Renewing the American Community: A Case Study and A Challenge

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Recently, some of the feedback I’ve been getting focuses on both the enormity of our the fiscal issues facing this country, and how we implement the right policies going forward to avoid getting into this mess again. It is that last issue that I have tried to address in many of my posts on this website over the last year. So to respond to this feedback, I want to summarize and amplify what I’ve tried to say over the last year.

First, I want to go back to what I said about the Founders in a recent post, and then what I felt were important actions we had to take:

To them, citizenship in a free society required active involvement in the life of the community and all its organizations; it was not a license to receive tax-paid benefits, nor a right to delegate community involvement to tax-paid bureaucrats. Democracy is what transpired in town hall meetings and town councils called or elected by the people to govern communities, in service organizations and church congregations, and in schools; while the work of elected representatives in state and national capitols was limited to a few specific tasks outlined in republican constitutions. …

… Remember that the remnants of our unique society still exist under all of the layers of government we’ve created. Those basic relationships that formed the core of our democratic communities still function every day. …

On these remnants we can re-build our unique society and re-establish limited and fiscally-sane government. But, we have to be willing to believe that the blueprints provided by the Declaration and the Constitution are still viable, and then re-commit ourselves to this project. We have to re-engage in the democratic life of our communities. We have to start and support local businesses, join our local service organizations and churches, and involve ourselves in our schools and local governments—and then demand that these enterprises shoulder the needs of our communities with our help, rather than look to Austin or Washington for action.

The skeptical questions I’ve gotten in response to these statements range from “that’s impossible today,” to “you’re advocating social revolution.” To both these sentiments, my answer is that I am no wild-eyed dreamer or revolutionary—but I am an optimist. We have examples all around us of how to make the transformations in our personal lives and in our political policies, which will be needed to accomplish this mission.

For example, here in Harris County our elected officials have established local medical clinics, and alternatives to juvenile detention, that are innovative, that involve the private sector, that improve local neighborhoods, and that provide services cost-effectively (or through private foundations, service organizations, or churches) without Austin or Washington. Our Commissioners and Juvenile Court Judges are showing that what I’ve called the Tupelo Formula works—if we’d just trust ourselves to apply it with conviction and consistency.

In an earlier post I re-told the story of how Tupelo, Mississippi pulled itself out of the Great Depression and other calamities to become a regional economic engine. I outlined the “Tupelo Formula” for local action as follows:

· The community faced a problem that appeared intractable, and that had been confounded by multiple events—not unlike the confounding factors of under-education, under-employment, chronic crime and poverty, and the impulse to be “left alone”, which exist in many of our neighborhoods today;

· One person, followed by a group of civic leaders, saw a strength within the community that created an opportunity that could be exploited to help the community address its problem;

· These citizens had the courage to take a risk with their own resources to take advantage of the opportunity and to share the gain with the community;

· These citizens involved businesses, private organizations, and local government in both the planning and the implementation of their plan; and

· The gains to the community were both short-term, and long-term, and were broadly shared—e.g., businesses were created and expanded, employment grew, per capita income grew, and schools improved.

I am confident that this model for local action will work not just in Harris County, but across the country, as the innovative former Mayors of Indianapolis and Jersey City, Stephen Goldsmith and Brent Schundler, and innovative educators like Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, have shown over the last 20 years. Harris County is unique in that we are rich with innovative leaders in our private and public sectors, who could begin analyzing and addressing our communities’ needs through the prism of this formula, including:

· Our educational system, including the type of citizen we want to emerge from an elementary, secondary and college education in this state; the proper curriculum and delivery system needed to produce that citizen; and the most efficient and cost-effective mechanisms needed to pay for, account for, and administer that delivery system;

· Our transportation system and physical infrastructure, including a vision of where our citizens will live and work over the next 25 years; an understanding of how and where our goods and services will need to move; the maintenance cycle for all capital investments; an appreciation for the property rights of all Texans; and the most efficient and cost-effective mechanisms for paying for the needed infrastructure improvements; and

· Our criminal-justice and mental-health systems, including the effectiveness of such systems to protect victims, the public, and the person being held and/or treated within the systems; and alternatives that can reduce recidivism and improve the educational opportunities and long-term economic viability of the families and neighborhoods affected by the incarceration or mental-health treatment.

We should confront these issues by creating long-term strategies for addressing them at the most local level possible, but not based on the old “tax-first-figure-out-a-plan-later” strategy recently used to pass Proposition 1 in Houston. Instead, we need to start with the idea that individuals and the private sector are the first sources for ideas, action, and funding—with local government’s strategic support as a resource for mobilizing and coordinating the efforts. This approach will make government live by our principles while addressing urgent problems; and will allow us as a society to begin to address some of the most vexing structural pressures on our public budgets, which put upward pressure on our taxes and downward pressure on job growth.

To start this transformation, we have to rebuild the human infrastructure needed to implement and sustain the Tupelo Formula, by:

· Starting new businesses and promoting policies that encourage small-business creation—small business creation is the easiest way to help people balance their need to make a living with our country’s need to rebuild neighborhoods. Businesses employ people, and employing people effects their lives. Every paycheck sets aside a retirement fund, pays for health care, provides for the sustenance of a family and (indirectly) for the support of the neighborhoods where employees live. Products or services generated by a business effects its customers, and those people touched by its customers. Wealth created by businesses increases the tax base and tax rolls, which in turn fund our schools—more wealth, creates better-funded schools. Programs that a business supports can enrich the lives of residents in the community where the business is located, as well as the lives of its employees. Each of us spends more time every day with our co-workers than with our family: the positive bonds you formed through this activity ripple out in every direction.

In essence, the greatest community service you can ever provide is to create or support a local business.

· Starting or joining a service organization, and promoting involvement in a traditional community-based service organization—between 1870 and 1920 many of the organizations that we remember as the backbones of our neighborhoods were created, and most still exist: Rotary, Kiwanis, the PTA, and many more. These organizations were designed to help serve the needs of their communities, and provide the social networks that build and maintain neighborhoods. Most of these organizations are crying for new members, but time and other commitments keep people from joining.

Find an organization that fits your interests, your community, and your available time, and support it. Then, promote policies that shorten commutes to work, offer tax breaks to companies who give employees paid time to work for schools and volunteer organizations, and offer tax breaks to individuals to donate time to charities (and faith-based organizations) as well as money or assets.

· Getting involved in assimilating our neighbors—To be a nation we must assimilate. Schools, churches, and childhood activities in the neighborhood were designed to assimilate children into our society as adults. Newcomers need the same help. We’ve argued way too long about the failure to promote assimilation. Let’s not just argue about it, let’s act.

Find an organization that is helping newcomers assimilate, and support it. Then, promote policies that give incentives to private organizations to create community centers and teach adults English and citizenship; that give children a safe place to meet, do their homework, and play; and that give families a safe place to interact and get to know and care for each other.

· Supporting organizations that help keep families and neighborhoods intact and building wealth, and promoting policies to accomplish those goals—As I mentioned before, our local GOP Juvenile Court Judges worked to create a model program, funded with private dollars and partnered with neighborhood churches, that is keeping first-time, non-violent juvenile offenders in school and out of jail. These types of programs will fight the long-term problems of under-education, under-employment, and chronic poverty that fester in communities where too many young people drop out of school and get a criminal record. We need more of these innovative programs that help rebuild strong schools, strong families, and strong neighborhoods.

By now you are thinking, “I can’t do all of that.” Well, nobody is saying you need to do all of that, but each of us can do some of the things I’ve listed to start rebuilding a service infrastructure in our neighborhoods that can sustain the needs of our neighbors without tax dollars. It is this overall effort that I’ve referred to in prior posts as Renewing the American Community. If you still don’t think it’s possible, let me leave you with a story that combines this message with my other favorite subject—Baseball.

When I was growing up as a White Sox fan in the mid-60s, one of the stars of that team was a young outfielder named Floyd Robinson. Unfortunately, a very promising career was cut short by an injury, and, in 1968, he left Baseball and returned to his home town in the Logan Heights neighborhood of San Diego, California.

Over the last 43 years, Logan Heights has come to be known as “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood.” Taking up where his father left off as a small-business owner after World War II, Floyd Robinson and his wife built a successful construction and real-estate development firm. With the income from that business he maintained a small grocery store in the neighborhood where he employed and mentored young men, some of whom went on to play college and professional sports. He also used his income to fill a need for a senior-citizen assisted living center, which he financed and built, and which he has continued to manage for almost 30 years. Although he could afford to move to “nicer” neighborhoods in San Diego, he and his wife still live in the neighborhood he helped to build and maintain. And for some of you, another interesting epilogue to this story is that Floyd Robinson accomplished all of this as an African American in an integrated neighborhood.

Renewing the American Community using the Tupelo Formula is not only doable, but seeds for this transformation are being planted everyday by thousands of Floyd Robinsons—some of whom we know as neighbors, and some of whom we may never meet. All we have to do is accept the challenge. In fact, I soon will be putting a lot of time and effort where my mouth is on this issue, as I am working with a group of people to launch an effort to promote the goals of Renewing the American Community, including innovative solutions utilizing the Tupelo Formula.

So with this challenge in mind, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis:

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

What Are Our Priorities?

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

I don’t know about you, but I’m already counting the days to two dates: Opening Day for Major League Baseball; and New Year’s Eve. I want to escape into my box scores, and then escape this year all together. The first quarter is not even completed, and yet this year already has presented us with more consequential events and decisions than we normally face over a decade.

Unfortunately, history doesn’t allow any of us to escape the time in which we live, so we need to face these events and decisions, and establish priorities. As I am watching events unfold, though, I see few people willing to take the reigns and focus seriously on setting these priorities. Even many of our Republican leaders seem to be flailing at the symptoms of our illness, rather than focusing on a proper treatment plan.

My guess is that anyone of you could come up with your own list of problems, but I believe that the three great issues of 2011 so far are our national debt; unrest throughout the Middle East; and the devastation of Japan. If we don’t make the right choices in addressing these issues this year, the consequences could create problems for the U.S. for at least a generation. So, I will deal with these in the order of importance that I see:

Our National Debt

When I say “National Debt”, I don’t just mean the debt owed by our federal government—I mean all public and private debt. Let’s take a look at of some numbers that I have gathered from multiple sources, including numbers recently compiled for Dick Morris, and by Americans For Prosperity:

• It is estimated that the total value of assets in the U.S. exceeds the total value of liabilities by about $25 trillion;

• U.S. national Gross Domestic Product—GDP—is between $14 and $15 trillion;

• Total federal-government debt is now over $14 trillion, grows at a rate of over $5 billion per day, and, over the last two years, has grown at a rate 27 times faster than over our entire history from 1789 to 2009;

• Annual federal-government expenditures exceed revenue by about $1.3 trillion;

• The State of Texas is dealing with a shortfall for the current fiscal year of $3 to $5 billion;

• The Texas Legislature also is grappling with a projected difference between what would be needed to continue state government’s current activities and projected revenue over the next two years of around $20 billion, which does not include future liabilities for outstanding bonds or unfunded pensions; and

• The total bond debt owed by just Harris County exceeds $3.4 billion, and the total bond debt owed by my local school district—Clear Creek ISD—is $1.077 billion, for an aggregate debt per Harris County resident within CCISD from just these two governmental agencies of $30,452.43 (which is more if you also live inside a municipality that is in debt).

On top of these numbers, the total private debt owed by U.S. citizens is estimated to range between $50 and $57 trillion—3 to 4 times GDP, and more than double the net worth of the country as a whole. Moreover, the price of most commodities have skyrocketed, as have unemployment and the money supply over the last two years, while average personal income has stayed flat or declined in real terms. As for the examples of local figures, these numbers don’t include the billions owed in short-term operating debt, long-term bond debt, and unfunded pension liabilities by local governments, special purpose entities (sports and convention authorities, port authorities, and transit authorities), and school districts.

Regardless of what the Paul Krugman’s of the world may say, this path is unsustainable. Unlike the 1930s, when our nation was the world’s largest creditor and held the greatest reserve of gold and other public and private assets, and could afford to incur more public debt to finance a public recovery, or unlike the 1950s when our economic wealth and industrial capacity could finance the Interstate Highway system and NASA, the U.S. in 2011 simply doesn’t have the wealth, or wealth-generating capacity to cover a continued growth in debt—or to maintain debt on this scale. We could tax the “super rich” up to their last penny, and, even if they didn’t flee to another country, the amount we would obtain would not cover more than a few months of the debt we are incurring.

We can no longer run government (including our schools), let alone our own households and business, in a “business as usual” manner. On the one hand, cuts to budgets and to social programs, no matter how draconian, will not be enough to address the problems we face; and raising the federal debt ceiling may seem prudent within the halls of the Capitol, but it is simply cowardice. On the other hand, Texas, like most states, has constitutional obligations, including the education of its 4 million students; while the federal government has constitutional obligations, including providing for our common defense—and we just can’t stop meeting these obligations.

Instead, we must stop incurring debt; we must re-structure salary, benefit and pension obligations of public workers to bring them in line with the private sector; we must set priorities for each level of government based on their core, constitutional responsibilities; we must zero-base budget for those priorities; and then we must agree on a fair system of taxation to pay for those priorities. We must find innovative private and local solutions for problems now managed by state and federal bureaucrats—innovations that will involve citizens and the private sector, including private foundations, service organizations and churches. State and federal governments can have a coordinating role to match the right people and organization to the needs of their communities, but these governments should not create, administer or pay for the resulting programs.

What is most needed, though, are leaders who will take the risk to stop this fiscal madness and set the new priorities we need. Some are emerging, like the new Governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and New Jersey. As leaders like these emerge in Washington, Austin, and locally, they will have a loyal ally and foot soldier in me.

The Middle East

In early February, I wrote a post with some thoughts about the emerging uprisings across the Middle East, which are largely confined right now to the Arab countries in North Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula. At that time, I wrote the following:

…we need to find a way to be on the side of the dreams of people of this region for freedom, education, and opportunity, rather than being perceived as siding with their monarchs or their extremists. We can not impose freedom, education, and opportunity like we tried in Iraq, and like foreign powers tried, to one degree or another, for centuries. Instead, we need to find a way through a mixture of trade, engagement, and security to help the people of that region build their own future.

Not long after that I wrote another post, in which I supported renewal of the Patriot Act. Some people who read that post could not square my thinking in the first post, and my thinking about limited government, with my support for renewal of the Patriot Act. With the opening of a third-front in Libya, in what now appears to be a never-ending military mission in the Middle East, I want to explain how I square these positions.

I believe very strongly that when our country has decided to go to war, and when Congress has authorized the Commander-in-Chief to prosecute the war with a clear instruction, Congress has the duty to provide the Commander-in-Chief with the means to fight that war effectively. Obviously, those means must be tempered and balanced by our commitment to civil liberties for our citizens, but, as Justice Robert Jackson observed many decades ago, our Constitution is not a “suicide pact.” A war-time balance normally calls for sacrifices that would not be tolerated in peacetime. I believe that the Patriot Act has given the President—both Bush and Obama—measured and balanced means to carry out the clear instructions in the war authorization following 9/11, especially in light of the 21st Century technology of communication and travel used by an enemy that wears no uniform and represents no single government.

However, my support for giving the President the means to carry out his orders contained in the war declaration, does not mean that I necessarily support a continuation of the war in all its current facets; and it certainly does not mean that I support an extension of our military footprint in the Middle East.

• First, we can’t afford continuing this fight in the manner we are fighting it (remember, that the National Debt would be my first priority).

• Second, even though the Arab League asked the West to intervene in Libya, many of those same Arab leaders are killing freedom protesters in their own streets. Those protesters must be asking, “who’s side are we really on?” At some point, we must ask this hard question ourselves before we start shooting off more missiles.

• Third, although the world will be far better off without Gadhafi and his sons (just as it is now with Hussein and his sons), is it really in our national interest to intervene in this civil war (and if it is, why did we wait until the rebel cause was almost lost to intervene)?

• Fourth, if this is a proper, limited fight for the West or Europe, couldn’t we leave this to France, Britain and the Arab League to fight, just as Eisenhower left it to France, Britain and Israel to fight the Suez War in the 1950s? Sixty-six years after the end of World War II, do we have to join every battle that our allies feel the need to fight?

We can and should at least discuss these issues, even if we end up disagreeing about them. In the end, we simply can not hope to fix all of the tribal, political and religious problems in the Middle East—many of which we simply don’t understand—with a gun. Again, what is most needed, are leaders who will take the risk to stop and think, and to set new, realistic priorities for our dealings with the people of the Middle East.

Japan

Words still can’t convey the horrible tragedy that has struck the people of Japan. On top of a second decade of economic stagnation, a governmental debt that is 200% of GDP, and the lowest birth rate in the industrialized world—all of which have been slowly eating away at the vitality of Japan—now comes this Apocalyptic series of catastrophes. All any one of us can do at this point is to pray for the Japanese people, and to provide as much support as we can in the months and years ahead.

Although it may seem cold-hearted to discuss this right now, our leaders must start thinking about an Asia without a vibrant Japan for the foreseeable future. This predicament will impact our diplomatic, economic and military policies in the region for years to come, and will immediately impact the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula and with China. Because of our indebtedness, and Japan’s indebtedness, Japan can not re-build with just our help, as it did after World War II. In fact, Japan will need and be able to depend on Chinese support, more than it will be able to depend on our support, and that will change the entire balance of power and alliances in the region. We must begin re-shaping our strategic thinking to be ready for this new reality.

And it is on this last topic—China—that I will end this post. Looking across the first three months of this year, the big winner of 2011 so far is China. Whether it is our debt and the continued stagnation across the U.S. and Europe, the uprisings within the oil-producing states of the Middle East, or the fortuitous emasculation of our strongest ally in Asia and the third largest economy in the world, China now is holding all of the economic and strategic cards—just as we did on the eve of World War II. Historically, China has never sought conquests beyond Asia, but, historically, it has never had the economic and strategic interests it now has on every continent—nor the economic and military strength it now enjoys. We must prepare ourselves for increasing diplomatic, economic and military competition and tension with China for years to come.

The best way to prepare for this competition is to face our National Debt and fix it, to change our approach to the Middle East, and to prepare for a new strategic reality in Asia.

What are we fighting for?

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

I think a lot of people around the world could be asking that question right now.

We hear shouts for “returning to the Constitution” or “limited government” or “liberty” or “fiscal discipline” from Conservative activists here at home, just as we hear cries for “freedom” and “democracy” from the streets in the Middle East. If either movement is to succeed, they must move from their chants and slogans, to understanding, visualizing, and then implementing the real future they seek to create.

So, the first question that all of these activists must answer is “what is the future I seek to create?” In essence, they must answer the question: “what am I fighting for?”

I don’t pretend to know what that future could or should look like in countries whose people have formed a society and culture based, in whole or in part, on the teachings of Muhammad (or “Mohammed”), but I do have some thoughts about what that future should look like here. In his Farewell Address in January, 1989, Ronald Reagan finally gave America a glimpse of what he had meant when he said he saw America as a “Shining City on a Hill”:

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

I believe that many of us who desire to re-establish a limited, fiscally-sane governmental structure based on the blueprints provided in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, instinctively want to leave to our children Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill. I believe that this has been the desire of every generation of Americans, regardless of whether they are direct descendants of the original Settlers and Founders, their ancestors came here in the many waves of immigration since 1789, or they and their ancestors obtained their freedom from bondage and segregation through civil war and civil protests. Remember that when Martin Luther King, Jr., told us of his “Dream,” it was based on the promise of the Declaration of Independence and the words of the Bible—the same concepts that moved the Founders to strive to form “a more perfect union.”

But, to leave to our children Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill, we must first come to grips with what that effort will require, because the America Reagan saw, that King desired, and that our Founders addressed was a different America, with different attitudes and understandings, than the America of today. The Americans that received the Declaration of Independence and ratified the Constitution saw their obligations to each other far differently than we see them today, and they understood that the limited government they were establishing would not work without those obligations being met. We have to face the reality that establishing that Shining City on a Hill will require a fundamental transformation—a transformation that not only addresses a re-organization of government, but a re-orientation of the way we each see ourselves as citizens—those “people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.”

This re-orientation of our understanding of American citizenship will not be easy, because we are far removed from the Americans who first received the Declaration and ratified the Constitution. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Recently, on one of the Sunday-morning TV talk shows, Republican Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona was on a panel and began a statement with the phrase “government is a necessary evil.” Immediately, the moderator interrupted her with a condescending challenge: “Now, Governor, you don’t really mean evil, do you?” To which, a puzzled Brewer responded, “Ok, it’s necessary,” and then she went on to discuss her point.

Frankly, I initially was stunned by this segment, until I thought about it a little. I am sure that most of you reading this post know that Brewer’s original remark was a quote from one of our Founders. A subset of you can probably identify it as a phrase used by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper No. 8 to describe the creation of a standing army, as well as a concept central to Madison’s arguments in Federalist Papers Nos. 10 and 51.

Unfortunately, those of us cursed with the memory of what “necessary evil” means must realize that, after 100 years of learning a different narrative about our country, most of our neighbors couldn’t identify the history of that phrase, would not understand its historical meaning, and would have reacted just like the moderator—in fact, none of the three other Governors on the panel, let alone Governor Brewer herself, attempted to explain or defend her use of that phrase.

But the audience who first read those words in the New York newspapers during the ratification debate over the Constitution—both Federalist and Ant-Federalist—would’ve known, understood, and agreed with those words. They eventually agreed with Madison’s approach to dealing with the “necessary evil” dilemma, because they understood that our liberty would be protected only by combining the promotion of the virtues needed to sustain the fundamental relationships of a free society, with the extended republic and checks and balances of the federal system of government written into the new Constitution.

Most importantly, that audience understood that promoting and sustaining the practice of fundamental virtues among individual citizens was fundamental to the success of their new experiment. They believed that liberty was the freedom from being controlled by a government, an elite class, or a faction; it was not freedom from their neighbors or their neighborhoods, for they understood John Donne’s point that

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

To them, citizenship in a free society required active involvement in the life of the community and all its organizations; it was not a license to receive tax-paid benefits, nor a right to delegate community involvement to tax-paid bureaucrats. Democracy is what transpired in town hall meetings and town councils called or elected by the people to govern communities, in service organizations and church congregations, and in schools; while the work of elected representatives in state and national capitols was limited to a few specific tasks outlined in republican constitutions.

As C.S. Lewis observed,

And all the time—such is the tragic-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. … In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

And to his observation, I would now add,

We now promote an isolation from our neighbors and expect them to provide care and charity when help is needed. We create a dependency on government to pay for essential services and are shocked when no one will sacrifice to provide for those services themselves. We call on our national government to address our every problem and need, while we demand that our representatives re-institute limited government and follow the Constitution.

The reality is that we can prune back the branches of the progressive governmental trees we’ve planted over the last 100 years by cutting their budgets to the trunk, but that won’t limit government to what our Founders intended. Eventually, if that’s all we do, the branches will grow back.

The change we want will require uprooting the progressive tree. It will require uprooting our lives from the patterns we’ve created and becoming more involved in the democracy of our communities—our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our service organizations and churches, and our local governments. I know that this challenge may sound too daunting to even contemplate, or that it is historically too late, or society has become to complex, to make this type of transformation possible—we Conservatives have faced these arguments for decades. As Herbert Hoover observed in a book published a year after he left office as the New Deal was being implemented:

Our problems today are all strongly silhouetted against the background of depression. …And from all this maze of problems and emotions many thoughtful people assume that our difficulties are due to an irreconcilable conflict of Liberty with our complex Industrial Age, …. We must not conclude that ours is the only generation which has thought this, nor the first that has had to meet great perplexities. Men of every generation have envisaged their problems in terms of despair, but the dynamic impulses given to men from Liberty always have found tolerable solutions, so tolerable that a gigantic progress swept onward from generation to generation.

… Those who proclaim that in a Machine Age there is created an irreconcilable conflict in which liberty cannot survive should not forget the battles of liberty over the centuries, …. It is not because Liberty is unworkable, but because we have not worked it conscientiously or have forgotten its true meaning that we often get the notion of irreconcilable conflict with the Machine Age.

As daunting as the challenge may seem, I believe that we have not completely forgotten the true meaning of Liberty. Remember that the remnants of our unique society still exist under all of the layers of government we’ve created. Those basic relationships that formed the core of our democratic communities still function every day. Teachers, parents and children still work together to mold productive citizens. Patients and doctors still trust each other to keep us healthy. Neighbors still have local courthouses available where they can resolve their disputes. Police officers and fire-fighters still stand ready at a moments notice to keep us safe. Water and sanitation districts, street and bridge builders, and gas and utility companies still work to make sure we have access to the basic necessities for our homes and neighborhoods to function. Entrepreneurs and professionals still start businesses, employ neighbors, sell products and services, pay taxes, serve on private boards, and support communities. We still have a network of families, churches, homeowners associations, and other private service organizations, ready and willing to address our daily needs, and to build and sustain our neighborhoods. It is the proper functioning of these relationships, over hundreds of years, which has made America exceptional—and none of them need Austin or Washington to exist or to thrive, but they do need us.

On these remnants we can re-build our unique society and re-establish limited and fiscally-sane government. But, we have to be willing to believe that the blueprints provided by the Declaration and the Constitution are still viable, and then re-commit ourselves to this project. We have to re-engage in the democratic life of our communities. We have to start and support local businesses, join our local service organizations and churches, and involve ourselves in our schools and local governments—and then demand that these enterprises shoulder the needs of our communities with our help, rather than look to Austin or Washington for action. Once we make that commitment, then all of the hard work of re-organizing government will have a direction and a purpose—and we can get down to the difficult work that such re-organization will require.

If we re-build society according to these timeless plans, I believe we will leave that Shining City on a Hill to our children. I don’t know about you, but that is what I am fighting for.

The Threshold of Transformation

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

A few weeks ago I posted about the Middle East and about the historical era that may be unfolding. As the weeks have gone by, and as we’ve watched events unfold in Washington, Madison, and across the Middle East—and when you think about these events in the context of events over the last few years—I believe we are definitely seeing fundamental changes in the way people here, and around the world, perceive the role of government in their lives.

Although these events raise many questions about America’s future role in the world, they also bring one domestic question to the forefront: do we still have the courage and the wisdom to face our own problems and get our own house in order? In fact, our failure to answer this question correctly may doom any chance we have to guide events in the Middle East to a positive end.

For a generation American Conservatives have argued that there is a better way to organize and use our government to meet the needs of our citizens. Though we’ve agreed with liberals that we want a society in which each of us has an equal opportunity to seek and obtain a better life for ourselves and our children, we’ve disagreed on how and whether to use our governments at the national, state, and local levels as tools to accomplish that goal. To put it simply, Conservatives believed that the proper blueprint always existed in the contents of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and it didn’t need to be re-invented through centralized government.

As we’ve argued over this fundamental issue, the momentum of action has continued its 100-year trajectory toward concentrating more and more resources and responsibility in the hands of government bureaucracies at all levels of government, and we’ve gotten fewer positive results from that shift in money and power. That momentum has continued because Conservatives have tended to take two divergent approaches: on the one hand, we’ve argued for a system of limited government and individual responsibility that was gradually disappearing; while, on the other hand, we’ve enabled the continued centralization of government power and responsibility by simply adjusting and limiting the budgets and policies presented by progressives, instead of actually presenting and promoting policies consistent with a limited government. In essence, we’ve been trying to save the Titanic from the iceberg by re-arranging the deck chairs, rather than by taking control of the helm.

In the meantime, we’ve bankrupted society. Yes, I said “bankrupted”. I know that even the mention of “bankruptcy” or “insolvency” leads our elected officials and public bondholders to look for the “Exit” signs—as well it should. It would be imprudent for them to discuss this issue candidly and publicly unless and until they have a plan to address it. But you and I must face it and discuss it, so that we can help our elected officials develop the plans they will need to address the issue.

In the past, I’ve used the term “re-organize” to talk about what our lawmakers will need to do to transfer resources and responsibilities back to individuals, the private sector and local governments, so that we

• regain the liberty prior generations fought to preserve;

• address the needs of our citizens more economically and effectively; and

• dissolve the organizational structure that has created this mess.

I chose the term “re-organize” on purpose, because many of the problems we face are structural within the governments we’ve enlarged over the last 100 years, and because it is a term-of-art used in Bankruptcy proceedings.

To be candid, if an organizational consultant were hired to address the budgetary problems faced by the public sector of this country, and if that consultant honestly applied the same principles he or she would use to evaluate a private-sector business, that consultant would recommend a liquidation of our public sector in something like a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy proceeding. We are simply too insolvent to continue as a “going concern”—the only way we are continuing to operate is with a combination of incurring more debt at every level of government and by printing more money at the federal level. This approach is economically, morally and political unsustainable.

And we can’t raise taxes to get out of this mess. Even if you could overcome the predictable political revolt, raising taxes is not a viable economic solution for many reasons. For instance, taxpayers now carry too much private debt to be able to pay the exorbitant amount that would be needed to bring current and future government spending into balance. Moreover, any significant increase in tax collections would deprive the economy of the private capital it needs for recovery and re-investment.

So, yes, as a society we are broke, and our imaginary consultant would have to acknowledge it. However, because you can’t “liquidate” a society or government, our consultant would be forced to recommend re-organizing our governments under a procedure like that provided under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. This re-organization would be structural, but would be made according to the blueprint of the Constitution; it would not require, and I would never advocate for, a Constitutional Convention as some now are advocating, because the whole goal is to re-establish a limited government within the guidelines provided by the Constitution (and the constitutions and charters at the state and local levels). In essence, this hole was dug by decades of legislative, judicial and administrative action, not by the Constitution; and it will take a combination of legislative, judicial and administrative action at every level of government to get us out of this hole.

Although local governments actually can declare bankruptcy and re-organize under the Bankruptcy Code (and I believe many cities and counties across the country may have to do so eventually), States currently have no such authority; and, even if they did obtain such authority, States would have to address the probability that the Constitution prohibits them from abrogating current contractual obligations (like pensions for current and retired employees). As for the federal government, it can’t really go bankrupt because of its power to print money—though the havoc printing more money would reek could make the Weimar Republic look like paradise.

No matter how we choose to approach the structural re-organization, we will have to begin by removing the impediments to such re-organization. In fact, that is precisely what Governor Walker of Wisconsin is trying to do. Most of the structural impediments to re-organization arise from what generally can be called “Unfunded Mandates,” which take many forms. Typically, they are the fine print in the grand schemes created by the federal or state governments. These mandates shift the responsibility and cost for administration of the schemes to lower levels of government (states, counties, cities or school districts), without providing the necessary funds to pay for the administration.

These Unfunded Mandates can arise in many forms. For instance, they can arise from referendums that restrict taxes, mandate expenditures, or restrict expenditures from certain taxes, like those referendums adopted in California over the last generation; or they can arise from restrictions included in legislation, or collective bargaining agreements, pertaining to the terms of public-sector employment, working conditions, compensation, and benefits. Because every state is organized differently, the nature and impact of federal Unfunded Mandates on each State, and of Unfunded Mandates between State and local governments or school districts, differ across the country. Governor Walker’s bold proposal to limit collective bargaining was an attempt to remove an impediment to the structural re-organization at the county, city and school district levels of government in Wisconsin.

As we can see from the protests and counter-protests across the Midwest (as well as from the cowardly retreats of Democratic legislators to that Mecca of good governance, Illinois), removing these structural impediments will be difficult because the interest in maintaining the status quo is pervasive and strong. Even though virtually everyone agrees that we are on an unsustainable course, the commitment to the 100-year trajectory of the role of government runs very deep, and the Democratic Party and its labor union allies are committed to maintaining the structure they have created. So, though they call themselves “progressive,” they actually are the forces of the status quo in this country. And they’ve dug-in their heels pretty deep against any attempt to re-organize.

Wisconsin is a lesson for all of us who see the need to re-organize and re-establish a limited government. It will take more than good intentions and bold talk to overcome the status quo to which the Democrats and fellow progressives are committed. It will take more than simply cutting programs and dollars from budgets—more than re-arranging those deck chairs.

It will take a transformation: a transformation about the expectations we have of ourselves, our neighbors, our communities, our schools, and our governments; an actual concept for the transformation, which can be adapted not only to the federal government, but to the unique experiences, needs and structures each state and locality; and a sustained commitment to implement that concept with concrete policies. And this transformation will require leaders and leadership to pursue—now and for years to come. If it took 100 years to get us to this point, we must be willing to devote many years to this effort; and we must be willing to make progress one step at a time, while occasionally taking advantage of opportunities to make bold leaps.

The good news is that I think we’ve recently crossed the threshold of that transformation, and there is no going back. Indeed, I believe the next few months present an opportunity for some bold leaps that the public will accept.

At the federal level, I think the public is ready not just to stop raising the debt ceiling, but they are ready to discuss the consequences of not incurring more debt. They are ready not only to change the way we spend discretionary funds, but also to look at how the vast majority of tax revenues are spent. Specifically, they are ready to consider ways to restructure the way we spend our dollars on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and on the Unfunded Mandates associated with Medicare and Medicaid; and to consider how to re-structure our Defense and Homeland Security Departments to cost-effectively defend the country against the threats we face now, and against those threats we will face over the next generation. If you listen closely, the only people talking about shutting-down the government are the forces of the status quo among Democrats and their allies, who are seeking to preserve the current system at all costs—that should speak volumes to all of us about the challenges we face.

At the State and local levels (including counties, cities, and school districts), our neighbors are ready to take back control of their families, their neighborhoods and their schools and make them more effective vehicles for addressing the needs of their communities. In essence, they are ready to rekindle the bonds of the American neighborhood, which de Tocqueville found so unique and effective in providing a social safety net. To do that our neighbors are ready to discuss the hard choices to be made within government, within the private sector, and within their own families, to accomplish the needed shift in responsibility; and to make the painful decisions related to public-sector organization and employment that will be needed to implement those hard choices. Again, for those who are watching closely, the only people trying to avoid these discussions and decisions are those who are so vested in the status quo that they were willing to abandon their responsibilities in the legislature and the class rooms in order to retain the current system.

Regardless of how the stalemate in Wisconsin ends (and I hope it ends in favor of Governor Walker’s proposals), the Wisconsin debate has done us all a favor by forcing us to cross a threshold—a threshold away from merely adjusting numbers in a budget and toward the transformation we desperately need.

The Journey Home

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

It’s funny how our minds work sometimes. As I’ve watched news coverage of the public union members protesting in Wisconsin over the last few days, what came to my mind was one of the last scenes from The Wizard of Oz.

I am sure you remember the scene. After the balloon takes off and leaves Dorothy stranded, Glenda reappears and tells Dorothy that she had always had the power to go back home to Kansas. Glenda then asks if Dorothy has learned anything from her experience in Oz. Dorothy explains that she now realizes that it wasn’t enough to just want to go back home; instead, she had to learn that what she had been searching for had been back home in Kansas all along. With that, Glenda tells her to click the heels of her slippers and she can go back home.

In many ways what Conservatives have been wanting over the last few years is to return to that “Kansas” that mankind found so exceptional when it looked to America over these last few centuries: to a government and society based on the principles of real liberty, where we are free from the control of our lives and choices by a government or elite class, and where we address the needs of our families and neighbors together through our communities, our churches, and, if need be, our local governments. In essence, we’ve wanted to journey home to the country our Settlers and our Founders hoped we would inherit, strengthen and secure.

As the scenes from Wisconsin show, we aren’t in Kansas anymore—and we haven’t been there for a long time. Toward the end of the 19th Century, as our cities were bulging with immigrants and workers from the countryside, who came to work in the great industries of the day, activists and churches established what they always had formed—organizations and facilities to help these newcomers assimilate and survive in the new environment. Neighborhoods formed, and new institutions, like Hull House in Chicago, helped individuals and families navigate in the new industrial society.

But then, the activists became impatient. They studied the welfare-state and socialist movements in Europe (which were familiar to many of the new immigrants, too), and they believed that the power of government could be used to meet the needs of the new industrial society better than the old model inherited from the Settlers and Founders—an old model that these impatient activists themselves had, until then, been adapting to the urban environment. As a result, our 100-year odyssey in the progressive land of Oz began.

Frederick Jackson Turner, the famous University of Wisconsin and Harvard University History Professor, observed this process throughout his academic career. He gave a famous keynote speech at the Columbia Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, in which he noted that the frontier was gone, and that we would be faced with the challenge of addressing problems that we could no longer “go West” to avoid. Almost thirty years later, Turner noted

Western democracy through the whole of its earlier period tended to the production of a society of which the most distinctive fact was the freedom of the individual to rise under conditions of social mobility, and whose ambition was the liberty and well-being of the masses. The conception has vitalized all American democracy, and has brought it into sharp contrasts with the democracies of history, and with those modern efforts of Europe to create an artificial democratic order by legislation. The problem of the United States is not to create democracy, but to conserve democratic institutions and ideals.

Turner understood that, in trying to cope with the effects of the Industrial Revolution, Europe had tried to change the social dynamic of class and monarchy, and of the emerging urban class distinctions, through laws designed to give the common man more direct say in the government, and to give government more responsibility over the welfare of the common man. What Turner noted was that America already had created a working system whereby citizens’ liberties were protected—they didn’t need to legislate it into existence, but they did need to preserve it.

But by 1920, our century-long adventure in the Oz of centralized national government, and national and state government involvement in most facets of our lives and decisions, had begun. Though it would be slowed during the 1920s, and again during the 1980s, the march toward the Europeanization of our society has continued unabated—until now.

Over the last few years, a lot of us have awakened to the fact that we aren’t where we wanted to be: that what those activists 100 years ago had been looking for—more liberty, more economic prosperity, more security, and more "social justice"—wasn’t in Oz after all. Instead, we’ve built a mirage of an Emerald City based on money we never really had, and we’ve depleted the reserves of the grand Shining City on a Hill. We know now that the answers were always in the principles of the Settlers and the Founders, and in the society and governments they created; and we understand it’s time to go home to those principles, and to rebuild that society and government, to meet the challenges of a new century.

Unfortunately, a great many of our neighbors who still receive the benefits of the Oz we created, and who never really learned about, or lived in the Kansas of our country’s youth—like the union protesters in Madison—haven’t figured this out yet. In fact, they like Oz, and they want to cling to it as long as they can.

So, it’s for the rest of us to start the journey home, because we know that the Oz we’ve created can not last—it is unsustainable. However, the transformation that will be needed to travel from the Oz of today to the Kansas of tomorrow—to re-establish a limited government, and a strong, interdependent society of free people, based on our Settlers’ and Founders’ principles—won’t be as easy as closing our eyes and tapping our heels. If any of us ever thought that the journey would be short and painless, the pictures from Wisconsin this week should snap us out of that delusion.

As we make this journey, we need to make sure that those who want to lead us understand the difficulty, as well as the necessity of the journey ahead. Thankfully, we are learning that some do. For example, take a look at the CPAC speech given by Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana (speech text - video). Over the months and years ahead, let’s make sure that all of our leaders understand what we need to do to get back to Kansas.

Purity v. Principle

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

One of the burning issues of the first two years of the Carter Administration was the wisdom of the proposed treaty to transfer sovereignty and control of the Panama Canal to Panama. It not only divided the political parties, but it also deeply divided Republicans and prominent conservatives. For instance, John Wayne, a public supporter of the treaty, vehemently and publicly disagreed with his old friend, Ronald Reagan, who was the most vocal opponent of the treaty. Another Reagan friend, William F. Buckley, Jr., strongly supported the treaty and challenged Reagan to a televised debate on a special two-hour edition of Buckley’s show, Firing Line, before the Senate ratification debate.

Anyone who watched that debate on TV, or listened to it on radio, in January, 1978, has a vivid memory of one of the greatest public debates of our lifetime. Not only was Buckley pitted against Reagan in an impressive debate when the oratorical skills of both were at their zenith, but their seconds were impressive, too: including George Will, Pat Buchanan, James Burnham, and Admirals Elmo Zumwalt and John McCain, Jr. (the father of Senator McCain). The moderator was Sam Ervin, who just a few years before had chaired the Senate investigation of the Watergate scandal. (As an aside, it amazed me during the 1980 campaign how many people believed either John Anderson or Jimmy Carter would beat Reagan in a debate, and how many people were shocked when he won both debates—I guess they either hadn’t seen, or had forgotten, his performance against Buckley.)

Though the Firing Line debate arguably ended in a masterful draw, the Senate ratified the treaty, and Reagan seemed to be defeated on the national stage for the second time in two years. As Buckley later wryly noted, however:

Reagan was, as a prophet, simply mistaken. And I, for my part, did not go on to be president.

In the meantime, they both remained the closest of friends—personally and politically—for the rest of their lives.

And that is the point of telling this story.

We Republicans—we conservatives—have become a rather schizophrenic lot over these last 33 years since Buckley and Reagan debated: we revere and promote principles of individualism and liberty for our country and for mankind; and yet, we demand a form of orthodox purity from each other on every conceivably important political issue. I don’t think we can have it both ways and still remain political friends and allies, let alone form a long-term, effective governing majority party.

Over the last few years, as I’ve taken public stands on issues and ruffled some feathers, I’ve been derided as a libertarian, a moderate, a Christian conservative, a RINO, a Tea Partier, a liberal, a social conservative, an economic conservative, a neo-conservative, a limited-government conservative, even a Democrat (just to list a few of the labels that are clean enough to post on this website)—and these labels came from fellow Republicans. My wife and I would always laugh about all of this, because what it really reflected was the independence of my spirit, and how hard it is for some Republicans now to deal with someone like me.

So, let me be clear—for the umpteenth time—what I am, and what I always have been, is a Republican. Because of my independence of mind and judgment, I, like you, think through each issue based on my core conservative principles and come to positions that I then strongly support. I, like you, care about some issues more than others. My pet issues are education and national defense, and my concern for these different issues leads me to want strong and effective local leadership to address education while wanting strong and effective national leadership to address our national defense. To some my desire for strong and effective government locally and nationally at the same time is inconsistent, but I can complete this circle because of my understanding of the Founders’ idea of federalism and the different spheres of responsibility for each level of government.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all share commitments to different pet issues, and we all come to positions that, to others, might seem politically inconsistent. Over time, some of us have gotten our pet issues written into our party platforms at the state and national level. That’s not a problem; in fact, it’s a good thing, because the aggregate contained in these platforms reflects the broad consensus within the party at any given time on the issues of the day. It is important to document this consensus so our elected officials and candidates have guidance as to that consensus; and it is important to remind our elected officials and candidates that they should heed that guidance or explain pretty clearly to us what conservative principles they are using to deviate from it.

The problem comes when we try to read the planks of a platform, or impose fidelity to our own pet issues, as if they are the political equivalent of verses of scripture—like an inerrant political Word. As I’ve said in other posts over the years, Republicans aren’t sheep and we aren’t jackasses—that's the other party. Instead, we’re pretty ornery and independent-minded elephants, who are proud and stable beings who care for our herd, but who don’t want someone else’s political litmus test or pet issue imposed like a yoke upon us.

So, why do so many of us want to impose such rigid purity of thought on our fellow Republicans? Think about this—if each of our own pet issues and ideas must be considered as the scripture for the party that must be followed literally without deviation, can we ever really form a lasting and strong political party with those who disagree with some of our verses? Instead, aren’t we going to break-apart into smaller and smaller units with narrower and narrower agendas, until we can not elect anyone who will have the political support to make the fundamental and innovative changes we so desperately need? Isn’t this drive toward purity what is really behind the effort to label every Republican we disagree with as a RINO? If we are all RINOs to each other, are there any Republicans left?

To bring this post back full circle, will our future Buckleys and Reagans be allowed to hold opposing positions on the important issues of the day and still remain friends and allies, let alone be called “conservative” or "Republican"? Heck, will we even attract future Buckleys and Reagans to our party if we continue down this road?

The problem I am discussing is a problem Reagan and his generation foresaw, and it’s why they embraced principles, rather than orthodoxies or ideologies.

So, as our newly-elected representatives in Austin and Washington debate the issues before them, and as we start evaluating candidates for 2012, let’s not impose on them our own litmus tests, and let’s not call them “traitors” or threaten them with retaliation if they deviate from a platform plank. Instead, let’s tell them that it is alright to debate and disagree on how to use our conservative principles to solve the problems we face, and then let’s encourage them to debate the potential answers on immigration, the budget, ballot security, national security, the wars, foreign affairs, and many other issues guided by our platforms, but governed by our principles.

If we follow that path, I believe we eventually will get some great and innovative solutions based on our conservative principles—just like the solutions Buckley and Reagan worked together to give us a generation ago.

Renew the PATRIOT Act—all of it, now

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Although many Americans are understandably weary of war after over 9 years of armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and against terrorist cells here at home and throughout the world, we need to remember that those of us, who have not served in combat (or who have not had loved ones serving in combat) during these years since we were attacked on 9/11, have had to sacrifice relatively little—other than inconveniences when we travel by air.

We haven’t been subject to a draft. We haven’t had to buy war bonds or pay a surtax to fund the war. We haven’t had to serve on local draft boards or civil defense teams. We haven’t been asked to turn our homes into boarding houses for soldiers and sailors awaiting deployment. We haven’t had tires, gasoline or groceries rationed, or had to turn in metal for industrial use. We haven’t been subject to movies and radio programs that were required to carry pro-war content in every film or broadcast. We haven’t been subject to blackouts, curfews, or air-raid drills. We haven’t been threatened with arrest for speaking against the war, or against either the Bush or Obama Administrations. We haven’t had our civil liberties suspended. We haven’t been gathered and placed in detention camps because our last names sounded Arabic.

In short, we’ve had it pretty easy while our country has been defended these last 9 years, compared to the sacrifices imposed on earlier generations of Americans during wartime. In the meantime, the defense and intelligence apparatus that we built with our tax dollars after World War II has worked night and day to keep us safe against an army that wore no uniform and knew no boundary. Added to that defense after 9/11 were additional authorizations to conduct wartime surveillance and searches, which were contained in a statute known as the PATRIOT Act.

Thankfully, a solid majority of the U.S. House of Representatives understood that we are still at war, and that there is still a need to conduct the wartime surveillance and searches authorized by that act. Those representatives voted yesterday to fully reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately, a surprising number of Republicans voted against reauthorization, so now the bill will have to come before the House under rules that will allow for amendments, and many Republicans intend to offer or support amendments that will dilute or remove key provisions of the Act.

Although the implementation of such authority to wiretap or search personal conversations and conduct carries the risk of making mistakes that could embarrass or harass innocent individuals—and I am sure mistakes have been made—it is a testament to the professional work of the men and women in our defense, intelligence and homeland security establishment, that few if any of us have been, or know anyone who has been, subject to surveillance or search under this Act. In fact, the lawsuits that have been brought against the Act have been brought by people who thought they could have been, or could be searched or wiretapped, but who had no proof that they had been. This is a far different experience from those who, during past conflicts, really had their liberties trampled through arrests, mass suspension of civil liberties, or mass detentions.

However, there are those who say that it doesn’t matter how professionally the authority has been exercised, because any compromise of liberty—no matter how theoretical or attenuated, and regardless of the existence of a war—is indefensible. These people then love to spout the following quote in support of their position that the Founders would never agree to such limits on their liberties:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Those who use this quote in this way are just plain wrong. In fact, the circumstances that led to the making of that statement show it was never intended to address this type of issue.

This quote appeared in the preface to a work published in London by Benjamin Franklin in 1759, for the purpose of educating members of Parliament and other political leaders about the need to support the defense of the colonies against the French and their Native American allies during the Seven Years’ War (what we often refer to as “the French and Indian War”). Although the quote is often attributed to Franklin, its actual authorship is unclear, because it comes from a letter prepared in 1755 by the colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania and addressed to the colonial Governor.

In 1755, the colonists that had settled western Pennsylvania had come under constant attack from French forces, and the local tribes aligned with the French. The colonists' situation had become dire, so they asked for money from the colonial government to fund the purchase of arms for themselves, or to pay for arming local tribes that were loyal to the British, in order to defend their homes and settlements against further attack. The Assembly did not have the resources for such an expenditure, so it prepared the letter to the Governor, in which the Assembly asked the Governor to obtain funding from the Penn family for the defensive arms.

Remember that Pennsylvania contained a large number of Quakers and others who opposed armed conflict. Among these groups, opposition to such funding quickly arose. They advocated that peace could be achieved through negotiation and trade with the Native American tribes loyal to the French, rather than through armed aggression.

The sentence contained in the Assembly’s letter was meant as a derisive response to the pacifist. It was intended to challenge the notion that the survival of the liberty of the colonists could be allowed to hinge on the success of appeasing the enemy tribes. In fact, the proper way to read the quote would be to reconstruct it as follows:

Those who would buy temporary safety, and avoid defending their liberty, by appeasing the enemy, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Understood in this way, the statement by the Assembly is a declaration for the essential right or “liberty” of self-defense—individually and collectively—in a time of war. It is consistent with the position taken by Lincoln, FDR, and George W. Bush when our country has come under attack. Moreover, it is consistent with the swift, if not more extreme measures the Washington and Adams Administrations took in the face of potential civil war and war with France—and they were Founding Fathers. The statement does not defend neutering the ability of the country to defend itself, so some of us can rest at night believing that our phone calls to Europe, or our public library accounts, are secure from government surveillance to stop a wartime attack.

Just as I’ve said in prior posts that we need to grow-up and take responsibility for our selves and our communities if we are ever to dig ourselves out of the domestic whole we are in, we need to grow-up and realize that we are still at war. War requires sacrifice and a commitment to defend yourself, your neighbor and your country. That sacrifice and commitment means that sometimes you will need to take actions that would not be necessary or tolerated in peace time. If you are not willing to defend yourself, your neighbor or your nation in this way, then you deserve neither the liberty nor the safety you crave.

To those Representatives who voted to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act, and to those who support them, I say “thank you, and keep up the fight.” To those who oppose reauthorization to protect an international phone call or library check-out you might make someday, I say “grow-up, and thank your lucky stars that our parents and grandparents weren’t this selfish.”