A few days ago I wrote about my belief that our government is incenting personal irresponsibility. One of our readers evidently created a link from my post to their Facebook and I ended up getting quite a bit of e-mail, the vast majority of which was quite positive. I’d encourage those that sent e-mails to memorialize their thoughts as comments, good, bad, or indifferent.
In that post, I anticipated certain characteristics of President Obama’s, then forthcoming, Housing plan. Unfortunately, many of the aspects I feared are present in his proposal. I’ll rehash a bit of that here, but for a different purpose than presented in the original post.
First, I’ll start with the premise that I believe it is patriotic to do what is in the best interest of the country. If you disagree with that premise, you certainly won’t find much common ground in this post. That said, regardless of where one stands along the Liberal to Conservative spectrum, I believe most of us agree with this premise.
That being true, it follows that fostering one’s ideology in service to a political party can hurt the country and thus be unpatriotic. In such situations, having the virtue of intellectual honesty becomes indispensable.
Here is a quick example and then I will tie it back to the Housing proposals. First, I think it was quite nice that Tol gave a nod to Daily Kos and its founder in his first post, but I think that site very often places winning before country. I scan the front page Diaries at Daily Kos regularly and Kos regularly keeps folks updated on the MN Senate race, but I have never read a cogent post against Al Franken. Two issues: First, just on the face of things, is it reasonable for everyone in a community to believe that Al Franken would be a better Senator than Norm Colman. Al Franken? Everyone? I’ve done considerable research on both men and I simply don’t think a strong, let alone, absolute argument can be made for Franken. He seems to be the choice of those who want to “Win” rather than do what is best. Ok, but more important than any one man or one election is the electoral process itself. If the people of MN want Franken, they should get Franken. However, they seemed to first have chosen Colman and under recount now may have chosen Franken. I’ve done a fair bit of research here as well and there definitely seems to be multiple standards applied to what constitutes a valid vote, depending on where in MN it was cast. I could well be wrong, but on Daily Kos I found no such discussion but plenty of gloating and plenty of what appeared to be win-centricity.
I understand the genesis of this passionate group-think from folks who, perhaps, felt disenfranchised and disillusioned after the last eight years, but principles are things you should embrace most tightly when tempted to discard. Regardless of label, vigorous debate is good and homogeneous thought is, at best, pointless.
Allow me to tie this back to Housing via some personal disclosures. A couple years ago I moved my family for medical reasons, selling a house and purchasing a new one. I had been in the old house for a while and accumulated some equity. When establishing the new loan, I used all that equity as a down payment. I made this decision over the advice of my mortgage broker who suggested I max out the loan to value on the house, which would free up that equity to buy new cars, a family vacation, or “something nice for my wife.”
Well, financing cars, vacations, or something nice for my wife over 30 years struck me as wrong so I opted for a smaller loan, smaller house payment, and more equity.
Less than a year after buying the new house, I received an unsolicited appraisal showing that it had appreciated by around 40% and was offered a home equity loan for all that appreciation PLUS some of the original down payment I had made. We still had the same old cars so could have swapped them out for even better ones than those suggested by the original mortgage broker, but my principles hadn’t changes so I declined.
Since that point, about 35% of that 40% appreciation has vaporized and had I followed conventional wisdom, I would be nearly upside down on my house, with huge payments and a risky job market.
Whose fault would that have been? Predatory lenders are, well, predators but temptation is as old as Adam and we have to take responsibility for the apples we eat. Or do we?
Under this week’s proposal people can “transition from home ownership” (the new euphemism for foreclosure) without affecting credit ratings. Those that continue to make payments are eligible for $1,000 from the government. Bankruptcy judges can reset mortgage terms. And on and on…
Forcibly removing families from their homes evokes a visceral reaction in me. I hate the idea. It makes me angry and it makes me deeply sad. Angry at the lenders. Angry at those too weak to resist temptation thereby placing their family’s well being at risk.
And yes, righteous anger, as one of the vast majority who has acted responsibly and has sacrificed to try and ensure their family’s safety. Some may say, that it is sour grapes because the Joneses are driving around in their new Lexuses while their mortgages are being reset. No, it is that the government’s actions will cause via deflation and later inflation, me and my family to literally pay for the poor judgement of others. $1,000 to people who stay current on they payments? Since when did doing the right thing become behavior subsidized by the vast majority who have been doing the right thing all along.
It simply is not sustainable. With each action that rewards irresponsibility, some additional fraction of Americans will throw up their hands, succumbing to the siren’s call of eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow the government will cure my hangover. When we pass that tipping point where our countrymen simply vote themselves bread and circuses, collapse and/or revolution becomes inevitable.
This seems self evident to me, but if I am wrong show me where.
It angers me nearly beyond words that Ideologues like those at Daily Kos do not even discuss this. Surely most of them pay their mortgages and live within their means. Surely being progressive doesn’t mean advocating irresponsible behavior that they must then pay to correct. I don’t care what side of a reasoned argument someone comes down on, but have the argument…Please!!
In its absence, I can only assume monolitic agreement occurs because they want their party to Win more than they want their country to win.
President Obama paraphrased scripture in his inaugural when he stated that it was time to put away childish things. I quite agree. Self-centered irresponsible behavior subsidized by one’s neighbor and placing party before country are two childish things whose time never should have been.
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