Tag: Media

I think we could use a little context here.

Knee-jerk conservative Bible thumpers do believe that government can create millions of specific jobs. How many people are employed by our postal service so that my Mom can receive 18 pieces of junk mail a day (all posted at a bulk discount rate) while that legendary arm of government operates at a mere loss of about $15 billion per year? Those are jobs, aren't they?

The CRC implicitly, and often explicitly, endorses the welfare/regulatory state status quo; it studies the current goverrnment establishment with an eye toward presenting options to make it more efficient and sustainable. The Mackinac Center studies state government with an eye toward toward reducing its current size and scope, and often makes specific recommendations for doing so.

It is incorrect to imply that only the group opposing the big-government status quo is motivated by ideology, while the one supporting the status quo is ideology-neutral. In fact both groups are ideological. The Mackinac Center's ideology is technically called "classical liberalism," which is a preference for limited government instead of a welfare/regulatory state. The ideology that motivates the CRC, Michigan's state government and those who endorse its current size and scope is correctly (if scratchily) called "welfare statism." People who accept the status quo, and particularly those at the CRC, would characterize themselves as being supporters of "good government," which is certainly true.

Failing to recognize that the group one belongs to has an ideology is a form of ethnocentrism common to most people. It's a tendency that every one of us fall prey to in varying measures, journalists included. Lifting the ethnocentric blinders usually requires an outsider to point out that the worldview one takes as the "natural state" is in fact a social construct - an ideology.

I couldn't find the print coverage in yesterday's Detroit Free Press. I finally found the article buried on the last page of the business section, just after a weekly feature on business trivia. They also forgot to mention the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance - not that there's anything wrong with that...

OK, so I looked at yesterday's print Detroit News. The very short article is on page 5A (there is a nice, big photo). But right below the tea party article is a MUCH longer column titled, "Anger Boils Among Militia Members" about a barbecue attended by about 100 Michigan Militia members. They stacked the two articles on top of each other. The 100 Militia guys got WAY more ink than the estimated 20,000 taxpayer tea party participants.