SCOTUS and the American Way

(This response to Elise is off the cuff and pains me to post without editing.  However, if I hold back for editing it will fade into the bin of countless pieces about which are worthless because I cared too much to share them unfinished.)

Thank you for the post, Elise.  Here are some of my thoughts at the moment.

Over on Real Clear Politics DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen said about the SCOTUS decision,

I think it is an un-American decision and think that when the American people understand what this radical decision has meant, they will be even more furious and concerned about special interest influence in politics than they are today.

If only I were as optimistic as Mr. Van Hollen I might yawn and move on.  Unfortunately the SCOTUS decision is very much an American decision – one that follows a trajectory begun a long time ago when our forefathers rejected the King’s rule so they could live free in a new world.  Our mistrust of government is in our national genetics and goes back centuries.

The early pioneers and their offspring gradually tired of the lonely frontier and formed groups and order within those groups.  To resolve disputes and remedy wrongdoing they established local government to organize justice and keep the peace.  We did something else back then.  We embraced capitalism as the answer to prosperity and opportunity and established laws that favor independence and minimal meddling from outside our counties.

Centuries ago America rejected leadership by monarchies and in the last century the western world with our encouragement rejected dictatorships.  In my lifetime elected officials are regarded as weaklings or corrupt or liars.   Today political parties have very little left of whatever influence they once had.

We want to believe we are learning to think for ourselves and are more free.  But we are less free today than we were in 1776.  We have deluded ourselves.  Whatever limits our freedom to consume we want to push aside.  Today, instead of serving kings we depend on corporations, whom we regard just like us.  We devour entertainment and call it information or news.  We use resources like there is no limit.  We consume time like it is almost gone.

We are not free and it is not because of an overbearing government.  We have submitted ourselves to the almighty product to which all allegiance we give.  To speak ill of it places one in the category of nutjob, commie, or traitor.  (Hi!)

The American Way

To win a campaign today requires clever “packaging,”  skilled “message management,” smart “media buys,” and “staying on message” using “talking points.”      Candidates have to “sell their ideas,” so that voters will “buy it.”  Voters blame all things bad on candidates because of experience and toss them out like outdated milk.  Candidates from “outside Washington,” or “outside Lansing” are welcomed for their “fresh ideas.”  One Michigan Republican said recently that term limits have “institutionalized inexperience.”  Great.  Let’s do the same with pilots and surgeons and see how that works out.

With the Obama election I hoped America woke up and realized a need to pay attention to what was happening in government and get involved.  Unfortunately even before Obama was Inaugurated most went back to ignoring facts and issues – only getting excited when pot-stirrers on cable invent things like tea parties.

Sure, I think closer scrutiny of our government is virtuous.  But, even with easy access to tools that enable us to do this better than ever before I’m having trouble finding people who want to make the effort to actually look at the boring facts about issues.  Frankly it is a lot of work.

The problems popular to blame on politicians or political parties are not properly attributed.  Our belief system is to blame.

We think every problem must have a single solution.  And we think the best solutions are those that look good, feel good, bring instant results, and take zero effort on our part.  THAT is our problem, thanks to generations of advertising geniuses applying their marketing trickery.  That, and our patriotism inextricably embedded in our notion that consumption equals prosperity and a strong America.

Today SCOTUS sold our government to an advertising agency – one that knows how to sell product to a nation of consumers addicted to buying junk they do not need yet trained to crave and proud to own in the land of the free and the home of the…

Oh, never mind.  Forget that last part.

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