Black Peter and Chief Thunderthud

When I was a boy, in the early years of national television, my favorite shows were "The Howdy Doody Show" and "The Lone Ranger." Howdy Doody was a marionette with an eclectic group of friends, among whom were a serious-acting Indian --uh, Native American-- known as Chief Thunderthud. Also, there was an Indian princess, Princess Summerfall Winterspring. The Lone Ranger, of course, had his "faithful" Indian companion, Tonto.

These were the conventions of my childhood: the Indians were faintly ridiculous, as Chief Thunderthud's name was meant to suggest, or exotic go-fers, like Tonto ("There's some medicine in my saddlebag Tonto --get it"). There were no Negroes, of course: they were beneath notice, even for comic relief, at least until Jack Benny came along with his --valet?-- Rochester. The joke among fifth graders one year had the Indian asserting superiority over the Negro because, "Nobody ever played cowboys and niggers." Funny, huh?

There were other ridiculous characters, of course, who were ordinary white people: Jingles P. Jones, played by Andy Divine as the high-pitched, warbly-voiced (Divine had been gassed in the trenches of WWI), faintly incompetent sidekick and comic foil of the earnest, straight-shooting Wild Bill Hickock. But the Indians were the ones who were invariably not to be taken seriously. When they were not villains, they were sort of silly.

That was racist, of course; and yet some of those old stereotypes are intrinsic to some of my fondest memories of childhood. We've pretty much discarded those old images, haven't we? Certainly, we don't take them seriously; they were the furniture of our innocence, perhaps, but we do not cherish them.

Nowadays, the Washington Redskins and certain other professional sports teams face mounting criticism of their nicknames and their mascots; and some of those teams, professional sports being what it is, look likely to hang on for a while to their monikers which are derided as outdated by non-partisans. An early casualty of what is derided as "political correctness" was the nickname of the Pekin, Illinois high school football team: they were the Chinks.

And this month, in the Netherlands, a blackfaced, red-lipsticked, Afro-haired critter known as Black Peter is getting lots of attention from those who find his character insulting to the growing diversity of that country. As in other such cases, fans of Black Peter have rushed to the defense of this helper (one anti-Peter commentator said, "slave") of Santa. Black Peter is a fond childhood memory, his defenders say. Some of them threaten violence against those who call the figure a racist relic. "He makes the little children happy," one journalist in Rotterdam said on NPR tonight, "he hands out candies."

Now, little children could as easily be made happy by a Blue Peter; they have no memories to overwrite. But the Black Peter stalwarts accuse those who object to him of racism themselves, which is a bit hard to fathom. They say that Black Peter is a cultural emblem, and they are threatened by what they perceive as the steady erosion of their "culture" by outsiders. I wonder if the original inhabitants of New Amsterdam may have felt the same way. The Dutch did a pretty good job of eliminating the culture of the natives of Manhattan Island.

I believe that, no matter how innocently intended, such unconscious racial and cultural stereotypes have to go. Sure, you didn't personally mean anything against black people when you laughed with joy at the appearance of Black Peter; how could you? You were six years old. But unconscious racism is still racism, in that it is a cultural milieu, affecting the dominant and the subservient alike, and poisoning any possibility of honest accommodation between them. As to the threats against a cultural symbol, I recall no outcry in Cincinnati when, in 1954, the baseball team that had been known as the "Reds" for fifty years suddenly became the "Redlegs" for a few seasons. The old name was just too uncomfortable in its association with the targets of Senator McCarthy; the "culture" adapted readily enough to permit the new name to appear on baseball cards and news stories.

So, thanks, Tonto, for all those enjoyable half-hours, when I didn't know any better. I will always remember you. But, Johnny Depp notwithstanding, you are properly relegated to history, a victim and a beneficiary of the gradual progress of humanity, which moves, ever to slowly, in the direction of recognizing your own.

And the Dutch will just have to adjust.

Hobby-ism

I must be missing something obvious, here.

The Supremes have granted certiorari to the Hobby Lobby case, in which the owners of that corporation, devout Christians who believe that the government should leave them alone so that they can patrol the bedrooms of their employees, insist that a requirement of Obamacare would force them to act in a fashion that is inimical to their free exercise of religion.

The Hobby Lobbyists are opposed to contraception , on religious grounds. Obamacare (aka the ACA) requires that insurance policies cover contraception. Thus, a federal mandate contravenes the religious conviction of the Green family, which owns the company, and so of the company itself.

First, a few riffs:

• Could the Hobby Lobby convert to, say, Islam? I mean, is it possible?
• Has the Hobby Lobby been baptised? If not, is it destined to burn in Hell?
• How does David Green, paterfamilias of the Green clan (which includes his wife and their three         --hmmmm-- children), know what the religion of the company is?
• In what fashion does the company, as opposed to Mr. Green himself, exercise its religion? I mean, other than by denying a valuable benefit to those whom it employs?

As to this last question, the company's stores are closed on Sundays. It's not Sunday, so I can't try to buy something on the website; but I bet I could do so. The company won't let its website observe the Sabbath, even though it does so itself?

Arguments that have surfaced, so far, deal with the Establishment Clause, with the distinction between speech and religious observance, with the lack of precedent --although the ACA itself unhelpfully exempts religious organizations and companies with fewer than 50 employees, among others, from the contraception mandate.

But I see (or, I think I see) another issue entirely. The fact that I don't find it anywhere being advanced makes me think I've missed a critical point. But here it is:

If the Hobby Lobby can be exempted from observing a law because of its religious convictions, can an Amish Hobby Lobby be exempted from withholding and paying Social Security Tax? (I guess my riff about converting to Islam wasn't such a silly lark, after all.) I mean, independent contractors who are Amish are so exempted; what's the distinction? Size? Does size really matter (sorry; just had to say that)?

We could conjure up even crazier cases. My religion requires that I sacrifice my first-born when he reaches age nine. I've been careful to raise him in isolation, promising him 47 virgins as a prize, etc, so that he is entirely willing to be sacrificed. Can I do it? 

My religion proscribes the education of women, and mandates that they be beaten daily, and that my daughters be married to octogenarians once they reach the age of six. All Okay?

I am a pacifist, and my company is a Quaker. Can my company refuse to pay half its income tax, because that portion of the federal budget is used for the Department of Defense?

I thought these are well-settled issues. I thought that, just because I live in Wyoming, I cannot legally avoid supporting the Coast Guard, which I don't need. But I hear daily someone complain that he shouldn't have to buy an insurance policy that includes coverage (maternity care, etc) that he can't possibly use. Well, I have no use for the NSA; and Texas Governor Rick Perry has no use for the Deparetment of Commerce, and the Department of Education, and ... what was that other one? Oops! So can he just refuse to let his taxes be used to support those functions?

All these arguments for exception are of a piece: I am not responsible for anything other than my own requirements, and those of whoever I choose to support. There's no such thing as societal, or community, responsibility or interdependence. those who say otherwise are socialists. And I shouldn't have to pay to maintain anything to which I am opposed.

Well, so be it. But what the Hobby Lobbys of the world, and their numerous offshoots and avatars, are really saying is that they believe in liberty only for themselves. Worse, they are willing to step on someone else's rights, and deny to the needy what they could easily provide them, in order to sustain their own privilege, their own conceit. These people do not participate in the American social and political covenant, except when they are forced to do so. The rules, they believe, are not for them.

"Thought" Leaders

Maybe it means that someone thought this person was a leader:

... monetary authorities' chatter about a "little inflation" guarantees that younger Americans will have to pay 1980s-level interest rates on their first homes."

So from Amity Shlaes in Forbes (10/7/13), surely the silliest and least substantive "business" publication in wide circulation. Ms. Shlaes wants "hard money" --paradoxically, so that interest rates can rise. In this, she is in the company of the rentier class, those who believe that, having amassed significant wealth, they should now be paid for having it. Note that the above quote, like pretty much all of what Ms. Shlaes says, is unaccompanied by an argument --it's just an assertion.

There are two things about this column that strike me: First, that Shlaes is worried about inflation; and second, that she is offended that a consensus is emerging in favor of "easier money no matter what direction interest rates take or what history's record suggests we do".

As for inflation; those with whom Shlaes agrees have been warning about hyper-inflation for 5 years. How long must we wait for this dire prediction to come true? Her concern for "history's record" is odd, given her resolute unwillingness to ignore the history of the past half-decade (or, in Japan, the past 2 decades). In much of the developed world, deflation is a greater worry than inflation.

And second, one of the reasons, of course, that a consensus is emerging (to the extent that this is the case) is that the many of those in the Shlaes cohort have slowly recognized that stimulus, including the Fed's Quantitative Easing policy, has not produced inflation.

As for the "1980s-level interest rates" she thinks is facing the next generation, she forgets that few of them appear to be inclined, or able, to purchase a first home. You have to be employed in order to do that.

 

Outrage Hits New Heights!

The Republicans made some tentative moves to reach an accommodation with the Democrats and President Obama today. At day's end, they announced an "encouraging" meeting with the President.

Perhaps the government shutdown, and the prospect of a default, will soon be resolved.

Of course, the fierce fighters of the Right aren't going to give up unconditionally; they're tough, dedicated, take-no-prisoners guys. There will be a hard price for Obama to pay. The Repubs have focused on the one issue that is, above all, raising howls of outrage from the American People, and they won't agree to anything until it is addressed.

They're still working on the slogan. Something along the lines of "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!"

But no matter what, they demand, absolutely demand, alongside the millions who are marching in the streets, an end to the universally hated 2% tax on medical devices.

The Root of the Problem

Paul Krugman, in yesterday's column, points to the basic problem with the Republican Party: it's the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes the relationship between incompetence and self-confidence. We've all experienced it: the guy at the next table, or on the bus, who loudly proclaims how something works, or what something means, when we know with certainty that he is far off base. Usually, it's someone, a "lay" person, who is spouting off about, say, a key aspect of our own professional life. 

I have gotten this from an employee who, hearing that the top marginal tax rate is about to increase, demands that his salary be held at one dollar below the threshold at which the top rate begins to apply. He'll show 'em! Of course, he's making the mistake of assuming that the top rate applies to all the earnings of a person who hits that threshold; either he doesn't know that we have a graduated income tax, or he doesn't know what that means.

In the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the less a person knows, the more he is likely to overestimate his own competence or sophistication. In contrast, the more someone knows, the more he is likely to be uncertain. It's why some very smart people appear unable to give simple, straightforward answers to questions about which they are highly knowledgeable: they are too aware of nuances.

The Republicans, and especially the Tea Party, have seriously emphasized doctrinal rigidity. No surprise, their candidates tend to toe the line on issues. When that happens, someone who thinks deeply is at a disadvantage against someone who does not: the latter guy can confidently and boldly assert the truth. And the "truth" is by definition not nuanced at all: it's obvious, there for anyone to see.

So Republicans elect more and more "true believers" who do not admit to doubt or complexity. And governing the country involves hugely complex matters involving a lot of uncertainty. Their solution? Find someone who can be labeled an "expert, and who says that which you want to hear. There is then no need to delve deeply into any issue. And, by the way, the average person is often attracted to bold assertions of opinion (especially when labeled "fact") from political leaders, because it gives them comfort: these guys must know what they're talking about. This completes the circle, if you will, of incompetence.

Now, if we have the Truth, the other guys must be wrong; and, if they're evidently smart, they must also be devious because they know what they're saying is wrong. It's a short step from that to the notion that they are liars who Hate America. If they are also very different from Us --they are dark-skinned, or have odd names--, well, QED: of course they hate America: they're not even American.

So we come to the notion that the debt default won't really be a problem, because we'll still have enough revenue to pay the basic bills. After all, most of what the government spends is wasted, right? So we'll just get Paul Ryan's budget cuts, all at once. Next stop: prosperity!

So do not expect that the Republicans will limply give in, when confronted with the Disaster: they are cognitively incapable of appreciating that it could possibly be a disaster.

Flash!! Repubs Hate Obamacare!

Or anything else that contains the word "Obama." They voted, in the House today, to impose a delay on the individual mandate. The President ordered a one-year delay in the employer coverage requirement, right? So it's only fair to delay the individual mandate. Stands to reason.

Hearing a Republican appeal to Reason is richly comic, of course. There's not even a need to list the GOP's positions that defy science, facts, the best interests of the USA, fairness, compassion, even their favorite "common sense." So why not make a mockery of reasonableness?

The fact is, Obamacare (aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) is the law; and though the House may vote 40 more times, to go with the 40 previous attempts, to repeal it, the law won't be repealed. It is becoming clear that Obamacare may be the worst nightmare of the Republican Party: a federal program that works, and that involves more regulation, and that helps millions of people --and that was a Democratic initiative.

The insurance rates for various companies serving New York, released today, make it clear how far some premiums are likely to fall. Each new piece of evidence that the PPACA may be onto something, that it may actually achieve greater coverage at lower prices, must feel like a stake in the heart of the Tea Party. So it's understandable that the GOP just can't let go of the illusion that, somehow, they can eliminate it, ar, better yet, make it fail miserably. They have tried starving it of funds for implementation, They've held hostage virtually every Obama Administration appointment. They've spread misinformation far and wide, including the canard that Obamacare will bankrupt the government, that the deficit, already huge, will soar ...

... what's that? the deficit has fallen by half, and looks to continue heading down? In June the government actually ran a surplus?

Ignore the man behind the curtain! the facts, to paraphrase a famous Alan Greenspan lament, are misbehaving; and that tends to make people disregard what I am telling them.

That seems to be a particular affliction on the Right, these days. Better go over to the House floor and vote against something; it feels so good.

... And Another Thing:

OK, I didn't go into the Race Thing when discussing Trayvon & George. So here goes.

Yes, Trayvon was probably "profiled" by George Zimmerman; it's likely that a similarly-attired, Skittles-carrying white kid would have passed by without notice. And that's a shame: it's just one more reason that the kid is dead.

Zimmerman, and you, can't help it: we "profile" every time we are out in public. Maybe it's girls: cute? ordinary? ugly? a "ten"? Or maybe it's people on LaSalle Street: Lawyer? Secretary? Messenger? Hustler?

These, and hundreds of others, are the categories into which we automatically sort people we encounter. It's based on our experience --some people are much better at it than others--; it saves time, just like when, in an unfamiliar store or other place, we look for the person we think can help us.

I am not saying that profiling by race or age or class or gender is okay; I'm just saying that we all do it, all the time. It can lead us to make mistakes. Some profiling is worse, by which I mean less helpful to us and more (potentially) unfair to the person being profiled. But every shampoo commercial in which the severe-looking woman suddenly removes her glasses and a few hairpins and, with a shake of the head, becomes someone else, is a tease based on our instinct to profile.

One reason skilled con men dress in suits and ties is that most people profile the suit-and-tie crowd as respectable (okay, maybe not exactly respectable: but, as Woody Guthrie sang, they may steal from you, but it will be with a fountain pen, not a pistol) and are willing to accept them --I almost wrote "at face value." And what does that phrase mean, except that we tend to judge by appearances? Had Trayvon Martin been wearing a suit and carrying a Bible, he could probably have knocked on dozens of doors without exciting alarm. No, it's not fair that a hoodie and jeans automatically produces a different reaction; but it's true. To take a more extreme example, it is perfectly possible that a steroid-enhanced biker with a head-scarf, bulging biceps in a cutoff leather vest, no shirt, boots, with a chain handing from his belt will elicit a sense of alarm, even if he's just a banker on his way to a costume party: the very point of his costume is to make us profile him, isn't it?

We should try to avoid profiling --sometimes. George Zimmerman apparently made a bad mistake, to the extent he was profiling Trayvon Martin, who evidently was a good kid. And I think we can say that people in positions of great power, such as cops and others authorized to walk around, armed, seeking out  potential trouble in order to prevent or defuse it, should be extra careful about how and when they profile. But no one would give a second thought to a cop who, seeing a ten year-old on a bike, would, whistling, turn away to go about his business.

So, we should deplore the situation, and the habit of profiling that led to the killing of Mr. Martin. But we will never be able to control that habit, as long as we are meat-eaters. It's too useful.

Not Guilty

Trayvon Martin is dead. George Zimmerman, his killer, has been found Not Guilty.

This verdict does not mean that he didn't do it; he agrees that he shot the kid. It does not mean "Innocent" --or, as his attorney would have it, "Completely Innocent." It does not even mean that he bears no responsibility for Martin's death. It just means that, under the applicable law, he could not be proven legally culpable; he could not be found to have committed Second-Degree Murder, or Manslaughter.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a few stone lighter than when he boldly took up the case of Tawana Brawley a couple of decades ago, disgracing himself in the process, of course has to step forward and demand a federal investigation. The Justice Department must assure one and all that it is looking into the matter. There must be demonstrations. All this is routine; it's fine.

And most reasonable people can pooh-pooh the defense attorney's assertion that Martin was, in fact armed, because there was a concrete sidewalk available to him. Which of us is not so armed?

We can almost certainly agree that, had Zimmerman not had a gun, there would probably have been no confrontation. We can wonder why a neighborhood "volunteer" --in a gated community, no less!-- has a need to carry a gun. Maybe it's because, without one, he would not have pursued so diligently the "ground" that Florida law allows him to "stand."

This was a sad, unnecessary affair. Zimmerman, if he has a conscience, will carry a burden to his own grave. Florida's (and, evidently, a couple dozen other states') "Stand Your Ground" laws are retrograde acknowledgements of a certain American macho mindset, best relegated to fat guys in Barca-Loungers on a Football Sunday, that asserts physical dominance as the emblem of manliness. Every society has its knuckle-draggers; only a few, such as our own, spends time and resources catering to them.

But I am tired of the growing tendency in this country to not let things be. Zimmerman was found Not Guilty. That should be an end of it. We can lament the verdict; but unless we heard all the evidence that was presented in court (not teed up for a good long Big Bertha drive by one "side" or the other in the press), we really have no right to an opinion. That's why we have juries. And to say that the verdict represented a miscarriage of justice is to say that the jurors were biased to the point of being willing to let a murderer go free. Not only is there no evidence of this; it's highly unlikely.

And I am tired of hearing, every time someone disagrees with a verdict, that now we should have another trial, based on substantially the same facts, to find a slightly different crime, such as a civil rights violation. That smacks of double jeopardy to me; and if there was a time in our history when it was necessary because of the systemic racism that ruled the law-enforcement system of some of our states, that time is past. What ever happened to the notion that we'd rather let a hundred criminals go free than convict one innocent man? A rational view would have to take into account that, absent a confession or some overwhelming eyewitness testimony --there was, clearly, neither--, a jury would have little choice but to entertain a reasonable doubt.

I don't like the fact that Trayvon Martin was killed. I don't like the gun laws. I don't like the notion of a citizen "deputized" by --who? someone or other-- to carry a weapon and be given the feeling that he's an important cog in the law-enforcement system. There are a lot of things I don't like; and I am sure that there are daily miscarriages of justice in the land, for lots of reasons.

And if I don't like these things, really, really a lot, then I am free to protest, to organize, to try and pass better laws or repeal bad ones. There's a process, folks. We've gone through it. Not Guilty means It's Over.

What's for dinner?

Entitlement

Q: Why am I opposed to "Means-Testing" Medicare or Social Security?

A: These programs are universally available to Americans. Turn 65, and you are automatically eligible to enroll in Medicare. When you reach 66 (currently; it'll be 67 in the future, which is a problem in its own right) you are eligible for Social Security benefits, assuming you or your spouse has paid into the system for a short period at some point in your working life.

This is what "entitlement" means. You are entitled to it, just as you are entitled (I.e., you have the right) to vote (except in an increasing number of Republican-controlled districts), to move wherever you can afford without getting a permit from anyone (since the defeat of Southern Democrat-led restrictive covenants in housing, starting 50 years ago).

To "means-test" these entitlements is to say, in Step One, that the wealthy are no longer entitled to them, because they don't need them. In other words, they become something akin to Welfare, and you will have to prove that you are financially eligible --in other words, prove that you are "poor." Mind you, there is no requirement to enroll in either of these programs; the civic-minded wealthy need not accept them.

Step Two will be to "end Welfare as we know it." That Clinton-Gingrich initiative certainly cut spending on welfare; it also contributed to overall levels of poverty and, in times of economic depression such as we are now experiencing, to severe economic distress.

To turn Social Security and Medicare into welfare programs is simply the beginning of a process that will result in their loss of legitimacy and an acceleration of the ongoing process of constructing a two-tiered society in which the rich prosper, the poor fall into Third-World levels of subsistence, and the middle class disappears.

Hey, the poor have always been easier to control than those who have even a small amount of personal independence, and who know they have rights.

The Trillion-Dollar Coin

The thing is, money is all about shared assumptions, conventions that are accepted generally. Even with gold, no one seriously believes that it is intrinsically "worth" such-and-such an amount per ounce. It's just a way of keeping score: if we had to exchange so many bushels of wheat or x-rays or dozens of eggs for a brake job or some such product or service, we'd all have to have huge lists, or databases, with us at all times in order to keep track of relative values. We'd never get anything done.

So, to a certain extent, all we are talking about when we talk about money is our shared willingness to agree on rates of exchange of products, and a quick and easy tool to enable us actually to make the exchanges we need to make.

So, as far as the trillion-dollar coin is concerned, we could just as easily pretend to have it; we could not make it, and say we had. The effect would be the same: okay, you've got this stuff, this "money" that we've all agreed to accept as a store of value and a medium of exchange. So, we'll take it, at convenient times and in convenient pieces, and in return we will mow your lawn or change the oil on your car --or provide you with a new car--; and then you will have what you want. Whatever we want, this stuff will be accepted by the next guy in return for it.

It seems to me that when you look at it this way, all the hand-wringing in Washington about the budget, the debt, and so forth is so much window-dressing. We have too much debt, it is said*. What that apparently is supposed to signify is this: other people have a lot of our debt. We owe other people way, way too much. We can't pay it all off.  So, the people who have our debt might decide they are uncomfortable, and want to get paid. The thing they would want to get paid with is this "money;" which exists only because we create it. So can't we just make some more?

Ah, say the skeptics: you might think we can, but it isn't so. If we make too much of it, people will get upset and will demand a lot more in payment, or stop accepting it altogether and demand something else.

That's where the notion of "full faith and credit" of the U.S. comes in: we are a rich, productive country, and everyone knows this, and so pretty much everyone is willing to believe that we can back up our promises (that is, our money) with our resources. We can create value in the form of things people want. Never mind that a lot of this value is intangible; it's real as long as people think it is real.

A trillion-dollar coin is, fundamentally, no different than a dollar bill. It would represent our contract, in a universally-accepted form, to perform in the future.

Put it this way: if you have a brokerage account, and a 401(k), and so forth, what do you really have? Numbers on a piece of paper, and not much more --in fact, if, like me, you've stopped receiving monthly statements on paper, all you have are images on a computer screen. But you can change these images into bank deposits (another intangible) and eventually into cans of pork 'n' beans; and, ultimately, that's all you care about. The pixels floating out there, or the numbers on sheets of paper, are just a method of score-keeping: they verify your entitlement to that can of beans, whenever you might want to claim it.

There's nothing magic about a trillion-dollar coin; the Mint could strike one trillion dollar coins, or dollar bills for that matter (however, there are laws restricting the amount of paper currency --but not of coinage-- that can be in circulation at one time). It is well-established in traditional economic theory that, in our current circumstances, such printing would not be inflationary; indeed, in spite of a constant chorus of warning, over the past 5 years, from right-wing politicians about hyper-inflation, the dramatic expansion of government "stimulus" and significant annual federal deficits, there has been no inflation. We've even flirted with deflation from time to time. But physically printing all that volume of money would be time- and resource-consuming (even if it were legal); let's just take the large-denomination coin shortcut.

In its function, the trillion-dollar coin would be indistinguishable from debt; but then, all money is, debt, isn't it?

*The federal debt is, very roughly, equal to the current annual output of the national economy. Is that "too much" debt? Reasonable people may differ. But for all the "government ought to be run like a household" people, I have a question: How many of you bought your first house for an amount equal to your annual salary? Did that purchase mean you had "too much debt?" And did you cut back to two meals a day in response? That is, essentially, what we are being asked to do now, by the Right.

Max Weber and the American Polity

In his treatise The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber posited a direct relationship between the religious ethic of the Puritan emigres who settled in Massachusetts and the economic prosperity that characterized the nation that, eventually, followed from that early venture. I won't try to do justice to Weber's argument; it's been fifty years, and although his book, like Emile Durkheim's Suicide, seemed to be found in every dormitory room and student apartment in Hyde Park during the Sixties, I no longer recall more than the bare bones.

Weber started with the notion of the Puritans that prosperity was a sign of the Lord's favor --that the doctrine of predestination, which said that everyone is born with an eternal future carved in stone, actually offered a way for us to find out what our particular fate would be. We couldn't change our destination, be it Heaven or Hell; but we could recognize its signs by reference to our station here on Earth: if you were honest, thrifty, and prosperous, that was a reliable sign that you were predestined for eternal glory.

According to Weber, the result was to encourage people to strive for the outward signs of the Lord's favor; and this striving produced a society of achievers, upstanding, moral citizens: capitalists, whose increasing prosperity would be evidence that they were of the Elect.

It was an ingenious theory, and it had the added bonus of providing a sort of imprimatur for rapacious capitalism: it was our destiny to be prosperous, because we were Chosen.

Americans have always gobbled up this notion. We are prosperous because we are virtuous because God has singled us out, as a nation, for glory, for election, for prosperity, for virtue. A circle, if you will, of endlessly ramifying justifications for being who we are. This sort of thinking has, over the generations, encompassed the often-asserted belief that the U.S. is a shining city on a hill; that we are the indispensable nation; that our destiny is manifest; that we are unique because we are uniquely good.

All those bromides have become the formulae of our national self-expression, found in the speeches of every politician and the unconscious, and un-selfconscious, beliefs of the average American. We are good. We are blessed by God, singled out because of our virtue.

And so, of course, if we do something, it must be good; it must be right, because it is we who do it. I have actually heard people say this.

And also, the typical American believes that what is true of us must also be true of himself, individually. We all believe this, deep in our hearts. Probably the typical Japanese or Canadian holds some species of similar belief; but for Americans it is close to a civic religion.

And, I suppose, it has probably produced some good: the melding of a real nation, after a lot of difficulty, based on some civic ideal rather than on common ethnicity or religion or race. At least, that's what we have always said about ourselves. But I detect a crack in that particular dike, and maybe more than a little water spilling out.

That ideal worked as long as we believed in the "we" part. Today, more and more, there are signs that what we are coming to believe is the "I" part: I am virtuous, and, okay, maybe those like me. But more and more "Americans" are not like me. They are not part of the Moral Majority; they are those people, they are unbelievers, they are (if they would permit abortions, as a matter of policy) killers of children, they are takers, they are socialists, haters of America, Kenyan Muslims.

I think we are creating tribes where we had none. And I think tribes are the enemy of stability and comity in a modern state, because the State typically no longer has an iron-fisted ruler (and, where it does, it also tends to be backward, strife-ridden, often vicious). A State, as we envision it, and as we celebrate our own, has to depend on common purpose; and common purpose is not found where one group regards another as irredeemably Other. So, while we still recite the old harmonious phrases like standard prayers in a liturgy long since rendered an empty formality, we do so either without conviction or (after Ruskin's Characteristics), in an effort to convince ourselves of what is no longer true.

So we now have tribes of fundamentalist Christians, many of whom seem to believe, and who broadcast that belief ever more loudly, that Others who do not accept the Jesus they adhere to, are lost; moreover, they are contaminating the virtuous. We have tribes of fundamentalist Jews, and Muslims, who view one another as worse than evil. We have tribes of Blue-Staters (I am one such) who believe that Republicans, or Evangelicals, or Southerners in general, are benighted and are to be ignored where possible. And of course each of these groups holds out exceptions for those who, although they may look like the Other, have some sort of redeeming feature.

We have a President who, although he is pretty conservative --certainly quite conservative if compared to, say, Richard Nixon--, is a Kenyan Socialist Muslim because, well, because he's a Democrat, at least in name (that's the reason that we allow to be voiced, anyway --many of us believe there's a more basic reason). And, for another tribe, that President is an appeaser of the Right, a timid half-stepper, a handmaid of big Money; but, after all, he's a Democrat, and for Gad's sake, he's Black. So we have to overlook the things we don't like. Notice that we are not overlooking what we don't like because it is outweighed by what we like, but primarily because of who he is. And for the other side, we don't like his ideas because they are his, not because of their substance.*

So here's where we appear to be going: Anyone who does not look and sound like us, is irretrievably foreign and not to be trusted, supported, or cooperated with. And we are carving up the "like us" definition into smaller and more rigidly-defined pieces. Several mainstream center-right politicians have had distinguished careers ended lately because of a single vote, or even because of no vote at all, but because of an insufficiently warlike attitude in Congress, or perhaps because of a compromising disposition or a willingness even just to befriend a member of the other party.

This is, for a democracy, the road to ruin. It makes normal governance impossible, because only one person can possibly have the right view, or policy: me. And there are over 500 of "me" in the U.S. Congress.

We are building walls around ourselves, in ever-smaller groups. And, like any gated community, those within those walls eventually forget what the rest of the world is even like. And the stories they tell themselves drift further and further from reality. Ultimately, there are small groups of the virtuous, ready to fight to the death against those who are not Elect. This is not the only recent import to the U.S. that ties us, ever more closely, to the politics of the Taliban.

*This attitude was expressed most forcefully by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, in their 2012 book It's Even Worse Than It Looks. In their introduction they describe the fate, in 2010, of a Senate resolution to create a bipartisan task force that would "fast-track" a procedure to resolve the so-called "debt problem." Ignoring the merits of the plan, it had broad bipartisan support. Until, that is, the President endorsed the idea. Once Obama indicated he was in favor, seven Republican co-sponsors voted against their own bill. So the resolution died, because even though it "carried" by a vote of 53-47, that is no longer enough in a Democracy. Like all Senate bills, these days, 60 votes are required for passage.