I’ve never been an ideologue. Some find it impossible to move forward without adhering to ideologically drawn boundaries and paths, but it becomes similarly improbable that such adherence to ideology has a chance of creating positive consequences for society when one acknowledges that the world does not turn upon an ideology.

Government services play an important role in keeping the machinations of society running with the least possible conflict. The consequences of such action are readily apparent to some, though often the benefits become misconstrued through the lens of wealth and power. The most ideological thing about me stems from my inclination that government owes the least amount of aid/service to those who are wealthy, and this is similarly reflected in the propensity of wealthy folks to argue on ideological terms about the folly of social services. Indeed, this thinking begins to imply that those who are wealthy owe a certain amount of dues to the economy/government that created the circumstances in which their success could be realized. As may be expected, this social democratic perspective on taxes reinforces their necessity within society at large and relegates generic complaints about taxes to a position of “non-issue” in my mind.

If only there weren’t such glaring contradictions in the pursuit of what is oh so endearingly spun as “tax relief”, maybe this would be a serious issue that could have the propensity to improve people’s lives. But right now state governments are folding, unemployment coffers are emptying and only one state in this nation has been smart enough to enact a forward thinking policy to protect its citizens from the undulations and uncertainty of our economy. That state is Oregon, which recently passed the single largest tax increase in the state’s history (enacted by state-wide ballot initiative), and because of the tax increase vital public services like schools and health care facilities have been protected from an otherwise disruptive budget shortfall.

This is a topic of particular worth right now because of the lip-service that politicians are now required to pay to “combating the deficit/debt”. Especially with the media spinning the GOP’s shadow budget as something without precedent, a budget that finally attempts to seriously reduce the deficit and debt, it is all the more important to realize the effect tax revenues have on our government’s long-term viability. To suggest that current revenues in comparison to outlays of spending is unsustainable is a fair criticism, but this criticism often draws observers to falsely conclude that the issue can be resolved by spending less. This theory however, which has been co-opted by Tea Partier and GOPer alike, neglects to consider the inability of government bureaucrats to foresee the future accurately. Every time taxes are cut, politicians are gambling on public services and riding on unsubstantiated ideological claims.

Even Obama’s tax cut for 95% of working families played right into the hands of an ideologue’s fantasy. He justified it by adopting that old conservative catch phrase of “tax relief” and positioned the tax cut as being a necessary measure to provide economic stimulus (because remember these tax cuts comprised 55% of the overall budgeted spending for the Recovery Act). But working families already pay rather low taxes. Furthermore, it is ludicrous to propagate a framework that infers a working family’s economic woes can be alleviated by cutting some taxes. These tax cuts will do nothing to help homeowners in distress, or people who are out of work or underemployed. Rather contrarily, the tax cuts have put an excess burden on our federal government to cut spending on the exact social services that would be so helpful to such struggling families.

Namely, unemployment insurance has been put in jeopardy. Many states have no money left to provide this service and are increasingly relying upon the federal government to take responsibility, thus increasing debt/deficit. It must have been really hard for people to foresee that a recession where hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs would result in an increased demand for/reliance upon unemployment insurance. Nonetheless, precipitous complaints about tax burden all throughout the last 30 years continue to yield a tax scheme that famously allowed Warren Buffet to pay less in taxes than his secretary. All along the way though, hope was reserved for the day when facts would trickle in showing the positive economic effect of tax cuts, hope for vindication of conservative ideologies.

Conservative politicians have no shame in continuing to promote the centrality of taxation in their attempts to govern. These promises they sling produce nothing more than a false understanding of how the government effects the economy and how the economy effects individuals, bolstering false hopes of some magical tax rate that will create jobs for all and mark the end of poverty forever. If only the government was smaller, they say. If only it spent less money, if only it collected less taxes, if only it left the markets alone, everything would be better. Taxes oppress freedom, taxes restrict liberty, only markets can be trusted.

The fact remains though, that none of this is true, at least not demonstrably so. Empty promises, when bought wholesale, inflate despot regimes and thus is the story of modern conservative economics. Even when given their clean slate upon which to experiment with an ideological hypothesis, in Chile, Argentina, South Africe, Poland and Russia, free peoples were necessarily silenced as a means to enact the policies necessary. Upon their fruition, after state assets were sold to the lowest, most well-connected bidder, and after markets were made uninhibited by things like wages laws and workplace safety laws, these populations continue to wait for signs that this ideology and its proponents were working in society’s interest. Those signs haven’t come though.

The same story is true in the US. The chorus of the faithful continue to promote the centrality of tax cuts to economic growth, the centrality of deregulation to individual freedom. Less people have been silenced in violent ways, but economic dissent is largely ignored. Even a president’s successful efforts to stop the worst of the insurance industry’s abuses perpetrated on consumers is slandered as apocalyptic, tyrannical and (to put it in ideological terms) socialist. The reality of how those efforts to stop the abuses allowed by the upholding of individual freedom through deregulation will benefit the lives of millions of Americans does not enter into the equation in the mind of ideologues.

So for the rest of this year, Americans will be forced to listen to a re-arbitration of a decades long debate that finally resulted in reform. This upcoming debate however, will be terribly biased and based on an unwavering tendency to inflate pre-conceived notion with sound logical reasoning supported by fact. We’ve seen it in the almost instantaneous reflex by the GOP to assert their position as “Repeal”. They proclaim that Obamacare is ushering in an end to individual freedom, they assert falsehoods about taxes and their effects, all with the hopes of silencing the possibility that government can legislate for the public good. The funny thing about all this health care related freaking out by conservatives is that it rests upon such a wobbly foundation that assumes a democratically enacted piece of legislation, that emerged in direct response to abuses perpetrated by industry, has the ability to usurp the constitution.  Various State Attorney Generals have made very clear that this is their view of health care reform, as is evidence by their attempts to sue the Federal Government to prevent a law from being enforced in their state. Pointless, self-interested or not, this has become the nature of minority-status politics in the 21st century (I refer not to racial or social minorities, but political/institutional minorities, ie the GOP).

My focus upon ideology and its habit of contaminating the political waters, while focused upon the outright hypocrisy and shamelessness of endless tax-cut platforms, extends to liberal ideologies as well. Hell, why attach contrived labels to this discussion, it extends to all ideologies.

I cannot recall a single historical instance of an ideology being infallible. Communism fell. Socialism flounders. Libertarianism went out with electricity. Capitalism implodes economies and takes citizens and governments with it. Don’t even get me started on the ideologies adjacent to theocracy, as they basically can be blamed for every instance of monarchy, empire, and all the other atrocities that mark the pre-enlightenment era and that continue to punctuate modern history.

So what in the world propels otherwise rational beings to submit to the constraints of ideology?

This question plagues me. It has no easy answer, beyond the assumption that ideologies take advantage of some common desire within humans to categorically understand the world around them. But that assumption really doesn’t explain why political ideologies survive so strongly. It explains why scientific endeavors are perpetually undertaken, but that science rests upon an ability to find, classify, reproduce and simulate factual realities. Political ideologies auspiciously rest without that burden of fact.

Let us drop the pretenses within which our political dialog exists. Let us stop prescribing for our future the tired, failed ideas of our past. Let us again raise skepticism of ideologues to the forefront of our national consciousness and propel forward an era of honesty, research and evaluation in our politics.

Did I mention that I loathe the ideologue?