Was American Revolution worth it? Revisiting the 'American Dream'

This July 4th we can stop and ponder: was the American Revolution worth it? Here's what NPR had to say about the "American Dream," i.e. social and economic upward mobility:

So, in the 19th century in the U.S., there's unbelievable economic mobility. If your father, for example, was an unskilled laborer, sort of the lowest end of the working hierarchy, then you had an 80 percent chance of doing some more skilled, more highly paid job than your father. At the same time, in the U.K., you had about a 50 percent chance. Half the children of unskilled laborers were unskilled laborers themselves. But by just after World War II, the U.S. and U.K. are converging and the differences start to disappear. And by 1970, the U.K. has pulled ahead. So, by the 1970s, the children of unskilled laborers are more likely to do be doing something higher paying in the U.K. than in the U.S.

Why is that so?  Why is the "American Dream" more alive in Britain today than in America?  There are two basic theories, according to NPR:

• By the 20th century, the U.S. was a mature economy like Britain, without all the exceptional opportunities for growth that exist in a young, expanding nation.

• In early-mid 20th century, the welfare state and education in Britain grew at a faster pace.

These two theories are not mutually exclusive.  I would also point out the respective rates of unionization in the U.S. and UK: 11.1 percent vs. 25.8 percent.  The average in OECD countries for trade union density is 17 percent.  Nordic socialist paradises Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which top almost every global indicator of economic and social well-being, have well over 50 percent of their workers in trade unions.  In the U.S. we blame falling wages all on globalization, but then we should ask why wages aren't falling elsewhere in G-8 countries?  Unions have a lot to do with it.

And then there is the U.S. tax system, which for the past 30 years has discriminated against wages in favor of income earned through interest and financial securities, thereby inflating inequality and crushing the "American Dream."  Remember this chart?:

Paul Pirie for WaPo  gives us more socio-economic data to ponder:

Most Americans work longer hours and have fewer paid vacations and benefits — including health care — than their counterparts in most advanced countries. Consider also that in the CIA World Factbook, the United States ranks 51st in life expectancy at birth. Working oneself into an early grave does not do much for one’s happiness quotient. This year the United States tied for 14th in “life satisfaction” on an annual quality-of-life study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That puts the United States behind Canada (eighth) and Australia (12th). A report co-authored last year by the economist Jeffrey Sachs ranked the United States 10th in the world for happiness — again behind Canada and Australia. The Sachs study found that the United States has made “striking economic and technological progress over the past half century without gains in the self-reported happiness of the citizenry. Instead, uncertainties and anxieties are high, social and economic inequalities have widened considerably, social trust is in decline, and confidence in government is at an all-time low.”

But the difference is not just in economics or happiness, but also liberty.  Pirie points out that the British Empire (including Canada) abolished slavery in 1833, a full 32 years befoe the U.S. ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Today's slavery is the U.S. prison-industrial complex that incarcerates more adults, in both absolute and relative terms, than any other country by a wide margin, including Red China and Russia.  

And speaking of Americans' liberty, I have three words for you: N-S-A.  Do I really need to say more?  It doesn't matter, the spooks are archiving this post anyway.

Today, having mentioned some of these factoids to a Brit, I joked about our reneging the Declaration of Independence.  He said Britons are glad America is no longer their problem; they can't imagine trying to govern the U.S.  I joked back, "Yeah, we have enough trouble dealing with places like Texas!"  Can you imagine British PM David Cameron trying to talk sense to the folks in U.S. flyover country? You start to wonder who got the better end of the deal when the U.S. declared its independence....   

Happy 4th of July, everybody!  Have a hotdog and light off a roman candle for me.

UPDATE: If you think I'm unpatriotic, here's a guy who really can't stand the 4th of July: "Hatetriot's Day: July 4th Is America's Crappiest Holiday."

Locke, Hobbes and history v. Gun nuts

Paul Rosenberg is absolutely right in his philosophical argument that lasting liberty is incompatible with individual gun ownership; but he spends most of his time refuting the less deeply held belief of the pro-gun crowd: that freedom-loving individuals need guns for their own security.  

Rather, the gun nuts' main argument against reasonable gun control is that we the people need more and deadlier guns to overthrow our government if it ever becomes tyrannical.  

This is a bad and eristic argument in favor of individuals' unrestricted access to all types of deadly guns. Yet it's difficult to refute using purely inductive logic because something similar has never happened -- especially in the most powerful country in the history of the world with a military of 3 million and all the wizz-bang futuristic weapons you can think of.  For argument's sake, such a nation has never gone from democratic to tyrannical and tried to oppress its own people.

And so we liberals can only make reasonable, rational arguments to the effect that we the people wouldn't stand much of a chance fighting such an evil government. And in the meantime, 30,000 gun deaths a year (including 9,000 gun murders) is a high price to pay for the "freedom" to defend ourselves in such an unlikely what-if scenario. (I actually think flesh-eating zombies taking over is more likely, but that's just me....)

What's more, as I told my Uncle T. (who subscribes to this argument) over Christmas, if the United States government ever did become so murderous and tyrannical, then it would mean there were at least 1,000 lapses in our democratic vigilance leading up that moment that had nothing to do with our weapons or guns. It would mean we the people largely had ourselves to blame for it. *

Apropos, Rosenberg points out that John Locke and the Founding Fathers had no idea how important peaceful protest would become in securing the freedom and civil rights of so many millions of people, starting about 160 years later.  (That's yet another thing they never imagined, in addition to AR-15 semi-automatic rifles in the hands of madmen....). 

And so despite the Founding Fathers' lack of prescience...

... that doesn't mean that Locke's underlying logic has died. To the contrary, the issue of the consent of the governed has never been more alive than it has been in the last few decades. But what's most interesting is that it's taken such a strong turn toward non-violent, unarmed revolution, seen most recently in the peaceful successes of the Arab Spring. Of course these did not succeed everywhere, and violent struggle emerged in several countries, yet it should be remembered that nothing remotely like this was even conceivable at the time that Locke wrote. And yet, the underlying thrust of his logic has been supremely vindicated by the non-violent lineage of Thoreau, Gandhi, King and Mandela - a lineage that stands directly opposite to the gun-crazed vision of the NRA. [Emphasis mine - J]

What I should have added to Uncle T. was that, as Mark Ames recently pointed out, gun ownership actually decreases our democratic vigilance since guns give far too many Americans an unearned sense of complacency, or a sense that the mere act of owning firearms is a "rebellious" thing in and of itself... and meanwhile they sit at home on their couches while the plutocrats corrupt our government and screw the Average Joe's of the country who "cling to their guns and religion," instead of those gun owners being politically active. (And no, being an NRA member does not make somebody politically active.)

... (Sigh) But these are all reasonable things to say to unreasonable people. That's why I'm mostly preaching to the pro-gun control choir here.

* And I added to Uncle T. the unoriginal thought that a better defense of our liberty against government tyranny than the 2nd Amendment is our professional, all-volunteer military and the esprit de corps instilled in our troops who vow to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. It's one thing for them to shoot armed baddies overseas; but it's quite another thing for them to obey orders to shoot and kill their fellow citizens at home, armed and unarmed alike. To defend their countrymen is the exact reason most of them sign up in the first place!  And so, this argument in favor of the unrestricted right to bear arms is quite insulting to our U.S. servicemen and women.

Locke and unload: Why the NRA doesn't understand rights

It's the exact inability of guns to secure our freedom that establishes the foundation for our civil government.

By Paul Rosenberg

December 27, 2012 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121226104857715225.html

Gun control debate lacks empirical research? Hilarious!

"If policymakers are to have a solid empirical and research base for decisions about firearms and violence, the federal government needs to support a systematic program of data collection and research that specifically addresses that issue," wrote the National Academy of Sciences in 2004.

How blessedly naive is their faith in our policymakers!  As if a lack of information about gun violence is what's preventing reasonable gun control!  

Despite lots of "stale" data like the classic Luby's massacre in Texas in 1991 with 23 killed and 20 wounded, Thurston HS in Oregon in 1998, Columbine HS in Colorado in 1999, the DC snipers in 2002, etc., since 2004, when the NAS pleaded for more research, we've gathered plenty of "data": Red Lake High School in Minnesota; Paradise, PA Amish School; Trolley Square Mall in Utah, Virginia Tech; Northern Illinois University; and more recently the attack on Fort Hood, the Rep. Gabrielle Giffords-Tucson massacre, the Batman movie massacre, and the Sikh temple shooting spree, and on and on.  Still, the problem is that we need more data!....

Seriously though, we Americans are inured to terrible gun violence and shooting rampages.  Only the victims' families give a s**t.  

And gun nuts believe that all this needless carnage is the price we pay for our liberty: "The 2nd Amendment has kept us free for the last 200 years; we can't get rid of it now!" they argue.  (I could just as easily argue that apple cider, or anything else that's been around for the past 200 years, has kept us free, but never mind these logical fallacies....)

Indeed, if you accept the silly premise that firearms are the only thing standing between Americans and tyranny, then certainly, 30,000 gun-related deaths a year is not too great a price to pay.  No price, in terms of body counts, is too dear.  There can be no empirical, rational argument against such an irrational belief.

NRA prevents funding for studies on gun violence

By Dan Morain

August 10, 2012 | The Sacramento Bee

URL:  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/08/10/160412/commentary-nra-prevents-funding.html