December 19, 2015

To say that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has created confusion regarding the Second Amendment would be to understate the case. To be sure, others on the Court have subscribed to or restated his views, but his majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller [82] led the way, and he has subscribed to the restatements. 

In Heller, in the course of interpreting the Amendment, he rewrote it: by, in effect, expunging the limiting clause, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State;" by converting the phrase "keep and bear arms" — a militia reference — into "keep and carry arms;" and by reading into the Amendment "the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation." The last is a strange principle which suggests that it is good policy to be armed in case an argument might arise. Justice Scalia, like George Will, must have read too many old westerns.[83] 

The Amendment’s statement of purpose, quoted above, was rendered ineffective by labeling it a "prefatory clause," and declaring that it cannot limit the scope of the "operative clause," which is "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Strait forward textual analysis was abandoned, and replaced by theorizing about what the Amendment should have said. As noted below, what it should have said is an elusive concept.

Moving toward the issue in the case, Justice Scalia’s formula became "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home." Upon finally reaching the issue, he narrowed the effect of the new interpretation to this ruling: "the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment . . . ." 

As he found rights not mentioned in the Amendment, so he found unmentioned restrictions. "[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." The last would seem to sanction all manner of restrictions on sale. I wonder if he meant that.[84] 

Until Heller, the Second Amendment had been interpreted far more narrowly. In United States v. Miller,[85] the defendant had been indicted under the National Firearms Act for transporting a short-barreled shotgun in interstate commerce, "not having registered said firearm as required." The District Court held that the Act violated the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed, noting that the Amendment pertains to militias: "With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view." In his dissent in Heller, Justice Stevens summarized the Miller holding thusly: "The view of the Amendment we took in Miller — that it protects the right to keep and bear arms for certain military purposes, but that it does not curtail the Legislature's power to regulate the nonmilitary use and ownership of weapons — is both the most natural reading of the Amendment's text and the interpretation most faithful to the history of its adoption."

Justice Scalia instead contended that Miller’s reference to militias merely meant that "the type of weapon at issue was not eligible for Second Amendment protection", because it was not a typical militia weapon. "We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns." That interpretation was based on Miller’s statement that, when called for militia service, "men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." Justice Scalia also took the opportunity to reiterate his revision of the Amendment by asserting that the "traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-defense." In doing so, he reduced the reference to militias to an arms inventory, and again substituted self-defense as the right protected.

The Miller opinion is not a model of clarity, but Justice Stevens’ interpretation is more persuasive, especially as Justice Scalia’s version creates more problems than it solves.

Given the above reading of Miller, Scalia’s alleged originalism, and his contention that the Amendment must be interpreted against the background of eighteenth-century English law, one might expect him to conclude that only weapons known at the time of ratification would be protected. Early in the opinion, he seemed to reject that: "Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. . . . [T]he Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." Later, he reversed course: "We think that Miller's ‘ordinary military equipment’ language must be read in tandem with what comes after: . . . ‘men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.’ " Again: "We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ . . . We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ See 4 Blackstone 148-149 (1769) . . . ."

How, then, does Justice Scalia protect modern weapons, which were not in common use in the Eighteenth Century, which would be dangerous and unusual compared to those which were? He might argue that modern pistols are "of the kind" used in the Seventeen Nineties, but what of other weapons? Are assault weapons merely the modern form of muskets? Apparently not; following the citation to Blackstone, he said: "It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause." Well, yes. May they be banned? Perhaps: "It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. . . . But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right." The "prefatory" clause recedes even further into the background. He may be saying that only handguns are protected, or perhaps adding simple types of rifles. This is the sort of confusion which arises when a court attempts to legislate.

Justice Scalia’s inventive redrafting of the Amendment is anomalous in the light of this statement of his philosophy, also found in Heller: "Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad." If he really means that, there must be an exception where future judges think the original scope too narrow.

Justice Scalia ended his opinion with this partial concession: "We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution." He rejected that approach: "But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." (The D.C. law was not an absolute prohibition, although it was very restrictive).

In McDonald v. Chicago,[86] the Supreme Court extended the Heller decision to the states. The plurality opinion, written by Justice Alito, and joined by Scalia, at one point more or less accurately recited the holding in that case: "In Heller, we held that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense." However, at another point, it slipped in a broadening of the rule: "our central holding in Heller [was] that the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home" (emphasis added). Possession of a handgun for protection of hearth and home was expanded to keeping and bearing "arms," apparently of any kind, for lawful purposes, apparently anywhere.

This year, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Friedman v. City of Highland Park,[87] upheld a municipal ordinance which "prohibits possession of assault weapons or large-capacity magazines (those that can accept more than ten rounds)." The Supreme Court, apparently either believing that Highland Park conforms to Heller, or regretting the latter decision, denied review by a vote of 7 to 2. Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented in an opinion written by Thomas but presumably reflecting Scalia’s views. They recited the expanded McDonald formula: "a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes," but then declared that Heller "asks whether the law [being challenged] bans types of firearms commonly used for a lawful purpose . . . ."

Now the right is not possession of a handgun in the home (the actual holding of Heller), nor the use of arms by law-abiding, responsible citizens in defense of hearth and home (Heller intermediate formula), nor possessing and carrying weapons in case of confrontation (Heller general formula), nor keeping and bearing arms for a lawful purpose (McDonald), but possessing arms "commonly used for a lawful purpose." Used by whom? The military? The police, very much militarized? Even limiting the reference to the hypothetical law-abiding citizen, that would include assault rifles, which some find necessary in hunting. Indeed, the Highland Park dissent noted that the city ordinance in question "criminalizes modern sporting rifles (e.g., AR-style semiautomatic rifles), which many Americans own for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting, and target shooting." Perhaps they are, after all, not dangerous or unusual, and merely are modern muskets.

The right may be to possess or it may be to carry ("bear"). The right may be limited to handguns or it may apply to "arms." The right may be limited to law-abiding, responsible citizens, or it may extend to anyone. It may be limited to bearing arms for lawful purposes, or it may cover possession (and carrying?) of arms "commonly used" for a lawful purpose.

Most of the discussion has to do with possession, rather than use, and limits on use are not considered, other than some references to lawful use. The Highland Park dissent apparently would not look to the use in any specific case: the issue merely is "whether the law bans [possession of] types of firearms commonly used for a lawful purpose." Leaving that aside, and assuming that the formula will require "lawful" use, what is the result if a given use is prohibited by local law? Might the Second Amendment override that and, if so, what is the test? Also, consider the stand-your-ground statutes, which encourage shooting people. Has the Court spread the cloak of the Second Amendment over those laws by finding "the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation"?

It isn’t clear where the Court is going, which isn’t surprising, as it doesn’t seem to know either.

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82. 554 U.S. 570 (2008)

83. In the Nov. 15, 1993 issue of Newsweek, Mr. Will devoted a long article to a book by someone named Jeffery Snyder whose answer to crime - and, apparently, to mere incivility - is to arm everyone. He cited a line from a science-fiction novel that "an armed society is a polite society." Mr. Will expanded on that by reference to a novel in which the immortal line "When you call me that, smile" is found and declared: "Such was politeness in the armed society of 19th-century Wyoming."

84. I made a more extended comment on in the post of 7/6/08.

85. 307 U. S. 174, 178 (the 1939)
86. 561 U. S. 742, 780 (2010)

87. Decided 4/27/15.

November 30, 2015

On Sunday, we encountered a literal sign of the times. At the entrance of the 5^th Avenue Theater in Seattle (at a performance of The Sound of Music), there was one reading "No firearms." How did we reach the point at which more-or-less-peaceful Seattleites would need to be reminded not to pack a gun into a theater, one which counted many children in its audience?

It’s sadly true that mass shootings have become common; some have political or cultural motivation, but some merely reflect anger and real or imagined slights. They can’t be dismissed, as the NRA would do, as the acts of a few mentally disturbed people. All of them manifest the gun culture: easy access, irresponsible use.

President Obama issues an anguished response to each of the more notorious incidents, but his comments have no effect other than to prompt the usual inane complaint that he is playing politics, as if there were no political issue here. Republican leaders, even when not advocating looser gun laws, adamantly refuse to consider tougher ones because the NRA would denounce them. In addition, they seem to think, what’s the big deal about a few more gun-related deaths? As Jeb Bush put it in response to the shooting at Umpqua College, "stuff happens."

Leaving mass shootings aside, perhaps the bottom was reached as to the use of a gun to express anger — in this case at a mere inconvenience — in a Biloxi, Mississippi, Waffle House, where a waitress was shot and killed by a customer who objected to being told not to smoke in the restaurant.

November 23, 2015

The Seattle Times carried a column recently captioned "America isn’t broken; its leadership is." While there is something to be said for the former statement, and much for the latter, I think the formula gives the citizenry too easy a pass. It’s true that politics, in the sense of the actions of the political class, is in terrible shape, and there is no reason not to be frank about the primary source: the Republican Party, in action and in obstruction. Adding the failings on the Democratic side, we could, therefore, legitimately focus on "leadership" as the problem to be solved. However, that analysis avoids the root cause: too many voters choose Republicans.

At first glance, it’s difficult to see how GOP dominance will end, given the flood of money available, directed unevenly toward Republicans, and the effects of gerrymandering and voter suppression. Neither of the latter two are going to go away soon since both are the work of Republican legislatures. However, that dominance need not last forever; there are many potential votes not being cast.

An illustration came from a column by Ron Judd, also in The Seattle Times, which pointed out the irony in the passage of Initiative 1366 - the convoluted attempt to require a two-thirds majority in the Legislature for any tax increase - with only a bare majority of votes, far less than two thirds. He pointed out that the "yes" vote amounted to 16% of registered voters: a super majority rule imposed by a small minority. (The final tally put the yes vote at 19.06% of registered voters, but his point stands). According to the Secretary of State’s office, the number of registered voters, 3,975,958, is only 76% of those eligible to register (hereafter "eligible voters" or "eligibles") have done so. That would put the number of eligible voters at 5,231,524, so the yes vote on I-1366 amounted to 14.4% of eligible voters, and the total vote, yes and no, was 28.12% of the eligibles. Apart from whatever significance that has for the Initiative, it reflects a serious disconnect between citizens and their government.

It isn’t a phenomenon peculiar to Washington, or to this year’s election. In the 2014 election — an "off year" in the sense of not including a presidential race, but more significant than this year — the national turnout was 36.3% of eligible voters. As The New York Times put it, "The abysmally low turnout in last week’s midterm elections — the lowest in more than seven decades — was bad for Democrats, but it was even worse for democracy. In 43 states, less than half the eligible population bothered to vote, and no state broke 60 percent." That is indeed a problem for Democrats, but it also suggests a solution. Yes, they need to continue opposition to voter-suppression laws, but they need to get out the vote, and if demographics are any guide, there are a lot of potential Democratic votes out there. The Times attributed the poor turnout to "apathy, anger and frustration at the relentlessly negative tone of the campaigns." Not much can be done about the last, and anger, it seems to me, is more significant as a spur to conservatives than a disincentive to liberals. Apathy is the problem for Democrats. They need to present a program which people will believe is in their interest. Thus far, Bernie Sanders is one of the few to realize that.

November 15, 2015

The Roberts Court has made its mark in judicial history, although not in a way any believer in good government would admire. A recent issue of The Nation contained reviews of its most controversial decisions in an article entitled "The Case Against the Roberts Court: A Decade of Justice Undone." Included were District of Columbia v. Heller, (guns), Citizens United v. FEC, (money in elections), Shelby County v. Holder, (voting rights), Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (religious rights of corporations), along with restrictive decisions on access to federal courts, among others.[79]  The significance of three of the decisions was graphically portrayed in charts. Gun homicides per capita in the U.S. are more than four times the nearest developed nation; the ratio to the UK is about 25:1. "Outside group" spending on elections was about 3.5 times greater in 2012 than in 2010, the year of Citizens United, and the ratio of conservative to liberal spending in 2012 was about 2.5:1.[80]  Since Shelby County, legislation restricting voting has been introduced in forty-one states. The first illustrates the uncivilized dimensions of the gun problem, which Heller made worse. The other two measure the results of the decisions.

The Nation included a review of the Court’s more liberal decisions, including recognition of same-sex marriage and rejection of efforts to invalidate the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). However, the principal challenge to the ACA, National Federation of Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius, illustrates another problem: the Court’s misuse of authority. A majority, speaking through Chief Justice Roberts, held that the individual mandate — the requirement to purchase insurance — could not be sustained under the Commerce Clause.

Justice Roberts acknowledged an impact on commerce: "People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society. Those failures—joined with the similar failures of others—can readily have a substantial effect on interstate commerce." In this case that means that those who fail to purchase health insurance drive up the cost for everyone else. "Under the Government’s logic, that authorizes Congress to use its commerce power to compel citizens to act as the Government would have them act." True; what is the problem? "That is not the country the Framers of our Constitution envisioned."

Why does he think that? "James Madison explained that the Commerce Clause was ‘an addition which few oppose and from which no apprehensions are entertained.’ The Federalist No. 45, at 293." Madison did say that, but he did not, as Roberts seems to imply, state that the Clause was innocuous and must not be used vigorously. Never mind: "While Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause has of course expanded with the growth of the national economy, our cases have ‘always recognized that the power to regulate commerce, though broad indeed, has limits.’ Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196 (1968)." The issue there was the reach of the federal minimum wage law; several states and a school district argued that the law could not extend to schools and hospitals operated by the states or their subdivisions. The opinion in Wirtz indeed recited the rule about limits, but did not apply it, holding that, under the Commerce Clause, the minimum-wage rules applied to the state entities. Justice Roberts’ restrictive reading of the Commerce Clause was in aid of states’ rights, so his citation of Wirtz is doubly inappropriate.

However, ignoring the holding and relying on the quote out of context, the Chief Justice concluded: "The Government’s theory would erode those limits, permitting Congress to reach beyond the natural extent of its authority, ‘everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.’ The Federalist No. 48, at 309 (J. Madison)." However, Madison was describing the actions of state legislatures, not Congress; the Constitution, including the Commerce Clause, had not yet been adopted. Ignoring that, Roberts continued: "Congress already enjoys vast power to regulate much of what we do. Accepting the Government’s theory would give Congress the same license to regulate what we do not do, fundamentally changing the relation between the citizen and the Federal Government." That appears to be a convoluted way of saying that the government may forbid, but may not compel, conduct, at least under the Commerce Clause. Interestingly, Roberts contrasted the limited power of the Federal Government with the broader "police power" of a State. "Any police power to regulate individuals as such, as opposed to their activities, remains vested in the States." He approved of that despite the legislature’s habit of "drawing all power into its impetuous vortex."

Under the Affordable Care Act, the "commerce" is the health care system, of which insurance is a part, and purchasing insurance is part of that, all of which Justice Roberts acknowledged. He simply thinks that the prohibit/require dichotomy must be maintained to prevent the Government from reaching too far . However, he decided that, simply by calling the penalty a tax (and thereby removing it from the Commerce Clause and placing it under the taxing authority) it was possible to uphold it, even though the penalty is a lever to force people to buy insurance: "Although the payment [of the penalty] will raise considerable revenue, it is plainly designed to expand health insurance coverage." Although "the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax," it can be upheld as a tax. Pretending that the penalty is a tax is especially odd after declaring, in another part of the opinion, that it is not. However, it has this advantage for Justice Roberts’ theory: "it is abundantly clear the Constitution does not guarantee that individuals may avoid taxation through inactivity." Therefore Congress may not command purchase of insurance and assess a penalty for failure to do so, but it may tax the failure to do so, even though the "tax" really is a "command to buy insurance."[81]

Opinions such as this do not engender confidence.
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79. My comments on the named cases are here: Heller 7/6/08, Citizens United 2/6/10, Shelby County 7/1/13 and Hobby Lobby 7/15/14.

80. The ratios are approximate; I’ve scaled the bar charts as well as I can.

81. I discussed the opinion at greater length on 7/15/12.

 

October 29, 2015

On a recent cruise, we were the only Americans, the other one hundred ten or so passengers being Brits. Conversations tended to reveal, amid perfect courtesy, that certain American phenomena are puzzling - well, strange - to them. One of them is our endless and money-driven election season. That inevitably led to: "Is Donald Trump really running for the Presidency?" and "Might he win?"

Of course they are baffled by our gun culture, and who in his right mind would not be? Well, Ben Carson, current front-runner among the Republicans, wouldn’t. (I’m assuming that he is competent, although many of his comments give one pause). Shortly after we arrived home, the Umpqua massacre took place. Dr. Carson’s reaction included this: As a Doctor, I spent many a night pulling bullets out of bodies. There is no doubt that this senseless violence is breathtaking – but I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away." He doesn’t even have the excuse of never seeing a shooting victim; faced with the result of gun possession, his reaction is to swoon over the alleged benefits of the Second Amendment. Leaving aside his politics and the illogic of his position, the man appears to be utterly insensitive. Apparently eager to emphasize that failing, he added the boast that, had he been there, he would have rushed the gunman. In other words, it was the victims’ fault that they died.

A grass-roots reaction to the shooting illustrated how fractured, hate-filled and simply stupid our culture has become: when President Obama traveled to Oregon to console the victims’ families, he was met by hundreds gun-toting protesters carrying signs reading "Obama Go Home," "Obama Not Welcome Here" and "Go Back To Kenya." This underscores not only the fanaticism and rage of gun nuts, but the fracturing of the polity: a twice-elected President is not welcome in part of his country. He received the same reception when he went to West Virginia to talk about drug abuse: at a rally to protest environmental rules that would limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, a man held a sign reading "Obama is not West Virginia’s President!"

Add a few other factors, such as the concentration of wealth at the top and the reimposition of impediments to voting, and it’s difficult to feel optimistic about the state of the Union.

August 24, 2015

Americans joining ISIS may seem bizarre — Islam is not a force here, ISIS is an aberration of Islam, etc. — but in a way it’s not surprising. It is part of a tradition or, perhaps more accurately, a trend in American culture, that of the society-rejecting loner. We see this trend in the claim of sovereign citizenship, in the law-unto-oneself violence of the NRA, in the idiots from Oath Keepers who brandish assault weapons, in the self-appointed militia who purport to guard military bases, in resistance to mandatory vaccination. We see its rhetorical form in the ramblings of conservative politicians who want to abolish the IRS or the EPA or Medicare or government in general. We see its semi-collective form in the advocacy of nullification or secession, its fully collective form in the delusions of politicians, Democratic and Republican, who think that this country can exist apart from the rest of the world. It is in short the breakdown of society, of the knowledge that no man, state or country is an island.

Mark Lilla put it this way five years ago: "A new strain of populism is metastasizing before our eyes, nourished by the same libertarian impulses that have unsettled American society for half a century now. Anarchistic like the Sixties, selfish like the Eighties, contradicting neither, it is estranged, aimless, and as juvenile as our new century."[78]  Lilla referred to the phenomenon as populism, in part because his article was focused on the Tea Party movement. The use of that term emphasizes the collective aspect, but even the seemingly collective manifestations are driven by the attitude of the self-absorbed individual. Lilla made that point clearly: this kind of populism "appeals to petulant individuals convinced that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone, and that others are conspiring to keep them from doing just that. . . . They don't want the rule of the people, though that's what they say. They want to be people without rules — and, who knows, they may succeed."

August 7, 2015

Often when traveling there is a memorable incident, and sometimes it’s a downer; for example last year our trip ended in Paris. At breakfast on our first day there, my youthful, usually agile wife Bev fell in the hotel dining room, fractured her right hip, and spent our stay in Paris in a hospital receiving an artificial one. One of this year’s events (same city, different hotel) also was in the breakfast room but was less dramatic.

One morning we were startled by a loud announcement in French, then in English: "Attention, attention: due to a glitch in our hotel," everyone must go to an emergency exit. This left us wondering a) where is an emergency exit? b) what do we do once there? c) why are the staff paying no attention? and d) what is the French word for "glitch"? More accurately as to the last, what do the French think that "glitch" means? None of the questions was answered but the announcement ended in mid-sentence on about the ninth repetition. The glitch appeared to have been in the emergency system.

Even with the odd crisis, traveling abroad is enjoyable, and was especially so this year as our good friends the Todds joined us. On a far more elevated note than my reminiscences, Terry Todd set forth his (our) experience in Paris searching for memorials to the composer Jacques Offenbach; here is his record, slightly abused edited by me:

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The Opera Lover’s Guide to Europe, by Carol Plantamura, tells us this:

"Jacques Offenbach is, without doubt, the greatest composer of 19^th-century opera bouffe. Under the influence of his sparkling, memorable melodies and witty charm, operetta became the rage in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin throughout the second half of the 19^th century.

"Three theatres are on the operatic map because of Offenbach. We remember him today for his lyric drama Les Contes d’Hoffman and his extraordinarily catchy melodies (such as the cancan tune). But he was responsible for the worldwide popularity of operetta in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. . . .

". . . In 1850, he was appointed conductor of the Theatre Francais. Then, in 1855, he opened a summer theatre he called Les Bouffes-Parisiens in the Salle Lacaze, which was then replaced by Theatre Marigny. When he was in residence, he called the theatre Bouffes-Parisiens.

"With this name the theatre presented premieres of ten of his operettas between July 5, 1855 and July 31, 1856. Today the names of Offenbach and (Ludovic) Halevy emblazon the top of the theatre on the corner of Avenue de Marigny and Boulevard des Champs Elysees, directly across from the Grand Palais. Today the theatre holds 1,000 and presents plays." ___

"Today the theatre holds 1,000 and presents plays." Reading this was sufficient motivation for me to want to search for Offenbach when I found myself in Paris in April, 2015. Could I actually find this theatre and walk where Offenbach had walked? The theatre was still there in 1997 when Ms. Plantamura wrote her book, which included an artist’s sketching of the building, fronted by several impressive trees. Her description even included a phone number and box office hours. Would I be able 18 years later to actually go there and buy a ticket to see an opera bouffe?

I was in Paris in late April, 2015 with my wife Donna and two close friends, Jerry and Bev Day. When they asked what was on my list to see in Paris, I noted the usual---Eiffel Tower, Arch of Triumph---but especially, "I really would like to find a theatre (there were several) where Jacques Offenbach presented his operettas." Many of the operettas are in my music collection, (he composed more than 70), recorded from vinyl to cassette, and several of them I have seen in person on stage. I have for years been addicted to operetta in general, by several composers, but especially those by Jacques Offenbach. In fact, Jerry and Bev had aided by interest in this composer years ago by giving me an outstanding 1965 LP record set of The Tales of Hoffman, his only grand opera, still frequently performed today by major opera companies.

I did not want to let the opportunity pass. I was in Paris, and when would I come back if I didn’t look for the theatre now? The Plantamura book was my guide, along with a map of Paris. But I had to enlist the help of a front desk staffer at our hotel to find avenue de Marigny in the maze of streets on the map. There it was, just off the Champs Elysses, as described. It could be done; I could get there.

And we did get there, after a walk of several long blocks down the Champs Elysses from the Arch of Triumph. The drawing in the Plantamura book was accurate—it was Theatre Marigny, or Theatre Bouffes-Parisiens, as Offenbach called it. I circled the building several times to enjoy the full measure of its location and history. The building was closed, but it didn’t matter. There was a workman scurrying around, and a sign on the door said closed for remodeling. Donna did take a picture of a poster near the door, advertising the last production. I thought that probably the theatre would open again for the summer, just as it had during Offenbach’s tenure.

Two more theatres were part of Offenbach’s life in Paris. In 1856 he took over a theatre at 4 rue Monsigny and again used the name Theatre les Bouffes-Parisiens. Hitting his stride in a new venue, he sponsored a competition for young opera composers, entered by 78 hopefuls and won by Georges Bizet and Charles Lecoq. Over the next several years, 44 of Offenbach’s operettas premiered here, notably the enduring Orphee aux enfers (1858). The Plantamura book notes that today this theatre is still presenting light comedies and seats 690. Finally, there was a third theatre, also still standing. "Built in 1807, Theatre des Varietes at 7 Boulevard Montmarte experienced its heyday in the Offenbach period of the 1860s," Plantamura wrote. Among the premiers were La Belle Helene (1864), Barbe-bleue (1866),La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein (1867), La Perichole (1868).

I would have wanted to try to find these theatres as well, but there was only so much time in Paris, and our foursome moved on, but I was still searching for Offenbach. All I knew was that Offenbach is buried at Montmarte cemetery, and that the Montmarte district, famous as an artistic center and home to well-known 19^th-century impressionist painters, included the beautiful cathedral Sacre-Coeur, which we planned to see anyway.

The next day, after touring the cathedral, we decided to walk to the cemetery, not realizing that the walk would be about 2 miles! It did include a stroll through the narrow streets of the Montmarte district, this year the center of a city-wide March-to-September celebration in honor of Vincent Van Gogh, who had lived and painted here. We had a delightful lunch at La Cremaillere Restaurant/Cabaret, where Donna persuaded the waiter to give her the impressive menu as a souvenir. Suitable for framing, as they say. The people-watching in this area was wonderful.

Back on our feet, we started walking in the direction shown on the map for Montmarte cemetery. The streets are narrow, car traffic and parking was congested, and all the doors led to small art shops, restaurants and living quarters. There are a few small hotels for those who want the authentic Parisian lodging, but we had the impression that nothing had ever changed here. Uncertain as to whether we were headed in the right direction, and gradually tiring, we finally came upon a major thoroughfare Rue de Caulaincourt, the name shown on our map for the cemetery. Lo and behold, there it was, on both sides of the busy street, with an underpass below. The cemetery was gigantic, absolutely packed with large burial structures. And there was nobody around to answer the big question, where is Jacques Offenbach?

Thankfully, there was a display board showing where about twenty-five famous people are buried, those commonly sought by tourists, including Offenbach. We found the site, beyond the underpass below Rue de Caulaincourt, at the farthest corner of the cemetery. Donna took many photos, and we lingered for awhile.

Walking back, we noted the impressive grave sites of many important Parisians from all walks of life. Many composers, performers, artists and writers are here, honored by large structures and statues, among them Adam, Berlioz, Degas, Delibes, Dumas, Halevy, Heine, Jaubert, Jolivet, Maillart, Moreau, Nijinsky, Stendahl, Thomas, Truffaut and Zola. However, we were there for 1 ½ hours and saw only one other person—a groundskeeper.

Terence N. Todd
May, 2015

July 27, 2015

Television news, whether local or national network, could be entitled Trivial Pursuit. Few of the reports are of much importance and, when one is included, such as the rash of forest fires or the latest shooting, the obvious underlying issues usually are ignored. It’s no wonder that voters are uninformed. On ABC, the latest fad is to make the reports sound like newspaper headlines, devoid of verbs, laden with gerunds. The local NBC outlet has lowered credibility and seriousness still further by hiring anchors who appear to be barely out of their teens. Much of local the broadcasts is given over to the weather, where forecasts mimic precision by giving us one or two degree variations for adjacent communities.

Speaking of voters, we in King County have received "Official Primary and Special Election Ballots." We are to vote for the County Director of Elections and two Port Commissioner positions. Why the first is an elective office is beyond me. It may be necessary to elect Port Commissioners, but the seriousness with which that process is taken is illustrated by the presence of Goodspaceguy in the race for Position 2. Goodspaceguy is an actual person who has run under that alias often enough — for various offices, unsuccessfully — to be described on Wikipedia as "a perennial candidate." It adds: "He is a self-described extraterrestrial life", who has introduced himself as coming from "Phoebe, one of Saturn's many moons." Having such a person on the ballot is a bit strange, but then Donald Trump is running for the presidency.

July 5, 2015

The Confederate flag long has been overdue for removal, from the culture as well as from flag poles. It finally took a mass murder of African-Americans in a church, by a young racist who had posed with Confederate flags, to set off a wave of protest. The revulsion against the flag began with photos of the South Carolina capitol showing American and state flags at half-staff, but the rebel flag at full height. Once begun, it spread with surprising speed, catching some Republican politicians off guard, requiring a hurried reversal of position. 

The reason — excuse — for flying the Confederate flag has been that it symbolizes Southern pride, culture or history, or that it honors confederate war veterans. Always left out is that the Southern culture in question was based on slavery, and that secession, creation of the Confederacy and the Civil War grew out of the determination to preserve and extend it. Ordinances or declarations of secession in several states expressly referred to slavery as the issue. Here is an excerpt from the Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union:

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That . . . the servitude of the African race . . . is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, . . . while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

South Carolina, in its Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, complained that fugitive slaves were not being returned and that northern states "have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign [62] the property of the citizens of other States."[63]

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America protected slavery:

No. . . law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed. [Article 1, §9, ¶4]

The Confederate States may acquire new territory. . . . In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; . . . [Article 4, §3, ¶3]

The Confederate flag is a symbol of racism, and should be taken down everywhere.

The other aspect of culture represented by the Confederate flag is rebellion, in its extreme form secession. Consider The League of the South, the web site of which features the Confederate flag. An article by its president, J. Michael Hill, declares that secession is "As American As Apple Pie!" and offers ten reasons to secede, including (odd syntax in the original):

1. The U. S. government is an organized criminal enterprise, secession is the only way to return to legitimate government . . .

3. The South's unique history and culture is worth protecting . . .

6. Third World immigration into the South, secession removes the federal government's interference and lack of performance . . . .[64] 

The unique history and culture include the notion that the South belongs to "Anglo-Celtic" people. The threat to that dominance (from immigration) is called "Southern demographic displacement."

Hill also wrote this, in February of this year: "This 14th of April will mark the 150th anniversary of John Wilkes Booth’s execution of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln. . . . A century and a half after the fact, The League of the South thanks Mr. Booth for his service to the South and to humanity."[65]  Assassination as Southern pride.

Finally, to underscore the League’s devotion to the symbol of rebellion, separatism and racism, Hill offered this on June 19, two days after the Charleston mass murder:

Everywhere leftists are calling for the removal of the Confederate battle flag, especially at the State House in Columbia, SC.

We in The League of the South agree that a flag should be taken down. Not the most recognizable historic flag of the South but the flag of our occupiers for the last 150 years. [indicating the American flag]

Among its sins, the national flag represents "open borders and Third World immigration," but in "sharp contrast, our beautiful battle flag . . . stands for the heroic effort our people made 150 years ago to avoid the fate were [sic] are experiencing today.[66]     

The pro-flag arguments invoke states’ rights or, more defiantly, "state sovereignty." Near the beginning of a long and rather muddled article on The New American,[67] the author quoted the NAACP Southeast Regional Director Earl Shinhoster:

. . . Shinhoster referred to the Confederate flag as an "odius [sic] symbol of a bygone era." But Shinhoster hit the nail on the head when he identified the issue behind the flag: "It represents state sovereignty, state rights, a rejection or resistance to federal control, and it has an adverse effect on basic issues of human need."

Somehow the last phrase got lost in the ensuing discussion. Instead the focus was on sovereignty.

One thing is certain: Respect for the heritage and traditions of the South is still strong. But the greatest Southern tradition of all is not the Confederate battle flag, but the battle for state sovereignty that was fought under it.

That battle is far from over and the participants in the fight have no intention of striking their colors until constitutionally limited government is restored. [68]

He has forgotten that, when it suited the Southern desire to protect slavery, the South invoked federal enforcement of federal law, in the form of the Fugitive Slave Act, and denounced northern states which interfered with it. States’ rights, like other political ideologies, is a flexible instrument.

However, as the author says, the battle for state sovereignty continues, notably among the nullifiers, who continue to pretend that it is a legitimate theory despite its sullied history, illogic and lack of constitutional basis.

The day after the killings, President Obama made brief statement which addressed the racial element of the crime:

The fact that this took place in a black church obviously also raises questions about a dark part of our history. This is not the first time that black churches have been attacked. And we know that hatred across races and faiths pose a particular threat to our democracy and our ideals.

The "also" in the first sentence refers to his comment on another issue unavoidably raised by the murders:

[O]nce again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun. . . .

. . . At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it. I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now. But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it. And at some point it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it, and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively.[69] 

In broadcasting clips of his remarks, ABC Nightly News cut off the entire reference to guns; NBC omitted the part about doing something. Perhaps those networks agree with Fox, whose White House reporter wondered why anyone would be interested: "Why are people getting pulled into other issues like gun control right now in the wake of this tragedy and not talking about the economy, which is what matters most to people?"[70] No wonder it remains an unresolved, unaddressed issue.

It will remain so if certain of the Republican candidates become president. On June 24, Scott Walker signed a bill eliminating Wisconsin’s 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases.[71]  Within days after the murders, during a campaign swing in Iowa, Ted Cruz underscored his reactionary views and his basic stupidity by offering up these comments:

— "You know the great thing about the state of Iowa is, I'm pretty sure you all define gun control the same way we do in Texas -- hitting what you aim at."

— "There's a famous saying, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. There is a reason why the Second Amendment is right after the First."

— "It's sad to see the Democrats take a horrific crime and try to use it as an excuse, not to go after people with serious mental illness or people who are repeat felons or criminals, but instead try to use it as an excuse to take away Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens."[72] 

Mike Huckabee suggested that the congregation should have been packing heat.

In February, South Carolina Governor Haley signed a law allowing those with concealed carry permits to bring their guns into bars. She favored another proposal to eliminate the permit requirement entirely and allow open carry in the state. "Criminals are dangerous, and I think that every resident should be allowed to protect themselves from criminals."[73]  And now? She ducked a question about guns: "Any time there’s a traumatic situation, people want something to blame. They always want something to go after."[74]

The mayor of Charleston is more intelligent: "It is insane: the number of guns, and the ease of guns in America. . . . It's a small -- really small group, well-funded -- that keeps this issue from being appropriately addressed."[75]  He also summed up Huckabee’s suggestion: "That is so nutty I can’t even talk. It’s crazy. Absolutely crazy."[76]

However, as if to illustrate how hopeless the situation is, the Charleston Post and Courier slapped a sticky-note ad for a gun shop on some of its papers on June 18, next to a headline about the shooting.[77]

______________________

62.An archaic term meaning "to remove or carry away to a distance, especially so as to conceal."
63. Both quotes from http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses. html
64. http://dixienet.org/65. http://leagueofthesouth.com/honoring-john-wilkes-booth569/
66. http://leagueofthesouth.com/take-it-down-and-keep-it-flying/
67. Published by "American Opinion Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of The John Birch Society."
68. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/21146-the-confederate-flag-battle
69. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-statement-charleston-shooting-gun
70. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/06/23/fox-news-ed-henry-why-are-americans-getting-pul/204107
71. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/scott-walker-ends-waiting-times-gun-purchases
72. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-gun-control-joke
73. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/12/3282951/south-carolina-governor-eliminate-permits-carrying-guns-public/
74. http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/gov-nikki-haley-hey-whats-got-do-gun-laws
75. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/21/joseph-riley-gun-control_n_7631162.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
76. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joseph-riley-mike-huckabee-charleston-guns
77. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/courier-post-gun-ad-apology  

 
June 6, 2015

The Nation magazine turns 150 this year. To note the event, it prepared a large anniversary issue which combined new material with reprints from its long history. One of the latter is an article from 1933 entitled "If the Supreme Court Objects," which has some resonance as we anticipate the Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell. The article noted this question:

It is often and pertinently asked what the United States Supreme Court will say about the constitutionality of some of the Roosevelt measures. Certainly there are at least three reactionary old men on that bench who would take profound satisfaction in standing by their plutocratic concepts of society if they knew the mob was battering at the door, and there may be more than three.

The author suggested that the court could be enlarged (something Roosevelt later threatened) "to permit the appointment of additional Justices whose ideas developed subsequent to the year 1880." He acknowledged the undesirability of tampering with the Court, but predicted that "the present Administration . . . will never permit the whole economic structure of this country to be disrupted and demoralized because less than a half a dozen dyspeptic old men are determined to uphold precedents established before the invention of the telephone."[60]

The Supreme Court again has more than three members who take a plutocratic view of society (case in point: Citizens United) and whose general approach to jurisprudence is reactionary. We do not, however, have an administration with either the inclination or the skill to bring pressure, and popular support for the ACA hardly reaches the mob-at-the-door level. We must hope for a defection from the ranks.

Staying with the theme of adaptable quotes, here’s a source I ran across a few days ago. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, in an article entitled "Authorship Controversy,"[61]  discusses "the curious and seemingly unstoppable" attempts to persuade us "that Shakespeare’s works were not written by Shakespeare." It notes that, despite the lack of any basis for the various theories, "commentators have paid reluctant tribute to the sheer determination and ingenuity which anti-Stratfordian writers have displayed. . . . Most observers, however, have been more impressed by the anti-Stratfordians' dogged immunity to documentary evidence . . . ." That reminds one of certain politicians and pundits: sheer determination to ignore facts. On that topic, one Shakespeare scholar is quoted as follows: "One thought perhaps offers a crumb of redeeming comfort. The energy absorbed by the mania might otherwise have gone into politics." Would that contemporary conservatives were who-wrote-Shakespeare nuts.

____________________

60. Paul Y. Anderson, The Nation 150^th Anniversary, p. 87

61. Oxford Companion, p.31

May 27, 2015

By now, it seems apparent that, from the point of view of the viewer hoping for useful information, it doesn’t matter much whether Brain Williams returns to NBC Nightly News. The mixture of disaster and fluff seems to be fixed. The don’t-comment rule on controversial matters still is in place, especially on climate change, regardless of who’s in the anchor chair. On Monday, with Kate Snow, and on Tuesday, with Lester Holt, the first ten minutes were devoted to flooding and tornadoes without a hint that extreme climate events raise a systemic issue, despite comments by interviewees about "historic" or "record" events.

Update 5/29/15

On Thursday, May 28, a reporter said, while discussing the change from drought to floods in Texas, "scientists say climate change is exacerbating the wild swings." There followed a clip of a scientist saying more or less the same thing. This is progress, but those comments took eleven seconds. It hardly justified the caption on Media Matters: "A News Program Explains How Climate Change Affected Texas ‘Weather Whiplash’," but I guess we’re all getting desperate for some mention of the problem in news reports.

May 11, 2015

Republicans control both houses of Congress. They control 31 state legislatures; 11 are controlled by Democrats, 8 are divided. Among governors, there are 31 Republicans, 18 Democrats, one independent. To put it kindly, Republicans do not have a better record at governance, so this poses a puzzle. Gerrymandering, vote suppression and the influence of unlimited spending are factors, but they do not fully explain why so many Republicans are elected. What causes voters to trust Republicans and disdain Democrats? How have "liberal," and even "progressive" become terms of derision? To sharpen the focus, why have voters in the middle supported Republicans in recent years, but formerly voted Democratic? Why do they now support the party of wealth and privilege? Could they be persuaded to vote Democratic in the future?

Let’s address those questions by looking at what voters are being told by conservatives about liberals; presumably that influences their attitudes.

An indictment of liberals could be found in any number of places, for example Limbaugh broadcasts, but Townhall.com provided two handy lists. Each list set forth a supposed liberal characteristic (in bold, so no one would miss the message), followed by an attempt to justify the label. Let’s see how much insight they provide.

Town Hall list no. 1

The first list[50] was prefaced by this quote, attributed to Greg Gutfeld, one of the members of Fox’s "The Five": "In short, liberalism is based on one central desire: to look cool in front of others in order to get love. Preaching tolerance makes you look cooler than saying something like, ‘please lower my taxes’ " However, oddly,

1. Most liberals are hateful people. The explanation: "Who are the most hateful people you can think of off the top of your head? If you're not a liberal, the first people that probably come to mind are the God hates f@gs lunatics from Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church." Why would a liberal not agree with that? The author seems confused; was Phelps a liberal? Never mind: "What type of human beings would do sick protests at funerals? . . . . Whenever a prominent conservative gets sick or dies, there's an orgy of celebratory hatred on the Left. It happened with Reagan, Tony Snow, Breitbart and every other big name conservative in between." I don’t remember any such "celebration;" I wasn’t even aware that Breitbart was deceased. The author goes on and on, and summarizes it this way: "liberals consider it to be okay because their hate is aimed at conservatives, who are acceptable targets." Liberals are haters? Consider a comment by Ann Coulter: "The riot in Ferguson reminds me, I hate criminals, but I hate liberals more." This is not the only place in the list where projection is at work.

In any case, the message so far is that liberals are hateful people who preach tolerance in order to look cool.

2. Liberals do more than any other group to encourage race-based hatred. This is another defensive argument, and it’s not confined to the author. The Lieutenant Governor of Missouri claims: "There is more racism in the Justice Department than there is in anywhere I see in the St. Louis area. It is the left. It is the Eric Holder and Obama-left and their minions who are obsessed with race, while the rest of us are moving on beyond it."[51]  Moving beyond it seems to equate to pretending that racial bias doesn’t exist.

3. Most liberals are less moral than other people. The explanation of this claim is clumsy and vague, which is odd, because this clearly is one of the major complaints by conservatives against liberals. Leaving aside some padding, the author’s argument comes down to this awkward statement: "Liberals incessantly attack the church and they seldom talk about morals because if they have no morals, then no one can ever accuse them of being hypocrites. This is also why liberals feel so comfortable lying about conservatives." I’ll deal with the real complaints about morals later.

As to "the church," it’s true that liberals criticize conservative, politicized Christians on the ground that they do not, at times, seem to have Christian values, such as compassion for the poor. (As someone put it, there is a suppression of the natural instinct of sympathy). No apology is required for that liberal complaint. However, there are those liberals whose criticism of religion seems obsessive, and certainly not designed for reconciliation; one article is titled "Why We Must Offend Religion More."

4. Most liberals don't care if the policies they advocate work or not. This is nonsense, and the attempt to explain it is simply a recital of debunked conservative fantasies: "[L]iberals don't care whether tax revenues go up after a tax cut, whether high taxes on the rich kill jobs, or how high your gas prices go because they don't want to drill. . . ."

5. Most liberals are extremely intolerant. This again is primarily defensive. There is one specific complaint: "Conservative college speakers usually need extra security because budding liberal fascists often try to shout them down or assault them." Student leftists can be intolerant and sometimes demand enforcement of their views. Point taken, but it doesn’t support condemnation of all liberals; free speech is a core liberal principle.

There is one final argument under this heading, which applies more broadly: "[L]iberals have a fascistic view of tolerance, which really isn't surprising since liberalism and fascism are merely different branches of the same tree." (Another version, from The Daily Caller, is that liberalism is "Totalitarianism Masquerading As Tolerance"). This claim pops up frequently in conservative arguments, sometimes with reference, as here, to Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Leaving aside Goldberg’s version of history and the careless use of the terms "fascism" and "totalitarianism," it’s true that the left can be authoritarian, but the accusation here is against liberalism, which isn’t the same thing. (The USSR wasn’t liberal). The liberal tradition, which conservatives cite when it serves their purposes, emphasizes individual freedom. If the far left were a factor in Democratic politics, the conflation of left and liberal might be legitimate; it certainly isn’t now.

Town Hall list no 2

The second list,[52] offered a year later by the same author under the heading "The 12 Unspoken Rules For Being A Liberal," is somewhat repetitious.

1. You justify your beliefs about yourself by your status as a liberal, not your deeds. This one is content-free, merely the accusation that "liberalism. . . allows you to be an awful person while still thinking of yourself as better than everyone else."

2. You exempt yourself from your attacks on America. The argument here is, apparently, that if a liberal were to say that the U.S. is a militarist country, he would really mean that American conservatives are militarists. Leaving aside the notion that liberals are constantly "attacking America," there is nothing surprising or sinister about one criticizing the aspects of American culture of which he disapproves; that may, by implication, be a criticism of the other political camp. However, I don’ t think that it’s true that liberals never criticize themselves or the outcomes of their policies. Self-criticism, even self-doubt, are imbedded in liberalism.This claim really is a disguised form of the complaint that liberals don’t love America or that they don’t believe in American exceptionalism.

3. What liberals like should be mandatory and what they don’t like should be banned. This largely is a duplication of no. 5 above. The author adds this: "It’s not enough for liberals to be afraid of guns; guns have to be banned. It’s not enough for liberals to want to use energy-saving light bulbs; incandescent light bulbs must be banned." This is simply an attempt to evade issues. The liberal position on guns isn’t based on individual timidity; it’s based on the public danger posed by guns. (However, the author has identified a difficult and divisive issue: gun control). Newer light bulbs aren’t a quirky personal preference, they relate to the need to use less energy and therefore less carbon fuel. These complaints return us to the one about a liberal desire to control everything.

4. The past is always inferior to the present. That claim is too sweeping; I’d be happy to return to a time when Republicans weren’t so far to the right. (See my comment on March 23). The author’s better point is this: "Liberals tend to view traditions, policies, and morals of past generations as arbitrary designs put in place by less enlightened people. Because of this, liberals don’t pay much attention to why traditions developed or wonder about possible ramifications of their social engineering." That’s a fair argument, if overstated; we shouldn’t try to reinvent the world every day, and many traditional ways and standards have merit.

5. Liberalism is a jealous god and no other God may come before it. Put that way, the claim is blather. The argument seems to be that liberals are not religious, which probably is true statistically. "Taking your religious beliefs seriously means drawing hard lines about right and wrong and that’s simply not allowed." The notion that liberals do not believe in right and wrong is nonsense. Intruding religion into political issues usually is inappropriate and leads to negative results; religious objection to vaccination is an example. However, this complaint is relevant, in that one of the bases of conservative resentment of liberals is that they denigrate or interfere with religious observance.

6. Liberals believe in indiscriminateness for thought. This one is thoroughly muddled: "Indiscriminateness of thought . . . leads the modern liberal to invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success."

7. Intentions are much more important than results. This is another rerun.

8. The only real sins are helping conservatism or harming liberalism. This is a variation on the no-morals charge. "Conservatives often marvel at the fact that liberals will happily elect every sort of pervert, deviant, and criminal you can imagine without a second thought. That’s because right and wrong don’t come into the picture for liberals." Aren’t we awful?

9. All solutions must be government-oriented. This one is a core conservative argument, and it has some merit. However the reasoning here is peculiar: "[W]hy are liberals so hell bent on centralizing as much power as possible in government? Simple, because they believe that they are better and smarter than everyone else by virtue of being liberals and centralized power gives them the opportunity to control more people’s lives. There’s nothing scarier to liberals than free people living their lives as they please without wanting or needing the government to nanny them." We’re back to liberal fascism, along with two complaints not expressly presented: liberals are elitists who flaunt education, and liberals don’t believe in liberty.

10. You must be absolutely close minded. "One of the key reasons liberals spend so much time vilifying people they don’t like and questioning their motivations is to protect themselves from having to consider their arguments." This is an odd claim from folks who don’t believe in science or even facts. "So, a liberal goes to a liberal school, watches liberal news, listens to liberal politicians, has liberal friends . . . . It makes liberal minds into perfectly closed loops that are impervious to anything other than liberal doctrine." Substitute "conservative" for "liberal," and he is describing his own camp.

Another of Town Hall’s columnists similarly engaged in projection while very worked up about the protests of Indiana’s "religious freedom" act. "Nothing upsets progressives like disagreeing with them. Like children throwing a fit because they can’t get the toy they want, leftists become unhinged when confronted with a reality they don’t like." There followed a denunciation of "progressives (liberals, Democrats, or whatever else they call themselves these days)" whose "irrational hatred stems from the insulated world we’ve allowed society to create for them." They are as they are because "it is entirely possible for people to live their entire adolescence and well into adulthood before they are exposed to contrary opinions."[53]

In Man of la Mancha, Don Quixote is reduced to his true self as Alonso Quixana by being confronted by the Knight of the Mirrors, who forces him to see himself as he really is. The exposure theme is apt: conservatives need to look in a mirror.

11. Feelings are more important than logic. Liberals, it is claimed, "base their positions on emotions, not facts and logic . . . " One could think of examples of liberals becoming overheated and of ignoring inconvenient facts, but the claim that they don’t think won’t wash. Again, the argument can be turned around: conservatives base their positions on belief, not facts or logic.

12. Tribal affiliation is more important than individual action. "There’s one set of rules for members of the tribe and one set of rules for everyone else. Lying, breaking the rules, or fomenting hatred against a liberal in good standing may be out of bounds, but there are no rules when dealing with outsiders, who are viewed either as potential recruits, dupes to be tricked, or foes to be defeated." It isn’t clear what that has to do with "individual action."

What can we take away from these lists? The principal message is that conservatives dislike liberals just because; it doesn’t seem much deeper than that. However, several issues were identified, expressly or tacitly — morality, religion, race relations, tradition, guns, big government, liberty, real Americanism— along with a few alleged liberal attitudes: a desire to control ("fascism"), elitism, disbelief in American exceptionalism. Attitudes toward foreign and military policy also are important, but were not discussed except to the extent that they are included in the real-Americanism and exceptionalism points.

So much for conservative attacks on liberals. What of the electorate? Why do they vote for Republicans? Those who vote Republican are not all on the far right. However, as unintentionally revealed in point 10 above, many of them get their ideas, and form their biases, by watching Fox and by listening to conservative talk radio, and also from Republican politicians posturing about Benghazi, or telling them that ISIS will be here tomorrow, or that Obamacare kills jobs and costs $5 million per participant. The supposedly liberal mainstream media do little to dispute these claims, and there is nothing from liberals resembling the flood of conservative propaganda.

There are other factors, including beliefs or attitudes which are widespread and essentially nonpolitical, but which favor conservatives. High on the list is a balanced budget, a belief in the importance of which makes deficit spending, however necessary, a tough sale.

There is an echo of the Sixties in conservative criticism and in popular attitudes. Resentment of the left’s behavior then — anti-Americanism in the opposition to the Vietnam war, elitism, loose morals, inflated egos, disrespect for authority, violence and vandalism — still is present.

Also, resistance to or resentment of change enter into the picture. This is different from the more general issue of respect for tradition. Finally, fear is a significant factor: fear of terrorism, fear of another 9-11, fear of the Other.

Here’s an attempt to deal with those problems for liberals and Democrats, in some cases accepting, in others rejecting the conservative claims. The comments are in no particular order, and there will be some duplication, as the issues overlap. The terms "liberal" and "conservative" will be used with tedious regularity; I have avoided substituting "left" and "right" and haven’t often used those terms, because I want to focus on (relatively) mainstream views. At the end, and to some degree as we go along, I’ll make a stab at a program for winning back the center.

Real Americanism. Complaints that liberals do not believe in American exceptionalism, or are not patriotic, or hate America (or, more mildly, do not love it) are variations on a broader theme: liberals are not real Americans. To some degree this is an instance of a universal conservative theme, as liberals are more likely to see flaws in the culture and more likely to be internationalists, whereas conservatives tend to be defensively tribal.

It’s true that examples of anti-patriotic behavior can be found on the left, such as the silly decision by the student government at the University of California, Irvine to ban the display of all flags, including the American flag, which "has been flown in instances of colonialism and imperialism." All flags, the students believe, "construct paradigms of conformity and set homogenized standards." Incidents of this sort might remind people of the flag-burning Sixties, but they are rare, and in this case juvenile, so we have to look elsewhere.

A major issue is support for the military. An article[54] on Salon captured the essence of this problem for liberals. The author, a professor of history, quoted a man who had grown up in modest circumstances. His family was the kind that liberals would like to think of belonging to their camp, ordinary folk, not wealthy. However, there was one inconvenient fact: "[T]here was one thing George trusted completely—his nation’s military power and the good that it did. With all his heart he believed the United States was on the side of justice and freedom and all our wars were noble. . . . ‘I was raised in a family and neighborhood of extreme patriots.’ " He learned in Vietnam that America was not always noble, but many have not accepted that, even after Iraq and Abu Ghraib.

The caption on Salon — which probably wasn’t the author’s doing — implied that Vietnam and subsequent wars have completely destroyed any claim we might have to national virtue: "America’s not a force for good: The truth about our most enduring — and harmful — national myth. Our exceptionalism is a lie, and only an honest accounting of our actual history will allow us to chart a new path." Puncturing the balloon of exceptionalism is a worthy project, and reduction of the influence of the military — on foreign policy and on the budget — is important, but going to the opposite extreme is unwarranted, and offers conservatives an easy target.

A problem with the complaint about Americanism is that conservatives frequently express a far more negative opinion of their country than liberals. How many times have conservatives denounced some aspect of modern American life, in effect charging that we are really bad people? Consider the not-infrequent claim that God has punished America for one sin or another, for example that Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans was God's punishment for a proposed gay pride parade, or that God withdrew his protection against the 9-11 attacks because of America’s multiple sins. Mike Huckabee claims that "[w]e’ve lost our way morally." Yet they react to liberal criticism by demanding respect for our exceptionalism. The "real" America seems to exist only on some plane of imagination, unrelated to reality, vaguely defined, useful primarily as a rebuke to any liberal policy or practice.

This country often has been a force for good, but often has not been. It can and should be again. Both sides need to learn and accept that.

The real-American chant has been especially loud during the Obama administration, and accusations against him have gone far beyond partisanship or even rationality. For example something called The 1776 Coalition asked us to vote on this proposition: "Is Barack Obama intentionally seeking to destroy America?" Dick Cheney chimed in with this: "if you had somebody as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world and reduce our capacity to influence events, turn our back on our allies and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama’s doing."[55]  Liberals need to make clear that they believe in a strong America, but that strength (and security) do not consist exclusively in shooting people, and that among the threats to those ends are people like Cheney. The basis for many of the attacks on Obama clearly is racism, which will take us to a later topic.

Fear. One reason that the appeal to military solutions, or to other "national security" measures, is so successful is the level of fear among many Americans: a fear of invasion, or terrorism, or a Muslim takeover. Ironically, the most recent exercise in fantasy-driven paranoia, the notion that the U.S. military is going to invade Texas, asks people to fear the agency they usually are told to trust to protect our freedom.

Conservative politicians and pundits, who sound so macho, seem to be afraid of everything, and they persuade the public to be afraid. We would be well advised to remember Franklin Roosevelt’s words: "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is. . . fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." Certainly there are dangers, but remembering FDR’s advice would help to expose and dissipate false dangers and lead to more sensible reactions to real ones.

Fear affects other issues. For example, one of the reasons for opposing Obamacare is the story, long discredited but still pushed, that there are death panels.

Economics. As noted above, certain beliefs, such as the virtue of a balanced budget and the dangers of a large national debt, together with a resentment of taxes, put liberals in a bind before the discussion starts. Step one might be to point out that deficits are not caused only by liberals, and under George W. Bush were caused by pandering to the rich. A better case needs to be made for the virtue of temporary deficit spending during recessions; tell people that it will preserve their jobs. Also point out that the current downturn began on Bush’s watch and was cured, to the extent that it has been, primarily by Obama. Democrats have a much better economic record, but few people realize that.

At the same time, liberals need to acknowledge that deficits and debts cause problems, and offer ways to cut spending. The obvious place is the military/security budget.

Much of the economic argument, at the level of the average voter, is a matter of job security and prosperity. Not only have liberals been unpersuasive in these areas, Mr. Obama’s approach to the pending trade agreement has been wrong on every level, and certainly has done nothing to persuade voters that Democrats are on the side of working people.

The tax issue should be restated as one of tax fairness, which would push the burden upward. Let conservatives bleat about "liberty," but make clear whose liberty they mean. Tell people just how great the gap is between the 1% — or the .1%, or the .01% — and everyone else, and point out the CEO-to-worker pay differential.

The Democrats must return to their roots and quit playing footsie with banks and hedge funds and with rich people and corporations who stash money offshore. Yes, that’s a problem in the Citizens United era, but the option is to continue to have no distinct image on economics. Re-empowering labor unions is another worthy goal.

None of this will be easy nor, in terms of enactment, possible in the short term, but the case needs to be made now.

Big government. There is a tendency for liberals to look to the government, just as there is a tendency for conservatives to prefer private enterprise. However, the position of the latter goes beyond preference: voters are prodded to fear or despise government. Running against the government — as in the Rand Paul slogan, "defeat the Washington machine" — is a common ploy even for those who are part of it. Merely denigrating government makes no sense, any more than arguing that private enterprise is inherently bad.

A more useful and honest conservative complaint would be that the federal government, or other levels of government, should not be doing certain things, or should do them better, but that would require a serious look at needs, priorities, methods and outcomes. Whether the government should have a given function always is a fair question, as are government inefficiency, or overreach, or cost, but it can’t be answered simply by complaining that a solution is "government oriented," nor by pointing to the size of government; in the twenty-first century, government necessarily is large.

Many complaints do target specific governmental agencies or functions, but tend to do so in a scattershot fashion, merely deploring their existence. An example is found in a posting on Tea Party Nation (discussed below in connection with race relations). Under the heading of "fundamental transformations" the writer deplored "[t]he mistake of 1789, the national bank, the war of northern aggression, the Federal Reserve, deficit spending, social security, cronyism, . . . the list is as long as the pages stored in the congressional library." The first item, presumably referring to the Constitution, is a departure from the usual conservative theme of its sadly neglected perfection.

An aspect of conservative criticism of government is that it infringes on liberty. In the abstract, that is a classical liberal argument, but too often it is limited to, or converted into, a defense of business against regulation. Any given regulation is fair game, but the dire effects of regulation are greatly exaggerated. Capitalism works only when supervised, another argument not made well or often enough by liberals.

However, there are real issues regarding liberty.

Liberty. There always is a danger that a government will infringe on individual freedom. The principal concern in recent years has been surveillance or, put more bluntly, spying on the public. Attention was focused on this by the so-called USA Patriot Act, enacted in a state of panic in October, 2001. However, domestic spying has been an issue for many years and has continued under Obama; no consensus has appeared as to the proper limitations. This is an area in which conservatives and liberals should have similar goals, but the national security (fear) factor always seems to override liberty considerations.

The broader complaint is that liberals ("fascists") want to control every aspect of life. To some extent, this is another form of the argument against government, and is subject to the same rebuttal. However, it has a social form. A column in a recent Seattle Times complained about political correctness, an effort to outlaw certain expressions. The author didn’t explicitly tie this to liberalism, but the reference to "soccer-mom socialists" gave a strong hint. Under the third heading of the second list above, the Town Hall author said this: "There’s an almost instinctual form of fascism that runs through most liberals. It’s not enough for liberals to love gay marriage; everyone must be forced to love gay marriage." (This complaint will carry over into the discussion of religion). Leaving aside the exaggeration, there is some truth to this; liberals do tend to moralize annoyingly about their social policies, and insist that everyone agree with them — as do conservatives. The campaign for gay rights seems to some to go beyond that to a celebration of a lifestyle that conservatives deplore. Some of the more adolescent liberals delight in flaunting whatever will stir up conservatives. On the other hand, conservative reactions to homosexuality often are excessive, the insane California initiative to allow shooting them taking the prize. More restraint and civility on both sides would improve debate as well as lower the volume. Liberals have more to gain by that than conservatives, as mainstream voters often are socially conservative.

"Liberty" is an easily misused notion. It is dear to hyper-libertarians, to nullifiers, to the gun lobby, to businessmen who don’t like regulation. The recent Indiana religious freedom law was a misuse of the concept of religious freedom; the milder federal law is also. Community is not communism, working together and living together in peace are crucial and sometimes they cannot be entirely voluntary. Conservative "liberty" arguments sometimes simply are deceitful. Right-to-work laws promote liberty (to be underpaid); defeating Obamacare will increase liberty (to be uninsured). That misuse must be exposed.

Individualism is a related topic. Conservatives have an edge here in that they emphasize it in their political arguments and it resonates with many voters. It sometimes comes down to an attitude of "I worked for what I have, and don’t want to support others who won’t work." Liberals could point out that the greatest freeloaders are those who don’t pay fair taxes, who stash assets offshore, who export jobs to get cheap labor, etc. Also, programs such as Obamacare help working people keep their homes rather than losing them to medical bankruptcy.

Religion. Before turning to religious attitudes in general, we should look at the Supreme Court’s use of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because it has changed the terms of the debate. The Hobby Lobby case arose because the Affordable Care Act requires certain employers, including the plaintiffs, to provide health insurance, and regulations require policies to cover contraception. RFRA requires strict scrutiny of a law which, even indirectly and unintentionally, affects "religious exercise," but it provides no meaningful definition of that term. The result in Hobby Lobby was this: the ACA violates the RFRA because the former requires an employer to provide contraceptive coverage, which some unidentified employee might use, and the employer has a self-proclaimed religious objection to contraception; that objection is, apparently, an "exercise of religion." The Indiana law was worse, applying to actions by private citizens as well as to government. Many conservatives, including some purporting to speak for religion, supported the Indiana Law. The Court gave them the excuse, but these laws are bad policy, allowing virtually anything to be claimed as an exercise of religion.

This is an example of a broader controversy, the use of religion to define or obfuscate political issues. An egregious example is the quotation of the Old Testament to claim that nothing need be done about climate change. This carries over into the discussion of science. 

Some conservatives, especially those on Fox, like to proclaim that there is a war on faith, or more specifically a war on Christianity. Here’s Bill O’Reilly: "If you are a Christian or a white man in the USA, it’s open season on you." Bobby Jindal (there is "an alliance between Hollywood elites and corporate America assaulting the rights of Christians") and Ted Cruz (gay people are waging a "jihad" against believing Christians) are other recent peddlers of this idea.

Sometimes the war is on Christmas. Most of these complaints are nonsense, but there is some annoying liberal foolishness, such as requiring "merry Christmas" to be replaced by "happy holidays." Whether certain decorations may be used is another example. Liberals should lighten up; this is not a Christian country in the political sense claimed by many conservatives, but it is Christian by culture, and suppressing expression of that strikes me as silly, unnecessary and bad social policy.

Conservatives complain that liberals interfere with the exercise of religion. This debate has gone on for many years; an example of the issues is the ban on prayer in schools. There is no formula to determine how rigid or wide the wall of separation between church and state must be, and any given instance is fairly debatable. However, this nation is not a theocracy, something conservatives deplore if Muslim.

One reason that liberals react badly to pronouncements based on religious belief, specifically Christianity, is that too often supposedly religious beliefs seem to be identical to conservative political ideas. Here we have the converse of the previous issue: there the problem is intruding religion into politics; here it is the politicization of religion. Liberals need to respect religious belief and practice, but make clear that ours is a secular society, and has been from the beginning, conservative history to the contrary notwithstanding.

Religion often is employed in arguments about morality, so let’s look at that next.

Morality. Oddly absent from our Town Hall author’s discussion of morality are the major conservative concerns under that heading: abortion, sexual mores, homosexuality and gay marriage. As to the last, events and opinions have moved rapidly and across a surprisingly broad spectrum, which has left behind not only conservatives but some moderate liberals who would have preferred civil unions. The present consensus is not going to change, and this is an area in which all that can be said is that the dissenters must accept the situation.

Abortion is an agonizingly difficult issue to deal with and, if peace ever is to be achieved, there must be a compromise. That is hindered by the extreme conservative position, equating contraception with abortion, and some conservative proposals aim more at shaming women than preserving life. However, in general liberals are, at this point, more uncompromising than relatively moderate conservatives, essentially demanding no restrictions, and resolutely avoiding any human-life issue.

As to sexual mores and practices, conservatives are again, at least to some extent, fighting inevitable change. Also, this is an area in which they play the part they assign to liberals, of trying to control other people’s lives. One policy, opposing contraception, seems self-defeating: more contraception would mean fewer abortions. However, some liberal web sites have played into the morality argument by running a constant stream of sex-related articles, some of them graphic, so many that a reader might wonder whether that’s all that liberals think about.

Guns. There is, indeed, a significant difference of opinion on this issue. Many liberals, including this one, would support a severe limitation ownership of handguns and assault rifles. No doubt such a program, or even meaningful registration requirements, would result in resentment among many in the middle, especially in rural areas. Some of the fear is based on propaganda — Obama is coming for your shotguns — but there is a genuine issue and a real problem which seems to defy solution.

The Supreme Court again has tilted the argument to the conservative side by its inventive interpretation of the Second Amendment. The Court transformed support for militias into a right to have a gun in the home for protection. The pro-gun forces have stretched that into a right to pack heat anywhere. Congress and many state legislatures are not likely to do anything useful. Ballot initiatives could be a way forward, as with the one recently adopted in Washington dealing with background checks.

This issue relates, in a dangerous way, to the liberty/anti-government arguments. One cited reason for being armed is to defend against the government, and the Second Amendment is alleged to stand for that right; Ted Cruz has adopted that argument. Guns, extreme libertarianism, hatred of government, the fantasy of nullification add up to a menace greater and closer to home than any Muslim.

NRA propaganda has poisoned this debate. Somehow the illusion that guns mean safety must be replaced by the fact that they are dangerous.

Elitism. Liberals are derided in part because they are an "elite." Oddly, in this view those who are the most interested in helping ordinary folk, e.g., by increasing the minimum wage, are elitists, not those at the top of the socio-economic pyramid, who don’t want to pay their fair share. One reason for this is that Democrats have backpedaled in the economic area to an extent that they no longer are seen as being on the side of the middle class.  

Dan Quayle often is credited with redefining "elitism," and saddling liberals with the epithet, by attacking the "cultural elite." That phrase helped cement the image of liberals as out of touch. Quayle’s Murphy Brown attack defined the elite as Hollywood types with loose morals. Another trope has been the "intellectual elite": people who, confident of their superior knowledge, tell us what to do; "fascism" again. The issue is partly regional: residents of the Northeast or the West Coast allegedly are unsympathetic toward real Americans from the heartland. Any tendency of liberals to talk down to people or to dictate must be avoided. Democrats won’t win elections unless voters think that they’re the same sort of people.

One odd spinoff from the intellectual-elite complaint has been a tendency among conservative politicians and pundits to denigrate science, as if it were a liberal plot.

Science. Global warming, more generally climate change, is the most important issue here. The overwhelming consensus is that the climate is changing, for the worse, in ways not explicable by natural cycles, that it is caused in significant part by human activity, and that immediate action is required. Conservatives resist those findings, to the extent of prohibiting discussion of climate change. The problem is not that conservatives are unintelligent, but that accepting certain facts, or theories, is inconvenient. It is so because they run counter to naïve, literal interpretations of the Bible, because addressing the problem would require government action, and because solutions might step on the toes of some large businesses. The mainstream media are complicit in that they report one natural disaster after another without drawing the obvious conclusion. This is an issue on which conservatives simply must be shown to be irresponsible.

Race. Race relations remain a major flash point. Recent actions and comments by police officers around the country reveal how deep the divide is. Racial stereotypes mix with anti-government sentiment in claims that minorities are lazy and want to live off welfare. There is lingering resentment of busing and affirmative action programs. Fear again is a factor, fear of supposedly violent blacks, fear that white control will erode. Rioting in the aftermath of racial incidents offers Fox material and increases fear and resentment.

Attitudes toward President Obama have been influenced by racism from the outset; signs, e-mails, birther stories and other attacks have revealed shocking levels of racial resentment and hatred. Ted Cruz has managed to blame the President for the present state of things: "He could have chosen to be a leader on race relations and bring us together. And he hasn’t done that, he’s made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions that have divided us rather than bringing us together."[56]

There isn’t much to say here except that this must stop. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."[57]

It would help if conservative pundits would own up to the problem rather than pretending it doesn’t exist. Here’s Greg Gutfeld again: he denounced the shooting of Walter Scott, but said "I didn't see a black man killed by a white cop. I saw a man shoot another man in the back." Color blindness is an admirable ultimate goal for interpersonal relations, but at this point pretending that race does not enter into situations like that shooting is dishonest and an impediment to progress.

Immigration. Controversy on this issue overlaps previous topics in two ways: resentment against immigrants is partly racial, and the increasing numbers of Latinos feeds white fear of lost domination.

A recent posting[58] on Tea Party Nation reveals an even more existential fear: western culture will collapse. It hits all the high points: creeping Islam (bringing sharia), immigrants who never will assimilate (and likely will vote Democratic), the folly of the Fourteenth Amendment in granting citizenship to anyone born here (the "anchor baby" complaint). Rep. Steve King agrees with the last point, and is pushing a bill to end birthright citizenship. That sort of attitude stands in the way of a rational solution.

There has been a tendency by liberals to ignore any problem created by immigration, and to treat the issue simply as a matter of human rights. Accordingly, they sometimes dismiss concerns about border control as anti-Latino bias, which often they are. However, border control is a legitimate issue, for security reasons among others, and should be part of any comprehensive immigration reform. Democrats will not persuade voters that they are job protectors if they are seen as backing unlimited immigration.

Change. Common to several of the topics is a conservative resistance to, or fear of, change. This is not unique to conservatives; they have company in thinking that the culture is ugly, that good jobs and middle-class prosperity are disappearing. However, the feeling seems to be more intense among conservatives, which leads them to vote for people who purport to stand for old-fashioned values, but that expectation isn’t always fulfilled. As Thomas Frank put it, "Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes, in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining."[59]

It’s certainly true that change for its own sake is a foolish policy, and that much change, natural or contrived, is not for the better. Those advocating new and different policies should be sensitive to tradition and to the resistance to change. New policies can be structured in familiar ways; change can be slow rather than abrupt. However, a political philosophy shouldn’t be based on resistance to all change, and sometimes it seems that that is what contemporary American conservatism amounts to.

_____________

Where does all of this leave us? There is no single solution to liberals’ image problem, and conservative propagandists will continue to stoke the fires. However, at the top of the agenda must be a determination to make the Democratic Party liberal again on economic issues. Ironically, Democrats can reconnect with the middle by being less centrist. There is a temptation to bend with the wind, to be more "centrist," to avoid being tarred as dangerous leftists. Democrats need to admit that economic centrism is conservatism-light. Liberals and Democrats should continue to be in the lead as to equal rights, but they need to tamp down the rhetoric on so-called social issues, take a hard look at what they seem to be advocating as lifestyles, and concentrate on progressive economic policies — a decent minimum wage, strong unions, expanded Social Security, financial regulation, federal spending for infrastructure, rational tax policy, disincentives to ship jobs overseas — along with climate control. Much of this cannot be turned into legislation during the Republican ascendancy, but these issues must be pushed relentlessly.

Real Americanism should be advocacy of policies which make us stronger. Liberals actually have the better arguments here, but they will need to be recast in more patriotic terms. Bringing jobs back is a good example. Much is said about a new populism. If it materializes, it should somehow engender a sense of common purpose and effort.

There are issues as to which many in the political middle will resent the liberal position, but they nonetheless must be taken on. Gun control is one; cutting back on military adventures is another. Persuade people that those policies are in their interest: saving money as to the latter; saving lives as to both. Eventually the voters will realize who’s on their side. I hope.

___________________________

 
50. http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/03/27/5_uncomfortable_truths_ about_liberals/page/full

51. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/missouri-lt-gov-justice-department-racism

52. http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/08/31/12-unspoken-rules-for-being-a-liberal- n1687730/page/full

53. http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2015/04/05/progressives-unhinged-n1980929

54. Christian Appy, excerpted from American Reckoning; http://www.salon.com/2015/03/29/americas_not_a_force_for_good_the_truth_ about_ our_most_enduring_and_harmful_national_myth/

55. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dick-cheney-obama-take-america-down

56. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-obama-racial-tensions

57. Speech at St. Louis, 3/22/64. Oxford Dictionary of Thematic Quotations, 86

58.http://www.teapartynation.com/profiles/blogs/in-the-greatest-war-every-fought-in-the-history-of-mankind-this

59. What's the Matter with Kansas? p. 7.