Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Peter Robinson ·
Aug 7, 2011 at 4:48pm
Michael Barone in the Washington Examiner:
I think the...mistake the Obama Democrats have made is that they suppose ordinary voters want government to channel more money in their direction.
They're not the only ones to take this view. In the Bush years, thoughtful conservatives -- David Frum, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam -- noted that most people's real incomes had not been rising and wrote books calling for government policies to bolster their incomes.
But ordinary Americans don't want money as much as they want honor. They want what the chance to achieve what American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks calls "earned success."
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Sep '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
A lot of well-meaning people forget, or never knew, the difference between wealth and income. When you think about how wealth is created in this country, it is often from small businesses and real estate where people risk their capital and take relatively less income over a long period, often their life times to build something that often does not show up in the income statistics. The saving rate and the income statistics are woefully inadequate in portraying the dynamic American economy.
May '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
"Ordinary Americans don't want money as much as they want honor."
Boy that honor point is big. Oh, ordinary Americans still want money, too, but they've started to grasp that those days are gone. Now it's their sense of honor, particularly men's sense of honor -- their desire to be seen as heroes by their wives, by their buddies -- that needs to be exploited. We're talking male Reagan Democrats here: I know these people and, I tell ya, they would be receptive to the case, if presented in just the right way, that now the country needs them to step up, to be tough guys, to sacrifice benefits even while working their fannies off to grow the economy. And their wives would come right along with them.
The "middle" now gets that we're in a fix. A certain non-elitist type of politician who also has a non-extremist vibe (Ryan, Christie, Rubio, maybe Pawlenty, maybe others) could pull of an appeal to honor -- and, subtly, a shaming of dishonor -- and it would change everything.
Dec '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Yep. Though it has nothing to do, whatsoever, with New York City or Washington, D.C.
There will never be honor at the behest of the people that inhabit those environs.
The honor will derive from ordinary people ignoring those people and those places and facing their neighbors, instead. Those people in those places will never honor our obligations.
We will. And then we will ignore the protestations of our adolescent child that is government and ground it. Or we won't, but I think that we will.
It doesn't much matter to me, which we choose to do. Government is alerady completely out of control. It cannot protect my home, or our borders, or our relationships with foreign entities.
Every aspect of the reason free people elect to have a government has been abused, perhaps even beyond the imaginings of our Founders.
Nov '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
I am not entirely sure Michael is right. I think that probably half of the people I know do not want "earned success." They want to go to work and do an acceptable job then get their 3% each year. For certain I know many people who aren't that way, but the number of people I know who are is disturbing. Maybe I just don't know many ordinary people.
Mar '11
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Increasingly, I don't think this is true. I deeply, deeply hope I'm wrong about that. But I just don't think that 51% of us are ready to cut the government for honor or any other reason.
Edited on Aug 7, 2011 at 6:32pmDec '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
I know a 20-something woman who lists "disabled" as her occupation on facebook. Apparenlty being welded to the government teat is considered a socially acceptable occupation now.
Jun '11
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Here's the most important complaint in the article quoted in this post, "Government works for the irresponsible, not the responsible."
What's left is this: HELLO WASHINGTON,--- IT'S NOT EASY OUT HERE. YOU ARE SCREWING IT UP FOR US WORKING PEOPLE! We want to succeed on our own but don't poison the system.
That's all we want. Be responsible in a reasonable way.
I think President Obama was embarrassing in his light blue tie Thursday night. He looked broken and possibly drunk.
Our enemies are on the move. Here we are big-time embracing butter over guns with an unbelievably terrible leader. God help us....
Mar '11
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Americans, like the rest of mankind, want to think themselves honorable while at the same time gaining all they can from dishonor. If the "average" American was as fantastic as everyone claims we wouldn't be in this mess.
Aug '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
It's this cultural side of the fiscal issue that I don't hear much about from our politicians. It's not simply that we can't afford our swelling entitlements for economic reasons. Even if, as Michael Moore claims, we could fund an endless stream of government giveaways merely by raising taxes, it would be wrong to do so. Depending upon government when you are capable of taking care of yourself is a vice, and should be called exactly that.
The welfare state began in the Roosevelt era, but for decades we were somewhat innoculated against its worst effects by the sense that dependency was a moral failing. I now see a generation of Americans who seem to have no such feeling. Give some group a subsidy or benefit, and instantly they are addicted to it; try to take it away, or even reduce it, and prepare for angry protests. You can't run a civilization on this basis--it is unsustainable.
Our entitlement system cannot be made solvent as long as people actually feel entitled to it. Honor must make a comeback, and this means that the culture must re-learn that dependency is dishonorable.
Dec '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Like others have said, I hope I'm wrong, but I think too many of us want material security, honor and liberty be damned. Our affluence has undone our founding. We are largely ignorant of the exceptional idea of self-government by a virtuous people. And so, becoming a European-style social democracy seems reasonable.
This is where I disagree with Tully. I know of no one who claims that the "average" American is fantastic. I certainly don't hear it from conservatives, who almost universally take the tragic view of fallen man. It isn't America's people who make her exceptional. It's her founding idea.
Feb '11
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
The flipside of this honor is the shame of taking a handout. Unfortunately the stigma attached to receiving welfare seems to have diapeared. We have gone from a last resort "safety net" to a culture of victimhood and entitlement.
Dec '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Western, do you think the founding idea has been forgotten or just muddled? I was reading some Rawls tonight (Claire's challenge in another topic) and I think it is probably the later.
May '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
My guess is that, in the American election season, the only thing that beats bribes is idealism, and only if the salesman is convincing. That was Reagan's strong point.
---
I think an idealistic national project (like the moon landing) would draw massive support. Here's my suggestion: A two-pronged assault on cerebral palsy. People with cerebral palsy have a normal mind trapped in a body they can't control. Call it a National Liberation Movement to liberate those people. Liberty is an American theme.
Why two pronged? One prong is computer robotics to create an "alternative body." The other prong is neuroscience to understand the root causes and find a cure. Set the two prongs in competition with each other to see who can reach the goal first. Americans like competition.
Think of the spin-off effects.
Man does not live by food-stamps alone.
Edited on Aug 7, 2011 at 7:47pmDec '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
It's an interesting fact that Jefferson altered Locke's "life, liberty and property." One can lament that Jefferson may have inadvertently undermined the notion of property rights. I think, however, that he reflected the American ethos rather well. Americans focus less, I think, than other cultures on material goods.
The American "dream" is rather modest, all things considered,
Dec '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Well KP, I chose the word "ignorant" carefully. I'd say the Left's takeover of the education establishment has resulted in both a muddling of what the American Revolution was in comparison, say, to the French Revolution and, in the most extreme malpractice, to a form of amnesia -- a societal forgetting -- through neglecting the teaching of this history completely. Public school graduates are more likely to know about recycling and endangered species than the radically conservative principles on which the country was founded. In either case, it's ignorance.
Jan '11
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Ouch! It is hard to keep one's head in the sand with news like this. Please tell us she posts on facebook typing with a pencil in her mouth. Or trusty Lassie turns on the speech recognition system. Does she like quiet reptiles?
Dec '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Yeah...ok.
Ouch! It is hard to keep one's head in the sand with news like this. Please tell us she posts on facebook typing with a pencil in her mouth. Or trusty Lassie turns on the speech recognition system. Does she like quiet reptiles? · Aug 7 at 8:37pm
I don't know her well enough to ask what her disability is, but judging from her weight (I'm so judgemental!) it's might be type 2 diabetes. I'm probably just being jaded, though.
Nov '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Scott Reusser:
Boy that honor point is big. ...it's their sense of honor, particularly men's sense of honor -- their desire to be seen as heroes by their wives, by their buddies -- that needs to be exploited. We're talking male Reagan Democrats here: I know these people and, I tell ya, they would be receptive to the case, if presented in just the right way...
I completely agree. I also know such folks. And it's not just the Reagan Dems. The concept inspires all but the most cynical. But to me, 'honor' is not the right word - the word is a bit cliched - not the concept, just the word. Too Hollywood for my taste.
Jun '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
AmishDude: "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
It's an interesting fact that Jefferson altered Locke's "life, liberty and property." One can lament that Jefferson may have inadvertently undermined the notion of property rights. I think, however, that he reflected the American ethos rather well. Americans focus less, I think, than other cultures on material goods.
The American "dream" is rather modest, all things considered, · Aug 7 at 7:58pm
Spot on.
Jun '10
Re: Michael Barone: Americans Want Honor
Here's MacArthur's trinity, AmishDude:
"Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.