Reflections From a Murky Pond

There are those times when America’s, and probably the whole of Mankind’s, highest, noblest, and most singularly important document, the Constitution, is a suicide letter for America’s democracy. The US Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is one of those times.

Sometimes maintaining liberty carries with it a great weight of inconvenience to the sensibilities of the individual members of the populace who cannot see the benefit to upholding the guiding principles of our great nation when doing so places, or seems to place, our way of life in jeopardy.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

– Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Archibald Stuart, Dec 23, 1791

The SCOTUS’ decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overruled and struck down most of the federal laws limiting corporations and labor unions from using their own wealth to fund or create and disseminate political messages and/or ads during elections as being unconstitutional and in contravention of the 1st Amendment thereof.  The effects of this decision, given human nature, are very likely to be an “inconvenience” brought on the common man by too much liberty.

I, for one, certainly do not relish the thought of the media being inundated by political ads by corporations during each and every election cycle. Nor am I in any way sanguine about how that could effect the outcomes of those elections. Even more so, I  do not relish experiencing the same thing from the labor unions and believe such electioneering ads would be far more likely to come from them than from corporations.

Yet, after reading the Courts decision and opinion, those of the previous cases they cited, and the body of law in question (US Code Title 2, Chapter 14, Subchapter I , § 441b), I am forced to agree with them. Removing the ban on both corporations and labor unions was the only constitutionally correct decision that the SCOTUS could render. The issues that may arise from maintaining Freedom of Speech are far less detrimental than those that would certainly arise from hampering or chilling it.

President Obama and his Liberals are losing their war to force ObamaCare upon America, largely because they cannot withstand or counter the effects of an angry American people who will not bow down and be silent before them.

The protests at the Town Halls all across our nation are working. The voices of the American people, raised in anger and outrage, are loud enough to be heard over the lies of President Obama, his Liberals, and his pet media – which looks like it may be turning on him at last – and are being heard and listened to across America.

According to USA Today:

The raucous protests at congressional town-hall-style meetings have succeeded in fueling opposition to proposed health care bills among some Americans, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds — particularly among the independents who tend to be at the center of political debates.

In a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say demonstrations at the hometown sessions have made them more sympathetic to the protesters’ views; 21% say they are less sympathetic.

Independents by 2-to-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now.

The findings are unwelcome news for President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders, who have scrambled to respond to the protests and in some cases even to be heard. From Pennsylvania to Texas, those who oppose plans to overhaul the health care system have asked aggressive questions and staged noisy demonstrations.

As it is said, Truth Will Out, and the truth is that President Obama and his Liberals do not have answers to hard questions being asked by the American people. They have no answers. They have no plan at this point beyond spending trillions of dollars of the American people’s money and consolidating more and more power into their own hands in the federal government – admittedly, possibly with the best of intentions.

The groundwork of mischief is this. A man fancies that he knows what is best for other men; that he is better acquainted with their sources of happiness than they can be; that he has more appropriate knowledge, and having more power, that he can turn his knowledge to good account on their behalf. He has formed his own estimate of good he is thoroughly persuaded that such and such a thing is good, and being good, he will compel others to receive and to adopt it, because it is good, and because he knows, from experience, it is so.

Yet despotism never takes a worse shape than when it comes in the guise of benevolence; and is never more dangerous than when it acts under the impression that it represents beneficence.

– Jeremy Bentham
Deontology; or, The Science of Morality

At this juncture in time, with the future of our children and our children’s children at stake, we Americans must stand firm. We must hold the line against the Liberals and their plans for “rebuilding” America into something that is only recognizable as a misborn offspring of nations and evil ideologies that we have time and again defeated before. We must not waver and allow Liberty to perish from the Earth.

Stand firm. Hold the line. Much as the men on the beaches of Dunkirk, we must not surrender no matter the cost. We may be defeated and destroyed, but if not…

The Revolt of the Elites: And the Betrayal of Democracy by the late historian, moralist, and penetrating social critic Christopher Lasch is a sobering and shockingly blunt appraisal of democracy in the new American economy.

The Revolt of the Elites is, at best, a disturbing and difficult work to read. Irrespective of your political philosophies, you will likely be bothered and/or offended by some of Lasch’s assertions and conclusions that a presented in this book.

It’s an important work though and well worth the effort and pain it takes to read it.

In “the Revolt of the Elites” Christoper Lasch powerfully and persuasively contends that that the values and attitudes of professional and managerial elites and those of the working classes have dramatically diverged. Although the claim is controverted, many of us on the right (especially social conservatives) agree with the quasi-populist/communitarian notion that democracy works best when all members of society can participate in a world of upward mobility and of achievable status. In such a world, members of society will perceive themselves as belonging to the same team and care about ensuring that that team succeeds. But how can society achieve this sort of mutual interdependence if its members are not part of a community of shared values? As Christopher Lasch explains: “[T]he new elites, the professional classes in particular, regard the masses with mingled scorn and apprehension.” For too many of these elites, the values of “Middle America” – a/k/a “fly-over country” – are mindless patriotism, religious fundamentalism, racism, homophobia, and retrograde views of women. “Middle Americans, as they appear to the makers of educated opinion, are hopelessly shabby, unfashionable, and provincial, ill informed about changes in taste or intellectual trends, addicted to trashy novels of romance and adventure, and stupefied by prolonged exposure to television. They are at once absurd and vaguely menacing.” (28)

The tension between elite and non-elite attitudes is most pronounced with respect to religious belief. While our society admittedly is increasingly pluralistic, “the democratic reality, even, if you will, the raw demographic reality,” as Father Neuhaus has observed, “is that most Americans derive their values and visions from the biblical tradition.” Yet, Lasch points out, elite attitudes towards religion are increasingly hostile: “A skeptical, iconoclastic state of mind is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the knowledge classes. … The elites’ attitude to religion ranges from indifference to active hostility.” (215)

Lash claims that the divergence in elite and non-elite attitudes is troubling for the future of democracy. Its hard for me to gainsay him. Yet, while “The Revolt of the Elites” is sobering – even a tad depressing – it deserves to be read even more widely than it has been. Lasch is no partisan. Conservative proponents of unfettered capitalism get bashed about the head by Lasch just as much as liberal critics of capitalism. Populists will find themselves nodding in agreement with some sections, while communitarians will concur with other sections. About the only folks who will be offended by all of “The Revolt of the Elites” are hardened libertarians and extreme left-liberals.

– Stephen M. Bainbridge

Christopher Lasch’s final question in this work, which was the last of his to be published during his lifetime, was a very important and chilling one: can a society survive when a significant portion of its elite have forsaken its founding principles?