In the early 1940s, when the forces of fascism in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan threatened to take over the world, the American people rolled up their sleeves and went to work.
It was, in the words of General Dwight Eisenhower, a “Great Crusade”. Millions of brave American soldiers fought their way across North Africa, Western Europe, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The sailors of the U.S. Navy secured the sea lanes from German U-boats in the Atlantic and won epic battles against the Japanese in the Pacific. The pilots in their fighters and bombers supported their comrades in the other services and shattered the war production of our adversaries through strategic bombing.
Yet you did not have to put on a uniform to take part in America’s war effort. On the assembly lines of countless factories, tens of millions of workers (more than a quarter of them women) toiled to produce the war material that would bring victory. Sailors of the merchant marine manned the vessels, sailing across dangerous waters to carry the supplies to the war zones that made the military campaigns possible (more than nine thousand of them lost their lives). Men not eligible for military service took part in civil defense efforts, enforcing blackouts, guarding bridges, and keeping an eye out for spies and saboteurs. Even schoolchildren did their part, growing fresh vegetables in “victory gardens” at their schools and collecting rubber from tires, aluminum from bubblegum wrappers, and anything else that could help the war effort.
In many ways, World War II brought out the best in our nation. Everyone, from all races, religions, and backgrounds, felt a responsibility to contribute to the war effort in whatever way they could. We did not fully free ourselves of our internal tensions and contradictions, as was shown by our shameful internment of Japanese-Americans and some serious incidents of racial tension in 1943. Yet, all things considered, there was a sense of national unity and common purpose between 1941 and 1945 unlike any other time in our nation’s history. Not for nothing was it called the Greatest Generation.
Our own time could not be more different. We see ourselves in our time, first and foremost, as members of distinct racial, religious, or cultural groups (“tribes”, to use a term currently in vogue among sociologists) rather than as fellow Americans. A liberal from San Francisco feels that he has nothing in common with a conservative from a rural Oklahoma town, and vice versa. The ties that used to bind us have weakened, steadily chopped away by the resentments and prejudices, real or imagined, that are pulling us apart. This process has been accelerated by the rise of social media and by populist demagogues acting in their own self-interest, instinctively but expertly exploiting our divisions by appealing to fear, anger, and envy.
When I look at the myriad of problems facing America in our own time, it seems clear to me that one of the root causes is the lack of a common American identity. If we are to recover, we need to recapture the spirit of the Greatest Generation, adapting it for modern times. We need to solidify a sense that, though we may have different religions, ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientations, though we may speak different languages, though we may have different political beliefs, we are all Americans and we are all part of the same grand experiment in democracy. Like Washington and his men crossing the Delaware River, we are all in the same boat.
I believe that a comprehensive program of national service, in which young Americans would be expected to devote at least a year of their lives, would be the most effective means of rebuilding a common American identity among our people.
I don’t propose in this blog post to lay out all the specifics of such a plan, which would obviously require enormous debate and consideration before it became a reality. Generally speaking, though, I believe that an additional type of educational certificate should be created in the United States, between a high school diploma and a college degree, which one could obtain only by doing a year of national service. In effect, this would add an additional year onto our system of public education, but it would be a year in which our young people would be out in the world rather than behind the desks of their classrooms. Nobody would be required to do this, but young Americans who had earned a national service certificate would naturally have an advantage over those who had not in terms of employment and college acceptance. The federal government could require federal agencies, as well as any companies with federal contracts, to give preference to holders of such certificates in their hiring practices. Tax breaks and tuition incentives could also potentially be included for those who participate. Self-interest, as well as a simple desire to serve, would draw people into the program.
The idea of national service is nothing new. In the colonial era, all able-bodied men in a community were expected to serve in the militia. Mandatory military service was a fact of life for American men in every major 20th Century conflict, until the draft was abolished in the wake of the Vietnam War. In the midst of the Great Depression, millions of young men participated the New Deal program known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), building and improving parks and doing other jobs on government-owned land. President Kennedy introduced the Peace Corps in 1961 and President Clinton launched AmeriCorps in 1993. Fundamentally, Americans are decent people with a strong desire to serve their nation.
In a new program of national service, young Americans should be able to fulfill their requirements through a variety of means. Military service is the most obvious route; even if they did not want to join the military, they could take part in a year-long period of military training and enter the National Guard or the Reserves. Enrollment in already established programs, like the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps, would also qualify, as would participation in service-oriented, apolitical nonprofit organizations that meet certain requirements. Internship programs for professions such as teaching, law enforcement, firefighting, and emergency medical services would also fit into this vision. Even construction work on critical infrastructure such as highways and bridges, and work in National Parks and local and state parks, might be included. The possibilities are almost limitless.
Enrolling millions of young people into such a program would, of course, be a tremendous undertaking and cost a good deal of money. But the return on investment for something like this would be astronomical. We are constantly told of an overstretched military, of shortages of teachers and police officers and emergency responders, of a crumbling infrastructure, and the desperate need of volunteers for our nonprofit sector. So much work that desperately needs to be done would, under this program, finally get done. Indeed, if we launched a genuine program of national service, our biggest problem would probably be finding enough spots for everyone. If you ask me, that’s not a bad problem to have.
The larger, more abstract benefits to America are impossible to calculate. Generations of young people would gain useful hands-on experience in a variety of different fields, which might also light the spark that will push them towards their destined careers. During their service year, Americans would meet fellow citizens from around the country, people very different from those with whom they grew up. This would build social tolerance for people of different ethnicities, religions, and social and political perspectives, helping to foster a more cohesive country and rebuild the common American identity that gave the Greatest Generation its amazing strength and fortitude. Research shows that citizens who have engaged in national service vote at a higher rate and are more deeply engaged in various forms of civic activism than those who did not. I believe a program like this would go a long way to burying the partisan divide that is currently poisoning political discourse in our great republic.
A program of comprehensive national service like this would have to be organized and funded by the federal government, because every young American would have to have an equal opportunity to participate regardless of their socioeconomic status. Many would argue that students would dismiss such a program as a waste of time. I disagree. Having spent years working in high school and middle school classrooms, I am convinced that the vast majority of young Americans would not only be willing but would be genuinely eager to participate in a program such as this. They would understand the benefits they would gain, they would see it as a chance for adventure, and they would jump at the opportunity to serve their country. It would be of particular benefit to those young Americans who might otherwise fall into addictive drug use and gang culture.
In recent years, some members of Congress have proposed legislation to enact some form of national service, though these efforts have been overwhelmingly defeated or ignored. Retired general Stanley McChrystal, formerly the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, has launched an effort to promote national service, though it has yet to gain much traction.
It is high time that this trend be reversed. The voice of the people should begin loudly calling for a program of comprehensive national service.
(This essay was originally published on the blog of Unite America.)
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Monday, June 3, 2019
We Need to Revitalize the American Family Farm
There is nothing more central to the idea of America than the family farm. The image of a red barn and small farmhouse set amidst vast fields of corn or wheat, with a windmill slowly turning in the breeze, is a picture that almost automatically comes to mind when you think about what our country is all about. It's not too much to say that America was built on a foundation of family farms.
During the Colonial Era, well over ninety percent of Americans were farmers. The rest, mostly craftsmen and merchants, made their livings by providing goods and services to farmers. The wealth of the nation was ultimately derived entirely from the products of the land. The average American yeoman farmer in those days was infinitely more independent than any American citizen is in our own time, able to produce their own food for their own family on their own land, and, if a crop was good and produce could be sold on the market, perhaps generating enough money to pay for other necessities and the occasional luxury. Today, if we want so much as a piece of lettuce, we have to go to a grocery store whose supply chain is controlled by a corporate oligarchy.
Yet the American farmer in the days of old was not isolated from his fellows. In fact, for America to work, community had to play a central role in the lives of citizens. The nearest town was where a farmer came to sell their produce at the market, buy goods at the stores, and perhaps deal with some legal matter at the county courthouse. Church was vitally important, almost the glue which held society together. Each county had a militia company to protect the community from whatever might threaten it, including a distant British government that could threaten their liberties. as the poet John Donne said, no man is an island, sufficient unto himself.
Thomas Jefferson said it best in one of his most memorable quotes:
And to his fellow Founding Father, John Jay, Jefferson once wrote as follows:
To Jefferson, the freedom of owning one's own land was coupled with a societal obligation to educate the public, down to the members of the lowest social class. He envisioned a society in which independent farmers would come home at night and read Homer in the original Greek by the fire. Some people would say that this is unrealistic, if not unobtainable. Jefferson would probably chide them for setting their expectations for the American people too low.
Lincoln, a spiritual heir to Jefferson in many ways, also understood the importance of the family farm to the fabric of the American republic. Even in the darkest days of the Civil War, he took the time to sign into law the Homestead Act and the Morrill Act, two key pieces of legislation that helped form the American Midwest into a society based around the family farm. The Homestead Act made it easy and cheap for families and individuals to secure small plots of federal land in the west, provided they agreed to live on the land and farm it. The Morrill Act allocated federal funds for the establishment of agricultural colleges, to teach American the practical skills necessary to make a success out of farming.
During his legendary first hundred days in office, Franklin Roosevelt made the salvation of the American family farm one of the top priorities. The Agricultural Adjustment Act enabled the government to raise prices by paying farmers subsidies if they reduced their planting. An emergency measure, the law helped stave off a complete collapse of the American agricultural sector.
From the founding of the republic to the middle of the 20th Century, the federal government recognized that the American family farm was an institution crucial to the social and economic fabric of the nation. That being the case, they took common sense measures to foster its development and protect it when it was threatened.
Not anymore.
It is no secret that the American family farm has been disappearing for the last several decades. It is not yet extinct, yet it clearly is in danger of becoming so. Many people, including many American farmers themselves, have entirely given up. Thirty years ago, family farms of the sort that Jefferson would still have recognized still made up over half of American agricultural production; today their percentage is less than a quarter.
On the national and state levels, the evidence is there for all to see. In the last twelve years, the number of American dairy producers had declined from 70,000 to 40,000. The great state of Wisconsin, famed across the world for its dairy products, is now seeing two dairy producers shut down every single day. Missouri had 23,000 independent pig farms in 1985, whereas today it has only 2,000. The average annual net farm income for an American farmer is now nearly about $1,500 in the negative.
Today, the bulk of American agricultural production comes out of corporate-controlled factory farms, gigantic industrial-scale operations so mechanized that to even call them by the name of "farms" seems almost absurd. The products of these facilities are not only of greatly lesser quality than those of family farms, but they are less healthy, less safe, and pumped full of chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones.
The decline of the American farm has precipitated a collapse in the rural society of the United States. As the farms vanished, so did the restaurants, shops, hardware stores, movie theaters, and other establishments that depended on them for their customer base. Doctors and dentists, with insufficient patients able to pay, closed up and left. Countless small towns across rural America are now empty shells, like skeletons in a desert. With those towns goes a priceless part of the national soul.
Most people believe that the decline of the American family farm has been a regrettable but unfortunately inevitable consequence of new technologies and a changing economy. It has been nothing of the sort. It did not need to happen, nor should it have happened. It is entirely the responsibility of a formidable set of corporate enemies: Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Cargill, Swift & Company, ConAgra, Dean Foods, Monsanto, and a whole host of others.
If the American family farm finally does die, it won't have been an accident. It will have been murder.
Corporate agribusiness has one of the most powerful lobbying presences in Washington D.C. The campaign coffers of politicians, from both parties and at every level of government, overflow with donations from wealthy people connected to these companies. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the agribusiness sector gave a whopping $118 million in campaign contributions during the 2016 election cycle. This allows them to buy an obscene amount of political influence, which they wield ruthlessly to slice down the opposition. The immense farm bills that wind their way through Congress every half decade are essentially written by the agribusiness lobbyists. Needless to say, owners of family farms do not possess even a fraction of their political clout.
Freed from the fear of any serious regulation by the government, the corporate agribusiness conglomerates can shape the marketplace as they choose, just as a sculptor manipulates clay. According to Farm Aid, a mere four companies control the majority of American supply and distribution of each of the following: beef (84%), corn (80%), soybeans (70%), hogs (66%), poultry (59%), and turkey (55%). Despite widespread evidence of price-fixing and other anti-competitive behavior, as well as numerous lawsuits, enforcement of federal antitrust laws has been effectively nonexistent. And if you think this latter fact has nothing to do with the political power of the agribusiness lobby, I have a bridge to sell you.
Because the corporate agribusiness control such a disproportionate market share, they have been able to vertically integrate the entire production, distribution, and sale of American food into their hands. Small-scale processing operations and slaughterhouses that used to fill the small towns of rural America have vanished, forcing the remaining family farms to turn to the corporations themselves to get their products to the market. Insult has been added to injury, in that the few remaining family farms are now mostly forced to produce crops and livestock to sell to the very agribusiness giants who already threaten their existence.
The dominance of corporate agribusiness is not only bad news for farmers, but bad news for the American people as a whole. The food we eat is now produced in an unnatural manner, so infused with artificial chemicals that even describing it as "food" is being charitable. The horror stories that emerge out of factory farms are so sickening as to make one vomit. The animals are pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones and raised in nightmarish conditions.
Now, no man who loves barbecue, hamburgers, pork chops, lamb korma, and sesame chicken as much as I do could ever be a vegetarian. Nevertheless, I believe strongly that the animals from which we obtain our meat are entitled to due respect as part of the natural order of things. When I eat pork chops, I want to know that the pig from which it came was not mistreated.
Two-and-a-half centuries ago, when they felt their liberties threatened by a distant monarch, American farmers set aside their plows, picked up their muskets, and gathered on Lexington Green to fight for their freedom. Fortunately for the nation, their family farmer descendants are now doing the same. And the American people need to back them up.
Since 1985, patriotic musicians such as Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and many others have organized an annual benefit concert called Farm Aid to raise money in support of American family farmers. From this has emerged an organization that conducts research and advocacy on behalf of ordinary farmers, provides grants to smaller nonprofits focused on food independent and sustainability, and connecting farmers with resources that can help them stay on their land. Farm Aid is one of the most worthwhile advocacy organizations in the United States.
Over the last few years, farmers markets have sprung up all across the country, in both big cities and small towns, allowing family farmers to sell their products directly to consumers. This is an act of resistance against the corporate oligarchy, side-stepping their control of the farm-to-table food chain that keeps Americans fed and going directly to the source. Buying so much as a single carton of eggs or one little basket of potatoes at a farmers market helps the American family farm survive. It is a fundamentally patriotic act.
(Use the Local Harvest website to find the farmers market closest to you.)
Many restaurants are now choosing to buy their meat and produce from local farms rather than through the agribusiness pipeline. Whenever possible, Americans need to eat at these establishments and avoid the others. Like shopping at farmers markets, doing so is a fundamentally patriotic act.
If the American family farm disappears, the United States will have lost a crucial aspect of its heritage and national identity. The agribusiness giants, in placing profit over the health, safety, and social stability of the republic, are traitors to the United States no less sinister than was Benedict Arnold. Through political advocacy, support of such organizations as Farm Aid, and being more careful with where we buy our groceries and where we go out to eat, the American people can help save the family farm.
Government on every level could implement sound public policies to help our nation's farmers, just as it did before with the Homestead Act, the Morrill Act, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Why not give hefty property tax exemptions and income tax deductions to family farms, provided that the sell a certain percentage of their produce directly to the public? Why not create a system of low interest loans for farmers having trouble, or for people wishing to start new family farms? Above all, why hasn't there been much more aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws against the agribusiness giants? There are any number of things that could be done.
As always, it's up to us.
During the Colonial Era, well over ninety percent of Americans were farmers. The rest, mostly craftsmen and merchants, made their livings by providing goods and services to farmers. The wealth of the nation was ultimately derived entirely from the products of the land. The average American yeoman farmer in those days was infinitely more independent than any American citizen is in our own time, able to produce their own food for their own family on their own land, and, if a crop was good and produce could be sold on the market, perhaps generating enough money to pay for other necessities and the occasional luxury. Today, if we want so much as a piece of lettuce, we have to go to a grocery store whose supply chain is controlled by a corporate oligarchy.
Yet the American farmer in the days of old was not isolated from his fellows. In fact, for America to work, community had to play a central role in the lives of citizens. The nearest town was where a farmer came to sell their produce at the market, buy goods at the stores, and perhaps deal with some legal matter at the county courthouse. Church was vitally important, almost the glue which held society together. Each county had a militia company to protect the community from whatever might threaten it, including a distant British government that could threaten their liberties. as the poet John Donne said, no man is an island, sufficient unto himself.
Thomas Jefferson said it best in one of his most memorable quotes:
Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he made the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire which otherwise might eclipse from the face of the earth.
And to his fellow Founding Father, John Jay, Jefferson once wrote as follows:
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most virtuous, and they are tied to the country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.
To Jefferson, the freedom of owning one's own land was coupled with a societal obligation to educate the public, down to the members of the lowest social class. He envisioned a society in which independent farmers would come home at night and read Homer in the original Greek by the fire. Some people would say that this is unrealistic, if not unobtainable. Jefferson would probably chide them for setting their expectations for the American people too low.
Lincoln, a spiritual heir to Jefferson in many ways, also understood the importance of the family farm to the fabric of the American republic. Even in the darkest days of the Civil War, he took the time to sign into law the Homestead Act and the Morrill Act, two key pieces of legislation that helped form the American Midwest into a society based around the family farm. The Homestead Act made it easy and cheap for families and individuals to secure small plots of federal land in the west, provided they agreed to live on the land and farm it. The Morrill Act allocated federal funds for the establishment of agricultural colleges, to teach American the practical skills necessary to make a success out of farming.
During his legendary first hundred days in office, Franklin Roosevelt made the salvation of the American family farm one of the top priorities. The Agricultural Adjustment Act enabled the government to raise prices by paying farmers subsidies if they reduced their planting. An emergency measure, the law helped stave off a complete collapse of the American agricultural sector.
From the founding of the republic to the middle of the 20th Century, the federal government recognized that the American family farm was an institution crucial to the social and economic fabric of the nation. That being the case, they took common sense measures to foster its development and protect it when it was threatened.
Not anymore.
It is no secret that the American family farm has been disappearing for the last several decades. It is not yet extinct, yet it clearly is in danger of becoming so. Many people, including many American farmers themselves, have entirely given up. Thirty years ago, family farms of the sort that Jefferson would still have recognized still made up over half of American agricultural production; today their percentage is less than a quarter.
On the national and state levels, the evidence is there for all to see. In the last twelve years, the number of American dairy producers had declined from 70,000 to 40,000. The great state of Wisconsin, famed across the world for its dairy products, is now seeing two dairy producers shut down every single day. Missouri had 23,000 independent pig farms in 1985, whereas today it has only 2,000. The average annual net farm income for an American farmer is now nearly about $1,500 in the negative.
Today, the bulk of American agricultural production comes out of corporate-controlled factory farms, gigantic industrial-scale operations so mechanized that to even call them by the name of "farms" seems almost absurd. The products of these facilities are not only of greatly lesser quality than those of family farms, but they are less healthy, less safe, and pumped full of chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones.
The decline of the American farm has precipitated a collapse in the rural society of the United States. As the farms vanished, so did the restaurants, shops, hardware stores, movie theaters, and other establishments that depended on them for their customer base. Doctors and dentists, with insufficient patients able to pay, closed up and left. Countless small towns across rural America are now empty shells, like skeletons in a desert. With those towns goes a priceless part of the national soul.
Most people believe that the decline of the American family farm has been a regrettable but unfortunately inevitable consequence of new technologies and a changing economy. It has been nothing of the sort. It did not need to happen, nor should it have happened. It is entirely the responsibility of a formidable set of corporate enemies: Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Cargill, Swift & Company, ConAgra, Dean Foods, Monsanto, and a whole host of others.
If the American family farm finally does die, it won't have been an accident. It will have been murder.
Corporate agribusiness has one of the most powerful lobbying presences in Washington D.C. The campaign coffers of politicians, from both parties and at every level of government, overflow with donations from wealthy people connected to these companies. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the agribusiness sector gave a whopping $118 million in campaign contributions during the 2016 election cycle. This allows them to buy an obscene amount of political influence, which they wield ruthlessly to slice down the opposition. The immense farm bills that wind their way through Congress every half decade are essentially written by the agribusiness lobbyists. Needless to say, owners of family farms do not possess even a fraction of their political clout.
Freed from the fear of any serious regulation by the government, the corporate agribusiness conglomerates can shape the marketplace as they choose, just as a sculptor manipulates clay. According to Farm Aid, a mere four companies control the majority of American supply and distribution of each of the following: beef (84%), corn (80%), soybeans (70%), hogs (66%), poultry (59%), and turkey (55%). Despite widespread evidence of price-fixing and other anti-competitive behavior, as well as numerous lawsuits, enforcement of federal antitrust laws has been effectively nonexistent. And if you think this latter fact has nothing to do with the political power of the agribusiness lobby, I have a bridge to sell you.
Because the corporate agribusiness control such a disproportionate market share, they have been able to vertically integrate the entire production, distribution, and sale of American food into their hands. Small-scale processing operations and slaughterhouses that used to fill the small towns of rural America have vanished, forcing the remaining family farms to turn to the corporations themselves to get their products to the market. Insult has been added to injury, in that the few remaining family farms are now mostly forced to produce crops and livestock to sell to the very agribusiness giants who already threaten their existence.
The dominance of corporate agribusiness is not only bad news for farmers, but bad news for the American people as a whole. The food we eat is now produced in an unnatural manner, so infused with artificial chemicals that even describing it as "food" is being charitable. The horror stories that emerge out of factory farms are so sickening as to make one vomit. The animals are pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones and raised in nightmarish conditions.
Now, no man who loves barbecue, hamburgers, pork chops, lamb korma, and sesame chicken as much as I do could ever be a vegetarian. Nevertheless, I believe strongly that the animals from which we obtain our meat are entitled to due respect as part of the natural order of things. When I eat pork chops, I want to know that the pig from which it came was not mistreated.
Two-and-a-half centuries ago, when they felt their liberties threatened by a distant monarch, American farmers set aside their plows, picked up their muskets, and gathered on Lexington Green to fight for their freedom. Fortunately for the nation, their family farmer descendants are now doing the same. And the American people need to back them up.
Since 1985, patriotic musicians such as Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and many others have organized an annual benefit concert called Farm Aid to raise money in support of American family farmers. From this has emerged an organization that conducts research and advocacy on behalf of ordinary farmers, provides grants to smaller nonprofits focused on food independent and sustainability, and connecting farmers with resources that can help them stay on their land. Farm Aid is one of the most worthwhile advocacy organizations in the United States.
Over the last few years, farmers markets have sprung up all across the country, in both big cities and small towns, allowing family farmers to sell their products directly to consumers. This is an act of resistance against the corporate oligarchy, side-stepping their control of the farm-to-table food chain that keeps Americans fed and going directly to the source. Buying so much as a single carton of eggs or one little basket of potatoes at a farmers market helps the American family farm survive. It is a fundamentally patriotic act.
(Use the Local Harvest website to find the farmers market closest to you.)
Many restaurants are now choosing to buy their meat and produce from local farms rather than through the agribusiness pipeline. Whenever possible, Americans need to eat at these establishments and avoid the others. Like shopping at farmers markets, doing so is a fundamentally patriotic act.
If the American family farm disappears, the United States will have lost a crucial aspect of its heritage and national identity. The agribusiness giants, in placing profit over the health, safety, and social stability of the republic, are traitors to the United States no less sinister than was Benedict Arnold. Through political advocacy, support of such organizations as Farm Aid, and being more careful with where we buy our groceries and where we go out to eat, the American people can help save the family farm.
Government on every level could implement sound public policies to help our nation's farmers, just as it did before with the Homestead Act, the Morrill Act, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Why not give hefty property tax exemptions and income tax deductions to family farms, provided that the sell a certain percentage of their produce directly to the public? Why not create a system of low interest loans for farmers having trouble, or for people wishing to start new family farms? Above all, why hasn't there been much more aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws against the agribusiness giants? There are any number of things that could be done.
As always, it's up to us.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
On Voting
A few days ago, I cast my vote in the local municipal election for Hutto, Texas, the town I now call home. Five things were on the ballot - the mayor, three of the six city council positions, and a bond package for Hutto Independent School District. All of these are of interest to me. The mayor and city council govern the community in which I live, and Hutto ISD is where my oldest daughter goes to school and where my two younger daughters will go as soon as they are old enough. The issues facing Hutto are typical of small but growing towns on the edge of larger urban areas. I voted for the bond package, being myself a teacher and obviously a strong supporter of public education. For the mayor and city councilors, I did my research on their backgrounds and positions, watched a livestream of a candidate forum (being unable to physically attend on account of having three kids), tried to judge how effectively the incumbents had been at running Hutto, and made my decisions accordingly.
I love voting. I vote because it makes me feel good. It's not just that I love sporting my "I Voted" sticker around, although I do. It's that I feel a certain thrill in exercising the most fundamental right of citizens in a republic like America - the right to participate in the choosing of our leaders. When I watch the returns on election night, I love to look at the numbers in the column of the candidates I voted for an reflect that, had I not done my civic duty, their total would have one fewer vote.
I vote because I don't want to be a hypocrite. Being a history and civics teacher, I feel especially obligated to be vote in every election, even the minor ones that get little or no attention in the media. After all, I tell my students regularly that those who don't vote don't matter. I despise hypocrisy in others and am therefore unwilling to tolerate it in myself, so I vote in every election no matter the inconvenience.
I vote because I don't want to be ungrateful. It's a cliche to point out that thousands of brave American men and women suffered and died to secure and defend our right to self-government, but it's a cliche that happens to be true. Whether we're talking about the seventy-seven immortal Minutemen who stood their ground on Lexington Green, the men who stormed ashore at Normady or Iwo Jima, or the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen currently fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, all Americans owe their right to self-government to the sacrifice of these brave warriors. Aside from hypocrisy, the vice I most despise is ingratitude. People who choose not to vote are being sickingly ungrateful, when you think about it.
I vote because it matters. In 2004, I worked as a staffer on a state legislative campaign in Texas. 68,663 votes were cast in that election and our campaign lost by 148 votes. If a mere seventy-four people had changed their minds, or if one hundred and 148 more people had shown up and cast their votes for my candidate, the outcome could have been different. For that matter, if 537 Ralph Nader supporters in Florida had instead voted for Al Gore, the whole course of history over the last twenty years would have been radically different. The incredibly slim outcome of the 2016 presidential election, which came down to a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, is well known.
In perhaps the most astonishing example, the 2016 elections saw one state legislative race quite literally tied at 11,607 to 11,607. Moreover, the uncertain outcome of this race determined whether the Democrats or Republicans would control the lower house of the Virginia state legislature, with enormous consequences for the eight-and-a-half million citizens of Virginia. In the end, the outcome was determined by drawing names out of a hat. If a single additional person had shown up to vote, it could have altered which party controlled the Virginia House of Delegates. So don't tell me that voting doesn't matter. It does.
I vote because, as a citizen, it's my job. As one of nearly three hundred and thirty million Americans, I am a cog in the vast machine that is the American republic. Every cog that comes loose in the form of a citizen that doesn't vote makes that machine work just a little bit less effectively. As a teacher, if I don't bother teaching classes, completing my paperwork, grading assignments, and so forth, I get fired. And that would be perfectly fair, because I in that case I wouldn't deserve to have my job. It's not possible to fire someone from citizenship, but people can fail to deserve their citizenship.
When I voted in the local Hutto elections, I made a point to bring my six-year-old daughter with me to the polls. When my two-year-old and ten-month-old are big enough to understand what voting is and why it's important (and, honestly, when they're easier to handle), I will be bringing them, too. I feel it's important that my children see me and my wife in the act of voting, to have it impressed upon them that this is something that people are expected to do, just like saying 'please' and 'thank you' and holding the door open for people coming in behind you. I strongly urge everyone to bring their children to the polling places with them when they go vote.
When I vote, even in a relatively minor election such as this, I am heir to traditions and values that can be traced back to Athens and the Roman Republic. The idea that governments should only exist by the consent of the governed and that the actions of governments must mirror the wills of the majority of their people was fused into the DNA of our nation by our Founding Fathers. It is the whole idea behind the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
It bothers me to no end that the United States of America, which is largely responsible for the spread of democracy over the globe during the last century, has such dismal voting numbers. The problem is well known but bears repeating. According to Pew Research, 55.7% of Americans eligible to vote actually did so in the 2016 presidential election. Compare this to 67.9% in France, 70.6% in Norway, 79% in Australia, and a whopping 87.2% in Belgium. In this crucial field, clearly, America is definitely not #1.
Unfortunately, there is a group of people in America far worse than citizens who choose to vote. These would be the sinister elements within our nation's political system who are intentionally trying to make it more difficult for people to vote.
First and foremost, we have so-called "Voter ID laws", which have been pushed in Republican-controlled states across the country. Ostensibly, these are intended to prevent non-citizens from voting by requiring state-issued identification such as driver's license. In truth, they are intended to limit voting by poor and minority voters, who are less likely to possess the necessary photo identification even though they are registered voters. This was clearly proven by the outstanding investigative reporting done by The Washington Post in its 2016 report on North Carolina's law. Any number of comprehensive studies have shown that voter ID laws disproportionately reduce minority turnout.
Preventing voter fraud by non-citizens is a classic red herring, because such fraud is so rare as to be statistically non-existent. Besides, if the goal is to prevent non-citizens from voting, the obvious answer would be the issuance of some sort of national ID card to be used in all elections, provided to all citizens for free. Nothing like that, to my knowledge, has been suggested by those pushing the voter ID laws.
Republicans also make strong efforts to limit the number of days for early voting. Many states with Republican-controlled governments purge their voter rolls of minority voters. North Dakota recently passed a law requiring voters to specify their street address, which effectively disenfranchised thousands of Native Americans (who tend to support the Democrats) as those who live on reservations typically don't have street addresses. Polling places are closed down in heavily minority areas and opened up heavily white areas. Laws of this sort are more appropriate for an authoritarian banana republic than a genuine democracy, yet sadly they are becoming increasingly common across the United States.
The vast majority of voter suppression in America is being done by Republicans, but Democrats are not entirely free from guilt on the issue. Their party has strongly resisted efforts to hold municipal elections on the same day as federal or state elections. This simple measure would be cheaper, logistically much easier, and increase pitifully low turnout in such elections. But it also would disadvantage the Democratic Party, which tends to dominate such local elections in urban areas due to the out-sized influence labor unions hold in such contests. Municipal elections would gauge the true feelings of the electorate much better if they were held on the same day as state and federal elections, yet Democrats balk because they don't want to have a level-playing field in a type of election where they have an advantage.
If you ask me, any government official who tries to use their legal authority to make it more difficult for citizens to vote is guilty of a serious crime against the American republic and should be punished accordingly. I wouldn't mind seeing them serve hard time in prison, to be perfectly honest.
I could spend an enormous amount of time on other problems with voting and what is needed to solve them. We need to replace our winner-take-all system with one based on ranked-choice voting, as has recently been successfully done in Maine. We need to abolish gerrymandering and do something about the oversized influence of special interest money. We need automatic voter registration. If I had my way, Election Day would be a national holiday, so that people would not have to choose between skipping work or skipping voting. Early voting and ease of access to voting places should be vigorously supported, not clandestinely diminished.
If democracy were a human body, the act of voting is the blood flowing through our veins. So let's vote. And let's punish those who would hinder a citizen's right to vote. And let's all work together to make voting easier and more reflective of the will of the people. In the end, after all, this is what democracy is all about.
I love voting. I vote because it makes me feel good. It's not just that I love sporting my "I Voted" sticker around, although I do. It's that I feel a certain thrill in exercising the most fundamental right of citizens in a republic like America - the right to participate in the choosing of our leaders. When I watch the returns on election night, I love to look at the numbers in the column of the candidates I voted for an reflect that, had I not done my civic duty, their total would have one fewer vote.
I vote because I don't want to be a hypocrite. Being a history and civics teacher, I feel especially obligated to be vote in every election, even the minor ones that get little or no attention in the media. After all, I tell my students regularly that those who don't vote don't matter. I despise hypocrisy in others and am therefore unwilling to tolerate it in myself, so I vote in every election no matter the inconvenience.
I vote because I don't want to be ungrateful. It's a cliche to point out that thousands of brave American men and women suffered and died to secure and defend our right to self-government, but it's a cliche that happens to be true. Whether we're talking about the seventy-seven immortal Minutemen who stood their ground on Lexington Green, the men who stormed ashore at Normady or Iwo Jima, or the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen currently fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, all Americans owe their right to self-government to the sacrifice of these brave warriors. Aside from hypocrisy, the vice I most despise is ingratitude. People who choose not to vote are being sickingly ungrateful, when you think about it.
I vote because it matters. In 2004, I worked as a staffer on a state legislative campaign in Texas. 68,663 votes were cast in that election and our campaign lost by 148 votes. If a mere seventy-four people had changed their minds, or if one hundred and 148 more people had shown up and cast their votes for my candidate, the outcome could have been different. For that matter, if 537 Ralph Nader supporters in Florida had instead voted for Al Gore, the whole course of history over the last twenty years would have been radically different. The incredibly slim outcome of the 2016 presidential election, which came down to a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, is well known.
In perhaps the most astonishing example, the 2016 elections saw one state legislative race quite literally tied at 11,607 to 11,607. Moreover, the uncertain outcome of this race determined whether the Democrats or Republicans would control the lower house of the Virginia state legislature, with enormous consequences for the eight-and-a-half million citizens of Virginia. In the end, the outcome was determined by drawing names out of a hat. If a single additional person had shown up to vote, it could have altered which party controlled the Virginia House of Delegates. So don't tell me that voting doesn't matter. It does.
I vote because, as a citizen, it's my job. As one of nearly three hundred and thirty million Americans, I am a cog in the vast machine that is the American republic. Every cog that comes loose in the form of a citizen that doesn't vote makes that machine work just a little bit less effectively. As a teacher, if I don't bother teaching classes, completing my paperwork, grading assignments, and so forth, I get fired. And that would be perfectly fair, because I in that case I wouldn't deserve to have my job. It's not possible to fire someone from citizenship, but people can fail to deserve their citizenship.
When I voted in the local Hutto elections, I made a point to bring my six-year-old daughter with me to the polls. When my two-year-old and ten-month-old are big enough to understand what voting is and why it's important (and, honestly, when they're easier to handle), I will be bringing them, too. I feel it's important that my children see me and my wife in the act of voting, to have it impressed upon them that this is something that people are expected to do, just like saying 'please' and 'thank you' and holding the door open for people coming in behind you. I strongly urge everyone to bring their children to the polling places with them when they go vote.
When I vote, even in a relatively minor election such as this, I am heir to traditions and values that can be traced back to Athens and the Roman Republic. The idea that governments should only exist by the consent of the governed and that the actions of governments must mirror the wills of the majority of their people was fused into the DNA of our nation by our Founding Fathers. It is the whole idea behind the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
It bothers me to no end that the United States of America, which is largely responsible for the spread of democracy over the globe during the last century, has such dismal voting numbers. The problem is well known but bears repeating. According to Pew Research, 55.7% of Americans eligible to vote actually did so in the 2016 presidential election. Compare this to 67.9% in France, 70.6% in Norway, 79% in Australia, and a whopping 87.2% in Belgium. In this crucial field, clearly, America is definitely not #1.
Unfortunately, there is a group of people in America far worse than citizens who choose to vote. These would be the sinister elements within our nation's political system who are intentionally trying to make it more difficult for people to vote.
First and foremost, we have so-called "Voter ID laws", which have been pushed in Republican-controlled states across the country. Ostensibly, these are intended to prevent non-citizens from voting by requiring state-issued identification such as driver's license. In truth, they are intended to limit voting by poor and minority voters, who are less likely to possess the necessary photo identification even though they are registered voters. This was clearly proven by the outstanding investigative reporting done by The Washington Post in its 2016 report on North Carolina's law. Any number of comprehensive studies have shown that voter ID laws disproportionately reduce minority turnout.
Preventing voter fraud by non-citizens is a classic red herring, because such fraud is so rare as to be statistically non-existent. Besides, if the goal is to prevent non-citizens from voting, the obvious answer would be the issuance of some sort of national ID card to be used in all elections, provided to all citizens for free. Nothing like that, to my knowledge, has been suggested by those pushing the voter ID laws.
Republicans also make strong efforts to limit the number of days for early voting. Many states with Republican-controlled governments purge their voter rolls of minority voters. North Dakota recently passed a law requiring voters to specify their street address, which effectively disenfranchised thousands of Native Americans (who tend to support the Democrats) as those who live on reservations typically don't have street addresses. Polling places are closed down in heavily minority areas and opened up heavily white areas. Laws of this sort are more appropriate for an authoritarian banana republic than a genuine democracy, yet sadly they are becoming increasingly common across the United States.
The vast majority of voter suppression in America is being done by Republicans, but Democrats are not entirely free from guilt on the issue. Their party has strongly resisted efforts to hold municipal elections on the same day as federal or state elections. This simple measure would be cheaper, logistically much easier, and increase pitifully low turnout in such elections. But it also would disadvantage the Democratic Party, which tends to dominate such local elections in urban areas due to the out-sized influence labor unions hold in such contests. Municipal elections would gauge the true feelings of the electorate much better if they were held on the same day as state and federal elections, yet Democrats balk because they don't want to have a level-playing field in a type of election where they have an advantage.
If you ask me, any government official who tries to use their legal authority to make it more difficult for citizens to vote is guilty of a serious crime against the American republic and should be punished accordingly. I wouldn't mind seeing them serve hard time in prison, to be perfectly honest.
I could spend an enormous amount of time on other problems with voting and what is needed to solve them. We need to replace our winner-take-all system with one based on ranked-choice voting, as has recently been successfully done in Maine. We need to abolish gerrymandering and do something about the oversized influence of special interest money. We need automatic voter registration. If I had my way, Election Day would be a national holiday, so that people would not have to choose between skipping work or skipping voting. Early voting and ease of access to voting places should be vigorously supported, not clandestinely diminished.
If democracy were a human body, the act of voting is the blood flowing through our veins. So let's vote. And let's punish those who would hinder a citizen's right to vote. And let's all work together to make voting easier and more reflective of the will of the people. In the end, after all, this is what democracy is all about.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Envisioning a John Adams Memorial
In March, as part of the mammoth John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, the legislation to create an Adams Memorial Commission was signed into law. Twelve commissioners are now supposed to be appointed, who will carry out the work of locating, designing, and building a memorial to John Adams in our nation's capital.
This has been something I have long wanted to see. Two years ago, I started a Facebook group for "Supporters of a John Adams Memorial in Washington D.C." The group now has more than a thousand members, many of whom had reached out to their representatives in Congress to advocate for this legislation. We would flatter ourselves that we had some impact on the decision to move this legislation forward, but you never know.
There is no doubt that Adams, one of the greatest Founding Fathers, richly deserves such a memorial. His name ranks with Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, and other great Americans who have had memorials built to them. Now that the Adams Memorial Commission will be created, it is worth asking what form a memorial to John Adams should take. As an interested citizen, I feel I have as much right as anyone else to put forward some of my own thoughts and suggestions. So, here goes.
I feel very strongly that the design of this memorial should be traditional. Adams was a New England Yankee of Puritan stock, a man decidedly of the 18th Century, who was naturally suspicious of newfangled things. He believed deeply in the classical tradition of Greece and Rome and the design of the memorial should reflect that. It would be ridiculous, in my opinion, for Adams to be commemorated with anything like the abstract designs of postmodern architecture and sculpture that have become fashionable in our time. Far better, I think, for a future Adams Memorial to be designed along the same lines as the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials - a fine statue of the great man in stone or bronze set amidst a Neoclassical structure of some sort.
I think that the bulk of the memorial should not be made of marble, the primary material for the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, but of granite. I think the essence of John Adams - steadfastness, ironclad integrity, unwillingness to compromise one's principles - is evoked more by granite than it is by marble. Moreover, Adams was a New England man through and through and New England is the source of some of the best granite in the world. It would be fitting if the Adams Memorial be constructed out of good, strong, New England granite. The United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts, where John and Abigail are buried alongside their son John Quincy and his wife Louisa, was made of granite quarried from the Adams farm itself.
It seems to me that while the memorial should center around the man of John Adams himself, it must also be designed in such a way as to commemorate the rest of his remarkable family, particularly his extraordinary wife Abigail, whose fiery spirit animated and inspired Adams throughout his life and whose wisdom he turned to repeatedly throughout his career. Obviously, space must be made to remember his son John Quincy, arguably America's greatest diplomat, the sixth President of the United States, and a key figure in the rise of the abolitionist movement in America. If possible, mention should be made of Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of John Adams who played a crucial role in winning the Civil War as Lincoln's minister to Great Britain.
Many of the great Americans commemorated by great monuments in the nation's capital can have their achievement summarized into overall themes. Washington was the "Father of the Nation"; Martin Luther King led the fight for racial equality and justice; Lincoln preserved the Union and ended slavery; Jefferson gave voice to the values on which our republic was founded. This is simplistic, of course, for the careers of all these men were complex and complicated. But it is clear that the contributions of Adams cannot be neatly packaged in an overall theme. They simply were too widespread. I believe, however, that the design of the future Adams Memorial needs to incorporate elements that take into account the following facts:
All the other memorials to great Americans on the Washington Mall include a selection of quotes from the men they commemorate. I don't think that the Adams Memorial should be any different. Here are some of the quotes I would like to see on the walls of a future Adams Memorial.
Every summer, I take a group of 8th graders to visit Washington D.C. I hope that I will be able, before I retire in twenty or twenty-five years, to begin visiting the Adams Memorial on these trips. When I do, I hope that it will be designed along lines similar to what I have suggested here. It would be a fitting memorial to a great American and a wonderful contribution to the civic architecture of our nation.
This has been something I have long wanted to see. Two years ago, I started a Facebook group for "Supporters of a John Adams Memorial in Washington D.C." The group now has more than a thousand members, many of whom had reached out to their representatives in Congress to advocate for this legislation. We would flatter ourselves that we had some impact on the decision to move this legislation forward, but you never know.
There is no doubt that Adams, one of the greatest Founding Fathers, richly deserves such a memorial. His name ranks with Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, and other great Americans who have had memorials built to them. Now that the Adams Memorial Commission will be created, it is worth asking what form a memorial to John Adams should take. As an interested citizen, I feel I have as much right as anyone else to put forward some of my own thoughts and suggestions. So, here goes.
I feel very strongly that the design of this memorial should be traditional. Adams was a New England Yankee of Puritan stock, a man decidedly of the 18th Century, who was naturally suspicious of newfangled things. He believed deeply in the classical tradition of Greece and Rome and the design of the memorial should reflect that. It would be ridiculous, in my opinion, for Adams to be commemorated with anything like the abstract designs of postmodern architecture and sculpture that have become fashionable in our time. Far better, I think, for a future Adams Memorial to be designed along the same lines as the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials - a fine statue of the great man in stone or bronze set amidst a Neoclassical structure of some sort.
I think that the bulk of the memorial should not be made of marble, the primary material for the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, but of granite. I think the essence of John Adams - steadfastness, ironclad integrity, unwillingness to compromise one's principles - is evoked more by granite than it is by marble. Moreover, Adams was a New England man through and through and New England is the source of some of the best granite in the world. It would be fitting if the Adams Memorial be constructed out of good, strong, New England granite. The United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts, where John and Abigail are buried alongside their son John Quincy and his wife Louisa, was made of granite quarried from the Adams farm itself.
It seems to me that while the memorial should center around the man of John Adams himself, it must also be designed in such a way as to commemorate the rest of his remarkable family, particularly his extraordinary wife Abigail, whose fiery spirit animated and inspired Adams throughout his life and whose wisdom he turned to repeatedly throughout his career. Obviously, space must be made to remember his son John Quincy, arguably America's greatest diplomat, the sixth President of the United States, and a key figure in the rise of the abolitionist movement in America. If possible, mention should be made of Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of John Adams who played a crucial role in winning the Civil War as Lincoln's minister to Great Britain.
Many of the great Americans commemorated by great monuments in the nation's capital can have their achievement summarized into overall themes. Washington was the "Father of the Nation"; Martin Luther King led the fight for racial equality and justice; Lincoln preserved the Union and ended slavery; Jefferson gave voice to the values on which our republic was founded. This is simplistic, of course, for the careers of all these men were complex and complicated. But it is clear that the contributions of Adams cannot be neatly packaged in an overall theme. They simply were too widespread. I believe, however, that the design of the future Adams Memorial needs to incorporate elements that take into account the following facts:
- Adams was the key figure in the Continental Congress who pushed the delegates to declaring independence from Britain.
- He persuaded the Dutch to recognize American independence and to assist the American cause with crucially-needed financial loans, without which the Revolution might have failed.
- He was the key negotiator of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War.
- During his one term as President of the United States, Adams kept the United States out of what would have been a ruinous and unnecessary war with France.
- As a champion of naval power in the Continental Congress, as a diplomat, and as President of the United States, Adams deserves to be called the father of the American navy.
- He refused to own slaves as a matter of principle.
- As the framer of the state constitution of Massachusetts and the author of the treatise Thoughts on Government, Adams became one of the most influential constitutional thinkers in American history, articulating the concepts of the separation of powers and checks and balances.
- As exemplified by his willingness to serve as legal counsel for the British soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre, Adams stood as a champion of the rule of law and the idea that all people have the right to legal counsel no matter who they are or what they have been accused of.
- In writing the Massachusetts state constitution, Adams included provisions that created a public education system in the state, knowing that an educated public was essentially if a democratic form of government was going to survive.
All the other memorials to great Americans on the Washington Mall include a selection of quotes from the men they commemorate. I don't think that the Adams Memorial should be any different. Here are some of the quotes I would like to see on the walls of a future Adams Memorial.
- "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
- "Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that ever took half the pains to preserve it."
- "I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not."
- "Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."
Every summer, I take a group of 8th graders to visit Washington D.C. I hope that I will be able, before I retire in twenty or twenty-five years, to begin visiting the Adams Memorial on these trips. When I do, I hope that it will be designed along lines similar to what I have suggested here. It would be a fitting memorial to a great American and a wonderful contribution to the civic architecture of our nation.
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