Has it ever been this bad before?

from The Gray Area:

Many say that our political landscape in our country today is more divided than ever. They cite many examples of this division, not the least of which is the constant and vicious attacks of the left on the right and the right against the left. Modern technology affords these voices access to the world almost instantaneously and as such everyone hears everything almost before anyone has had or taken the time to process what is happening and being said. And sadly, too often these events are contrived or misrepresented to the public to further political goals. It is a challenging time in this country and in the world.

These challenges seem worse in this country following a century with two world wars from both of which the United States exited victorious, and a Cold War where once again the United States concluded victorious. A sense of calm, satisfied and well earned peace has dominated the lives of three generations even as we fought the Cold War.

But, the people of this world remained a simmering pot. The results of these same wars, and in some cases centuries of war, left other peoples of the world with grievances that were not successfully addressed for all the people of the world. They could not share in that calm, satisfied, well earned peace. With many on the planet wanting and enjoying a well earned peace, it was easy to ignore the grievances of other parts of the world. We, after all, don’t want to turn over rocks just to find problems. But it takes only the smallest of changes to create the spark that ignites those simmering pots. Removal of a brutal dictator, the senseless abuse of street vendor in Tunisia or the death of an unarmed black youth in Ferguson. Today we see those simmering pots flaming in this country and all around the world. So we wonder, has it ever been this bad before?

The Gray Area says yes, we have seen and survived this and worse. There is more that unites us than divides us!

In many circumstances in this country’s short 238 year history we have had just as serious situations to address. The following article, Wave Elections: What They Mean, by Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, two such instances are highlighted in the context of the November “wave elections”. Mr. Arnn deftly reveals parallels and historical relevance that escapes most of America’s leaders today.

We have had a wave election. For those of a conservative disposition, it is a satisfying wave. According to Michael Barone, speaking recently here at Hillsdale’s Kirby Center, this wave is like several recent wave elections in its magnitude and decisiveness. There was a wave in favor of the Republicans in 1980 and again in 1994. There was a wave in favor of the Democrats in 2006 and again in 2008. There was a wave for the Republicans in 2010. There was a stalemate in 2012. Now there is a Republican wave in 2014. Looked at one way, these waves appear more like tides, ebbing and flowing.

These waves have something to do with a change in opinion over the last 50 years. Increasingly large majorities of the people consistently profess themselves afraid of their government. They think it too big. They think it does not account to them—that it is beyond their control and does not operate with their consent. They think it should be smaller, even if that means they receive fewer services. It seems that the growth of government has not made people feel safe and happy.

Nonetheless, two of the recent waves elected people who support larger government, and Americans continue to depend upon government more than ever. At all levels, government consumes something close to 40 percent of the economy, not even counting regulatory costs, which are nearing $2 trillion. People seem to be groping for a solution to this, and they do not seem to think they have found it.

This picture is not unprecedented. In the period leading up to the American Revolution, loyalists or Tories contested with revolutionaries, and these two groups alternated having the upper hand between 1763 and 1776, and even later, after the war had begun. The people were making up their minds about something fundamental, and a consensus was slow in forming.

In the period before the Civil War, there were those who advocated destroying slavery in the slave states, where the national government’s constitutional authority to do so was weak or nonexistent. There were others who supported slavery where it existed, and even the extension of slavery into new regions. Others still would find some compromise that would do the least dramatic possible thing. And then there was the new Republican party, founded to stop slavery’s expansion and seek a constitutional path to its eventual abolition. This too was a fundamental question, and it took a long time and eventually much blood to decide it.

This controversy over slavery grew up in the course of one generation. One may mark it by two of the most important statutes in American history—the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The Northwest Territory had belonged to Virginia, and Virginia, a slave state, on the motion of Thomas Jefferson, a slave holder, gave the land to the Union for free on condition only that there be no slavery allowed in it at any time.

…the document must be read as a sign of a consensus about slavery. We have it, those early Americans said, and we do not know what to do about it, but we know that it is wrong and should not be extended elsewhere. Many in the Founding generation stated this, often in beautiful terms. And eight states either abolished slavery.

A generation later, Missouri was to come into the Union, and the Senate was evenly balanced between slave and free states. A compromise was necessary because the slave states insisted upon keeping that balance by admitting as many slave states as free states.

Our times are like these previous times in terms of the alternation and number of political waves. But is there a principle at stake today that is as deep as the one that divided the nation in those two fateful periods?

he left and some on the right, in both political parties in America, have styled themselves “progressive” for more than 100 years. Progress to them is a process of history. In that process, people and peoples are transformed and can be elevated. Time and circumstance define the being of man and of everything else. This process of social evolution makes our grandest universal statements in any time not really universal. Progressives understand such laws as only time-bound assertions, the product of prevailing circumstances. They can have permanence, by this way of thinking, only if they can assume new meanings as new circumstances arise.

For Progressives, we discover the real truth about these matters by a certain kind of scientific inquiry, an inquiry into history. And once we begin that inquiry, it becomes sovereign. If everything is to change, and we are simply creatures of that change, we can win our freedom by taking control of the process of change. Guided by highly-trained people, scientists and social scientists, we can direct the society to become a new society, its people a new people. The work of these scientific people is very important, perhaps even sovereign. They have a standing independent of the will of the governed, previously thought self-governing by nature. These scientists are the makers of the future, and in making the future the people are the subject of their experiments.

Since the wave election last month, we have been treated to videos of Professor John Gruber, an MIT social scientist. He has been dining out since 2010 on his experience as one of the “architects of Obamacare.”

The architects of Obamacare figured out that if they described the health care law as it was, the American people would not go for it. They are “stupid,” in Professor Gruber’s estimation. They are stupid at least in this respect: If the complex bill could be called something other than it was, then the bill could pass and people could be introduced to its wonders. They would be able to enjoy those wonders only through experience, as they lacked the intelligence to figure it out in advance.

Dr. Gruber apologized when the initial video appeared, but since then several other videos have surfaced that show him saying the same thing on other occasions. This means that conversations like the ones he describes were going on among many people, apparently one of them in the White House with President Obama, at the time of the bill’s passage. And the videos of his speeches mean that there are many people, generally highly educated people, who enjoy stories like this, pay Mr. Gruber when he tells them, and respect him for his achievement. To these people, the passage of Obamacare is apparently a delightful episode in American history.

Nor is this an isolated achievement. The Dodd-Frank law sets up a power in the federal government to investigate anyone and everyone who lends money to any consumer. … and the Congress is forbidden by its own statute, signed by the President, to inquire into the agency’s budget. This is a perfect example of a violation of separation of powers that the Constitution was written to prevent. There are many others.

We look back through the past and through the great books, old and new, and wonder what solution can be found to this crisis. It turns out that there are examples both of thinking and of acting that can help guide us. We require today a devotion to two things that are on the surface contrary. The first of them is constitutionalism, and the second is statesmanship.

Constitutions on the other hand are grand laws written a long time ago. They get in the way all the time, and statesmen constantly have reasons to be impatient with them. Any list of the most influential heads of state in the 20th century has to include the names of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. They are not famous for their constitutionalism, but for being tyrants. The greatest opposite example in the 20th century is found in the remarkable career of Winston Churchill. The British Constitution, and for that matter the American, are among his favorite themes.

These two solutions, constitutionalism and statesmanship, come together then in the careers of certain remarkable people. On the one hand they are good at getting power, and on the other hand they are quick to give it back and to set examples that serve to distribute power long after them. One need think only of George Washington. If you want to see a contemporary example, watch the victory speech of the newly-elected U.S. Senator from my home state of Arkansas.

Our crisis may be grave and threatening, and yet it cannot be worse than others we have survived in the past. Those others can supply a guide to us today. And just like the pursuit of wisdom, so the life under free and constitutional rule is a beautiful life, and it sings to the heart of every man and woman.

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