Where are the great?

(Denver Post, Dec. 2) Midgets everywhere. Rappers, starlets, shrinks, scolds, facilitators, litigators, hustlers, hucksters, victims, vegans. Ours is the age of the shallow, the small, the squalid. Where are the great? “There were giants in the earth in those days,” says Genesis. Granted, every era magnifies the memory of bygone times. But what now passes for excellence in manhood and womanhood, thought and expression, moral and civic life, would make our grandparents shake their heads. For a third of a century we’ve lived in a house I call Marcus Bend, after my mother’s father, who helped buy it. I’m here surrounded with books and mementoes as the old year wanes, sobered by Christmas clamor, candidate noise and war news, wondering and worrying: Where are the great?

Stacked on the desk are “From Dawn to Decadence” by Jacques Barzun, “America: The Last Best Hope” by William Bennett, “The Abolition of Man” by C.S. Lewis, Winston Churchill’s memoir “My Early Life,” an FDR biography by Conrad Black, books on Chesterton and John Paul II, “The Western Canon” by Harold Bloom, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Ivan Denisovich” and his Harvard address. Collectively they look upon 2007 and frown.

The scholarly Barzun, who turned 100 last week, is a great man of our time and a worthy judge of greatness. His book, a history of civilization from 1500 to the present, warns of today’s “urge to build a wall against the past…a revulsion from things in the present that seem a curse from our forebears.”

He writes of the 20th century as a time when elements that “made the nation-state the carrier of civilization… a common language, a core of historical memories with heroes and villains, compulsory public schooling and military service… were decaying and could not be restored.” He hopes for a 22nd century when boredom may stir new “radicals” to study afresh the old texts, “the record of a fuller life,” from which the West then rediscovers “what a joy it is to be alive.” Of the present century Jacques Barzun is less hopeful.

By what sickness of the soul could America and other nations blessed with the heritage of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia come to see all of this as “a curse from our forebears?” Solzhenitsyn, another contemporary great, gives the diagnosis:

“The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even excess, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and dimmer…. All the celebrated technological achievements of progress do not redeem the 20th century’s moral poverty.” It is not true, insists the Russian giant, that “man is above everything.” Nor is it right that “man’s life and society’s activities should be ruled by material expansion above all.”

Courage, faith, integrity, and honor, ordinary virtues harnessed to extraordinary gifts, constitute human greatness or the potential for it. Guy McBride, retired president of the Colorado School of Mines, and Vernon Grounds, retired president of Denver Seminary, have that heroic stature with me. Some of those books I’ve found so inspiring, by or about the great, reached me through them.

Great souls ennoble our world in big and little ways. Think of the late Bill Hosokawa of the Denver Post, or former Sen. Bill Armstrong. Is there a touch of that in Peter Groff, recently chosen as Colorado Senate President? We’ll see.

Over the centuries, nations flourish and fade in a cycle, the Scots philosopher Alexander Tytler is supposed to have said. Out of bondage come faith and courage, then liberty and abundance. But when these breed complacency and apathy, dependence ensues and bondage returns. If this sounds like an American self-portrait, we need to value greatness more.

Campos flunks Federalist 101

Paul Campos, the CU law professor and Rocky Mountain News columnist, needs to acquaint himself with James Madison, the father of our Constitution and fourth president of the United States. In a piece published on election day, Campos enthuses over a book called Our Undemocratic Constitution by fellow law prof Sandy Levinson of Texas. With iconoclastic bravado he entertains such daring questions as "whether [anyone's] lifelong devotion to the [Constitution] makes sense" and "whether some of our most basic political arrangements need to be overthrown." What Campos and Levinson overlook is merely the little problem of how any large and populous republic can avoid self-destructing through a tyranny of the majority. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, co-authors of The Federalist Papers, struggled in print with this age-old difficulty, after they and 50 other gifted statesmen -- next to whom these pompous profs are as pygmies -- had struggled with it in convention for months at Philadelphia. Federalist No. 51, penned by Madison, sums up the challenge this way:

"...what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

Campos suavely labels the checks, balances, and compromises of the Philadelphia Convention's workmanship as "products of political choices made 220 years ago... that are ripe for revisiting, given that the world has changed somewhat since the 18th century." He offers no proof, however -- nor could he -- that human nature with its failings and its power-lust has changed one bit in all these years. Indeed he shows no comprehension at all that abuse of political power is even a problem.

Apparently on Planet Campos the angelic conditions are present which Madison found lacking here on earth. O happy fortune to live in Boulder, where there is no need to "oblige [government] to control itself."

Note: After writing the above for the Gang of Four blog on PoliticsWest.com, I was delighted to receive supporting fire from Joshua Sharf on that same blog, and from Denver attorney Roger Castle as cited below:

Somebody with more voice than me needs to "school" these two law professors about the Constitution, and about logic! These are truly hare-brained ideas.

1. Who said anything should be, or is, best as a pure democracy? He assumes it is, without first establishing that. Shallow!

2. Did he ever read his history books about how the States agreed to come together, only with protection for their States' independence and rights? Moreover, his argument assumes that the "undemocratic" Senate reigns supreme, unchecked by the "democratic" House? Why is that wonderfully "democratic" House letting that nasty undemocratic Senate "steal" all those federal tax dollars? And why does he believe the "democratic" House's majority power should henceforth be allowed to "steal" tax revenues from the smaller (Senate) states against their consent?

3. Because both houses have to agree and the President can veto, he complains that this makes "legislative reform" difficult? Isn't that a choice word! In plain English, he really means that two houses make it more difficult to "pass new laws". Those Constitutional provisions limit the power of government and slow the process of knee-jerk change. It also gives some respect to the status quo and tradition. Those are principles to which the "progressive" law professor is no doubt opposed, but to which the vast majority of the "democratic-voting" Americans would readily agree. How many times have you heard someone complain recently about there not being enough laws being passed?

4. If, under our representative system, "only the rich and powerful can get laws passed", why would we want to give them even more ease in passing those laws....er,sorry..."reforms"? If a purely "democratic" Congress is the answer, why doesn't the current "democratic" House already block all those laws designed by the Senate for the "rich and powerful"? After all, the Senate and the President can do nothing alone!

5. Right now, we sure don't have too much partisan political posturing, campaigning, mudslinging, and carping do we? Our Congressional leaders are all just wholly committed to simply doing the business of the people? Right! *&%#@*^+**. So what do these two professors want to do? Have Congress constantly debating/posturing to have the current "incompetent" President removed early! Because after all, changing Presidents and having Presidential campaigns are just not happening enough to suit our tastes!

6.Query: why didn't Campos/Levinson advocate this Presidential removal provision during the Clinton years? It couldn't possibly be due to their politics, so it must be their newly enlightened view of how wonderful pure democracy is -- but which they don't bother to explain to us.

7. While technology, etc., has changed, human nature and political power have not changed one iota since "220 years ago" or the "18th Century". They still need to be held in check! And these two guys are prime examples.

Unionize for productivity? Right

The uproar over Governor Ritter’s executive order setting all state employees on a path to unionization has been extraordinary. Business outrage, legislative indignation, and editorial denunciation all indicate a political event of seismic proportion. Politics aside however, thoughtful observers were even more astonished by the governor’s bold assertion that his decision was a sure path to improved service and greater productivity on the part of state workers.

Unfortunately there is no persuasive evidence in this state, in this country, or for that matter the world that supports this assertion. In fact the preponderance of evidence points in precisely the opposite direction – poorer service and lower productivity. The historical record makes this quite clear.

Unions reached their peak a half century ago when nearly one in three American workers were members. During the first half of the 20th century unions provided a much needed corrective to the excesses of the capitalist system. Their valuable role in bringing about a reasonable equilibrium between labor and management cannot be denied.

Time however has passed unions by – a helpful influence in the first half of the last century became a dragging anchor in the second. Having outlived their usefulness to the American economy and American workers alike, unions have seen a steady decline in membership. Yet concurrent with this fifty-year union decline, the American economy, and the well-being of the American worker has soared to hitherto unimaginable heights. Positive developments in technology, competition, trade, deregulation, and management have fueled this astonishing explosion of productivity; unions have only hindered it.

Today, fewer than one American worker in seven belongs to a labor union, and it is most instructive to see where you find them.

Unions in the private sector are almost an endangered species, and those industries where they remain prominent – such as auto manufacturing- are in deep trouble owing to utterly unsustainable union contracts. In the public sector, however, union membership, wealth and political clout is thriving. Absent the public, sector unionism in America is a non-entity.

It is most useful to ask what explains this stark dichotomy between private and public sector unions.

Joseph Stalin famously described his success in disposing of political opponents with the phrase “No man, no problem”. In the union context that might read “no competition, no problem”.

What school districts, municipalities, state and federal government have in common is that all are essentially monopoly enterprises with no competitors.

Let us be clear that public service has been an honorable, satisfying, and worthwhile calling long before it encountered unions and will continue to be with or without unions.

It is equally clear that union leaders understand better than anyone that competition for them is the kiss of death and they will do absolutely anything in their power to snuff it out before it can demonstrate its inherent popularity and effectiveness. An example of this “preserve the monopoly at all costs” behavior is the recent flood of union money and manpower that poured into Utah to pass a ballot initiative overturning a new law that granted school vouchers to poor children.

This behavior and all the history that proceeds it should tell us all we need to know about any connection between unions and either productivity or the public interest.

Bill Ritter is a decent and sincere man who obviously wants what is good for Colorado. No doubt a case can be made for his recent executive order but trying to justify it as promoting improved service and productivity flies in the face of all history and common sense.

Not long ago Governor Ritter wisely and courageously vetoed a naked union power grab that had been jammed through the legislature by the usual suspects. Though incurring the furious wrath of his party’s left wing which had long viewed him darkly, Ritter caught the eye of the nation and suggested that Colorado had elected a truly “New Democrat” who harkened to the better angels of his party’s distant but honorable past, a man ready to defy the special interest on behalf of the public interest.

On a bleak Friday afternoon these illusions were shattered. We must all hope that for our governor and our state better days are ahead.

Colorado Education Commissioner from 1997-2007, Dr. Moloney is also a former member of the NEA and the Teamsters Union

Suburb to unions: Pass the hat yourself

Centennial voters did the right thing Tuesday in casting a 69% yes vote to pass my favorite initiative. It will keep government's hands off workers' paychecks as far as collecting political money for unions or any other special interest. It was called Question 200. The same issue needs to be on the statewide ballot next year, to protect against the undue influence that Big Labor obviously already holds with Bill Ritter and the Democratic legislature.

I've been the campaign chairman for Yes on 200 in my suburban community of Centennial, and I worked with Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute to get a similar measure passed by our Arapahoe County commissioners. El Paso, Weld, and other large counties have done the same. (Voters in Englewood and Greeley turned down such measures on Tuesday, however.)

Caldara is in fact hoping to take the idea statewide next year. He calls it the Ask First concept -- reflecting a simple process whereby political groups have to get members' permssion one by one to take part of what someone earns -- and then complete the transaction via credit card, bank autodraft, or some other non-government means. Details are at www.askfirstcolorado.com.

Gov. Ritter's collective bargaining edict for state workers gave Ask First advocates an early Christmas present. Other forces hoping to put Right to Work on the 2008 ballot (an effort with which Caldara and I are not connected) are also thanking Santa Bill.

Ask First issue on three local ballots

"Hands off workers' paychecks" will become the standard for local government in Centennial, Englewood, and Greeley, if voters agree in the November 6 election. The issue appears on the ballot as Question 200 in all three cities. Here is an oped I circulated as chairman of the Yes on 200 campaign in Centennial. The same logic applies in Englewood and Greeley. It's all part of a movement called Ask First that is gathering strength in localities across Colorado.

GOVERNMENT SHOULDN’T COLLECT POLITICAL MONEY By John Andrews

It was a proud day for many of us, back in September 2000, when the people of Centennial used a citizen petition to create Colorado’s newest city. This year, Centennial citizens have petitioned for Question 200, a proposed city ordinance supporting fairness and common sense. It deserves your support on our fall ballot.

At issue is whether unions and other dues-based organizations should be given access to city employees' paychecks, or whether these groups should collect money directly from their members. Question 200 would take our city government out of the role as middleman and leave employees' private decisions private.

Right now, there is nothing preventing any group, including political groups, from coming in and collecting automatic deductions from city employees' paychecks. Some people might like the idea of the NRA raising extra money that way, and others the ACLU. But that shouldn't be the role of government.

As long as the money that funnels through the city payroll system can come back to finance a candidate's election or influence her vote on a specific issue, we citizens can lose confidence in our officials. Passing Question 200 prevents the problem.

The city would be safeguarded from making financial transactions for special interests, but would keep deducting the things it's supposed to deduct. Our county commissioners had the foresight to approve this policy, and no harm has been done.

Like Arapahoe County, Centennial's payroll system still will be required to withhold taxes, make payments for health insurance and deposit pension funds, and fill court-ordered obligations to collect alimony and child support.

As for city employees who wish to have deductions made for their favorite charities—be it the United Way, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, or the Humane Society—they will sign a form each year approving the transaction. It's just a courtesy to make sure they're asked first.

All this also means the city payroll department will stay focused on essential services, and only on charitable causes close to the heart of its employees.

Employees who want to give money to associations, dues organizations, or political groups will have the same right to do so. Personal checks and electronic deposits through banks or credit unions give them that right and give them that control, but will keep government out of it. Question 200 is just the right thing to do.