Some Sardonic Musings For Independence Day

It's Independence Day in the land of the free. Some of my conservative friends will contend that it is land of the formerly free since the Supreme Court of the United States ruled same-sex marriage legal and upheld the federal government's Obamacare exchange. If the Republic is indeed on life support, I suspect its first infection began with the Constitution's three-fifths clause and was exacerbated by the fact that humans are not angels and angels do not govern mere mortals.

It's been more than a week since the SCOTUS decisions and the cynic in me notes that I have not seen a quartet of horsemen riding different colored horses and carrying sealed books. Likewise, if love truly won, I have yet to see a marked increase in patience, kindness, and self control among the general populace, nor I have a noticed a decrease in overweening pride, envy, or boasting, all qualities which are constituent elements of love. Perhaps it's a bit much to expect human nature to change in a week, but surely I should have seen at least one rainbow coated unicorn.

If the land of free is disconcerted, the home of the brave is also suffering a bit of an identity crisis. A nation that once had nothing to fear but fear itself now tells its citizens to be very afraid and live under the motto "see something say something." A government created, media led effort to create a panopticon of citizen informants who tell the state about any activity that might indicate one's neighbor has become a "radicalized lone wolf" has more than a little similarity to the East German Stasi:

For the 40 years of the Cold War the Stasi – 'The Sword and Shield of the Party' – kept a lid on dissent in East Germany through a unique method of surveillance.

They did not need torture chambers and rubber truncheons to keep people in line, but instead exploited the insecurities of members of the public, according to author Christhard Laepple.

Turning one in three of the German Democratic Republic's 17 million citizens into informers, the Stasi injected fear, uncertainty and suspicion into every walk of life, making sure few people ever uttered anything which might anger the regime.

It's Independence Day, a day that Alan Jacobs accurately describes in this tweet:

Welcome to the Highest Holiest Day of Our Civic Religion!

— Alan Jacobs (@ayjay) July 4, 2015

As one celebrates the civic holy day, one should remember that Ben Franklin's proverbs not only warned Americans we would have to work to keep the Republic but also that giving up liberty to gain security create a fool's paradise.

The Post Office And FedEx Show I Am Warped

Yesterday, these two items were delivered to my house. I ordered both but seeing them side by side gives me pause

I don't think I have explain AntMan collectibles co-sponsored by Marvel and Funko.

According to Amazon, A Secular Age

offers a historical perspective. [Charles Taylor] examines the development in "Western Christendom" of those aspects of modernity which we call secular. What he describes is in fact not a single, continuous transformation, but a series of new departures, in which earlier forms of religious life have been dissolved or destabilized and new ones have been created. As we see here, today's secular world is characterized not by an absence of religion--although in some societies religious belief and practice have markedly declined--but rather by the continuing multiplication of new options, religious, spiritual, and anti-religious, which individuals and groups seize on in order to make sense of their lives and give shape to their spiritual aspirations.

It may well be too deep for me, but the ideas fascinate.

Where One Lives Determines One's Political Leanings (Sort Of)

From this NBC First Read post

. . . 62% of those living in urban areas wanted to see the U.S. Supreme Court legalize gay marriage, while a plurality of rural residents (47%) opposed it, according to the latest NBC/WSJ poll. In Urban America, 57% believe the federal health-care law is working well or needs just minor modifications, versus 63% in Rural America who wanted it overhauled or totally eliminated. And 50% of rural residents think free trade has hurt the United States, compared with just 27% who believe that in urban areas. . . .Indeed, the same NBC/WSJ poll finds 55% of urban respondents identifying as Democrats, versus just 31% of rural respondents who are Dems.

On the other hand, where one consumes or purchases foodstuffs might be equally important:

David Wasserman, who analyzes politics at the Cook Political Report, measures the change by examining how Democratic presidential candidates performed in counties with a Whole Foods—the upscale grocery store that stocks organic goods—and in counties with a Cracker Barrel, the homestyle restaurant featuring chicken n' dumplings.

In 1992, Bill Clinton won 60% of the Whole Foods counties and 40% of the Cracker Barrel counties, a 20-point difference. That gap that has widened every year since, and in 2012, Mr. Obama won 77% of Whole Foods counties and 29% of Cracker Barrel Counties, a 48-point difference.

"Politics hangs on culture and lifestyle more than policy," Mr. Wasserman said.

Either way, the political results are stark.

Lessons From 2015 Legislature: South Dakota Republicans Are Afraid

One would believe that a party that recently defeated a sitting Senate Majority Leader, swept the 2014 races for constitutional offices, and possessed a supermajority in the 2015 legislature would be emboldened to do something other than cravenly conserve power.

Relatively early in the session, there was the "Let's Let John Do What We Wouldn't Let Tom Do" bill. It's unclear why a party that boasts of its deep bench, mocks the opposition for being unable to field candidates, and believes that no one will challenge its senior senator in 2016 would feel the need to enhance their ability to hold that seat unless they don't believe their own boasts and jeers.

Later in the session the Republican majority passed Senate Bill 69 which makes it harder for independent candidates to get on the ballot. Off the top of my head, I can't think of the last time independents of either conservative or liberal leaning successfully challenged an entrenched South Dakota Republican.

I am old enough to remember Republican leaders at a national level proclaiming their trust in the American voters. Apparently South Dakota Republicans don't have the same trust in the South Dakota electorate. They certainly don't seem to want to allow them any choices but those with an "R" behind their name on the ballot. I suppose if a party has no ideas and harbors a distrust of voters, it ought to be fearful.

I'm Pretty Sure I Told You So

This blog's January 2, 2015 post contained the following:

There will be talk but little action on anything relating to education funding.

Technically my predication might be wrong. The "blue ribbon" commission will likely talk about talking about education rather than actually doing anything about it. As a side note, I'll predict that the final report of the "blue ribbon" (I'm working really hard not to call it a Pabst) commission's findings will mirror Governor Daugaard's voter rejected HB 1234.

That same post contained the following prediction about the budget process:

At some point near the end of the session Republican leaders will bemoan a tight budget and without any sense of chagrin or irony congratulate themseleves on increasing all "rainy day trust funds" to record levels. 

Today's Yankton Press and Dakotan reports the following comment from Republican Representative Jean Hunhoff:

According to Jean Hunhoff, the projection is not going to be as great as everyone has thought.

“You remember when the governor put forth his budget in December?” Rep Hunhoff asked. “We were looking at fiscal year ‘15, which is this current year that we had about $26 million extra. We are seeing ... with some early returns that we will have a soft economy. And right now, we are down to having about $ 12 million (or surplus) instead of that $26 million. So, there are going to have to be some reductions there. As we look in the future for Fiscal Year ‘16, with the outlook right now, things aren’t looking so rosy.”

Of course one doesn't need to be Nostradamus, Cassandra, Tiresias, or Edgar Cayce to predict something that will happen during nearly every legislative session.

Daugaard's Education Agenda Follows A Democrat's Proposal

That Democrat was, unfortunately, Woodrow Wilson:

Addressing a meeting of the New York City High School Teachers Association in 1909, Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, set forth the requirements of America’s newborn industrial civilization. “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education,” he said, “and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific manual tasks.

Lewis Lapham who reminds readers of Wilson's snobbish assertion points to the logical outcome of a Wilsonian/Daugaardian educational policy. It will accustom students "to the design specs of a society geared to the blind and insatiable consumption of mediocrity in all its political declensions and commercial conjugations."

Lapham even points out why Daugaard's malignant neglect as illustrated by another education commission makes sense, if one is a politician in thrall to corporate interests:

Why would any politician in his or her right mind wish to confront an informed citizenry capable of breaking down the campaign speeches into their subsets of supporting lies? Burden the economy with too many customers able to decipher the hospital bills, or see around the corners of the four-color advertising, and the consequences would be terrible to behold.

Will It Be Ever Thus?

I have been struggling to blog since September or October. In part, it seems as if everything that I do now takes longer to complete. Getting old, an age that I will describe as being far closer to 60 than to 50, does indeed slow one down.

There is, however, another reason; blogging has seemingly become an exercise in futility. I going to cherry pick two quotations from a recent Madville Times thread and put words in the mouths of the majority of South Dakota voters to illustrate my frustration.

First, Bob Mercer writes, "Bottom line: Our economy isn't strong enough to do more for education and our voters don't seem to want to do more for education."

Cory responds to Mercer's analysis with the proper observation: ". . . if Mercer's bottom line is true, if South Dakota's economy cannot support greater investment in education, then 35 years of GOP rule has failed."

The majority of South Dakota voters will obliviously continue vote for anyone with an "R" behind his or her name on the ballot. They seem to be responding to the situation with a simple mantra: "Give me that old time politicin'; it's been good enough for 35 years; it's still good enough for me." The fact that "good enough" rarely is good or enough is deftly ignored.

Pointing out the obvious to those who refuse to acknowledge it is fun for a while, but it is becoming rather tiring when there is so little hope that the political situation in South Dakota will ever change.