argument he invokes on behalf of property rights, freedom in markets, and protection of private ownership…:

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.”

And then there’s this one:

“…fairness has no place in policy making, precisely because it is entirely subjective and imprecise. It's an ad hoc invention of the policy maker's whim, and the constituents' demands. No wonder it's impossible to define the scope and limit to what must be leveled to achieve a 'fair' outcome in society, somehow defined.”

Here’s the grand finale:

And what of government efforts to even out economic outcomes? Even if we don't wish that the wealthy fall from their economic heights, many endorse a government-managed leveling of some degree. Picking a pattern of wealth that looks more socially acceptable and fair is, as mentioned earlier, much harder than it seems. Inevitably, it requires increasingly extensive control of personal economic decisions, including the fields of study, industries and occupations citizens may pursue. Not good news for property rights, certainly. Not good news for individual liberty, either. And not OK with Commandment Ten, though surely not stated exactly as O'Rourke finally puts it:

"The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year [2000]—to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And the message is clear and concise. Go to h_ll."

Reality check

There are so many holes and blind spots in this brand of thinking that it’s hard to limit one’s response to the space available.

One might go on at length, for instance, about the absurdity of ignoring the vast inequality of opportunity that confronts people from different backgrounds and different segments of society. How and why is it an immutable “given” that some people will be born to vast fortune and comfort and others to grinding poverty and deprivation?

Along these same lines, one might point out the failure of such an argument to account for the enormous role that our societal infrastructure plays in the success of all who succeed. Even the smartest, hardest working, most successful and independent American entrepreneur would not enjoy his or her great wealth without the vast web of publicly funded structures (roads, schools, safe borders, safe air and water) that make society livable and fortunes worth having. Moreover, only a small portion of public spending goes to programs that actually serve the poor. In North Carolina, traditional “welfare” has become essentially non-existent. 

Notwithstanding the Locke staffer’s dismissal of “fairness,” one might even note the obvious fact that some people get rich through less than honorable means. Do we really want a true, dog-eat-dog society in which “unfair” economic transactions of the Bernie Madoff variety are celebrated? If that’s her position, perhaps the author might want to check out a commandment that appears a little earlier in the various versions of the list. It goes something like this: “Thou shall not steal.”

But the most powerful and timely response to the author’s (and your Thanksgiving dinner table partner’s) misguided arguments about “wealth redistribution,” however, comes in the form of a special report that was released this week by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. It’s the latest version the group’s “Who pays?” reports and it spells out exactly what various income groups pay in the way of state and local taxes in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.

The central finding: none of the 50 states or D.C. is redistributing wealth – at least not toward the poor. To the contrary, when it comes to state and local taxes, it’s the poor and the middle class who pay more than the rich.

Here is the breakdown by income group in North Carolina:

• Bottom 20% of households (with incomes less than $17,000 per year): Average combined state and local tax rate 9.5%.
• Second 20% ($17,000 to $29,000 in income): 9.4%.
• Middle 20% ($29,000 to $48,000): 9.4%
• Fourth 20% ($48,000 to $79,000): 8.9%
• Next 15% ($79,000 to $165,000):  7.9%
• Next 4% ($165,000 to $398,000): 7.3%
• Top 1% ($398,000 and up): 6.8%

(Details can be found on pages 82 and 83 of the report (pages 88 and 89 of the PDF version)).

In short, the responsibility of paying for all of the state and local public systems and structures that do so much to make North Carolina a place in which people want to live falls much more heavily on the poor and middle class. Those income groups experience a much bigger bite out of their incomes (and feel the effects exponentially more) than do the rich.

In other words, rather than “soaking the rich” to make society “fair,” the ITEP data confirm that North Carolina and its local governments do just the opposite: they redistribute wealth upwards toward the people who are already enjoying the fruits of what 21^st Century American has to offer.  

It should be interesting to hear which of the Ten Commandments the right cites as justification for this state of affairs.    

One of the Big Lies of the modern political era is the American far right’s unrelenting effort to portray any judge who happens to be less conservative than Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia as a “liberal activist.”  Ever since the days of Earl Warren (a progressive Republican who had the audacity to lead the U.S. Supreme Court in giving some actual meaning to the Bill of Rights), the term “liberal activist judge” has been a slur hurled by many conservatives. The intent, of course, is to give the impression of reckless, on-the-fly lawmaking: to conjure up the impression that the judge in question has an agenda above and beyond enforcing the law or the Constitution.

The supreme irony of the “liberal activist judge” label, of course, – especially over the last few decades – is that it has not been liberals that have been the activists in the judicial world, but ideological conservatives. Whether it’s overturning legislative acts, rolling back decades of well-established legal precedent or even electing a President, the far right has mounted an aggressive and often successful effort to use conservative judges as a key faction in its political jihad. Meanwhile, supposed “liberal activists” have mostly been relegated to doing what they can to hold back the tide and to prevent wholesale changes that would take the nation back to the 19^th century.

Hypocrisy regarding the public schools

Now, judging by the tenor of the discussion recently in Wake County, it appears the right is bent upon importing the same disingenuous tactic into the debate over public education. Listen to the rhetoric of supporters of so-called “neighborhood schools” who attack Wake’s successful efforts to build a robust, integrated and county-wide school system by mislabeling it as a “social experiment.”

Again and again, conservatives and their candidates for school board have trotted out this ridiculous smear – as if supporters of diversity in a countywide system were mad scientists callously sacrificing children and their families on the altar of some diabolical plot cooked up in an ivory tower laboratory.

As with the right’s dishonest spin-doctoring when it comes to judges, this attack is not only ridiculously inaccurate (Wake County’s system is a proven and remarkable success) but amazingly ironic. For even as the ideological right inaccurately accuses diversity supporters of “experimenting” with our children, the very same forces are promoting genuinely radical experiments in the organization of the public schools that would make Dr. Frankenstein proud.

Consider, for instance, the latest proposal from one of the top cheerleaders for re-segregating the Wake County schools, the Raleigh-based Locke Foundation. Here’s an excerpt from an opinion piece that one of the group’s staffers that ran in Raleigh’s News & Observer this week:

“It's time for bold reforms from the newly elected, reform-minded Wake County school board members….

Under ideal conditions, all parents would have the power to send their children to any school in the district. No questions asked, no long forms to fill out and no bureaucratic harassment. Parents who want a neighborhood school would have one. Parents who want to take advantage of a magnet school or other unique educational opportunity would get one. Parents who want a year-round schedule (or traditional schedule) would get one. This also means existing schools would be able to expand to meet growing demand.

The money for each child would follow the student, with more money following economically disadvantaged students. For example, the current state funding formula increases the amount allocated for economically disadvantaged students by about 10 percent. Additional local money could make the per student funding for disadvantaged students even greater. Each school's budget would be determined by adding the amounts that each student brings to that school. If a school fails to educate a child to the parents' satisfaction, the school loses the student and the money.

Creating choices for parents and space for students is critical. This is accomplished by allowing teachers, principals and even parent groups to start new schools and design unique curricula, within state mandates, that they believe best serve their students.

These new schools could be housed in existing buildings — several small schools in the same building — or in renovated storefronts. Let's bury the idea that a school is a building. A school is anywhere teachers and students come together for learning. Whereas the current neighborhood school concept limits parents to one school within a neighborhood, this new system would offer parents a choice among several different schools within the same neighborhood.”

Got that? Nothing radical or “experimental” – just a complete dismantling of one of the best mid-to-large size school districts in the nation and the institution of a completely new model of education that has never succeeded anywhere else on such a scale.

Reality check

Okay, let’s see if we can sum up some of what it is that the Locke staffer is attempting to seriously suggest:

1.     Emptying all 158 public schools in Wake County of the 140,000 children currently assigned to them;

2.     Allowing the establishment of an unlimited number of additional schools – presumably even in private homes;

3.     Increasing local public school expenditures (at least on disadvantaged students);

4.     Cramming even more students into already overcrowded, but popular existing schools;

5.     Limiting the budgets of schools to the total of the per student funds for which they are able to successfully compete; and

6.     Doing all of this without any bureaucracy or busing.

Even for those of us who’ve gotten used to the wackiest of the far right’s policy proposals, this one is particularly startling in its utter detachment from reality. Setting aside any possible pluses or minuses that any of these specific ideas might have in the abstract, where does this author think he lives – some Ayn Randian fantasy world?  Afghanistan?

That anyone purporting to be a genuine policy analyst would seriously suggest completely razing some of the finest schools in the Unites States in such a cavalier fashion (or that it was even remotely practical) is beyond belief. And why? By what mandate? Because a handful of parents in a few districts were unhappy with their less-than-absolutely-perfect school assignments and turned out in an off-year, October election that attracted one-in-ten eligible voters?

According to the Locke Foundation, however, the recent developments in Wake County constitute a “revolution.”  This is from the front page of the group’s website:

“Recently voters in Wake County acted on their concerns over the direction of public schools, voting overwhelmingly for those candidates who promised to bring reform to the school system. Assuming the new board members follow through on their campaign promises, they will find a wealth of useful information just clicks away here at JLF.”

Unfortunately, it appears that despite the group’s megalomania and loony policy proposals, it may wield some influence. The likely incoming chair of the Board is loyal devotee and so too are some of the other new members. Absent a concerted effort from responsible Wake County residents to arise from their recent political slumber and stand up in defense of their schools, the coming months and years could be a dark and disturbing period. 

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that and that once some of the incoming board members get “inside” and grasp the true magnitude of the challenges they confront, they come to their senses.

Until such time, however, it appears that the far right will be pushing hard to launch all sorts of audacious changes to public school policy that can only be described as “social experiments.”             

For most progressives, there's something that rankles about the longstanding, often successful effort of religious conservatives to appropriate the word "family." The presumptuous notion that one particular band of one religious tradition - in this case conservative Christianity - has the right to anoint itself as the "defender of traditional family values" is simply offensive to millions of loving, caring and family-oriented people who come from lots of other faith and non-faith-based traditions and hold different political views.

Still, as the years have gone by, the competing sides, the media and the public at-large have come to a kind of general understanding - namely that the "family values" banner is not to be taken literally. It is, instead, understood to be a handy code phrase - a shorthand descriptor for religious conservatives who speak out on "social" issues like abortion, prayer in public places, LGBT rights, end-of-life decision making and the like. As a practical matter, the conservative positions on these issues have nothing in particular to do with supporting the "family," but at least, just about everyone knows what they mean by their use of the term.

As used in this context, "family values" means the values of a subset of religious conservatives who generally favor literal interpretations of selected parts of the Bible and the promotion of some of the social practices and hierarchies of an earlier time in American history. That time period is always a little fuzzy and can, depending on the particular subgroup, refer to the 1950's, the 1750's or somewhere in between.

In North Carolina, there are numerous groups that claim and display the family values mantle, but the most active and visible one in state policy debates is probably the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Here's how the group, describes itself:

"Founded in 1992, the North Carolina Family Policy Council is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of the family and traditional family values.

Our mission is to strengthen the family by educating North Carolinians on public policy issues that impact the family and equipping citizens to be voices of persuasion on behalf of traditional family values in their localities….

As an independent 501(c)(3) research and education organization, the North Carolina Family Policy Council is supported entirely by the generosity of our donors. We are engaged in a battle to retain the Judeo-Christian values that are the foundation of western civilization. These are the same values which supported the establishment of the United States and which are embodied in the Ten Commandments and in the founding documents of our nation." (Emphasis supplied).                 

Through the years, the group has been a prolific voice in the General Assembly on a host of issues - most notably of late in opposing any and all efforts to confer equal rights on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. During the past two legislative sessions, the group pulled out every imaginable stop in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to defeat anti-school bullying legislation that sought to make clear that kids targeted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity were deserving of full protection.

Branching out?

Increasingly, however, the group's definition of "traditional family values" appears to be confined less and less to the realm of "social" issues like sex and religion and definitions of life. Indeed, if a recent report released by the group is any indication, the Family Policy Council and some of its allies now feel fully empowered to place the "traditional family values" seal of approval on an unlimited assortment of conservative policy positions.

The report in question (which was actually prepared by a pair of right-wing think tank staffers and "co-released" by the North Carolina group along with a couple of it national partners) is entitled "Repealing death tax will create jobs and boost economy." "Death tax," of course, is the far right's approved propaganda term for the federal estate tax - a tax on very large estates that has already been slashed in recent years.

The hook that makes the piece a "family" issue is that the "death tax" supposedly impacts "family businesses." But this is just a clever bit of packaging by a market fundamentalist group in search of political allies. The estate tax is, in reality, a modest tax on a very small group of rich people.

As the right does with every other progressive tax, however, the authors trot out all of the standard "supply side" (i.e. trickledown) economic theories - that government can raise more revenue by cutting taxes, that taxing the rich stifles economic activity, and that progressive taxes are somehow part of a nefarious plot to "redistribute" wealth. Here is a representative paragraph:

"Eliminating the death tax would increase small business capital accumulation, create a large number of small business jobs, and actually increase tax revenue at the federal, state, and local government levels. It is rare that a policy option that is extremely simple to enact with such clearly identifiable positive effects presents itself to Congress."

In other words the report consists of the same old, predictable anti-tax rhetoric that one could easily find on the website of any number of conservative, anti-government think tanks. The only "traditional family values" really at stake in the debate appear to be the values of the stock market and real property portfolios of the "traditional" (i.e. wealthy and establishment) families who underwrote the report.

Reality check

To read actual, fact-based assessments of the estate tax, readers would do well to explore a pair of reports from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - "The Estate Tax: Myths and Realities" from February of this year, and a more recent piece that directly critiques the Family Policy Council report.   

Among the things that one would discover:

• The estate tax has been an important source of federal revenue for nearly a century.
• Almost all estates (99.7%) owe no federal estate tax at all. Of this tiny number of very wealthy estates that do owe taxes (perhaps 6,000 per year), the effective tax rate averages less than 20%. In return for this modest attempt at a measure of tax code progressivity, the federal government brings in tens of billions of dollars each year in essential tax revenue.
• Repealing the estate tax would weaken the economy by adding nearly $800 billion to budget deficits over 10 years, thus reducing national saving and leaving fewer funds for investment that leads to higher productivity in the long run.
• Repeal would also be likely to harm charitable donations significantly since estates currently redirect billions of tax exempt dollars per year to nonprofits.

In other words, the estate tax is about as much of a threat to the average American family as a tax on private jets or seventh homes. Try as they might to conflate the interests of the super-wealthy with those of average religious conservatives, right-wing think tanks just can't make it make sense.

The sad part about all of this, of course, is that for many rank and file Christian conservatives (most of whom live on modest incomes and have never heard of genuine tax policy experts Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), the pseudo-research from conservative ideologues will be all they hear about this issue.

Like the pathetically misinformed health care reform protesters who decry "government intervention in their Medicare" and do the bidding of insurance conglomerates, these activists are being duped into supporting policies and politicians that work counter to their own economic well-being.

It's enough to make you think that the real, traditional American value receiving protection from the so-called family groups is the robber baron-era aphorism frequently attributed to promoter P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."     

Here's an old law school aphorism that's been used before in this space: "When the law is on your side, pound on the law. When the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. And when neither is on your side…pound on the table."

By all appearances this little bit of tongue-in-cheek advice has become the actual, real world game plan of the defenders of the health care status quo. As each of their main arguments has fallen by the wayside, reform opponents have been forced to resort to irrational screaming and shouting, threats of violence, and the promotion of absurd - no, make that insane - rumors and slander.

First came the, for lack of a better word, "substantive" claims. You've heard some of these:

• Reformers want to effect a "government takeover" and "ration" care.
• They want to decimate Medicare.
• They even want to establish "death panels" that would euthanize seniors.

More recently we've been witness to the truly mad and bizarre claims of the loony tunes and/or racist right-wing:

• Obama is a socialist.
• Obama is a Nazi (always good for a hoot - what's next, that he's a Klan member?)
• And, of course, Obama is a non-citizen.

Still to come:

• Reformers are involved in a secret conspiracy with the Chinese government to harvest body parts from unsuspecting seniors.
• Health care reform is actually part of a secret plot to take away people's guns and to "sap and impurify all of [their] precious bodily fluids."
• Obama is a secret agent from the planet Zool sent here to prepare the way for an alien invasion.

The source for the insanity

A few moments' reflection makes the origin of all of this nonsense pretty clear: Nothing else was working! Like a boxer who finds the end of the fight drawing near even as he has landed scarcely a blow on his opponent, the status quo defenders have started throwing wild haymakers;  desperate "Hail Mary's" in hopes of pulling off a miracle, come-from-behind victory.

Think about it for a minute: can you name even a single, sober, semi-rational argument advanced by health care reform opponents that has truly resonated and/or thrown the reform advocates off their game?

• That the current situation is fine and sustainable? Hardly. No one is seriously arguing this.
• That the answer to our problems is the adoption of "health savings accounts" in which all of us would save up and shop around for the best anesthesiologists and endocrinologists? Come on, give us a break.
• That reform is about a "government takeover" of health care (the argument that Richard Burr has resorted to)? Heck, a majority of people polled by the right-wing Pope Civitas Institute here in Raleigh say they favor that idea and it isn't even on the table.
• That reform will be too costly and bring about expensive tax increases? This one may have garnered some temporary traction, but it's lost all coherence when held up to the light of day - i.e. the reality that the current system is bankrupting the country, the fact that the added costs of covering the uninsured amount to a tiny fraction of the cost of doing nothing and the fact that President Obama has kept his promise to cut taxes on the vast majority of Americans.

No, the truth of the matter is that the opponents of health care reform are desperate. They've thrown everything they have at the President and his team to little avail. Now, with the reality that reform is going to pass becoming clearer and even most of the vested interests playing nice, the lunatic fringe has stepped in to fill the void.

Only a speed bump

One doesn't have to look too far back into the past to find an ironically parallel set of circumstances in American politics. It happened almost exactly one year ago when Senator John McCain's campaign found itself faltering in the general election contest. The Hail Mary at that time: selecting Sarah Palin as the candidate's running mate, of course.

Faced with almost certain defeat, McCain tried for a miracle that he hoped would energize his base and lure those who hadn't been paying close attention. And for a few weeks, it seemed to work as McCain rode the brief national infatuation with Palin to a short-lived rise in the polls that had progressives gnashing their teeth and wondering about the sanity of their fellow citizens.

But, of course, that rose soon wilted under the glare of the national spotlight. And so it is today with the latest wild rants in opposition to health care reform.

Just as with Palin a year ago, a closer look at the opposition arguments quickly reveals that there's less there (and fewer people) than meets the eye. And just like last year, when millions of serious conservatives ultimately abandoned the Republican standard bearer because of their belief that he had placed an incompetent neophyte within dangerous proximity of the White House, so events seem to be breaking now as many serious and responsible conservatives have begun to distance themselves from the screamers and others on the fringe.

Here's former Bush Administration staffer and conservative analyst, David Frum explaining why:

"Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.

The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is ‘literally at war with the American people'; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning ‘death panels' to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he ‘harbors a deep resentment of America,' that he feels a ‘deep-seated hatred of white people,' that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is ‘planning to wipe away American liberties': All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence….It's not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric."

Reality Check

In other words, the fate of the most important American domestic policy issue in decades should not and will not be determined by the delusional fringe. More and more responsible conservatives and moderates understand this. And while they have real differences with the some of the President's ideas, they too understand that merely preserving the status quo is not realistic and that mere pounding on the table will not be enough to dissuade the national appetite for change.

No one can say exactly what the final health care package will look like. President Obama has been smart enough to preserve some flexibility on this. But more and more, meaningful reform looks inevitable.

Like a champion boxer, the President has taken everyone's best punch - even the wild haymakers of the fringe - and he's still standing in the center of the ring.          

Over the last couple of years we've received a lot of comments and questions at N.C. Policy Watch about the title of this feature. More than a few conservatives have complained about the use of the term "radical right," arguing that it has been used unfairly and that we're somehow attempting to smear people or to portray them as subversives.

Many progressives on the other hand have complained that we pay far too much attention to the right. They argue that if we just ignored most of the hogwash emanating for the various outlets in the right-wing-o-verse, so too would just about everyone else. "Why give them any more attention than they deserve?" goes the reasoning.

As the topic of today's edition of the feature makes clear, however, neither of these critiques holds water.

The purpose of labeling various foolhardy acts and statements of the far right as "radical" is not to cast aspersions at anyone's sincerity or loyalty to the country (at least not unless someone is advocating for secession or armed insurrection). The purpose is to expose those acts and statements to public scrutiny and to demonstrate just how far back in history some ideologues are ready to take the country.

As for the concern that shining a light on the far right only encourages an impotent movement, one need look no further that the weekly news conferences of the North Carolina Senate and House Minority leaders to understand how influential it already is. Sure, conservative think tanks don't run the state on a daily basis, but anyone who discounts their influence - in the General Assembly, in the mainstream media, on the Internet, or in the corporate boardrooms where so much power does reside - is simply kidding themselves.

A classic example

Today's example of absurdly reactionary thought illustrates just how downright wacky and "radical" the right is willing to get and how damaging its policy recommendations can be. It can be found on page 5 of this month's edition of Carolina Journal, the newsletter of the Locke Foundation, in an article entitled "Despite Abuses, Char-Meck Expands School-Lunch Program."  

In the article, a Locke staffer makes the straight-faced argument that the free and reduced price lunch program of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District (CMSD) is a hotbed of corruption and waste because (gasp!) some kids may be receiving free or reduced priced food even though their families' incomes are over the official limits.

For those who may not be familiar with the American school lunch program for kids from low-income households, it works this way:

"The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in over 101,000 public and non-profit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to more than 30.5 million children each school day in 2007….Any child at a participating school may purchase a meal through the National School Lunch Program. Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level are eligible for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level are eligible for reduced-price meals, for which students can be charged no more than 40 cents. (For the period July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009, 130 percent of the poverty level is $27,560 for a family of four; 185 percent is $39,220.)"

According to the Locke Foundation, however, CMSD is not sufficiently vigilant in purging its free lunch rolls of freeloading kids whose family incomes may have soared above these dizzying levels. Last year the group posted an almost incomprehensible online article claiming that "Confusion Reigns on School Lunch Guidelines." Now, in an apparent follow-up, the new article attempts to claim that there are "lingering questions about potential cheating among applicants."

Though it presents no substantive evidence to back up the claims of widespread cheating, the article leaves no stone unturned in advancing rumor and innuendo and pushing all the right buttons for conservative conspiracy theorists. It quotes one right-wing county commissioner as stating that there are "10,000 or more [children] who are on it and should not be" even though there is no explanation from where that number might have come. It also quotes a conservative Mecklenburg County school board member as stating that: "Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools chases free and reduced-lunch numbers like ACORN chases votes. It's the same attitude and activist mentality."    

Heaven forbid.

Reality check

Come on guys, give us a break.

No responsible person at CMSD or elsewhere supports fraud. All public agencies and systems should do their best within reason to assure that their resources are devoted to the people for whom they are designed. The Locke article, however, admits that CMSD has complied with federal requirements to conduct income verification efforts from a sample of families. Locke's beef with the schools is that they didn't then go further and conduct a comprehensive audit of the entire school lunch program.

But, of course, this would be a ridiculous result. We're not talking about military contractors or some other giant government vendor; we're talking about a local school district program that puts cafeteria food in the stomachs of poor, growing children.

Sure, a comprehensive audit might find some more families in which the mother's latest 50 cent raise at Wal-Mart or Denny's put the family officially "over-income." It might also just as likely find that a huge percentage of the "potential fraud" alleged in the article is really the result of the fact that many poor people simply moved and couldn't respond to the small scale audit that was conducted.

But what if an audit did turn up more over-income applicants? What then? Should the school system take all the parents to court to get back the cost of two months' worth of chicken nuggets and apple sauce? Put the kids to work washing dishes after school?

What do the Locke people think is going on? That there's some diabolical conspiracy amongst secretly affluent Charlotteans to game the school lunch program? Do these people have children? Have they ever been in a public school? Do they know how humiliating it often is for kids to be identified in the free lunch program or for their parents to ask for such help in the first place?

Honestly, of all the possible waste, fraud and abuse in modern society, THIS is what the Locke people are devoting their resources to - cracking down on the school lunch program? The possibility that some free lunch recipient's parents are earning 135% of the federal poverty guideline rather than 125%? What's next - an exposé on toilet paper theft from rest stops? An undercover sting on double-dippers at local food banks?   

Radically wrong

At its heart, this article is a classic example of how wildly and bizarrely off the rails a goodly chunk of the modern conservative movement has spun. At a time of profound national economic crisis and in which so many of our children are struggling to make it in a harsh and confusing world, the right-wing is worried that some of them might be getting a 50 cent price break on their grilled cheese and tater tots. To make matters worse, some blockheaded elected officials are apparently paying attention.

If ever there was an example of why somebody needs to keep track of and expose the work of such people, this is it.

There was a time, not too long ago, in American politics in which people like former Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush and former North Carolina Governor Jim Martin were considered "conservative." 

All three men were (and in Martin and Bush's case, "are") the embodiment of rock-ribbed, dyed-in-the-wool, post World War II, establishment Republicanism. They believed in and were devoted to promoting American capitalism in all its forms, but saw it as a tool for promoting the American experiment more than as an end in itself. They were generally skeptical of government but believed in public service. They were for gradual social change. All three can rightfully be characterized as generally optimistic "builders" and "creators" rather than as mere angry critics.

As just about everyone who has paid attention these last few decades is aware, however, "conservatism" has changed. A descriptive term that once was synonymous with the "establishment" is now confined to an increasingly extreme and shrill group of disaffected people who are defined almost exclusively by what they're against rather than what they are for.

These folks may pay lip service to being "pro-freedom," but it's almost impossible to envision the world that they want to construct.

The New Right

Think for a moment about the voices of the new, American right: Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, the Heritage Foundation, and here in North Carolina, the Locke Foundation the Pope Civitas Institute and Americans for Prosperity: These individuals and groups are not about the same establishment traditions that Ford, Bush and Martin represented. Theirs is not the politics of building a better world or of public service; theirs is the politics of attack and anger and self-interest that is, if anything, about holding on to some mythical vision of the past.

In comparison to many leaders of the New Right, even people who once seemed to be arch-conservative firebrands - people like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan - now seem rather tame. If this strikes you as an exaggeration, then consider some of these recent examples of "thought" and advocacy from prominent national and North Carolina "conservatives":

• Former House Speaker and 2012 supposedly serious presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich calls Judge Sonia Sotomayor a "racist." He later backtracks and allows that maybe he had made a poor choice of words, and that, instead, Sotomayor's work represents "a betrayal of a fundamental principle of the American system-that everyone is equal before the law."
• Talk show big mouth and de facto Republican leader Rush Limbaugh claims that pop icon Michael Jackson "flourished under Reagan, languished under Clinton and Bush and died under Obama." This comes just days after Limbaugh argues that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's extra-marital affair could be traced to President Obama's plot to "kill spirit" in America.
• Former vice-presidential nominee and soon-to-be former Alaska governor Sarah Palin appears with Limbaugh wannabe Sean Hannity and agrees with the host that Obama is leading the United State toward "socialism."

Not surprisingly, "conservative" rhetoric can get even a little more extreme at the state and local levels, where the politicians and activists are usually a little less polished.

Consider, for instance, Republican Party leaders and "tea baggers" in Duval County, Florida who recently held a rally at which they prominently displayed posters that featured President Obama's face superimposed over the images of brown shirted Nazi thugs.

Here in North Carolina, similarly absurd and unvarnished, name-calling rants and extreme behavior have also become a regular action for supposedly responsible conservatives. This morning, for instance, a staffer at the Locke Foundation - a group that likes to portray itself as a serious think tank and source of quality "opinion journalism" and analysis - authored a post on the group's blog entitled "The best label for Obamaism: National socialism," in which he said:  "We should remember that the left in America simply adored the supposedly rational central planning, anti-capitalist approaches of Hitler and Mussolini until WWII broke out."

The Locke Foundation, of course, is the same group that employs a person in Charlotte who has been called out frequently by Chris Fitzsimon for offensive and irresponsible statements, such as the time he attacked a Charlotte Observer editorial on immigration policy as "McClatchy whoring itself out for Latino money." And, of course, who could forget the one in which he responded to the departure of the state's probation system director with: "Go to hell Robert Guy. You know you deserve it, and so does your wife. Die you worthless bastard."

Yesterday, Raleigh was treated to the spectacle of the modern conservative movement in action when some self-styled "patriots" followed the directive of another of their national leaders (TV crazy man, Glenn Beck) and attempted to "surround" a pro-health care reform demonstration in front of the local federal building. You can go here to a rather scary website entitled "NC Freedom" to read the group's mostly deranged take on the day.

The heart of the matter

What's precipitated this rise in extreme conservatism is hard to pinpoint. Deciphering the underlying psychological causes of widespread delusional behavior is never easy. It seems a safe bet, though, that somewhere below the surface of all of these angry "patriots" lies a healthy wellspring of fear - fear of "the other," fear of change, fear of modernity.

Like their forebears in the old south and countless previous societies, the New Right is, at its heart, a movement of confused, fearful, and often manipulated human beings who are scared - scared that people whom they don't know will somehow take something from them in pursuit of a cause they don't understand.

A subtle but powerful reminder of this fact was provided (no doubt unwittingly) in a recent poll question posed by the Pope-Civitas group.

As part of its May opinion survey, the group asked some questions on global warming. The first was "Do you think global warming is caused by more long-term changes in the Earth's atmosphere, by human activity or do you think global warming does not exist?"  To the group's dismay, no doubt, only 15% said the phenomenon didn't exist and fully 50% said humans were responsible.  

The kicker, though, came in question #2 when Civitas asked: "Do you think global warming will pose a serious threat to you or your way of life in your lifetime?"    

Who would possibly ask such a question and invite such an answer (55% said they thought it wouldn't affect them) except a group that wanted to promote the idea that collective, long-term action for the common good of the planet and the species is a diabolical plot to take people's property? This fact was clearly confirmed by the follow-up: "Would you be willing pay higher gas prices and utility bills in the name of fighting global warming?"

As even a moment's reflection ought to tell any thinking person, the possibility that a global warming catastrophe might not occur for at least a few more decades is an enormous blessing and opportunity for humankind — a chance to act before it's too late. But not for Civitas and other fear mongers in the New Right. For them it's a chance to rant about taxes and the possibility that collective short-term sacrifice might be necessary - even if the "payoff" only benefits our kids and grandkids. Heaven forbid!

Going forward

The hope amongst progressives is that the current crop of New Right leaders will ultimately flame out - hauled down by the weight of their own wacky ideas and deprived of an audience as the fear they attempt to promote is slowly dissipated by the implementation of effective, common sense policy changes. Given the alternative - i.e. that this represents some kind of lasting and viable movement - all of us should do our part to expedite the process.