Over the past decade or so, there’s been a movement in our schools to make every kid a winner.  In gym class, in sports events, in spelling bees, in tests of every kind, every child was often given an award or citation to cushion their fragile self-esteem.  Competition was eliminated and “winning” was downgraded to a mere technicality.  If you came in second, you still won!  No losers here, kids.  You’re all equally mediocre.

This politically correct virus has now spread dangerously into the U.S. military.  The armed forces exist for this reason: if called upon, to kill the enemy.  The military also exists to deter the enemy so that lethal force is not needed.  But if necessary, our troops are trained and ready to wipe out our enemies before they can wipe us out.

Now, thanks to same Pentagon social engineers who brought us the ideas of gays serving openly in the military and women on submarines, the military is considering a “courageous restraint” award.  What on God’s green earth is THAT, you ask?  Good question.  Apparently, you will now be able to win a medal for “holding your fire” and avoiding civilian casualties.  Implicit in this utter ridiculousness is that our troops do not NOW show “courageous restraint,” do not NOW “hold their fire” until absolutely necessary, and do not NOW avoid civilian casualties.  This is an insult to the fine and selfless men and women in uniform who give up their lives—in some cases,
literally—to prosecute a war and defend the American people.

Military awards are bestowed for uncommon valor in combat.  They should not be given for doing what the good and decent American armed forces are trained to do anyway: use force judiciously.

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Barely three months after I advised Americans to Think Twice Before Opening Door to Census Worker, two Indiana women were allegedly attacked by 39-year-old Daniel Miller, a U.S. Census worker who had been on the job for two weeks and now faces rape and burglary charges, according to a news report out of Indianapolis.

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office Oct. 7 revealed that approximately 785 employees with disqualifying criminal records could end up working for the Census Bureau this year. Excerpts (below) show the exact wording of the agency’s frightening information about the people who go door to door conducting interviews and collecting information for the 2010 Census:

The Bureau’s efforts to fingerprint employees, which was required as part of a criminal background check, did not proceed smoothly, in part because of training issues. As a result, over 35,000 temporary census workers — over a fifth of the address canvassing workforce — were hired despite the fact that their fingerprints could not be processed and they were not fully screened for employment eligibility.

…of the prints that could be processed, fingerprint results identified 1,800 temporary workers (1.1 percent of total hires) with criminal records that name check alone failed to identify. Of the 1,800 workers with criminal records, approximately 750 (42 percent) were terminated or were further reviewed because the Bureau determined their criminal records — which included crimes such as rape, manslaughter, and child abuse — disqualified them from census employment.

…we estimate that approximately 785 employees with unclassifiable prints could have disqualifying criminal records but still end up working for the Bureau.

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“Astroturf” is one of those common refrains used by the left when they want desperately for opposing views to be discredited.  The George Soros funded mouthpiece non-ironically lobbied just that charge at a new, anti-net neutrality website called NoNetBrutality.com this week.

Think Progress claimed the website was part of a “secret plan to attack net neutrality.”  CNET News showed otherwise:

On its Think Progress blog, the liberal advocacy group announced it had “obtained” a PowerPoint document “which reveals how the telecom industry is orchestrating the latest campaign against Net neutrality” through a pseudo-grassroots effort. The story was echoed on Slashdot, Boing Boing, and innumerable pro-regulation blogs.

There’s just one problem with Think Progress’ claim: It’s not, well, accurate.

In a case of truth being stranger than astroturf, it turns out that the PowerPoint document was prepared as a class project for a competition in Florida last month. It cost the six students a grand total of $173.95, including $18 for clip art.

And just how secret was this nefarious plot?

Not only was the PowerPoint document presentation no secret, but it was posted publicly on the competition’s blog, along with an audio recording of the event in Miami where the student contestants presented their ideas to the judges.

The online liberal echo-chamber then picked up the false story and ran with it.

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Why is it that President Obama can travel to Cairo to promote the wearing of the hijab, but when presented with an opportunity to make a relevant statement on women’s rights issues in the Middle East, he and his Administration are silent?  It has been more than two weeks since Iran was handed a seat on the UN Commission on the Status of Women and still, not one word of condemnation from President Obama, Secretary Clinton, or UN Ambassador Rice.  Granted, we have become conditioned to expect world-sanctioned hypocrisy over at the United Nations, but this new appointment comes at a time which is especially dangerous to the women who actually live in Iran.

The women’s rights movement in the Islamic Republic has been building momentum for decades and in recent years has served as inspiration for human rights activists around the world.

Last summer in particular, women took to the streets of Iran in record numbers to peacefully protest what is widely considered to be a fraudulent Presidential election.  Activists in Iran have capitalized on this momentum and they continue to protest peacefully — now in an attempt to reform their government’s violent and oppressive laws against women.

This revitalized civil rights movement comes at a time when Iran is attempting to position itself as the leader of the Islamic world.  Emboldened women who seek to shift the Republic away from its stringent adherence to Islamic Shariah law pose a huge threat to the existing power structure of the ruling government and an even greater threat to Iran’s credibility in the entire region.  It is not the vague prospect of possible UN sanctions which is worrisome to the Iranian government, it is the empowerment of its own citizens — especially the ones in headscarves.

The result is a governmental crackdown on activists along with stricter, harsher laws and propaganda aimed against all women. It is no coincidence that we are witnessing more odd/troubling news coming from Iran — a cleric blames women for earthquakes and then days later a fatwa is issued against women with suntans.  News like this makes for catchy sound bites and headlines, but mainstream sources often overlook the harsher reality — women in the Islamic Republic lack even the most basic rights to personal freedom.  They have no right to choose their own husbands, have no right to divorce, cannot travel without the permission of their husbands, and are even barred from singing and dancing in public.  Activists in Iran face unimaginable odds, yet they are still rising up in peaceful protest — by doing so, they face the possibility of arrest, detention, torture, rape, and even death. (more…)

A third instance of Elena Kagan opposing Americans’ Second Amendment right to own a gun became public Thursday, ensuring gun rights will be a major issue in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. It also confirms that President Obama’s gun-control agenda is to create a Supreme Court that will “reinterpret” the Second Amendment until that amendment means nothing at all.

This year, no case on the Supreme Court docket is more important than McDonald v. Chicago, where the Court is deciding whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is only a right you have against the federal government, or instead if the Second Amendment (like most of the Bill of Rights) also secures a right you can assert against state and local governments. At issue is whether Chicago’s law banning guns—even in your own home—is constitutional.

When the Supreme Court considered its last Second Amendment case in 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller, then-Solicitor General Paul Clement filed a brief in the case, and then requested and received time to argue the federal government’s position on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

When the McDonald case was argued before the Court on March 2, current Solicitor General Kagan argued… Nothing. Not only did she not ask for time during oral argument, she didn’t even file a brief (which the solicitor general routinely does in important constitutional cases—and the McDonald case is tremendously important).

If someone asserts that the solicitor general shouldn’t file a brief because it’s a state issue as to whether the Second Amendment is “incorporated” to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (which is the issue in McDonald) the record speaks to the contrary. The last time the Supreme Court “incorporated” a right from the Bill of Rights to the states, in the 1969 case Benton v. Maryland, the solicitor general filed a brief, and then (just like Heller in 2008) was given time in oral argument time to express the government’s views in front of the Court.

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Today, in 1948, Israel is declared an independent state. It is immediately attacked by all of its Arab neighbors. There were no settlements at the time. Also, no occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip or Golan Heights. Israel was attacked simply because it existed. It continues today.

Late this afternoon Lt. Colonel Oliver North confirmed that Taliban leader and Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Mohammed Omar has been captured.  The exclusive news of Omar’s capture was broken by Big Government Monday evening.

According to Colonel North, Omar was picked up in Karachi on March 27th by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) who placed him under house arrest in what they call “community care.”

Per North’s sources, “[Omar] has since been transferred to a secret ISI lock-up under the Pakistani euphemism: “institutional care.”

North goes on to state, “According to several reports, all of this information was confirmed to U.S. officials by a senior Pakistani military officer ‘several weeks ago.’”  A fact also broken in Monday’s Big Government exclusive.

Last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a “diplomatic firestorm” when she indicted Pakistani cooperation with the U.S. in the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives.  Said Clinton, “I believe somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is (sic), where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is (sic)…”

North hopes the Secretary was “dissembling,” because intelligence sources here in the U.S. and Afghanistan have informed him that Pakistani officials “know exactly where Mullah Omar is: in the hands of the ISI.”  Driving the point home, North added, “This should not be news to the U.S. Secretary of State.”

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Common Sense: Obama, Karzai & the Stench

Washington, DC – The two presidents – Karzai and Obama – were on stage together in the East Room of the White House for forty minutes on May 12. They each talked about how they had differed in the past and how committed they are to going forward together. Both leaders expressed great hope in their mutual “quest for peace” and the forthcoming “Peace Jirga” or “reconciliation talks” to be held in Kabul at the end of this month. Neither leader – nor any of the journalists present – mentioned a “cease fire” or the unseen skunk at their picnic: Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, secretive head of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, is one of the most wanted men on Earth. His sanguinary regime sheltered Osama bin-Laden’s Al Qaeda as it prepared for the 9-11-01 attacks. The U.S. government’s “Rewards for Justice” program has a standing offer of “up to 10 million dollars” for information resulting in his capture or confirmed death because he “represents a continuing threat to America and her allies.” Now, thanks to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Mullah Omar may be a key factor in the upcoming “Peace Talks” trumpeted by Messer’s Obama and Karzai at their joint White House press conference. (more…)

Elena Kagan may be hostile to the view that the 2^ndAmendment to the Constitution protects American’s individual right to keep and bear arms.  Bloomberg reports today, “Kagan Was ‘Not Sympathetic’ as Law Clerk to Gun-Rights Argument.”  With the evidence presented by the Los Angeles Times that Kagan was very active in the gun control agenda during her time as counsel for the President Bill Clinton Administration, a thorough examination of Kagan’s views on the 2^nd Amendment is merited.

Bloomberg Reports that “Elena Kagan said as a U.S. Supreme Court law clerk in 1987 that she was ‘not sympathetic’ toward a man who contended that his constitutional rights were violated when he was convicted for carrying an unlicensed pistol.”  In the wake of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision holding that the 2^nd Amendment is an individual right, it is incumbent upon Senators to explore the views of Solicitor General Elena Kagan on American’s civil right to own a firearm. More from Bloomberg:

Kagan, whom President Barack Obama nominated to the high court this week, made the comment to Justice Thurgood Marshall, urging him in a one-paragraph memo to vote against hearing the District of Columbia man’s appeal. The man’s “sole contention is that the District of Columbia’s firearms statutes violate his constitutional right to ‘keep and bear arms,’” Kagan wrote. “I’m not sympathetic.”

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The apparent absence of grownups in the Administration and in Congress (not just this Administration and not just this Congress) has produced a truly sad, and indeed, scandalous spectacle.  History will not treat our current ruling class kindly with respect to immigration policy, nor should it.  If our own federal government doesn’t show sufficient respect for our nation’s borders, why should we expect anyone else to?

Clearly, the federal government has the sole authority and responsibility under the constitution to protect the nation’s borders.  But if the government fails, utterly fails, to discharge that responsibility or, worse, fails to even show an inclination to secure its borders, it is entirely reasonable that border states will attempt to do what the federal government has refused to do.  Sneaking into the United States in violation of all of our immigration procedures is a serious violation of our laws. Ignoring the law, or doing little or nothing to enforce the law, does not make illegal immigration any less illegal.

Arizona, the state with the most porous border, and with the highest ratio of illegal immigrants to population has enacted legislation (SB 1070) in an attempt to discourage the flow of illegals into its jurisdiction and to have sent home those illegals whose actions have raised reasonable suspicion of other violations of the law.   It is suspected violations of the law other than illegal entry that authorizes law-enforcement officers to inquire into one’s resident status, not the color of one’s skin, not one’s accent or one’s social customs.

SB 1070, contrary to what so many media talking heads and opportunistic politicians have suggested, is not a reincarnation of Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws, and Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the Arizona bill into law is not a reincarnation of Adolph Hitler.   Those who are whipping masses of well-intentioned Americans into a frenzy by equating Governor Brewer or SB 1070 with Nazism are far more reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels and his Nazi “big lie” propaganda campaign than are those Arizona lawmakers who are simply trying to do something about the unimpeded tide of illegal immigration into their state.

We would favor a sensible path to legal status including eventual citizenship for those undocumented aliens who want only to work, contribute to America’s growth and who respect our laws and our language, IF the federal government first secured the nation’s borders.  The reality is that a huge number of those who have come here without proper authorization, today, have children who are, in every respect, 100% American citizens. Another sad reality is that many, perhaps most, of those who so vehemently oppose what Arizona has legislated into law, really oppose any Act or policy, or the enforcement of any law, that deals with illegal immigration as a violation of the law.

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Arizona’s controversial immigration law has prompted many threats of boycotts. Now it’s spawned a new form of protest: the girlcott.

Until today, first place in the Arizona boycott stupidity contest was held by the brilliant MENSA minds who decided to boycott AriZona ice tea. “We’ll hit Jan Brewer and her state where it really hurts—in their pocketbooks,” no doubt went their gleeful thinking. What they failed to realize, however, is that the AriZona Bottling Company, producers of the popular ice tea and other savory beverages, is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. For you statistics buffs, Cincinnati Ohio’s Latino population, according to 2000 Census, was 1.3% or 4,230 residents out of a total of over 330,000 in the state contiguous to no foreign border.

Now—in a full court press of absurdity–a Chicago-area high school has decided to take on the AriZona tea boycotters in the political protest stupidity Olympics. This time it’s Highland Park High School and specifically District 113 Assistant Superintendant Suzan Hebson. You can read the play-by-play here and here, but to recap for those just tuning in, on Monday the school canceled the planned December girls varsity basketball tournament trip to Arizona. Hebson says the junket was junked because “it would not be aligned with our beliefs and values.”

This after the young hoopsters won their first Conference title in 26 years. After they spent months selling cookies to raise funds for the trip. I guess in Chicago, that’s just the way the politics crumble.

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President Obama’s nomination of Donald Berwick as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a gathering far less attention than a certain other nominee — but it will be getting more attention in the weeks to come, given his particularly radical agenda when it comes to health policy — an agenda that includes support for massive government rationing and his support of using health care bureaucracy to redistribute wealth.

Berwick is a leading Ivy League academic and technocrat – he’s graduated from Harvard not once, but three times – and is the founder of a Cambridge-based think-tank, the Institute for Health Care Improvement. Yet the job of running CMS is hardly the same as running a small think tank or talking in broad terms about the nature of health care – CMS is essentially the world’s second largest insurance company after the United Kingdom’s NHS, covering over 98 million people and overseeing roughly $800 billion annually in taxpayer-funded health care expenditures.

Berwick is a great fan of the NHS, and worked as a consultant on the project under Tony Blair. Berwick will have the opportunity to apply the ideas he gained through that experience with the power of the CMS position, which means that his nomination holds massive ramifications for Medicare and Medicaid recipients, hospitals and doctors and, under Obama’s law, all Americans.

Berwick: Health Care Must Redistribute Wealth

Key to understanding Berwick’s views on the NHS is a speech he gave as part of a presentation offered two years ago, in which he shared his thoughts on the NHS and health care generally. You can watch the full speech here. The full video shows several lines from Berwick that are notable. He decries private sector solutions to health care problems, dismissing the “invisible hand of the market” as an “unaccountable system.” He also states:

“I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country.”

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After three weeks, most Americans still do not understand all of the behind-closed-door deals that had to be cut on the $965 Billion dollar bailout of Greece.  It’s yet another complicated deal, with little transparency to let non-governmental folks understand the specifics.

But, I do understand the power of a dream that can inspire a new generation.  And I know that Obama just killed that dream.

Obama’s decision to expand bailouts to include Greece coincided with a Senate hearing on another decision Obama  made to cut funding for a government space travel program, killing the dream of a permanent station on the Moon or a landing on Mars.

As an unintended, but cruel, joke,  Obama’s decision to retreat from space exploration has been pushed as an example of  the President’s fiscal discipline.  No doubt, Obama was hoping that such cuts would mask the fact that  he has endorsed the greatest deficits spending in the history of the United States.

But, as with many of Obama’s posturings, fiscal discipline was a canard.  Obama’s decision to cut NASA’s space travel wasn’t fiscally disciplined, it was just ill-informed.

Let’s take another look  at these two decisions.

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After decades of fighting the Soviets, the Americans, and the current Karzai Afghan government, Mullah Omar has turned over a new leaf; at least according to this article.  All along he’s just been a misunderstood guy who probably couldn’t pay his mortgage, right?

For those of you not familiar with Mullah Omar, he’s the founder of the Taliban, its spiritual leader, and Osama bin Laden’s BFF. When Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, Omar was the country’s titular head who oversaw the beatings of anyone who didn’t adhere to one of the “strictest interpretation[s] of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world,” the shooting of women in the head in front of packed soccer stadiums of cheering fans, and the destruction of 1700 year old Buddhist statues.

Suddenly this crafty recluse has abandoned his long, careful use of couriers, and now allows his statements to be put out directly by his former nemesis, the Afghan government.  Maybe Karazi has even installed a red phone on his desk for Omar just like Glenn Beck!  Isn’t that awesome? We don’t even need a “Can’t we all get along” moment. It’s already here!

And what’s even better is that Omar’s latest missive, the one where he’s preaching peace with the same government who put out the statement for him, comes right before President Karzai’s much ballyhooed peace jirga. Wow! What are the odds? The timing on this one couldn’t be better, could it?

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Some major aspects of Arizona’s immigration law are Keynesian and left wing, and criticisms of these aspects are quite consistent with conservative values. I focus here on three of those values: one, the sovereignty of freedom; two, the sovereignty of the individual over the collective; three, the opposition to big government power.

S. B. 1070, in some key ways, falls short of these three principles.

One, the sovereignty of freedom: Often we are asked to choose between freedom and safety–and many understandably choose safety. But in S. B. 1070 precious little safety is provided in reality. If in enforcing this law there must be “lawful contact” with possible illegal immigrants and “the most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop,” very few of Arizona’s 500,000 illegal immigrants will be caught. But freedoms of many innocent people will be intruded upon. Of this, there is no doubt.

Two, the sovereignty of the individual over the collective: John Stuart Mill wisely observed the “tyranny of the prevailing opinion” throughout times in history. When, for example, the American majority approved the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II, those minority individuals who opposed such incarceration were called unpatriotic Americans by the majority. Similarly, those in the minority who denounced the majority’s defense of the Salem witch trials were called blasphemous. And those who criticize S. B. 1070 are dismissed by many in overly harsh tones.

Three, the opposition to big government power: S. B. 1070 doesn’t codify abuse, but it does codify the power for government abuse–and that abuse will surely come. Ten years ago in Texas, as a relevant example, a federal judge cited a catalogue of “reasonable suspicions” that police offered in stopping and searching vehicles in South Texas,

–”The vehicle was suspiciously dirty and muddy, or the vehicle was suspiciously squeaky clean.”

–”The vehicle was suspiciously traveling fast or was traveling suspiciously slow (or even was traveling suspiciously at precisely the speed limit).”

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Andy Stern unexpectedly abandons his Service Employee International Union (SEIU) presidency after working fourteen years to build his purple brand and obtaining the SEIU forced-unionism organizing coup of the century, a.k.a. ObamaCare.

Many expected Stern to announce that he was moving on to bigger things, or perhaps, new ObamaCare czar.  (see Liberty Chick’s post about Stern’s new gig as an event planner.)

Instead, Stern announces an almost Ecclesiastic (or perhaps The Byrds) sing-song reason for his departure:   “In life there is a time to learn, a time to lead, and then there is a time to leave.”

Hogwash!

Rather than finishing his term and announcing well in advance that he would not seek reelection,  Stern plunged SEIU and the workers who are forced pay as dues as a condition of keeping their jobs into an internal battle for power that is far from over. The repercussions created in this seemingly brief internal battle will eventually be felt throughout SEIU’s self proclaimed ‘global empire.’

It is unlikely that Stern arose one day and decided to retire – there are serious reasons for his actions.  Some speculate that it may be the financial mismanagement draining SEIU resources, the fading SEIU brand, or the growing scandals involving some of Stern’s handpicked local union bosses.  Whatever the reason(s), there is definitely something more to this story.  Over time as the disaffected leave, more will eventually be revealed and you will surely see many more posts at BigGovernment.com as the stories trickle out.

Former SEIU Local President Unimpressed With Stern’s Tenure (more…)

The financial reform bill is finally in its home stretch in the Senate, but Americans have yet to fully engage on the issue.  In fact, in recent weeks as I’ve worked with various grassroots leaders across the country to discuss the bill, its impacts on our economy and on us as American citizens, I must admit, it’s probably the first time I’ve ever found myself frustrated at the progress of activism.

It’s a complex issue, and let’s face it, not exactly an exciting one either.  But that’s precisely what the left is counting on.  So, whenever I find myself feeling frustrated that others might not share my same level of fervor on the issue, I remind myself of its complexity and lackluster appeal.  And then, I proceed directly to the source – the bill itself.

I hone in on a few key points in three categories that resonate with most activists I know:  Big Labor, Big Government, and Big Brother.  Put those together in the context of Big Banks, and they spell out big disaster.

As the left goes on demonizing Wall Street and big bankers on one hand, Democratic lawmakers on the other hand are busy making sweetheart backroom deals with them up on Capitol Hill, promoting their legislation to the public as “consumer protection.”  But really, such measures are nothing more than payback to the likes of three-way mortgage entitlement partnership stronghold of the Bank of America, Center for Responsible Lending and Fannie Mae.

Meanwhile Democrats and Obama allies like Organizing for America are also using the issue as a shameless fund-raising opportunity.

The banks actually SUPPORT this bill – so don’t let that “Main Street Not Wall Street” message fool you, no matter which side of this issue you’re on.

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Three times in the television era, voter anger has led to midterm losses approaching or exceeding 50 seats for the President’s Party. In 1966, 47 seats were lost, 48 seats were lost in 1974 and 52 seats were lost in 1994. In only one of those cases, however, did the Party that gained seats turn that voter anger into a long term mandate: 1994. The question this year is whether Republicans will follow the successful model of 1994 or make the same mistakes the Republicans made in 1966 and the Democrats made in 1974.

Voter Anger Equals Election Losses. In 1966, despite an economy growing at over 6% per year, Democrats and Lyndon Johnson lost 47 House seats. They managed that feat, in defiance of the “It’s the economy stupid” theory, by angering a significant portion of the voting populace with noneconomic policies on the Vietnam War, Civil Rights and the Great Society. That dynamic deflated Johnson’s approval rating to just 49%. In 1974, voter anger arose over an ethics backlash against the Republicans, i.e. Watergate, and a bad economy. Combined with Ford’s post pardon approval rating of 47%, the Republicans lost 48 seats. In 1994, despite a growing economy and 5 million new jobs dating back into the final year of the Bush Administration, Clinton’s approval rating was 46% and the Democrats lost 52 seats. Clinton gaffes and his decision to push through the largest tax increase in history – despite his promise to enact a middle class tax cut – fueled voter anger that year.

Anger Does Not Equal A Mandate. Obviously, voter anger, even with a good economy, can lead to poor Presidential approval ratings. Those Presidential approval ratings below 50% resulted in an average midterm loss of a staggering 49 seats. Even so, the combined elections of 1966, 1968, 1970 and 1972 did not bring a Republican majority in Congress. Despite big gains in 1974, the Democrats barely won the Presidency in 1976, lost seats in 1978, and lost the Presidency by a wide margin in 1980. In other words, those big election gains were not transformed into enduring mandates.

There is an obvious reason why.

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The European Union may have temporarily bandaged the sovereign-debt crisis in Greece. But we need to face the fact that Greece, Europe, and the United States all face the same problem. To varying degrees, we have build unsustainable welfare states that have called into question, once again, the sustainability of democratic government. Greece is the canary in the coal mine, not just in financial terms, but even more in political and philosophical terms.

Because of the spectacular success of American democracy over the last two centuries, we are apt to forget how discredited democracy was in 1776. The lesson of history was that, in democracies, demagogues would led the passionate and fickle masses would vote themselves the property of the rich minority, and tyranny would result.

The lessons–how Greek city-states destroyed themselves and were conquered by larger despotic empires, how Rome morphed from a republic into such a despotic empire–were well known to the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. James Madison observed that the ancient “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Even more familiar was England’s experiment in “commonwealth” democracy during their seventeenth-century Civil War. “Democracy” was a bad word at the time of the American Revolution.

The state governments under the Articles of Confederation repeated many of these ancient maladies. In particular, they engaged in the kind of inflationary debtor-relief polices that demagogues always proffer in times of economic distress. The American Constitution was in large part an effort to save democratic government from the tendency of majorities to vote themselves the property of minorities. Thus James Madison in the tenth Federalist argued that the new Constitution would help prevent a “rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project,” from going nationwide.

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