The Death of Language….

One of my constant complaints–one that undoubtedly gets tiresome–is that the words we use in political discourse no longer mean what they used to. Or for that matter, much of anything.

Thanks to Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, “liberal”–which used to refer to 18th Century libertarian Enlightenment thinkers and later was used to mean “open minded”– was twisted into an epithet and replaced by “progressive.” (“Progressive” gets applied to pretty much anyone who doesn’t hate government and gay people, and send racist emails.)

I used to consider myself something of a cross between an Eighteenth-Century liberal and an Edmund Burke conservative, back before the term “conservative” didn’t call up the image of an angry old white guy in a tricorner hat demanding the return of “his” country. So I was nostalgic reading this recent post about Burke by Andrew Sullivan. I really encourage you to read it in its entirety, but here’s a taste:

For a conservative should not be implacably hostile to liberalism (let alone demonize it), but should be alert to its insights, and deeply aware of the need to change laws and government in response to unstoppable change in human society. Equally, a liberal can learn a lot from conservatism’s doubts about utopia, from the conservative concern with history, tradition and the centrality of culture in making human beings, and from conservatism’s love and enjoyment of the world as-it-is, even as it challenges the statesman or woman to nudge it toward the future. The goal should not be some new country or a new world order or even a return to a pristine past that never existed: but to adapt to necessary social and cultural change by trying as hard as one can to make it coherent with what the country has long been; to recognize, as Orwell did, that a country, even if it is to change quite markedly, should always be trying somehow to remain the same.

……..

This means a true conservative – who is, above all, an anti-ideologue – will often be attacked for alleged inconsistency, for changing positions, for promising change but not a radical break with the past, for pursuing two objectives – like liberty and authority, or change and continuity  – that seem to all ideologues as completely contradictory.

I miss the days when labels had content.

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In Praise of (Certain) Republicans

If there is hope for the re-emergence of the Republican Party to which I gave a significant chunk of my adult life, it lies in the actions of seven GOP members of the Indianapolis City-County Council on Monday night.

Republicans Will Gooden, Ben Hunter, Robert Lutz, Janice McHenry, Michael McQuillen, Jeff Miller and Jefferson Shreve joined all of the Democratic council members in support of a resolution urging the Indiana General Assembly to reject HJR6. (For anyone who has spent the last couple of years on Mars, HJR6 would place Indiana’s current statutory ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s constitution, and would add gratuitous language outlawing civil unions and official recognition of anything else creative minds might consider “equivalent” to marriage.)

Six Republicans voted against the resolution, but the future of the GOP–if it has one–lies with the seven who refused to be bullied by activists from the far right fringes.

The capture of one of America’s major political parties by extremists has made governing–and civil discourse– virtually impossible.  It has already made GOP candidates unelectable in urban areas, and caused wholesale defections elsewhere.

Those seven Republicans understand something that too many of those remaining in the Grand Old Party seem to have forgotten: politics isn’t–or shouldn’t be–religion. When every vote becomes a test of moral purity, when every issue is a contest between Good and Evil, when any deviation from Approved Doctrine is blasphemy and anything less than ardent affirmation is evidence that the errant member has gone over to the dark side, what you have isn’t a political party.

It’s a cult.

Kudos to the seven who refused to drink the Kool-aid. May their numbers increase.

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Diminished Expectations, Diminished Performance

I haven’t been particularly kind to several of our elected officials lately. Believe it or not, I take no satisfaction in criticizing the failures and foibles of those who’ve been elected to manage the affairs of the republic. Ultimately, after all, the fault lies with the voters who elected them.

We the People don’t have very high standards. We seem to regard these empty suits as “good enough for government work.” In short, the low esteem with which we view our governing institutions has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let’s be brutally frank. Why would people who are moderately competent, let alone “the best and brightest,” want to work with the likes of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Michelle Bachmann, Louis Gohmert or literally dozens like them? How can we expect capable management of agencies charged with oversight of complex and interrelated public functions when the politicians to whom those managers must report have absolutely no idea how government and the economy actually work?

We recently heard elected officials insist that an American default on the debt would be “no big deal.” We’ve heard characterizations of the Affordable Care Act and HIPPA that have betrayed total ignorance of the provisions of both laws. We’ve heard assertions of constitutionality and unconstitutionality untethered from even the most tortured reading of our constituent documents.

There’s nothing wrong with policy debates. Indeed, such disputes can be very productive—but only if the debate is grounded in reality, only if it addresses genuine issues and employs credible information.

When aggressive ignorance is a political virtue and professionalism, knowledge and expertise are vices, we shouldn’t be surprised by a deficit in competent public management.

In the jargon of economics, we get the behaviors we incentivize.

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Doctor Faustus, I Presume?

Despite pressure from religious groups, humanitarian organizations and the business community–not to mention the U.S. Senate and the Administration– GOP leadership in the House of Representatives is refusing to bring comprehensive immigration reform to a vote.

They “don’t have time this year.”

They had time, however, to vote on a measure sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-Crazy) to defund the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and treat Dream Act kids like criminals.

The amendment, from Rep. Steve King (R-IA), undercuts the flexibility that allows the Department of Homeland Security to halt deporting DREAMers and instead focus on people convicted of crimes.

After the vote, the House Hispanic Caucus tweeted,”House Republicans just voted to treat DREAMers and undocumented spouses of servicemembers in the same way as violent criminals.” Only six Republicans voted against the measure.

None of those six Republicans was from Indiana.

We expect Marlin Stutzman, Todd Rokita and Jackie Walorski to vote for measures sponsored by the Crazy Caucus (Michelle Bachmann, Steve King, Louis Gohmert et al). But we tend to expect a measure of moderation from those elected from less rabid precincts.

Susan Brooks ran as a reasonable, albeit conservative, alternative to David MacIntosh. Much of her appeal to the more moderate Hamilton County GOP voters was premised on her own (relative) moderation. And those of us who’ve known her for years had, in fact, known her to be personally pretty reasonable and middle-of-the-road.

But Brooks voted to deport the Dream Act kids.

In fact, Brooks’ voting record is strikingly similar to the voting records of Bachmann, King and Gohmert. Her one act of “courage” (if voting as your constituents clearly prefer can be characterized as courageous) was to end the recent government shutdown.

I suppose it is possible that the Susan Brooks I thought I knew was really a rabid anti-Choice, anti-government, anti-immigrant extremist in disguise. But I doubt that.

I think it’s more likely that she is one of the numerous, ambitious political figures who finds it personally advantageous to pander to the currently dominant wing of her party, and is willing to set aside any pesky moral qualms in order to do so.

Doctor Faustus sold his soul and traded his integrity for a taste of earthly pleasures.

As long as I’m trading in literary and historical analogies, here’s a question: Is the Republican base better off with True Believers like MacIntosh, who’ve evidently imbibed the hemlock, or with those who, like Brooks, are willing to make Fausian bargains?

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Some Voters Matter. Some Don’t.

According to a recent Pew analysis, only one out of every seven Congressional Districts was competitive in 2011.

Much of this lack of competitiveness is due to gerrymandering, of course–a matter I’ve discussed in previous posts. But much of it is due to the demography of 21st Century America and a phenomenon of voluntary “sorting.” Americans choose to live in places where they are culturally comfortable. Some choose rural areas, and others of us gravitate to  what has been dubbed the “Urban Archipelago“–a reference to political maps showing chains of “blue” urban islands in states that are otherwise rural and red. Urban dwellers tend to be more diverse, more socially progressive, less hostile to government and more willing to “live and let live.” These days, that is a description of people who vote Democratic.

There are also roughly twice as many Americans living in cites as there are in rural areas.

If we really had “one person, one vote,” the policy preferences of the vast majority of Americans who occupy urban areas would be reflected in Congress. But of course, we don’t–and as a result, the 19th Century attitudes of farmers and small-town denizens continually trump the needs and desires of 21st Century citizens.

It would take a swing of 17 seats to wrest control of the House from the “Party of No.” In a sane world, where votes reflected the wishes of the majority, a shift that small would be likely.

In our broken system, it will take a miracle.

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