What is wrong with you people?
I don't know how useful it is to think of certain parts of the country as "real America" but my travels this month took me out of my Washington, D.C. residence and into Texas and Colorado. And let's just say that these are parts of the country where President Obama doesn't have an 85% approval rating, as he does in my neighborhood.
At a baseball game in Houston (where my Cardinals won 8-0), the guy on my right asked me "What is wrong with you people in Washington?" Others seated nearby joined in the friendly discussion. The fact is that whenever my conversations with locals turned to a discussion of where I hail from, I almost always got negative comments about what's happening in Congress or in the Obama administration.
For a good discussion of what's wrong with we Washingtonians, you could do worse than Boston University professor Angelo Codevilla's lengthy essay in the American Spectator on the ruling class, the country class and their looming clash:
Hence our ruling class's standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government -- meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc. Hence more power for the ruling class has been our ruling class's solution not just for economic downturns and social ills but also for hurricanes and tornadoes, global cooling and global warming.
Unfortunately it only gets more depressing from there.
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Re: What is wrong with you people?
How's this for a working definition, Mollie? The real America exists wherever people make their livings by selling goods and services to other people. Unreal America--which is to say, the America of government--exists wherever people make their livings by taxing other people, or (as in the case, of, say, lobbyists) by providing services to those who do.
If anyone would care to amend or tighten up that definition, please, be my guest.
Jun '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Real America is where the work boot shelves are full, and the influence shelves are empty.
Jun '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Thank you, Mollie, for posting a link to the Codevilla essay. I've mentioned it in a number of threads over the last four days, but few people recognize its significance. By way of answering Peter, I would characterize (as per Codevilla) "real" America as that part of the country which still believes in genuine (small "r") republican government. Unfortunately, the other America has become a ruling oligarchy. I won't restate Codevilla's arguments; read the whole article for yourselves, people.
I'll go out on a limb here. I think someday the Codevilla essay will rank in importance with Madison's Federalist Number 10 and Tom Paine's Common Sense as one of America's most important documents. It defines with clarity the nature of our current political struggle between the "elite" class and the "country class" (the rest of us). The current crisis will put to the test the mechanisms so carefully crafted by the Founding Fathers for a return of republican rule in the face of what should be regarded as a putsch by an oligarchic elite. If we don't roll back the statists now, we will witness the end of America as a republic.
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Glad to see you writing here, Mollie, and thanks for linking to a piece worthy of wide attention.
May '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
You talked politics at a baseball game? Minute Maid Park must sell stronger beer than I remember.
Peter, that works for me, though I might shorten the latter definition to "parasites and parades".
May '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Two words:
Sally Quinn
Jul '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
I like that definition. Now here's the big question: Is there some way we can use really, really imaginative redistricting maps—Phil Burton on steroids and cubed—to consolidate Unreal America into as few Congressional districts as possible?
I'm open to non-Euclidian geometry, if it comes to that. They say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
Jul '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Peter Robinson: How's this for a working definition, Mollie? The real America exists wherever people make their livings by selling goods and services to other people. Unreal America--which is to say, the America of government--exists wherever people make their livings by taxing other people, or (as in the case, of, say, lobbyists) by providing services to those who do.
If anyone would care to amend or tighten up that definition, please, be my guest. · Jul 22 at 3:54pm
I like that definition. Now here's the big question: Is there some way we can use really, really imaginative redistricting maps—Phil Burton on steroids and cubed—to consolidate Unreal America into as few Congressional districts as possible?
I'm open to non-Euclidian geometry, if it comes to that. They say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
Jun '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Mollie Hemingway: "President Obama doesn't have an 85% approval rating, as he does in my neighborhood."
Ricochet readers need to understand the demographics for "the district" as it's known colloquially. Unless things have changed since I left in 1998, Washington D.C. is still an apartheid town. Most everything west of Rock Creek Park and 16th Street, N.W. is white. Everything to the east is African American. There are a few areas where the population is blended, parts of Capital Hill and Adams-Morgan/Kalorama. When you consider the total population is 66% black, the 85% approval rating should not come as a surprise.
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Here's a real America example: my brother-in-law in Fargo (West Fargo, to be technical; different town) called me up one day, asked me to look at a letter to the editor he wanted to send about the school board. It was long and impassioned. I boiled it down, he sent it off, it was published, and it got people talking.
A year later, I'm in my sister's back yard. She says: Dave ran for the school board. He won. Eh? I asked him, wondered why he hadn't mentioned anything; he shrugged. He said he figured he should do something besides complain. So he stood for office and won. Not like like has plenty of time - runs the family business, gets up at 5:30, but he'll fit it in.
May '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Paules
Unless things have changed since I left in 1998, Washington D.C. is still an apartheid town. Most everything west of Rock Creek Park and 16th Street, N.W. is white. Everything to the east is African American. There are a few areas where the population is blended, parts of Capital Hill and Adams-Morgan/Kalorama. When you consider the total population is 66% black, the 85% approval rating should not come as a surprise. · Jul 22 at 7:54pm
A lot of things have changed since 1998 actually. I heard recently that for the first time since the early 70's, DC is less than 50% black. The most recent estimate I found was from 2008, which says 54% African American. The NPR mantra here is "gentrification, gentrification"
I live in Brookland in NE DC, as far from Rock Creek as you can get, and I'm white. The neighborhood here (near Catholic University) is mixed, like a lot of the "suburban" DC neighborhoods in NE... We even have an "organic" grocer now.
One thing has not changed. It's 95% democrat and 80% liberal.
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Augh - that auto-posted before I was done. Anyway: he's getting involved in government at the molecular level, for all the right reasons - and since he's already a rock-ribbed small-gummint type, I don't expect it will be A) pleasant, or B) a path to finding a new life as a member of the Taking-and-Bestowing class.
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Augh - that auto-posted before I was done. Anyway: he's getting involved in government at the molecular level, for all the right reasons - and since he's already a rock-ribbed small-gummint type, I don't expect it will be A) pleasant, or B) a path to finding a new life as a member of the Taking-and-Bestowing class. He just wants to do right by his community.
But he also runs an petroleum-distribution company, so he's also the enemy, and if cap-and-trade hurts the convenience store biz (there's another piece I have to write here) it's irrelevant: Sorry Charlie. Sometimes I think our betters in government are content to gut people like him until there are none left, and then cite their absence as proof the market and local control has failed, and government must step in.
I've yet to hear them say where government mustn't step in.
May '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Thanks Mollie. I've been pushing that piece in various threads since Sunday when I ran across it at Small Dead Animals (One of the great conservative blogs from the Great White North.)
Yet, some heaped praise on Anne Applebaum in these spaces lately and she fits Codevilla's description to a tee. Her article this week dared to say what the average American really thought about government. A Washington native that's spent the majority of her adult life in Europe, she wouldn't associate with your average American even if she had the chance.
As for what's wrong with you, Mollie, it's those Cardinals. They will cool off and when Mr. Isringhausen joins the Reds bullpen in a couple of weeks, eell, let's just say the run to October will be interesting.
Jun '10
Re: What is wrong with you people?
Ryan,
Thanks for the update. I suspected something was changing when I visited my brother last year in far north-west Montgomery County. It was odd to see neighborhoods of McMansions surrounded by dense blocks of apartments wherein resides the dependent class. Unless I miss my guess, government policy has created a new class of economic migrants, people who change location to take advantage of a fatter tax base and the benefits it generates. I find the idea both weird and disturbing, but I think I'm on to something.