Politics, these days, is what politics in our Democracy has been a long time: pointed, shrill, symbolic and silly. One only needs to read Mark Twain, to know that average Americans have long held their leadership in tolerant contempt. We all just think what we are experiencing is the worst ever. Why wouldn’t we? History, especially in this self-centered, immediate-gratification age begins with us, well, “me”, right?

So this morning, my longtime online friend Brendan Loy decried the political environment. I suggest that you go read his whole post. He pretty fairly encapsulates the bulk of our intense Twitter back and forth argument. He says,”America is at something closer to an event horizon than a cross-roads“. Rather apocalyptic for a professed non-religious person.

A couple things occur to me as I’ve contemplated his anxiety and anger. I’m going to put my thoughts in a numbered format in no particular order of importance–it will just be easier when people disagree with me.

1. America faces an identity crisis: Are we going to be Europe-lite and recede into irrelevance ala Britain. Are we going to value, as I say, a social safety net over freedom? The two are inversely proportional. America, as it stands, wants both. They want a less bossy government. They also want the government to take care of them permanently. Americans are much like teenagers: all the fun, none of the responsibility! But the bill is about to be paid. The population statistics cannot support this current double-bind. The economics of it are failing. So the overriding tension in America is an identity-crisis. It is a crisis within each citizen. It is not resolved.

2. America faces a cultural crisis. The young people and the left side of our country seem to dislike America. This is supported in polling. They don’t like the culture. They don’t like the word “capitalism”. They like the word “progressive” and “socialism”. They view America as essentially bad. Of course, they’ve been told that America is bad, so it’s no wonder they see that perspective. Unlike during World War II, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, both resulting in the freeing of heretofore abused people, Hollywood has portrayed soldiers as merchants of death and destruction and evil instead of liberators of people. So the older WWII generation love America and see it as a force for good in the world. The young and left do not. In fact, they believe in a quasi-we-are-the-world, utopianism that elevates third world despots to the level of America. American exceptionalism? Oh, hell no! That would mean someone is better than another. But America is better. Objectively better. A culture cannot survive if it hates itself. And so there is tension. Remember, we now have a generation of kids who have received awards for participation. Every no-talent-ass-clown believes he’s as good as anyone else. Competition, capitalism, merit and excellence have been exchanged for participation, redistribution, self-esteem and trying. America didn’t win culturally by being communal but by freeing individual creativity. There is cultural tension against this very notion–against the notion of greatness itself.

3. America faces an institutional crisis. The church was undermined with the pedophile priest scandals. Science has been undermined with global warming, I mean cooling, I mean climate change. Academia has become a propaganda churning machine. The government writes more laws and our leaders seem more lawless. The press is not trusted as an unbiased forum for fact. The courts seem capricious. No one trusts any institutions anywhere.

4. America faces an economic crisis. In this, we are not alone. The world suffers with us. There is a lot less money going in than going out. We cannot print money forever. We simply can not do it. Eight million people (8 million!) people have lost jobs and they are not going to start working tomorrow. Not only that, but many Boomers face retirement and reality is dawning: money is running out. Not only that, but doctors willing to deal with Medicare/Medicaid, etc are running out. The jig is up all the way around. This is anxiety provoking.

5. America faces a moral crisis. I hesitate to write on this because it’s a can o’ worms. What I mean: Americans used to have a collective ethic that they shared–hard work, church, marriage, kids, home, etc. Life from one home to another at least appeared to be relatively the same. People married young. Had kids young. This had the result of forcing kids to grow up. Being a perpetual adolescent didn’t work so well when you had another mouth to feed. It also created social cohesion of sorts. Things have changed. People stay single longer, get married later. People may have kids or not. Now, there are positives and negatives to this, I don’t intend to oversimplify–only to note that social expectations, well, there aren’t any social expectations or no uniform expectations, anyway, which is my point. This causes anxiety, too. What is right and wrong? What is the best way to do something? This used to not be a question, right? My parents generation didn’t seemed to be plagued with this self-doubt. Fill-in-the-blank was just “the way it was”. Now, there is no “way.”

6. America faces an educational crisis. American education lacks an overarching historical context and cohesion. I believe this lack of understanding of history also contributes to our unease. What caused the Great Depression? How about the World Wars? How did Rome fall? What caused the French revolution? How could a civilized people support the rise of Hitler? We have a vague sense that things are bad, but how bad? And do we have any context to put our current crises into? Not really. Not only that, but Americans have been institutionalized from cradle to grave; systemized from day care to end of life care. Yes, it matters. Have you seen how children are forced to march through halls with their hands behind their backs? Of course, it’s for expedience sake, but with education so systematized, the deficits in learning are universal. Not only that, following the system is valued over critical thinking. Also, objective truth, established facts, are dismissed as “that’s your opinion”. In addition, fierce debate and being forced to defend a position seems to not be the way of education these days. The act of debating is itself stressful because children aren’t forced to defend their opinions. They are honored by sharing them. It makes for an intense interest in politesse but a lack of cogent thinking and overt hostility to having a thought challenged or corrected.

7. Technology amplifies every good and ill. Where the loud-mouthed jerk used to only annoy his family and neighbors at reunions and picnics, now he blogs and annoys everyone. Good news, fair news is also amplified. But the ignorant, arrogant, clueless, mouthy, amoral, mediocrity now has a platform. It can be annoying. Still, on the whole, the best rise to the top, and the arena of ideas is debated across the country–like Brendan and I did this morning. I don’t even know where he lives now. Tennessee? Colorado?

Anyway, this all reminds me of a scripture. Sorry agnostics reading this, but this scripture seems so apt. 2 Timothy 3:

1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.

There is no question that in these times we have more information, more knowledge, but less understanding and nearly no wisdom, it seems.

Discourse can be disrespectful and unfair. A general lack of kindness can be extended to our ideological adversaries. There seems to be no sense that “we’re all in this together.” Demonization passes for communication. Humor is really ridicule and meanness. Charity seems extended to no man.

Well, there is a crisis in America, more than one actually, and if it feels like war, it’s because it is. We are struggling for our very souls as a nation of free people. Who are we? What do we stand for? Who do we want to be? What do want for ourselves and for our children?

The first phase of a fight is ideological. And we’re in this phase. Ultimately, this is an individual struggle. People are having to reassess their notions of themselves. Do they believe they can take care of themselves? At what point does a person need, want, deserve a bailout?

I mean, these are painful questions. Shaming questions. America suffers generally because we’ve been indulgent individually. And our institutions have reflected the individual failure. We tolerated sin in our churches. We tolerated dishonesty in our halls of science. We tolerated propaganda in our schools of higher learning. We tolerated living beyond our means economically. We tolerated immaturity and selfishness in our relationships. We tolerated things because, like the Corinthians of Paul’s time, we thought it made us more righteous. We fell in love with our tolerance and we indulged our self-indulgence.

Each American stopped viewing himself as a responsible patriot and more like a co-dependent citizen. Everyone was drunk together.

Now, Americans are furious with bailouts here and there, a stagnant economy and the general State of Things. They are cutting back their lives. They’re making hard choices…well, most are. And still, it doesn’t look to be getting better. Meanwhile, the government, in contrast, spends like a meth-addled lottery winner. And, blaming the people while they’re at it.

So in this environment, people fight. Will a solution come, Brendan? I don’t know. Will America have to fully implode to reset the button? I doubt it will come to that. More likely, there will be internal struggle and strife as tough decisions are made out of necessity.

Instead, we are getting bits and pieces of the news but no cumulative “What the F*ck” pieces from the MSM yet. Why? Because they don’t want to see and it doesn’t suit their political purposes.

Here are some of the stories I’ve noted:

Press Bias: Sarah Palin and the stalker next door.

President Obama Disrespects Military Dead.

Socialism: Government grows, private sector pay shrinks.

More socialism: Health care law killing hiring.

Borders: Mexican lawmakers go to Arizona.

Forced unionization: Volunteer firefighters being forced into unions in financial regulation bill that has four Republican helpers.

And, I haven’t even written yet, of North Korea, the oil spill, and the New York times revealing that our strategy in the Middle East.

I lay everything at the Democrats, President Obama’s and the press’ feet. The press is complicit with this destruction. They seek it. They want it. They have idealized socialism and they want to see it come to fruition–no matter the cost.

We are seeing multiculturalism writ large. So North Korea, ostensibly, is as good as, say, Britain. Cuba is better than France. Venezuela is superior to Germany. And Iran, our buddies there, is way awesomer than Poland.

This President has proven a foreign and domestic disaster and he’s only 17 months into his tenure.

Here’s the deal:

In the week ending April 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 484,000, an increase of 24,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 460,000. The 4-week moving average was 457,750, an increase of 7,500 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 450,250.

Also, as Ed Morrissey points out, the government is still hiring thousands of temporary workers so that means that the private sector is losing significantly more jobs–thousands of them.

If the Democrats succeed in enacting more of their policies, permanent joblessness will be the American way.

Thanks, President Obama!

A while back, I wrote about how the border will never get closed because it is like steam from the Mexican teapot. Illegal immigration gets workers to the U.S. where there are jobs and sends money back home to Mexico where there are not jobs. But now, the U.S. economy is tanked and thousands of workers have moved back across the border to find a better landing spot at home. They aren’t finding it.

Closing the border would do much the same thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mexico suffered something night unto civil war. The fact is that Mexico needs to clean up its mess and create a place where people want to live and work and feel safe doing so. Corruption and nepotism are so rife there, though, that it’s nigh to impossible to “reform” anything.

Anyway, Michelle Malkin talks about the rancher who got killed. There will be more of this. Mexico can no longer contain their problems.

Mike Lackomar, of Michiganmilitia.com, said both The Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia and the Michiganmilitia.com were not a part of the raid.

Lackomar said he heard from other militia members that the FBI targeted the Hutaree after its members made threats of violence against Islamic organizations.

“Last night and into today the FBI conducted a raid against homes belonging to the Hutaree. They are a religious cult. They are not part of our militia community,” he said.

Lackomar said he was told there were five arrests Saturday and another five early Sunday. The FBI declined to comment.

One of the Hutaree members called a Michigan militia leader for assistance Saturday after federal agents had already began their raid, Lackomar said, but the militia member — who is of Islamic decent and had heard about the threats — declined to offer help. That Michigan militia leader is now working with federal officials to provide information on the Hutaree member for the investigation, Lackomar said Sunday.

“They are more of survivalist group and in an emergency they withdraw and stand their ground. They are actively training to be alongside Jesus,” he said.

Sources from the Michigan militia community said one of the FBI raids took place Saturday during a wake for a Hutaree member who had died of natural causes. A Hutaree leader was arrested during the wake while at the same time agents were conducting raids at other locations.

There were three arrests total. But the meme that is out there is “Christian Militias” planning attacks on Muslims.

There’s not enough information out there yet, but even the basics of this story are bothersome.

More at Riehl World View and Classical Values.

I bring up this analogy to explain Congress.

Legislators legislate. They make laws. Their constituents see problems that need solutions. Someone says, “There ought to be a law” and they make a law. Legislators legislate. It’s what they do.

In a sense, there is no “small government” Congressman because their whole purpose is to make laws. And laws, by definition, proscribe behavior. Making laws makes the government bigger and more power and more invasive in your life. This is why they are hated.

Laws, by definition, create lawbreakers. That is, until their is a law on the books, it’s not a crime to do fill-in-the-blank. Because America is drowning in laws, we’re also drowning in criminals. The government, if it were so motivated, has enough legal ammunition to put every American behind bars for something.

So when we hear Representative Paul Ryan praise a Democrat for good parts of the legislation, imagine a surgeon praising another surgeon for his “fine work”.

These guys love to make laws. They love the haggling. They love the collegiality. They love sparring. They LOVE the process. It’s fun to them. It’s like a game.

To some, it IS a game.

Who wins? Who loses? Who bested who? Who out-jousted Representative so-and-so on which morning show. It almost doesn’t matter what the law is about, really. It’s that it’s so damn cool to make a law. And even better, everyone has to do what I say. This is soooo awesome.

When talking to a surgeon friend of mine, he was lamenting the hours and the Medicaid fee reimbursement. I gloated about my free weekends, good hours and happy patients. He said,”But I get to cut.”

So for all the belly-aching you hear from Congressmen, they get to make laws. And laws make your life more constrained, more controlled and less yours. That’s the way it goes.

For fellow Americans expecting salvation from a certain party or group, keep in mind that in order to have the freedom and lack of invasive laws, Congressmen will have to work against their essential nature–making laws. Repealing laws is not a high priority with Congress, if you’ll notice.

Philosophically, they’re belief in the greatness of the individual and the force of that belief will have to outweigh their very human’s bent: to impose their will on someone else. Most of us don’t have the power bend others to our will. Congress has that power. And the power is heady stuff. That’s why there is so many big government Republicans. They wouldn’t be working in government if they didn’t think government was super fantastically great.

All legislators are not to be trusted. Their role is antithetical to freedom. It just is. That’s why there are checks and balances and separation of power, etc. That’s why there are elections.

With legislators spending all their time in Washington, D.C. (Nancy Pelosi loves it that way), they are distant from their constituents, their districts and their states. Their brains marinate in the D.C. power juice and they forget why they’re in DC. Or rather, their mission shifts to pleasing their party masters, big donors, lobbyists, etc. Those people pay the bills, after all.

The only solution is to stick on a Congress person like your life depends on it because these days, it actually does depend on it. And that’s the ultimate problem.

Eventually, the laws get more and more personal, until every aspect of your life is run by the guy who just received your vote.

Vote carefully.

A big chunk of the money to pay for the bill comes from lifting payroll taxes on households making more than $250,000. On average, the annual tax bill for households making more than $1 million a year will rise by $46,000 in 2013, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research group. Another major piece of financing would cut Medicare subsidies for private insurers, ultimately affecting their executives and shareholders.

The benefits, meanwhile, flow mostly to households making less than four times the poverty level — $88,200 for a family of four people. Those without insurance in this group will become eligible to receive subsidies or to join Medicaid. (Many of the poor are already covered by Medicaid.) Insurance costs are also likely to drop for higher-income workers at small companies.

Finally, the bill will also reduce a different kind of inequality. In the broadest sense, insurance is meant to spread the costs of an individual’s misfortune — illness, death, fire, flood — across society. Since the late 1970s, though, the share of Americans with health insurance has shrunk. As a result, the gap between the economic well-being of the sick and the healthy has been growing, at virtually every level of the income distribution.

The health reform bill will reverse that trend. By 2019, 95 percent of people are projected to be covered, up from 85 percent today (and about 90 percent in the late 1970s). Even affluent families ineligible for subsidies will benefit if they lose their insurance, by being able to buy a plan that can no longer charge more for pre-existing conditions. In effect, healthy families will be picking up most of the bill — and their insurance will be somewhat more expensive than it otherwise would have been.

Each according to his need. Enforced fairness.

What is the natural consequence of such actions? The rich make sure they are no longer rich. By any means necessary, they will make sure their income falls below the taxation threshold. A whole new industry will pop up to help rich people. And rich people will go buy health care somewhere else. They can afford to travel to Mexico after all, to get cheaper health care. And the cost of health care in America will rise from this legislation.

And then, the government will have to force people to pay more taxes, which is why the President is considering a VAT tax. This whole issue will spiral. Costs will increase, tax revenue will decline. The black market for everything will flourish.

The incentives are all wrong. Why should people quit smoking and eat right? Pay the fine for not having insurance and then buy insurance when you get sick.

Socialism never works because it fundamentally operates against human nature. It reinforces bad behavior and extinguishes good behavior.

But it’s “fair.”

In 1854, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. Their top priority was to repeal the Missouri Compromise prohibition of slavery in the northern territories. The author of this infamous legislation, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was Stephen Douglas, a Democrat Senator from Illinois and owner of a slave plantation in Mississippi.

Senator Douglas claimed the law would be a final solution to the slavery question, so that Congress could move on to other issues. In fact, the Kansas-Nebraska Act sparked a political firestorm. Opponents of slavery – and the police state and economic stagnation that went with it – understood that, if unchecked, the slave system would expand throughout the territories and then the entire nation.

As the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court would soon prove with its 7-2 Dred Scott decision (both Republicans dissenting), pro-freedom Americans feared that the judiciary would uphold the expansion of slavery. Many Democrats were already touting slavery (not for themselves, of course) for poor whites, too. “Free Society!” declared a prominent Democrat newspaper, “We sicken at the name!”

Every American was forced to choose sides. One was either for the free market system or against it; there was no middle ground.
As Alexis De Tocqueville observed: “Socialism is a new form of slavery.” Today’s congressional Democrats who voted to impose socialized medicine on the nation while exempting themselves should bear in mind Abraham Lincoln’s words: “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

Denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln warned against submitting to political masters:

“If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.

And now, with Obamacare, I feel a strong urge to try it on our leaders personally, but of course, they’ve exempted themselves from such soul (and life)-crushing legislation.

Pensions go to union members and depending on your state, some unions are in worse health than others. Chart here is very good. So, President Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth.

On the one hand he labels Wall Street evil, but even he knows that if everything implodes, his union buds will be in a heap of trouble.

More here.