Page Two: Principle and Patriotism
'We have met the enemy and he is us,' Part II
By Louis Black, Fri., April 30, 2010
Chapter MCCLXXXVII
In which our hero encounters saints and sinners, rulers and the ruled, prognostics and pedants, as well as religious missionaries and atheist proselytizers as fanatical as any fundamentalist. Horses not just long beaten to death but considered disposed of are brought back to be beaten some more. Pigs are flying and bears insisting on pay toilets. Answers without questions, questions without answers.
We the people of this United States have become the biggest problem now facing this country. Too many people find that the most convenient solution to significant problems is to demonize other Americans – "demonize" here meaning to talk of them as though they are deliberately evil and are consciously trying to destroy this country. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because making such claims inherently creates hostile factions.
Leading to a situation in which it is nearly impossible for differing groups to work together, this distrust has become the biggest impediment to good government. Meanwhile, complicated economic, environmental, educational, social, and logistical problems go unaddressed.
I can be accused of demonizing everyone here, but I'm not. Even when I strongly disagree with certain ideas, I don't question people's motivations. Instead, I believe that most Americans are principled and trying to do what they are convinced is the best for this country.
There is process, and there are politics. Process is how the government is constructed and operates. Politics are core beliefs that affect how one feels about social, political, and economic problems.
Americans are always going to have different ideas about how to solve these problems – sometimes even extremely different ones. But regardless of our disagreements, we should be trying to address problems cooperatively.
The main idea of the Constitution is to create a framework for how the people can still govern themselves and move forward, despite differing and deeply held beliefs.
Currently, rather than a discussion of ideas, the air is filled with accusations that opponents are deliberately corrupt crooks, fifth columnists, anti-Americans, ill-motivated capitalists, die-hard communists, and so on. When the primary political focus is not on identifying and solving problems but questioning the motives and loyalties of those with different beliefs, governing degenerates to the (self-declared) good attacking (those who they know are) evil. This creates a political conflict that inherently disempowers constitutional processes.
Following are a number of questions. The numbered ones are genuine questions. The ones marked with letters are disingenuous, as they contain their own answers.
1) First, let's accept the oft-stated premise that almost all elected national politicians are crooks engaged in criminal activities and there is no difference between parties. If that is the case, what can be done? Does anyone really want to see elections in which all the incumbents lose? Wouldn't a federal government whose entire House of Representatives were freshmen take years to get up to speed? Under this scenario, wouldn't the government be run by bureaucrats rather than elected representatives?
Consider: Already many people who run for office accept this premise, essentially campaigning against the party in power, claiming that for the good of the country the opposing party needs to be run out of office. This is usually accompanied by some variant on cutting taxes while both improving and limiting federal services.
Many of those opposed to the government insist that they are good, selfless people that will run the government for all the people and not just corrupt special interests. But if these people come to power, will they be better than those they defeat at the polls?
When a political novice is elected to national office, he or she often soon figures out that the rhetoric that sounded so good during the campaign has little to do with day-to-day governance. Remember a few elections back, when one of the basic issues a number of candidates ran on was their support of term limits? When their time was up, so to speak, some left office, but others didn't. They discovered how the government really operates and realized that term limits sounded good but really made no sense.
2) Is the government corrupt because of some combination of just outright "bad guys," "moral weaknesses," and the consequences of constant "emotional, financial, and personal flattery" by lobbyists? How will newly elected officials overcome that? Is it because they are just such damn better people than those who were previously elected? Aren't many of the candidates running on strict anti-government platforms supported for that general idea rather than specific positions on issues?
3) Given the Constitution's empowerment of all citizens, could it be that some of the pressure that leads many of those in Congress to be so wishy-washy is not from evil, multinational, corrupt puppeteers? Elected officials either try to represent all their constituencies or else stick to the promises they made when they ran. Is the latter better than the former? Is not representing significant portions of your constituents democratically healthier than being a hard-line ideologue?
4) What if the whole good-guy-vs.-bad-guy paradigm is contrived? What if most government officials are trying to work for all citizens, but the conflicting views and enormity of the population make that impossible?
Put another way, many citizens believe the government should do exactly what they want it to almost all of the time. Don't even voters who don't think of themselves as single-issue partisans or advocates of special interests turn on elected officials when they vote the "wrong" way on such controversial issues as abortion, immigration, health care, sending and/or withdrawing troops, as well as on long-established government entitlement programs? Instead of respecting the integrity of an elected official, when it comes to making difficult decisions, don't many voters instantly malign them and their reasoning?
Rhetorical questions:
A) What if the bottom-line problem is that Americans are not willing to pay for the quality of government they want? This is compounded by the general insistence that the government does nothing. If you ask most Americans how they feel about taxes and the government, most would say that taxes are way too high because of criminal corruption and that they would happily see government services cut if it meant their taxes were lowered.
When those cuts directly affect a citizen or a group of citizens, they are outraged: "Cut the fat, don't cut what we want!" in other words. The vast majority of Americans do not pay as much in federal taxes as they get in services from the government. Most are not fully paying for themselves – forget being forced to support their neighbors.
B) Have the Republicans' positioning themselves as the party of "no" served them well politically by fooling the electorate? Many current problems facing this country are the consequence of legislation passed by Bush's Republican-dominated government. By not governing but instead actively blocking the functioning of the legislative process, are Republicans fooling voters into believing that the party is somehow "outside of government"?
C) Consider this crucial idea James Madison presented in the Federalist Papers:
"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."
The current right-wing talking point is that the real prejudice remaining in the United States is against white Christians. Mostly, this is expressed by white Christians. Usually, it is explicitly expressed. They'll say, "The Islamic religion can't be slandered, but there is no action too crude when it comes to Christianity." On top of that, they argue, this is a Christian country and not a secular one. This accompanies a conflicted view held by many dissidents: that most Americans agree with them, while our supposed "representative" government actually is an oppressive dictatorship.
Have white Christians become a persecuted minority (majority)? Does the United States have separation of church and state? Should it? Are evil politicians, ideologues, judges, and lawyers, as well as religious and ethnic minorities, out to corrupt the country, separating it from its constitutional bedrock while actively discriminating against and oppressing whites and Christians?
What if actually trying to keep church and state separate is very difficult? What if it is hard to really decide what goes too far and what doesn't go far enough? What if instead of being a war on Christmas and Christians, a lot of what goes on is a result of trying to uphold the principles of the Constitution?
D) What if rather than being persecuted, this American "majority united by a common interest" is trying to impose its values on the entire country?
One of the basic constitutional ideas has always been that individuals of principle and patriotism would be elected to work together to pass legislation that was in the best interests of the country. Check that one off as now totally gone.