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Via Matthew Yglesias, it seems the latest GOP effort to reinvent the language of the debate over Social Security is to move away from "Social Security Privatization" and "Social Security Choice" to, get this....

Social Security Personalization

Yglesias makes an excellent point about "personalization" that I'd like to elaborate on - that in the one are where it's been tried extensively, and from where no doubt it has been borrowed - it has by and large failed: Internet development.

When I worked at AOL back in the mid 1990's, personalization became perhaps the biggest fad of all of the fads that swept through the industry. It was, everyone believed without even the slightest hint of a doubt, the holy grail of content development. It was going to change everything, revolutionizing not just the economy but society itself. The theory was, if people were given the option of personalizing the way they collected and used information they would seize it, unleashing the power of information in ways previously unimaginable.

And so we worked hard, night and day, to create a service that allowed people to "personalize" their experience. But pretty quickly we ran into a problem none of us had foreseen. People didn't care. Or to be more clear, people cared - they thought it was a brilliant idea in fact - they just didn't bother to use it. Why?

Simple: Time. It might be more convenient down the road if the spent a few hours personalizing all the sites they used. Even our users recognized that. The problem was to get those benefits you had to make a fairly significant investment of time upfront. And then, as new features were added and as old ones were changed, they had to continue their investment. So, when given the choice between using a service that worked perfectly fine the way it was and spending hours "personalizing" it to make it "better", people invariably chose to use the service as is. Because it worked perfectly fine. Personalization, quite simply, wasn't worth the effort.

Which make me wonder...

If we did "personalize" the Social Security system, how many people would really use the option?

The answer, I suppose, depends on how people feel about Social Security itself. If as the GOP hopes, the people can be convinced that a crisis exists when it actually does not, my guess is there'd be a huge rush of people into the new system. If, however, the Dems can succeed in explaining to people that the crisis quite simply does not exist, then I would be willing to bet most would leave their contributions in the current system.

That of course highlights the nature of this debate. If people can be convinced this phony crisis is for real, they'll scare themselves into supporting a new system, one in which they 'll spend more time managing their money to receive at best the same return they're receiving now. If they can be shown that there is no crisis, they'll keep the current system and be perfectly content to do so, free to use their time in any way they see fit. In a weird way, if the GOP has their way, they'll force me to spend what little free time I have left on something I don't need nor want to spend it on!

How's that for a spin on "personalization"?

If Social Security were truly in a crisis I'd be at the head of the line calling for reform. But its not. It is, like so many other things to come out of this administration, a lie purposely designed to hide the truth. This isn't about increasing retirement security. This is about dismantling the welfare state. But if that were the argument they know they would lose in a rout, and so the lies must be spun.

Personalization has a powerful appeal, and to be honest its a slick move for the GOP to use that as its new mantra. But just because you can personalize something doesn't mean you should. Sometimes things work better when we work together. Sometimes things can be individualized too much. Sometimes there is security in coming together in society.

Social Security has quite literally lifted millions of elderly citizens out of poverty since its inception. Even today roughly half of all seniors in this nation would fall into poverty were it not for their Social Security benefits. That's a fact that comes straight from the Social Security Administration itself. This system has done wonders for the health and welfare of hundreds of millions of Americans. And because it doesn't fit with their conception of government, the GOP wants to see it destroyed, and they'll spin whatever lies are necessary to make that happen.

Meanwhile, while we're arguing, 12% of this nation remains below the poverty line. 16% of all children live in poverty, with over 37% living in "low income" families. And for the first time in over a decade, for the first time since the last time a Republican named Bush was in office, those numbers are rising.

But are we planning on fixing this? Are we planning on having a national debate about how we can help the people who need our help the most? Of course not. Instead we're going to spend a year arguing about ways to solve a crisis that just doesn't exist. No doubt it will make for exciting political theatre. No doubt. Meanwhile, millions of our fellow citizens will continue to suffer in silence. Remind me again what part of Bush's conservatism is "compassionate"?

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