Top Down America – A $500 fine for home bible study?

In my book “Understanding American Exceptionalism ,” I outline how there are two ways to organize any given society. One is the English style, or bottom up, model. Its opposite is the French style, or top down system. What differentiates the two is that the English style places the greatest amount of freedom possible with the people. It puts its faith in the many. The French style, not surprisingly, is directly opposed to this. It places its faith in the wisdom of the few. In top down societies, government officials and bureaucrats make the decisions and impose them on the citizenry.

The story of modern America has been its transition from the world’s ultimate bottom up society to the worlds largest top down nation. Everywhere you look you see power being taken away from people as rules and regulations are imposed from on high by politicians and unelected bureaucrats. The most recent example of this is an Orange Country couple who were threatened with a $500 fine for holding home bible study classes. Read more about this outrageous story here.

When a county thinks it has the power to fine people for holding bible study classes in their own home, something is seriously out of whack. This is top down thinking at its worse and is directly opposed to America’s founding. I’m not sure what the answer to this is, but I suspect it has to do with the reemphasis of private property rights. Trying to take out individual regulations like this is a losing proposition. The regulatory hydra will always grow more heads. Only some kind of systemic change, like re-emphasing private property rights, will slay this beast. What do you think? Any other ideas?

Related articles

• Couple hit with fines for holding a Bible study in their home (hotair.com)
• -California City Fines Home Bible Study (answersforthefaith.com)

Budget Cuts vs Tax Increases

How should the United States balance its budget? The Republican view is that Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. This is why they advocate spending cuts over tax increases. The Democratic view, as expressed by President Obama, is that a more balanced approach is needed, meaning tax increases and spending cuts. Whose right? When considering this question it makes sense to look at countries who have successfully balanced their budgets … like Canada. How did Canada bring its bloated budget deficit into line? As Terence Corcoran notes, it was all done with spending cuts, not tax increases. Click here to learn more about the Canadian experience.

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Why The Left Is Skeptical Of American Exceptionalism

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about American Exceptionalism and just what it means. In fact, I’ve written a little book on the subject (now available on Kindle, soon to be available in paperback from Amazon It can be read in under 2 hours! ).  My conclusion is that what made America exceptional was that it was founded as what I call the ultimate bottom up, or English Style, society. This style of governing reserves the greatest amount of sovereignty possible with the individual. This results in a nation of dynamic, resourceful citizens, which is the true foundation for any great nation. America did this on a scale which has never been seen before in human history.

This also explains why you often see such hostility to the idea of American Exceptionalism from the political left. The  left is typically hostile to the English style of governing as it prefers what I call the top down, or French style. This style of government puts its faith in the rule of educated elites. It ultimately puts its faith in the few at the expense of the many.

When the left looks at issues that America is facing it believes it knows the solutions, and it wants to impose them on a national level right away. Obamacare is a good example of this. It is a solution imposed from the top. Implicit in doing this is the arrogant assumption that it is the right solution. That you can impose new rules and regulations over 1/6 of the US economy and there will be no unintended consequences.

The English style says whoa, hold on a second. Health care is complicated. It is better to allow the states to experiment in the real world in order to figure out the optimal solution. This is what Romneycare (which is by all accounts is simply Obamacare at the state level) is. If Romneycare is the greatest things ever, other states will begin to copy it. If it isn’t, they won’t. This method is slower but it speaks to the strength of the federal system. It allows experimentation. This is, historically, the truly American way of doing things.

On issue after issue, the left thinks it knows what to do. High speed rail needs to be built, unspecified green jobs need to be created, light bulb needs to be banned. The common thread running through all of these ideas is a disrespect for individual initiative and choice. American exceptionalism, with its bottom up roots, runs completely counter to this. This is why the left dumps on the idea of American exceptionalism at every turn. It prevents them from taking the power and imposing the solutions it wants.

In my book Understanding American Exceptionalism: What it is, how it came to be, and why it’s fading, I go into greater detail on the benefits of bottom up societies vs top down ones. I show how early America was the greatest example of a bottom up society the world has ever seen and why. I then look at the results of this founding and some of the exceptional things America has done as a result. Lastly I point out the reasons why America has been moving away from its bottom up roots to the largest top down society the world has ever seen.

In future posts I’ll be talking more about this, including why I don’t think America can survive as a top down society. Stay tuned!

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• Shelby Steele: Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism – WSJ.com (gds44.wordpress.com)

The Incredible Shrinking President

One of the things I find most fascinating about the collapsing Obama presidency is how President Obama seems to be literally shrinking before our eyes. Bill McGurn, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a good article on this. Entitled “The President’s Speech Impediment” he explains why the grander the stage, the smaller Obama comes across.

In the past Obama reveled in giving speeches in grand locations. Campaigning in Berlin or giving a speech in front of false Greek columns, for example. The reason why he was able to get away with this is that his soaring rhetoric seemed to match his glorious surroundings. Now that reality has set in it turns out that Obama isn’t some kind of new or transformational character. In fact, in many ways he’s just a regular Chicago style politician. The substance is not living up to the hope. That’s why he is becoming smaller with every speech he gives. What’s worse is that he doesn’t seem to understand this reality. As Maureen Dowd put it in the New York Times:

Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.

The Speech Illusion is a good way to put it. The illusion of what he promised isn’t matching the reality of what’s he’s done. That’s why he’s shrinking.

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Solyndra Goes Bankrupt

Debra Saunders has written an interesting article highlighting the Solyndra energy debacle. Essentially, this was one of Obama’s examples of “investing in the future” in order to create “green jobs”. I’m sure it all looked good on paper, and solar panels are a sexy technology that politicians love. The only problem is that the firm, which was given a $535 million dollar federal loan, is now bankrupt. The article nicely points on the weaknesses inherit in governments making these kinds of investments. The main one being that these decisions are made for political (solar panels are sexy, investing in a new broom factory isn’t) purposes, not economic ones. What it misses, though, I think, is the real harm to the economy that these kind of decisions cause.

When investments are made like this it uses up resources that might have been used profitably elsewhere. If the $535 million dollars (that amount the feds invested in Solyndra) had been left in the private sector, what new products or services might have been bought or created? If Solyndra had been allowed to go bankrupt sooner, how would its human capital been used? Is it possible that some of its talented engineers etc might have started new companies on their own? Or perhaps help existing companies grow and prosper? We’ll never know, as that money is now gone and that time has been wasted. And people wonder why the US economy is limping along?

Why False Charges Of Racism Hurt Obama

Peter Wehner, as usual, has a good article in “Contentions” this morning. Entitled “A Racism Charge Without Evidence”, it talks about how many media commenters are now routinely and all too casually smearing opponents of the Obama administration with charges of racism. Racism, real racism, is a terrible and horrendous thing, which is why it should only be used against the real thing. When it is used as a baseless accusation against legitimate political disagreements it robs it of any meaning. What’s more I wonder if these commentators understand how much damage they are doing to Obama by engaging in these tactics. One of Obama’s big selling points was that he was “post racial”. That was his brand and a large part of his appeal. By attempting to defend him in this way they are unwittingly undermining one of the great raison d’être’s for his presidency.