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American Vision

I’ve just finished Fareed Zakaria’s recent book, “The Post-American World,” in which he discusses—among other things—the growing power of India and China, and what that growth portends for American interests.

To my mind, the most interesting part of the book came in the final chapters, as he evaluated America’s strengths and weaknesses in the context of the global challenges we face. One paragraph in particular struck me as a particularly apt statement of our current dilemma.

“The economic dysfunctions in America today are real, but by and large, they are not the product of deep inefficiencies within the American economy, nor are they reflections of cultural decay. They are the consequences of specific government policies. Different policies could quickly and relatively easily move the United States into a far more stable footing….Policy experts do not have wide disagreements on most of these issues, and none of the proposed measures would require sacrifices reminiscent of wartime hardship, only modest adjustments of existing arrangements. And yet, because of politics, they appear impossible. The American political system has lost the ability for large-scale compromise, and it has lost the ability to accept some pain now for much gain later.”

In short, Zakaria says our economic system is fundamentally sound when appropriately regulated. Our political system, however, is broken. Zakaria gives a number of reasons for this state of affairs, and most of us can add to his list. But one reason, I think, has gotten short shrift, especially from the so-called “chattering classes.” It’s what Bush 41 used to call “the vision thing.”

It has become fashionable to dismiss articulation of a vision as naïve, as the opposite of the sort of “can-do” policy-wonk approach that pundits and bureaucrats favor. But just as you can’t get Mapquest to give you directions to an unknown destination, you cannot muster political will or encourage political compromise in service of incremental changes and “course corrections.” In a democracy, unless there is a clearly articulated vision—a map clearly showing where you want to take the city, state or country—it is simply not possible to overcome the entrenched politics of self-interest and self-dealing.

When Ronald Reagan became President, “sophisticated” observers sneered at his evocation of “Morning in America.”What they failed to appreciate was the importance of placing policy specifics within an overarching framework mapping a destination.

I think Americans are hungry for that map, that vision, showing how America can do again what it has always done best—lead through example. But first, we have to believe in ourselves again. We have to remind ourselves of the values that make us American. We need to recommit ourselves to those values, and we need to restore the rule of law.

If history teaches us anything, it is that we need visionary leadership to remind us who we are, and what Americans can achieve when we work together.
How many of us, after all, are willing to set off on a voyage without a clear map?

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A Patch, or an Upgrade?

The jury is still out.

In the upcoming election, the real question is not whether the individual named John McCain or the individual named Barack Obama will be elected President. The choice before us is ultimately not between persons or even parties; it is nothing less than a choice between the past and the future, and that choice will have particular significance for the gay community.

As readers of the Word know all too well, the last decade will not rank among America’s shining hours. (Okay, the metaphor is mixed, but you know what I mean.) The country has been in the throes of a cultural and religious chauvinism not seen since the last Great Awakening/Nativist eruption. Such eras are never kind to minority groups or marginalized communities, and this most recent period has been no exception. The broader problem is that, unlike previous episodes, this prolonged national snit has occurred at a time that the globe has been shrinking. The threats we face—to national security, to public safety, and to our economic interests—require genuine partnerships with other nations, a partnership beyond the capacities of an arrogant “decider” intent on unilateral action.

This November, the American electorate will decide whether to abandon an approach to national affairs that has caused us to be disdained internationally and that has turned us into a fiscal banana republic at home. Voters in California will decide whether to snatch the hard-won right to marry from its gay and lesbian citizens, and bigots in Arizona will try again to add a same-sex marriage ban to that state’s constitution. In other cities and states around the country, voters will have to decide whether to risk similarly dramatic changes in the way we do the public’s business.

In any change election—which this one is shaping up to be—there will be winners and losers. One of the reasons that people fear change is that they fear being one of the losers.

If America is really on the cusp of a paradigm shift, what will be lost? For white people, the privileged status that we still enjoy simply by virtue of skin color, the “default” judgment that light skin denotes acceptability, if not superiority. For heterosexuals, the confidence that our orientation is “normal,” that non-heterosexuals are somehow deviants to be tolerated at best and scorned or abused at worst. For corporate bigwigs, the ability to hire lobbyists and obtain legislation that exempts them from the forces of the market they try to evade even while verbally extolling its virtues. Those who enjoy these and other advantages are unlikely to view their loss as insignificant.

But if we take the risk, and opt for a new governing paradigm, most ordinary Americans have a great deal to gain, because bigotry and anxiety burden both the oppressed and the oppressor. A refusal to understand that we are all in this together—that ultimately, we cannot escape the consequences of our neighbors’ misfortunes, that we all are poorer when stereotypes deprive us of our neighbors’ talents—is what has gotten us into the mess we’re in.

The election of Barack Obama—even with a Democratic House and Senate—will not usher in utopia or anything remotely like it. The damage that has been done to our constitution, our governing institutions, our economy and our ability to trust each other has been great; if it is reparable—and it may not be—that repair will take a generation or more. Obama is brilliant and talented, and he’s read and taught the constitution (a fact I find comforting), but he’s just one man and certainly not perfect.

The election of John McCain, on the other hand, would mean Americans have chosen the past over the future. It would be evidence that Americans fear change, that we simply cannot find the courage and discipline to extricate ourselves from a culture that has proven to be not just poisonous, but inimical to our own national interests and ideals. McCain is undoubtedly a good person (and surely must be brighter than he seems on the campaign trail) but he is firmly wedded to a cultural moment that needs to pass.

Somewhere, I read a description of John McCain as “an analog candidate for a digital age.” The quip was a reaction to the fact that McCain has not used the internet or “done a google,” as he phrases it. But the characterization rings true across the board, not just in the context of technology.

The basic question voters will face in November is whether we are going to upgrade from Bush 1.0 to 2.0, or whether we are going to adopt a new operating system.

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Dear Nut Job

I know, I know—“nut job” is not a civil salutation. Intellectually, I know that the use of such phrases is neither nice nor likely to be very productive. But cut me some slack, and I’ll explain.
Every time I write a column for the Indianapolis Star discussing equal rights for GLBT persons, I can count on receiving a letter from the same long-time “fan” (who is a fan only in the sense that he obviously reads my columns. Otherwise, as Jon Stewart might say, not so much). The essential message is always the same, faux-solicitous one: I am doing a terrible disservice to my gay son by not providing him with the “treatments” that are available to make him “normal,” by which Mr. Nut Job means straight. These treatments, he unfailingly informs me, have been “proven” by extensive scientific research, with which I need to familiarize myself.
The letters often include Xeroxed copies of this so-called research, inevitably the sort of stuff endlessly churned out by right-wing “scientists”—guys hired by the same fine people who first alerted us to the homosexual agenda being pushed by Sponge-Bob Squarepants and Tinky-Winky.
Having learned long ago that the very worst thing you can do when you attract this particular type of pen-pal is to respond, I routinely route the correspondence to the circular file and go about my business. But I’ve been brooding over the last letter, and instead of continuing to mutter under my breath, I decided I’d use this column to vent, and to write the response I’d send if I thought the person at the receiving end possessed anything akin to an ability to process logic.
So—here’s my open letter to nut job:
Dear Mr. Right-Wing Obsessive,
Thank you for your twenty-third letter, explaining why I should run, not walk, to the nearest reparative therapy practitioner with my “abnormal” “sick” “disabled” son. I will give serious consideration to your suggestions once you respond to a few questions.
First, I’d like you to calm my concerns about the therapy itself. (Since you claim there are great amounts of credible scientific data available, I’m sure these questions will be easy for you to field.)
How will this therapy affect my son’s non-gay behaviors? You know, the personality traits that dictate what sort of human being he is when he isn’t in bed? My son, for example, is extremely popular with all kinds of people (even with lots of people that you might consider “normal.”) He has tons of friends, gay and straight. Everyone in his family adores him—his brothers, his stepfather, his stepsisters, his nieces and nephews. Will this therapy make him even more gregarious and lovable?
My son is both book-smart and street-smart, and he has always earned good money and been self-supporting. He pays his taxes without whining about it (do you?) and he is generous to charities and to his family and friends. He’s also a very good citizen; he votes, he recycles, he helps those who are less fortunate. Will this therapy further enhance his common sense, his IQ or his compassion?
Assuming you can assure me that I won’t change this wonderful human being by destroying a relatively small but nonetheless essential part of who he is, I also have some questions about the reason for your extreme interest—dare I say obsession?—with my child’s sexuality.
Will your life improve if my son is no longer gay? If so, how? Will America be safer? Will global warming abate? Will we find new sources of energy? Will Christians all begin acting like Christians? What, exactly, will change? What accounts for your insistence that my son—whom you do not know, whom you have never met—must change his very identity, a very important part of who he is? And what accounts for your evident eagerness to tell other people how they should live?
For that matter, how many wonderful friends do you have? How close is your family? How many kindnesses do you extend to those you live and work with?
In short, what makes you think you are even one-tenth the person my son is? And where the hell do you get off telling me that he is “sick”?
When you can give me satisfactory answers to all these questions, maybe I’ll take you more seriously. (But I get to determine what constitutes a “satisfactory” answer.)Yours Truly, a mother who is immensely proud of her son just the way he is.
Thanks for letting me vent. I feel much better now.

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Of Guns and Guantanamo

Last month, the Supreme Court was an equal-opportunity disappointer, handing down one decision that enraged conservatives and one that outraged liberals. Permit me to make myself even more unpopular than usual (no mean feat) by suggesting that both decisions were correct.
The first ruling came in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the Court upheld the right of detainees at Guantanamo to file habeas corpus petitions. Any competent lawyer could have predicted the result; the most worrisome feature of the ruling (to me) was that it was a 5-4 decision. The theatrics from predictable sources may have obscured what the ruling did and didn’t do. It didn’t order Guantanamo closed. It didn’t require that the detainees be freed. It didn’t even require that they be given full trials.
The right of habeas corpus guarantees prisoners only the most bare-bones fundamental fairness; it allows people who have been imprisoned to challenge government’s right to hold them. It allows them to demonstrate that they are being held in error—that they aren’t who the government says they are, or that they were not involved in the actions for which they are being held. Allowing someone to say, “hey—you’ve got the wrong guy” hardly endangers America.
Nor will the ruling unleash the routinely predicted “floods of litigation.” Every one of the 2.2 million prisoners currently held in the U.S. criminal justice system can file a habeas petition. Letting 335 Guantanamo detainees do so as well is hardly going to overwhelm the system.
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court struck down the nation’s most restrictive gun law, and finally settled the question whether the Second Amendment protects a personal or collective right—that is, whether the Amendment’s authors were referring only to militias, or whether they were also protecting an individual right to gun ownership. The screaming this time came from liberals, but it was no less over-the-top.
First of all, the Court did not invalidate all efforts to regulate firearms. The ruling simply said that a personal right exists, and government therefore has the burden of justifying regulations that propose to restrict or infringe that right, just as we insist that government must justify other efforts at regulation that may restrict personal liberty. The Court said the ordinance in question—which required, among other things, that a handgun kept in the home be disassembled—went too far.
Both sides have substantially inflated the likely effect of Heller. Purists who believe the Second Amendment protects their right to build small nuclear devices in their back yards are gleefully planning challenges to far more reasonable regulations that are quite likely to pass constitutional muster. For their part, doom-and-gloom gun control advocates have conveniently overlooked the fact that a majority of state constitutions explicitly protect a personal right to gun ownership. (While states cannot restrict rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, they are free to offer their citizens more extensive protections.)
You can quibble with the details, but the Court got these right.

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Vicious Circle

“Corrected” property tax bills have been mailed, and welcome as the effort to equalize assessments is, values overall continue to increase.
The problem is that, while assessed values are increasing, actual home values are declining. There are both short-term and longer-term reasons for that decline: rising gas prices will inevitably affect the price of homes that do not have access to public transportation. (In Indianapolis, unfortunately, that pretty much describes the whole city.) The slowing economy reduces both the number of buyers, and the prices the remaining buyers are willing to pay.
Then there’s the ballooning mortgage foreclosure rate. It is tempting for those of us not caught up in that crisis personally to be sympathetic, but detached. Sure, we say, it’s a shame that some (other) homeowners find themselves embroiled in the foreclosure process. Of course, some of them weren’t as prudent as they should have been. But that really isn’t our problem.
Except that it is.
Recently, IUPUI’s Center for Urban Policy and the Environment used a statistical modeling process to estimate the effect of foreclosures on housing values in Marion County. The study was limited to foreclosures during 2004. (There is always a lag in the availability of data for this kind of analysis.) The researchers found that the properties that had been foreclosed sold for 26 to 29 percent less than comparable non-foreclosed properties. Even more troubling, in neighborhoods with a number of foreclosures, those “fire sales” get used as comparable transactions for purposes of establishing housing values and sales prices for the other homes in the area. That limits what banks and mortgage companies are willing to lend against those properties. This so-called “foreclosure discount” can thus have a significantly negative impact on the value of other homes in the area.
In 2004, the total decline in housing values across Marion County due to foreclosures was an estimated 9 percent.
Protestors complain that higher property taxes also drive down the market prices of residential real estate. True enough. But lower housing values will in turn drive down tax receipts, giving local government even less money to spend on the public services that—as we sometimes forget—add to the market value of our properties. The quality of our parks, schools, public transportation, police and fire protection all factor into the price a prospective buyer is willing to pay for a home.
There is no easy “fix” apparent. From all accounts, we have yet to see the worst of the housing crisis. The federal government has led by bad example, running up its own unaffordable mortgage—our gargantuan national debt. That bill is coming due, and further straining our ability to tackle our economic problems. Gas prices may level off, but they are unlikely to decline, and energy costs drive up the cost of everything else.
We have been living on our national credit card, unwilling to control the wheeler-dealers or invest in our communities. Now the bill is coming due.
It’s going to get ugly.

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