A Liberal’s July 4th Love Letter to America

All right, you great, big, bawdy, benevolent babe—I know we’ve had our issues.

On this end: war protests, flag burnings, jeering returning soldiers, torched cities, rejection of corporations and the almighty dollar as the true symbol of the republic.

Sitting out the Star Spangled Banner, lampooning every tradition, all those clouds of pungent smoke in the park.

Peace, love and moral mayhem.

On yours: the shameful treatment of Native Americans, blacks, women and gays, ill-advised invasions, coddling dictators, busting the unions and their working people, and at all costs making the world safe for the military-industrial complex.

I had a hard time for the longest time sidling up to you and your flag, given some of the things done under its banner and the dubious company it sometimes kept.

Now: I don’t want to suggest that all is forgotten...

Read More

Justice Scalia and the Anger That Ails Us

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s blistering dissent in yesterday’s decision legalizing gay marriage across all 50 states would have been extraordinary were it not for how characteristic and “ordinary” it has been of him through his 29-year tenure on the bench. Over a long litany of opinions, Scalia seems to be repeatedly furious and affronted that his colleagues on the court may think differently and come to different conclusions than him about the great matters before them.

Although Scalia’s response, a few highlights of which I will note below, is no doubt rooted in particular aspects of his personality, what is perhaps more troubling is how his anger and disdain for those who dare to disagree with him seems reflective of our broader political and social culture.

Is it just me, or do we seem to live in extraordinarily angry and disdainful times?

Granted, democracy is and always has been mes...

Read More

Third Annual “Songs of Summer”

We will not be talking about drought in this post. (That word will not appear again.)

Enough of aridity and deprivation for the moment, yes? Plenty of time—it’s not even July yet!—to wring our hands and plan the choreography of our rain dances for the fall. Instead, we’re going to be all about the best of summer. And the best of summer, and every other season, actually, has to involve music.

So let’s move right into this Third Annual Songs of Summer offering, shall we? Though before you scan the trio of songs below and ask, “Whoa, how could you leave out thus & such???…” I invite you to revisit the first two volumes of this annual series here and here. And if you still don’t see a fave song or a better rendition of one already mentioned, drop it into the Comments section below and I may just get to it next year, the gods willing and the planet still spinning.

That’s what happened with our first selecti...

Read More

Charleston, Big Government, and the Confederate Flag

New Jersey Governor and presidential candidate Chris Christie, hewing close to his party’s line on the Charleston atrocity:

“Laws can’t change this. Only the goodwill and the love of the American people can let those folks know that that act was unacceptable, disgraceful, and that we need to do more to show that we love each other.”

From Rand Paul:
“There’s a sickness in our country, but it’s not going to be solved by our government.”

Carly Fiorina:
“We ought not to start immediately rushing to policy prescriptions or engaging in the blame game.”

No, oppressive laws or “policy prescriptions” from an overreaching “socialist” government can never change anything.

Of course, there was that tiny matter of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

And the Supreme Court, those “big government” meddlers, deciding in Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) to ban segregation in public schools.

The Civil Rights ...

Read More

Saying “Yes!”

This season of commencement speeches and their exhortations to live your dreams, follow your bliss, etc. is usually accompanied by jaundiced responses from newspaper columnists about how tiresome it is to hear commencement speeches and their exhortations to live your dreams, follow your bliss, etc.

Granted, we have heard these messages of hope and idealism a time or two before. But I would ask these columnists what general theme they would propose commencement speakers embrace instead. Maybe something along the lines of:

“Lower your expectations! Dampen your hopes, scuttle your dreams, it’s just a bunch of hooey, you won’t even be able to change yourself, much less the world, give it up before you even start! Just say ‘No!’ to life!”

I suspect that message wouldn’t cause graduates to launch their mortarboards joyfully into the air or parents with moist eyes to look with gladdened hearts upon their ...

Read More