- But, oh! for Absalom,--
- For his estranged, misguided Absalom,--
-Nathaniel Parker Willis-
What could be more fun that spending a sunny 73 degree Saturday at the County Fairgrounds with hundreds of fellow Hams, looking at equipment, attending seminars on ionospheric science and space weather and browsing the flea market? Perhaps a day free of Obama Derangement Syndrome; a day without having to hear that the roads are so bad in Chicago because "that's where Obama's from." I'd like to be able to discuss APRS without hearing that "Obama turned off Loran-C in order to make us all helpless so that the USSR will have an easier time taking over and making us all Communists. Obama, O-BAHma, OOOOH-Baaaaahma; the braying of asses in the Florida sun.
I'm tired of hearing that Shirtless Joe from Snakeshit Junction doesn't feel safe from Pelosi and the Gummint Gungrabbers with only 10,000 rounds of .223 in his house in the swamp or that "if taxes get any higher we're gonna have to have another revolution." Joe's actually getting a tax break this year, but I guess he's worried to distraction about how Warren Buffet is going to like the extra 2%. He never said a peep about the three trillion dollar war because he supported the troops. He'll never in his life make enough to approach that bracket.
I'm tired of the daily delivery of e-mail lies about health care reform and how everything from the Postal Service to the Pentagon is not only dysfunctional, but Maoist, Trotzkyite, Marxist COMMINISM! I'm fed up with hearing about Obaaaaaaaaaaaahma's plan to import and support illegal aliens at public expense, make Capitalism illegal, turn the schools into brainwashing centers and do away with private property.
Two years ago I watched my mother die, her brain eaten away by disease until she was unrecognizable and recognized no one, and I feel the same way watching my country turn into a pit of bloody, barking dogs tearing themselves apart. Unwilling to be governed and unwilling to participate in government, demanding the lawless freedom of the wild animal and total protection from all harm and all at no cost we howl at the moon. Suspicious and angry of everything and everyone; we're not the patriots who founded a secular, democratic republic and we don't even remember our real history as we brag endlessly about freedom.
No, Jesus was mocked, abused and scorned once again in the streets of Ohio as he's so often been and by the same kind of people -- whether it was in Salem or Selma or Jerusalem or Birmingham, and nobody cares. We brag endlessly and lie constantly about "Christian" values none the less; force Christian oaths on ourselves and demand the tyranny of
What does one do, powerless to stop the mortal decay of our closest kin, whether it's a mother, a father, a son or a country, yet unable to bear the sight of it?
- . . . misguided Absalom,--
- The proud bright being who had burst away
- In all his princely beauty to defy
- The heart that cherished him--for him he poured
- In agony that would not be controlled.
I share your lament, Captain Fogg, but from the other side...
ReplyDeleteThe federal government restricting itself to the enumerated powers (without the grotesquely abused commerce clause and general welfare clause) would put an end to much of this bickering. Or at least push it down to the state and local levels where such controversies rightly should be argued and decided. It's much easier for me to march on Denver than it is to march on DC.
People in Vermont should not have Texas-style government forced upon them. I sure as hell don't want California-Style "solutions" here in Colorado.
We are not a one-size-fits-all nation and the founders never intended us to be. Trying to herd us all together in gargantuan overarching programs is a recipe for continuous anger and arguments.
The news media's 24/7 inflammatory hot needle pokes to the left and right don't help matters any. I caught on years ago that they were making money by keeping us anxious and agitated. I ain't that smart. Why hasn't everyone else caught on?
The US & A is a big place, and there are no doubt regional differences to be reckoned with. But let me ask you in a civil way what your response is to the observation that sometimes what a particular state wants to do to its inhabitants is plain wrong? I mean, it may well be that a majority in, say, Alabama or Mississippi back in the 1950's and 60's wanted "segration now, segregation towmorrow, segregation forever." If one invokes the right of the states to manage their own affairs, what could have been done about that injustice? Aren't there just some wrongs that can't be set right at the local and state levels? In a sense, what I'm asking is, "should black Alabamans have had 'Alabama-style government' forced upon them?" Surely you are aware that "state's rights" has often been a smoke screen for the most vicious elements and conduct in this part of the world, so I would be interested in knowing how you process such a challenge.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense, generally speaking, but I'm sure you agree that using very general terms can be a type of distortion. In my youth "States rights" really meant keeping the government from interfering with the States' interference with voting rights and upholding segregation and other race laws.
ReplyDeleteI support the tenth amendment as much as I support the first, second and third, but I wonder about how little protest there was from the strict constitutionalists when the Court violated Florida's right to count the votes. The appeal to states rights still seems to be very much about getting in the way of freedom.
I don't see health care reforms as necessarily grand and overarching or suited only to certain locations any more than national security or the Federal highway system. Bush's failed effort to privatize Social Security convinced even him that Americans weren't going to give it up and it's important to notice that in the US and abroad, the public in universal health care areas, like Hawaii and San Francisco seem equally as possessive.
So I may agree with you in general, but I don't agree that opposition to changing or regulating our private, monopolistic system of health care is based on Karl Marx or will take away choices or will raise costs, generate death panels and demand mass euthanasia. I think it's unconscionable for corporations who can decide who lives and who dies can make 40% and still think that's so little that they'll raise premiums another 40%. just so that they can spend it on lobbying against oversight.
Sickness and death are a problem common to Texans and Floridians. They're not a local problem. Finally, since local school boards, local county commissioners etc. are demonstrably more prone to corruption, to politicize science, history, rhetoric and literature -- and are more likely to run unopposed and conduct business without scrutiny, it doesn't serve us well to have an impotent Federal Government. We'd be nothing but a loose confederacy of feudal states and speaking either Russian or German by now had such extremism prevailed.
The people I'm talking about here however aren't even making such fine distinctions or informed judgments, they're just programmed to believe that less government is better so no government is the best and will fight you if you mention they've reduced it to absurdity. These are people so convinced that Obama is so intrinsically evil and so radical that no evidence needs to be given and none will be received even when the stories are absurd and self-contradictory. These are people who don't really know if their taxes are going up or down and are all but completely ignorant of American history and current events. Then too, being very, very angry gives one a feeling of importance, of belonging of justification.
Are they aware of the fear mongering? Do they even want to be, when they're having so much fun?
Yes, Yes, Yes...that wonderous last ditch excuse when everything fails. Lets not forget that the group NOW arguing FOR state rights is the same group that YESTERDAY saw as part of the healthcare reform bill the demand for allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines.
ReplyDeleteOr the same bunch that supported the election of Brown in Massechusetts with money even though they could not vote for him.
Or lets take the 30 year old law about handguns in a Chicago Suburb that now has become an issue for the Supreme Court.
Its like blaming 'THE LEFT' for the socialism that they perceive in this country...without once acknowledging that it is 'THE RIGHT' and the corporations that created big government....and it is these same corporations that will not allow government to get smaller.....
But lets attack ACORN....an organization of INDIVIDUALS but lets not mention a thing about the National Rifle Association...
Lets forget about GWB while we demand that Obama not be like GWB...
During GWB administration all the conservatives were focussed on blind obedience to THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF because we are fighting terrorism and promoting democracy throughout the world...
Civil rights and the Florida are two examples where the federal government was right to step in. We are all equal under the law, and a state cannot violate that any more than they can violate your 4th Amendment rights.
ReplyDeleteDidn't the Supremes stand up for that by knocking down a Texas anti-sodomy law?
Just because the Jim Crow South used states rights to violate the human rights of others does not discredit states rights any more than someone running someone down with a car means we should outlaw the automobile.
The constant anger and bickering is a pretty good sign that the federal government has overstepped its bounds. Half of the country is always mad because their guys ain't in power.
If they weren't in every corner of our lives it wouldn't matter so much.
In real life, few big problems ever "solved," especially in one bite, so beware those saying they can. Beware grand schemes and unifying theories.
There was a laundry list of low-cost, common sense ways to improve our health care situation, but the big government types weren't interested.
Here's one quick example: Remove the tax free status from employer provided health insurance. Use the tax to pay for insurance for the poor.
But it's not really about health care, it's about power and control.
Actually no one should have Texas-style government forced on them. The latest from the continuing battle between no-nothing curriculum officials and actual educators in that states textbook battle underscores the need for national standards in curriculum, teacher training and teacher salary and performance standards.
ReplyDeleteLike the rest of the civilized world.
'States rights' and 'local control', camouflage for the tiny minded. And worse yet, props for continued inequities and guarantee of the mediocrity of American education.
Actually no one should have Texas-style government forced on them. The latest from the continuing battle between no-nothing curriculum officials and actual educators in that states textbook battle underscores the need for national standards in curriculum, teacher training and teacher salary and performance standards.
ReplyDeleteLike the rest of the civilized world.
'States rights' and 'local control', camouflage for the tiny minded. And worse yet, props for continued inequities and guarantee of the mediocrity of American education.
Sadly, Arthur the 'tiny minded' make up about 20% of the US population....and they are a real loud mouthy bunch!
ReplyDeleteStupidity loves to make its self heard!
Nothing more embarrassing for a country its when its most stupid citizens parade their stupidity in public with pride.
Oops. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteSF, don't have much time at the moment and will send a better response in the near future, but a few things:
ReplyDelete"If they weren't in every corner of our lives it wouldn't matter so much."
Not at all sure I agree with that premise -- this makes it sound as if we have a genuinely Orwellian overlord government that's constantly prying into every aspect of our private lives. Even post "43," it seems to me that few of us go around constantly peering over our shoulders to make sure the government isn't coming to get us in some way or other. I don't feel that "government" is a lowering, oppressive presence in my daily life. I DO feel that way sometimes, however, about gigantic health insurers and other such entities. I wouldn't mind a spot of "big guv" to help out in such matters, frankly, because nothing works worse in health-insurance than the private co's we have now. They betray capitalism itself (not to mention basic regard for the individual's life and well-being) by their conduct, and they do it all the time.
"Beware grand schemes and unifying theories."
Agreed -- no humanly devised system, I've long said, is or ever will be perfect. The health-care bill is hardly thorough-going enough, however, to invoke the principle underscored here. And the market ideology has failed us quite miserably in this sector -- something the promoters of "the free market" insistently fail to appreciate. Capitalism isn't a perpetual motion machine; it needs adjusting and tending if it is to keep going. I doubt that the current legislation really does anything more than that, and maybe not enough of it.
bloggingdino:
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting a "1984" scenario. By every corner of life, I mentioned flush toilet regulation and outlawing the incandescent bulb as two examples.
I'm not suggesting anyone in government is evil, just misguided:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-- C.S. Lewis
ArthurStone proves my point. He wants the federal government to step in and tell those "no-nothings" down in Texas what to do with their school curriculum.
ReplyDeleteNow, imagine a Republican President and congress telling those "Know Nothing" liberals in Michigan, California and elsewhere to stop teaching global warming fantasies or they will pull federal funding.
That is the flaw in your argument.
I believe Arthurstone refers to the fact that the know-nothings in Texas who kicked Thomas Jefferson out of their history books have an undeserved influence over what every text book on history in the US will have or not have.
ReplyDeleteThat's states' rights being imposed on other states.
Why should what Texas wants in their history books be forced on say, what Massachusetts wants?
That's tyranny of the statists.
Silverfiddle-
ReplyDeleteRighteo.
I do want the federal government to set national standards in curriculum, teacher training and the like. Just like we have national standards for clean air, workplace safety and water quality there are solutions to many of our problems which work best when applied nationally.
The idea that our government is
a.) Inherently evil
&
b.) Is expected to attend to ALL a person's needs and mitigate all risk
are simplifications which have been so over exaggerated by the right side of the political spectrum that the arguments are almost meaningless. And people are wise to that simple fact. For that reason any future Republican administration will never, ever do as you describe in your flight of fantasy. Unless of course tea-baggers take over the government by force.
Government misguided?
No more so than the 'markets'.
"Civil rights and the Florida are two examples where the federal government was right to step in. We are all equal under the law, and a state cannot violate that any more than they can violate your 4th Amendment rights."
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong, but the election of electors is a power reserved for the states and that's why every constitutional scholar I've read seems to think it was an illegal decision. At the same time the court ruled that citizens don't have the constitutional right to vote for president. There's an odor about this event.
"Beware grand schemes and unifying theories."
Absolutely! I warn against simplified arguments or arguments backed up only by a grand but vague theory - like small government is always better. These are all part of the same distortion. Dicto Simpliciter I think they used to call it back in the middle ages when I went to school.
Taken towards absurdity, the argument that federal control over curricula, is bad because it's federal and somehow a violation of states rights, can easily lead you to defend the indefensible, so beware the weakness in the argument. What if Texas decided to teach that Catholics are evil and must be driven out of the country? What if their schools began to push for secession from the Union?
There is a point at which someone must step in and when dangerous lies are being taught by a state we have to stop being so hide-bound if we don't want to be accused of supporting lies from a sense of principle.
What if schools now taught these things and the federal government did nothing? Then who steps in? That is the problem with your argument.
ReplyDeleteIn the mid 60's the federal government passed a NCLB type law, increasing federal involvement in our schools. In the late 70's they stood up the department of education. A straight line to hell can be drawn from the 60's through that late 70's date up to now. Everybody gets and A and we fall further behind the rest of the world.
As federal government involvement has increased, performance has gone down.
BTW, I don't hate government... "Necessary evil" I think is the more appropriate term, I think.
I just want it to stay withing its enumerated powers. We are dangerously close to rule by fiat, and I am pointing a bipartisan finger.
"What if schools now taught these things and the federal government did nothing? Then who steps in? That is the problem with your argument."
ReplyDeleteSF, you haven't identified a problem here. We all know that there's no extra outside force one can invoke to settle such a situation -- the point is that unless "the people" (through government) decide it's not okay to teach Fred Flintstone-style creationism in the public schools rather than science, etc., there really isn't any way to prevent the disintegration of the country into isolated groups of ignorant fanatics who will then, of course, absolutely FORCE the rest of us to say we believe as they do, to the point of burning all the books that say they're wrong and possibly even the people who say they're wrong. Ignorant lunatics cannot participate productively in civic culture because they recognize no rights vested in others.
I think we should promote a common culture at least to a limited extent while still honoring rational differences of opinion -- a culture, for example, that says the Fred Flintstone theory must not replace scientific inquiry and that to substitute it for such inquiry in the public schools is CHILD ABUSE because it warps the minds of innocent, impressionable youngsters, teaching them to fear rational thought and instead to embrace barbaric, medieval stupidity. I don't think we need to be able to invoke some metaphysical absolute here to be able to see any of this -- life just isn't like that. We just have to make decisions by our best lights as common citizens, that's all. When we consistently fail to do that, our democracy will probably end, and I can't say we won't deserve the loss at that point.
By the way, not so sure I buy the whole "DOE ruined education" argument -- our culture as a whole sure doesn't seem to value education much, which is why so much of our population believes utterly irrational and ridiculous nonsense and needs to be talked to like troublesome little children.
Somebody else brought up the "what if they teach this..." argument. Not me.
ReplyDelete"I think we should promote a common culture"
Whose "common culture?" And who decides?
I guess I'm not making my point. My point is that the federal government must confine itself to the enumerated powers in the constitution that The People and The Several States dictated to it.
If Colorado goes off the rails and outlaws Catholicism or driving a Prius, people will leave and go somewhere else.
Florida could decree itself a retirement state and refuse to fund schools. Private schools would open up or people with kids would more. Eventually, all the retirees would die off and maybe some young people would move in and change the laws.
It's a constitutional libertarian argument I'm making, but anyway, this thread is dead...
dino, as someone who lives in Alabama I can put it in a more contemporary context: we do means testing for Medicaid here, and owning a car or a house is grounds for denial. The state always does. Which is why out of four million Alabamians, some 700,000 have no access to insurance coverage -- through a job OR the state.
ReplyDeleteI'm not okay with that.
I have only one problem with this post: leftists are "radical." Right-wingers are reactionary.
It will never be dead and the pendulum will oscillate, but I do appreciate you making this a debate and not a volcano of anger which is the usual and unfortunate case when people disagree. The only good way to separate our reasoning from our emotions is by debate and that's all we're doing here.
ReplyDeleteAgain, if you're still listening, the argument you make about people leaving one state because of an unhealthy legal system has occurred. One example is the exodus to northern cities by people driven out by Jim Crow laws. Such things Balkanize America and aid the growing movement for civil war - something I really worry about.
Such an approach also fails to address the suffering of people forced to travel about and look for a State that seems a good compromise. Whether my examples of convenience are right or wrong, I still think it's possible to end up supporting something bad by sticking to principle. I suspect that recognizing this, Libertarians and Liberals alike are forced sometimes
to resort to situational ethics and compromise our grand Utopian visions and will allow Federal Air Traffic Control, and a Federal FDA which were not discussed at the Constitutional Convention.
This is not a personal attack, and I don't know how you feel about the Bush years, but we didn't get much talk - enough talk - about enumerated powers when the Executive branch took it upon itself to severely abridge civil rights and the Constitution was supposed to prevent the President from going to war all by himself, wasn't it? I'm libertarian enough to side against the Feds on these and many other issues, but our educational system was on the decline well before Bush slithered out of college. I think there are too many factors, including the cultural, to blame it all on one.
I'm quite sure we're on the same side of many arguments about arbitrary Federal power, but there are limits on the behavior of states, not envisioned in 1789 that can only be enforced by the Feds with respect to some vague language about the rights of man and there are limits on corporations acting in interstate commerce, such as by regulating the health care industry than can only be addressed by the Feds and such power is, I believe, enumerated. That's what the current health care bill does.
Pressed for time, I've only skimmed this discussion, but would like to leave an apropos comment.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently reading Janine Wedel's book, Shadow Elite: How The World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and The Free Market and recommend it to all (if you have strong stomachs -- because it may make you sick).
Wedel documents a steady erosion of our federal government in the past 30 years or so, and the misguided practice of increasing privatization of government functions (by outsourcing them to various contractors). She shows how this leads to catastrophic decisions with no accountability and bleeds us all dry.
It becomes clear that, if we are to survive and prosper, we need stronger, not weaker, federal government, and one that observes clear demarcation lines between its functions and those of private contractors. (She is not optimistic on this count.)
Here is an excerpt:
In the United States, (...) the practice of railing against "big government" in fact leads to the creation of still bigger government -- and of a less accountable sort. That is because, while federal government was officially contained in size -- as measured in terms of civil servants and others employed directly by government -- "shadow government" was getting even bigger. (...) Its ranks include all manner of consultants, companies, and NGOs, not to mention entire bastions of outsourcing -- neighborhoods whose high-rises house an army of contractors and "Beltway Bandits." Largely out of sight except to Washington-area dwellers, contractors and the companies they work for do not appear in government phone books. They are not dragged before congressional committees for hostile questioning. They function with less visibility and scrutiny than government employees would face. Most important, they are not counted as government employees, and so the fiction of limited government can be upheld, while the reality is that of an expanding sprawl of entities that are the government in practice. (pp.30-31)
AH - I hope some of our conservative friends read that. I don't think that the privatizing of government, despite the old saw about checks and balances in the private sector, does anything but raise expenses and foster corruption.
ReplyDeleteOh and Silverfiddle, if you're still here - and I hope you are - I forgot to address the flush toilet and incandescent bulb thing.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it bothers me too that the Feds will get involved in building codes, but then for a good part of the country, water comes from sources shared by several states and electricity is shared by the entire continental grid, so without federal regulation, any state can grab or waste what it can get away with.
Short of having the California and Texas national guards go to war, what do we do? Do we let it all go to hell because of some principle that needs to be upheld regardless of reality?
I understand your concerns about states rights, but it's a different era now. People can't hide nefarious activities like before.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've already stated that just because a valid concept like states right has been used for evil does not invalidate it. (Ban the automobile?)
The Federal Government has responsibilities under Article 1, Section 8 of The Constitution, and I fully support that. I'm a veteran, after all! The examples you cite are legitimate functions that fall under the interstate commerce clause.
I accept full blame for giving President Bush a free ride (and have written several blog posts very critical of his policies). I was a flag waving conservative eight years ago. Now I'm more of a flag waving libertarian. I now understand the difference between allegiance to my country and allegiance to a mere political party and whoever its hero is at the time. I'm in my 40's but still learning.
I understand your shared ideals argument, but the trick is how to we get everyone to share? That's a sincere question, not a sarcasm. We have the country split down the middle, each side wanting to give the other a beatdown and make them STFU.
We are in an age of hyper-choice. Google and Amazon give you an individually tailored shopping experience.
Who cares about what some old men put on the top 40 play list? We've all got iPods! Many movies gain popularity and make money going straight to video. We live in a world now where there is so much choice at the personal level.
One-size-fits-all does not work, and we are not cattle to herded this way and that.
Capt Fogg,
ReplyDeleteEvery issue and question you raise is valid. These are not easy issues. If they were, they would have been decided by now and we could all just sit down together, drink beer and fish!
I simply believe that the pendulum has swung too far in the wrong direction.
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
-- Thomas Jefferson
He also said this:
"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare....
[G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless."
It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
Another quote...
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions."
-- James Madison, "Letter to Edmund Pendleton,"
Sadly, we are already there...
Elizabeth: I am also sympathetic to your argument, but bigger is not necessarily better.
ReplyDeleteIf we had the expertise in government we wouldn't need the contractors.
And some things are simply cheaper to contract out.
The real problem is the sleazy embrace between DC politicians and Wall Street.
Church and state? There should be a wall of separation between big business and state.
I am pressed for time but would like to add some quick thoughts to this comment thread.
ReplyDeleteOften, we forget that our political debates have a moral dimension. For instance, if we talk about efficiency in government, it may be appropriate to outsource certain business functions of government such as IT where more expertise is available on the outside or where certain facilities in the private sector may be more cost effective than in the public sector.
However, certain functions of government have a moral purpose that cannot be outsourced. Clean air and water is a moral issue. Consumer protection is a moral issue. Healthcare is a moral issue. Social security is a moral issue. Our most strenuous public debates focus on moral issues that can only be corrected by government pursuant to the spirit and letter of the Constitution. When we see abuses in the system, we seek public solutions (in contrast to the private sector where the profit motive is almost always the cause of a systemic abuse).
While some of us may distrust and fear government (rightfully so depending upon the issue), there are also some of us who see government as the only solution (rightfully so when greed and corruption threatens the healthy, safety and welfare of its citizens). Whether government our enemy or our friend depends on the issue, the stakeholder, and the beholder. I regard myself as a Euro-socialist, so you know where my sentiments lie.
Bigger is not necessarily better
ReplyDeleteTrue. But it's also true that we've gotten into an ugly habit of outsourcing things that should not be done by private contractors and for which the government does indeed have (or should have, if things were run properly) expertise.
Read Wedel's book -- I think you'd like it. It's eye-opening, in a very unpleasant way.
SF,
ReplyDeleteRegarding the "common culture" ideal, there's no doubt that one must handle the concept with care. Overzealous promotion of such an ideal can be deadly. (Burke and Wollstonecraft's back-and-forth on it during the French-Rev Era is illuminating, no?) However, to give up on it altogether because it cannot be finally and precisely defined is, I think, to give up on the project of civilization itself -- all I'm talking about, really, is humaneness and a disposition to listen from time to time to "the still sad music of humanity." And where present arrangements don't allow us to make what is wrong at least somewhat more right, there's a need for an organized response. Often, that's going to be a governmental response.
Cheers, and thanks for your thoughtful words.
Can't resist (and shoulda said that above):
ReplyDeleteSmaller is not necessarily better, either, yanno.
Finding the Golden Mean. Thousands of years later and we're still trying...
ReplyDeleteAs we witnessed during last week's HCR debate, there was nothing golden about the mean.
ReplyDelete