I referred to the idea of this post earlier, and finally found some time to get it out of my system. It is definitely part of the reason I am no longer the liberal I was brought up to be. My college degree is in theology, along with Christian Education. And yes, I studied both conservative and liberal theological ideas. (A lot of the liberal seminaries only teach the liberal views, mentioning conservative views only to mock them.)
At first glance, it might look like there is a sort of spectrum, with Liberal at one end and Conservative at the other, and individual people scattered out all along the line. And it often appears that way. But the real problem is, that "spectrum" is not all Christianity.
Liberal theology began in Europe in the 1700s in the universities and clergy of the state-supported "established" churches (the kind of thing the framers of our Bill of Rights intended to avoid). It was made possible by the institution of the professional clergy--men who made their living from the church and often had no clue how to make a living any other way. And from the very beginning there was an inherent dishonesty at its very core. There have always been people who cease to believe in Christianity; it even happens to pastors and other church leaders. Often such people walk away from the church and find other ways to make a living. I am saddened on behalf of such people, but I do not blame them for what they do; at least they have some integrity left. But those who started and maintained liberal theology left the beliefs of Christianity, and yet stayed in the professional ministry, stayed in the seminary faculties, stayed in the denominational organization--and lived a lie the whole time. In the local church, they used the same vocabulary as true believers but with their own definitions, different from those of historic Christianity. Among themselves, they developed new ideas about the origin of the Bible--all theories spun out of thin air, with no historical evidence to back anything up--and about everything based on the Bible. But they learned to be careful to hide their real beliefs, or lack of them, in public until they gained control. And overall, their beliefs were not the historic doctrines of Christianity.
And gradually, they did gain control of denominations, colleges and seminaries. Francis A. Schaeffer wrote about what had happened in the Northern Presbyterian denomination: In the 1890s, a professor at Union Theological Seminary was "defrocked" (officially put out of the ministry, his ordination revoked) for teaching liberal theology. But by the 1930s, J. Gresham Machen, one of the leading conservative theologians, was defrocked for being a conservative. The liberals had gained control of the denominational organization, and tightened that control after many conservatives left and formed a new Presbyterian body.
By the 1930s, all of what were called the "mainline" Protestant denominations were controlled by those who held to liberal theology. These included the Northern Presbyterians (now called the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. since merging with the Southern Presbyterians), the Episcopal Church, the American Baptists, the United Methodists, the Congregational-Christian Church (result of a merger between the Congregationalists, descended from the New England Puritans, and another group and now part of the United Church of Christ), the Evangelical Lutheran Church (the largest Lutheran body at that time). By the 1950s, a new denomination joined them--the Disciples of Christ, split off from the independent Christian Churches, a loose group with no denominational structure (the liberals proceeded to set one up).
Now, the control is not absolute and complete, especially at the local level. Even in the 1950s, often the members of the congregation were more conservative than their pastors. And individual congregations often were quite conservative and taught historic Christian doctrine locally. And not all pastors were completely liberal. I can remember when Don Wildmon, a Methodist minister, began to speak out on moral issues, he was upset that the press labeled him a "fundamentalist," a term from the '30s. He very likely held some liberal views on the Bible and theology, but was still morally conservative. But such people are now in the minority in these denominations and have little clout beyond the local level.
But what does all this have to do with politics? Well, liberal churchmen and liberal politicians have worked together for the past century in this country. There was a Religious Left long before anyone ever heard of a Religious Right in the '80s. The clergy of the liberal churches pushed for the welfare state from the beginning, and for every liberal cause since. And especially in the early years of the twentieth century, the backing of the pastors and denominations gave credibility to the plans of the liberal politicians.
The question boils down to, if a liberal pastor can stand up and lead his congregation in the Apostles' Creed or other historic statement of faith and not mean it--what does that imply about a liberal politician who is elected to office and takes an oath to uphold the Constitution? Can we trust him, if we can't trust his pastor?
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Why Liberal Policies Don't Work
I was born five years after the end of World War II, and was in high school when Lyndon Johnson announced his "Great Society" and "War on Poverty" plans. Around that time my grandfather retired and started collecting Social Security. But over the years, it seems that many of these ambitious social programs (and economic programs as well) have fallen far short of the promises made when they began. War on Poverty? We lost! We seem to have just as many poor as we did before Johnson declared war on it; they may be the richest "poor" in the world's history, with more consumer goodies and better lifestyle than the middle class had when I was born, but they are still dependent on government handouts. Social Security? The shrinkage in the pool of workers paying the taxes compared to the number of beneficiaries is bringing the world's largest Ponzi scheme to bankruptcy.
But why? As Charley Brown kept asking during baseball season, "How can we lose when we're so sincere?" At the root of these liberal failures is a basic misconception that ruins everything they try to do: liberal policies are based on a view of human nature that is inaccurate and therefore everything they prescribe does not work well in the real world (Remember what I put in my last post--The Real World Always Wins). Liberal policies of all kinds are based on the idea that people--all people--are basically good, and that if we can just eliminate war, poverty and ignorance all will be very well and we can create a Heaven on Earth.
But are all people basically good? Is this true--does what they are saying correspond to what we see in the real world, now and throughout history? I am a lifelong student of history, American, British, European, world, and often less-commonly studied cultures, and I would have to say that this view is not true to the world we live in. In terms of "goodness" human nature has a rather broad spectrum. There are a few people who are in fact very good; a larger number who try to be as good as they can. There are a much larger number who are as good as they think they have to be, and another substantial number who are as bad as they think they can get away with. And there are some people who simply are Evil, and have no intention of changing. And I think a strong case can be made that this description fits the Real World we live in better than the liberal view.
The idea that all people are basically good has been around for a long time, but seldom widely held. Of the American "Founding Fathers" only Thomas Jefferson seemed to express any form of it. It definitely was not held by the men who wrote the Constitution in 1787 (Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France at the time, and was not part of the effort, and was not sure whether he even liked it); that is why the Constitution included all those "checks and balances." It was the "Victorian Optimism" of the 1800s that brought it into style, first in England and Europe, but much later in the U.S.--it did not take hold here until well after the Civil War. It was widely but not universally adopted by the "elites" by the 1920s, but its greatest popularity came in the growth of prosperity after WW2.
But why should this assumption about human nature matter so much? It matters because if one of your basic assumptions is wrong, every thing you try to do based on that assumption will turn out badly. It would be like trying to balance your checkbook or fill out your tax return, when you are absolutely convinced that 2+2=6 (and therefore 4+4=12, and so on--everything you add up, all the way through, is tainted and ruined by that basic misconception).
Looking at the history of the last century alone, this wrong view of human nature is why British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain could not deal effectively with Adolph Hitler in 1938, why FDR could not handle Josef Stalin, why Jimmy Carter could not handle Ayatollah Khomeini. And it is why liberal policies and enactments keep running afoul of "the Law of Unintended Consequences." No matter what they prescribe, it either does not work as they thought it would, or people find ways to game the system or get around their new rules that they did not foresee. All too often, the policy they implement makes things worse instead of better, either by failing to cure the problem or causing new problems worse than the original ones.
The final proof that the liberal view of human nature is wrong is that they do not stick to it consistently themselves. A liberal will act on it, even with enemies of his own country (as Chamberlain tried to do with Hitler). But let a liberal politician run into one of his own countrymen who dares to disagree with him, and he quickly drops the pretense--these opponents are EVIL! He treats them with contempt, tries any dirty trick available to overcome the opposition. He totally drops the "all people are basically good" "schtick" when he meets opposition in his own country, even if he still applies it to the enemies of his country.
In contrast, there is the historic Christian view of man: that man was created good, but having free will, chose to disobey his Creator and has ever since been flawed. The all-out version of this teaching is that man is now flawed in all areas: morally and spiritually, of course, but also physically (the long lives of the earliest patriarchs in Genesis express the idea that man was created to live forever and took a while to decline and die at first--the Babylonians preserved a similar tradition about their ancestors' long lifespans), and intellectually (meaning, nobody is ever as smart as he thinks he is--no matter how many degrees he has) [And yes, this does include me; and sometimes I even remember it...]. This teaching of traditional Christianity is compatible with the spectrum of human nature that does exist in the real world. It is not compatible with the liberal idea of human nature. But it does work in the Real World we actually live in, and the liberal view on human nature does not. And as I said before, no matter how attractive the theory, The Real World Always Wins.
But why? As Charley Brown kept asking during baseball season, "How can we lose when we're so sincere?" At the root of these liberal failures is a basic misconception that ruins everything they try to do: liberal policies are based on a view of human nature that is inaccurate and therefore everything they prescribe does not work well in the real world (Remember what I put in my last post--The Real World Always Wins). Liberal policies of all kinds are based on the idea that people--all people--are basically good, and that if we can just eliminate war, poverty and ignorance all will be very well and we can create a Heaven on Earth.
But are all people basically good? Is this true--does what they are saying correspond to what we see in the real world, now and throughout history? I am a lifelong student of history, American, British, European, world, and often less-commonly studied cultures, and I would have to say that this view is not true to the world we live in. In terms of "goodness" human nature has a rather broad spectrum. There are a few people who are in fact very good; a larger number who try to be as good as they can. There are a much larger number who are as good as they think they have to be, and another substantial number who are as bad as they think they can get away with. And there are some people who simply are Evil, and have no intention of changing. And I think a strong case can be made that this description fits the Real World we live in better than the liberal view.
The idea that all people are basically good has been around for a long time, but seldom widely held. Of the American "Founding Fathers" only Thomas Jefferson seemed to express any form of it. It definitely was not held by the men who wrote the Constitution in 1787 (Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France at the time, and was not part of the effort, and was not sure whether he even liked it); that is why the Constitution included all those "checks and balances." It was the "Victorian Optimism" of the 1800s that brought it into style, first in England and Europe, but much later in the U.S.--it did not take hold here until well after the Civil War. It was widely but not universally adopted by the "elites" by the 1920s, but its greatest popularity came in the growth of prosperity after WW2.
But why should this assumption about human nature matter so much? It matters because if one of your basic assumptions is wrong, every thing you try to do based on that assumption will turn out badly. It would be like trying to balance your checkbook or fill out your tax return, when you are absolutely convinced that 2+2=6 (and therefore 4+4=12, and so on--everything you add up, all the way through, is tainted and ruined by that basic misconception).
Looking at the history of the last century alone, this wrong view of human nature is why British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain could not deal effectively with Adolph Hitler in 1938, why FDR could not handle Josef Stalin, why Jimmy Carter could not handle Ayatollah Khomeini. And it is why liberal policies and enactments keep running afoul of "the Law of Unintended Consequences." No matter what they prescribe, it either does not work as they thought it would, or people find ways to game the system or get around their new rules that they did not foresee. All too often, the policy they implement makes things worse instead of better, either by failing to cure the problem or causing new problems worse than the original ones.
The final proof that the liberal view of human nature is wrong is that they do not stick to it consistently themselves. A liberal will act on it, even with enemies of his own country (as Chamberlain tried to do with Hitler). But let a liberal politician run into one of his own countrymen who dares to disagree with him, and he quickly drops the pretense--these opponents are EVIL! He treats them with contempt, tries any dirty trick available to overcome the opposition. He totally drops the "all people are basically good" "schtick" when he meets opposition in his own country, even if he still applies it to the enemies of his country.
In contrast, there is the historic Christian view of man: that man was created good, but having free will, chose to disobey his Creator and has ever since been flawed. The all-out version of this teaching is that man is now flawed in all areas: morally and spiritually, of course, but also physically (the long lives of the earliest patriarchs in Genesis express the idea that man was created to live forever and took a while to decline and die at first--the Babylonians preserved a similar tradition about their ancestors' long lifespans), and intellectually (meaning, nobody is ever as smart as he thinks he is--no matter how many degrees he has) [And yes, this does include me; and sometimes I even remember it...]. This teaching of traditional Christianity is compatible with the spectrum of human nature that does exist in the real world. It is not compatible with the liberal idea of human nature. But it does work in the Real World we actually live in, and the liberal view on human nature does not. And as I said before, no matter how attractive the theory, The Real World Always Wins.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
One Redneck's Politics, Part 2: A Historical Comparison
I've been having an occasional email discussion with a friend about the political situation lately. My friend is bothered by all the name-calling, noise and general nastiness of the political discourse lately, and would prefer not to accept any label or be too closely associated with either side. I can understand that view, but my knowledge of American history tells me that the vision she has, of people discussing things, disagreeing, but still getting along, has been rather rare in this country. There was a time that the historians call "The Era of Good Feelings" from 1816 to 1824, when partisan bickering was almost minimal; but it did not last. At the best of times, American democracy has a tendency to get messy.
But I do think that the U.S. today is more sharply divided than it has ever been in my lifetime, possibly more divided than at any time since the Civil War. And this time the division is not along any geographic regions, as with the Southern Cotton states and the manufacturing North, but is much more spread out. Even the Red State/Blue State maps of the last few presidential elections do not show the real gravity of the situation: if you look at the first map on this site http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ , you see the electoral vote by states, and it looks like one side controls the coasts, the Great Lakes area, and a few scattered states elsewhere. But farther down the page, there is a map of the electoral results by counties, and the picture changes dramatically; many of the solidly "blue" states turn out to be dominated by a small highly populated area surrounded by a land mass less densely populated--of the opposite opinion. There are no neat geographic dividing lines between Left and Right. Even if we wanted to, we can not just split the land up and go separate ways as the South tried to in 1861. (Reminder: these maps at the link are of the 2008 election results; there is a strong possibility that a map for 2012 will not look as blue.) The South, as a contiguous defined region, had at least some chance of making it as a nation; the Blue cities have no such chance--they are too dependent on the surrounding Red counties to survive without them. The disagreements, which really are fundamental, are going to have to be worked out over time. It may be some states will be divided into two or more new units, as West Virginia, a mountainous region of small towns and small farms, separated from the Virginia of Tidewater plantations during the Civil War. Most of Illinois would likely be happier without Chicago, and much of upstate New York would not really miss New York City. There has even been a proposal voiced to break California up into five states, because of the cultural differences in that state's regions.
So far, the rhetoric, and actual violence, has not been as bad as in the years leading up to the Civil War. In 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was sitting at his desk on the Senate floor, when Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina walked up behind him and started beating Sumner with a cane. He kept it up until the cane broke. Sumner took several years to recover from the beating, and Brooks received donations to pay the fine the court assessed him--and a lot of canes from all over the South to replace his broken one. The territory of Kansas was being settled in this period, and the violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions got so bad it was called "Bleeding Kansas."
But why did these things get out of hand so badly? Overall, there is some case to be made that the South escalated the rhetoric, and later the violence, and the North responded in kind. And the South escalated the rhetoric because they saw they were beginning to lose the long-term struggle. During the early years of the nineteenth century, the Southern states and the Northern states were equal in number; while the North's greater population gave it an advantage in the House of Representatives, the South maintained an equality in the Senate that would allow it to stop any legislation it disliked. In 1820, the "Missouri Compromise" brought in two new states, Missouri (slave) and Maine (free)--the equilibrium was maintained. But as new territories were acquired by the United States in the 1840s, this equilibrium was about to end. Most of the new land would not have been suited to growing cotton, and would likely be settled primarily by anti-slavery people from the North. The South did not really have the population to fill up these new states-to-be. And as their long-term prospects dimmed, the voices in the South got louder, angrier, and more inclined to violence. I am not saying the North was blameless in the march to violence, but I do think the South led the way in starting the rhetoric and in ratcheting it up. And of course, it was the South that first resorted to arms. They did win the battle at Fort Sumter (and quite a few more) but they lost the war.
I also think one of the major factors leading to the Civil War was that too many people in the South, among the leaders and the ordinary citizens, fell into the trap of believing their own propaganda. They had to learn the hard way that their slogan "One Southerner can whip any five Yankees!" was mistaken: Midwestern farm boys turned out to be as tough, man for man, as any Southerner. And that discovery itself pointed out another of their big mistakes: many in the South assumed the Midwest would side with them against the industrial Northeast; they totally underestimated the anti-slavery sentiment among the small farmers of the Midwestern states. (Another change they had not noticed: in the early 1800s, much produce from Ohio and Indiana was shipped down the Mississippi to market, but by 1860 the railroads provided an alternate route to market.) Another mistaken assumption by the South was that the British would come in on their side to keep the flow of cotton going to their factories. As it turned out, many British politicians were inclined to favor the South, but the mass of the British people was so firmly anti-slavery that it would have been political suicide to intervene.
How does this compare to our situation today? I have heard quite a bit of what comes from both sides, and I think the Left is in the position of the South in the late 1840s. The handwriting is on the wall, and they are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people.
In the 1930s the Democrats backed the industrial unions and helped them gain legitimacy; now only six or seven percent of private sector workers belong to unions. Now the main strength of unions is among government employees, but their successes in the past in negotiating lavish pensions and other benefits is threatening to bankrupt cities and states across the country. There was a lot of commotion in Wisconsin earlier this year when a new Republican governor and legislature took steps to curtail union power and benefits; steps in the same direction by the Democrat governor of New York did not attract nearly as much attention.
For many years the public school systems across the country have been a bastion of liberalism. Yet as many have noted, the more tax money is spent on education, the lower the quality of the results. The causes are too many to go into here. But one result is the cracking of the monopoly on education. In the 1920s efforts to shut down the Roman Catholic school systems failed. In the 1980s a new wave of private Christian schools began to appear, followed by the phenomenon of home schooling (my own family was part of this, and our daughter is now teaching her own children). Now charter schools are cropping up all over the landscape, and voucher programs are starting to get past the legal challenges and gain ground. The educators' unions are still fighting, but it is definitely a rear-guard action.
Another albatross around the Democrats' neck is the social welfare programs; people are realizing they cannot be sustained. When Social Security began in the 1930s, there were over 150 people working for each one collecting its benefits; by last year there were three workers per retiree. In the '30s, many who retired at 65 drew benefits for a year or two. My grandfather died in 1973, nine years after retiring. My own father died last year at the age of 90, after 35 years of collecting both Social Security and his pension from Ford Motor Company.
And then there is the regulatory mess. When the Federal government started regulating businesses in the early twentieth century, there was some need for it. But they have kept adding, and adding and adding...the Federal Register shows 81,000 pages of new regulations--just for the past year! Add to that the state government regulations, county and city enactments, zoning boards, and even homeowners' associations that want to tell you what color you can paint your house....A few months ago the President of the US admitted that there hadn't been as many "shovel ready" jobs as expected when Congress passed his stimulus bill. Just this week he voiced concern that we are no longer building great things like the Golden Gate Bridge. Well, they did not have Environmental Impact Statements to file back then! As I mentioned in the last post, it took a year and a half to build the Empire State Building in the early 1930s; a few months ago in an online article, the writer was telling of his co-op association's ten-year effort to get a permit from the city to repair the building they live in.
This is just a sampling. But the point is, whether you call it Progressivism, Liberalism, or just the Democrat Party, it is failing, and a large part of the American people are getting soured on it. And the "Blue States", "liberals" or just "Democrats", whatever you choose to call them, showing signs of getting scared, just as the South did. They cannot bring themselves to admit it, any more than the South could, but they are scared, and they are reacting the same way, by making more noise and getting nastier.
Some may say there is little to choose from in rhetoric between the two sides, but I do not agree. It is one thing to call a politician a "Marxist" or "socialist"--one might argue whether the label is accurate in a particular case, but these are at least terms that indicate a political philosophy by the way, there is a socialist caucus in the US Congress, and a 2009 newsletter from the American Socialist Party claimed it had 70 members--I looked at the list, and a lot of them are still there, and many of them are quite well-known). [I tried to link to Gateway Pundit's post on this, but either the computer or Blogger would not cooperate]. But on Labor Day of this year, Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union, referred to Tea Partiers as "sons of bitches"; President Obama spoke after him, and did not then and has not since done anything to show disapproval of that language. That was not a description of a political philosophy, it was a coarsening and degrading of our political discourse. And, I think, it is a sign of decline and failure of liberalism in this country.
But I do think that the U.S. today is more sharply divided than it has ever been in my lifetime, possibly more divided than at any time since the Civil War. And this time the division is not along any geographic regions, as with the Southern Cotton states and the manufacturing North, but is much more spread out. Even the Red State/Blue State maps of the last few presidential elections do not show the real gravity of the situation: if you look at the first map on this site http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ , you see the electoral vote by states, and it looks like one side controls the coasts, the Great Lakes area, and a few scattered states elsewhere. But farther down the page, there is a map of the electoral results by counties, and the picture changes dramatically; many of the solidly "blue" states turn out to be dominated by a small highly populated area surrounded by a land mass less densely populated--of the opposite opinion. There are no neat geographic dividing lines between Left and Right. Even if we wanted to, we can not just split the land up and go separate ways as the South tried to in 1861. (Reminder: these maps at the link are of the 2008 election results; there is a strong possibility that a map for 2012 will not look as blue.) The South, as a contiguous defined region, had at least some chance of making it as a nation; the Blue cities have no such chance--they are too dependent on the surrounding Red counties to survive without them. The disagreements, which really are fundamental, are going to have to be worked out over time. It may be some states will be divided into two or more new units, as West Virginia, a mountainous region of small towns and small farms, separated from the Virginia of Tidewater plantations during the Civil War. Most of Illinois would likely be happier without Chicago, and much of upstate New York would not really miss New York City. There has even been a proposal voiced to break California up into five states, because of the cultural differences in that state's regions.
So far, the rhetoric, and actual violence, has not been as bad as in the years leading up to the Civil War. In 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was sitting at his desk on the Senate floor, when Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina walked up behind him and started beating Sumner with a cane. He kept it up until the cane broke. Sumner took several years to recover from the beating, and Brooks received donations to pay the fine the court assessed him--and a lot of canes from all over the South to replace his broken one. The territory of Kansas was being settled in this period, and the violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions got so bad it was called "Bleeding Kansas."
But why did these things get out of hand so badly? Overall, there is some case to be made that the South escalated the rhetoric, and later the violence, and the North responded in kind. And the South escalated the rhetoric because they saw they were beginning to lose the long-term struggle. During the early years of the nineteenth century, the Southern states and the Northern states were equal in number; while the North's greater population gave it an advantage in the House of Representatives, the South maintained an equality in the Senate that would allow it to stop any legislation it disliked. In 1820, the "Missouri Compromise" brought in two new states, Missouri (slave) and Maine (free)--the equilibrium was maintained. But as new territories were acquired by the United States in the 1840s, this equilibrium was about to end. Most of the new land would not have been suited to growing cotton, and would likely be settled primarily by anti-slavery people from the North. The South did not really have the population to fill up these new states-to-be. And as their long-term prospects dimmed, the voices in the South got louder, angrier, and more inclined to violence. I am not saying the North was blameless in the march to violence, but I do think the South led the way in starting the rhetoric and in ratcheting it up. And of course, it was the South that first resorted to arms. They did win the battle at Fort Sumter (and quite a few more) but they lost the war.
I also think one of the major factors leading to the Civil War was that too many people in the South, among the leaders and the ordinary citizens, fell into the trap of believing their own propaganda. They had to learn the hard way that their slogan "One Southerner can whip any five Yankees!" was mistaken: Midwestern farm boys turned out to be as tough, man for man, as any Southerner. And that discovery itself pointed out another of their big mistakes: many in the South assumed the Midwest would side with them against the industrial Northeast; they totally underestimated the anti-slavery sentiment among the small farmers of the Midwestern states. (Another change they had not noticed: in the early 1800s, much produce from Ohio and Indiana was shipped down the Mississippi to market, but by 1860 the railroads provided an alternate route to market.) Another mistaken assumption by the South was that the British would come in on their side to keep the flow of cotton going to their factories. As it turned out, many British politicians were inclined to favor the South, but the mass of the British people was so firmly anti-slavery that it would have been political suicide to intervene.
How does this compare to our situation today? I have heard quite a bit of what comes from both sides, and I think the Left is in the position of the South in the late 1840s. The handwriting is on the wall, and they are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people.
In the 1930s the Democrats backed the industrial unions and helped them gain legitimacy; now only six or seven percent of private sector workers belong to unions. Now the main strength of unions is among government employees, but their successes in the past in negotiating lavish pensions and other benefits is threatening to bankrupt cities and states across the country. There was a lot of commotion in Wisconsin earlier this year when a new Republican governor and legislature took steps to curtail union power and benefits; steps in the same direction by the Democrat governor of New York did not attract nearly as much attention.
For many years the public school systems across the country have been a bastion of liberalism. Yet as many have noted, the more tax money is spent on education, the lower the quality of the results. The causes are too many to go into here. But one result is the cracking of the monopoly on education. In the 1920s efforts to shut down the Roman Catholic school systems failed. In the 1980s a new wave of private Christian schools began to appear, followed by the phenomenon of home schooling (my own family was part of this, and our daughter is now teaching her own children). Now charter schools are cropping up all over the landscape, and voucher programs are starting to get past the legal challenges and gain ground. The educators' unions are still fighting, but it is definitely a rear-guard action.
Another albatross around the Democrats' neck is the social welfare programs; people are realizing they cannot be sustained. When Social Security began in the 1930s, there were over 150 people working for each one collecting its benefits; by last year there were three workers per retiree. In the '30s, many who retired at 65 drew benefits for a year or two. My grandfather died in 1973, nine years after retiring. My own father died last year at the age of 90, after 35 years of collecting both Social Security and his pension from Ford Motor Company.
And then there is the regulatory mess. When the Federal government started regulating businesses in the early twentieth century, there was some need for it. But they have kept adding, and adding and adding...the Federal Register shows 81,000 pages of new regulations--just for the past year! Add to that the state government regulations, county and city enactments, zoning boards, and even homeowners' associations that want to tell you what color you can paint your house....A few months ago the President of the US admitted that there hadn't been as many "shovel ready" jobs as expected when Congress passed his stimulus bill. Just this week he voiced concern that we are no longer building great things like the Golden Gate Bridge. Well, they did not have Environmental Impact Statements to file back then! As I mentioned in the last post, it took a year and a half to build the Empire State Building in the early 1930s; a few months ago in an online article, the writer was telling of his co-op association's ten-year effort to get a permit from the city to repair the building they live in.
This is just a sampling. But the point is, whether you call it Progressivism, Liberalism, or just the Democrat Party, it is failing, and a large part of the American people are getting soured on it. And the "Blue States", "liberals" or just "Democrats", whatever you choose to call them, showing signs of getting scared, just as the South did. They cannot bring themselves to admit it, any more than the South could, but they are scared, and they are reacting the same way, by making more noise and getting nastier.
Some may say there is little to choose from in rhetoric between the two sides, but I do not agree. It is one thing to call a politician a "Marxist" or "socialist"--one might argue whether the label is accurate in a particular case, but these are at least terms that indicate a political philosophy by the way, there is a socialist caucus in the US Congress, and a 2009 newsletter from the American Socialist Party claimed it had 70 members--I looked at the list, and a lot of them are still there, and many of them are quite well-known). [I tried to link to Gateway Pundit's post on this, but either the computer or Blogger would not cooperate]. But on Labor Day of this year, Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union, referred to Tea Partiers as "sons of bitches"; President Obama spoke after him, and did not then and has not since done anything to show disapproval of that language. That was not a description of a political philosophy, it was a coarsening and degrading of our political discourse. And, I think, it is a sign of decline and failure of liberalism in this country.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A Modest Proposal
I know I said when I started this blog that I wasn't going to say much about politics. But this particular subject has been on my mind for a while, and it really is sort of bi-partisan--it digs at both parties equally, not just one. So let's run it up the flagpole and have some fun seeing if anybody salutes.
I am a lifelong history buff, and one thing I read years ago, can't even remember where or who wrote it, was that the American Revolution was essentially a quarrel between the American colonists and the "governing class" of Great Britain--the nobility, the professional politicians, the Members of Parliament, and the dregs and shirt-tail relations and castoffs of all the preceding who staffed what bureaucracy the British had at that time. Well, as I look at the current scene, I think there is a quarrel building between the American people and our own home-grown governing class--the politicians, members of Congress, their staffs, the bureaucrats of the various agencies, etc. When you look at the approval ratings for Congress, the indictments and criminal convictions of members of Congress and governors, the proposed laws and regulations that make no sense to ordinary folks, and the rest of what's going on, people in much of the country are getting disgusted with the whole thing. And I have an idea that may not totally fix it, but maybe it would help.
I think it is time for a new U.S. capital. Washington, D.C. was good enough when the whole country was east of the Mississippi, and thinly settled once you got away from the coast; but that situation changed over a century ago. And people in Washington have been getting farther and farther out of touch with the mass of the American people.
I suggest we build a new capital city, say out around where Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri come together. That would be a nice central location. But location in itself is not the whole answer. How do we get from here to there? LET 'EM WALK!!! Really, I do think that! Everybody currently working in Washington for the Federal government should have to walk, or maybe ride a bicycle, to the new capital. They can ship their stuff, but their bodies need the walk; not only will it be good exercise, but it will get them out among the people they serve for a while, and give them a chance to get acquainted again. The ones who've only lived in the big cities need to see just how much open space there still is out here in the heartland, and some of those who write regulations should have to spend the time among the people their regulations affect. Members of the House and Senate should have to start by walking their own state--whatever direction is the longest. It really won't disrupt the operations of government that much--departures can be scheduled so there aren't too many on the road at any one time, and there are such things as cell phones and fax machines to enable keeping in touch (wouldn't do them any harm to find out how spotty cell phone reception can be in the rural parts--or how far it can be to a Starbucks or a WiFi hotspot). And if anybody, especially Representatives and Senators, is too old and decrepit physically to do it (and they're welcome to take all the time they need--the more time among the people, the better) then maybe it is time to step aside and retire. A little fresh blood won't hurt.
And when they get there, let's do things a little differently. Washington wasn't built in a day, nor even a year. So let's only build enough office space for, say, five or ten staff people per member of Congress--to answer the phone and the mail and so on. That means the members of Congress, House and Senate, will have to do their own research and write their own legislation instead of having staffers write it. And speaking of legislation, let's require each Representative and Senator to to write out a copy of every bill, in his own handwriting, and present it before he can vote on it. That will have two results: it will guarantee that they have personally read the bill before they vote on it, and it will force them to keep the laws they vote on short, simple, and uncomplicated. It might also make them think more in terms of getting the other two branches to enforce the existing laws so they don't have to write new ones. It might even keep them busy enough they won't have time for dining with lobbyists, going on junkets, and getting into legal trouble. And anybody who feels too overworked is welcome to go back home and let somebody else try it for a while.
But what about the Fourth Estate, the Press? Let them walk, too. New Yorkers and the media have come up with the expression "fly-over country" to describe where the rest of us live. If any members of the current Washington press corps want press credentials for the new capital city, they should have to take an extended itinerary that meanders through all fifty states--they REALLY need to get back in touch with the people! Come to think of it, that would probably be the best route for the President, too--although I wouldn't blame him if he chose to walk separately from the Press. (As for the New Yorkers, they'd learn a lot more respect for the rest of us if we just quit shipping them food--let them live for a year or so on what they can grow within their own city limits.)
But what do we do with the old capital in Washington? It's got a lot of monuments, and we can turn the old government buildings into museums or tear them down and build any new monuments we'll want on their sites. Most government employees don't live in the city itself anymore; they live in the suburbs, out in Virginia and Maryland. And the people who actually do live in D.C. can have the rest of it themselves--as long as they pay for it themselves--no federal subsidies for anything beyond the monuments and new museums. We'll need that money for the new capital.
One more thing: to keep the new capital from ending up just as bad as the old one, let's require The Walk after every new election, for all elected officials and political appointees, and maybe every three or four years for the career bureaucrats in the agencies. After all, when Washington was first built, they all had to travel there by the conveyances available at that time--horseback, carriage, stagecoach or sailing ship. That helped keep them in touch with ordinary folks; even the early railroads didn't allow much distancing from the population. Cars and planes have done a lot to enable the governing class to insulate themselves off from the governed.
I know this is going to be hard to pull off. Some of it might be possible to accomplish by rules changes and executive orders, other parts might even take Constitutional amendments. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for this to happen, but it's been fun thinking about it. And just maybe, if enough of us did think about it and talk about it, the powers that be might get wind of it and start to take a hint or two.
I am a lifelong history buff, and one thing I read years ago, can't even remember where or who wrote it, was that the American Revolution was essentially a quarrel between the American colonists and the "governing class" of Great Britain--the nobility, the professional politicians, the Members of Parliament, and the dregs and shirt-tail relations and castoffs of all the preceding who staffed what bureaucracy the British had at that time. Well, as I look at the current scene, I think there is a quarrel building between the American people and our own home-grown governing class--the politicians, members of Congress, their staffs, the bureaucrats of the various agencies, etc. When you look at the approval ratings for Congress, the indictments and criminal convictions of members of Congress and governors, the proposed laws and regulations that make no sense to ordinary folks, and the rest of what's going on, people in much of the country are getting disgusted with the whole thing. And I have an idea that may not totally fix it, but maybe it would help.
I think it is time for a new U.S. capital. Washington, D.C. was good enough when the whole country was east of the Mississippi, and thinly settled once you got away from the coast; but that situation changed over a century ago. And people in Washington have been getting farther and farther out of touch with the mass of the American people.
I suggest we build a new capital city, say out around where Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri come together. That would be a nice central location. But location in itself is not the whole answer. How do we get from here to there? LET 'EM WALK!!! Really, I do think that! Everybody currently working in Washington for the Federal government should have to walk, or maybe ride a bicycle, to the new capital. They can ship their stuff, but their bodies need the walk; not only will it be good exercise, but it will get them out among the people they serve for a while, and give them a chance to get acquainted again. The ones who've only lived in the big cities need to see just how much open space there still is out here in the heartland, and some of those who write regulations should have to spend the time among the people their regulations affect. Members of the House and Senate should have to start by walking their own state--whatever direction is the longest. It really won't disrupt the operations of government that much--departures can be scheduled so there aren't too many on the road at any one time, and there are such things as cell phones and fax machines to enable keeping in touch (wouldn't do them any harm to find out how spotty cell phone reception can be in the rural parts--or how far it can be to a Starbucks or a WiFi hotspot). And if anybody, especially Representatives and Senators, is too old and decrepit physically to do it (and they're welcome to take all the time they need--the more time among the people, the better) then maybe it is time to step aside and retire. A little fresh blood won't hurt.
And when they get there, let's do things a little differently. Washington wasn't built in a day, nor even a year. So let's only build enough office space for, say, five or ten staff people per member of Congress--to answer the phone and the mail and so on. That means the members of Congress, House and Senate, will have to do their own research and write their own legislation instead of having staffers write it. And speaking of legislation, let's require each Representative and Senator to to write out a copy of every bill, in his own handwriting, and present it before he can vote on it. That will have two results: it will guarantee that they have personally read the bill before they vote on it, and it will force them to keep the laws they vote on short, simple, and uncomplicated. It might also make them think more in terms of getting the other two branches to enforce the existing laws so they don't have to write new ones. It might even keep them busy enough they won't have time for dining with lobbyists, going on junkets, and getting into legal trouble. And anybody who feels too overworked is welcome to go back home and let somebody else try it for a while.
But what about the Fourth Estate, the Press? Let them walk, too. New Yorkers and the media have come up with the expression "fly-over country" to describe where the rest of us live. If any members of the current Washington press corps want press credentials for the new capital city, they should have to take an extended itinerary that meanders through all fifty states--they REALLY need to get back in touch with the people! Come to think of it, that would probably be the best route for the President, too--although I wouldn't blame him if he chose to walk separately from the Press. (As for the New Yorkers, they'd learn a lot more respect for the rest of us if we just quit shipping them food--let them live for a year or so on what they can grow within their own city limits.)
But what do we do with the old capital in Washington? It's got a lot of monuments, and we can turn the old government buildings into museums or tear them down and build any new monuments we'll want on their sites. Most government employees don't live in the city itself anymore; they live in the suburbs, out in Virginia and Maryland. And the people who actually do live in D.C. can have the rest of it themselves--as long as they pay for it themselves--no federal subsidies for anything beyond the monuments and new museums. We'll need that money for the new capital.
One more thing: to keep the new capital from ending up just as bad as the old one, let's require The Walk after every new election, for all elected officials and political appointees, and maybe every three or four years for the career bureaucrats in the agencies. After all, when Washington was first built, they all had to travel there by the conveyances available at that time--horseback, carriage, stagecoach or sailing ship. That helped keep them in touch with ordinary folks; even the early railroads didn't allow much distancing from the population. Cars and planes have done a lot to enable the governing class to insulate themselves off from the governed.
I know this is going to be hard to pull off. Some of it might be possible to accomplish by rules changes and executive orders, other parts might even take Constitutional amendments. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for this to happen, but it's been fun thinking about it. And just maybe, if enough of us did think about it and talk about it, the powers that be might get wind of it and start to take a hint or two.
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