I have a favorite question I often include on my graduate-level take-home final. There is no “right” or “wrong” answer–the question is intended to make the student think about the role government plays in human society, the values that should constrain the use of power, the rules of behavior that are necessary and appropriate, and the practicality of the mechanisms chosen to enforce those rules.
How would you answer this question?
Earth has been destroyed in World War III. You and a few thousand others—representing a cross-section of Earth’s races, cultures and religions—are the only survivors. You have escaped to an earth-like planet, and are preparing to create a government for the society you hope to establish. You want that government to be stable and enduring, but also flexible enough to meet unforeseen challenges. You also want to avoid the errors of the Earth governments that preceded you. What does your new government look like? What is its structure, and what powers will it exercise? How will those powers be limited? How will government officials and policies be chosen? What social and political values will it be based upon?
I was going through my office files the other day in preparation for my Sabbatical, and came across a folder of quotations I’d kept. It has literally been years since I’ve looked at them, and I was particularly struck by two quotes from Margaret Chase Smith. Smith was the Republican Senator from Maine who was the first female member of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. She is probably best known for being the first of his peers to openly criticize the tactics employed by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Her words are as applicable today as they were when she uttered them.
“I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny–fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear.”
“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism–The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right to independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood.”
I met Margaret Chase Smith once, at an event in her honor, when she was quite old and no longer in office. I was thrilled. She was a gracious woman, an impressive role model, and an exemplary and well-informed public servant.
The women in today’s GOP–Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin–would be incapable of understanding Smith (I doubt if either of them could define “calumny”). They should be embarrassed to occupy the same legislative chambers, but they are clearly incapable of embarrassment as well.
Maybe I’ve been drinking too much of the seasonal eggnog.
Yesterday, I began to hear reports that Brian Bosma and David Long had decided to reject Common Core. Now, in the real world, that makes no sense–Indiana is well along the trajectory of implementing Common Core, some 75% of teachers endorse it, and most of the opposition comes from folks who automatically resist anything promoted by the federal government (because, you know, it’s being promoted by the federal government), and others who don’t know the difference between standards and curriculum.
Changing back to state-specific standards now will be very costly. So why would a couple of fiscal watchdogs who supported Common Core when Tony Bennett was in office take this sudden U-Turn?
Here’s where my eggnog addled conspiracy theory kicks in: Bosma and Long really, really want to extricate themselves from the no-win mess they’ve gotten themselves into over HJR6. They want to change that second sentence and kick that can down the road. But there’s Eric Miller, with his mega-church primary voters, and he needs to be appeased by winning something. There must be some bone to throw him. The media has turned up the heat on the negligent and/or abusive “Church ministries” daycare operations he’s intent upon protecting. So–let’s let him “win” the battle against those awful feds and their Common Core!
Recently, New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote a compelling reflection on achievement as an act of defiance. Life, he tells us, is like a hill, and when you are born at the bottom of that hill, you have a choice between climbing or staying at the bottom.
But this was no “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” harangue.
The article began with a forthright acknowledgment of the outsized role played by luck and favor in our society–with Blow’s recognition that what separates the comfortable from the needy is rarely as simple as hard work and diligence. As he prefaces his discussion:
I don’t buy into the mythology that most poor people are willfully and contentedly poor, happy to live with the help of handouts from a benevolent big government that is equally happy to keep them dependent.
These are all arguments based on shame, meant to distance traditional power structures from emerging ones, to allow for draconian policy arguments from supposedly caring people. These arguments require faith in personal failure as justification for calling our fellow citizens feckless or doctrinally disfavored.
Those who espouse such arguments must root for failures so that they’re proved right. They need their worst convictions to be affirmed: that other people’s woes are due solely to their bad choices and bad behaviors; that there are no systematic suppressors at play; that the way to success is wide open to all those who would only choose it.
Blow endorses effort and hard work for their own sake, with eyes wide open to the hard facts of life–that is, that although effort and hard work cannot guarantee reward, not working hard will pretty much guarantee failure. He accepts life on its own terms (as Jimmy Carter once said, fundamentally unfair) without using those terms as an excuse for giving up.
We are obligated to play the hand we’re dealt, even when the deck is stacked against us. And the deck is stacked against a lot of people.
I don’t think I am the only person who is incredibly tired of those self-satisfied folks who–having been born on or near the top of the hill–not only brag about their prowess as climbers, but sneer at the “losers” stuck below. (My grandmother used to describe them as “born on 3d base and think they’ve hit a triple.”)
I’m tired of the self-proclaimed, “self-made” businessman (almost always a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual male) who is incapable of recognizing his dependence on the social infrastructure that privileged him over more marginalized folks, and unwilling or unable to experience gratitude for his good fortune.
I’m especially tired of the self-congratulatory “smart businessman” who takes advantage of tax loopholes (excuse me, “incentives”) to drive his effective tax rate below that of his secretary, but who nevertheless considers himself morally superior to the “takers” who don’t make enough money to owe federal income taxes.
Saturday, my husband and I made our “oh-my-god-Thanksgiving-is-Thursday-and-the-cupboard-is-bare” Costco run.
As we were checking out (with more wine than two elderly citizens ought to be purchasing), the pleasant and chatty young man putting our purchases into the basket noted some purchase (I didn’t notice which one) and said “You are obviously smart shoppers.”
I laughed and responded that at least we were smart enough to shop at Costco, rather than Walmart or Sam’s Club.
At that, the cashier looked up and said, “You can say that again! I worked at Sam’s Club for 13 years, and it was terrible. I hated it. I’m so glad to be here. You can’t imagine the difference.”
I’ve read plenty of comparisons between Costco and Walmart, and their treatment of employees, but this was qualitatively different: heartfelt testimony volunteered by someone who clearly had a basis for comparison.
Later in the day, I came across this paragraph in a story about the widening gap between rich and poor in America:
Few companies are as emblematic of the New American System as is Walmart. The company that in 2011 generated more revenues than any other, the company that is now the largest food retailer in the world is the same company that recently encouraged donations of food to its own employees. It’s also a company that, putting aside any losses generated when it replaces smaller, local stores, causes a net loss to every community it enters in the form of increased tax revenues needed to support its underpaid employees. Walnart not only counts on taxpayer dollars to subsidize its “low cost” stores, it counts on those same taxpayer dollars to drive its business. Walmart employees not only need food stamps to get by, Walmart is the largest place where those food stamps are redeemed. It’s a cycle that grinds employees (and communities) relentlessly down, while driving Walmart revenues just as consistently up.
In principle, I don’t mind having my tax dollars used for welfare. But I do object–strenuously–to the use of my tax dollars to subsidize Walmart’s (outsized) profits. If Walmart insists on screwing over thousands of people like the cashier I met yesterday, the company needs to do so on its own dime, rather than on the back of taxpayers. (But of course, that wouldn’t work. Walmart needs public assistance in order to continue paying the below-living wages that generate its generous profit margins.)
Ironically, as I’ve previously noted, Costco’s profits per square foot exceed Walmart’s by a significant percentage, even though Costco pays its employees far more, treats them better and provides health insurance.
Costco will be closed on Thanksgiving, so that its employees can spend time with their families. Walmart–of course–will be open.
