Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.–George Washington

In 1930s Germany, a unitary leader plead for sufficient power to make his homeland safe from the threats faced by his nation.

The German people and their parliament, in the name of security, allowed him to assume virtually unlimited power to make them safe.

The draconian measures implemented to prevent terrorism were soon turned upon the citizens of Germany and they, along with millions of others, lost their freedom.

Who could have imagined how terribly wrong it would go?

In our day, Americans are being asked to trust the head of the Executive Branch to exercise unprecedented power for the purpose of securing the homeland against the threat of terrorism.

Draconian powers including indefinite detention and extra-judicial executions are being authorized against foreigners and Americans alike in a worldwide war against terror that we’re told will last for generations.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the increasing parallels between the former Weimar Republic and modern America are becoming difficult to ignore.

Disturbing as that realization may be, it’s not half as unsettling as the raucous cheers and applause of those who actually celebrate the emerging authoritarian state inflicting harm on others without recognizing the corresponding damage being done to their own liberties.

Like the Germans of the 1930s, Americans appear to be afflicted with a nationalistic short-sightedness that seeks to excuse virtually any abuse of government powers, so long as those powers are directed at others for the stated purpose of making us safe.

As a nation, we stand at a crossroads with the choice of restoring limited government that keeps us free by safeguarding our inalienable rights, or creating an unlimited police state that will promise us security even as it fits us for our restraints.

How our experience with unchecked government power will end is anybody’s guess.

The passage of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with its provisions for indefinite military detention at home and abroad represents an unmistakable departure from the concept of limited government in America.

With the open assertion of executive power to detain anyone anywhere without evidence, trial or due process the bill heralds the approach of a presidential dictatorship legally authorized to use the U.S. military to impose its will domestically.

The 2012 NDAA follows hot on the heels of the extra-judicial assassination in September of an American-born radical Muslim cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.

The cleric’s death by Predator drone missile was ordered by the president after a secret panel within the Executive branch labeled al-Awlaki an “enemy combatant.”

No indictment was issued.

No evidence presented.

No proof required.

The president simply ordered the snuffing out of an individual (as well as a few innocent bystanders) based on his word alone.

This wasn’t the first time such extra-judicial killings have been authorized by the Executive branch, but it’s the first time that the power to do so was openly and brazenly acknowledged.

How could such a naked abuse of government power stand virtually unchallenged?

Attorney Glen Greenwald explains:

“What’s most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar (“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law”), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government.”

In our haste to embrace absolute security at the cost of proper government and our essential liberties, we’re making the same mistake many Germans made in the 1930s of mistaking patriotism for its belligerent counterfeit: nationalism.

Orwell addressed this phenomenon beautifully in his Notes on Nationalism written in 1945.  He makes a clear distinction between patriotism and nationalism as follows:

“By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”

The desire to dominate others has been an observable part of human nature throughout the history of mankind.

Writer Christopher Manion notes that St. Augustine, in his work City of God, identified libido dominandi or the lust for power in the very first page.

Manion goes on to point out that, “these lusts are more powerful than simple physical appetites. And they tempt us all.”

A perfect example of this mindset can be found in the ongoing Republican presidential debates.

Of the seven candidates still in the running, six of them are seeking to solidify their voter base by promising to expand government powers to secure America.  Most say they would engage in more aggressive, unconstitutional wars abroad.

They have affirmed their support of torture, indefinite detentions, and continued expansion of the global War on Terror.

They are united in their belief that American exceptionalism justifies the projection of military power around the globe out of the fear that “If we don’t dominate the world–someone else will.”

Concern about the proper role of government has no place in their dialogue; only the desire to see American military might continue as the dominant force globally.

Warmongering, exploiting fear and creating enemies to vanquish is a key to maintaining their power.  It’s no coincidence that the more we send our military abroad to police the world, the less free we become here at home.

One solitary candidate has proven the exception by advocating fidelity to the principles of limited government and strict adherence to the Constitution.

This approach would mean less intrusive government and greater freedom at home and less meddling and interventionism abroad.

Too often, this candidate’s message is met with anger and derision by those whose lust for power over others would be checked by such reforms.

For freedom to be maintained, three things are required.

We must be an educated, independent-minded, clear-thinking people.

This can only occur when we have inoculated ourselves intellectually against the daily onslaught of propaganda that beats against us on all sides.

Mass media in America today does not serve to inform and enlighten the public so much as it exists to sell us the agenda of those in power.

To counter this manipulation of public opinion, there is simply no substitute for the power of a good old fashioned liberal arts education.

A classical education enables us to more clearly see the world as it is.  It also leaves us better equipped to speak with clarity and power while persuading others across a broad spectrum of beliefs and viewpoints.

We must be capable of practicing public and private virtue.

Public virtue means that we are willing to step up and do things that will benefit others generally without thought of recognition or personal reward for ourselves.  Public service used to actually include a degree of public virtue.

It can take forms other than public office, but it requires a willingness to serve others to the best of our abilities.

Private virtue means that we rectify our own hearts and minds, as Confucius suggested, before we set out to correct others. It’s not enough to insist that others be good, we must be willing to govern ourselves first.

By setting our selves and our homes in order, our communities and states will follow.

We must be willing to love liberty more than we hate our enemies.

We must have correct forms in our government and our personal lives. 

A form is what gives wet concrete its structure, limits and purpose.

Without a proper form, the concrete would flow uncontrollably and become useless.

In a similar sense, correct forms in government are what define its proper role and upper limits.

They are what allow the powers of the state to be used wisely and humanely for securing our natural rights rather than for simple domination or mischief.

In our personal lives, correct forms include strong marriages and families and sound personal financial practices as well as greater self-sufficiency.

When these elements are widespread throughout a society, self government and freedom flourish.  When they are generally lacking, even well-schooled, highly technologically advanced societies can be led into the abyss.

Military might and domination alone cannot make us or keep us a great nation.

Abiding by correct principles and doing the right things for the right reasons–regardless of circumstances–can.

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Bryan Hyde is a radio host, husband, father, graduate student at George Wythe University, and seeker of truth. He does professional voice work through his company One Clear Voice.

Bryan blogs at The White Rose Society and writes firearm reviews for The Truth About Guns. He and his wife Becky are raising their six children in Cedar City, Utah.

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I’m finding it harder to trust our federal government or the mass media to tell us the truth.

Especially when it comes to the latest “terror plot” that’s allegedly surfaced.

Like the little boy who cried “wolf”, too many federal officials have sought to further their foreign policy ambitions by telling us outlandish tales of foiled terror plots that turned out to be monsters of their own creation.

Meanwhile, the major news organizations endlessly parrot official government press releases without a second thought or a probing question about the validity of the claims being made.

For instance, the Beltway experts and pundit classes who act as Washington’s official stenographer pool have been trumpeting an alleged Iranian “assassination plot” that was “foiled” recently.

The official narrative claims that elements of the Iranian government sought to hire a Mexican drug cartel operative to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington D.C. Whoa.

This plot really covers the bases, doesn’t it?

Let’s see:

•Terror on American soil. Check.

•Terror against the Arabs. Check

•Terror against Israel. Check

•Mexican drug cartels involved. Check.

•Iranian government to blame. Check.

•Casus belli for war against Iran. Check.

The conclusion the American people are supposed to draw from this official accusation is that anything their government tells them regarding Iran and alleged terror plots = truth.

For such an accusation to come on the heels of months of official U.S. sabre-rattling and war-drum beating directed toward Iran is certainly a remarkable coincidence.

That the announcement also diverted our attention on the very day that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was subpoenaed by Congress over the Fast & Furious perjury scandal currently rocking the Justice Department, is also just amazing timing, right?

Iran’s stubborn refusal to accede to the demands of certain globalist policy makers has made it a problem child for some time now.

Iranian defiance of the U.S. interventionist agenda has also made it a promising target in the open-ended War On Terror.

But with this latest terror accusation, it appears that U.S. power brokers are cranking the rhetoric up to 11 in order to justify their long-desired preemptive aggression against Iran.

Am I suggesting that the same policy makers that insisted they “knew exactly where the WMD” were located as they agitated for war in Iraq, would fabricate a terror plot to justify using their sucker-punch strategy against Iran?

In a word: Yes.

One of the great things about being in power is that when your initial justification for war falls apart like a soup sandwich, you simply make up another one.

This tactic worked beautifully with the Iraq war when talk of WMDs eventually gave way to talk of Al Qeda connections which, in turn, gave way to talk of regime change and spreading democracy.

As each falsehood became undeniably apparent, a new one would arise to take its place.

The fact that Iraq had never materially harmed the U.S. was not considered relevant enough to deter an unconstitutional, unnecessary and unjust war that policy makers were bent on pursuing.

A just war is one that is fought as a necessary, though regrettable, last resort–after all other means have been exhausted.

 It was never intended to be a method of hammering recalcitrant nations into submission.

Sadly, with many Americans still fearful after 10 years of War on Terror, a few official pronouncements about a “very scary” terror plot is generally all that’s required to elicit a predictable, bloodthirsty Pavlovian response.

In the absence of critical thinking skills, the more a lie is repeated, the more widely it becomes accepted.

Mac Slavo puts it into perspective:

“Consider that the President – yes, the President of the United States approved this latest “terror plot” information release – just overtly accused the Iranian government of attempting to assassinate an ambassador on U.S. soil. These are extremely serious charges, the kind that have led nations to war throughout history. The Saudis are calling for Iran to “pay the price,” while Secretary of State Clinton says this is a “dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s longstanding use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism.” Israel, parroting Mrs. Clinton, agrees, saying, that this is “definitely an escalation.”

This type of diversion should be familiar to all who remember the August 20, 1998 cruise missile attacks on a Sudanese aspirin factory that coincided with then President Clinton’s admission of an “inappropriate relationship” with a White House intern.

More missiles flew against Iraq later that year as Clinton’s impeachment proceedings moved ahead.

Those million dollar fireworks were supposed to keep the American public from looking too closely at the scandals of Washington’s elite.

But there’s an even seedier side to the kind of manipulation of public opinion that accompanies each alleged terror plot that our Protectors-on-the-Potomac claim to have foiled: most of the plots were hatched by federal officials themselves.

Glen Greenwald of Salon.com describes how the fabricated terror template is used to convince apathetic Americans that government is their savior, albeit by thwarting its own terrorist plots:

Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out — only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.

Think about that for a moment.

The very terror plots which are used to justify the need for more government and less freedom are, more often than not, a creation of the very entity that’s supposedly saving us from them.

Judge Andrew Napolitano points out that of the 20 terror plots that have been foiled since 2001 in the U.S., three were interrupted by members of the public, but 17 were foiled by the feds.

Care to guess what else those 17 plots had in common?

Napolitano explains:

They were planned, plotted, controlled, and carried out by the federal government itself. In all of these seventeen cases – from the Ft. Dix Six to the Lackawanna Seven to the Portland Parade Bomber – the feds found young men of Muslim backgrounds; loners who were bitter at America. They befriended them, cajoled them, and persuaded them that they could change the world by killing Americans. In all these cases, agents worked undercover and portrayed themselves to the targets as Arabs of like un-American mind. In some cases, the federal agents used third parties to act as middlemen. The third parties are typically persons who have been convicted of crimes and who, in return for leniency at their sentencings, were willing to work with the same feds who prosecuted them in order to help entrap whomever else those feds are pursuing.

Every time a supposed terror plot is broken up, we’re expected to grovel in gratitude at the feet of those leaders who claim that they are keeping us safe from the world’s boogeymen.

Each incident is supposed to remind us why we need less freedom, less privacy, more government intrusion into every corner of our lives.

But what if our leaders were using this fear and uncertainty to manipulate the populace into support of things that are harmful to our liberties and our national character?

Is it so unreasonable to believe that those in power are also subject to the effects of human nature when it comes to the desire to exercise dominion over others? Our government’s track record of telling us the truth is not very encouraging.

My once healthy sense of skepticism has finally reached outright distrust of the state and its media enablers based on how we’ve been lied to and manipulated before.

Which brings us back to the question of the alleged Iranian terror plot that was also hatched by our own government.

Cracks are already beginning to appear in the official story.

But two very important questions about the latest alleged terror plot remain:

1. Will we Americans be as gullible this time as we’ve been in the past?
2. Are we ready to start demanding straight answers by asking the tough questions that the media gatekeepers are apparently unwilling to ask?

The answers to these questions will determine, in part, whether our liberties are preserved or our government is allowed to become a law unto itself with no limits on its power.

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Bryan Hyde is a radio host, husband, father, graduate student at George Wythe University, and seeker of truth. He does professional voice work through his company One Clear Voice.

Bryan blogs at Hydeologue.com. He and his wife Becky are raising their six children in Cedar City, Utah.

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By Bryan Hyde

For sheer entertainment, Glenn Beck is at the top of his game.

His characteristic sarcasm, his irreverent, over-the-top humor and his undeniable passion have propelled him to rightful status as a top talk radio personality.

Beck is reminiscent of a young Rush Limbaugh, who tackled the topics others dared not and gleefully skewered every sacred cow of the smug political class.

On some issues, Beck has led out where even Limbaugh feared to tread.

He’s called into question the Federal Reserve and the soundness of our nation’s current monetary policy.

He has blown the whistle on political operatives like Van Jones who might otherwise have found sanctuary in high government positions.

Beck has been especially passionate about need for each of us to make a stand, to rectify our own hearts and to put our houses in order spiritually as well as temporally.

As with most commentators and pundits, I’ve found myself in violent agreement on some points and quietly discarded those points with which I could not agree.

I’ve tried to be particularly magnanimous where Beck is concerned because he is a respected and beloved figure of many of my listeners here in Southern Utah.

He’s done a great deal of good and I cannot dismiss the fruits of his efforts to awaken an apathetic public from his bully pulpit.

But I can no longer consider Brother Beck to be a friend of liberty.

It is one thing to be sincerely mistaken or to espouse a particular point of view based on incomplete information.

It’s quite another to subscribe to and promote a deliberately distorted ideology that seeks to subjugate others through fear-mongering and pandering to humanity’s basest tendencies.

The targets of Beck’s dogmatic vilification are the Palestinian people whom Beck and other nationalistic propagandists have reduced to a caricature of a wild, violent people who pose an existential threat to Israel.

All it takes to transmogrify Beck from thoughtful, impassioned commentator to outraged spittle-flinger is the mention of the word “Palestine.”

Cheered on by his studio sycophants, Beck loses any pretense of nuance or fairness in his portrayal of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that has raged on since before he was born.

Beck’s version of this conflict follows this approximate line of thinking:

• Israel is good and cannot be faulted for any actions undertaken by its government to protect its interests against the evil of those who would deny its existence.
• Palestinians (sneer) have no business claiming victim-hood because they lost the land now occupied by Israel fair and square when the UN recognized Israel as a nation.  It’s not like there was ever an officially recognized nation-state called Palestine, right?
• Anyone who bears even the slightest sympathy for the Palestinian people must have some kind of ulterior motive or wish to see Israel “wiped off the map.”

The problem here is that Brother Beck’s take on this conflict is long on emotion and hyperbole and very short on historical clarity.

It’s part and parcel of the dismissive outrage so often exhibited by Americans who simply cannot fathom that acts of government ruthlessness toward innocent people can indeed spark incidents of violent retribution.

This is even more true when a people feel they no longer have anything to lose.

As Charley Reese once pointed out, If ever a people has been steam-rolled by history, it’s the Palestinians.

Their lands were first absorbed by the Ottoman Turks and then wrested away by the British Empire following WWI.

When the Brits chose to give up their Palestinian Mandate as a home for European Jews following WWII, the occupation of those lands continued, though under new ownership.

It’s ironic that Jewish radicals like Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir used terrorist tactics including bombings to ultimately dislodge the British from what would become the nation of Israel.

In 1948, nearly 700,000 Palestinians were stripped of their lands and became refugees who were forbidden to return to their homes, their businesses and their orchards.

A Christian Palestinian named Elias Chacour unflinchingly chronicles his own family’s experience in his book “Blood Brothers.”

Chacour tells of being forced from his home and beaten by Israeli soldiers.

He writes of the machine-gun and grenade attacks in which those same soldiers murdered entire villages of Palestinians.

Chacour’s recounting of the tale isn’t a call for sympathy and vengeance, but a plea for Palestinians and Jews alike to learn from the atrocities and stop the cycle of revenge being carried out by both sides.

A true peacemaker: Elias Chacour at right

He has been a peacemaker in every sense of the word, though his book tells a side of the conflict that would prove highly inconvenient to the “Israel uber alles” narrative preferred by Beck and others.

Prior to reading this book I was highly Zionist in my thinking.  Reading it didn’t make me hate Israel, but it clearly illustrated that true peacemakers are few and far between in this conflict.

There are enough bloodstained hands and innocent lives lost in both camps to merit a mixture of outrage and sympathy for Israelis and Palestinians.

Beck’s willingness to downplay the plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians is as pathological as the unjustified hatred he claims these refugees are directing towards Israel.

The truth of the matter is that people who started the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have long since passed away or are approaching the end of their lives.

Most of the young people dying for land on both sides of a conflict they were born into are very deserving of our sympathies.

Beck’s stereotyping isn’t helping their plight.

Glenn Beck could use his considerable influence as a peacemaker—if he was willing to remove his ideological blinders.

Instead he is choosing to foment that conflict by acting as a willing propagandist for the Israeli government.

This particular blind spot on Beck’s part reveals a nationalistic streak that is wholly incompatible with liberty.

It seeks to persuade listeners to hate a group of people they’ve never met and to find purpose in exercising dominion over others.

It excuses government actions and policies that would be considered inexcusable if they were happening to ourselves.

Pointing out how aggression and injustice by Israel’s or America’s governments is not the same thing as saying that the Israeli or the American people deserve terror attacks.

When government ruthlessness reigns, innocent people will suffer on all sides.

Beck has led out admirably when discussing many topics, but on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he’s become part of the problem.

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Bryan Hyde is a radio host, husband, father, graduate student at George Wythe University, and seeker of truth. He does professional voice work through his company One Clear Voice.

Bryan blogs at Hydeologue.com. He and his wife Becky are raising their six children in Cedar City, Utah.

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Famous for its rich culture and heritage, Burma is also sadly renowned for the brutality of its current regime. Political and armed conflict between the repressive military regime and its opponents have displaced more than 3.5 million people over the years.

This, in turn, has led to a refugee problem that spills over into neighboring countries like India which now hosts nearly 100,000 Burmese refugees.

This influx of refugees has created unique challenges and opportunities for communities within India.

In New Delhi, for instance, many Burmese refugees exist on the margins of the community without legal protection, health, education and other means of taking care of themselves. Even the local poor tend to view the newcomers with suspicion and resentment.

The refugees are not issued work permits which relegates them to the informal work sector where limited, low-paying and back-breaking employment is the norm.  Because the Indian government is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, it takes no responsibility for the the refugees.

This means that the refugees are excluded from mainstream society and are forced to live in the shadows where poor health, language barriers and lack of opportunity combine to keep them shut out.

Fortunately, the need of the Burmese refugees has not gone unnoticed and the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) New Delhi chapter has boldly stepped forward to seek a solution.

The stated goal of SIFE, in this instance, is to play a role in the development and economic sustainability of these long-neglected refugees.

To that end, Project AARAMBH was begun with 3 current initiatives including:

1. Promotion of women based small handicraft entrepreneurial units
-Marketing goods such as handbags, laptop bags, purses, woolens, coats, shawls, all traditional Burmese handmade designs.
-Facilitating professional training for improved skills operations and scalability.
-Engaging the women and leaders of these small units in marketing work to increase their awareness and to network, thus laying the base for sustainability.

2. Placement Cells
-Creating an avenue to help people in the Burmese refugee community who are in need of a job
-Working as a 2 way forum, an interface between the people and the factories and shops which have job vacancies. The objective is to ensure just, sustainable, fair pay work for the refugees while ensuring regularity and consistency for the employers.

3. Outreach
-Reading out to the local population and college students to create awareness about the community and their plight.
-Engaging college students as volunteers in different parts of the project.
-Community initiatives for holistic development e.g. Health Camp

Statesmanship has always been exemplified by those who see a need in the world and who step forward on their own initiative to seek solutions. Project AARAMBH from SIFE in New Delhi is a fine example of how students using their technological and business skills are making the world a better place starting in their own community.

They are living proof that a small, tireless minority can make a bigger-than-life difference simply by getting involved.

If you’d like to help or to learn more about Project AARAMBH you can contact SIFE at parthnsharma@yahoo.in or learn more here.

For decades, many elite liberals in America have wanted the United States to become more like Europe.

During the Cold War the NATO agreement naturally kept Europe and the U.S. in a cooperative relationship.

But after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, an Atlantic divide appeared as U.S. and European Union interests frequently took different paths.

Germany, France, Italy, Spain and even Britain at times found themselves at odds with American policy around the world. Even Canada often sided with the Europeans against the U.S. on numerous attitudes from health care and international human rights to views on global institutions and world events.

While some conservative and liberal leaders openly believe in and promote American exceptionalism and the idea that the U.S. should retain its own brand of free society, a number of elite liberals, most notably the Clinton and Obama Administrations, seem to want the United States to fit more naturally into the Europeanized community of nations.

Europeanized America?

What would a more European-style America look like? Of course, nobody can really know for sure what such a change would entail. But we can use our imagination to consider a few possibilities simply by identifying major ways in which American life is the exception and doesn’t fit into typical European society. Here are few:

• More apartments and fewer houses. In most European nations, only the very wealthy afford houses instead of living in apartments. This impacts the size of families and also how many cars can be parked in urban settings. A narrative is growing that most Americans can’t really afford houses anymore (see the housing bubble which is still a problem) and a different style of housing is ahead.
• More public transit and fewer personal vehicles.
• Smaller families.
• Mandatory military service. Not every Western nation requires mandatory military service for all young citizens, but the U.S. has long been an exception to the norm with its all-volunteer military services.
• More people working for the government and a smaller percentage in the private sector. This would certainly end American exceptionalism, and in this arena the U.S. has—unfortunately—greatly progressed toward the European model in the past twenty years. Indeed, in 2010 U.S. public employees became more highly compensated, on average, than private business employees.
• International law and precedent above the Supreme Court. Many argue that we have been moving in this direction for a very long time. Add to this the changes effected in our legal structure by various treaties over the years and the trend is clear. A number of analysts consider this a genuine and ongoing reduction of national sovereignty.
• Government control of a guaranteed health care system, highly regulated banks and other financial institutions, and high levels of government intervention in nearly every sector of the economy. This has almost become a near-European-style reality in the current United States.
• Public education emphasis on career training from a very early age. Again, this has recently become the European-style actuality in the U.S.
• A sense of celebrity and superiority among some government officials, and a corresponding view among citizens that they are “below” many government officers.
• A deep reliance on, and unfounded faith in, experts. Coupled with the growing “celebrity and sense of superiority” of some government officers, this creates a new de facto class system–the major European legacy which the American founders rejected.
  There could be a number of other changes in American lifestyle to make it more similar to Europe, but these are enough to see the overwhelming potential impact of trying to make the U.S. more like many of our allies across the North Atlantic.

But is this Actually Liberal?

Ironically, only a few of these are actually in line with traditional liberal values. Indeed, conservatives have historically been supporters of class divides, which liberals have considered deplorable. And liberals have long argued against job-training as the center of education, frequently preferring the liberal-arts education to make us better people.

Both liberals and conservatives have recruited celebrities to their cause, but neither have been friendly to politicians as celebs. Liberals have always been very skeptical of anyone using celebrity, charisma or fame in positions of power. Likewise, liberals have customarily been opponents of any reduction of judicial power and independence.

It makes sense that liberals, as believers in the progressive role of government, would support European levels of regulation over health care, financial institutions and business, and also reliance on credentials and expertise as the highest available levels of human ability and trust.

But even this doesn’t logically explain the popularity of American Europeanization among some liberal thinkers. For example, how many liberals actually support mandatory military service? This is an arena where many liberals may dislike the Europeanizing of America, and where many conservatives might support a change.

If liberals who want America to become more like Europe are simply promoting much higher levels of government involvement in the U.S. economy, that makes sense. As an independent, I don’t agree with this goal, but I can understand why those who believe in big government would want it.

Or, if those who support American Europeanization want to pick and choose from the European model—applying good ideas and rejecting bad ideas—this fits into the original American founding viewpoint.  I have a hard time finding much on the list above that I think we should adopt, however. But I can understand the value of improving whatever we can—and learning from Europe.

For example, I think we should make real changes in response to Solzhenitsyn’s criticism of America for believing in legalism over morality, materialism over spirituality, and military might over the power of principles. Indeed, both Eastern and Western Europe, and other places, have much to teach us.

I believe the lessons learned by the people from so much war and devastation in the last century should be closely considered by us all.

No American should skip studying the works of Picasso, Anne Frank, C.S. Lewis, Frankel, Lusseyran and so many others. And Churchill’s counsel on how to analyze current events and prepare for the future is still sage advice.

More, I personally loved the tradition of siesta when I lived in Spain, and I think many Americans would benefit from a more relaxed attitude about life. We are, in general, far too driven most of the time. I am a fan of many things European, and many European ideals and traditions deserve consideration by Americans.

The Power of Fashion

I don’t think this is actually what is going on in the current longing to make America more like Europe, however. Instead, I think this view is simply fashionable in some circles. Wanting to be like Europe is hip. People see real and deep problems with American power, leaders and institutions, and they see them exhibited in both major political parties and by almost everyone in office.

For example, President Bush was seen by much of the younger generation as “King George” for his hardline stance in the world, and while President Obama came into office promising to take a very different approach, the reality has been an increase in the secretive apparatus of government.

Americans see this, then they visit other free nations and note many positive things. Or, in many cases, people who long to visit such places find it trendy to praise them.

Together these two groups watch the leaders of other nations being less extreme in international politics, seemingly more tolerant and diplomatic, and they wish their leaders would do the same.  Of course, the reality is much more challenging. But few see all the warts without a long-term involvement in the other nation. As even most fair-minded American expatriates will admit, their new country has its full complement of problems too.

Still, I do want the United States to change—a lot. And I think it has things to learn from European and other nations. But more than anything, it needs to learn (both good and bad) from its own history.

The Needed Americanization of America

Sure, at times some people over-glamorize the greatness of the American founding. To hear some tell it, the founding was perfect, ideal and even idyllic. They seem to have forgotten about brutal slavery, violence in the big cities and on the frontier, religious and racial persecutions replete with murder and rape and pillage, gender abuse, mob attacks and crosses burning on lawns, and so much more.

Some of my own ancestors supported and participated in the Revolutionary War, and later they were driven out of their homes and forced to carry their children in the biting Midwestern snow for hundreds of miles seeking safety—all for their religious beliefs. When they appealed to Washington D.C., the conservatives turned them away in disdain.

Some liberals at least showed concern and care for their plight, but ultimately almost nobody in power helped and their ordeal of pain and suffering was repeated less than a decade later. Their religious leader was attacked and brutally beaten repeatedly. He was eventually murdered. This is my history.

Ask an African-American, a Native-American or a Japanese-American about his story, and tragedy and drama will likewise be retold.

In short, our nation has problems. It always has. This is not what sets us apart from other nations. What does set us apart is that the American founding accomplished one thing that has few parallels in all of history: They established a free government and a free-enterprise system without many class restraints and brimming with opportunity.

Under this system, my ancestors, and all Americans, were able to start over and flourish within a very short time period.

Not every wrong was made right, but freedom gave them opportunity and they used it. Their successes came mostly through their enterprise, but without freedom it would not have been possible. And as a result of those successes, over time our nation has had the luxury seldom seen in history to try to right its wrongs.

Such opportunity is hardly the legacy of Europe. It is more American than almost anything else, and we need to remember and resurrect such levels of opportunity. Fortunately, there has been much progress under this free system in race, religious, gender and class relations.

The U.S. Constitution set the pace for all such changes, and they naturally—albeit not easily—occurred under its structure. In our day, we need less of an example from Europe and more of a return to the principles of freedom which made America great.

Those who dislike some things about America—and, honestly, who doesn’t?—should remember that few nations in all of world history or today have made as many positive advances for freedom and prosperity—and for most of the people. I love Europe, and certainly Europe and other nations have a lot to teach us.

But nothing in human history is more likely to help us make the needed changes effectively and lastingly than life under the U.S. Constitution and applying the principles of freedom as championed by the American founders and great leaders since.

Conclusion

The stakes may be poised to rise on this, since world events seem likely to drive U.S. gasoline prices well above $5 a gallon. When I lived in Spain, I was always shocked that the gas prices were always three to five times higher than in the United States. Americans have since seen prices go up to around $3-$4, depending on the specific time or place, but we may see this double, or more, in the years ahead.

Prices of $6, $7, or even $9 a gallon would not be surprising.  And make no mistake, cheap energy prices have greatly benefited America’s economic success.

America can alter this direction, or find ways to innovatively overcome it, if it is allowed to work in a free system with a free enterprise economy. But if it is forced to fight this battle without the benefit of true free enterprise, it will most likely move more and more toward European lifestyles.

Nothing in accepted history has accomplished more for widespread freedom and prosperity than the American constitutional model of free government and free enterprise. So, definitely, let’s learn all we can from the successes of Europe, Asia, conservatives, liberals, history and everyone else.  We must make sure our children and grandchildren have the opportunity to apply the best lessons of the world in a society as free and prosperous as the ideal American system—which we have yet to create.

Let’s improve our nation, change old traditions that don’t work, and re-emphasize the principles of freedom that have proven true (even if we have forgotten to apply them in recent decades). America needs to be a lot more like the ideal America—and soon.

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

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“Raise their heads on gilded poles! Roast the fatted calf! We need a rousing song–summon Toby Keith!” – from The Onion on the killing of Usay & Quday Hussein by U.S forces in 2003.

The past couple of weeks have revealed a great deal about the character of the average American. It’s not exactly good news either.

When the news broke that 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, it took mere minutes for an orgy of celebration to break out across the nation.

Even the news media, which used to at least try to be circumspect in its coverage, couldn’t help but allow a bit of gloating to surface in the headlines including these gems:

• “Bin Laden Demise: America Rejoices After a Decade”
• “Rot In Hell!”
• “We Got the Bastard!”
• “Got Him! Vengeance at Last: U.S. Nails the Bastard!”
• “Justice Has Been Done”

Look, according to the Law of the Harvest, Bin Laden reaped exactly what he sowed as a murderous religious fanatic. No sympathy here. I can even understand the relief and emotional closure that many feel at this time.

But what about those who celebrate Bin Laden’s death with cheers, chants, chest bumps and high fives? Does his killing at the hands of our military really prove once and for all the that greatness of this nation resides in its ability to terminate despicable individuals with extreme prejudice?

Consider how John Quincy Adams summed up America’s greatness in 1821:

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force…. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit…. [America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. [emphasis mine]

At the risk of being extremely unpopular, I suggest we take a step back and see what the joyful celebration of any bloodshed actually says about us as a people.

Muslims are often characterized in our media as blood-thirsty, vengeful people who dance in the streets when their foes are killed or maimed. Thank goodness we’re not so crass, right?

Remember how outrage in America hit a fever pitch when a video was shown purporting to show Arab people celebrating in the streets following the 9/11 attacks?

The footage was later revealed to be video of a wedding celebration. Yet few Americans ever knew they’d been played like a fiddle at a barn dance. The current reaction of many U.S. citizens to a man’s death halfway around the world shows that we’re not immune to the effects of official propaganda.

This type of misinformation inflames emotions and whips the crowd into the type of frenzy where facts simply don’t matter. What really counts in the minds of too many Americans is that Bin Laden’s death supposedly validates our nation’s inherent greatness.

The official line is that “justice has been served.” But that may not strictly be the case.

Vengeance has certainly been served. But justice usually involves a modicum of due process; a cornerstone of our legal system that serves to limit government and protect individual liberties.

Though the official version of events has changed several times since the story broke, it’s clear that whatever justice Bin Laden will receive will be administered in the hereafter.

Bob Higgs has zeroed in on the inconsistency of what separates us from the kind of mindless blood lust that characterized Bin Laden and his minions:

No matter how much one may believe that people must sometimes commit homicide in defense of themselves and the defenseless, the killing itself is always to be deeply regretted. To take delight in killings, as so many Americans seem to have done in the past day or so, marks a person as a savage at heart. Human beings have the capacity to be better than savages. Oh that more of them would employ that capacity.

Yet we can see that many Americans have enthusiastically fallen for this trick, dancing in the streets in celebration of a man’s death in faraway Pakistan. Such unseemly behavior is not the stuff of which true greatness is made.

Joseph Sobran long ago observed that there is a degree of tragedy involved even when someone is crushed by the enormity of his own evil actions. Is it unreasonable to think that even the Creator grieves at the loss of one of his children?

Salon Magazine’s Glenn Greenwald dares to pose the vital questions that need to be addressed:

But beyond the emotional fulfillment that comes from vengeance and retributive justice, there are two points worth considering. The first is the question of what, if anything, is going to change as a result of the two bullets in Osama bin Laden’s head? Are we going to fight fewer wars or end the ones we’ve started? Are we going to see a restoration of some of the civil liberties which have been eroded at the altar of this scary Villain Mastermind? Is the War on Terror over? Are we Safer now?

And then there’s the notion that America has once again proved its greatness and preeminence by killing bin Laden. Americans are marching in the street celebrating with a sense of national pride.

Our situation hasn’t changed because one man was waxed by our military. We are still less free as a people, more entangled as a nation, and far deeper in debt than we were a decade ago.  Are those facts worth celebrating as well?

We aren’t less free today because Bin Laden succeeded in personally wresting our freedoms away from us. We are less free because we’ve allowed our own government to take them from us, incrementally, in return for the promise of protection from our official enemies.

Our greatness as a nation depends more upon the quality of our individual character as citizens and less upon which official enemy we’ve just annihilated.

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Bryan Hyde is a radio host, husband, father, graduate student at George Wythe University, and seeker of truth. He does professional voice work through his company One Clear Voice.

Bryan blogs at Hydeologue.com. He and his wife Becky are raising their six children in Cedar City, Utah.

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“According to the Pew Research Centre, some 87% of Chinese, 50% of Brazilians and 45% of Indians, think their country is going in the right direction, whereas 31% of Britons, 30% of Americans and 26% of the French do….For most of its history America has kept its promise to give its citizens a good chance of living better than their parents. But these days, less than half of Americans think their children’s living standard will be better than theirs. Experience has made them gloomy: the income of the median worker has been more or less stagnant since the mid-1970s, and, thanks to a combination of failing schools and disappearing mid-level jobs, social mobility in America is now among the lowest in the rich world….In the emerging world, meanwhile, they are not arguing about pensions, but building colleges. China’s university population has quadrupled in the past two decades.”
—The Economist, December 18^th, 2010

California. Florida. Texas. These names are known to the educated class in China. Indeed, so are Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and Kansas. But for the middle and educated classes in the United States, the same level of knowledge about state-level entities does not hold.

Who can describe, or claim to have heard of, Qinghai, Gansu, Xinjiang, Sichuan or Yunnan? Shanghai, Guangdong and Macau are a bit more known, but hardly. Of all the state-level entities in China, only Tibet and Hong Kong are universally known by most Americans.

But point to Tibet on a map. How many educated Americans can get it right on the first try?

I have three points to make about this, and I believe all three will have a great impact on America’s future.

1-Friends?

First, how can we consider China an enemy if we don’t even know them? Time reported that Americans are 25 times more likely to be concerned about China than Afghanistan (where we’re still engaged in America’s longest war), and that the big worries of middle-class Americans are jobs, government overspending and China.

Most Americans see China as an economic threat right now and believe it will be a political/military threat in the coming decades—if not sooner. Many believe that China is poised to replace the U.S. as the world’s dominant power.

During our Great Recession, China experienced major economic growth. A majority of Americans right now seem to feel that good news for China is bad news for the U.S. and good news for America is bad for China. Johns Hopkins dean David M. Lampton argues that economics (unlike war) is a win-win game and that Chinese success is good for America’s economy and future.

Indeed, having a larger market of consumers to buy products should help American businesses. Long-time Asia expert James Fallows says that China and the U.S. have a lot in common and could benefit from increased cooperation.

Few Americans seem to agree. As Harvard’s Ross Terrill put it in The Wilson Quarterly, “It may be good for the West that China continues its economic progress, but not if it remains authoritarian.” This basically sums up the view of many Americans.

So does Terrill’s comment that, “By being a shrinking violet, the United States would simply hand the future to China.”

Growing U.S. middle-class concerns about China are legendary. But all of this deals with Beijing and national China. The reality is that Xinjiang may be one of the world’s most likely sites of 21^st Century freedom.

It is entrepreneurial, religiously and culturally diverse (boasting significant populations from four of the world’s major religions), resource rich, and geographically strategic. It borders Tibet, India, Russia, Mongolia and two other up-and-coming possible global freedom centers in Gansu and Qinghai.

It has a skilled and rising middle class. It has the totalitarian Beijing government going against it, and pretty much everything else going for it.

Along with the unsettled American west (from Flagstaff up to Edmonton, Spokane to Fargo, and Santa Fe to Lincoln), the Iguazu plain in South America, WWT (waiting for water technology) Australia, various places in Africa, and Siberia, Xinjiang is part of the world’s remaining frontier for population growth, wealth and freedom.

China is investing in nearly all of these places, and knowledge of these areas should be part of America’s middle-class awareness.

China is certainly a potential future threat, but the fact that Americans are almost entirely ignorant of the potential opportunities for common projects and interaction is the greater challenge.

2-Enemies?

Second, if China does turn out to be our enemy, how can we effectively deal with it without, as Sun Tzu put it, “knowing our enemy?” The largest militarized border in the world runs between China and the former Soviet Union. And with China overtaking the U.S. and Europe as the world’s largest consumer of petroleum, the Siberian oil fields will become tempting at some point.

Most of Siberia is part of what was traditionally the Greater Chinese region, after all. Indeed, even in Tolstoy the upper classes are European and the lower classes are Asian. Fortunately in the modern West we reject such racist class systems, but the strongly Asian populace in most of Siberia isn’t missed by the Chinese rulers.

What such a conflict by two major nuclear world powers would bring remains to be seen—or, hopefully, not seen.

As for Americans, how many of us are studying Chinese? In contrast, the high number of Chinese nationals learning English is well known. U.S. economic policy too often repels investment and sends corporations and jobs abroad (even U.S. banks are now looking beyond the U.S. to grow).

The Chinese are simultaneously encouraging investment through business-friendly policy and investing far and wide in resources—especially in the Southern Pacific and Africa but also in Latin America, Europe, North American and the Middle East.

If China does become our enemy, historians will look back at U.S. policy between 1992 and 2011 and marvel at how precisely and consistently we did exactly the wrong things to prepare for such an enemy—and how China did so much right in order to prevail in a conflict with the U.S.

3-Enemies Within?

Third, the fact that we know China as a nation—as it is presented by Beijing and the party rulers—instead of by province and people, shows a change of mindset in the way educated Americans think about the  world, other nations, and ourselves.

Have we become a nation that sees the world through “imperialist-” rather than “federalist-” tinted glasses? This is perhaps the most dangerous of my three points in this article. Sun Tzu said that to “know thyself” is even more important than to “know thy enemy.”

It may be most accurate to look at China as a monolithic power run by a few leaders at the top, but unfortunately we seem to have made the same mental switch concerning the United States. As a citizenry, we have anointed Washington as our leader at levels far beyond the Constitution.

Have modern Americans so fully lost the American founding view of federalism with states in charge of almost everything except a few national powers (20, to be exact, according to the U.S. Constitution) held by Washington? If so, we’ve got much bigger problems than anything China may or may not do.

No outside force will ever conquer America unless we first weaken ourselves. If we’ve truly rejected (on purpose or through neglect) the basic principles of freedom which made America great and prosperous, then we are destined to lose the 21^st Century to someone—be it China, Europe or some other powerful civilization.

Separation of powers into three independent branches of government, checks and balances, and true federalism with most of the power residing in the states rather the federal government—these are vital to our freedom. Without them, we will decline and eventually lose our power in the world.

Unless our regular citizens take action soon, we will continue on the path to decline regardless of what China or any other powerful nation does.

***********************************

Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Connect With Oliver:

One of the most significant changes brought by the American revolution and founding was the replacement of an aristocratic class system with the ideal of a democratic society—supported by a federal-democratic-republic form of government and free enterprise economic system.

Today we are witnessing a similar shift, but in a different direction: back to elitism and up in scale from national to global. The result is the advent of the first ruling globocracy in human history.

One article in a recent special report on the global elite by The Economist summarizes this as,

“…a mere 6,000 politicians, chief executives and other bigwigs run[ning] the world…,” and another assures us that in modern democracies “the elites serve the masses.”

Between these extremes the reality is that the culture of the globocracy is growing, and throughout history new political forms and economic models typically follow the rise of new cultures. One author, Robert Frank, entitled this development simply Richistan.

Who are the Globocrats?

Aristocracy and old money have been around for a long time.  And for centuries an elite culture that operated above nations dominated in Europe.  But this is the first time such a reality has been global in nature.

Here are some key characteristics of the emerging globocracy:

• Members are well educated
• They tend to marry well-educated spouses
• They are cosmopolitan
• They are mostly isolated from people who are non-globocrats
• They have their “own healthcare system (concierge doctors), travel network (NetJets, destination clubs), separate economy…and language (‘Who’s your household manager?’)”.
• They are mostly self-made
• They are mostly entrepreneurial-minded
• They are dynamic and want to do things (rather than bask in the perks of their wealth)
• They are reformers—they want to change the world in big and positive ways
• They give a lot to philanthropy
• They are the world’s major investors
• They are mostly hardworking
• They save a lot
• They belong to clubs and associations where they socialize and talk with each other about business and world issues
• They increase their influence by building businesses and hiring “the best people”
• They raise their children in a very entrepreneurial culture
• They are extremely curious and voracious readers
• They are found around the world, with highest numbers in 1) North America, 2) Asia and 3) Europe
• Some people have worried that they would have little loyalty for their home nations, but so far, according to The Economist, “ethnic and national loyalties remain strong”

The numbers are also significant:

• 47% of the world’s wealthy made their money as entrepreneurs
• 16% of the wealthy inherited their wealth
• 23% of the wealthy made their money through paid career work (the vast majority as business executives, with a few in medicine, dentistry, law, etc.)
• the richest 10% of adults control 83% of the wealth

Thomas L. Friedman predicted the rise of this group, which he called “the electronic herd.” And Samuel P. Huntington’s influential book The Clash of Civilizations seems to have missed that the chasm between the globocracy and the rest, rather than the widening gap between the West and non-Western civilizations, would be the major trend of the 21^st Century.

Predictions of a Pacific Century, a China Century, and even the Information Age may be dwarfed by the impact of the globocracy.
So far the globocracy has exerted most of its influence in economic rather than political terms. The Economist put it this way:

“The elite are most likely to do harm when they rely on the coercive power of the state: for example, when they persuade it to grant them special favours. In autocratic countries such as China and Russia the most influential people devote a disproportionate amount of energy to such rent-seeking.”

The commentary continued:

“In liberal democracies ordinary folk are better defended. Elections force politicians to take the public’s wishes into account every few years. Competitive markets force business leaders to heed their customers’ demands all the time.”

It remains to be seen if the globocracy will at some point become a ruling class in politics—but no major elite group that I know of in history has refrained from trying. Certainly globocrats already exert significant political influence.

They also do a great deal of good in the world, and all indications are that this will continue. Many of the globocracy care deeply about freedom and the future of free enterprise, and some of the future great leaders of freedom will likely come from this group.

The Great Transition

Whether or not the emerging globocracy turns into a parasitic class or a generation of social leaders depends on what might be called the Great Transition. Most wealth is created by people seeking wealth as an end, a final goal, a successful achievement.

The Great Transition consists of turning one’s beliefs and perspectives to an entirely new viewpoint, where wealth is a means rather than an end.

This Transition is a major challenge for those who experience it.

As Adam Smith put it, in most cases:

“…the consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive which determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in agriculture, in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the wholesale or retail trade.”

Then, when the Great Transition comes into his life, he must determine whether or not to continue seeking wealth for personal ends or for larger societal reasons. He, or she, may begin to see his/her wealth as a part of societal or community resources.

The fine line between the government forcing this viewpoint upon the individual (the Marxist approach) and the wealthy person making this determination on her own (Adam Smith’s approach) is massively important. The first reduces freedom and leads to decreased overall wealth in a society.

Not all of those with wealth make this Great Transition. Some who don’t make it choose to emphasize lives of leisure and entertainment, while others continue to seek increased wealth as an end goal.

Sometimes seekers of wealth see it as a means to increased status and/or political power all along, but this is treated in history as pursuing an end—wealth as a means is not to amass it for benefits to self, but rather to use it to benefit others.

If our modern globocracy determines not to make the Great Transition, it will naturally create a global oligarchy that rules governments, economies and people from all classes.

Aristotle wrote, “…wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy.”

The American founders argued that any government dominated by an upper economic class was sure to reduce freedom.  Hamilton put it this way: “Power over a man’s subsistence amounts to power over his will.”

Just having money doesn’t give the globocracy full power over the world’s subsistence, but using wealth to control governments would.

For those who do make the Great Transition to “wealth as a means for something bigger,” there are at least four major paths to choose from:

• Charity (help the plight of the poor)
• Philanthropy (support good causes)
• Mentoring (help others learn how to obtain success and happiness)
• Statesmanship (help spread freedom and prosperity in the world)

The future of the world will be drastically impacted by which choice the current globocracy makes—a new world oligarchy or a society with more statesmen, saints and sages. Time will tell which direction we take.

Whatever happens, this trend bears watching by all who care about the future of freedom, prosperity and widespread opportunity. If the globocracy heads in the direction of aristocratic rule, the regular people must be prepared to articulately and effectively communicate the dangers and propose real alternatives.

If the emerging globocracy moves toward the Great Transition, many of the regular citizenship must be prepared to partner with them in the work of statesmanship, service and wise societal leadership.

***********************************

Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Connect With Oliver:

The Big Three

Americans feel deeply and strongly about three things right now. All three have support on the right, the center and the left.

These may well dominate the news and politics until the election of 2012, just as stimulus, health care and the midterm election overshadowed the discussions of 2009-2010.

Moreover, all three are long-term issues and unlikely to be solved any time soon. The American discussion for the next two years will probably center on:

1. Jobs
2. China
3. Healthcare

This reality holds an inherent disadvantage for Democrats:

1. Americans overwhelmingly discount government jobs and see private-sector jobs as the only real solution.
2. Democratic presidents are seen as soft on foreign aggressors.
3. It was an entirely Democratic vote which passed health care. Republican gains in the 2010 election were mostly votes against Democrats and not votes for the Republican agenda. The one exception is the idea of repealing the health care law.

If Republicans can combine these three points into one coherent message, their stock will rise. If they can position the health care law as the great enemy of both jobs and America’s ability to compete with China, they will most likely gain momentum toward the 2012 election.

This likely will not be a hard sell since much of the underlying concern about China is that it is becoming a world leader in innovation.

Arguably, the foundation of leadership and power is innovation; and the rise of Chinese entrepreneurialism is the greatest world challenge to America (except for Washington D.C.’s anti-small business regulations). Deep down many Americans are feeling the anxiety of this shift.

Mainstream Americans want to feel good again; they want to feel like we’re on a course to achieve a meaningful end. Having an enemy like health care to unite them, with the promise of increasing both jobs and our competitive advantage over China by dismantling the new health care law, will appeal to many.

Only a few on the left still experience the health care afterglow, so there is little staunch support for it even in the liberal base. Beyond that, the majority of Americans in the election of 2008 were optimists, but now the majority feels pessimistic. In times of malaise like this, one-term presidents are the norm (e.g. Ford, Carter, Bush I).

The New Blame Game

Americans put the blame for their feelings of worry over jobs and China squarely on the White House: both Bush and Obama. In the case of health care, however, only President Obama is to blame.

Phrases like “Obamacare” and “Obamanomics” are now household additions to the language. And these are patently not positive or even neutral terms.

A common and even pervasive narrative now is that the United States is seeing its status decline and may lose its leadership role in the world because of the way Obamanomics and especially Obamacare made us unable to compete with China.

“Obama fiddled while America’s jobs burned,” is more and more becoming the accepted view in middle America. President Obama calling himself “America’s first Pacific president” actually reinforces this concern; it feels to many that he is following China’s leadership instead of vice versa.

Many Americans—conservative, moderate, and liberal—simply cannot fathom how the White House put so much emphasis on health care, Cap and Trade and increased government spending while seeming to ignore the issue of jobs.

No matter how the administration tries to argue that it cared about jobs all along, the American people just don’t see it that way. Even the stimulus is seen now more as a clever use of the recession to expand government spending than a sincere effort to combat unemployment.

A Tale of Two Stories

All the incentive now is for President Obama to tack to the center. He originally ran as a centrist, a charismatic representative of a new generation that would care more about leadership and bipartisan cooperation than the old party politics, but his first two years in office were both liberal and partisan.

Indeed, with a Democratic White House, Democratic Senate and Democratic House of Representatives, the incentive for a Democratic president was clearly to push as many liberal policies and programs as possible while the Democrats were in the majority everywhere—and to make vocal war on any place with a conservative voice, from the Chambers of Commerce to Fox News to the Supreme Court.

But all of that changes with a split government after the 2010 election. Consider these story lines:

A newly elected American President comes to office replacing the opposing party, has the support of Congress and pushes his partisan agenda strongly in his first two years in office.

He loses support in the midterm election, but still remains firmly committed to his roots and tries to keep pushing his ideological agenda. This was the story of Jimmy Carter and, to a certain extent, Bush I.

At midterm elections, the President’s monolithic advantage crumbles; he faces split government and a big choice. He tacks to the center, works with the other party and becomes known as a centrist President who emphasized leadership. Reagan and Clinton followed this path.

Presidents typically want to follow a third storyline, which is to keep pushing their partisan agenda and gain more and more popularity. There is no example of this working in the entire post-War era.

The incentive for a Democratic president facing a conservative Supreme Court and Republican House is to tack to the center.

It remains to be seen which storyline President Obama will choose. Some say he is too ideological to tack to the center and govern as a leader rather than a liberal reformer, but the same was said of “conservative ideologue” Reagan in 1982 and Clinton in 1994. Both made the switch.

Ironically, many who criticized Obama for running as a centrist and then governing from the left ditch will likely condemn him if he turns to governing from the center. But the pragmatists will give him credit for taking his shot when he had a Democratic Congress to support things he really believed in.

They will also see the practicality of his tacking to the center when it is likely the only way to win a second term and keep getting some, though not all, of his agenda. Note that it took Clinton eight months to come to the new reality and tack to the center.

Independents will likely be more understanding of this process than either Republicans (many of whom will disparage whatever he does) or Democrats (who see nothing but a hard-left agenda as success).

If President Obama finds ways to please the independents in the next two years, mainly by freeing up small business to bring growth and more jobs, he will be in a good place politically in 2012 and beyond. And independents expect Republicans to work with Obama as well.

Policy Shift

Independents determine elections. As believers in checks and balances, they got the best split possible in the 2012 election: A firmly Republican House against a Democratic White House, a barely Democratic Senate balanced by a barely conservative Supreme Court.

Of course, the White House carries a bit more power than the House, unless it stands firm—but even this is offset by more Republican state governments.

The media will probably use the woeful term “gridlock” a lot in the next two years. But many independents are fine with gridlock on the little things (especially if it tends to reduce government overspending)—as long as the big things are handled.

As for 2012, independents generally like Barack Obama. They don’t like his financial strategy, however. At least not right now. They like the man, not the policies.

And they really dislike the health care law—indeed two-thirds of independents see the health care law as a negative or even a disaster to the U.S. economy. The real problems will kick in when the already cash-poor and struggling states are required to drastically increase their spending to meet health care mandates.

Still, the President has the ability to do something nobody else can. He can take on jobs and worries about China simply by de-regulating and lowering taxes on small business in America.

Congress will follow his lead on this, if he pushes it like he did health care. If he gets serious about incentivizing private-sector jobs, he can reboot the economy in significant and even sweeping ways. He will have to make friends with business to do this, which may be beyond his emotional constitution. But business would love such a shift.

Such reconciliation would have to be genuine and even passionate to undo the damage which has already been done.

But Barack Obama is an effective politician, and if he puts his mind to re-incentivizing the economy he can lead Congress to make it happen. He can’t directly repeal health care, but he can sign “McDonald’s-style” exemptions for all of small business, and get the buy-in of Congress.

He can push for reducing the extra spending caused by the health care law, and he can blame any changes he makes to the health care law on the need to wrangle with difficult insurance companies on behalf of small business.

He can also put the emphasis on economic growth policies, as opposed to tax hikes, to balance budgets. And he can lead the West Wing in a studious agenda to pinpoint and reverse all federal laws and policies which hinder small business growth and de-incentivize global investors from bringing capital to the U.S.

The problem, as The Economist Oct. 30, 2010 issue put it, may be that Obama “has lived all his life among tribal democrats” and “seems curiously unable to perceive, let alone respond to, the grievances of middle America…”

Some say he struggles to understand why middle Americans think like they do, and assumes anger and fear makes them cling to things like limited government, or “guns and religion,” as he famously said. He may, as some critics say, consider himself much more intelligent than American voters.

If this is true, and if Obama cannot make the shift to leadership instead of partisanship, the White House will likely adopt the Bush and Clinton rapprochement strategy of appearing more conciliatory to the opposition in Congress while using executive agency policy to keep pushing the party’s ideology and agenda.

This gives the façade of cooperation and leadership without really changing direction. The question remains whether independents and other citizens in the Internet age will be duped by this. The modern voter may well have become too savvy for this kind of end run. Time will tell.

Many in the new Congress have expressed their intent to keep a watch on agency policy—which is a good sign regardless of which party is in power on Capitol Hill.

But while some on both the right and left might hope for a partisan Obama in the next two years, most moderates and independents want him to make the shift and succeed—especially for the sake of small business and the economy.

Some, including David Brooks and Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, describe Obama as less an ideological and more a pragmatic politician who has yet to live up to his leadership potential.

To be continued…

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Connect With Oliver:

*Note: If you like this article, you’ll love Oliver’s latest book, FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.

“I look at the young protesters who gathered in downtown Amman today, and the thousands who gathered in Egypt and Tunis, and my heart aches for them. So much human potential, but they have no idea how far behind they are—or maybe they do and that’s why they’re revolting.

“Egypt’s government has wasted the last 30 years—i.e., their whole lives—plying them with the soft bigotry of low expectations: ‘Be patient. Egypt moves at its own pace, like the Nile.’ Well, great. Singapore also moves at its own pace, like the Internet.” —Thomas L. Freidman

A World of Demonstrations

In the fall of 2010 I listened to a famous French author speaking as a guest on a television talk show. He expressed concern with the Tea Party in the United States and wondered how democracy could survive “such a thing.”

A few weeks later his own nation was shut down by rioting protestors—middle class managers and professionals burning cars in the streets and throwing homemade pop bottle firebombs.

I wondered if he had revised his worries about what he called Tea Party “extremism.” In the U.S. the peaceful demonstrations were much more civil and positive (and, as it turns out, effective) than their French counterparts.

In the last year we’ve witnessed demonstrations, protests, and even a few violent riots across the globe—from Greece to Ireland, Paris to Washington, Iran to Cairo, and beyond. It is interesting to see how the left and right in the U.S. have responded.

The left welcomed demonstrations against governments that were run by the privileged class in Iran, Greece, Ireland, Egypt, China and even France. Instead of feeling threatened by such uprisings, they tended to see them as the noble voice of humanity yearning for freedom from oppression.

In contrast, they saw marches and demonstrations from the American right as somehow dangerous to democracy. In such a view, protests are owned by the left and those on the right aren’t allowed to use such techniques—they are supposed to better behaved.

In contrast, the right tended to view recent right-leaning town meetings and D.C. demonstrations in the United States as progressive, while viewing the French, Irish, Greek and Middle East protests with critical eyes.

The old meaning of “conservative” was to simply want things to stay the same, and in world affairs many American conservatives seem to prove this definition.

An uprising in Iran or Egypt, as much as one might identify with the people’s desire for freedom, feels threatening and disturbing to many on the right.

The Cycles

The demonstrations and the diverse ways of viewing them is a natural result of a major shift we are experiencing in the world. Strauss and Howe called it “The Fourth Turning,” a great cyclical shift from an age of long-term peace and prosperity to a time of challenge and on-going crises.

We have experienced many such shifts in history (e.g. the American revolutionary era, the Civil War period, the era of Great Depression and World War II), but that doesn’t soften the blow of experiencing it firsthand in our generation.

Following the cycles of history, we have lived through the great catalyst (9/11) which brought on the new era of challenge, just like earlier generations faced their catalytic events (e.g. the Boston Tea Party, the election of Abraham Lincoln, or the Stock Market crash of 1929).

We are now living in a period of high stress and high conflict, just as our forefathers did in the tense periods of the 1770s, 1850s and 1930s. If the cycles hold true in our time, we can next expect some truly major crisis—the last three being the attack on Pearl Harbor, the first shots of the Civil War, and the fighting at Lexington and Concord.

These realities are part of our genetic and psychic history, even if we haven’t personally researched the trends and history books. We seem to “know” that challenges are ahead, and so we worry about the latest world and national news event.

“Will this ignite the fire?” “Will this change everything?” “Is this it—the start of major crisis?” Conservatives, liberals, independents—we nearly all ask these questions, if only subconsciously.

Conservatives tend to believe that major crisis will come from the “mismanagement of the left,” while liberals are inclined to think the problems will be caused by the extremism of the right.

Independents have a tendency to feel that our challenges will come from both Republicans and Democrats—either working together in the wrong ways or getting distracted from critical issues while fighting each other at precisely the wrong time.

Add to this strain the fact that we are simultaneously shifting from the industrial to the information age, and it becomes understandable that the pressure is building in many places in today’s world.

The shift from the agricultural age to the industrial age brought the Civil War, Bismarck’s Wars (known to many in Europe as the first great war—a generation before World War I), and the Asian upheaval as it shifted from the age of warlords to modern empires.

Today we have mostly forgotten how drastic such a change was, and how traumatically it impacted the world.

The Egypt Crisis

The bad news is: if the cycles and trends of history hold, we will likely relive such world-changing events in the decades ahead. As for Egypt, our reactions are telling us more about ourselves than about the Arab world.

Knee-jerk liberalism thrills at another people rising up against authoritarianism but worries that the extreme religious nature of some of the militants will bring the wrong outcomes.

Knee-jerk conservatism reinforces its view that the middle east is the world’s problem area, that we should just get out of that region (or get a lot more involved), and that stability is more important than things like freedom and opportunity for the Egyptian people.

Deep thinkers from all political views see that we now live in the age of demonstrations. The worldwide shift from decades of relative peace and prosperity to a time of recurring crises is putting pressure on people everywhere.

Some protest the reduction of government pensions and programs as nations try to figure out how to get their financial houses in order. Others demonstrate against governments that respond to major economic crises with increased spending, stimulus and government programs.

Still others riot against authoritarian governments that haven’t allowed the people a true democratic voice in the direction of their nation or society.

When we shift from an industrial era of peace and prosperity to an information-age epoch of crisis and challenge, people in all walks of life feel the pressure and anxiety of change. This manifests itself in relationship, organizational, financial and family stress, as well as cultural, class, religious, political and societal tensions. We are witnessing all of these in this generation.

Egypt may spark a major world crisis, and indeed many feel that the Egyptian challenge is the biggest foreign policy crisis of Obama’s presidency. As Thomas L. Friedman put it, on a more global scale:

“There is a huge storm coming, Israel. Get out of the way.”

President Bush’s supporters are using Egypt to bolster the view that Bush’s attempts to establish democracy in the Arab world was wise foresight, and Obama supporters hope that a re-democratized Egypt can stand as “beacon to the region.”

If the Egyptian uprising becomes the start of pan-Arabism led by the Muslim Brotherhood (or something like it), this will certainly bring significant changes to the Middle East and to international relations across the board.

On the other hand, a similar outcome could result from a totalitarian crackdown that extinguishes the will of the Egyptian people to fight for legitimate reform. The most likely result may be what has happened more often recently: the replacement of authoritarian government with a powerful oligarchy ruling the nation.

The American Crisis

How the United States responds to any of these scenarios, or whatever else may happen, will have a significant impact on world policy.

Add to this at least two concerns: Serious inflation is already a growing reality and increasing danger, and many are watching to see the impact on the price of oil on our economy.

If the cost of gasoline goes above $5 or $6 or, say, $9 per gallon in the U.S., what will happen to 9.6% unemployment, state and local governments that are already close to bankruptcy, and a reeling economy just barely emerging from the Great Recession?

If the Egypt Crisis doesn’t ignite a major world or American crisis, something else will. That’s the reality of our place in the cycles of history. Challenges are ahead for our nation.

This is true in any generation, but it is even more pronounced in the generations where we shift from an era of peace and prosperity to an epoch of crisis and challenge. As we also move into the information age, we have our work cut out for us.
Futurist Alvin Toffler wrote:

“A new civilization is emerging in our lives. This new civilization brings with it new family styles; changed ways of working, loving and living; a new economy; new political conflicts. Millions are already attuning their lives to the rhythms of tomorrow. Others, terrified of the future, are engaged in a desperate, futile flight into the past and are trying to restore the dying world that gave them birth. The dawn of this new civilization is the single most explosive fact of our lifetimes. It is the central event—the key to understanding the years immediately ahead.”

The good news is that in such times of challenge we have the opportunity to significantly improve the world in important ways.

The Revolutionary era brought us the Constitution and the implementation of free enterprise and a classless society, the Civil War ended slavery, and the World War II era brought us into the industrial age with increasing opportunity for social equity and individual prosperity.

Freedom, free enterprise, increased caring and more widespread economic opportunities are likely ahead if we as a society refocus on the principles that work. Liberals, conservatives and independents have a lot to teach each other in this process, and we all have a lot to learn.

The biggest danger is that the age of demonstrations will lead to an age of dominance by elites—in Egypt, in Europe, in Asia, and in North America. Unfortunately, popular demonstrations are most often followed by the increased power of one elite group or another.

Though this is the worst-case scenario, it is also a leading trend in our times. In contrast, only a society led by the people can truly be free, and only such a future can turn our challenging era into a truly better world.

Each of us must take responsibility for the future, rather than leaving the details to experts. Many citizens in Egypt are trying to do this—for good or ill.

In America, we need more regular citizens to be leaders so we can meet this generational challenge as our forefathers did theirs—leaving posterity with greater freedom and opportunity.

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Connect With Oliver: