What is the most listened-to radio show in America?  Rush Limbaugh’s.  Estimates range between 14 and 30 million listeners.  In July of 2008 Limbaugh signed an eight-year, $400 million contract—hardly the kind of money a revolutionary gets for speaking truth to power.

What is the most-watched cable news channel?  Fox News Channel, which regularly has 50% more than, and often twice as many, viewers as #2 CNN.

What is the most-watched cable news show?  Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor, with its anything-but-journalistic host, regularly pulls in 3.5 to 4 million viewers.  Granted, his viewers are about half of the number watching a broadcast evening news program, but broadcast news viewership has declined by about a million viewers a year since 1980, while FOX News continues to grow.  Moreover, the broadcast channels feature 2-4 hours of news each day while the cable news channels broadcast “news” 24/7.  And let’s not forget that Fox’s broadcast channel shares a lot of personnel and an obvious conservative bent with the cable Fox News Channel.

So they’re huge; so what?

In a recent Pew Research Center survey on perceptions about President Obama’s religious life, they found that seven percent more people in August 2010 (18%) think Obama is a Muslim than did in March of 2009 (11%).  And not coincidentally “When asked how they learned about Obama’s religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media.”  This is why it’s important.  People are outsourcing their thinking to ideologically driven pseudo-journalists—on both sides of the spectrum.  Sean O’Limbeck is more heard than Keith Mahrtthews, but only more problematic because of the size of the audience.

The right-wing is also very adept at defining the language of the debate.  Terms like “death tax,” “socialized medicine,” “death panels,” “welfare queens,” etc. have no counterpart from the left.  The left-wing finds itself in the unappealing position of some of our founding fathers who were, by default, labeled the Anti-Federalists because they didn’t define the language of the debate first.

So why does the right-wing continue to claim oppression by the “main-stream” media?  The right-wing obviously has a very large—and very malleable—audience.  Whence the stance of victimhood?  Because if you’re going to spur a revolution, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil” (Hoffer).  The MSM is among many devils the right-wing uses to generate fear, anger, and dependency in their faithful listeners.  The left-wing also sets up devils for the same purpose, but I can’t identify one that is  as delusional and self-contradictory as the MSM when the right-wing is such a media juggernaut (comments to the contrary are welcome).  It’s common knowledge that people tend to seek out media that reflect their own values; but the right-wing continues to claim both that 1) America is a center-right nation, and 2) the MSM has a liberal bias.  This is a non-sequitur.  Either the MSM doesn’t have a liberal bias or America is a center-left nation.

Why does the right-wing choose the MSM as a target?  “[L]ike an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent” (Hoffer).  The MSM is so large and omnipresent, with so much fallibility that it makes an easy target as a menace, and one that’s not going away soon.  If one is looking for bias, the MSM is so huge that one can find bias of any kind—and vilify the whole for the bias of the part.

The right-wing–like the left wing–must be in revolution mode at all times for self-preservation.  Once people become comfortable with the present, they stop listening to dogma, ideology, and fearmongering.  If Limbaugh’s listeners think life’s OK, they’ll stop listening to him.

Americans love an underdog and a revolution.  As long as the right-wing media juggernaut can convince enough people that they are indeed a revolutionary underdog, they will set much of the agenda in American politics.

Independents have three problems: 1) we think we don’t have the numbers to do anything; 2) we think we couldn’t come to agreement as a group on anything consistently enough to form any kind of cohesive influence; and 3) we’re seldom willing to contribute money and time to candidates or issues because we don’t live and die by single issues.

I think we’re wrong.  We’re obviously wrong about the numbers.  In Utah, as in most other places, independents constitute the plurality, if not the majority.  Granted, many independents are simply uninterested in politics.  But we cared enough not to simply put our parents’ party affiliation.  And enough are interested in what happens to make a HUGE difference.

Secondly, we’re wrong about coming to a consensus on anything.  It’s precisely the independents who can objectively, without the blinders of single-issue mania, see that our system is breaking, and that the only way to fix it is to bring back compromise and bi- or multipartisanship.  Only the independents can make the center (where the general population is) politically significant.  Our issue needs to be good governance rather than all the politicized issues out there that have no place in the halls of government.

The third doubt is the toughest, because it’s the truest.  Most of us independents don’t care enough to put anything into the political process.  However, a breaking point is approaching when the independent center must make its weight felt in order to preserve the forms of good governance.  If the independent center does nothing, we will one day suddenly find ourselves standing in a country torn in half by the money on the fringes.

So what does an independent do?  First, realize s/he is part of the centrist majority.  Second, learn about issues that affect us, and look into both sides to find common ground (this is really hard, because we often have to admit we’ve been wrong and we have to stretch our comfort zones and put ourselves in others’ shoes—but it must be done).  Third, talk to other centrists and independents about solutions to issues.  Fourth, start letter-writing campaigns to target elected officials.  If an official receives 10-12 of the same letter, we have his/her attention because we have shown that a) we’re talking about the issues, b) we’re organized, c) we’re watching him/her, and d) we care enough to act.  Officials also know that if there are a dozen people who sign the letter, there are several dozen more who have heard our opinions and are within our circle of influence.  And so with a dozen letters, we make ourselves a voting block, a “special interest group.”

Good governance isn’t sexy.  It isn’t a hot-button issue that gets the rank and file to open their wallets and pound the pavement.  But it may be the most important issue we can advocate in our current political climate.

The animosity between the two principal political parties in the U.S. is unusually high these days. Doubtless there are many reasons, but I’ve been thinking lately more about the ramifications rather than the reasons. These two parties are a set of Saul and Paul of whom Hoffer spoke. They hate each other, but depend on each other for mutual existence. Without the Saul, or “devil” of an “other,” a political party sits like a child on a see-saw with no partner. The party out of power counts on the unrealistic expectations placed in and the incompetence of the ruling party. The opposition knows it will have its turn when we the people “throw the bums out.” So they sit and criticize, whine and obstruct while the ruling party steamrolls, blunders, and overreaches. If it weren’t for the incompetence of each party, the other may never come to power. And so they are like the moon, needing the sun to go away so it can be seen, but not too far away so it can still reflect the sun’s light.  

This has always been the case, but these day there’s a new twist. The political news pre-packaging industry (Air Amolbermann and Sean O’Limbeck amid others) exaggerate the faults of the other while diminishing those of their own ilk. And too many Americans on both sides are duped into thinking they are really getting “fair and balanced” political news, just because it sits well with their own opinions–after all, I’m Paul. We conveniently don’t have to think, because as long as we only listen to one side of the argument, no one will poke holes or make us ask hard questions.

This disinformation 1) creates more extremism, and thereby 2) generates (not coincidentally) more money for the extremes of each party as Americans are led to believe the other side is made up of Sauls. The results of this are more extreme candidates, leading to more extreme positions, leading to more gridlock in government, leading to an inability for government to function, to effect its goals as outlined in the preamble to the Constitution and similar state and local government constitutions and charters.

What compounds this situation is that the people the parties are putting forward as candidates are not as good as they should be. They are party men and women whose allegiance is to the party’s platform, not the Constitution or its goals. So when they get into office, they don’t look to promote the general welfare, but to promote the party welfare. Rather than provide for the common defense, they provide for the party defense. And this, rather than forming a more perfect union, fractures the union.

Incumbents, pragmatists, independents, and centrists are dropping like flies. Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter are only the first of many more expected to fall victim to the “you just aren’t extreme enough for me” fervor. Charlie Crist, the moderate and very popular Republican Governor of Florida withdrew from pursuing the Republican nomination for the Senate because a more extreme candidate was going to beat him in the primary. He’s now running as an independent.

Here’s the point of my post. Centrists and moderates from either side of the great dividing line between right and left (there are 300 million opinions as to where that line falls) need to support people like Crist. As much as I hate to say it, we need to send them money. The last thing the Senate in particular and the federal government in general needs is more gridlock—they’re already ineffective enough. It needs moderating voices and people who can reach across the aisle. That act alone is treasonous to party people, and that extremism is ruining our country.

Government only happens through cooperation and log-rolling, not through obstruction and steamrolling. Government should be an action, not an inaction, not an ideology, not a political weapon. We the people need to support people who will represent the people and the goals of the Constitution, not the parties.

The other day I saw a news article that said that Glenn Beck, a nationally-syndicated political talk show host who also has a TV show, a man who has millions of listeners/viewers, told them that if their churches mentioned “social justice” or “economic justice” (what he called political “code words” for communism, etc.), his listeners should leave their churches.  This was shocking to me, first because Beck and I are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and I can’t reconcile what he said with the doctrine I know from our church.  Isn’t this a violations of the First of the Ten Commandments?  And secondly, because anyone who actually took his advice widened one of the biggest rips in the fabric of our society.

I’m talking about the fact that all of us are bound together in an eternal family.  In too much of the political discourse lately, there has been demonizing, name-calling, and dehumanizing.  To what end?  To get the trajectory of the country to move a fraction of a degree to the left or the right.  At what cost?  We are sacrificing our kinship with our fellow man to our political objectives.  

We are too willing to create a chasm between “us and them,” refusing to acknowledge that they are us and we are them.  We are encouraged, even commanded by partisan leaders and “men of words” to vilify and hate the others.  As Eric Hoffer observed, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”  Partisans are inculcating us with unreasonable fear and then wielding that fear to further their own goals at all costs, not through cooperation and understanding but through accusation and obfuscation, because, in the words of Hoffer, “[the fanatic] fears compromise” and “sees in tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity and ignorance.”

The partisans prefer that we adopt the thoughts of the group because, as David Brooks wrote in a recent column, “People who are thinking in the group mode are loyal, disciplined and vicious against foes. People in the person-to-person mode are soft, unpredictable and hard to organize.”

Politically the group mode of thinking is valuable, but what is our raison d’être?  God didn’t create us to help our parties win elections or to move the country left or right; we’re here to obey Him.  And we cannot bifurcate our spiritual lives from our political lives.  If we cannot reconcile them, then at least one of them is false, and in trying to maintain them separate and separately, we can find no peace or balance.  Hoffer saw this as an intentional state of mind effected by the men of words: “By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance.”  Many of us seek peace and balance in spirituality; in fact for some it is the primary reason for religion.  Why would we surrender that balance to the ideologies of other people whom we don’t really know and whose motivations we can’t fathom?

We Americans have gotten into a habit of checking our spirituality at the door of political discussion (and expecting the same of other cultures).  We shouldn’t do this; we shouldn’t be ABLE to do this because our faith should be so much an integral part of our personal constitution.  It should be the backing of our tapestry, not an accent color on it.

But the “men of words,” who also usually claim to be God-fearing men, want us to follow a different doctrine.  They want us to embrace a political doctrine that is contrary to our spiritual doctrine.  And how can we argue with them when they’re so darn accurate?  George Orwell, in his great essay “Notes on Nationalism” said, “Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties” (he defined “nationalism” as “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit [read political party], placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests”).

Accuracy is not truth.  All half-truths are accurate; that’s the “truth” part.  But they’re not only untrue, but anti-true.  And this is one of the biggest tools the “men of words” use.  They use accurate half-truths to demonize “the others” and make them seem less than human so that we can justify hating them.  Hoffer further noted, “To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.  Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”  So if they can get us to do no more than use derogatory nick-names for down-the-political-spectrum people or parties, they have pushed us down the road of hatred to the point where, as Orwell put it, “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage . . . which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.”

We must change how we each participate in the political debate; not for the nation but for our own souls.  We must acknowledge the humanity of those we do not agree with.  We must take up John Adams’s “pacific and friendly disposition” in negotiation and debate.  But mostly we must remember that every person we’re told we should vilify and hate is a child of God and a heavenly sibling.  And knowing how He loves us, we can assume how He feels when we treat His children the way we sometimes do.  And if we just can’t do it, if we just can’t see the other’s perspective, understand her motives, then it’s time for mom’s advice to come into use.  “If you can’t say something nice (about God’s children), don’t say anything at all.”

Its comments pertain to the Tea Party movement, the Obama campaign, political shock-jocks (Sean O’Limbeck and Air AmOlbermann), party politics and legislative maneuvering, terrorism, nationalism, torture, religion, power, kindness, leadership, creativity, personal fulfillment, and a thousand other topics that occupy our 21^st Century minds, books and airwaves.

His commentary is bare and unapologetic.  He seems to have little patience for those weak-willed enough to be sucked in by a mass movement.  But he also acknowledges that some movements are good, while others are not.  He looks at only the characteristics and tactics, not the morality of the movement.  So he will use an example of the American Revolution alongside the Nazi movement to illustrate the same point.

Hoffer’s writing style is pithy and aphoristic.  Each word is precise; each paragraph is a meal to be digested.  There is no waste.  The author himself went blind at the age of seven but his sight returned at age 15.  “Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, and Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading” (the Wikipedia article on him is quite interesting).  He was a gold prospector, a homeless genius, a door-to-door orange salesman, a migrant worker, and finally a longshoreman until he retired at 65.

Below are some (a LOT) of quotes from the book.  The timelessness of the thought demonstrates the soundness of the mind that produced them.  (One small explanation: a “radical” is a left-wing fanatic, while a “reactionary” is a right-wing fanatic.)

The True Believer will change the way you think about almost everything.  And it’s not for the faint of heart, testimony, or personal conviction, because the book itself could become a holy cause to some.

Enjoy!

“[T]hough ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious.”

“Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and preserve the status quo.”

“[A] mass movement, particularly in its active revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.”

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.  When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”

“[T]o the frustrated the present is irremediably spoiled.  Comforts and pleasures cannot make it whole.  No real content of comfort can ever arise in their minds but from hope.”

“There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members.”

“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”

“Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach.”

“We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”

“Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure and frustration.”

“Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.”

“Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses.  Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.”

“The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one’s individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.”

“[Armies’] uniforms, flags, emblems, parades, music, and elaborate etiquette and ritual are designed to separate the soldier from his flesh-and-blood self and mask the overwhelming reality of life and death.”

“To lose one’s life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.”

“There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or ‘of those who are to be.’”

“[T]here is no more potent dwarfing of the present that by viewing it as a mere link between a glorious past and a glorious future.  Thus, though a mass movement at first turns its back on the past, it eventually develops a vivid awareness, often specious, of a distant glorious past.”

“The conservative doubts that the present can be bettered, and he tries to shape the future in the image of the present.  He goes to the past for reassurance about the present. . . .”

“The reactionary does not believe that man has unfathomed potentialities for good in him.  If a stable and healthy society is to be established, it must be patterned after the proven models of the past.  He sees the future as a glorious restoration rather than an unprecedented innovation.”

“[The reactionary’s] image of the past is based less on what it actually was than on what he wants the future to be.”

“If [the radical] has to employ violence in shaping the new, his view of man’s nature darkens and approaches closer to that of the reactionary.”

“What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as they decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come from the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more—and there is. By expatiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation.”

“Those who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossible.  It is a device to camouflage their shortcomings.”

“Satan did not digress to tell all he knew when he said: ‘All that a man hath will he give for his life.’  All he hath—yes.  But he sooner dies than yield aught of that which he hath not yet.”

“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”

“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”

“By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance.”

“The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. Often, indeed, it is his need for passionate attachment which turns every cause he embraces into a holy cause.”

“[The fanatic] fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.”

“[The fanatics of various hues] hate each other with the hatred of brothers.  They are as far apart and close together as Saul and Paul.  And it is easier for a fanatic communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism, or Catholicism than to become a sober liberal.”

“[The fanatic] sees in tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity and ignorance.”

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

“[L]ike an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent.”

“To qualify as a devil, a domestic enemy must be given a foreign ancestry.”

“[M]uch of our proselytizing consists perhaps in infecting others not with our brand of faith but with our particular brand of unreasonable hatred.”

“There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.”

“To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.  Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”

“There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality.”

“[W]hen we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”

“Propaganda by itself succeeds mainly with the frustrated. Their throbbing fears, hopes and passions crowd at the portals of their senses and get between them and the outside world. They cannot see but what they have already imagined, and it is the music of their own souls they hear in the impassioned words of the propagandist. Indeed, it is easier for the frustrated to detect their own imaginings and hear the echo of their own musings in impassioned double-talk and sonorous refrains than in precise words joined together with faultless logic.”

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership.  What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”

“There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.”

“When the leader in a free society becomes contemptuous of the people, he sooner or later proceeds on the false and fatal theory that all men are fools, and eventually blunders into defeat.”

Quoting Hermann Rauschning: “Marching diverts men’s thoughts.  Marching kills thought.  Marching makes an end of individuality.”

“Suspicion is given a sharp edge by associating all opposition within the ranks with the enemy threatening the movement from without.”

“It is [the chosen devil’s] voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges.”

Quoting Montaigne: “Our zeal works wonders when it seconds our propensity to hatred, cruelty, ambition, avarice, detraction, rebellion.”

“By elevating dogma above reason, the individual’s intelligence is prevented from becoming self-reliant.”

“Whenever we find a dispensation enduring beyond its span of competence, there is either an entire absence of an educated class or an intimate alliance between those in power and the men of words.”

“When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism.  We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point.”

“[The man of action (leader of a mass movement in its post-fanatical phase)] inclines, therefore, to rely mainly on drill and coercion.  He finds the assertion that all men are cowards less debatable than that all men are fools, and, in the words of Sir John Maynard, inclines to found the new order on the necks of the people rather than in their hearts.”

“[A]t the end of its vigorous span, the movement is an instrument of power for the successful and an opiate for the frustrated.”

“Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of a society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks turned into holy causes) or militarized.”

I’m not sympathetic to the current regime or the theological fascism it employs to keep control. But bombing Iran now would be the worst thing that could happen for the region and for the West’s declared values of peace and democracy.

The nascent democratic revolution emerging in Iran would be crushed under a resurgence of Persian nationalism if Iran were bombed. Eric Hoffer said, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.” The U.S. was the 1979 Islamic Revolution’s devil. Israel has long been a pet devil of Iran, and particularly of President Ahmadinejad. But this hatred of the West and Israel has been distracted by the internal strife in the country since the disputed election this summer that kept Ahmadinejad in power.

The Iranian regime knows the power of a devil to galvanize and unify a group and to promote sacrifice for a cause. And if they can provoke the U.S. or Israel to bomb them, sure there will be casualties, but the rift in the 3000 year old Persian nation will quickly close, and the emerging democratic movement will be destroyed. For those who don’t believe this, see the comments of Charles Rangell and Hillary Clinton closing ranks with George W. Bush after Hugo Chavez of Venezuela bashed Bush at the U.N. in 2006.

Surprisingly the regime doesn’t see the devil it’s making of itself in the eyes of the democratic movement in the country. With truncheons and torture, the Iranian regime is tempering and galvanizing the revolution.

So even though the militaries of the U.S., Israel, and Iran all want the same thing—for Iran to be bombed—if we want peace in the region (delayed though it may be), Iran should not be attacked. It would set back peace by decades.

Every revolution before it happens seems impossible and after it happens seems inevitable. Let’s not inadvertently scuttle the first great and significant revolution of the 21st century.

Dear Governor Huntsman,

Please veto House Bill 357. Considering the number of accidental shooting injuries and deaths in Utah recently, especially among children, it is irresponsible to increase the danger to children and adults alike. I know that proponents of the bill say that handguns are necessary for self-defense.

But when considering handgun bills, legislators and governors should consider several things. First, how often do handgun carriers successfully defend themselves with their handguns? Then contrast that with 1) how many accidental shootings there are with handguns (this bill increases the probability because they are loaded and more accessible); and 2) how often handguns are stolen from legal owners (this is where criminals get handguns—not from gun shows—and the bill makes it easier because now handguns are in glove-boxes). Reason dictates that, if we must have handguns in our midst, they should be treated in as safe a way as possible.

Bill 357 is a bad bill with no real usefulness to the public. Please veto it.

Price and Demand
The regular interaction of price and demand (demand should react inversely to price, and price should follow demand up and down) is invalid in the healthcare market. No matter how high prices go for healthcare, demand does not decrease. This is called “inelasticity of demand.” Why doesn’t demand react the way it’s supposed to? Because we aren’t dealing with “computers and cellphones”; we’re dealing with our health and our lives. People don’t say, “I’ll wait until next year for the the current chemo technology; the older it is, the cheaper it gets.” Or “I’m fine with my dialysis [landline]; I don’t think I need a kidney [cellphone] right now.” Or “Maybe my anatomy-savvy [computer-savvy] brother can reconnect my Achilles tendon [wireless router].” We are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to not only preserve our lives, but also to make our quality of life good. This invalidates the textbook relationship between price and demand. I think Newt knows this and is being disingenuous. If he doesn’t know it, no one should be listening to him anyway.

Slavery – the Ultimate in Economies of Scale
The Market has no conscience or soul. It does not shy away from evil, abuse, or exploitation. One of the most obvious cases for this is the concept of slavery. Why did our Founders guarantee the continuation, even the propagation of slavery in the Constitution? Because the South said they wouldn’t ratify it if slavery were not protected. Didn’t the North find this unacceptable? Well, the South made a very convincing point that Northern shippers (including the ship-building, merchant, seamen, and harbor industries, primarily from the North) would also be hurt if the agrarian economy of the South were stunted by prohibiting slavery. This was convincing enough to get our Founding generation to formally and officially condone a principle that the majority personally felt was immoral.

Slavery is ingenious, from the perspective of the market. Higher productivity with lower costs is the dream of every profit-oriented enterprise. This is what capitalists have been killing themselves to achieve since the beginning of time. And slavery is the perfect solution. The problem is that it’s despicable, immoral and inhuman. But the market doesn’t care. This is why I wince when people say, “Let the market decide.”

It’s June 1, 1941 – Where’s YOUR money?
Germany has conquered Czechoslovakia, Poland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Vichy France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Hungary, and Romania. They have invaded Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and North Africa, and have begun bombing the UK. The USSR has conquered Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Italy has invaded Egypt and British Solmaliland, and Japan, while maintaining a loose hold on China, is sweeping unhindered across the Pacific.

Where does the market go? Where are stock prices on British and Canadian investments? The market is betting on the Axis. From our hindsight, we can say what WE would have done, but the market doesn’t have a memory; it is a function of fear of or greed for the future. It does not know right from wrong or stand up for principles; it follows after money relentlessly and without deviation.

Importing the Autobahn
One of President Eisenhower’s great accomplishments was the interstate freeway system, an idea born from his observation of Hitler’s Autobahn. Could “the market” have produced this? I don’t think so. Not even Halliburton could have done this (and would we have wanted it? “[I]n April 2008, the Government Accountability Office issued a report after having looked into 95 major defense systems, concluding that the projects had surpassed their original budgets by a total of $295 billion and were delivered, on average almost two years late” (ABC News, March 4, 2009)?). How would the market have made revenue on this; toll booths? That kind of defeats the purpose of a FREEway, (meaning libre, not gratis) doesn’t it? What has been the ROI in the interstate freeway system? I think it has been worth my tax money, but it would have been hard to sell the business plan in 1952.

Competition from GM to Wal-Mart
Every market tends toward two to three major players with several smaller players exploiting niches. Think Delta, United, and American; or GM, Ford, and Toyota; Wal-Mart and Target; Nike and Adidas. Your argument will be that GM has been knocked off its pedestal by upstart Toyota. True, but will Wal-Mart make the same mistakes? Can anyone foresee Wal-Mart writing its own ruin by being too generous to its employees? Can we foresee Wal-Mart ignoring long-term trends (fuel efficiency) in favor of short-term gains (the SUV boom)? I can’t. And if someone comes along that can out-Wal-Mart Wal-Mart, doesn’t that seem extremely frightening?

This market tendency limits our affordable selection and ruins local economies. We can either get crappy jeans from Wal-Mart or Target, or get good ones from a specialty store that must pay more to compete, and therefore must charge more for its products. These businesses absorb local economies, then, when the local economy has collapsed because Wal-Mart has driven out all the local businesses, it closes its doors because there’s no longer volume to sustain the store.

The market is powerful, but it’s only good when we make it good. And that requires oversight, sometimes called regulation (gasp!).

Why does English have so many cognates with Romance languages if it’s supposed to be Germanic? One of my linguistics professors told our class that 80% of the words we use everyday are Germanic, but 75% of the words in the English dictionary are of French origin, adopted into the language during the centuries-long reign of the French in Britain after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. French became, well, the lingua franca, literally translated as “French language,” but meaning the language generally spoken or the universal language. English is the modern lingua franca, follow closely by Mandarin.

So are we more Germanic or more Romantic because of our language uses? Does language affect society? Yes, but not linguistically, instead semantically. And those who have begun to change American English are not conquerors in the traditional sense, but they are leaving their imprint on the language—and on society. There is a list of words I hate to hear, and I want to change their usage.

Productive - “A productive member of society.” Are we a bunch of bees or ants, killing ourselves for the queen, building a hive or colony for the sole purpose of propagating the species? No. Can someone be helpful to society without “producing” something for future consumption? Yes. Therefore, I propose ditching “productive” and using instead “contributive.” The contemporaries of Socrates, much less himself, would not have called him productive. And yet his contributions are going strong millennia later. Composers, artists, writers all contribute greatly to society, but capitalists would disagree, unless their works could be sold for profit. Think of the greatest thinkers of all time versus the greatest producers of all time. Which has contributed more to society, made us what we are, stood the test of time? Which will be remembered in future millennia?

Bipartisan – This is just the most common of many words that imply the inevitability and irrevocability of the two-party system in the U.S. The plurality of Americans are neither Republicans nor Democrats—they are registered independents. Guess who came up with the phrase “the big-three auto-makers”: Chrysler, of course, because it wanted to be lumped in with its MUCH bigger brothers, GM and Ford. Guess who propagates the implied inevitability of the two-party system through terms such as “bipartisan”: the two parties who don’t want any competition. If Libertarians could ever get a cogent message together or a charismatic leader, they could really upset the apple cart.

A corollary to this is the concept of the “aisle,” as in “both sides of the aisle,” or “the other side of the aisle.” It makes it seem like there is this huge void between right and left, where ne’er the twain shall meet. In fact, the majority of Americans sit in the aisle, between left and right. The aisle deserves to be listened to, not just walked on.

The national interest – Although this term seems innocuous enough—the nation is the whole of its people—it is abused to undermine the interests of the people. National interest usually means one of three things—economic interests, governmental interests, or military interests. This category will include unfair trade relations, pressure to establish military bases (you go, Kyrgyzstan!), torture, war in general, deficit spending, and many others. Citizens must constantly remind their representatives that we make up the nation; not the economy, nor the military, nor the government itself. Otherwise, politicians will continue to believe their own erroneous definitions.

Christian nation – In the movie Cry, the Beloved Country, based on Alan Patton’s book about racism, forgiveness and redemption, the white murder victim, a champion for the poor native South Africans, just before he is shot (ironically by an African youth), pens sardonically something like, “When we say we are Christians, we mean we are white.” We can substitute “American” for “White” and encapsulate the philosophy of too many of our countrymen. For them, the two words are interchangeable in their inherent righteousness. And yet, this “Christian nation” does too many unchristian things, with the knowledge and approval of the self-professed Christians living within it. We do not “turn the other cheek,” “sell that [we have] and give to the poor,” or even try to “[have] all things common.” We, as a nation, ignore the Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments. Also from Cry, the Beloved Country (this time the book) comes the following quote: “The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.” If Christian conservatives understood and lived the laws of Christianity, we would indeed be able to shrink the size of government, a favorite rallying cry, because the hated entitlement programs would be moot, because “public assistance would simply be Christians “lift[ing] up the hands which hang down.” We would not fear the terrorists, illegal immigrants, or higher taxes. If Christian liberals lived the laws of Christianity, they would abandon their salvation-by-legislation philosophy and strengthen their stances against abortion and the disintegration of the family.

How many Christians in American do you know who would have a hard time saying, “I am a Christian before I am an American”? All Christians in America should be able to say this freely and with deep sincerity, but it sticks in the throat of too many who believe America to be the true source of salvation, focusing on the temporal—ignorant of the teachings of Christ.

Thinking Americans need to take back our language. We need to be the drivers of politics, government, society, and language. Words should not be misused by our representatives to confuse, control, and hypnotize us. Only when we can use a pen effectively can it be mightier than the sword.

However, in order for conservatives to prove, in the famous words of Saint Ronald that, “Government is not a solution to our problem; government is the problem,” small-government types need to unplug the mouths and plug in the helping hands.

Here’s the list of things that must be taken up by the community if the state and local governments are not to do it:
- Higher education
- Public education
- Libraries
- Workforce services
- Prisons and jails
- Courts and Law enforcement (we do have a lot of guns here; hmm. . . )
- Healthcare
- Public health and safety
- Fire departments
- Zoos and parks
- Care for the elderly, disabled, poor, homeless, abused, orphans, etc.
- Infrastructure (roads, mass transit, communications, etc.)
- The National Guard
- Policing and regulation of whatever government functions are left
- Natural resource protection and/or development
- Ad infinitum

That’s quite a to-do list, and it won’t be done with tax-deductible donations or by Filling The Boot with loose change. It will take actual physical participation in all of these endeavors.

So, are you with me? Are we gonna do it?! Are we going to take back our government?!?! I have a feeling there’s a lot of hemming and hawing going on; why? Because we’re too busy with other stuff. Socrates’s model of specialization is as valid today as it was then. “We are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations. . . . And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one?” Or written by Thomas Gordon in Cato’s Letters No. 38, “What is Government, but a Trust committed by All, or the Most, to One, or a Few, who are to attend upon the Affairs of All, that every one may, with the more Security, attend upon his own?” This is the concept that the “consent of the governed” is based on. But as Mr. Gordon points out, “A great and honourable Trust; but too seldom honourably executed; those who possess it having it often more at Heart to encrease their Power, than to make it useful; and to be terrible, rather than beneficent. It is therefore a Trust, which ought to be bounded with many and strong Restraints, because Power renders Men wanton, insolent to others, and fond of themselves.“

Can we have hobbyist public works crews, police, judges, librarians, prison guards, or bus drivers, people who only do these jobs when they get around to it? No. This is why we have government. Because it provides that same specialization that too many of us spit out as “bureaucracy.”

Why do we expect the product of our imperfect Constitution to be perfect? Why would we expect the execution of that Constitution to be any less difficult than the establishment of it, where some of the greatest of the Founding generation walked out of the Convention, refusing to sign? Government has two strikes against it: 1) it is created by man, therefore deficient in its design; and 2) it is run by man, therefore deficient in its execution. A third strike in modern America is that most of us don’t know anything about it, but that doesn’t stop us from criticizing like a bunch of Pointy-Haired Bosses. I’m not saying we shouldn’t criticize the government; in fact I think it’s our duty to watch every move it makes. But in the end I think we need to acknowledge the good it does. Gandhi said “History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul.” The picture we get of government is the same: we are never told of how much good it does, but only of how it screws up. We need to accept that a human-built and human-run system is going to have failures. The other option is no government at all—I think I’m a lot closer to that than most, and it still scares me.

Two things the government has going for it are 1) its specialization, and 2) its economies of scale; nobody can negotiate, buy, spend, help, hurt, save, or kill on the scale the government can. Who else could have built an interstate freeway system, saved the world from Nazism, and put a man on the moon? I know what you’re thinking (to quote Magnum): the markets could have done it if given the chance. No, they couldn’t. Because the market would have to raise the capital to start, and would have to prove that its plan would pay off in order to do so. Who would have invested in a man on the moon? (Actually, what good has it brought us besides Tang?) The smart money was on the Nazis in WWII. Sometimes the market is actually slower than the government, because the market has to obey the laws of fear and greed, where governments can do things for simple necessity and altruism.

So, let’s see what happens as our governments shrink. Will there be a groundswell of “conservatives” striding forth to take up the banner government has let fall? I’ve got a bowl of popcorn and a comfy recliner because I think it will be that interesting.