Of Christmas and Celebrating Hope

The story of Pandora and her box (or jar) has been retold for thousands of years, with minor variations.  The key elements of the tale from Greek mythology are consistent.  Pandora was endowed with many wonderful gifts and talents, among them beauty, music, persuasion, and others.  She was also given a box, which she was told never to open.  Try that out on anybody:  “Here is an interesting box.  It is yours.  DO NOT EVER OPEN IT!”  I expect that the result would ever be the same, the box will eventually be opened.  As the story goes, it was, introducing into the world evil in all of its forms.  Last of all, however, from the bottom of the box, came hope.

I believe hope to be an underappreciated and little understood gift from God.  Hope is essential to happiness, salvation, and life.  I know of no happiness without it, I cannot imagine any achievement not preceded by hope.  In all salvation, temporal or eternal, hope draws us forward.  It is foundational to life and living. Hope is ever at war with despair (for example, the Spanish word for “despair” is desesperanza, or the absence of esperanza, “hope”):  despair is life-draining, while hope feeds life.

In this understanding of hope, I do not refer to the weak sentiment most common in everyday parlance, the wistful wishing for something better, a wish that seldom acts as a motivator for effective action.  I have in mind the hope spoken of by God and His prophets, against which the forlorn reach from despair—as valuable and comforting as that may be—pales in comparison.

Consider how the power of hope is described in this account of the preaching of the ancient American prophet, Ether:

Wherefore, whoso  believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God. (Ether 12:4)

Notice the power of this hope, an anchor to the soul, making those who possess it sure and steadfast, the person who has gained it always abounding in good works.  Nothing weak or wistful here.  Such hope is a mighty, heavenly gift, with mighty results.  Also notice the connection between hope and faith, the former being a powerful fruit of faith. 

I have thought that a fair definition of “hope” is the personal recognition that something desirable is attainable.  By faith we learn of the desirable object as well as gain the recognition that it is within our reach.  When that happens, hope is born in our hearts, and we are stirred to action to attain it.  That is life itself.  Dead things, inanimate objects, reach for nothing, always acted upon, never doing the acting.

There are many things that each of us values and would very much desire to attain, to gain, to build:  love, knowledge, wealth, improvement, new abilities, bridges (real and figurative), but we do not act to realize our desires until we first gain the idea that we can be successful.  Without hope of success we may go through the motions in a lame sort of way, guided by routine that can become drudgery.  We are energized—even beyond what we thought were our limitations—as soon as we gain a vision, as soon as we believe the prized fruit to be within our reach, when we have hope.  Then there is little stopping us.  Obstacles are overcome, means are found, tools are made, skills developed.  

In my reflections I have named my three daughters Faith, Hope, and Charity, as each one seems especially to personify one of these three great gifts of God.  My oldest daughter would be named Hope.  Throughout her life, once she has gotten it into her head that something worthwhile is within her reach she has done whatever it takes to realize it.  Because of that, through great and consistent effort, overcoming many obstacles, she has become rich in all of the eternal things, in everything that matters.  Her mother and I admire her for it.  Her achievement need not be unique.  It is within reach of all of us.  Each may have such hope and become so rich.

There are many reasons for the perennial popularity of Christmas.  Surely one of these is that it is a celebration of hope offered to everyone.  Salvation did not come to earth with Christmas.  The sacrifice and atonement that Jesus Christ would work out to bring about all salvation would await another three decades after His miraculous birth.  With Christmas, the birth of the Savior, there arrived in Person the assured hope that salvation would come.  The angel who appeared to the shepherds at Bethlehem the night of the nativity was filled with that hope, with that assurance, that caused him to rejoice and share with the shepherds his message “of great joy” so that they, too, might have this great and assured hope:  “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10, 11) 

The hope of Christ, in all of its power to action and motivation for every good thought and deed, is worthy of general celebration, every year.  The salvation of Christ has been placed within reach of everyone.  Having that hope can become a personal anchor as we realize its promise, becoming sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, that each of us personally, here on earth, can be filled with “peace, good will toward men.”  At least in part, that is what Christmas is all about.

Of Limited Freedom and Limited Government

I live and work near the belly of the beast, and I can report that these days he is not happy.  His belly is rumbling.  He has eaten more than he can digest.  Watch out, he may throw up.  He is already belching.

The federal government is not working, we know and see.  Not only is it not working as was intended when it was created by the States, it is not working as designed and over designed in subsequent years.  The federal government cannot manage the national parks, the welfare system is breaking down, the national transportation infrastructure takes in more money and yet the signs of dysfunction and decay on roads, rails, and bridges are increasingly apparent.  Banks are regulated with thousands of rules while the banking industry continues to shrink:  we have fewer banks today than we did in 1891, and their share of the financial markets has been dwindling for decades.  So much of what the federal government touches turns to rust and ruin.

Yet the federal government keeps reaching out for more, undeterred by its failures.  The Environmental Protection Agency aggressively imposes restrictions on the air we exhale, the Food and Drug Administration announces plans to control the fat in our foods, the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection has decided what kind of mortgages lenders can make and what kind of people can get them (acknowledging that many who qualify today will be outside the boundaries of federal standards in 2014).

You can augment this brief sampling of a longer list from your own experiences.  This is nothing new, other than perhaps in frequency and intensity.  If there is a virtue in Obamacare it may be that its unworkability and its increasingly universal hurt are demonstrating broadly what many have been feeling individually.

Demonstrating the hurt is not the same as redressing it.  The beast, however ill, will not cheerfully surrender its prey.  During the debate over ratification of the Constitution, one commenter, writing in the Philadelphia newspaper Independent Gazetteer (October 12, 1787), observed, “People once possessed of power are always loth to part with it”, and then warned that the Feds could not be counted on, by their own volition, to do “any thing which shall derogate from their own authority and importance . . . or give back to the people any part of those privileges which they have once parted with”.  If that was predictable in 1787, it is painfully apparent today.  Perhaps the clearest example is how the Washington power elites have exempted themselves and their cronies from the application of Obamacare while continuing to inflict it on the rest.

And yet, Obamacare is the hurt that keeps on hurting.  People will not get over it or get used to it.  Its pain and suffering will be felt again and again with each new illness, every new tax, as its strictures reduce availability, affordability, and quality of wellbeing.  Wave after wave of new harm will come, astonishing its supporters and augmenting the ranks of its victims until it is addressed.

Americans, much like other people, will put up with much before they are roused to action.  Unlike for many other people, our Constitution gives us avenues for action.  The Constitution embodies the concept of continual redress within the rule of law to make appeal to extremities outside of the rule of law unnecessary and unthinkable, so long as the principles of the Constitution retain their vitality. 

The core principle of the Constitution is limited government, designed to protect the growth and expansion of human freedom.  Increasingly, for about a century, the “progressives” in Washington have turned public affairs on their heads.  Human freedom has been the focus of limitation, while government enjoyed constant growth and expansion.  The end seems approaching, either of the ability of government to manage what it has taken on, or perhaps (and hopefully) when the holders of power can no longer convince enough people that it is all for their own good.  Limitation on government may return in vogue as promises of government solutions to feed the beast ring ever more hollow.

The Philadelphia writer of 1787, whom I cited above, was a critic of the Constitution, because he believed it impossible that the power gathered in by the federal government could be wrested from its hands.  I remain hopeful that it still can be.  Nothing else will work.

Of Dysfunction and Governing the Nation

It seems that no more evidence is needed. The establishment press, normally loath to criticize the federal government, has at last become even fond of proclaiming that “Washington is dysfunctional,” although they do so as if announcing something worthy of being “news.” The Senate has not passed a budget in some four years. The House of Representatives regularly passes budgets that the Senate will not even consider. The President—who has no budget-proposing role under the Constitution—proposes budgets that are routinely disregarded while declaring his intent to govern without the Congress. At the same time, people feel more alienated from their government than ever before, in ever increasing numbers considering the nation headed in the wrong direction, regardless of the party in control of national policy.

In the most recent demonstration of the Washington breakdown, the Congress this year failed to pass the annual appropriations bills before the current ones expired. Or, better said, the House passed appropriations bills, the Senate demurred, and the President announced that he would veto any appropriations legislation that offered either more or less than what he wanted.

The establishment press, amplifying executive branch efforts to promote panic and stampede the public, announced that “the government would shut down,” and yet 83% stayed open. Some prominent public operations (that do not require any appropriations to operate) were closed at the President’s bidding, like the Lincoln Memorial and the various veterans and war memorials, but the President seemed to have enough money to travel to various campaign-style rallies to complain about the government shut down. There was national confusion and consternation.

Perhaps what is news is that there is, at last, general agreement, and the President has helped demonstrate, that the federal government has become dysfunctional, by which we may mean, not doing what it needs to do. I also notice that this condition has not been getting any better. In addition to the recent, visible indicators, I would offer some longer-term measures.

Economic growth is depressed and has been declining for decades; employment is also down, with millions leaving the work force. Government welfare rolls have expanded dramatically, suggesting that a very large portion of the population is either not able to take care of itself or has surrendered its responsibility to do so. The federal balance sheet approaches ever closer to insolvency. To avoid being gloomy and doomy, I will not recount dismal education trends, eroding family formation patterns, the precarious condition of national infrastructure, or our worsening international relations (with allies and opponents).

Yet, the federal bureaucracies are far larger, taxes—visible and hidden—are higher, red tape has become ubiquitous, and federal subsidies have fallen behind promises even as they outdistance the ability of the federal government to pay for them. If government is the solution, then why is more government not making things better?

How could this happen? Have we as a nation lost our ability to govern ourselves? Have “partisan politics”—as though something new rather than part of our national intercourse since 1796—frozen the ability to consider, set, and follow national priorities? Have the problems of modernity exceeded the ability of policymakers to resolve them?

A case could probably be made for each and all of the above explanations. I think, however, that they are all symptoms of a more fundamental problem, one recognized long ago, at the founding of the nation.

As early as 1787 the Founders recognized that a central government would not work for the United States. Even with just the original 13 states and 3 million people, the nation was too vast to be governed in detail from one capital. That is why they created a federal system, under which the few, truly national concerns—such as national defense, trade, international relations, national standards of measures and sanctity of contracts, preservation of freedom and the rule of law, together with the means to fund these activities—would be handled by the national government. All else was reserved to the States.

Note that I did not say given to the States. Remember, the States and the people in them created the national government. The States and the people in them gave to the national government its authority and power.

Today, the United States stretches across a continent and reaches to the isles of the sea, with over 300 million inhabitants. It is even more impossible than ever to govern from a single capital, by a centralized government. We all have seen the evidence, in addition to the growing dysfunction of Washington. Everyday, people all over the nation struggle with rules made by the federal bureaucracies, rules that are often nonsensical where people live and work and play, rules governing the volume of water in our toilets, the content of our children's food, the gasoline in our cars, the content of our communications, the form of our financial affairs, and many other elements of daily, personal life. Even worse, they have become too vast and complex to be administered faithfully or complied with loyally.

We could fault the executive branch bureaucrats who make them or the Congressmen and Senators who write the laws, but these people are no smarter or dumber than the rest of us, and just as well meaning. They just have an impossible job. No one can know enough to run so many things from Washington.

Consider the big issues that seem to have Washington all tied up in knots—in turn afflicting all the rest of us. The new national healthcare systems are breaking down even as they get started. National rules for farmers have Congress stuck over who should get subsidies and who should not. National tax plans designed to take from some to give to others divide the people into winners and losers. Environmental regulations impose costs on some in order to subsidize someone else. National education programs follow each other in rapid succession, each with a new and high-sounding name, none of which do much to stem the continued decline in education. And ever present with all of these national rules are unintended consequences that were not and probably could not be foreseen but which crush people’s businesses, destroy jobs, and disrupt lives.

These are all issues that the Founders never intended for the national government, issues that if governments should address at all should be left to State and local governments, where decisions can be made closer to the people who have to live with the results.

We have at hand a better, competent government, or at least its blueprint. It is found in the structure of our Constitution that created a federal system. Our Constitution is the recognition that only through a system that keeps governing as local as possible can a great nation exist in union and harmony.

What we are seeing play out before our very eyes is that our nation not only should not be governed by a central authority, but that it cannot be. The sooner we recognize that and return to the federal plan of the Founders the happier, and the sooner Washington will be able to function as it should for the benefit of all rather than frustration for all. The task is too big otherwise and doomed to failure. It will not be a pleasant failure.

(First published October 27, 2013)

Of Global Poverty and Washington’s Struggles

It was tough getting out of Washington this evening.  You might suppose that with the partial shut down of the federal government, traffic in Washington would be on the light side.  I have not seen much evidence of it on the streets of the city or in the Washington suburbs.  I know that many, many people must be out of work, because the establishment media keep saying so, television and radio.

I do not refer, however, to experiencing the normal evening outbound Washington traffic.  Traffic was unusually heavy today, especially on 19^th Street, N.W., south of Pennsylvania Avenue.  The world financial diplomats are back in town to attend fancy parties in the cause of poverty.  For several blocks the lanes were clogged, nose to tail, with their black limousines.  The global party goers gather in D.C. each October two out of every three years (they take one year off to congregate somewhere else for variety).  The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are holding their annual meetings as they have for going on 70 years.

Inching along 19^th Street, which is Main Street for the World Bank and the IMF (they have bought up nearly all of the Washington real estate between the White House complex and George Washington University), I was able to have a long, good study of a series of monster posters draping the north side of one of the World Bank office buildings, posters reaching no less than eight stories high, proclaiming the simple bold motto, “End Poverty.”  That is a good idea, probably the product of a high level committee of experts tasked with developing a theme for the Annual Meetings.  It conveys a sense of purpose.  The professional poverty bureaucrats have done little to end global poverty, but they have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain it—at least judging by the results. 

In all fairness, perhaps the annual World Bank/IMF festivities help to fight poverty in the Capital Region.  Washington, D.C., and the Maryland and Virginia suburbs are already thriving from the Administration’s economic stimulus program.  They have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, with the exception of the pockets where the energy fracking revolution is booming.  Nevertheless, at least for a while Washington is drawing money from the rest of the World as it does every day from the rest of the United States.

Focusing on ending poverty is a good idea, and there are ways to do it.  Undoubtedly, much of the discussion, however, in the IMF and World Bank meetings this week has focused on the budget and economic crisis in the United States.  “Dysfunctional” is surely a common word used in conversation by the visiting diplomats in the salons to describe the condition of the U.S. Government, since that is the label regularly applied by the establishment media talking heads, and it would resonate.  The vast majority of the financial officials attending come from nations where government is much more efficient.  Their economies may be dysfunctional, but their governments are models of efficiency.  What the big guy in the big office in the big house wants he gets. 

The American system is a lot messier.  The big guy in the room without corners in the big White House does not seem to be getting what he wants, at least not since the 2010 election.  After that election that put a majority of opposition Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and reelected them in 2012, he has declared his intention to govern without Congress. 

The last couple of weeks have brought home to the President that he cannot quite do without Congress.  Congress still has some role, albeit one greatly diminished from that extended to it by the Constitution.  It turns out that the “government shutdown” actually has shut down no more than 17% of Federal Government operations; 83% continues to pump along spending money with no attention by Congress needed. 

The chief executive is trying to magnify that 17% by making its absence as painful as possible, the rest of us the insect absorbing the sun’s rays under the focus of the glass in the President’s hand.  The executive hope is that public pressure will force the Congress to surrender what remains of its authority and agree to whatever the President demands, backing away from asserting any policy role of its own.  Just give the President a clean bill to keep doing what he has been doing, and move along.

Congress is not making that easy, passing bill after bill to open or ameliorate this or that hardship.  The President has rejected nearly every effort.  Of course, that is odd if you buy the rhetoric from the White House that the Congress has taken hostages.  Working with that metaphor, I know of no hostage examples where anyone having the interests of the hostages at heart would object to release of any one of them.  Who would send the released hostages back to their captors and say, “we will receive no freed hostages until you free them all”?  Yet that is the White House position.  Who is hurt by that?

You would not hear such questioning from the establishment media.  They are doing their best to hide the fact that what we are experiencing is a constitutional crisis, a battle that our Founders anticipated, which is why they created a structure of shared power that requires cooperation of all branches and domination by none.  The media are happy demeaning the struggle as a sporting event with winners and losers, and time clocks, and sports commentators, and favorite teams.

They miss the central point.  We cannot suffer to have any team “win”, and we are not spectators at a stadium.  Our freedom is at stake.  The design of the Constitution is that there can be little governing without all three branches being involved, the whole nation and its many parts represented.  Today we are engaged in a great struggle testing whether that structure of government, limited to prevent tyranny by either the President, the Congress, or the Courts, can endure.  So far it has.  The partial government shut down is the evidence.  Were that to end by either one branch or the other capitulating—rather than House, Senate, and President coming together—it is our freedom that would suffer.  There would remain much less check on the arbitrary and capricious actions of the victor.

Many of the elite financial diplomats at the World Bank/IMF meetings would understand that result and feel right at home.  American government, for 200 years a mystery to the rest of the world, would then become much more understandable and familiar to them.

Of Closed Governments and Coming Together

Battered and bruised and stretched and torn, our Constitution still has life in it.  One of its central principles is that no one person can do much by himself in Washington, for good or ill.  We are watching that play out in this year’s appropriations process.  We see that it is impossible for one man, the President, to make a new law.  It is similarly impossible for one House of Congress, whether Senate or House of Representatives, to do so alone.

Under the Constitution, all appropriations bills must originate in the House of Representatives, where they are given their initial shape and substance.  Next, the Senate must concur or amend.  If the Senate chooses to amend, the bill goes back to the House, which can either agree to the Senate amendment, disagree, or disagree with a further amendment.  If there is disagreement, representatives from House and Senate can meet to resolve those differences.  If they do and succeed, then each House, first one and then the other, passes the bill, after which it is sent on to the President.

It is still not a new law.  According to the Constitution, the President may not amend the bill that has passed both Houses of the Congress.  He can choose to sign it, making it a law.  It does not become a law unless he does.  He can choose to veto it.  In the latter case it goes back to the Congress, where it can only become law if both Houses override the President’s veto.

I lay this process out in some detail, because to listen to the institutional media and most of the pundits you might think that they have all forgotten, or never learned, how the constitutional process of making laws works.  It is not an easy process.  In fact it was meant to be difficult.  Some seem to wish it were easy, at least for enacting the policies that they favor.  They would wish to make one or more constitutional parties to law making redundant and of no separate account or purpose other than to do the will of their favorite other.  They should, instead, take comfort that it is easier to defeat policies that they oppose.

The genius of the Constitution for making laws is that it requires three separate parties of people, sometimes with very different views, to come together to make anything a law.  The Founders made it difficult because they were not very fond of new laws.  They knew that an abundance of laws could mean a scarcity of freedom.  And so it is today, but it has taken over 200 years to build up the awesome pile of laws that regulate so much of our lives, and yet it still is harder to make a new law than many would wish.

Our Constitution requires that a lot of people have to work together to make a new law.  When they do not, nothing happens.  That is why much of the federal government has run out of money and has “shut down.”  A new law is needed to appropriate the money for these shuttered parts of the federal government to open. 

They will continue to be without operating money until the elected representatives in the House and Senate and the President work together to make a new law.  The Constitution forces them to work together.  Nothing will happen until they do, whether that takes a day, a week, or longer.  The Constitution requires sufficient cooperation for law making.  For either House, or Senate, or President to be able to make laws without the other would impose the tyranny of one set of views over the rest.  The Constitution will not allow that.  The Constitution forces a meeting of the minds, either by persuasion or by compromise, or in practice some of both.

The Constitution is a beautiful thing.  I rejoice in it.  I can be patient for a while as it does its work and forces our elected leaders to come together.  The issue is not keeping parks open. The issue is preserving our freedom and our society.  The Constitution still has some power to do that.

Of American Exceptionalism and Our Chief Executive

Two colleagues and I recently had an Internet conversation.  The first brought up the question of American exceptionalism, wondering what it really was, in what it consisted.  Two of us responded with some ideas.  You may find the brief discussion interesting, as I did. 

I would note that this is a real discussion on a public forum.  While I have edited the segments down a bit, I have not inserted new material or changed any of the thoughts expressed.  I give only the first names of my two colleagues.  While this took place on a public forum, I did not ask them to repeat their comments here.

Neal:  American exceptionalism is demonstrated as American values and beliefs projected to the world with Washington, D.C. policies.  Therefore, American exceptionalism is arrogance. This is what I would believe if I allowed myself to accept conventional wisdom.  But I’m settled on understanding exceptionalism to mean that ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things, even beyond their own expectations.  And the reason why it is called “American exceptionalism” is because the country was founded on principles of liberty, freedom, and structures that were intended to defeat tyranny.  This was unique in the world and history at the time of the nation’s founding.

So I conclude that American exceptionalism is something that is not collective and is something that cannot be demonstrated by any policy that comes out of Washington, D.C.  American exceptionalism is something that can only be demonstrated by an individual.

I have trouble believing American exceptionalism was the deliberate intention of the Founders, because I see slavery in the Constitution.  How is it possible to reconcile the concept of American Exceptionalism with the tyranny of slavery?

Wayne Abernathy:  Neal, perceptive questions.  I think that when considering American Exceptionalism—and it is very real—you have to take modern Washington and collectivism out of the equation.  Our current collectivism, which is at the heart of much of what Washington does, is a throwback to what people came to America to escape. The basic idea of American Exceptionalism—which even preceded our independence and our constitution—was that this new land was a place where the worth of the individual, protected by the rule of law, prevailed.  While there were elements of those ideas in much of Europe, they struggled there against monarchy, class systems, and other means of imposing collective will on individuals.  The European ruling classes failed in their efforts to impose collectivist and class rules in North America, but they tried very hard.

I would dispute your point about slavery.  The U.S. Constitution did not create slavery.  It took the thirteen states and brought them as they were into a new foundational rule of law based upon individual liberty.  While slave states entered into that constitutional system and brought their slavery with them, they entered into a system that would not long tolerate slavery.  Before four score and seven years had elapsed most of the slave states recognized that if they stayed under the U.S. Constitution they would lose slavery through the operations of that Constitution, and they would lose it through peaceful means.  That is why they chose to try to leave the Union and defend slavery by force of arms.  The Constitution triumphed—or the people within that constitutional government did—and defeated both secession and the defense of slavery by force of arms.

All of those were elements of American exceptionalism. We risk American exceptionalism to the degree that we embrace the age old practices and policies of group rights, class structure, collectivism, and other policies that undermine individual liberty and the rule of law.

Honza:  As an immigrant, I always took American Exceptionalism to be what our first political generations meant it to be—the idea that we are not a collection of tribes or a particular trading depot that elbowed its way into nationhood so much as people united by a very specific set of ideas:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (including but not limited to property).

Contrast us to Saudi Arabia or any nation with an established faith, or even, arguably national countries like India or Germany, where group membership matters more than who one is.  That’s our genius, it’s why we perform, decade in and decade out, remarkably well compared to other places and why we’re always anxious, as we are now (thanks Wayne), that we’re becoming a nation where who one knows matters more than what one knows.

Neal:  Thank you guys for offering corrective perspectives on this wildly misunderstood idea of American Exceptionalism.  I first got interested when listening to Rush. I thought he was going to define it in a quick sentence, but there was a bunch of table setting.  But Rush gave us more establishment of context.  I was still not certain I had correctly grasped what he defined.  

A whole bunch of people use the phrase “American Exceptionalism” in a very wrong way, and I think it must require an individual effort to get yourself beyond the conventional wisdom meaning. We need somebody more eloquent than Obama to explain it to the American people.

Wayne Abernathy:  I don’t think that Obama believes in it.  He offers a lot of rhetoric—and policies—rooted in the idea that America is just like everywhere else, or where it isn’t it should be.  The United States was founded on the belief and vision that this was a place that could and should be different, that could break the patterns of oppression that had prevailed throughout history and all over the Old World.  By and large, the Founders succeeded, though it is a work in progress and is constantly challenged at home and abroad.

I think that it is that difference, that respect for the individual and for the rule of law, that makes us the target of ideologies of slavery, like the Islamists and the socialist tyrannies.  I am not sure that Obama recognizes that.

Neal:  Comparison to Saudi Arabia brings to mind a question I toyed with:  would the mundane act of a woman driving a car without fear of punishment be considered an example of American Exceptionalism?

Honza:  Neal, I think Wayne is correct. The Canadian rock band Rush (at first I thought you were talking about them rather than the radio host) is less likely to blame others’ poverty and repression on America’s prosperity and freedom than Obama is.  Obama hasn’t really thought about the idea of American exceptionalism, isn’t interested in it and just knows he’s against it without understanding it.

Of the Constitution and the States

It must be the least employed part of the Constitution.  In fact, “never used” may be a better description.  I am not sure but that it may be the one part of the Constitution not only never used but never really tried.

I draw your attention to Article V, which offers procedures for amending the Constitution.  Article V has been successfully invoked 27 times--25 or 26 times if you reconcile the count for the fact that the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, the prohibition of intoxicating liquors.

So why do I refer to Article V if it has been used on more than two dozen occasions?  I have in mind an important but neglected part of Article V.  Article V provides two methods for amending the Constitution.  Only one method has been used.  We might call that the Washington Method, since it relies upon the Federal Government to propose amendments and send them to the States.  The other, unused method I would call the State Method, as it relies upon the State legislatures to initiate the amendment process.

Article V is short.  Here is the text in full:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. (Emphasis added)

Constitutions are foundational documents and so should not be changed any more often than you would consider changing the foundation of your house.  Change the foundation and a lot of other things change, too, and if you are not careful you can weaken the whole structure.  But the Founders of the nation knew that they were not omniscient and that the need for adjustments or even corrections to the basic plan of the government would surely become obvious over time. 

For example, the original process for counting electoral votes for President and Vice President almost put Aaron Burr in the White House instead of Thomas Jefferson in 1800.  Jefferson was the candidate for President, Burr the running mate, and both received the same number of electoral votes, but the electoral college ballot under the Constitution did not distinguish between President and Vice President.  The two were tied, and Aaron Burr got the notion that maybe he should be President instead of Jefferson.  The House of Representatives had to sort it out.  Afterwards, this flaw in the Constitution was corrected by the Twelfth Amendment.

The first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, were made almost immediately and were demanded by several states as essential conditions for their ratification of the Constitution itself.  We could very appropriately consider those ten amendments as part of the original Constitution since it would not likely have been ratified without their promised addition.  In that view, the Constitution has subsequently been amended little more than a dozen times in over two centuries.

It is also worth noting that Congress has proposed amendments that the States have subsequently and appropriately turned down.  One such proposed amendment that never got past the States was approved by Congress in 1861, denying Congress the power to interfere with slavery.  The Constitution does not, however, limit the power of the States to only considering amendments that come out of Washington.  It provides to the States the power to initiate amendments of their own.

Mark Levin, in his recent book, The Liberty Amendments, argues that it is important for the States to exercise that authority.  He offers some suggestions for amendments that the States might consider, designed to restore the balance between Washington and the States that the Founders envisioned when creating our federal system.

It is a sign of how distorted things have become that using the word “federal” today almost always leads one to think of the government inWashington.  Yet our federal system was designed specifically to preserve State authority and limit the power of the national government.  Levin argues that those limits have been dangerously eroded, especially over the last century. 

Consider the many aspects of our daily lives that are determined one way or another by Washington laws and regulations rather than by the States whose representatives are closer to the people whom they govern.  The list would include the fixtures in our bathrooms, the design of our cars, the food offered to children in school lunch rooms, the subjects that they are taught, the products and services offered by banks, and now the healthcare that we can receive.

A major consequence of the problem is that the power appetite of Washington has taken on more than it can handle and is seriously threatening the health of the nation.  Regardless of which parties are in power or whether power is divided, Washington is becoming increasingly dysfunctional.  But the professional politicians in Washington will not let go of the power that they have taken from the States, even as they sink under the weight. 

 

What has tied Washington up in knots this fall?  It is conflict over Obamacare.  Would that even be a problem if healthcare were left to the States to regulate?  Congress is having trouble passing a farm bill because of apparently unbridgeable differences over food stamps.  Would Washington be stuck in the mud—and at the same time affecting all the rest of the nation—if farm and nutrition policies remained in State hands?  At the same time, many States are facing major budget problems coming to grips with paying for programs forced on them by the national government.

The State Method for amending the Constitution was put into the Constitution specifically for the time when the national government was the problem and would be incapable of solving its own problems.  Surely that time has come.  Washington has gotten tied up in a Gordian knot of its own devising.  The wise Founders of the nation apparently knew that things could come to this.  It is time for the States to exercise their constitutional power to cut the knot.