In Search of Good Government: A Personal Journey, Part One

IN SEARCH OF GOOD GOVERNMENT

A PERSONAL JOURNEY

PART ONE

JONATHAN W. ROUSE

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Jonathan W. Rouse

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Cover Art by Lacey Rouse

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: WHAT AM I TRYING TO DO?

CHAPTER TWO: THE BIG BANG AND SMART PEOPLE

CHAPTER THREE: ONE RULE TO LIVE BY

CHAPTER FOUR: WHICH WAY DO I GO FROM HERE?

CHAPTER FIVE: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE CONSTITUTION?

CHAPTER SIX: A SUPREME COURT DECISION

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE CONSTITUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF CONSENT

CHAPTER EIGHT: ANOTHER DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT

CHAPTER NINE: THE CONSTITUTION AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHAPTER TEN: IS THE CONSTITUTION LEGITIMATE?

CHAPTER ELEVEN: WHY IS DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION IMPORTANT?

CHAPTER TWELVE: YOURS IS YOURS, AND MINE IS YOURS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: ROBIN AND HIS MERRY MEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FREEDOM, HAMMERS, AND OTHER THINGS

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: FREEDOM AND THE AUTHORITARIAN VILLAGE

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: TAKING A BREATHER

NOTES AND SOURCES OF EXPERTISE

~

To AMY

For all things

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT AM I TRYING TO DO?

WHAT IS EVERYONE AFTER?

It seems to me there are two kinds of people in the world. There are people who are anxious all the time. And there are people who are never anxious.

People who are anxious all the time (Worriers) spend a great deal of their time worrying. They worry about death, illness, insolvency, unhappiness, solitude, flat tires, leaking pipes, physical pain, bedbugs, airplanes, humiliation, paperwork, social engagements - the list is virtually endless. Their biggest worry of all, however, is the object they can't pinpoint. That's the so-called "free floating anxiety. That is, there's something out there, somewhere, that's going to get them. They don't know what or when or where or how. But it's going to happen. The Worrier has one master sentence which constantly plays through his brain: What if X happens? The variable X" could be anything.

People who are never anxious (Nonworriers) are, of course, quite different. They have only one real worry in life. That worry is the fear of ever feeling anxiety. They do not want to have to live with anxiety in any form. They detest anxiety. They hate the threat it poses. They know its power. They know that anxiety has the capacity to eat up their thoughts and their time. It can give them heart palpitations, and cause them to lose sleep. They don't want to feel that way. So the Nonworrier goes through life avoiding anxiety like the plague. He comforts himself with phrases like Don't sweat itor I'm not going to waste time worrying about it.

The point of all this is that it forces me to the following conclusion: People are either 1) living in a state of anxiety, or 2) living in fear of living in a state of anxiety.

But fearing anxiety is simply another form of anxiety.

Therefore we are, in reality, all living in a state of anxiety. Worriers are - obviously - anxious. But Nonworriers too, are anxious. They simply don't realize it. Were I to accuse any Nonworriers of actually being anxious, they would tell me I'm crazy. Every Nonworrier believes he doesn't have an anxious bone in his body. But I think the Nonworriers are only trying to fool themselves. I base that conclusion on this fact: Everyone I know in this world spends practically all of his or her time and energy pursuing one object in life. And it's the same object for everyone. The object? To gain control. Control is the primary means of dealing with anxiety.

Most of the things human beings do in life boil down to getting money or power. Why?

If people have power, they have the ability to gain control.

If people have money, they have the ability to get power. And power gives them control.

So really, all people are in pursuit of control.

I have therefore quickly drawn two Important Conclusions about human existence: 1) All human beings live in a state of Anxiety. 2) All human beings want Control.

THE PROBLEM WITH HERO WORSHIP

I am an anxious person (a Worrier). I can freely admit this to myself, and I have learned to live (sort of) with my anxiety. It's the second Important Conclusion, however, that makes me really anxious: it's that part about people wanting control. The reason it makes me anxious is that the people who most actively seek control really want - above all else - control over other people. I don't want other people having control over me. It makes me anxious. And I know my anxiety isn't all in my head. I see the source of my anxiety growing right before my very eyes. It's becoming bigger and more massive and more irresistible with each passing year, like some monstrous creature from the science fiction movies. That monster is the United States federal government. I think it wants control over me. And fearing that monster as I do, I feel the need to evaluate this situation more carefully.

I have often wondered whether we really need government. Most human beings appear to see government as an absolute necessity. It isn't, of course. All of those functions which the U.S. federal government performs - even waging war - could also be performed by the private sector. How that would work in practice, and how people would like it, are problems I don't care to tackle at present. But it doesn't really matter. The federal government - like my anxiety - isn't going away any time soon. So it's pointless to consider that as an option. The thing is, I have quite a lot of questions about this whole business of the U.S. federal government.

For instance: Does it mean I don't love my country if I choose to believe the Founders were just ordinary human beings?

I prefer Founders, by the way, to Founding Fathers. First, while I realize that colonial women apparently weren't invited to participate in the public debates, it's hard to imagine those men - once they'd gotten home and pulled off their powdered wigs and white tights - didn't have their thinking influenced by their better halves. So I have to believe the Founding Mothers did make a contribution. The other thing though, is that the word Fathers suggests that we somehow share blood ties. For all I know, while the Founders were debating political philosophy in the shoppes and taverns of colonial America, my own personal forbears were busy at sea in the illicit appropriation of other people's possessions. A nation takes all kinds I suppose, and I hold out the hope that even pirates occasionally acted on behalf of the Revolution. In any case, we can't all be descendants of Ben Franklin and associates. So I will leave it at Founders.

In addition to being an anxious person, I'm also a skeptic. Skeptics doubt things. So, doing what I do best (best, that is, after being anxious), I maintain doubts about all those founding colonial citizens really being as noble and upstanding as we make them out. And since I'm unable and unwilling to shed those doubts, I have persuaded myself to waste no more time on vague contemplations of the Founders as heroes. It is their ideas which draw my study. I realize there may have been womanizers and greedy capitalists and slaveowners among them. But I have to confess that a number of their ideas were indeed great.

It strikes me this way: If we were forced to discard all the admirable accomplishments of those people through history who were of questionable morals, we would lose many of the greatest achievements in music, literature, philosophy, art, and science. Sir Isaac Newton was reportedly a not-so-nice man. Yet, we needed his principles on the physics of motion and gravitation to get our astronauts to the moon and back. And despite knowing that Wagner was said to be a real stinker, I still feel a thrill when I listen to his Ride of the Valkyries. It's true that I refuse to have anything to do with certain works - movies, musical concerts, books, etc. - which come from various creative sorts who voice opinions or engage in public behavior I find particularly distasteful. That's because I don't care to enrich those folks by my patronage. But that restricts my private boycotts to the works of those who are still earning a living from what they say and do. If Newton or Wagner were living movie stars, I probably wouldn't go see their films. That still should not invalidate my argument: I think it makes sense to keep the great achievements of civilization separate from the human failings of their originators.

But even if I rid myself of the notion that the Founders were all paragons of virtue, I have another problem: it is widely held as well that the Founders were intellectual heroes. Men of nearly superhuman mental prowess. Perhaps the common and logical assumption that their ideas were great because they were all men of great intellectual powers and ability is the correct one. But I am drawn more strongly to an alternative explanation: that their ideas were great because they educated themselves, they thought things through clearly, and carefully, and they had the courage to proceed with minds fixed not only on what their actions would do to their generation, but to future generations as well.

I don't claim that my conclusion is the right one. I am merely choosing to dispense with the alternative, despite the fact that it puts a burden upon me. It's a burden I want to take on. The burden is this: I am now required to make my own intellectual effort to insert myself in place of the Founders. I am required, in a sense, to engage in the same sort of thought processes they did. They sought a good form of government. I now seek - in the intellectual sense only, of course - to make that same search. And so, I am fully prepared to stop looking to our Founders as heroes.

Besides, I've had more than my fill of people we label as heroes. I'm referring to those individuals of elevated status whom society at large apparently admires and seeks to emulate. I don't share those emotions in general. Perhaps this partly goes along with being a skeptic, but mostly I'm just tired of looking at them. I can't seem to escape their images. On television or movie screens, or glossy magazines, I see politicians, musicians, actors, athletes - their faces plastered everywhere I turn, as if they were lesser gods filling space all around us. With respect to politicians, I suspect the hero worship relates to some obscure, subconscious desire to re-create a King Arthur, or George Washington, or the like. I'm pretty sure King Arthur did not exist. George Washington did exist, and was definitely instrumental in helping to bring about a happy result with the Revolution. I'm not so sure how much he achieved as President. I think his greatest asset may have been his own sense of personal limitation. That implies a good deal of greatness in itself.

The trouble with heroes is that we seem to leave most of the real ones out of the story altogether. Those heroes are far less likely to appear on television and in books or newsprint. The heroes to whom I refer are all those Americans who get up each day, and set about quietly holding themselves and their jobs and this country together, without any kind of complaint emanating from their own lips, or any words of recognition emanating from the lips of others.

It's not that I mean any disrespect, and this isn't an attempt to establish my own feeble, revisionist version of history. I would just like to put things into a perspective which seems more in keeping with what I've seen of actual human society. First of all, the Founders didn't even all agree among themselves. Secondly, as it happens, I do believe the Founders were just ordinary human beings. I won't deny that some of them had great qualities. But they also had significant flaws.

If I am not allowed to view things in this way, then I am shackled to the disheartening conclusion that the only way we can maintain the greatness of this nation is to rely upon the guidance of ten or twenty contemporary figures with a stature just as gigantic as the heroes of colonial America. After all, it's nearly as hard to keep an enterprise going as it is to get it started in the first place. Sometimes harder. It's not that I think there aren't any capable people around. I know there is a wealth of talent in this country. But as far as the government goes, it isn't necessarily people with talent we need, as much as people of good principle. And it seems they are typically reluctant to come forward.

WHY DO I THINK THIS MATTERS?

Why should government matter to me and my kind, the ordinary descendants of mere mortals?

The answer seems to be one of those self-evident things - the kind Thomas Jefferson mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Government matters because its influence is all around us. It's in the label on our electric alarm clocks; it's on the back of our whisky bottles; it's in the pill bottles we struggle to open; it determines how our clothing is made; whether our hairdryers are going to zap us; what we eat for breakfast; what kind of cars we drive to work; what kind of work we are able to find; what we pay for taxes; what kind of light bulbs we use; how much our employer is able to pay us; what paperwork we do at the office; what we may say at work, and what we may not; whether we may smoke; what we may explore on the internet; the price of freon in our air conditioners; how much water our toilets use; and how much our money is worth (with special thanks to the Federal Reserve). The government works to decrease competition and employment opportunities through corporate welfare; it uses eminent domain to make the transfer of private property from original owners (poor saps) to recipients (greedy saps); it passed healthcare legislation to give us all what it insisted would be better health, also insisting that it would be at no increase in cost; it gave us the PATRIOT Act which violates the First and Fourth and Ninth Amendments of our Constitution; it has driven us into a mind-boggling national debt, part of which has gone to prop up corrupt and incompetent financial firms on Wall Street; it has - well, enough of that for now. The list seems to go on forever. Besides - I don't want to make myself crazy before I've barely made a start with this. But this much is clear to me: It's up to those of us currently living to decide what needs to be done. And it seems we are engaged in a never-ending battle as to what our government ought to be doing.

On second thought, battle isn't really the best word. Maybe I can get nearer the mark by putting it this way: Life in the U.S. reminds me of an enormous cattle drive. I see this nation being pushed in a particular direction by those (the Believers) who are absolutely and completely devoted to the notion of a big and bossy federal government. We're the Cattle, and those Believers are the cowhands, driving us on to some unknown destination, far away through the miles of dust and tumbleweed. We stop for water every now and then, or pause in a bit of shade to nibble a patch of green grass. And there is the occasional stampede which leaves us all shaken, breathless, and disoriented. But always the cowpokes (the Believers) round us up, and point us back in the direction of our final destination. To some that doesn't sound too bad perhaps. But I suspect they're forgetting what happens to cattle when they reach their final destination.

Everyone complains about the federal government. It's one of the fundamental rights that were considered so fundamental that they protected it in the Amendments to the Constitution. If people complain, then it seems safe to say that for many Americans, the government they have is not necessarily the government they want. They are convinced the federal government is decreasing individual freedom. Fail to do what the government demands, and you will pay a penalty. The process whereby the government uses the heavy hand of the law is otherwise known as enforcement of the law. Some call it coercion. Still others call it abuse of power.

People who are in favor of big government (the Believers) apparently are in favor of the liberal use of government regulation and enforcement. The NON-Believers point to their future fears. They say the government puts up obstacles to a healthy economy, ignores the Constitution, and blesses the taking of property from those it doesn't favor in order to give it to those it does favor. They also note that the government apparently feels uneasy if it isn't involved in a war somewhere or other. Many say they would prefer to live under a government which does not do violence to the things they value. Things like a healthy economy, individual freedom, and the Constitution. A government which respects such things is presumably one which they would call good.

But I do think our government matters, because I am one of those who believes the government is diminishing our greatness as a nation, and reducing our individual freedom.

WHAT DO I HOPE TO ACHIEVE?

That brings me to question three (which is really the biggest question of all): Can I come up with my own criteria for good government?

Some people seem to have no confusion on that score whatsoever. They proclaim their convictions with absolutely no hint of anything sounding like doubt. We also hear much from the Experts who, as far as I can tell, give us conflicting versions of Truth. But something about this troubles me. If Experts disagree among themselves, they can't all be right. So, I will insert another question here: If a person isn't right, just what does it mean to say he's an Expert? Ordinary American citizens are reminded quite often that we would be foolish not to heed those Experts. Experts have expertise - we have none. We are merely the People. And what do the People know?

It seems I do recall, however, that the Constitution said something about We the People doing the ordaining and establishing of that document. I don't believe that is actually true. The Constitution was not, in fact, ordained or established by the people as a whole. The Constitution was both created and ratified by a rather tiny subset of the population. There was never anything like a universal consent of the governed in establishing the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. I must deal with this issue later. Nonetheless, the Constitution appears to say that We the People should be the cowhands - not the cattle. Of course, if those Believers and We the People are one and the same, then it would seem we are driving ourselves to that End-of-the-Trail where the Unspeakable happens. But if we're driving ourselves to that end, then I suppose we really shouldn't be compared to cattle. The better comparison would be with lemmings.

If we want good government - if we truly mean that we want it, and aren't just saying we want it - we have to rely upon ourselves to bring it about. There's no question that we need the help of the Experts. But we have to sift through the things they tell us with some hope of making sense of all this for ourselves. Can we do it? I'm not sure we can actually make it all the way there. But I think we can head ourselves in the right direction, at least, if we are sufficiently determined to take the steps needed to get us there. Part of that process means we will have to decide what we mean by good government, because ordinary citizens really have to understand the workings of that monstrous enterprise if we intend to make it good. The United States federal government currently appears to be in control. And that could be a dangerous situation.

If I can discover for myself what I can accept as good government, then I will consider my journey as having been worth the effort.

WHAT SHOULD I DEMAND OF MYSELF?

I do believe that the federal government is necessary. I won't go so far as to call it a necessary evil, but perhaps a necessary undesirable would do. I would prefer, however, to see us all living under a smaller, less powerful, less intrusive, less coercive federal government. But a great many of my fellow Americans don't appear to hold that view. And although I would hope to be able to persuade them to my way of seeing things, I'm not absolutely sure myself just how watertight my arguments are. I find an occasional leak every once in a while. I wonder if any of those big government advocates (the Believers) would admit to any leaks of their own. What I hear from both liberal and conservative advocates of a powerful federal government leads me to guess they wouldn't.

There is no one quite so ignorant as the individual who believes he/she knows all the answers. There is no one who can teach that person, because he/she is incapable of learning. But the honestly ignorant can be saved. I mean those of us who are purely and genuinely ignorant not because we have chosen that vocation in life, but simply because we are lazy and uninformed. Lazy and uninformed is a curable disease, and there is hope for those of us who suffer from it. In fact, I believe the lazy and uninformed actually possess an advantage when it comes to education. The best learner is the self-acknowledged beginner. I have always found that when I admit to knowing very little, I am much more likely to find myself in a position to learn a great deal more. It encourages me to continually challenge what I believe, and to test it for error. So let me admit to myself here and now: I am no expert. I am a Beginner in these matters pertaining to government. With luck and humility, I always will be a Beginner. A Curious Beginner. For to be a Curious Beginner is to maintain a state of mind which is receptive to a well reasoned and logical argument. If I can remain in that state, then I will always be in a good position to learn.

What I hope to do is make an attempt to evaluate information about government and economics, all the while fully recognizing that I will never be in a position to say with certitude this is right. But with clear and thorough and honest thinking, I can hope to make statements which have a high probability of making sense.

I must try, to the best of my ability, to admit my assumptions, and ground my arguments in outside sources. External references are good for three reasons: 1) they can be informative, and put meat on the bones of an argument; 2) they allow me to blame other people (namely, the authors of those references) for any brainless arguments I may put to paper; 3) references offer proof that even if I am wandering in realms of delusion, I am not wandering alone.

I must set one more demand for myself: I must try to ensure that my sources are credible, my arguments valid, and the presentation as a whole takes the shape of something looking vaguely like Truth. If I meet that expectation, this journey will be worth the effort.

BRACING MYSELF FOR THE JOURNEY

People across this nation are trying to keep themselves and their finances healthy. For each of us, the process of living consists of our striving to cope with the challenges of daily survival. Government's influence on our living will always be there, as sure as there is air to breathe. It is my sincere belief that the federal government is diminshing the prosperity and freedom of the American people. I must try to gather evidence if I hope to substantiate that claim. If it is true, then it is important to deal with it. Right now, at this beginning, I believe it is of the utmost importance to reduce the size and scope of government. This exploration will help me determine whether I am justified in that belief. My hope would be that Americans could slowly develop stronger reliance on our selves, as private citizens, rather than depending upon a government which holds Gifts (can one call something for which one paid taxes a gift?) in one hand, and in the other wields a great Hammer of Persuasion.

I am, in essence, looking for reasons NOT to surrender to what appears to be my fate as one lost member of a massive herd being driven to Parts Unknown. I remember the end of the novel 1984, when Winston Smith ultimately embraced Big Brother. That ending was a shock. It left me feeling that I had witnessed the total and final defeat of the human spirit. I am hoping quite fervently that our future prospects are better than that.

This is an effort to substantiate for myself that a smaller, less powerful government is in some sense good. I will make every effort to avoid the claim that I am right. In fact, I admit right here, at the beginning, that there is no such thing as right. It is merely a matter of preference. But I hope to be able to demonstrate - for myself - that my preference makes sense to me. If I can, then perhaps it will make sense to others. I must never suggest that my reasoning is perfect. There will be some inconsistencies no doubt, and probably a purported fact here and there which is open to legitimate debate. I do hope to uncover, however, some valid points which will - with tight reasoning and a little luck - be difficult to dismiss. Because then those occasional valid points will deserve serious consideration by others. It may well be that I will end up with more questions than answers. But that's how the best journeys always seem to go.

QUESTION FOR CHAPTER ONE: What am I trying to do?

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER ONE:

I want to define what I believe to be good government.

As many Americans see it, because of its size and power, the U.S. federal government decreases freedom, creates economic obstacles, violates the Constitution, does not respect personal property, and likes to be at war.

I share these concerns, but I will try to evaluate them as objectively as I can.

I will not rely exclusively - or even primarily - on what the Founders believed to be good government. Their values are not necessarily mine, and they differed in their opinions, even among themselves.

I WILL, however, try to understand what the Founders MEANT by what they wrote down in the Constitution. Because, like it or not, that is our current set of rules for the federal government. And I do believe some of their ideas were great.

What kind of government we would prefer to have is up to those of us currently living.

How do I go about finding good government? I can look to the Founders for guidance on general principles, and I have a wealth of documents which they left to Americans. I intend to look at these, because that is where our Constitution and government take root.

I also have Experts. But in the end, I must not allow myself to rely too heavily upon Experts. The Experts share one thing in common with the Founders: they can't agree among themselves.

To define that government which I believe to be good, I will have to look at the fundamentals by myself, and use my own limited powers of reason and common sense to draw the best conclusions I can.

CHAPTER TWO

THE BIG BANG AND SMART PEOPLE

WHY I AM WARY OF SMART PEOPLE

What can I learn from Smart People?

When you're a kid, a very big chunk of your philosophical world consists of imponderables. I remember when I was a kid, I asked many questions which other people probably considered stupid. Sometimes I asked questions to amuse myself. Sometimes it was simply a way to get an adult's attention. But I believe I most often asked questions because I really did want to know what was going on. Was I normal? I don't know. I think I could have been described as an average kid - if there's such a thing as average. But I was surprised to know a few kids who did not seem handicapped by the same need to ask those questions. They seemed able to spout off the answers to life's conundrums even as they were downing milk and Graham crackers.

My desire to ask questions has not diminished through the years. And I am still impressed by those who present themselves as having the truth firmly in hand. They seem to possess a certitude about life which has an almost alien (as in extraterrestrial) quality about it. In kidhood though, that alien quality didn't seem quite so evident. Kids simply referred to such a person as a Know-It-All.

I am convinced that it is impossible to ever convince a Know-It-All that he/she might be wrong. That type of individual - call him Joe - just seems to have all the answers. During debate among friends, Joe can always make his point by quoting some fact which no one dares to challenge. No one knows whether Joe's fact is actually true or false. And since no one but Joe has Joe's astonishing capacity for proclaiming as fact that which one does not actually know to be true, Joe is not contradicted. Joe's proclamations are generally allowed to stand. And Joe thereby succeeds - usually with the warmth of smug satisfaction gushing through his veins - in shutting down yet one more debate.

Now that everyone is using the Internet though, one might guess that Joe would be cutting back on his habit of declaring the truth. After all, the Internet allows everyone instant access to a virtual mountain of information (granted, not always accurate information). With a keyboard at my fingertips, even I - an ordinary mortal - might now feel equal to the task of challenging the Joes of the world. Reason would dictate that the Joes of the world would be justifiably concerned.

But Know-It-All-ism is a kind of psychological disorder. Know-It-Alls do not operate under the same fear of making fools of themselves that normal people do. Know-It-Alls are convinced that they are right, no matter what. They believe they are right simply because they are absolutely certain it is so. And that's all there is to it. Besides, Know-It-Alls realize that the Internet is just one more Know-It-All thrown into the mix. And one Know-It-All can't really trump another.

The pressing question that comes from all of this is the following: Where do Joe - and that Crowned Prince of Know-It-Alls, the Internet - get their information? How do they know that they are right? The answer must be that Joe and the Internet derive their information from those who truly do know. People who truly do know are called Experts. But how do we know the Experts are right?

We know the Experts are right because we are told so.

Who tells us so?

The Experts.

I can see where this is going: We are told that the people who know the right answers are the people identified as Experts. How do we pick out the Experts? By picking the people who know the right answers. Clearly, this lovable puppy of pseudo-logic is nipping his own tail. But the questioning kid within me understands this much well: It is foolish to trust an Expert until I have developed a little expertise of my own. That is to say, I have to educate myself before I can decide whether an Expert deserves my trust.

I could simply ignore the Experts. But I'm not really free to do that. The reason is this: Our federal government derives most of its justification for doing many of the things it does from those Experts. Experts on sociology. Experts on politics. Experts on diplomacy, psychology, science, law, medicine, military affairs, economics - and countless others. An endless succession of them is paraded before the American people to share their expertise. As an ordinary American citizen, I have just two simple choices: I can swallow what I am fed, or I can spit it up.

But if I spit up - if I disagree with the Experts - what alternative wisdom can I offer which would sound credible to anyone else? Who is going to listen to me? And in any case, the Experts have the attention of those who steer the government. Those in government seek their advice, and thus are able to justify their actions to the American people.

Whether we like it or not, the Experts are - to a large extent - determining the actions of our government. And since the federal government affects the lives of American citizens, the Experts are thereby charting the course of American life. Personally, I don't want to go where they're taking us. The Experts have messed things up rather badly. They have buried us in debt and regulations, and we seem to be in a nearly constant state of war. I'd prefer to see Americans have less direction from the Experts. We are all perfectly capable of making our own mistakes, without having Experts make them for us.

I can't help but think of the economic crisis of 2008. The Experts appeared on television and told us that if we did not allow the federal government to spend hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to bail out certain corrupt and incompetent financial institutions, life as we know it would come to an end. The United States would wither, turn to dust, and blow away. We were told we didn't have time to think it over. That choice became law without our ever being asked for so much as a by-your-leave. That legislation added greatly to our debt. But there is no convincing evidence that it did any good.

The Experts wield Powers Magical in this country. We - the ordinary American people - allow that Magic to do its work, because we don't have the time or energy to determine whether any particular Magic is actually good or bad. And then there is the more disturbing possibility: perhaps we no longer have the desire to figure it out. Perhaps we don't even care any more, because it seems so hopelessly big and complicated and unfixable. I hope it hasn't actually come to that.

PREPARING MY BRAIN FOR THE JOURNEY

We allow the Experts to rule our lives because in many cases - take economics for example - we haven't sufficient knowledge of the subject matter to make an informed decision. Many Americans never take a single course in economics. It causes me to wonder who made the decision that economics isn't important enough to be an essential part of every American's education. Our education system emphasizes the importance of learning a foreign language. I do see value in that. But it must be admitted that a foreign language is something many of us will never need or use in our lifetimes. That is not so with economics. It is a subject which affects the lives of all Americans every single day. Yet, those who dictate the education curriculum apparently see no need for a solid grounding in economics. I believe that shows a lack of understanding on the part of educators.

Americans, however, seem to support the educators' view when it comes to economics. I doubt there is much cultural appetite for it. It's unlikely economics could be made as popular as sex education. A good part of my sex education took place on the street. Kids like to talk about sex. Why is it they don't talk about economics in the locker room, or on the playground, but sex is discussed at every turn? I think it's because kids know sex will likely affect them - very personally - in one way or another, and they want to know as much about it as they can. That isn't evident with economics. Economics will affect most of us just as forcibly as sex. Yet that fact has somehow remained concealed from the general population. When a young man goes with a young