Most conservatives don't believe anymore in the idea of the commonwealth. They believe "freedom" means the freedom to do whatever they want, free from responsibility to help their fellow citizens.
Recently I was discussing the economic crisis in the EU with a Frenchman. He said it's basically OK there, because people still believe in The Social Contract of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was an inspiration to America's Founding Fathers. Here's what old Jack wrote in 1762:
Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms:
"Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."
I agree completely with Lakoff that a budget is, among other things, a moral document. It is not just revenues and outlays. Conservatives are very concerned with personal morality and behavior; but they overlook or downplay the moral role of the State -- not in its directing individuals' personal behavior, but in upholding the common good, preventing abject poverty, defending the weak and infirm, and applying the law equally.
By George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith
August 22, 2012 | Huffington Post
