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Via Chris Bodenner of The Dish, an article about the wisdom of Richard Nixon. This quote from him is amazing:

“I think of what happened to Greece and Rome, and you see what is left — only the pillars… What has happened, of course, is that the great civilizations of the past, as they have become wealthy, as they have lost their will to live, to improve, they then have become subject to decadence that eventually destroys the civilization. The U.S. is now reaching that period.” 

How interesting. Especially curious to me is that Nixon said that in 1971, and almost exactly nine years later, Ronald Reagan, in his acceptance speech, said:

“The major issue of this campaign is the direct political, personal and moral responsibility of Democratic Party leadership –in the White House and in Congress — for this unprecedented calamity which has befallen us. They tell us they have done the most that humanly could be done. They say that the United States has had its day in the sun; that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems; that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities.

My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view.” 

Kind of a major shift, no?

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So, I was reading the late Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States this past weekend. Reading this book on Fourth of July weekend is probably enough to consign me to Hell in the opinion of some Conservatives, for Zinn aimed to de-romanticize many of our well-known historical figures, like Columbus and the Founders, and to tell history from the perspectives of native Americans, women, slaves and so forth. He was also a socialist, and certainly an obsession with class permeates his book.

One issue I see in it, particularly in Zinn’s section on the Founding Fathers, is that his reasoning often takes this form: the rules of the government were made by the powerful, and protected their interests. (A lot of this, in the case of the Founders, is based on the work of Charles Beard) This is certainly true, and it’s worth keeping in mind. But it is also worth remembering that the powerful always make the rules by definition, because that is what power is. This is trivially true, in other words.

Now, distrust of concentrated power is a very healthy thing in my opinion, and of course more equal distribution of power is theoretically what representative Democracy like ours does. We elect people who will act in what they think is the best interest of their constituents. But these people still have quite a lot of power; all voting does is give the people the chance to pick who they think will act in their best interest with power. And this is where things like charisma and personal qualities can be something of an “X factor”, and sometimes lead to undesirable results.

So, I’m not sure what exactly Zinn would have liked to see in place of this system, since 100% equality of power seems impossible. Still, Zinn’s idea of looking at history from a different perspective is very interesting one, and all the more so given the outright hatred his work inspires among the Conservatives.

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Comedian Bill Maher said recently that he is “not one of those people who believes in American exceptionalism”. This has, of course, drawn the ire of the Conservatives, although the context of his statement shows him to actually be praising us relative to another country. (Afghanistan.)

Also, back in May, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post wrote an article called “The myth of American Exceptionalism“. The title alone is enough to upset Conservative writers, but he did not stop there:

“It turns out, however, that some of those most inclined to exalt American exceptionalism are simply using the imaginary past to defend their cultural tics — conventional marriage or school prayer or, for some odd reason, a furious antipathy to the notion that mankind has contributed (just a bit) to global warming… 

[American exceptionalism] discourages compromise, for what God has made exceptional, man must not alter. And yet clearly America must change fundamentally or continue to decline. It could begin by junking a phrase that reeks of arrogance and discourages compromise. American exceptionalism ought to be called American narcissism. We look perfect only to ourselves.” 

Mark Fitzgibbons, conservative writer for American Thinker, responded:

“Marriage, you see, is just a cultural tic to the Left.”

“What Cohen will never understand is that it is our system of freedom that makes us exceptional. It is freedom that allows us to maximize our potential, be peaceful yet respond quickly with strength to threats, to learn from failure, and succeed through personal responsibility, not because of the State. It is through freedom that individuals may reach their greatest potential, and that best benefits others. It is because of freedom that we are a prosperous and charitable people. “

The “American exceptionalism” debate is a fascinating one for so many reasons, but let me begin by saying that I take it from this that Fitzgibbons believes that “traditional” marriage ought to be defended, and that homosexual marriage should be forbidden. Odd, for someone who goes on to champion “freedom”.

It is interesting to see American exceptionalism justified on the grounds of freedom. We are very free indeed in America, but not so free (economically) as Hong Kong is, at least if you go by the Heritage Foundation’s measure. Socially speaking, many of the Scandinavian countries are a good deal more free than we are. (Incidentally, as Conservatives used to notice, Switzerland gives people much more freedom to keep and bear arms than we do.)

I do not intend to suggest that these places are better than the United States. But if we are better than them overall, it is not purely because of “freedom”. So, we might hypothesize that we are exceptional because we have found just the right mixture of freedom and restraint that is necessary to succeed. A pleasant, (perhaps slightly Panglossian) thought.

In any event, as I have remarked before, the definition of American exceptionalism is not clear. If it means that America is unique, well, that is certainly true. All countries are to some extent unique, due to geographical differences even if nothing else.

Moreover, America is a superpower, which is an even more exclusive club. But the Conservatives seem to me to insist on an even higher type of exceptionalism, one which seems to carry with it a certain hubris.

P.S. The title comes from a quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck: “The Americans have contrived to be surrounded on two sides by weak neighbors and on two sides by fish!”  There does not seem to be any source for this quote, so I doubt he really said it, but I think it is amusing nonetheless.

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Via Andrew Sullivan, a very interesting post by Amanda Marcotte about Sarah Palin’s Paul Revere comments:

“I think it helps to understand that, for right-wing populists, this thing we call “history” is less about real people who did real things in the real world, and more like just the Bible Part II. It’s a myth that can be manipulated to suit their purpose, which is usually to establish themselves as the only Real Americans. When Palin says she got it right, I believe she believes that, because her story wasn’t really about Paul Revere. Her story was a thinly veiled allegory of the Tea Party worldview.”

This is a very astute point, but also slightly misleading, I think. While they do manipulate the myth, it could also be viewed from the perspective that the “myth” is just the product of a Romantic (to use the term in its increasingly archaic sense) mindset. It may not be a propagandistic effort at all, but rather a manifestation of an idealistic Romantic nationalism.

UPDATE: As I thought about it, I realized this issue is sort of related to what I said in the last lines of this post. 

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A reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog writes in to him, saying:

“I just had a revelation that may seem obvious, but I think I now really understand the difference between liberals and conservatives. The former perpetually live in the 1960s… while the latter live perpetually in the 1970s…

How can we move both groups into the 1980s and 1990s, when both sides accepted a lot of what was right about what the other side had to say?… Why is it that the history of 40-50 years ago seems to impact on people’s thinking so much more than the history of 20-30 years ago that ought to be fresher in their minds?”

It’s a good point, but here’s my answer: both sides didn’t “accept” what the other side said, they merely made necessary compromises. The 1970s and especially the ’60s are when the conservative and liberal parties we know today first emerged, and hence it is there that we may see them in their purest forms.

As for why they don’t compromise–well, nobody likes to see the pure form diluted, do they? And this makes sense, because it’s standard negotiating practice to ask for more than what you actually expect to get.

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(Warning: This post links to the Wikipedia page about Che Guevara, which contains a disturbing image.)

President Obama has chosen not to release the photos of bin Laden’s body, although they will almost certainly be leaked by somebody, if they haven’t been already.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, there is a serious risk involved with releasing the photos. When the Bolivian government killed Che Guevara, they opted to display his body to the press. Bad idea. People started comparing it to famous depictions of the body of Christ for some reason. We don’t want to spark similar martyring impulses among the radicals. (Then again, why worry what fanatics will think?)

On the other hand, I don’t like the idea of the government withholding information from people. It’s a tough call.

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Republican Congressman Allen West has some hints for the modern woman (video here):

“What made the Spartan men strong, it was the Spartan women. Because the Spartan women at the age of nine gave up their male sons… when they were finally ready to join the Spartan army, it was not their father who gave them their cloak and shield, it was their mother… and she said: ‘Spartan, here is your shield. Come back bearing this shield, or being borne upon it.” 

There are many references I could make here. I could reference Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

“‘In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were REAL men, women were REAL women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.'” 

I also could reference this song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida. (How can I not after West says “male sons” in this context?) This is but a sample; there were many such wise-guy quips I could think of.

But, after all, this does actually provide us with a little window into the Conservative mindset. It’s related to what I talked about in this post, although I think West is more militaristic than even your average Conservative.

What I need to find out now is how accurate his history is. I (shamefully) don’t know enough about this period to judge.

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I was reading an interesting profile of Paul Krugman in New York Magazine. A particularly good passage:

“Back in 2006, when he was writing The Conscience of a Liberal, Krugman found himself searching for a way to describe his own political Eden, his vision of America before the Fall. He knew the moment that he wanted to describe: the fifties and early sixties, when prosperity was not only broad but broadly shared… [His wife] suggested that he describe his own childhood, in the middle-class suburb of Merrick, Long Island…

Would he prefer Merrick in the sixties to his current life? ‘Knowing that I am in fact me, this is a much better society for me to live in. And not because of the money but because it’s more open, more tolerant,’ Krugman says.” 

 The whole article is quite good, and Krugman is an interesting guy. I’ve been re-reading Conscience of a Liberal concurrent with Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland. Both very good books, and both of which examine the issue of, as the above article puts it, “the Fall”.

I’m sure it’s partly exaggerated “good old days” stuff, but still, it’s amazing how relatively peaceful and prosperous people say that the country was back in the fifties and early sixties.

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People are quite excited over the upcoming wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The couple seems nice enough, but I can’t figure out why some people–especially Americans–get so interested in it. Not that it’s wrong; I just don’t get it.

Unlike in England and  most of Europe, there’s no tradition of loyalty to a Monarch or an aristocracy in the U.S. The people who favored the Monarchy went to Canada after the Revolution. I sometimes wonder about the ways in which this affected our political system and culture.

Of course, it could be we’ve also found an outlet for that same impulse by obsessing over celebrities of other sorts.