Quote of the day: Patriotism

This is from Howard Zinn’s latest book, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress:

Patriotism in a democratic society cannot possibly be unquestioning support of the government, not if we take seriously the principles of democracy as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, our founding document. The Declaration makes a clear distinction between the government and the people. Governments are artificial creations, the Declaration says, established by the people with the obligation obligation to protect certain ends: the equal rights of all to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” And “whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to “alter or abolish it….”

Surely, if it is the right of the people to “alter and abolish,” it is their right to criticize, even severely, policies they believe destructive of the ends for which government has been established. This principle, in the Declaration of Independence, suggests that true patriotism lies in supporting the values the country is supposed to cherish: equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. When our government compromises, undermines, or attacks those values, it is being unpatriotic.

Sound familiar?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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On religious chauvinism

Joe Conason offers a succinct and on-target take on the dust-up over Mitt Romney’s Mormonism and the GOP evangelical base’s antipathy toward him.

The issue is not whether a Mormon should be elected or could be elected, but why we should allow those who wish to impose their sense of faith on the American public. Romney, after all, offered this comment as part of his speech:

“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom … Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.”

As Conason writes, however,

This statement is so patently false that it scarcely deserves refutation. If Romney has studied the bloody history of his own church, then he knows that the religious fervor of its adversaries drove them to deprive the Mormons not only of their freedom but their lives, and that the Mormons reacted in kind. If he has studied the bloody history of the world’s older religions, then he knows that the most devout Christians of all sects have not hesitated to suppress, torture and murder “heretics” throughout history. Only the strictest separation of church and state has permitted the establishment of societies where freedom of conscience prevails — and those freedoms are firmly rooted in societies where organized religion has long been in decline.

That’s what makes the discussion about Romney important; it’s not the electoral math, but the constitutional implications of connecting religion and government.

And it is the implied religious chauvinism of Romney and former Arkansas Go. Mike Huckabee that should worry us all.

Phonies like Huckabee and Romney complain constantly about the supposed religious intolerance of secular liberals. But the truth is that liberals — including agnostics and atheists — have long been far more tolerant of religious believers in office than the other way around. They helped elect a Southern Baptist named Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1976, and today they support a Mormon named Harry Reid who is the Senate majority leader — which makes him the highest-ranking Mormon officeholder in American history. Nobody in the Democratic Party has displayed the slightest prejudice about Reid’s religion.

Liberals and progressives have no apologies to make, or at least no more than libertarians and conservatives do. Cherishing the freedoms protected by a secular society need not imply any disrespect for religion. But when candidates like Romney and Huckabee press the boundaries of the Constitution to promote themselves as candidates of faith, it is time to push back.

I couldn’t agree more.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Political economics

I’ve said this before, but Paul Krugman is one of the best newspaper columnists out there.

Maybe it is because he’s not a part of the Washington establishment — he’s an economics professor at Princeton — or perhaps it’s his understanding of the economy and his willingness to contradict what has become mainstream orthodoxy. But he has served during these desultory Bush years as an antidote to the banal and inane that often passes for political analysis, at least on the tube.

That’s why I was pleased to hear that Krugman will be at Barnes & Noble tonight (read Time Off story) to hawk his book, The Conscience of a Liberal.

Krugman, according to the reviews I’ve read (unfortunately, I’ve yet to read the book), calls for a return to the liberal verities — to a government safety net and away from the redistribution of wealth from workers to the rich. He calls for universal health care and for protection of Social Security and he questions the priorities of the current administration.

In his column today, for instance, takes on the Paulsen mortgage relief plan. Henry Paulsen, secretary of the treasury, has proposed a voluntary plan in which some banks might be inclined to offer temporary relief.

Mr. Paulson’s plan — or, to use its official name, the Hope Now Alliance plan — is entirely focused on reducing investor losses. Any minor relief it might provide to troubled borrowers is clearly incidental. And it is does nothing for the victims of predatory lending.

The plan sets voluntary guidelines under which some, but only some, borrowers whose mortgage payments are set to rise may get temporary relief.

This is supposed to help investors, because foreclosing on a house is expensive: there are big legal fees, and the house normally sells for less than the value of the mortgage. “Foreclosure is to no one’s benefit,” said Mr. Paulson in a White House interactive forum. “I’ve heard estimates that mortgage investors lose 40 to 50 percent on their investment if it goes into foreclosure.”

But won’t the borrowers gain, too? Not if the planners can help it. Relief is restricted to borrowers whose mortgage debt is at least 97 percent of the house’s value — which means that in many, perhaps most, cases those who get debt relief will be borrowers who owe more than their house is worth. These people would be nearly as well off in financial terms if they simply walked away.

And what about people with good credit who were misled into bad mortgage deals, who should have been steered to loans with better terms? They get nothing: the Paulson plan specifically excludes borrowers with good credit scores. In fact, the plan actually provides an incentive for some people to miss debt payments, because that would make them look like bad credit risks and eligible for relief.

So the bulk of sub-prime borrowers are left to the market as the investor class gets a bailout. This makes sense only if you view government primarily as a catalyst for business and not as a defender of the citizenry.

So, off to Barnes & Noble I go tonight to hear what Krugman has to say and maybe pick up a signed copy of the book.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.