viewsfromthebig sky

The Real Story

I had planned to write about Donald Trump* today, because with all the attention paid to his absurd "birther" bloviations,^ no one ever seems to mention that what Trump and his ilk are accusing the President of would be, if true, a felonious conspiracy, a nonviolent coup d'etat that might actually rise to the level of treason. It shouldn't be written off as a fringe fixation or a sideshow; it's about as serious an allegation as one could make, on a par with claiming that a President is guilty of, say, war crimes.

However, my attention was caught this morning by an Associated Press article headed "Obama's Health Care Aid to Small Firms Disappoints." The article begins thus:

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. But a health insurance tax credit for small businesses [included in the Obamacare legislation] has turned out to be a disappointment."

The article goes on to explain that the tax credit--which, in a misty bygone era, had bipartisan support--has proven to be too "time-consuming" and not large enough for the intended beneficiaries to bother with. Worse, it's targeted at the very smallest employers (10 employees or less) and in particular at those who pay the lowest wages; which means that a conscientious businessman who pays decent wages doesn't qualify for the tax credit.. The latest available figures show that only 170,000 firms--out of perhaps 4 million that are eligible--have so far received the credit, and the average credit allowed has been $2700. "170,000 firms" (representing close to a million employees) isn't nothing, of course, especially since that number includes only the first year following the passage of Obamacare; nevertheless, it does seem an underwhelming response.

The Associated Press presents this in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way, but I was curious: how "time-consuming" is it to apply for a $2700 (on average) credit? According to the article, it takes tax preparers anywhere from 5 to 13 hours to fill out the necessary paperwork, and darned if that doesn't sound like a lot of time.** On the other hand, divide $2700 by either 5 (minimum time required) or 13 (maximum time required): based on the AP's own data, an employer claiming the tax credit would get a return of anywhere from $200 to $500 per hour of preparation time. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound so "time-consuming" after all.

While the article focuses on the supposedly misguided good intentions of the tax credit, it also points to the political division in which it's embroiled. Advocates of Obamacare say that the credit just needs to be "tweaked" in order to fix its shortcomings; opponents^^ say that it, and the entire bill, needs to be eliminated--it's just too hopelessly cumbersome to be fixed. The National Federation of Independent Businesses (the nation's largest association of the kind of small firms the tax credit is designed to help) is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit which has been brought against the Affordable Care Act, while a rival group--Small Business Majority--supports the law.

Interestingly, buried in the middle of the article is a quotation from the head of that Small Business Majority, a gentleman named John Arensmeyer: "The problem is all the negative publicity around the health care law has discouraged business owners from applying for the credit." You think? Is it possible that employers, besieged by misinformation about Obamacare and uncertain***whether the law will stand up to legal challenge, have held off implementing its provisions and even applying for its tax credits? It probably doesn't help that the tax credit in question is scheduled to expire in 2016, and that Republicans are adamantly refusing to help "fix" it, much less extend it.

The Obamacare small business tax credit is a great example of two very different things. First, it's an example of the undisputed fact that almost any piece of legislation will need tweaking, adjusting, and revising after the fact; legislators with the best intentions in the world won't get a bill exactly right in every detail, and will need to make necessary changes and improvements based on the law's actual (as opposed to "intended") effects. Second, it's an example of how, in the current political climate, even a "fixable" component of a piece of legislation is unlikely to get the simple repair(s) that would make it work better; partisan opponents would rather ditch the component and even the entire bill than try to find ways to make it work.

In short--and the Associated Press article doesn't tell you this--a "working" Affordable Care Act is not in the Republican Party's best interests; at least, that's been their calculation, one that I doubt it took them anywhere close to 5 to 13 hours to make. That, I think, is the real story here.

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*Who confided last night to Greta Van Susteren, "As you know, I have a very large Twitter." Ms. Van Susteren is a professional journalist; she kept a straight face and didn't take the bait.

^George Will gets credit for that one.

**Because the tax credit is a new provision, the forms aren't yet included in most tax preparation software; once that's done, preparation time should be drastically reduced.

^^Some of whom, surprise, originally supported it.

***I knew it! "Uncertainty" rears its ugly head once again, this time for good reason.

Breaking News: Sarah Palin Says "Life Is Hard"!

Never one to shy from controversy, Sarah Palin boldly asserts (in Chapter Six of America by Heart) that life is hard and "nothing worthwhile comes without effort". You have to "take things one step, and one day, at a time." Drawing on her own experience of training for, and running, a marathon,* Ms. Palin advises that "Most of the time, you're alone. It's just you out there. But it's in those times--when no one's looking, when no one's cheering you on--that your character is revealed....that's when you show what you're made of. That's when you discover the hidden reservoir of strength you can draw upon to endure and finish well. Some call it spirituality. Others call it personal resolve. Whatever you call it,^ I believe it resides in all of us. And when we need it most, it will be there."

Having stunned the reader with this unprecedented insight, Sarah then bravely speaks truth to power and defies the prevailing wisdom of our age. These days, she says, "we try too hard...to substitute this inner strength with empty praise. Everyone's** into building their kids' self-esteem...we may think we're helping them, but really we're holding them back. In fact, we may be creating a generation of entitled little whiners."^^ She goes on to warn that "Our failure to instill the virtues of hard work and deferred gratification does a disservice to all our kids..." Granting her premise--for which she supplies not one iota of documentation--her conclusion is surely correct: coddled and spoiled children aren't well-prepared for life's realities (unless they have trust funds).

The question is (again, granting the premise), Who's to blame for this sorry state of affairs, this incipient nation of entitled little whiners? Ms. Palin identifies two particular culprits: the movie American Beauty ("Message: 'hard work is for suckers and brainwashed, brain-dead drones.'") and President Barack Obama, who "seem[s] to think that the purpose of government--the purpose of America--isn't to promise equal opportunity but to produce equal outcomes." "Spreading the wealth" is the fiendish policy that Obama advocates--"government taking from some and giving to others."*** "The problem with this plan," explains the former losing candidate for Vice-President, "is that Americans don't think it's...well, American." The evidence for this is--what, the 53% voter majority that wealth-spreading candidate Obama received in 2008? I wouldn't know; Sarah doesn't supply any other evidence for her claim. Maybe in her particular vernacular, "Americans" simply means "Americans who agree with me".

Going against the zeitgeist is a tough row to hoe, but someone has to hoe it. "Above all, what Todd and I want for all our children is happiness. We know that that means they're going to have to work hard, and we're trying to prepare them for lives that will consist of moments of both success and failure...But in this endeavor, we are working against a significant headwind." That headwind is the result of Washington politicians who spew hot air in the form of "promises of a free lunch..." Worse, "There is narcissism in our leaders in Washington today.^^^ There's a quasi-religious feeling to the message coming from them. They are trying to convince us that not only are they our saviors, but that we are our saviors--not hard work, not accomplishment, just 'believing in ourselves' and what we can accomplish together through government." And, not surprisingly, Barack Obama put this quasi-religious notion into words when he said, "We are the ones we've been waiting for, we are the change that we seek."

A reader can scarcely contain his or her indignation. How dare the President suggest that "we" should not be waiting for others to save us or to change the world, but that "we" should take responsibility for change ourselves? How dare he encourage us to believe in ourselves and "what we can accomplish together"? How dare he say--okay, he didn't say it, but we know he meant it--that success doesn't require hard work or actual accomplishments, just empty rhetoric and the magic of belief?

Sarah Palin won't stand for it. Instead, she insists, "I believe in a humbler, less self-involved America. I believe in that simple, commonsense wisdom that has come down to us through the ages: Everything that is worthwhile comes through effort. There is no free lunch." And that simple, commonsense wisdom, my friends, is what makes Sarah Palin so very special.****

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* "It was hellish and brutal," Ms. Palin admits; "it just hurt so bad." Sarah's a gamer, with lipstick.

^I'm tempted to call it "horse puckey," just to be flippant, but even I cannot deny the truth of Sarah's inspired message: life requires effort, and we need to dig down deep.

**"Everyone," that is, other than Ms. Palin and, one assumes, her many admirers and fans. And since she claims to speak for "ordinary Americans" against "out of touch Washington elites"--why would she then accuse those same Americans of spoiling their kids and undermining their work ethic? Is she insinuating that Joe the Plumber doesn't work hard?

^^Again, when Sarah says "we" in this passage, she doesn't mean herself; she makes it quite clear in this chapter that she and Todd know better and are instilling proper values in their children. (By the way, "Entitled Little Whiners" is a great name for a band.)

***Or, as some call it, "taxation". Any tax is a "redistribution of wealth"; if it weren't, why would the government impose a tax in the first place?

^^^That's odd. There's never been narcissism in our leaders before.

****That, plus her ability to quote--straight-facedly and without a hint of irony or awareness-- Theodore Roosevelt (who, Ms. Palin writes, "captured [America's] spirit of greatness and grit") on "what is most American about the American character," in the midst of a book in which she criticizes every single policy or policy proposal (from the federal income tax to Planned Parenthood) that was ever associated with the Progressive political movement for which Roosevelt was both a spokesperson and a candidate. Her blithe ahistoricism--or her chutzpah--is breathtaking.

Poem: "Your Bar Dream"

A change of pace for today--I promise I'll get back to Sarah Palin tomorrow. But here's my latest poem; thanks to Zan and Ann Marie for comments and suggestions (I didn't ignore them all).

Your Bar Dream

You walk in thirsty but the taps are all dry.

The bartender calls you Gramps. The pretty

girl down the bar won't look your way, won't

even let you buy her a drink. You can't blame her:

the bottled beer is all from back east, the whiskey

tastes like the worst day of your life, the wine

comes in a cardboard box with a picture of a guy

who looks like Pancho Villa. You order ginger ale

& find a table. The jukebox here went bust ages ago:

platters still drop & spin but no sound emerges, dust

& grime obscure the names of singers you can't hear.

A moose head on the wall scowls down at you

as if you're somehow responsible--for his fate,

for this bar, for something. You give him the finger.

 

The bartender & the pretty girl smile knowingly

behind your back, they have secrets you can't begin

to imagine. You sip your ginger ale & wish

for the sound of a passing train, a dog barking,

a Harley roaring into the lot, a scream--anything.

You scrape your chair back from the table

just to break the silence. Gramps, the bartender

says, Last call. You should have seen it coming.

You toss your life savings onto the bar,

the pretty girl smiles & pockets the cash.

You head for the door but you know you won't

be leaving. You reach for the knob & it comes

off in your hand just as the jukebox kicks in

with some Captain & Tenille disaster & the taps

begin to dispense the coldest beer you'll never taste.

Sarah Palin: Mama Grizzly With Lipstick

In a chapter (from America by Heart) mercifully interrrupted by almost twenty pages of very lovely color photographs, Sarah Palin explains "The Rise of the Mama Grizzlies," of whom she is undoubtedly one. Mama grizzlies are "tough, serious, formidable women" and "strong, confident American women"; they are "small-government, low-tax, pro-energy" types as well as "pro-family commonsense constitutional conservatives".* Mostly, they are "smart, capable women who also believe in the Constitution, the sanctity of life, and American exceptionalism". And if you're a liberal, you'd best watch out, because the mama grizzlies are on the prowl, and you're their intended target. They want their country back!

It's unquestionably good to remind people that, just as not all African-Americans are card-carrying liberals, neither are all self-described feminists. Strong, empowered, independent women are as diverse in their social and political views as any other demographic segment of the population, and they always have been; the likes of Ayn Rand and Phyllis Schlafly on the political right out to have tipped us to this long ago. But for those who weren't already aware, Sarah Palin does a public service in pointing it out, and if she wants to claim to be the true inheritor of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Caroline Nichols Churchill, and Laura Ingalls Wilder in the process, I for one am not about to argue the point.

I don't, however, think that Ms. Palin needs to take a swipe at Hillary Clinton (whom she professes to"like and admire personally in many ways") in the process, nor does she need to pile on in the recent demonization of Margaret Sanger ("a thoroughgoing racist" and "a believer in Nazi-style eugenics").^ And finally, if she wants to reference Frederick Jackson Turner and his thesis that "the frontier was the most important factor in shaping the American character and making ours an exceptional nation," she ought at least to show some awareness (a) that the thrust of Turner's thesis, far from being a celebration, was his concern that the "closing" of the American frontier, circa the late 19th century, would create serious dilemmas for a nation steeped in the frontier ethos; and (b) that many historians have since dismissed Turner's work as simplistic. To cite Turner's work as evidence that America is "freer, more democratic, and less focused on class differences" than other nations, and that "we tend to move around and change jobs and careers more frequently than people in other countries...It's in our DNA...it's a birthright shared by all Americans,"** is to rely a bit too heavily on a dated and suspect source. I know that Sarah is a frontier gal from Alaska, but still...

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*It's not enough these days to be politically "conservative"; you have to be a "commonsense constitutional conservative" with strong "pro-life" and "pro-gun" credentials. It's hard to keep track (or, in the Palin family, Track) of the nomenclature.

^Ms. Palin is here quoting Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. Mr. Goldberg certainly knows that most people, on hearing or reading the phrase "Nazi-style eugenics," think "concentration camps"--no documentation exists, of course, of Margaret Sanger having approved of such things, probably because she didn't. She did, assuredly, have views that can be labeled either "racist" or "racialist," and she did believe in eugenics.

**Job insecurity as "a birthright shared by all Americans"--how can you not love this woman?

"Constitution 101": Final Thoughts

I'm grateful to Hillsdale College for the opportunity to take its free, online "Constitution 101" class. Whatever criticisms I've made of the lectures, the college deserves credit for making publicly available this overview of, and introduction to, America's founding documents. Hillsdale College has an ideological agenda, but since it's out in the open, there's no cause to complain about it.* If nothing else, the campus statuary of Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher (proudly referred to by Hillsdale's President in the first session of this course) makes clear the school's political inclinations, as do the various lecturers and suggested readings. Hillsdale College is proudly conservative, and they present a conservative reading of American history--or, at least, one possible conservative reading.

Having responded at some length to the individual lectures that comprise "Constitution 101," I want to close with some unsystematic comments about the course.^

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Unsystematic comment #1: I wish the lecturers had acknowledged the existence, in 1787 and subsequently, of "anti-federalists" and had discussed their objections to the Constitution. One is left assuming that anyone who dissented from the document must have been opposed to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the natural and God-given freedoms that the Constitution was supposed to uphold. In fact, anti-federalists were concerned that the new national government would have too much power, and that it would eclipse the states and threaten individual liberties; that's why they insisted on the Bill of Rights being immediately attached. They were also concerned that the President would become nothing less than a king. You would think that the Hillsdale faculty would be sympathetic to such concerns, and would have taken some time to discuss them--but they did not.

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Unsystematic comment #2: I wish that the Founders had not been presented as an ideologically and politically homogeneous group, when the truth is that they (a) frequently disagreed with one another, (b) engaged in heated political rivalries against each other, and (c) shifted and revised their opinions over the years.** I would have loved to have heard at least one lecturer discuss, say, the tension between Alexander Hamilton's vision of a commercialized and industrialized America and Thomas Jefferson's vision of an "agrarian republic" of yeoman farmers.^^

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Unsystematic comment #3: Kudos to Hillsdale for referring to the Civil War as a "constitutional crisis," but how can they discuss that crisis without once mentioning the issue of secession? Thanks to the Civil War, we now know that our union is indeed perpetual, and that states are not at liberty to up and leave; but prior to the war, plenty of people had thought otherwise. Northern states had threatened secession in the early 19th century, and Thomas Jefferson himself had seemed at times sympathetic to the prospect (not to protect slavery, of course, but regarding other issues). The Hillsdale lecturers know very well that Abraham Lincoln did not marshall Union forces in an attempt to eradicate slavery in the South; he marshalled them to oppose the secession of Southern states. I think that this is one area where Hillsdale's ideology actually distorts how the subject is taught. As a politically conservative institution, Hillsdale today supports "states rights" against federal "instrusion"; it must therefore teach the Civil War as having been a moral crusade against slavery, rather than what it actually was--the blunt and bloody assertion of federal power over the states.

Unsystematic comment #3a: I would have liked some discussion of the post-Civil War constitutional amendments, which not only outlawed slavery but also (by "incorporating" the Bill of Rights and applying it to the states) ended the untenable notion of "dual sovereignty" between the federal government and the states, making us explicitly "one nation" at last.***It wasn't just slavery that was put to rest by the Civil War.

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Unsystematic comment #4: Hillsdale is entitled to cast Progessives as villains in the "undermining" of the Constitution. But I wish the lecturers had at least acknowledged that, along with the growth of "big government" and the "administrative state," 20th century America made actual progress in extending the promises of the Declaration to non-whites, women, and other minorities, and that such extension of liberty was an essential part of the Progressive program. You can of course argue whether the trade-off was worth it, in terms of "federal control"; but you should at least acknowledge that a trade-off of sorts took place.

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Unsystematic comment the last: Hillsdale lecturers refer on numerous occasions to the famous assertion from James Madison that "If men were angels, no government would be necessary, and if angels governed men, no limits on government would be required." Might they--the Hillsdale lecturers--not also have offered for discussion a (theoretical) corollary to Madison: "If angels wrote the Constitution, no improvement on it would be possible"? If nothing else, I think that Hillsdale students should be allowed and even encouraged to consider the words of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in 1816 that "Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant too sacred to be touched." Commenting on the changes in American life that had taken place in a mere thirty years since the Constitution had been written, Jefferson insisted that "institutions must advance also."

It is, ultimately, the tension between our respect for and adherence to the Constitution, and our need to update the Founders' undoubted wisdom to accommodate a much-changed world, that drives our politics. Hillsdale College does an admirable job of endorsing and justifying one side of that ongoing tension and debate; it would have been nice, though, if they had acknowledged that there is and always has been an entirely legitimate alternative view.

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*Annoying as it gets at times.

^I tried writing a lengthy and systematic essay, but it was, well, lengthy.

**I'm not suggesting they were 18th century "etch-a-sketches"; I'm just saying they occasionally changed their minds.

^^A vision eventually undercut by history, but also to some extent, and ironically, by Jefferson's (possibly unconstitutional) Louisiana Purchase, a territorial expansion that put the yeoman republic on the path to becoming a continental, and then global, empire.

***Of course, Hillsdale lecturers explicitly insist that America's unique system of federalism actually means "dual sovereignty". They're wrong. For proof, just google "Lee's surrender at Appomattox".

"A Species Of Madness Called Custom"

I don't know if I'll ever write a full review of Jennifer Michael Hecht's book The Happiness Myth, but let me share with you an extended excerpt, just to give you a flavor of her writing and her thought. This is from her chapter entitled "Bodies":

"We spend millions of dollars on health studies, and a huge amount of our time, money, and mental effort on eating right and getting exercise. Yet what really kills us is cars: motor-vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged six to thirty-three. The leading cause. After that age, crashes have to compete with heart disease and cancer, but our cars still kill a lot of us. We crash our metal boxes into each other and into walls. Here we are, concentrating our money and minds on tests of whether a given fruit might be slightly correlated with the avoidance of some disease of old age and then trying hard to get our children and ourselves to eat the thing, carefully washing off the pesticides we read about in some other test, and meanwhile we ignore the death strips that are our roads and highways. If we rejected cars, we would have to walk, and our exercise problem would be over. So would our fuel problem and much of our pollution problem. But notice that this is completely off the radar as an option for the country. As a culture, we talk not at all about remaking the society so light rail and the Internet and the placement of schools, parks, and stores might make it very rare to have to use a car. I'm not trying to convince you of anything to do with transportation. I'm trying to say that the way we arrange for happiness--all this business with broccoli and treadmills--is not the only way we could be doing things. It is a species of madness called custom. People are going to look at us from the future with much head scratching."

The Happiness Myth is filled with much in this same vein, a combination of common sense and contrarianism. It's a delight to read (as was Ms. Hecht's previous book Doubt: A History), and I recommend it highly, even if I never get around to writing an actual review.

Sarah Hearts Family

Chapter Four of Sarah Palin's America by Heart is titled "Raising (Small-r) Republicans." In it, she informs us that families are good. In fact, "Our families embody our hopes and dreams. Our Founders understood that respecting and honoring a family's love is the key to being free. Today the fight for my family's future is the fight for all American families' futures." Those are certainly good things to know.

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Perhaps surprisingly, Sarah tells us, "America's Founders didn't write much about family. You won't find any mention of family or marriage in the Constitution." That's not a failing on Their part, though; it's because "the Founders didn't set out to intervene in [the] intimate details of Americans' lives. They understood that this was--and should be--beyond the proper scope of government. The Founders simply took it for granted that a republic relies on informed and virtuous citizens, and that informed and virtuous citizens are created in turn by strong families." They also knew, of course, that good public schools were needed for that task as well, but Sarah's not writing about public schools here (and I fear for what she'll say about them when she does).

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In this entire chapter, comprising thirty-four pages, Sarah Palin does not quote Ronald Reagan even a single time. She does, however, quote Candice Bergen making an unflattering reference to Reagan, to which Sarah responds (20 years later), "Classy." That's telling her, Sarah!

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Did you know that, even though he is the most powerful man on earth, nevertheless "President Obama is not our father..."? Ms. Palin makes that important point on page 105.

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Sarah succinctly analyzes, on page 113, our current crisis. "Our leaders in Washington today have completely abandoned the idea of a government that relies on strong families at the same time that it respects the liberty and rights of these families." What, you may ask, is she the hell talking about? "When we have government taking over our health care choices and seeking to influence our end-of-life decisions, we have a government that doesn't respect the sancity and privacy of families."* Not only that, "When we have a government that seeks to tax every aspect of our daily lives in the name of building a 'green' economy, we have a government that doesn't respect the Tenth Amendment^ and that rides roughshod over the more responsive level of government, our state governments." It takes genius of a certain kind to label expansion of healthcare coverage and attempts to limit our dependence on climate-unfriendly fossil fuels as some sort of anti-family agenda. Give Ms. Palin credit: she's got a flair for this sort of thing.

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All other things being equal,** two parents are better than one. Sarah quotes the likes of Allan Carlson, James Q. Wilson, and Dan Quayle to prove this (as if it needed proving). She also says that "When it comes to raising good citizens, all lifestyle choices are not created equal." She's got quite the knack for the noncontroversial; who among us could deny that the Manson "family," to name just one example, failed to raise citizens as exemplary as, say, the Nelsons and the Cleavers?

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On the difficult subject of her daughter Bristol, Sarah says that "my strong, beautiful Bristol reacted [to her unplanned pregnancy] in a way that made me proud," while Tripp's [the baby's] father "went on a media tour through Hollywood and New York, spreading untruths and exaggerated rhetoric. It was disgusting to watch as his fifteen minutes of fame were exploited by supposed adults taking advantage of a lost kid...our hearts broke for him and the price he would pay."^^Ms. Palin also says that "Bristol works full time for a doctor in Anchorage and is also a full-time mom...She travels with an aunt or cousin for an occasional speaking engagement...and she engaged in an uplifting, family-oriented show called Dancing With the Stars."***That's a whole lot of full-time and part-time activity. We can only say to Bristol what Sarah said of Abigail Adams--"You go, girl!"

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Tragically, confides Ms. Palin, "while my family has been growing and developing, America and the American family have been under almost continuous assault." Stop Obama's War on Families Now! Repeal Clinton's Family Leave Act, get rid of extended healthcare coverage for young adults, cut funding for the pernicious SCHIP program, tighten eligibility for food stamps, and (above all) ELIMINATE ALL GOVERNMENT FUNDING FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD!!--because if unplanned parenthood was good enough for our Founders and for Bristol Palin, it's good enough for everyone else.

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*To Ms. Palin's credit, she does not employ the phrase "death panels"--at least not in this chapter.

^The Tenth Amendment, you'll recall, says that all powers not expressly delegated, by the Constitution, to the federal government are reserved for the states and the families therein. Or something like that.

**Which they're often not. That's kind of the problem.

^^In fact, her heart is so broken she's either forgotten, or can't bring herself to write, his name: Levi Johnston. I checked the book's index to see if Sarah ever mentions Levi by name at all--but alas, America by Heart has no index.

***"uplifting"? Maybe in the sense that the female participants are lifted up by their male dance partners. "family-oriented"? Have you seen the costumes and the choreography?

Hillsdale: "The Recovery Of The Constitution"

Dr. Larry Arnn begins this tenth lecture of the Hillsdale series with the question, "What fundamental choice does America face today?" This dramatic query leads immediately to a false dichotomy, followed by a tendentious reading of a speech* by Franklin Roosevelt^, followed by a frightening anecdote about a pig on an airplane,** followed by a reverential, misty-eyed recounting of St. Ronald Reagan's "Sermon at the Washington Capitol Mall"--I mean, Reagan's first Inaugural speech.

The false dichotomy sets the tone for the presentation: we must choose, Dr. Arnn portentiously declares, between a view that hews to the principles and political practices of the Founders and that believes in "limited government," and a view centered around notions of "progress" and "change" that believes in "big government". Dr. Arnn says that he's not telling anyone what choice to make; he's just laying out the choice with which we're faced. Well, call me a pedant, but "big government" is not the polar opposite of "limited government"; Dr. Arnn is sneakily trying to make us think that the vague "big government" is the same thing as the very scary "unlimited government"--which it is not. This is, of course, a long-standing conservative rhetorical trope. No one that I know of is arguing for "unlimited government"; the choices we face always have to do with the specific limits and role of government, not whether there are any limits at all, and the battle between "small government conservatism" and "big government liberalism" is always one of degree and one of detail. Plenty of conservatives, for instance, want a government "big" enough to intrude on consensual sexual activities, reproductive choices, use of intoxicants and stimulants, etc.^^What conservatives have tried to do (with a fair amount of success) is to suggest that anyone who disagrees with them on the specific limits and scope of government is therefore in favor of a totalitarian-style "unlimited government". That sort of distortion is par for the course in politics, but academics like Dr. Arnn are expected to know better.

When I say that the false dichotomy "sets the tone," I mean that Dr. Arnn shares the modern conservative tendency toward Manicheanism and apocalypticism: choices are always stark and "fundamental" and the fate of the Republic is always in the balance. According to him, we're not faced simply with competing policy prescriptions that either extend or contract in various ways the reach of government and that may be either wise or unwise, advisable or inadvisable: we're faced instead with the imminent destruction of all we hold dear, with the betrayal of the Founders' principles, and with the loss of our way of life and our liberties. This, of course, is a much more noble, selfless, and high-minded argument than if Dr. Arnn just came out and said that he's against higher marginal tax rates. It's also, unfortunately, the political version of the boy who cried wolf: eighty years ago, conservatives said that the New Deal was a step on "The Road to Serfdom"; then they said that Social Security would lead to cradle-to-grave dependency; then they said that civil rights legislation would destroy federalism and individual freedom; then they said that Medicare would lead to government control of our private medical decisions (which, as we know, the Founders wanted left in the hands of insurance companies); and now it's Obamacare that serves as the whipping boy for the usual right-wing hysteria--"It's the end of America as we've known it! We want our country back!" After decades of such fear-mongering, you'd think people would get wise to this nonsense.

The most tendentious element of Dr. Arnn's presentation is when he takes FDR out of context to suggest that he wanted to "discard" the Constitution and that he believed that the "unalienable rights" of the Declaration were negotiable. In fact, FDR wanted to expand the meaning of "life, liberty, and the purusit of happiness," not to take those rights away. His proposed "Second Bill of Rights" may or may not have made good policy (it was never submitted in any legislative form), but an awful lot of people to this day believe in such rights as a right to education, a right to health care, a right to a living wage, etc. None of those are mentioned in the Constitution, but that hardly means they don't exist; after all, the Ninth Amendment specifically says that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are not to be considered an exhaustive list.^^^

One step beyond "tendentious" would be "reprehensible," and that's the word I'll use to describe Dr. Arnn's implicit comparison of Progressives with ante-bellum Southerners. In fairness, Dr. Arnn isn't the first of Hillsdale's lecturers to suggest that the Constitutional challenge posed by both groups is the same--you see, slaveholders violated the liberties of their slaves, just like Progressives want to violate the liberties of citizens; if anything, Progressives are worse, because they want to enslave us all, while Southerners were content just to enslave Negroes. I've overlooked this slander before, but since Dr. Arnn is the President of Hillsdale College, he should be held to a higher standard.

Dr. Arnn closes with a lip-quivering hymn to St. Ronald, who he says is now "revered by everyone": leading me to wish that Newt Gingrich had been present to say, "Cut out the pious baloney". If the first step towards recovery is acceptance, then Dr. Larry Arnn has failed to convince me that the Constitution (or the values and ideals of America's Founders) is in jeopardy or that it needs recovering. I think it's holding up pretty well, all things considered, as are the values on which it's based.*** Dr. Arnn has, however, led me to be concerned about the quality of the education that students at Hillsdale College are receiving. I'm glad this online course was free; so far, I'd say I've gotten my money's worth.

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*Actually, it's only about two sentences from a speech.

^No statue of FDR decorates the Hillsdale campus, you can bet.

**The pig apparently behaved very badly.

^^Not to mention, a government big enough, and aggressive enough, to impose its will on the rest of the world.

^^^I often wonder why conservatives who get so histrionically exercised over the Tenth Amendment (powers reserved to the States) simply gloss over the Ninth (rights not exhaustively enumerated). "Try finding a 'right to privacy' in the Constitution," they sneer. Fine; you try finding a right to secede, Governor Big Hair.

***At one point in the lecture, Dr. Arnn, talking about how Progressives have already changed America, suggests ominously to the students, "Look around you," meaning "Look at the inroads that Progressivism has made against your freedoms". I've got to be honest: to me, the Hillsdale students look happy, healthy, well-scrubbed, prosperous, optimistic, and about as far from being tyrannized as they could be. Maybe federal troops were lurking behind the statue of Winston Churchill on the Hillsdale campus, just waiting to haul Dr. Arnn off to the gulag.

Sarah On "America The Exceptional"

Continuing with Sarah Palin's America by Heart, Chapter Three ("America the Exceptional") opens with: "There is a depressing predictability to conversations about America these days. More times than not, if you try to say something nice about our country, you're accused of being a closed-minded nativist, one of those dangerous hicks clinging to her guns, her God, and her country."

I have no idea with whom Sarah Palin spends her time, but (assuming the above description is accurate) they sound quite rude and uncivil. Along the same lines, Ms. Palin claims that there is a "knee-jerk tendency on the part of some to run down America and accuse her fans of being mindless hillbillies..."* As someone who frequently finds things to criticize about America (and sometimes things to praise), I've never accused anyone of being a mindless hillbilly, but that's just me; maybe other folks who share my political views are less polite when engaged in "conversations about America". Sarah doesn't give any actual examples of this rudeness, so we'll just have to take her word for it and join her in deploring it: People, cut out the "mindless hillbillies" crap!

In any case: "America is exceptional [because] we are the lucky heirs to a unique set of beliefs and national qualities...America is a model to the world, not a bully to the world, or responsible for the world." We Americans are indeed lucky (though you wouldn't know it from some of the crankiness you hear these days about taxes and big government), and in acknowledging that, we ought also to remember that "To whom much has been given, much will be expected". If some of us seem to overdo our criticism of America, maybe it's because we have pretty high expectations of this nation.

Questions of "exceptionalism" aside, I'm not sure how Ms. Palin manages to work into this chapter** a diatribe against President Obama's stimulus; I guess it's part of her defense of the Tenth Amendment and of America's "unique" structure of federalism. She also rails against "crony capitalism," which President Obama apparently invented; against "big-business capitalism" and "regulatory capture";^against the federal income tax;^^against the notion (advanced by no one) that "capitalism is evil"; and against "participation trophies".*** All of that, I guess, falls under the rubric of "stuff that violates Sarah Palin's idea of American exceptionalism," though quite frankly none of it violates mine.

Is America "exceptional"? Yes and no. Americans have invented many things, but those things do not include the ideas of freedom, natural rights, individual liberty, the pursuit of happiness, democracy, representative government, or "local control"; all those ideas were invented (discovered?) by people in other countries long before America (the nation, not the continent) existed. Our Founders freely and quite openly borrowed from, and drew upon the wisdom of, people in other countries (even in France!). America is certainly unique in that its government was explicitly based on such ideas, and in the way in which the ideas were assembled, blended, and put to practical use; it is also unique in that its fortuitous placement, historically and geographically, has given it the opportunity to implement them. It is exceptional in its wealth (both natural and man-made), its technology, its military power, its geopolitical influence, and its cultural reach; and you can easily make the case that those things (except the natural resources) largely stem from the ideas and ideals of our founding. In that sense, there is indeed such a thing as "American exceptionalism," but it seems to have been mostly a matter of this country's being born at the right time (the intersection of the European Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution) and in the right place (on a vast continent uncontrolled by, and relatively safe from attack by, any equal and opposing power); I'm not sure how much that entitles us to brag about it. From a historical perspective, modern Americans have been born on third base; that doesn't mean we've hit a triple (or that we have a God-given right to steal home).

Eight-nine pages into America by Heart, I continue to look in vain for documentation of such statements as this: "Too often we hear from the left a different spin on American exceptionalism--a view that America is somehow worse than other countries, that it is hypocritical about its ideals, falls short of its responsibilities, and is forever in need of correction. This has been the main thrust of President Obama's speeches on the world stage since assuming office..." Ms. Palin can probably find quotes from Noam Chomsky to back up her assertion about "the left," but I defy her to find one like that from President Obama. Moreover, Sarah Palin is a self-confessed Christian--doesn't that mean she believes (among other things) that we all "fall short" and stand "forever in need of correction"? Or does American exceptionalism mean to her that America has not only escaped history, it's also escaped Original Sin?

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*"Mindless Hillbillies" is an amazingly good name for a band--thanks, Sarah.

**Along with quotations from Ronald Reagan (again) and from the movie "The Incredibles".

^She doesn't use that phrase, but she does describe the phenomenom.

^^Ms. Palin refers to the federal income tax as a "power grab," which seems both unfair and historically inaccurate; unpopular as the income tax and the IRS undoubtedly are, the income tax was passed by Constitutional amendment, and would undoubtedly survive even if put to a popular vote today.

***I have friends who don't like these, either. I do think, however, that such awards at least keep trophy makers employed, and in today's economy, that's a pretty persuasive argument.

Sarah On "Why They Serve"

Chapter Two of Sarah Palin's America by Heart is titled "Why They Serve." It is a heartfelt encomium to Americans who serve, and who have served, in the military. I have neither reason nor inclination to disagree with or make fun of Ms. Palin's appreciation for the troops, who, she says, serve out of a sense of duty and patriotism. I'm sure she's (mostly) right about that; I'm less sure when she writes "America doesn't go to war for big business or for oil or for the sake of imperial conquest," but I won't argue the point.

"Why They Serve" is only slightly marred by Palin's insistence on taking gratuitous shots at "the Hollywood and media elite" who are guilty, she says, of "reflexive anti-Americanism." "Reflexive" is a word well chosen here, as it perfectly describes Ms. Palin's own knee-jerk tendency to bash her p0litical and cultural adversaries at every turn, even while talking about something entirely unrelated.* She doesn't, of course, document the media's "anti-Americanism,"^ nor does her intended audience need her to do so; it's a matter of faith with them that the "lamestream media" hates America, just as it is that the President has gone around the world apologizing for America.

To be fair, Ms. Palin does allow that "Not everyone in popular culture likes to run America down..." She praises the work of Mr. Toby Keith, country singer and patriot, and quotes the following lyric from his song "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue": "And you'll be sorry that you messed with / the U S of A / 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass / It's the American way." George M. Cohan probably couldn't have gotten "boot in your ass" past the censors, otherwise I'm sure "Yankee Doodle Boy" and "Grand Old Flag" would have packed more of a patriotic punch.

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^After recounting (some of) John Mc Cain's ordeal as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Palin then says "I wonder if [it] ever dawns on the self-described truth tellers of Washington, the mainstream media, Hollywood and academia [that] all of the values they hold dear--their ability to speak freely, to criticize and caricature the military, to demonize Christianity and America's traditional values--mean nothing unless they are defended by these courageous men and women." (See Sarah's "Introduction" on the evils of demonizing and stereotyping your opponents...)

*She mentions two movies by name--"Rendition" and "Green Zone"--but provides no detail or analysis of their alleged "anti-American" slant.