We often don’t stop to think about the social compact that keeps our country together. Listening day after day to the talking heads screaming at one another, the left vs. the right, the Democrats vs. the Republicans, the conservatives vs. the liberals, DHS’s right wing extremism lexicon, Obama’s birth certificate, and any number of other issues which divide us, all pale in comparison to what is occurring in Iran.
This country stays together because of the legitimacy we place in our institutions of government. What is legitimacy? It is that value, that intrinsic yet not always articulated value, that acceptance we put in Congress, the Presidency, the Supreme Court, the local mayor and city council, that says we freely and openly elect you to represent us. Those who are elected to office or appointed to the courts must remember that it is the people’s legitimacy that we put in those institutions which allows this country to function as an open and free society. Without legitimacy the social compact crumbles and we devolve into dictatorship or worse.
Legitimacy can be minimized and ultimately disappear for numerous reasons. Overreaching legislation, disputed elections, authoritarianism, all can chip away at legitimacy, ultimately rendering the social compact useless. At that point a nation disintegrates, a nation becomes balkanized. Many times I believe that political correctness is balkanizing the United States. Every group, every ethnicity, every belief, every minority, every little category we can find to put people into, each of those little boxes balkanizes the country so that instead of e pluribus unum (out of many, one) we become e unibus plurum (out of one, many). Balkanization of the United States through political correctness and delegitmization of our government institutions is always close by. All it would take is for catastrophic natural disaster, a catastrophic foreign attack or some similar incident to either drive us back together as one or split us into several groups. (For a fictionalized version of this kind of thing happening, check out the television series Jericho where simultaneous explosions of nuclear devices in several major U.S. cities splits the country for an amazing peek into the world of society breaking up).
Why am I off on this subject today?
Iran.
We are witnessing (those who are watching) a potential revolution. A revolution between a dictatorial theocracy run by the mullahs and a segment of society yearning to be free. American media is not very focused on this phenomena. British television (where I am as I write) is not much better. Sky News seems to be doing a fairly good job of covering this unrest, but BBC and others and what I can watch on the Internet is sparse.
American news outlets should be covering this wall-to-wall. May not be good for ratings, but would be great for an American civics lesson. Lots for us to learn as we watch, if we would just watch.
One of the outstanding persons covering the unrest in Iran is Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic. I am reading his blog line-by-line and watching the videos and reading his tweets about the unrest. I suggest you at least skim through it daily to get a dose of what it is like for people fighting for legitimacy in their government. There are many lessons for us dumb, fat, lazy Americans to learn. The world is not all free and capitalistic like us. The world is full of oppression, dictatorships, theocracies and stifling of freedom. Our job is to be smart and vigilant, and support those who yearn for freedom whenever and however we can.
How many of us would be willing to do this to secure our freedom to vote and to guarantee free and open elections. Warning, this is disturbing.
How many of us would accept the U.S. government taking this kind of action during a demonstration demanding a recount of a national election?
If you have any interest at all in the Iranian demonstrations over the recent elections, I highly recommend reading through Andrew’s blog on The Atlantic. You can find it here.
