An Analysis of Loyalty
Loyalty is a treasured quality in others. Still, loyalty is often as troublesome as it is gratifying. Some loyalty seems purer than others---wrapped in a purity minus the toxicity. Pets have that kind of simple loyalty. 'Till death do us part' is far more likely to apply to pet and owner than to married spouses. That includes both the till-death part and the loyalty. They say around 50% of marriages don't last, yet the bond between pet and owner must be up around 90%. A spouse can tire of the other, a pet never does; a spouse can run hot and cold, a pet never does; to a spouse one has to often explain him/her self, to a pet one never does. And so it goes, this purity of loyalty from a pet.
Loyalty cannot be said to always be a good thing. Blind patriotic loyalty is unethical and self destructive. 'My country, right or wrong' is the basis for much conflict, much persecution, much infringement on human rights, etc. James Baldwin said it well: "I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." To oppose your country's course of action as a matter of conscience, or principle, is hardly an act of disloyalty---but to those of certain political bent it is so declared to be such. When a country invades another country for the wrong reasons and hundreds of thousands die or get displaced or injured, there is no ethical reason for 'supporting the troops' engaged in such a mission. To do so is morally absurd. This is like the mother whose son commits a terrible unjustified assault on another kid and she stands behind him as an act of 'loyalty'. The excuses vary and seem to be endless. The only support such troops need who are engaged in an immoral war is to get the troops the hell home. Any other kind of loyalty is misplaced. Loyalty should be restricted to the Golden Rule. Period. Then loyalty is really pure and unblemished and righteous.
Loyalty to inherited religious dogma is mindless tripe, little better from an intellectual standpoint than a parrot who mimics conversations heard. This kind of rote loyalty to brainwashed inherited dogmas has caused some of the worst bloodshed across history: the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, the Sunni and Shiites in Iraq, Christians and Muslims across the world, and on and on it goes until people like myself find it all a bit nauseant. I watch all this mindless conflict and sometimes feel "Stop the World, I want to get off". To hell with that kind of obsessed loyalty. Misapplied loyalty can be a curse---a senseless expenditure of energy for oft bad causes and human misery.
Even in sports, like riots over a soccer game. I mean really, are we civilized or not? Are we moral or not? Are we sane or insane? What exactly are these people being loyal to? Loyalty, to have any merit must be directed to right vs wrong.
Even in parenting, blind loyalty often just cripples kids, makes them far too dependent, self centered, boorish in their feelings towards others. We all know kids who have never left the nest, whose stunted development leaves them but a shell of their potential. Loyalty that cripples is loyalty misplaced. To fully develop most kids need some freedom, need developed self confidence, need to realize they are on their own, not forever propped up by parents who use their kids for their own peculiar needs. "Family values", a nice sounding phrase, and is often perverted to justify unqualified loyalty to the needs of biological genetics than to any reasoned code of ethics. I can't think of any prophet in any religion who ever promulgated such such myopic ethics. In case some haven't noticed, most all religious origins came from prophets who preached some version of the Golden Rule. And we all know the Golden Rule is centered around others, their needs as much on equal footing as ours, to the extent we can push it.
When loyalty is not based on doing the right thing, called the Golden Rule, the word becomes a tool for evil. Loyalty to a family, to a country, to a religion, to friends, to a culture, loyalty to really anything instead of the Golden Rule is shameless, not noble. Long live loyalty if it is grounded in the Golden Rule.
I admit, as fits my age, to missing a world of real diversity. My parents gave me some National Geographic Magazines which date back to the early parts of the 20th Century. Even in my own youth, countries tended to be really independent 'worlds' with unique cultures, unique habits, unique food, and on it goes. Today, with communication and travel so different, we truly live in a global society. When you land here or there you can hardly recognize the difference---with only one exception: the poverty level. To those of us addicted to diversity this is sad, but also a fact of life. What, one begins to wonder, is there to be loyal to? Everyone everywhere is now engaged in almost an identical pursuit, using the same techniques, to grab control over the increasingly diminished natural resources available to population levels which have doubled in the last 40 years and are about to double again. What, given such times, is the point of loyalty? What are we to be loyal to? If it is to a country then that translates into, by force, keeping or gaining control over these limited natural resources. Personal wealth becomes the operative center of our loyalty, not the Golden Rule. But as even our own country becomes the biggest example of more and more wealth accumulating in the hands of fewer and fewer, the operative center of our loyalty shifts from country to 'family values'. Clearly more and more families are circling the wagon, the concept of community is shrinking whether it be neighborhood, church congregations, social circles, whatever---families are increasingly becoming wrapped up in their own cocoons with a loyalty so constricted as to render collective support to solve the major global problems an impossibility.
Family values has become an exercise in 'every man for himself'. Many justify this obsession with self by wrapping 'family values' in a cloak of religious 'purity'. The solution to problems becomes less any attempt at global or domestic cooperation and sacrifice but one of desperate faith that God will protect His flock through inherited religious dogmas. I guess as the needed natural resources become increasingly depleted God will distribute them to his special flock of true believers. But wow! Since when in history did this ever prove to be the case? Why then is it going to be different now? If this has any merit then the real religious in our country must be the 1% who own 90% of our national wealth. What religion do they worship, I need to join.
Even more astounding, the vast majority of Americans don't really want this massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few to be stopped. Any attempt to reign these accumulators in is met with some kind of brainwashed allegiance to the right of others to amass as much wealth as they can as long as their lobbyists can make the means to do so legal. I mean this is really kind of sick: "you can strangle me slowly as long as it is legal". This is idiocy elevated to new levels. We are more dedicated to protecting the wealthy than the poor, and amazingly the mentality here seems to be that 'most of us are part of the wealthy class, certainly not one of the oppressed. I don't think I even personally know anyone in the top 1%, let alone develop any loyalty toward their schemes to keep on accumulating. Ignorance of a new chilling sort is permeating our times. With no sand in which to bury our heads and see nothing, we can still put our heads up our ass and see nothing just as effectively. I know Obama is trying, but the question is whether it is too late to change entrenched ignorance?
Loyalty, to have any ethical radiance, must land on the side of the common good. For all practical purposes this refers to loyalty to family, to one's community, to one's country, and to the global community. For loyalty to be sans peur et sans reproche---truly praiseworthy----a country's welfare cannot top global welfare; a communities welfare cannot top the welfare of the country; the welfare of the family cannot top the welfare of the community; the welfare of the individual cannot top the welfare of others. This is the Golden Rule broken down into divisions. Of course nothing here dictates the necessity for self destruction at any level. What it does imply is that for loyalty to be properly placed and justice done, sacrifices will always be involved. There is no loyalty without sacrifice. If everything always has to be our way, and we accept our Rush Limbaugh right to grab as much of the pie as we can, loyalty is meaningless, selfish greed rules, and the Golden Rule is dead.
Today, in our own country, the common good has increasingly become a mockery. That 1% of the people own 90% of the wealth is blindly accepted as OK---I guess reflecting only a shame that the rest of us can't show such competitiveness and capitalistic talent. The Golden Rule here becomes some sort of socialistic plot, Christianity reduced to unlimited spoils for the few, loyalty self destructive to our society and in the long run, self destructive to all members of society---the rich and the poor. That this accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few is occurring faster in this country than any other industrialized country is of no concern. As long as laws exist to make all of this legal it is accepted as a good and admirable accomplishment. True, once in a while we fuss about a particular individual's salary or vaguely wish workers could earn more or have vaporous regrets that too many people suffer financially. A prayer at church, miniscule charitableness, and pleasant manners, on the rare occasion of any interaction with the hapless, will suffice.
Here are the facts from the Institute for Policy Studies: Taxpayers who averaged $1.3 million in income in 2006 saw a federal income tax rate of 22.8%. I mean, so what? Everyone is entitled to go out and earn $1.3 million and get the same tax rate. It is perfectly legal so what is the gripe? Why all this hostility to the rich? Besides, it is progress. In 1986 the same people (inflation adjusted) paid 33.1% for earning the same amount of money. Progress is a good thing it is claimed. In fact the 1 percent saw their share of the nation's income double, from 11.3 percent to 22.1 percent. They probably worked harder. Good for them. As a reward, their tax burden shrunk by about one third. You know, the Government is there to look out for the wealthy as well as everyone else. Bush told us that many times.
It is not that the Government has been concerned about, and protective of the rich, just since the Reagan deregulation and tax cut years, because since 1955 the wealthiest few saw their incomes multiply by about a factor of twenty over the past fifty years and pay an income tax rate three times lower. You see, tax cuts help people increase their own incomes. Some people just deserve more help than others. Tis a shame the rest of us are just so lazy. In 1955, when the rich were being picked on by the government, those who made more than $2 million (in 2006 dollars) were taxed at just over 49 percent; by 2006 their tax rate had fallen to just 23.2 %. Republicans now tell us our troubles have been caused, at least in part, because we still tax these people too much. They need a tax break, and if we don't give them one, the economy will not recover, the nonexistent trickle down will trickle less and at least not hurt since getting less from a nonexistent flow at worst does no harm. And if you can't help the many, there is no reason to not help the few.
Fact: restoring the 1955 tax rate to the wealthiest amongst us would pay for 25% of the Obama stimulus program. To pay for 50% of the Obama stimulus program the Government could also do the following:
1. Reverse Bush's tax cuts
2. impose a small tax on financial transactions like stock sales
3. eliminate the tax breaks on capital gains and dividends
4. institute a progressive real estate tax
5. end overseas tax havens
6. close loop holes on huge executive compensation packages.
Are these redistribution of wealth measures? Of course they are. Loyalty to our country, including the rich, demands government prevent too much wealth from accumulating in the hands of too few. It has nothing to do with socialism vs capitalism. If 1% now own 90% of the wealth in this country just where the hell is even more wealth for them going to come from? Or even a better question, just how are others suppose to increase their own economic situation?
Do we want to pay for the entire Obama stimulus package? Our generation should. But who are the only ones in our society with the ability to pay? The lobbyists for the rich and powerful made it possible for them to use altered laws and tax codes to acquire all this wealth. If we went back and taxed the wealthy with the kind of inheritance taxes they imposed back in the early 20th century to break up wealth monopolies by the Rockefellers, Vanderbuilts, etc. then the entire stimulus package could be paid off, and even at this no one earning great wealth would exactly find their lifestyles crimped much, and the idea that people should earn wealth instead of being able to inherit huge wealth would come back to being fashionable. An attack on inheriting vast amounts of wealth is not an attack on capitalism, it is just the opposite---it ensures capitalism is played on a level playing field. It shows loyalty to the legitimate purpose of capitalism---to earn your own way in life. The same people who fuss endlessly about welfare have often inherited much of their wealth. I suggest they look in the mirror.
Loyalty, properly placed is a good thing. A real good thing. Loyalty, misplaced, is a really bad thing.
