Understanding the Liberal Mindset

An attempt to explain the liberal mindset based on a simple, but striking example of liberal thought

A dear friend – let’s call him Jack, who is a very prominent and influential fellow in my community, recently penned a column in a local newsletter. In it, he speaks about his desire to express himself more forcefully on the central issues that confront our community. Indeed, he wishes to do more than express himself; he aspires to lead the community to formulate and implement solutions to some of the more serious problems that residents face. But then he specifies the key issues that he believes are ‘…facing us – gun violence, poverty, homelessness, hunger.’ He asserts that we must ‘…engage to try to ‘solve’ these huge challenges – in small and large ways. And as our community grows in size, and our potential to make a real difference starts to multiply, my desire to see our community engage in these issues grows too! ”

I confess that I am scratching my head at Jack’s list of issues that plague our community: ‘gun violence, poverty, homelessness, hunger.’ I think this list passing strange. In fact Jack is an eminent figure in a vibrant community of relatively prosperous suburbanites of all ages living in one of the most affluent, safe, beautiful and even diverse neighborhoods in the region – indeed, I vouchsafe, in the entire country. It is absolutely without question that aside from what could be no more than a miniscule percentage, no member of our community has encountered gun violence, poverty, homelessness or hunger recently – or indeed at any time in his or her own life.

Now I don’t want to give a false picture of an idyllic existence; the local community certainly does face some serious problems. Those that come to mind include the following:

  • Like all Americans, we inhabit an increasingly bankrupt nation (as well as a severely fiscally challenged State) – the burden of which we are laying off on our children. If we don’t get our fiscal house in order, then we – and certainly our children – will not enjoy for much longer the ‘idyllic existence’ of which we are so enamored and to which we are accustomed. The violence done to our economic well-being easily exceeds any inflicted by automatic weapons.
  • Again, like all Americans, we reside in a country and a neighborhood in which the prospects for the coming generations to live as well as we do is clearly diminished. The American dream is in jeopardy. What are we going to do about it?
  • Congestion, overly expensive housing and excessive government taxation and regulation make it difficult to sustain this idyllic corner of the world that we have created. How can we wisely mollify these real threats to our community – any one of which is a far more prevalent and serious problem than ‘hunger.’
  • A uniform political outlook in our local schools, libraries, government and media closes the minds of our children to any questioning of the politically correct atmosphere that permeates our local society. The only homelessness that is evident in our community is attached to those who profess an alternate outlook.
  • American culture is saturated with pornography, vulgarity, permissiveness media violence and a growing disrespect for religion. Is that the ‘poverty’ (of spirit) that keeps Jack awake at night?

When I converse with my neighbors, I can detect other common problems that might trouble Jack – e.g., neglected children due to parents who work long hours to pay for the trappings of the good life that we enjoy; broken marriages and other familial crises that deprive children of a happy and nurturing home life; a stagnant economy that cripples economic opportunity and advancement; increasing alienation from religious faith as exemplified by dwindling church attendance, moral decay and the proliferation of ‘alternate lifestyles.’ But nowhere do I see anyone who has been victimized by gun violence, nor anyone who is hungry, homeless or poverty-stricken. How in heaven’s name can Jack identify these as the central issues ‘facing us?’

Well here is my stab at an answer. Certainly violence, poverty, hunger and homelessness are serious problems in many parts of the world, and in some parts of our nation. When we learn of tragedies associated with these afflictions – be it a Sandy Hook shooting or pictures in the news of a filthy, street-dwelling, vagabond roaming a blighted urban neighborhood – our hearts are rent and we wish that our world could be spared the horror of these calamities. Now compare those poignant tragedies to the more personal dilemmas we face: not enough of a salary raise this year; my wife and I are working so hard that there is barely any time left for each other; my prepubescent son is being bullied in school; or God forbid, my eldest daughter is dating a gangbanger. The liberal mind is haunted far more by the former than the latter. He/she ruminates: if we can fix these ‘global,’ horrific problems, then the world would be good and trivial matters like a faltering personal economy will be much easier to deal with.

Since the dawn of civilization, there has been a dichotomy in the human soul between the universal and the particular. Conservatives tend to focus on the particular – particularly when it comes to the world’s faults. For liberals, the universal is the way to calm the soul. In a way, I admire Jack that he is so deeply troubled personally by a nameless homeless person whose visage on TV moves him to action. I applaud the emotion; but I believe that Jack would be more successful at healing the world if he kept his attention focused on the more visceral needs of his friends and neighbors in the community.

Obama’s Minions and the 2014 Game Plan

Obama’s selections for his second term senior leadership team reveal quite clearly what his game plan is for the next two years – and for the following two, for that matter. His picks, including Susan Rice (thwarted), John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, John Brennan, Jack Lew and Eric Holder, are all cut from the same cloth. In terms of both domestic and foreign policy, they represent the same hard left viewpoint as their boss. They have virtually no private sector experience, no appreciable record of cooperation or accommodation with Republicans or conservatives and a near total fealty to the redistributionist, statist, multicultural, America-denigrating philosophy that animates and motivates our ‘transformational’ president.

Obama enjoyed control of both the executive and legislative branches of government during his first two years in office. He used it to dramatically advance the transformational philosophy that he espouses. His aim is to refashion America away from its traditional founding as a constitutional republic based on individual liberty, free market capitalism, religiously-grounded morality, limited government and a devotion to the ideal of America as a shining example and promoter of freedom throughout the world. Instead he envisions a collectivist, Euro-style social welfare state marked by an overwhelmingly powerful central government, a government–controlled corporate economy, a secular, multicultural populace that favors equality over liberty, and a nation whose place among the nations of the world is no more exalted than any other.

It is true that America has been moving in the direction Obama favors for a century – including several major surges to the left under Wilson, FDR and LBJ. Now Obama means to complete the transformation and during his first two years, he had great success along those lines (Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, two ultra-liberal Supreme Court appointments, gays in the military, among others). But the American people threw a monkey wrench in the works in the 2010 midterm elections. However, unlike Bill Clinton, who – when faced with a similar setback – tacked to the right and actually implemented several center-right initiatives (a balanced budget and welfare reform, e.g.), Obama conceived a different response.

He spent the last two years picking fights with Republicans, castigating conservatives, refusing to cooperate at all with the House’s efforts to reduce the federal debt and deficit, excoriating his electoral opponent and then blaming the Republicans for the ensuing stalemate. It worked – he got re-elected. But, although he retained the Senate, he failed to take the House.

Therefore, the strategy for the next two years is clearly more of the same. The consequences will be dire: the debt explosion will continue; economic stagnation will persist; our foreign enemies will grow stronger and bolder. And Obama believes – likely correctly – that he can lay all the blame on the House Republicans. The goal then is to retake the House in 2014 and then to complete the transformation of America. Should he succeed, in the years 2014-2016, we shall see: cap and trade, a value added tax, card check, amnesty for illegal aliens, a further dramatic military drawdown, and a slew of other collectivist legislation and regulation that will indeed complete the transformation of the country into the United Socialist States of America.

Three final points:

  1. The American people freely chose the route traveled thus far. It is folly to assume that, without some major wake-up call, they will not complete the choice in 2014.
  2. We have seen the future of Obama’s America. It is represented at best by an England that is a zephyr of an international force in comparison to its 300-year history of world power; and at worst by Greece with its declining standard of living, political and cultural paralysis, and civil unrest.
  3. If Congressional Republicans will recognize Obama’s strategy, they might begin to devise some tactics to counter it. Attempts to compromise with Obama will either bear no fruit or, like recent examples, will yield poison fruit that will be blamed on Republicans. Conservatives must articulate to the American people what lies in store for them if Obama succeeds. Hopefully, what remains of traditional America (presumably 53%) will awaken and thwart Obama’s socialist designs for our country.
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This article also appeared in The American Thinker at:

Quoting Obama as We Fly Off the Fiscal Cliff

fiscalcliffMany pundits on both sides of the spectrum postulate that we’re going to plunge off the fiscal cliff in part because that is what Obama wants us to do. But too little ink has been devoted to an explanation of why he would harbor that desire. The answer is contained in his most memorable phrase – one whose precise meaning is almost never examined carefully by the American public

On October 31, 2008, Barack Obama declared: ‘We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.’ Actually, despite his reputation for eloquence, the President has uttered precious few memorable phrases. But the 2008 utterance was indeed memorable. Why? It does not appear that anyone has ever asked him to clarify exactly what transformation he envisioned. From what to what? By what means? And to what effect?

The Left was content that one of their own would occupy the White House and surely, after policies advocated by the new president were implemented, America would look more like the statist, redistributionist, multi-cultural, multi-lateral, Euro-style social welfare state of which they dreamed. The Right understood the remark in exactly the same manner – but in place of joy at the prospect, they were filled with foreboding. However, a huge percentage of Americans – presumably in the middle politically – paid the quote little mind except as it saw Obama’s election heralding the advent of a post-racial, post-partisan, cool new administration, about which they were quite pleased. Those people didn’t give the political ramifications a second thought. And so, amazingly, Obama was not asked to explicate the altered nature of America that he envisioned and which he was determined to bring about.

Even more amazingly, four years later – now that the vision is abundantly clear – a plurality of America is either not paying attention or subscribes to the vision. Furthermore, the vision is brought closer by falling off the cliff. For the vision certainly involves: far higher taxes, even greater government spending, an eviscerated military, government control of business, a ‘fairer’ distribution of wealth and a diminished America. All of which are abetted by our falling off of the fiscal cliff. So why in heaven’s name should Obama strike a deal with his Republican arch-enemies to forestall our plunge? A precipitous dive off the cliff suits his interests, promotes his vision and furthers his transformation of America. Put on your swim goggles and put in your ear plugs. We are all going to be more than a little bit poorer when we hit the water.

This article also appeared in The American Thinker at:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/quoting_obama_as_we_fly_off_the_fiscal_cliff_comments.html#disqus_thread

Is the Left Swallowing What Remains of Traditional America?

The results of this fall’s election have raised the alarm that the profile of the American electorate has slid unalterably to the left. The most cited reasons are: shifting demographics, an imbalance in the technical capabilities of the two parties that advantages the Democrats, and the inevitable effects of a century-long march by the Left through the country’s cultural institutions. To elaborate on the latter, the assertion is that now that the Left virtually controls all the opinion-molding organs of American society – but especially the media and the educational system, the people increasingly succumb to the progressive brainwashing to which they are subjected.

The corroborating evidence for these theories is strong: the groups who instinctively support the Left (blacks, Hispanics, single women) form an increasing proportion of the population; there is no question that the Democratic ground game, fund-raising and techno operations significantly outperformed those of the Republicans; and even a cursory acquaintance with the thoughts of the nation’s youth confirms the leftist brainwashing that permeates our schools – from kindergarten through graduate school.

And yet! The House of Representatives remains under Republican (if not conservative) control, thirty states have Republican governors and if one counts counties, the Republican majority is even more striking. However, much of this strength originates in those counties that are outside the nation’s major metropolitan areas. Therefore, the question that I would like to address here is whether those areas – where devotion to the conservative ideals of traditional America remains strong – are also being subjected to the same progressive forces that have turned America’s cities and (many of their) suburbs into leftist bastions.

I will base my analysis on personal observation. I live and work (even though I am retired) in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. The county in which I reside (Montgomery) is as left leaning as virtually any county in America. Moreover, Maryland politics are as blue as they come. We have two ultra-left Senators, an ultra-left Governor and a State legislature that has gerrymandered the State’s congressional districts so as to convert the delegation from its long-established, roughly evenly split configuration into a nearly uniform Democratic majority. One of the recently gerrymandered districts includes the two mountain counties of Western Maryland, which are rural, traditional in their culture and staunchly conservative in their politics. I own a second home in one of those counties and spend much of my time there. The local joke is that when the fiscal collapse in Annapolis and Washington – toward which the profligate spending in those two capitals is inexorably propelling us – finally occurs, we are going to dynamite the interstate in order to insulate ourselves from the chaos emanating from liberal America. Would that a solution were that simple!

However, in the last decade and a half, during my frequent sojourns in Western Maryland, I have noticed the following ominous developments. These impressions are based on my own observations and from extensive conversations with the locals who reside there more permanently:

  • The county’s school teachers and administrators, largely imported from the nation’s virulently liberal colleges of education, are increasingly left wing and have begun to inculcate the local school children with the same leftist propaganda that envelops students from all over the country.
  • Locals routinely sample the national media (movies, TV, and of course the internet) and the messages transmitted therein are very different from those emitted by increasingly scarce local radio stations.
  • The foundation of religious worship, while still strong, is not as strong as it used to be.
  • There was always some outmigration of youth as they came to adulthood, but it is more prevalent now – and even if the prodigals return, say after college, they infect the area with the more ‘cosmopolitan’ beliefs that they absorbed in their absence.
  • The homogeneity of the county – WASP, of course – while still strong, is again not as strong as it used to be. The arrival of several big box chain stores has brought in some workers who don’t fit the profile so well. This migration is not as extensive as in some rural areas – in the Midwest and Southeast, where a huge influx of ethnic minorities fleeing high unemployment in places like California has radically altered local demographics. Of course, there is no a priori reason why a change in ethnic population composition needs to entail a loss of the ideals and principles that have defined traditional America – devotion to individual liberty, confidence in free markets, belief in American exceptionalism, and reliance on a morality grounded in religion. But it is undeniable that since America changed its immigration laws fifty years ago to shift the bulk of legal immigration from Europe to third world countries, the folks who come here do not have the background in British tradition and Western Civilization that underlies those fundamental principles. They are much more susceptible to the siren call of collectivist state security rather than rugged individualism – natural fodder for the overwhelmingly leftist Democratic Party.
  • Finally, I see some signs of fatigue, demoralization and loss of confidence. There seems to be a sense that the country has moved away from the founding principles that have animated the peoples of Western Maryland. Moreover, they see themselves as somewhat out of touch with ‘mainstream’ America and they worry that the trends indicate a growing divergence.
The last bullet is, for me, the most troubling. If you feel that you are beaten, then you are beaten. Sadly, there is too much of that feeling out there in conservative, traditional America. But it is far from ubiquitous. Both in Western Maryland and across our beloved land, there are many conservatives who have not given up, who believe that America will come to its senses and cast off the quasi-socialist, America-denigrating, statist secularists who are currently running Annapolis and Washington. Is there reason for such optimism? In Western Maryland or anywhere in the US? Will the conservative cause eventually triumph and return America to its traditional moorings? Do I believe that or have I given up? Well, it depends on which side of the bed I get up on in any given day. Whichever side it is, the view is a lot better in the mountains of Western Maryland than it is in the DC suburbs.
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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at:

Mass Higher Education: Good or Bad?

 

Mass higher education refers to the phenomenon, promoted aggressively by President Obama, whereby a tremendous proportion of the eligible population enrolls in the nation’s colleges. It presumes that any American high school graduate who desires a higher education should be able to pursue one. Furthermore, it operates under the assumptions that this is a worthy goal, that such a desire should be inculcated into the youth of America and most importantly, that the vast majority of enrollees are capable – under suitably hospitable conditions – of completing a college degree.

The country has certainly embraced the movement toward mass higher education. When my generation entered college (approximately half a century ago), roughly one third of high school graduates went off to university. And that was more than triple the percentage that did likewise another fifty years earlier. Today, depending upon whether one counts two-year college enrollments, the fraction is somewhere between three-fifths and three-quarters. If the promoters of mass higher education have their way, that fraction will exceed four-fifths and perhaps approach nine-tenths within a generation.

The purpose here is to examine whether this objective is good for America or not. Before defining the phrase ‘good for America’ and then investigating whether mass higher education is indeed good for America, it is worth pointing out that the movement toward mass or universal higher education in the twenty-first century bears some resemblance – albeit with significant differences – to the nineteenth century movement to ensure that all American youth received an elementary education (at least six and often eight years of schooling) and to the twentieth century movement to require all American students to complete high school.

Few would dispute the merit of the nineteenth and twentieth century goals. Therefore, how can the drive for twenty-first century universal higher education not be an equally worthy objective for the United States?

In order to respond, let’s be clear about what it means for a major political/cultural/educational phenomenon to be good for American society. There are two aspects: the nature of the process itself and then its outcomes. To be good for America the process must be: legal, moral, accessible to all and consistent with the historically established, political/cultural mores of American society. More importantly, to be good for America, the process’s outcomes must be characterized by: increased prosperity, a more cohesive citizenry, improved moral health of the body politic and the strengthening of the fundamental principles which undergird the American experiment. If, on the other hand, the phenomenon yields: more poverty, a less competitive country in the global market, a fractured population, moral decline or other deleterious, unintended consequences, then it is hard to see how it could be deemed good for America.

So is mass higher education good for America or not? Here are some arguments in favor of a positive response:

  • Certainly the Founders believed that a well-educated citizenry was essential to the success of the Republic that they created. That’s a view that has been shared over time by the nation’s leaders and citizens. More education produces a population better able to participate fully in the nation’s political processes, better positioned to contribute to its economy and more liable to make important scientific, financial, medical or artistic discoveries that enhance the quality of everyone’s lives. Therefore, how could increasing the percentage of the population with a college education not prove a benefit to America?
  • Statistical analyses repeatedly confirm the direct correlation between the amount of formal education and total lifetime earnings. In short, more education translates into more riches.
  • The nation has passed from an industrial age to a new techno-information age. We need a better educated citizenry to both cope with changes in society the new age has wrought as well as to produce leaders who will take our society down exciting paths to be forged in the new age.
  • Education civilizes the human savage. Better educated people are, in general, less violent, more thoughtful and more disciplined than their less educated counterparts. That assertion might be difficult to justify. But, to pick a perhaps extreme example, in a study done by the National Center for Crisis Management, it was found that only 4% of serial killers were college graduates. (Roughly 23% of the population has a college degree.) Yes, college graduates do commit felonies; but it is a common perception – which probably has substantial merit – that an educated person is likely to be more ‘civilized’ than his less credentialed neighbor. He may or may not be smarter or happier, but he is better behaved.
  • Finally, it is not uncommon to hear the opinion that a well-educated person is, because of his exposure to myriad ideas and narratives, more likely to be tolerant, understanding of cultural differences among people and able to function more effectively in the polyglot nation that is the USA. Once again, it might be that a college graduate is not any happier or wiser than a high school graduate, but he brings a set of attitudes, gleaned from the college experience, that makes him a more open-minded and ecumenical citizen than his less educated counterpart, which helps him to foster a more cohesive, just and fair-minded society.

It all sounds rather impressive. But, alas, there is another side to the story. Applying the second most powerful law of nature (Einstein is reputed to have claimed that the first is compound interest), i.e., the law of unintended consequences, we encounter the following downsides of mass higher education:

  • Dumbing down and flunking out. Once upon a time, in order to earn a college degree, a student needed to have significantly above average intelligence, the willingness and capacity to work hard, healthy doses of patience and perseverance, and the ability to defer gratification. Perhaps a quarter – but likely much less – of the population possesses all those traits. Moreover, it is clear that no more than a third can have the first one – with or without the rest. So if we are going to push 75% (or more) of the youth toward a college degree, then at least one (and probably both) of the following must happen:
    • The course content required to earn a college degree will be significantly dumbed down;
    • There will be an enormous amount of dropping out, i.e., students failing to graduate.

In fact, both phenomena have been manifest for years and they will occur with increasing frequency. These eventualities will, on the one hand, drastically demean the value of a college education and, on the other, seriously demoralize and stigmatize a sizeable portion of American youth.

  • As a consequence, the American college degree is cheapened. But American higher education has been the model of an advanced education for the world . As we degrade its worth, we harm not only our youth, but also our country’s reputation. And of course, the youth we hurt the most are the nation’s most talented students as we dilute the superior product that they deserve and require.
  • We also cheapen the high school degree. We inadvertently signal its worthlessness by implying that its recipients cannot rely on it to make their way in life – it is at best a stepping stone on the path to the gateway that is really important. It is therefore no surprise that the high school dropout rate is the highest it’s been in three generations.
  • Technical and trade schools, and other vocational alternatives to college have been deemphasized in the US. These schools used to train a significant portion of our blue collar workers and para-professionals. Enrollment at such schools has dropped precipitously in recent decades because students who would have normally gone there are now encouraged to go to college.[1] The resultant constriction in the number of suitable workers has contributed to the decline of manufacturing in America?
  • The dumbing down of the American college curriculum has resulted in the proliferation of garbage courses, programs and degrees on campus. (See virtually any program that has the word ‘Studies’ in its title.) The vaunted institutions that were American universities have been turned into something more akin to a reality TV show. Of course, there is still much serious stuff on campus – e.g., in the sciences, but it is tarnished by the garbage that coexists beside it and commands equal respect.
  • In order to service the hordes of students crashing the door, the academic support staff at US universities has exploded in size. These people contribute little to the fundamental mission of the university, i.e., teaching and research. What they do is…
  • Drive costs astronomically higher. It takes a small fortune to pay and house all these useless employees. Thus, the cost for a four-year college degree is now obscene.
  • And because of that cost, students take on crushing debt to pay the freight. It is estimated that the average debt is $20,000-$25,000 per student – whether they graduate or not. One starts life with a car loan to pay off – and no car.
  • So Uncle Sam rides to the rescue with generous government loan programs. Taken together with the fact that – because most universities can’t balance their budgets with just tuition and endowment funds – academia relies critically on government grants tied to faculty research, it can be legitimately claimed that the feds have in some sense taken over higher education.
  • But that goes hand in hand with the overall leftist takeover of the culture of the university – a topic intimately familiar to readers of this journal. The near total domination of leftist thought on the vast majority of American campuses is abetted by the infusion of youthful fodder from the nation’s high schools at which liberal brainwashing is far advanced. One of the most pernicious downsides of mass higher education is that the brainwashing that commences at government schools in grades K-12 is now augmented and perfected at the university.
  • A side effect of which is the blight of affirmative action – whose need is justified by the huge influx of students, many of whom are from minority communities. The one place in American society that should be devoted to diversity of opinion, an open clash of ideas and the search for knowledge is instead dominated by racial preferences, uniform group think and willful ignorance of inconvenient truths.

In summary: five pros, eleven cons. Maybe mass higher education is not such a great idea after all. In fact, the attempt to convert the nation’s universities into diploma mills to service virtually all of the country’s youth is an intended goal of the progressives who control the educational establishment. The attempt finds favor among a large percentage of the population that is blind to the unintended consequences. If instead we retained the high level of academic achievement and personal responsibility that should be required for an individual to complete a higher education degree, then there would be more productive ways (for society) to direct many of the nation’s youth after high school. These include the military, trade schools, internships, apprenticeships, work in the family business or an entry level job in almost any business, or work for religious, charitable or other voluntary organizations. At the very least, we should recognize that too many of our youth are emotionally and socially unprepared at age 18 to seriously pursue an academic degree. Instead, many of the above alternate choices could supply young people with the maturity to pursue a degree later – when they would have a better chance of succeeding and also when they might not be as pliable in the hands of the progressives who control higher education. But I doubt that President Obama would endorse that idea.

[1] This trend has reversed very recently.
This article also appeared in The Land of the Free at: