The Chaos of Self Government

For years I taught Constitutional Law and was always surprised when my students, and these were law school students with a progressive bent, still bought into the American myth that somehow our history of democracy was a bit less messy. American history is full of bloodshed, anarchy, civil war (both declared and regionally isolated), and the kinds of stories that our parents kept away from us because of shame. I recall when I learned that my own grandfather had spent time in prison for embezzlement, that Aunt Rose and Uncle Willie had no children because he had syphilis, and that my father's sister had run off with a piano player at the close of World War II.

Look around and we see a lot of chaos: there is the little issue of California being close to bankruptcy because of the stupidity of Proposition 13 that limited the ability of the state to operate at a deficit. Proposition 13 is responsible for bringing down California's once fantastic public schools. The Terminator governor declared a state of emergency this week because of the budget crisis. New York, the other big state, has a dysfunctional legislative system, this time it's the Senate, which is deadlocked over "white man" power issues. And South Carolina might be getting rid of its governor because once again, there is a hypocritical wandering dick in office. The vast majority of states are in deficit.

There are some who look at the American criminal "justice" system and see it as the reflection of insurrection.

So as we look at Iraq this week that American soldiers pull out of cities, and Afghanistan, and all of the countries throughout the developing world, let's remember our own history and stop feeling so damned self righteous.