David Rodeback's Blog

Tonight in American Fork

After a long hearing in which more than 20 people spoke, the American Fork City Council tabled its proposed Housing and Employment Non-Discrimination Ordinances. Here's the mostly-untold story of how and why, plus my statement from the hearing.

Nearly every seat in American Fork's historic City Hall was filled tonight for a hearing on proposed Employment and Housing Non-Discrimination Ordinances, which I discussed in my previous post, and which have received considerable attention in the Utah media. These hearings are routinely scheduled to take ten minutes or so before regular city council meetings, but it was planned in this case to extend the hearing and start the council meeting late.

The hearing lasted an hour. More than 20 people spoke, including me (see below). Most were American Fork residents, and there seemed to be plenty of those on each side of the issue, plus one or two I couldn't pin down. Some gave evidence of having read the proposed ordinances and being generally aware of constitutional law and federal anti-discrimination regulations. Some conspicuously did not.

Some left after the hearing; others stayed for the agenda item in the meeting that followed. MFCC had told me earlier in the day what was likely to happen, but I was very interested to hear who would say what along the way.

What Happened

Here's more of what happened than is generally known. For quite a while, in response to constituents who have approached them, two members of the American Fork City Council have wanted the council to consider ordinances modeled after Salt Lake City's -- the methods and principles of which were publicly endorsed by the LDS Church. But there are five votes on the city council; a third would be needed to pass the ordinances, or even to get them on the agenda.

Recently, a third vote presented itself. For a while it appeared that a fourth vote was likely and a fifth possible, if a few concerns (some of which I thought reasonable) were resolved.

Then the wheels came off. Within a day or two of the scheduled vote, that third vote switched sides, citing concerns from his own research about how a certain aspect of the ordinances related to businesses might be implemented. The likely fourth vote decided there should be more public discussion, in search of a better public consensus. The possible fifth vote didn't materialize.

Therefore, had there been a vote tonight, the ordinances would have been defeated, three votes to two. The two scrambled to craft a less damaging outcome, and the three agreed: They would go ahead with the hearing, then table the ordinances, avoiding a vote for a while. Notably, the motion to table came from an outspoken supporter. That's a clue to what really happened. It was a strategic retreat, not a surrender, and not a cop-out. The goal is still to pass the ordinances, perhaps with some minor amendments.

It's difficult to predict the immediate future. Three members of the council were attending their last meeting tonight and will be replaced by new city councilors in January. It remains to be seen whether these ordinances will have more support from the new council, especially in the early part of their terms. Even if the new members are initially reluctant to support such ordinances, over time the accumulated experience of governing and of trying to represent all of American Fork's people may adjust their views somewhat.

The issue is not dead or abandoned in American Fork, just delayed.

Can Littering Be a Hate Crime?

While the meeting was in session, someone littered many windshields in the parking areas with an anonymous flier quoting the Old Testament, to the effect that homosexual activity should be punishable by death. Notably, no one with the courage to stand up and speak in the hearing offered such barbaric remarks there.

Tell me again that discrimination can't happen here . . .

My Statement at the Hearing

Give or take a word or two here and there, here is what I said at the hearing. Note that the members of the city council, not the rest of the people in the room, were my audience. They were well versed in the ordinances, and I had already discussed other aspects of the proposals with them in other settings.

My name is David Rodeback. I live in American Fork. [Editorial note: Your statement carries more weight in these settings if you live in the jurisdiction, so it's always a good thing to mention.]

Mayor Hadfield and members of the Council, thank you for your hard work and for your serious approach to your duties. I particularly express my gratitude to and my admiration for those of you who have courageously, persistently, and intelligently advanced the proposed Employment and Housing Non-Discrimination Ordinances.

I want to focus for a couple of minutes on the essential issues here.

In Utah County we are at the intersection of two great forces which push us in the direction of religious freedom. One force is religious; the other is civic or political.

As you well know, most of the population here belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. LDS theology is not just uncommonly friendly to moral agency and its political twin, religious freedom. It is built upon these doctrines so completely that the entire theology would collapse if they were removed.

Meanwhile, among major nations, the United States of America has no peer in the history of the world, in the cause of protecting and advancing religious freedom, or in our sacrifices for it at home and abroad. We even go to great lengths to protect the religious freedom of our enemies.

Given these two forces and their intersection here, you would think that, in religious terms at least, this would be the most tolerant place on earth. Yet somehow there is nothing to prevent me, if I were an employer in American Fork, from firing you tomorrow, if I find out that you're gay. There is no law to prevent me, if I were a landlord, from evicting you, if I find out that you're gay. In fact, you don't actually have to be gay for me to do those things to you with impunity. I just have to think you're gay, based on whatever stereotypes I find convenient at the moment.

A few, but not nearly all, of those who oppose these ordinances claim that such firings and evictions in the name of religion would be a proper exercise of religious freedom. I think a better term would be tyranny. The fact that this religious tyranny is justified in the name of religious freedom seems particularly dangerous.

I have argued elsewhere that religious freedom is the most crucial of the basic human freedoms. I jealously guard my own, but I understand that it cannot be absolute. Ideally, it is balanced as equally and as reasonably as possible against your religious freedom and everyone else's, and against other essential rights and freedoms.

We necessarily both limit and protect religious freedom by refusing to impose my religious principles and choices on you, and yours on me. We limit religious freedom in other ways, by rejecting it as a defense of human sacrifice; of drug use in most cases; and of spouse abuse, child abuse, and other crimes. We draw the bounds of religious freedom far short of crusades and holy wars, even if some belief systems consider these atrocities to be a religious duty.

Similarly, we must weigh an employer's or landlord's supposed right not to have people around who don't live his religion against what I submit are more important rights: not to fear or actually experience the loss of a job or a home for failing (in reality or appearance) to conform to someone else's religion.

I am aware of several reasons which might justify a vote of conscience against these ordinances. The reasons for a vote matter a great deal to the person casting the vote, but they have little effect on the public consequences of that vote.

Today, it is completely legal for people to lose their jobs and their homes in American Fork, because they are known or suspected to be living a lifestyle which is lawful, but which offends someone else's religious principles.

Tomorrow, next year, and for the foreseeable future, this religious oppression may still be completely legal here. Or, depending on your action tonight, it may no longer be legal. Your reasons, however honorable, will not determine this; only your vote will.

This is a conspicuous test of American Fork's commitment to the religious freedom of all who live or work here.

Thank you again.

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December 1, 2011

A Practical Test of American Fork's Commitment to Freedom

In December the American Fork Council has an interesting and important opportunity to weigh competing principles and vote on the depth of our city's commitment to essential American freedoms.

Two years ago the Salt Lake City Council passed legislation which has since been copied in several other Utah cities, with some minor adjustments to suit smaller cities' different administrative structures. Similar legislation is expected to be on the American Fork City Council's agenda on December 13, in the form of two closely related ordinances.

Attorney Clifford J. Rosky, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Utah, summarizes the two proposed ordinances: "They make it punishable as a civil matter for businesses with more than 15 employees or landlords with more than 4 units to make hiring and firing decisions or deny housing based on sexual orientation or gender identity." Here are the ordinances' definitions of two key terms:

GENDER IDENTITY means a person's actual or perceived gender identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other characteristics of an individual with or without regard to the person's sex at birth.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION means a person's actual or perceived orientation as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.

Before I examine arguments on both sides, I should warn you that I wholeheartedly support these measures, for reasons you will shortly see. My commentary will be candid but not neutral.

I find the ordinances to be intelligent, cautious, and reasonable, but I'll resist the temptation to dive deeply into the details. Our project today is philosophical. Note that arguments introduced in other Utah cities are relevant, because the proposed legislation is essentially -- and deliberately -- the same.

A Personal Note

You may already be troubled on two counts: these proposals' appearance in American Fork and my support for them. This is understandable.

I'm a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am not an official spokeman for the Church, but I have taught and explained its doctrine for decades, in a variety of official and unofficial capacities. We teach that all sexual activity outside the bonds of a lawful marriage between one man and one woman is sin. There are no exceptions, whether the partners are of the same or different genders. I accept this. I believe it. I claim the right, if so moved, to preach it on the street corner and shout it from the rooftop, as long as I don't impede traffic or violate the local noise ordinance. (Note that I offer no opinion as to whether any particular person's sexual orientation results from nature, nurture, personal choice, or some combination of the three.)

Given my religious convictions (or yours), support for these measures might seem unthinkable. How could I favor them, when they seem to condone sin?

There may be no more important consideration in the universe than the salvation of the soul. But this is a matter for preaching, persuasion, and the example of lives well and joyously lived. It is not a matter for the rule of law, or for denying housing or employment to people whose choices and inclinations differ from mine.

In Favor, Part I: The LDS Church

The LDS Church itself officially favors such legislation. Official spokesman Michael Otterson made this statement in a Salt Lake City Council meeting two years ago. (I quote it in part. You can read it in full here.) The emphasis is mine.

The issue before you tonight is the right of people to have a roof over their heads and the right to work without being discriminated against. But, importantly, the ordinance also attempts to balance vital issues of religious freedom. In essence, the Church agrees with the approach which Mayor Becker is taking on this matter.

In drafting this ordinance, the city has granted common-sense rights that should be available to everyone, while safeguarding the crucial rights of religious organizations, for example, in their hiring of people whose lives are in harmony with their tenets, or when providing housing for their university students and others that preserve religious requirements.

The Church supports this ordinance because it is fair and reasonable and does not do violence to the institution of marriage. It is also entirely consistent with the Church's prior position on these matters. The Church remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.

This expertly crafted language is as difficult to misunderstand or misconstrue as it could be, though some are still willing to make the effort.

In Favor, Part II: David's Corollary to the Golden Rule

The Golden Rule exists in many religious traditions. The phrasing I've heard most is, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A corollary suggests itself: We can best measure a person's commitment to the principle of freedom by her commitment to the freedoms of those with whom she most completely disagrees.

The Golden Rule is a grand symmetry, so let's be symmetrical. If it is proper for me to deny you employment or housing in American Fork, Utah, because your homosexuality offends my religious principles, then surely it would be proper for the people of any town in the Bible Belt to forbid me to live or work there, because my Mormonism offends their principles.

You might protest that there's an essential difference: Unlike those earnest folks in the Bible Belt, we are right. Our principles are divine truth.

Alas, the zealots who would discriminate against me feel exactly the same way about their principles.

Please ensure that one of your core moral or religious principles is the freedom of people you think are wrong. This may lead you to conclude that the force of law is not an acceptable way to promote your other principles, even if -- especially if -- you are in the majority.

One of the beautiful things about a properly constructed free society is that the government may not take one religion's side against another, or impose the majority's faith and principles on a minority. Even some matters of great consequence, touching individual salvation or the survival of a society, must be left to persuasion and choice, not enforced by government power.

Opposed, Part I: Tyranny Is (Not) Freedom

Some argue that these ordinances violate First Amendment freedoms of religion and association. (The First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not mention a freedom of association, but it is a logical and widely-accepted derivative of the freedoms of speech and assembly.) These freedoms are at issue here, which is why the proposed ordinances explicitly state that they do not apply to religious and other "expressive" associations. These groups remain free to require their employees and residents in their housing to conform to their chosen principles. In other words, to the extent that legitimate freedoms of religion and association are involved, they are protected in this legislation.

Some opponents speak as if their freedom of religious expression allows them to exclude people who think differently from living or working in their community. They assert, or at least imply, that their freedom of association includes the right not to have to share their neighborhood or workplace with people whose lifestyles they disapprove or abhor. In essence, they argue that their freedoms mean that others who disagree have only the "freedom" to go somewhere else, not to live and work where they choose. Another word for this cynical perversion of freedom is tyranny.

I already described how the same logic could prevent Mormons from living and working where zealous majorities don't want us, but it gets worse. If we accept this bad logic, we will be hard pressed to find a firm basis for judging many of the world's atrocities harshly. Consider the Taliban in Afghanistan, who burn girls' schools and blind their students. Using the same bad logic, we would be tempted to see this violence as a legitimate expression of the Taliban's religious views, including the barbaric dogma that the education of women is evil.

Opposed, Part II: An Illusory Special Case

Opponents of this legislation in Logan, Utah, argued that the LDS Church's statement applied only to Salt Lake City. It was as if the Church had said, "We're afraid that we'll get something even worse in Salt Lake City if we don't endorse this, so we endorse it as the lesser of two evils." No reasonable reading of the statement permits this interpretation. Instead, it speaks of "common-sense rights which should be available to everyone." It praises the legislation for protecting these rights and declares that it is "fair and reasonable and does not do violence to the institution of marriage."

I don't claim that all Mormons must agree with the Church on any political issue, or that elected officials who are Mormons must vote a particular way. The LDS Church doesn't say that, either. But I do think the Church's statement gives Mormons who oppose these ordinances on religious grounds some food for serious thought about how they balance their various principles against each other.

Opposed, Part III: Slippery Slopes and the Like

Some have worried that the proposed legislation is a "slippery slope," and that it will lead irresistibly to further measures, such as the legalization of gay marriage. They worry that the legislation creates special rights or a protected class, though it carefully avoids doing so and in fact protects me from the same sort of discrimination on the basis of my being heterosexual. Quite apart from the fact that traditional marriage's most ardent and stubborn institutional defender, the LDS Church, endorses such legislation and is content that it poses no threat to marriage, I'm not sure we're worried about the right slippery slope here.

To my regret, I worry more about a different slippery slope in mostly-Mormon Utah. Will defeating the proposed legislation encourage a zealous religious majority to act in other ways to exclude people whose choices offend theirs, but which are otherwise legal in our society? It is not hard to imagine.

A common variation of the slippery slope argument is often phrased like this: "We first endure (or abhor), then pity, then embrace." Or, "What we tolerate, our children will embrace." In some moral and religious contexts, when we consider our own conduct, this may have merit. But we cannot accept this reasoning in matters of law, government, or politics in a free society. Our American and Christian principles require us to tolerate and respect the free choice of people who think and choose as we would not, even when their choices and lifestyles offend our most deeply-held principles.

Opposed, Part IV: Not Needed Here?

A final argument declares that this legislation may be needed in Salt Lake City, Park City, or even Provo, but not in [insert your city here] -- because the housing and employment discrimination it would prohibit doesn't, can't, or won't happen here, for one reason or another.

I know people in American Fork who say, based on their own experience, that we need these ordinances. Even a few of these are enough to convince me. I don't need to take a poll. (If I did take a poll, I'd expect results similar to those of a Dan Jones poll showing that a large majority of Utah County residents favor the legislation we're discussing.)

Count Me In

I urge the American Fork City Council, my city's elected lawmakers, to ignore delaying tactics and procedural distractions, even if they originate with staff or other officials; to give freedom greater weight than dogma; to resist zealous but cynical arguments which pervert the freedoms they pretend to advance; and to pass these two carefully crafted ordinances without delay.

Come to think of it, the Utah Legislature could measurably improve my opinion of it in one stroke, by adopting such legislation statewide. I'm not holding my breath; legislative leaders and the governor have already passed the buck to the cities.

On December 13, the buck is scheduled to stop at American Fork's historic City Hall.

David Rodeback comments (12/8/2011):

Though a political conservative, I routinely read intelligent commentary on the left; for example, long-time readers have seen me refer to something in The New Republic over and over again. In Utah, far to the right of my own solidly conservative Republican views, there is the self-styled "conservative public policy think tank," the Sutherland Institute. They are not even remotely in The New Republic's league, but this is Utah, and one does want at least to keep an eye on the far right. So I'm on their mailing list.

They sent out a mass e-mail early last evening with this subject line: "URGENT: AF City to discuss "Gay Rights" Ordinences [sic]." It urges recipients to contact the mayor of American Fork and the city council, to urge them not to pass these ordinances. As an alternative, the e-mail suggests a useless non-binding resolution:

If the city council would like to show their support for city residents who identify as "gay," "lesbian" or "transgendered," we recommend they address the issue with a non-binding resolution rather than a full-fledged law with a compliance mechanism.

I disagree. Let's not go to all the effort of crafting legislation and passing it, if it's not going to do anything. My elected representatives have real work to do.

I do agree that it's important to make my views known to my elected city officials. I did that yesterday morning, delivering a letter and a copy of this blog post to all six of them. I thanked the city councilors who have patiently worked to push this onto the agenda and get it passed, and I urged the other councilors, whose positions I do not yet know (not so much the mayor, who votes only to break a tie), to vote in favor of the proposed ordinances.

I wonder if the Sutherland Institute sent the e-mail statewide, or just to people on their list who live in American Fork. I would hate to think that my elected officials are bombarded today by so much communication from people they don't represent that it will be more difficult for them to respond to those whom they do represent. That would hardly be a blow struck for good government, would it?

Sutherland's stated objections to these ordinances are as follows (from the e-mail):

• "Policies that give legal protection to such ambiguous, self-defined concepts as 'perceived sexual orientation and gender identity,' without equally strong protections of an individual's sincerely-held religious beliefs, have in practice eroded religious liberty."
• "Creating a legal mandate of non-discrimination singling out 'sexual orientation" and 'gender identity' for special protection would have unintended consequences for employers like forcing them to choose between getting tagged as 'discriminatory" by the city or being sued by customers, without solving any real social problem (current non-discrimination ordinances in cities and counties across Utah have produced exactly zero instances of substantiated discrimination based on 'sexual orientation' or 'gender identity').
• These non-discrimination ordinances will impose substantial costs on business in the city through the threat of litigation, training, fines, etc.

I've already explained my views on the nature, protection, and perversion of religious freedom (see "Opposed, Part I: Tyranny Is (Not) Freedom" above), as they relate to these ordinances and related arguments. But perhaps you'll permit one more comment on that subject.

I've read the ordinances carefully -- three times -- and believe their protections for religious liberty to be ample. There is no threat in them to any religious organization or other "expressive association"; these are explicitly exempt from the proposed laws. There is no threat of any kind, and no protection needed against such a threat, to any individual's religious beliefs, with one noteworthy exception. If those beliefs include the conviction -- indefensible under the US Constitution -- that people with whom one disagrees ought to be banished from one's city, then I suppose there's a threat -- a necessary, desirable threat. But where legitimate freedoms of religion and association are concerned, this legislation proposes to protect individuals from people who think their own understanding of God's commandments should be sufficient grounds to keep those who disagree from living or working in their city.

As to the second and third bullet points, they are directly contradictory. Either there will be few if any complaints, as in the second bullet point, or there will be substantial costs to the City to handle complaints, as in the third bullet point. As it happens, the experience of Utah cities who already have such laws is that there are very few (notably, not exactly zero) complaints.

The second bullet also suggests that the proposed legislation would single out a group for special protection. Presumably, they mean gays. But, as the ordinances themselves say, everyone has a gender identity and a sexual orientation. I'm not gay, but here's how this legislation would protect me:

• Prospective employers could not base a decision not to hire me on the fact that I'm straight, and they prefer gays.
• Prospective employers who refuse to hire gays could not base their decision not to hire me on their (false) perception that I am gay.
• If I wanted to rent an apartment, prospective landlords couldn't turn me away for either of these reasons.

Very small businesses and landlords with less than four rental units in the city are exempt from these proposed laws, by the way. So if grandma wants to rent her (presumably legal) basement apartment to that charming gay couple, because she thinks they'll take better care of it, instead of those other folks who might not, she'll still be free to do so. She's also perfectly free not to, if she thinks having them under her roof would creep her out.

If you want to learn the thinking of someone who actually gets to vote on these measures next week, MFCC (for newcomers, that's My Favorite City Councilor) posted a discussion of these ordinances and her own views at her blog last night.

If you want to read the proposed ordinances, they are here (but probably still subject to some tweaking): employment and housing.

All of this is one guy's opinion. What do you think?

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November 3, 2011

Guys' Day (Equal Time)

Last week I declared Peggy Janet Noonan Daley Day, in honor of two excellent female columnists I regularly enjoy. I promised the guys equal time.

Last week I posted links to recent columns by Peggy Noonan and Janet Daley. Today's "equal time for guys" approach includes more than two men. You are free to draw your own conclusions, such as, It takes more than two of these men to equal one of those women. Or, Among excellent conservative columnists there are more men than woman. (I'm not sure either of these it true, which is why I said the conclusions would be yours.)

In any case, our cast of characters today is noticeably larger: George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Sowell, Jonah Goldberg, Orson Scott Card, and Paul Greenberg. You can thank me later for declaring this Guys' Day instead of George Charles Victor Thomas Jonah Orson Paul Davis Scott Will Krauthammer Hanson Sowell Goldberg Card Greenberg day.

You'll see that Greenberg gets the most attention here. Perhaps it's because, while all these others write, think, and explain superbly, Greenberg does all of those, but also routinely engages the heart (if I may say so, in a Peggy Noonan-like manner).

The President

Victor Davis Hanson and Charles Krauthammer explain in their own ways how President Obama is still the same guy who campaigned and got elected in 2008. Hanson writes:

The skeptics of 2008 proved prescient; those who demonized them should be embarrassed. And we should remember that candidates, of both parties, will govern mostly as they campaign. Slips are not indiscretions, but often will prove in hindsight windows of the soul.

Krauthammer explains:

. . . The new Obama, today's soak-the-rich, veto-threatening, self-proclaimed class warrior. Except that the new Obama is really the old Obama -- the one who, upon entering office in the middle of a deep economic crisis, and determined not to allow "a serious crisis to go to waste" (to quote his then-chief of staff), exploited the (presumed) malleability of a demoralized and therefore passive citizenry to enact the largest Keynesian stimulus in recorded history, followed by the quasi-nationalization of one-sixth of the economy that is health care.

Considering the political cost -- a massive electoral rebuke by an infuriated 2010 electorate -- these are the works of a conviction politician, one deeply committed to his own social-democratic vision.

That politician now returns.

Paul Greenberg lately describes a president who is out of touch:

Barack Obama long ago lost the common touch -- if he ever had it -- but he still seems to believe he's talking the language of The People even when he's just spouting Washington nerdspeak. Or trying to do a poor, a very poor, imitation of Harry Truman giving 'em hell. Maybe because Mr. Truman was authentic. As solid as any other show-me Missourian. But this president shows more condescension than connection to the American spirit.

And the people this president presumes to speak for are starting to notice. Which may explain why they've stopped paying him much attention. Remember when one of his presidential addresses, whether before a joint session of Congress or at a general store in the hills, was an occasion? Remember when people were actually interested in what he had to say? Now? Not so much.

Yes, that's a few too many sentence fragments for my taste, but I suppose my taste is not really the point.

Protests and Their Contexts

In essays this summer, Victor Davis Hanson considers whether certain protestors are deprived or decadent and examines Europe's unrest as a warning for the United States, and Jonah Goldberg looks (unfavorably) at popular rationalizations for the summer's mischief.

George Will explains the the sad condition of the British welfare state:

The British state is morbidly obese. For a third consecutive year, government will spend more than half the gross domestic product -- partly because half of all jobs created during the 13 years of Labor Party governance that ended in May 2010 were in the public sector.

Britain's debt, now 62 percent of GDP, is scheduled to rise to 71 percent in 2013-14 before declining. Government devours 47 percent of national income.

In "Anatomy of a Protest," Paul Greenberg offers this perspective:

This is not to say that all protests are born equal. Lest we forget, this republic was born in protest, usually in the vicinity of Boston, Mass., aka The Cradle of Liberty.

How differentiate between protests that lead to liberty under law, and to more respect for human dignity and self-reliance rather than less?

Just ask the reason for the protest. Ask for specifics. By their specifics you shall know them, and whether the protest is serious or just for show.

In case you're wondering what he thinks of the Occupy Wall Street and its spin-offs, for the present he thinks it would be better for the environment if the protestors stayed off the grass. Ahem.

The Constitution and Democracy

A year-old but still relevant essay by ornery Democrat Orson Scott Card accuses the Democrats of "spitting on the Constitution." Speaking of a specific Obama appointment, he rages:

This is what dictatorship looks like, boys and girls. And Obama has been doing it all along. What do you think his "czars" are? But this case is so obvious, and so dangerous to the economy as well as to our freedoms, that it cannot be allowed to stand.

But even if Obama decides to withdraw this unconstitutional appointment, we must not forget that this is what he wants to do and how he wants to govern.

Meanwhile, George Will wrote the other day the constitutional implications of a lawsuit in Colorado, which touches on the nature of democracy and the constitutional republic.

Progressives have long lamented the fact that the Framers designed a Constitution replete with impediments to federal government activism -- fetters such as federalism itself, enumerated powers, three branches of government, two rivalrous wings of the legislative branch, supermajorities, judicial review, presidential vetoes. Colorado progressives, however, have decided the Constitution has a redeeming feature -- the infrequently invoked Guarantee Clause.

Thomas Sowell reflects on the questionable staying power of free and democratic societies, and on voters of a certain sort, who "represent a danger of terminal frivolity for freedom and democracy." Here's an excerpt:

Free and democratic societies have existed for a relatively short time, as history is measured -- and their staying power has always been open to question. So much depends on the wisdom of the voters that the franchise was always limited, in one way or another, so that voting would be confined to those with a stake in the viability and progress of the country, and the knowledge to cast their vote intelligently.

In our own times, however, voting has been seen as just one of the many "rights" to which everyone is supposed to be entitled. The emphasis has been on the voter, rather than on the momentous consequences of elections for the nation today and for generations yet unborn.

To those who see voting as more or less just a matter of self-expression, almost a recreational activity, there is no need to inform themselves on both sides of the issues before voting, much less sit down and think beyond the rhetoric to the realities that the rhetoric conceals.

Careless voters may be easily swayed by charisma and rhetoric, oblivious to the monumental disasters created around the world by 20th century leaders with charisma and rhetoric, such as Hitler.

Voters like this represent a danger of terminal frivolity for freedom and democracy.

In a September essay Paul Greenberg went from Hamilton to Washington to Tocqueville, before ending here:

For reasons hard to explain except by a providential grace, at just those moments when the country required a great leader, one would emerge out of the usual swirl of passions and parties that mark a democracy, and set a new course for the ship of state safely past the shoals ahead -- a Washington, a Lincoln, a Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. Each made all the difference.

Now, once again, in both foreign and domestic affairs, the Republic drifts. Surely not even the most confirmed of Pollyannas would see any great constancy of purpose in the largely ad hoc maneuvers of the Republic's leaders today. But those of us who live by faith have come to expect grace -- indeed, to depend on it. Maybe that's why we wait confidently, expectantly, for the morrow. Keep the faith.

And you'll want to read about the little abuses of American liberties which lead Greenberg to this:

The spirit of liberty is more often lost in little ways -- a censored cartoon here, a prohibitive price for an expression of opinion there -- than all at once through some draconian decree. The spirit of liberty slips away a little at a time.

Whether it's a bus line in Arkansas or an Ivy League university, the same craven impulse is behind all such censorship: the fear that exercising our freedom will offend some mob somewhere. So we had better hush.

The spirit of liberty is always in danger, for there will always be fearful souls who don't see that courage is, was, and always will be the first requisite for liberty

Science and Higher Education

As a conservative (as distinct from a right-wing nut job), I'd be more enthusiastic about Mitt Romney's presidential campaign if he displayed Paul Greenberg's sensible understanding of what science is and isn't, and the implications of that for our understanding of climate change. He -- that is, Paul Greenberg -- muses on recent developments, then quotes Charles Mackay on the way to an interesting conclusion:

"Men, it has been said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one." And one by one, our scientists seem to be recovering.

Speaking of the sciences -- and arts and civilization and such -- Greenberg writes to a businessman:

Increasingly, college students are expected to know more and more about less and less -- everything about their specialty, not that much about the arts and sciences that compose the core of education, and of civilization. . . .

When the best of what has been thought and said is demoted to just another elective, you have to wonder if anarchy isn't getting the upper hand.

Last but Not Least

I let the ladies speak of September 11 the other day, because they did so very well. Maybe it means something about how I rank these men in my mind that my choice among their writings on the occasion of September's grim anniversary is Paul Greenberg's "'What Have We Learned from This?'," which also happens to include a portrait of a great teacher and some insight into reading history and scripture.

One more gem. Speaking of great teachers, a couple of weeks ago Greenberg asked, "What Makes a Great Teacher?" The product of that question was an essay on greatness in more than teaching, and a welcome dose of hope and even faith for a challenging time. (By the way, the most intriguing answer to the question in his title was by an authority on American education: "We don't know.")

Next time, we'll get back to what I've been writing lately, in my increasingly rare spare minutes.

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October 25, 2011

Peggy Janet Noonan Daley Day

. . . In which I catch up with two of my favorite female columnists.

I've been so busy lately that I haven't blogged much, but it's worse than that. I've fallen behind in my usual reading, too.

For example, in a normal week -- what used to be a normal week -- I would make a point to read whatever Peggy Noonan had written lately, even if it hadn't popped up at one of the sites I usually peruse. I don't always agree with her or find her persuasive, but she thinks well and writes well, and I'm always glad to read what she writes. I think I once declared a Peggy Noonan Day here at the blog. Now, however, I find myself checking in only every three or four weeks -- because I have the same enthusiasm, but less time.

In recent months I've also mentioned favorably an American expatriate named Janet Daley, who writes in The Telegraph, on yonder side of the Atlantic. She's been vying for inclusion in Peggy Noonan's elite league, and I've been giving her the same sort of reading -- consistent, appreciative, but too infrequent.

Lately I've caught up with both of these writers, and it is a fruitful experience. I therefore declare this to be Peggy Janet Noonan Daley Day here at the blog. (Janet Peggy Daley Noonan Day seems less euphonious.) Here are highlights, spanning from August to October. Please note that, where I include an excerpt, it may not do justice to the full essay, which you should read.

Daley

In the aftermath of Britain's summer riots and a subsequent public opinion poll, Daley opined:

An opinion poll for The Guardian shows a stunningly high majority in favour of tougher sentences for those convicted in the riots than would ordinarily be handed down for comparable offences. . . .

What this survey shows is that the population has a profound appreciation of why it is actually more culpable to steal a pair of trainers or a plasma television as part of an anarchic, vicious mob than as a single opportunist shoplifter. Taking part in what was a concerted act of anti-social violence in which property was set ablaze and lives indiscriminately threatened was a far more serious offence than an individual theft.

Noonan

Noonan praised President Obama's recent speech at the United Nations and called Rick Perry "a cheap, base-playing buffoon" for his simultaneous diatribe on the same subject. But first she writes of Obama's economic policy:

In writing about the White House or Congress, I always feel completely free to attempt to see things clearly, to consider the evidence, to sift it through experience and knowledge, and then to make a judgment. It may be highly critical, or caustic, even damning. But deep down I always hope I'm wrong -- that it isn't as bad as I say it is, that there is information unknown to me that would explain such and such an act, that there were factors I didn't know of that make bad decisions suddenly explicable. Or even justifiable.

I note this to make clear the particular importance, for me, of Ron Suskind's book on the creation of President Obama's economic policy, "Confidence Men." If Mr. Suskind is right, I have been wrong in my critiques of the president's economic policy. None of it was as bad as I said. It was much worse.

Daley

Drawing essential parallels between Europe and the United States, Daley wrote this in August, on the heels of the American debt ceiling debate:

The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are racing is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society? . . .

Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nation's politics were "dysfunctional". The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.

The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didn't work.

Noonan

Earlier in October Noonan saw a new and untapped patriotism in the country, against a backdrop of grave, almost universal concern -- and the folly of presidents and candidates seeking a political narrative, a story, instead of trying to lead in reality.

Daley

Daley's October musings include wondering whether "being slightly poorer might actually enrich our lives." She's not anti-capitalist, crony-capitalist, or socialist in any degree. She's just thinking interesting thoughts, and wondering if all that stuff sometimes just gets in the way.

Noonan

Noonan surveys the political landscape astutely. Maybe the crucial phrase here is "not in Washington and not part of the political matrix."

What I'm seeing is a new convergence of thought among Democrats and Republicans who are not in Washington and not part of the political matrix. They are in new agreement about our essential problems and priorities: that the economy comes first, all other crises (in foreign affairs, in our culture) come second, because they cannot be helped without an economy that is healthy and growing. They all agree -- no one really argues about this any more -- the government is going bankrupt. They all agree the entitlement system has to be reformed. Heck, they all respect Paul Ryan, for his seriousness. They all want grown-ups to come forward with ideas that maybe each party wouldn't love but that might do the country some good.

That is what I see in every business and professional meeting, in conversations with Democrats and Republicans: a new convergence of thought among the thoughtful.

Which makes this a promising moment. For once everyone knows what time it is.

Daley

Calling attention to New York City's (mostly Rudy Giuliani's) approach to crime as a model for her adopted country, Daley wrote:

After so many years of spectacularly successful "zero tolerance" policing, prisoner numbers in New York State have actually fallen. After peaking in 1999 as the policy's effects came into their own, the numbers began to drop until they are now down by roughly a fifth. In other words, this policing strategy did exactly what it was intended to do: it acted as a deterrent to committing crimes.

Noonan

If you worried that Noonan was going all mushy and moderate in that last piece, take comfort from her look at the Republican presidential field and her thoughts on the irrelevance and inadequacy both of the president and of the candidates' debates. Her title: "This Is No Time for Moderation."

Daley

Daley's writing about domestic British politics doesn't always interest me much, but some of what she writes is as relevant to us as it is to Britain or Europe. For example, writing in September of the European Union ("federal project") and its growing tempests, Daley observed:

It seems that the European political class still thinks that an assertion of its mystical belief can alter reality: that what it insists is so, will be so. If its idea of itself and its design for the future are in conflict with the facts of economics or life as it is actually lived, then it is those facts that will give way. . . . This is where we are: up against the unavoidable contradiction of the European federal project. The complaint that the EU is lacking in strong political leadership is misconceived: it has had altogether too much "leadership" -- which is to say, domination from political and bureaucratic authorities determined to lead with as little interference from real people as possible.

Both on September 11

As it happens, Peggy Noonan and Janet Daley wrote two of my favorite essays on the occasion of September 11's tenth anniversary. I've already mentioned them here at the blog, but they re-read very well. (I know. I just re-read them.)

Daley:

Since I had spent virtually my entire adult life here and taken British nationality, I generally referred to myself as an American-born Briton. (For complex personal reasons, I did not even visit the land of my birth for more than 30 years after leaving it.) September 11 made a bonfire of that little vanity. From that day, I became an American who lives in Britain.

But it was not just the terrorist attack that had produced this resurgence of loyalty to the United States. It was the grotesque fusillade of anti-Americanism that burst immediately -- and I mean immediately -- onto the British scene in its wake.

Noonan:

They tell us to get over it, they say to move on, and they mean it well: We can't bring an air of tragedy into the future. But I will never get over it. To get over it is to get over the guy who stayed behind on a high floor with his friend who was in a wheelchair. To get over it is to get over the woman by herself with the sign in the darkness: "America You Are Not Alone." To get over it is to get over the guys who ran into the fire and not away from the fire.

You've got to be loyal to pain sometimes to be loyal to the glory that came out of it.

Finally, Noonan (Because It's Still Her League)

Peggy Noonan's latest offering declared that the Republican presidential debates have so far been an unexpected success. I'll leave to you figure out whether this means she changed her mind somewhat after the previous week's column, mentioned above. She mentions President Obama and Occupy Wall Street along the way, too, contrasting the latter to the Tea Party. Here are some good lines, not consecutive:

In the end, Tuesday night's debate was a real plus for the GOP. All the Republican debates have been, because they've made the Republicans look like the alive party. There's been jousting and predictable disagreement, but there has also been substance.

I've never seen TV debates play such a prominent role in a nominating process. The reasons people are watching are obvious: They're deeply concerned about America's future. They're shopping for a new president, and TV is an easy way to judge the merchandise. It's live, so that if something dramatic happens -- some flub, some breakthrough -- it won't be removed in the editing.

Sorry to do archetypes, but a nation in trouble probably wants a fatherly, or motherly, figure at the top. What America has right now is a bright, lost older brother. It misses Dad. Mr. Romney's added value is his persona. He's a little like the father in one of those 1950s or '60s sitcoms

The Republican Party is going to make Mitt Romney work for it. They're going to make him earn it. They're going to make him suffer. Because that's what Republicans do.

The difference between the occupiers and the tea party is the difference between acting out and taking part.

Maybe Janet Daley is in Peggy Noonan's league, or nearly so. But it's still Peggy Noonan's league.

Coming Soon (Really!)

Those of you who are concerned with gender equity may be troubled that I haven't recently declared "[insert the name of a male columnist here] Day." I hear you, and I am even now assembling a few recent gems from some writers who appear in their pictures to be men.

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October 19, 2011

Democracy of Sheep, Democracy of Thugs

Two crucial democratic pillars of are republic are under assault, from within government and without.

The American founders created a republic with two key elements of democracy, and they required state governments to have a similar basic structure. Local governments have followed suit. Both democratic elements are crucial to our present and future liberties. Both are eroded already and now in serious, further jeopardy.

One of these key democratic elements is well known: popular sovereignty. Our governments at all levels derive their power and legitimacy from the people. "We the People" established our constitutions, abolishing earlier forms of government, because we are sovereign. That done, popular sovereignty now means that we elect our lawmakers and chief executives, and our laws are made and our taxes imposed by legislative bodies we have elected, such as Congress.

The second key democratic element may be less obvious: volunteer activity in our social institutions. Much of this activity is private, because many of those institutions are not part of or sponsored by a government. Alexis de Tocqueville explained it best: When Americans want to accomplish something, they form private associations -- clubs, churches, charities, commercial associations, and many more -- and get busy. By contrast, in Tocqueville's native France, the people turned to their government first. He saw clearly in the mid-1830s that this large, active realm of private associations protected American liberty. He also foretold liberty's decay, when government grows and supplants private associations. (For more discussion of this, see "I Am a Tocqueville Conservative.")

Some of this necessary volunteer activity directly serves one level or another of government. For example, many adults volunteer in public schools. Everybody wins: the schools can do more with less tax money, the students benefit by having more hands on deck, and the citizen volunteers are participating and saving themselves tax dollars at the same time.

Thus one of the people's democratic roles is at the top, because the people are sovereign. The other is at the bottom, acting as volunteers either outside of government, or within government and on its terms.

A Bad Example from Last Century

Soviet communists used to explain that their nation was a democracy, because the people were involved as volunteers -- but it was always on the government's terms. In Abraham Lincoln's words, this was government of the people, and it claimed to be government for the people, but it was government by the Party elite. This is not exactly the second American democratic element I have described, because there were few if any truly private associations in the USSR.

(Not even the Party theorists I knew claimed that the people were also sovereign, because they elected their government leaders. Their elections typically had only one candidate on the ballot, and all candidates were hand-picked by the government.)

It's worth remembering that horrific things happened in the Soviet Union, where the people were not sovereign, and where the whole meaning of democracy was considered to be the people's activity at the bottom of the food chain -- and that was further limited to participation in government institutions. This distorted, one-legged democracy was one of the bloodiest tyrannies in history.

Mind you, I'm not equating the United States to the Soviet Union. There are essential, qualitative differences, and, where there are qualitative similarities, there are vast differences in degree. My point is simply that to distort or diminish either of these two key elements of democracy -- one at the top and one at the bottom of the hierarchy -- is to jeopardize liberty.

Democracy of Sheep I

The Obama administration is systematically bypassing Congress -- the people's elected legislators -- to make policy through appointed officials in the executive branch. Some of these, such as the EPA director, were at least confirmed by the Senate, but many of them, including the countless White House "czars" of this and that, were not, and their positions were not established by any act of Congress. Obama is not the first president to attempt legislation without the legislative branch, but his efforts are unprecedented in scale. This is a direct attack on popular sovereignty, one of our two essential democratic elements.

Recently, North Carolina's governor launched an even less subtle attack on popular sovereignty. She suggested that the 2012 Congressional elections be suspended, so that those currently in office could address our nation's problems without fear of imminent reprisal by the voters. Various talking heads on the left echoed this seditious idea.

Others advocate a more subtle entrance into undemocratic tyranny. For example, The New Republic's Peter Orszag recently wrote:

To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.

That is, the elected representatives of the people need to play a much smaller role in the government of the people, ceding their authority to unelected bureaucrats who are unaccountable to the people.

If the people are removed from their sovereign role, but their participation at ground level in public institutions is preserved, the result is a sort of democracy, but it is democracy fit only for sheep, and wholly unsuited to humans.

A Bad Example from Last Year

The democracy of sheep has an unmistakable appeal to officials in some of our institutions.

After a school board election last year in a large Utah school district, that district's official spokesperson published an essay at the district's official web site. I could name the district and the person, but something in the essay was so typical of American public school systems and of bureaucracies in general, that it hardly matters who wrote it or where.

The writer was disturbed by some people who set up a web site and created some fliers to air their concerns about and grievances against certain of the district's policies and practices.

Before we go on, please note two things. First, popular sovereignty applies to Utah's public schools. The people's elected representatives in the state legislature created, chartered, and to some degree regulate school districts. The people elect other representatives to school boards to govern specific districts. So the people's place is at the very top of this hierarchy -- above the legislature, the school board, and the district administration. Second, I am heartily in favor of volunteerism, in the public schools and elsewhere, and over the years I have routinely put my time where my mouth is. So both of our essential democratic elements are in this picture, at least for now.

To people with "a concern about [the school district]," the district spokesperson wrote:

I invite you to stop spending time creating websites and writing and sending e-mails to each other, but instead join the hundreds of other parents who are actually volunteering in the schools serving the children every day.

The word "instead" here tells the tale. The people should stop debating, discussing, questioning, and trying to exert their will over the system. "Instead," they ought simply to serve it on its own terms. They should surrender that first, sovereign democratic element and be content with the second.

I would not say that all people who prefer this model of democracy are tyrants, or that they all realize the implications of their words and inclinations. However, this is the sort of democracy modern tyrants prefer. If this spokeperson were thoughtfully committed to the American sort of democracy, with popular sovereignty at the top and rampant, enthusiastic volunteerism at the bottom, she might have written something like this:

I invite you to keep creating web sites, sending e-mails, and generally discussing and debating public education, but, as you do so, please also join the hundreds of other parents who are volunteering in the schools.

She might have, but she didn't.

Democracy of Sheep II

Tocqueville foresaw for America an eventual decline "different from anything there has ever been in the world before." He thought Americans would gradually recreate their government as an overarching institutional parent, and willingly enslave themselves to it, becoming "a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd" -- while still believing their freedom was intact and secure:

Under this system the citizens quit their state of dependence just long enough to choose their masters and then fall back into it. They think they have done enough to guarantee personal freedom when it is to the government . . . that they have handed it over.

According to Tocqueville, such a government "provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and divides their inheritances. . . . Thus it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rare[r], restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties."

In this decline the people become something less than fully human, something rather like sheep. (Again, for more discussion, see "I Am a Tocqueville Conservative.")

Democracy of Thugs

The paternalistic society which democratically provides for everyone's basic needs has proven unsustainable. (Who would have guessed it?) For several months we've heard of rioting in Greece, Spain, London, and even Philadelphia, as welfare states have finally begun to face the fact that they cannot keep their outlandish social-democratic promises.

The demos is understandably cranky. People who haven't needed to work for a living are rarely happy when government payments cease. People who should have relied at least partially on themselves for their retirement, but didn't, get scared when government retirement programs are scaled back -- or when that possibility is discussed. People who haven't been supporting their own families get angry when program cutbacks force them to do so.

Violence sometimes breaks out, when reality encroaches on social-democratic fantasy. We have seen it for months, more in England and Europe than in the United States, as the unsustainable democracy of sheep decays into a democracy of thugs. Note that the thugs in question are not looting grocery stores because they are starving. They are looting shoe stores and electronics stores because they are thugs, and even thugs like Nike shoes, iPods, and big televisions.

Lately we have seen demonstrations across the United States, notably in New York City, where "Occupy Wall Street" is all the rage. These demonstrations are neither as spontaneous as they appear nor as violent as their European counterparts, and their participants seem easily distracted by sex and drugs. They throw around the word democracy , but what they demand is socialism, in which the government provides for their needs. They don't wish to see and are not educated to understand that much of the world's economic tumult is the result of socialism's unsustainable chickens coming home to roost.

It's probably unfair to call all these protestors thugs. But it's not a long leap -- in logic or time -- from some of their present arguments and tactics to truly thuggish demands like, "Keep letting me live without working, or I'll bring down your economy and your government."

Meanwhile, the sporadic violence of these thugs pales next to the quiet, gradual, comfortable, dehumanizing violence wrought against human souls in the process of reducing them to sheep in the first place.

Therefore, What?

What should we do now? The same things we should always do: Understand the institutions and mechanisms which protect our freedom, including the two crucial elements of democracy here described. Survey the political landscape with unflagging vigilance. Evaluate practical and theoretical threats to freedom intelligently. Then be calm, civil, humane, articulate, and absolutely relentless in opposing those threats, whether their origin is the White House or the local school district's administration building.

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September 11, 2011

September 11 Reflections

Our barbarian enemies think our being different means we deserve to die. We civilized folk have much more subtle and much less violent ways of abusing people for being different.

First, the Heroes

After ten years my first thoughts about September 11, 2001, are the same as they were on that day: of our heroes. I think first of the heroes who ran into the fire. I think next of those splendid, ordinary New Yorkers, who, as Paul Greenberg noted, "would happily trample their fellow man on an ordinary day, but [who on this day] were rushing to help however they could." I've been fond of New Yorkers for decades, but one decade ago today, I was unspeakably proud of them.

To be sure, I have almost nothing new to write about the heroes of 9/11; I still want to say, but will not repeat here, just what I wrote before, with only these two small addenda.

I read this week and recommend the story of two Air Force pilots who scrambled their unarmed F-16s -- the only combat aircraft available -- to bring down Flight 93 short of its target. There was no time to arm their jets with missiles or bullets, so they planned to attack the Boeing 757 in the only way they could: by ramming it, almost certainly at the cost of their own lives. As they hastily suited up, Col. Marc Sasseville said he'd take the airliner's cockpit. His wingman -- well, not wingman -- Lt. Heather Penney said she'd take the tail. As you know, the passengers -- more heroes -- brought down the jet before the F-16 pilots had to. But I don't doubt that these two pilots would have done it.

I also recommend Peggy Noonan's Friday column, which ends with this eloquence:

They tell us to get over it, they say to move on, and they mean it well: We can't bring an air of tragedy into the future. But I will never get over it. To get over it is to get over the guy who stayed behind on a high floor with his friend who was in a wheelchair. To get over it is to get over the woman by herself with the sign in the darkness: "America You Are Not Alone." To get over it is to get over the guys who ran into the fire and not away from the fire.

You've got to be loyal to pain sometimes to be loyal to the glory that came out of it.

Not a Day for Politics

My thoughts run next to politics, policy, warfare, and the endless, captivating details of history. While others have gone far away and fought my battles for me, I've read and listened to millions of words about all this, and I've written thousands of words. But this doesn't feel to me like a day for politics. If it does to you, you could read these good essays by Victor Davis Hanson, Rudy Giuliani, Charles Krauthammer, and George Will, who apply the benefit of hindsight to ten years of history, including the warfare and the politics. If not today, perhaps you might read them soon.

Only with difficulty can I drag my thoughts beyond these matters, even today. When I finally succeed, I find myself in a different place entirely. Before I describe it, allow me to assure you that I am not saying 9/11 was our fault. It was mass murder, an act of war by an enemy. It was not collective justice. There is no confusion or ambiguity in my mind on this point.

Ideology and Flawed Character

I find myself pondering the ideologies and the character flaws which combine to make some humans think that they have the right, or even the duty, to kill people who think and believe differently. This barbarism horrifies us, as it should. Even we who still think some things are worth dying for recoil at the idea of killing not in self-defense, but to advance our ideology among those who reject it. We are justly repulsed by ideologies and acts which deny the humanity of humans who look or think differently.

Imagine how much different the twentieth century would have been, had evil people not committed mass murder in the name of their beliefs (religious or otherwise). September 11, 2001, was a clear warning that the present century may not necessarily be less brutal than the previous one in this respect, and that ideologically motivated mass murder did not disappear with the fall of Soviet communism.

We congratulate ourselves for being more civilized than these murderers. We are more civilized, and civilization is very much the issue. We are embroiled in a global war between civilization and militant, self-righteous barbarism.

Yet we should not be surprised that the human mind and heart, sufficiently distorted and inflamed, can justify to themselves the killing of people simply for being different and wishing to remain so. Without looking beyond the borders of our nation or even our neighborhoods, we can see much more civilized people, very much like ourselves, mistreating people in far less deadly ways, but for the same reason: they are somehow different.

I must emphasize the vast and crucial difference in degree between the abuses we often see among us and the evil zeal which condemns whole skyscrapers or even whole nations full of supposed infidels to death. There is no moral equivalency between the mass murderers of 9/11 and the local neighborhood gossip, bully, or bigot. But this overwhelming difference is quantitative, not qualitative. We will have advanced considerably further as a civilization when we are horrified by cases of the same disease which are not violent or immediately deadly.

The dominant pathology of this moral disease is the conviction that someone who is different is therefore less deserving of -- and here we might fill in the blank a dozen different ways. In the sick minds of some extremists, people who choose to think, worship, or live differently do not deserve to live. Less evil but still dangerous villains might think that differences justify physical violence, or at least the threat of it. A certain species of self-righteous bigot will concede a different person's right to live, and would never approve violence, but will prefer that person to live elsewhere. A host of legal means have been used to try to enforce such things, but these days they don't usually withstand constitutional scrutiny in the United States.

More commonly, there may simply be tacet encouragement for the different people to pack up and leave. People who would never directly tell someone else to leave are sometimes willing to encourage the same result by ostracizing or simply ignoring a neighbor. They may shower their kind and friendly neighborly attentions on everyone else, but not on the person or family who is somehow different.

We who would never think of hijacking an airliner may nonethless believe that anyone who does not share our politics, our religion, or our personal tastes may be somewhat evil, not just different. So we refuse to let our children play with that different neighbor's children, because his  family does not go to the same church, or does not go to church at all, or has the wrong political views, or sometimes enjoys a beer or a smoke. Instead of strapping on an explosive vest and blowing up his backyard barbecue (family, guests, and all), we simply ignore him and neglect to invite him to our own barbecue, and maybe whisper a morsel or two of gossip about him to the other neighbors. We may do nothing to stop our children from making his children's lives difficult at school and on the playground. He may be a master craftsman with a well-established reputation for honesty, but we will not hire him, because his accent and his religious roots are different -- perhaps from somewhere far away, like Boston, instead of Salt Lake City.

If this "different" neighbor were engaging in criminal activity, a hostile response would be warranted, not to mention a call to local law enforcement. But when we marginalize people of good character, simply because they have different beliefs, backgrounds, or tastes, we are feeding something we really should not want to grow. It probably will never grow up into some sort of extremist jihad. But it doesn't have to grow much to hurt people in smaller ways.

When we nurture our prejudices instead of our neighbors, or cultivate anger, fear, or indifference instead of friendship; when we take opportunities for tolerance, understanding, or forgiveness and pervert them into causes for hostile words or actions; when we find joy or satisfaction in others' pain, sorrow, or even destruction; when we overlook our neighbors' moral virtues and focus instead on what we judge to be their moral vices -- when we do any of these things, we move ourselves and our society ever so slightly away from civilization, toward barbarism.

Resolve

Our civilization is already vastly different from the ideals of the bloody tyrants who would replace it with their medieval barbarism. If we want to make our own difference in honor of today's anniversary, perhaps we could labor between now and the next anniversary to make our own neighborhoods, ahem, a little different -- so that they are not just vastly different from the barbarians' vision, as now, but completely different. The heroes who rushed into the fire on September 11 did not stop to consider the victims' religion, politics, gender, skin color, grooming habits, or sexual orientation. In the highest sense, they were neighbors to all their neighbors.

In these heroes' honor -- if we can find no other reason -- we could be neighbors to all our neighbors, despite differences in religious beliefs or practices, political convictions, economic level, age, education, accent, fashion sense, musical tastes, or any of the other things which we foolishly allow to divide us. I don't have to adopt your views, your tastes, or your chosen lifestyle to be your neighbor, or for you to be mine. But I must do more than tolerate you. I must value you as a human being. I must be all my neighbors' neighbor.

People who have learned to be neighbors to all their neighbors, despite differences, do not fly airliners into skyscrapers, and they don't volunteer to be suicide bombers. They don't beat up people for being black or white or even gay. They don't mock or ignore people for looking, talking, or worshipping differently, or for being old or young or tall or short or fat or thin.

Neighbors thus fully civilized don't start the fire, cheer the fire, or even hope for the fire. But they run into the fire, figuratively and sometimes literally, as on September 11. They may not be recognized as heroes on the network news, but in their quiet way they are heroes to their neighbors. They are the best that our civilization has to offer. They are the best evidence that civilization itself is worth saving.

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