In many ways, President Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Michigan was perfectly reasonable, a balanced appeal for civility, a reaffirmation that government has its virtues and an embrace of democracy.
But when he said that “government is us,” you began to see his political purposes at work, because while those words may seem to constitute a warm and fuzzy thought, they confuse “us” with some “majority” of a moment and too easily suggest that majorities are beyond criticism themselves.
I will come back to that point to help reinforce my case that for all its levelheadedness, the speech was in some ways a political sneak attack that set up straw men, indulged in overstatement, and offered up a misleading example.
The president, for instance, took a swing at those who contend government is “inherently bad,” saying that such assertions are becoming more central to our discourse. It seems to me that while a very few people do make that argument, what most conservatives are now saying is something different.
They’re saying that government especially needs watching because of its powers of coercion, that a free people left to their own devices will often fix what’s broken more ably than some distant, centralized authority, and that too much government can be a serious danger to individualism and liberty.
The issue is one of degree, and the fear is that Obama’s policies are going too far, the prime evidence being the health-care remake.
But wait, says Obama: Using terms of overstatement can rule out needed compromise and one such term is “socialist.” Well, yes, if the reference is to North Korea, the word “socialist” is out of line, but not if the reference is to the highly regulated, highly taxed, intrusive, welfare-state systems of Western Europe.
We are not there yet, and if we get there, it won’t be just Obama who did the heavy lifting. But is he aiding and abetting something very European-like? I do not see how anyone can argue it is hyperbolic to say so.
Reciting some of the ways government serves the public good, Obama mentioned police, roads, research at public universities, and then said too little government regulation of Wall Street “led to the collapse of our entire economy.”
Excuse me, but what’s being left out here are the destructive, congressionally endorsed policies of quasi-governmental Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the various federal schemes prodding banks to extend mortgages to people who could not afford them and local policies making houses more expensive.
Government was part of the problem, has since proffered some dubious solutions, and is heavily engaged in spending that could give us another crash conceivably making this one look like a walk in the park.
Now back to that idea that because of our democracy, “government is us.” Sorry, but government is never all of us. Obama should have observed that having the consent of the majority is not the same as having the blessing of everyone, that majorities can be tyrannical and that it is because of this possibility that our Constitution limits the federal government and protects individual rights.
Obama quoted Thomas Jefferson as saying governments must change as society changes, and yes, of course, and that might entail amending the Constitution. But that does not mean it is OK to otherwise ignore its clear meaning and then start making things up as we go along.
Despite Obama’s arguments to the contrary, it does not mean that the times absolutely demand ever bigger government or that essential compromise means avoiding a word that may help vivify the truth.
Examiner Columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He can be reached at: [email protected].
