“Hate the sin and not the sinner” is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.—Mohandas Gandhi So, did the Republicans rush to judgment of Sen. Craig in the recent “men’s room” sting operation? Sure they did, but the GOP is paranoid because they know that we have an electorate that won’t bother to think past the immediate association of the incident with Republican/Foley/gay/corruption/hypocrisy fueled by the constant droning of the left and its fellow travelers in the media with 24/7 coverage of past Craig pronouncements on the foibles of Bill Clinton, against gay marriage, etc. And they further know that damage control requires that they get this guy off the airwaves ASAP, whatever the cost of a lynching before the trial.

How did we get here? First, our culture, our public philosophers, and our education system no longer accept the historic definition of hypocrisy. It has become the deadliest sin, running a close race with “intolerance”, replacing the time honored practice of condemning the underlying behavior and finding no place for someone who says “do as I say and not as I do” or the acknowledged sinner who preaches against the sins formerly committed. In addition, as Jonah Goldberg so well notes, the left hates “moralizers”, so any deficiency in living a perfect life disqualifies one from encouraging others to strive for virtue, unless you are of the political left, which has made an art form of moralizing on public policy, as long as it excludes personal behavior. And so it is Craig’s perceived hypocrisy that is denounced as the real sin rather than the behavior. Of course, one solution to this epidemic is to have no morals at all—you can’t violate any principles you don’t hold.

I was struck over a year ago by comments by the CEO of General Motors who, in defending the company’s appeal for relief of its crushing legacy costs for health care and retirement benefits for its retirees, in effect said that it should not be expected to bear these costs in their entirety because they are part of the social contract that has been in place for the past sixty or so years, in which GM has been a loyal participant. My initial reaction at the time was that, while he might have a good point, we have long known that we can no longer afford this deal, and it is his responsibility and that of his peers to provide the opinion leadership to replace this contract which has been broken for quite some time, rather than allowing the costs to be socialized by off-loading them to the taxpayers. Roll the calendar forward, and we now have a number of people talking about this broken social contract and predicting that it will likely be the most important domestic issue in the Presidential election of 2008. It’s about time.In a recent article, David Brooks brought my attention to the work of two people who have insightful things to say about this broken contract and what should be done to overhaul it. Jason Bordoff of Democracy Magazine, a Brookings Institution affiliate, has a slightly left of center take on the problem, which he describes as the “two-sided reality of the 21st century economy”, namely that first, in an era of growing economic insecurity it must be recognized that people will not be willing or able to assume all of the inherent risks of globalization and the dynamics it produces without some assurances that there will be downside protection from job loss or dislocation and periodic non-insurability, and second, that, as companies like GM have learned, these very forces have already rendered obsolete as economically unviable the arrangements that assumed long-term employment with one employer as a significant part of the social contract. Bordoff envisions a New Social Contract that would marry economic growth and security through new and sustainable roles and responsibilities for government, employers, and individuals. Government would provide two levels of protection—basic economic security (that assumes the overhaul and resulting long-term viability of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—no mean feat) and “smarter” regulations and “better designed incentives”, without necessarily involving expensive new programs. I wonder. Also, employers would be required to serve as conduits for health care and retirement plans, but would no longer necessarily be the primary sponsors, and individuals would take more responsibility for supplementing the basic level of protection provided by the government. I fail to see how this approach will greatly alter the underlying dynamics of the current system, but given the credibility of Brookings, it will no doubt get a full hearing.

Another approach is from Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation, and it has the attractive distinction of taking full account of the organic nature of American society, which in no way mirrors that of European tastes for single-payer, statist systems that fail to recognize American pluralism and individualism and the fact that the primary American social relationship is not between individuals and their government.

DeTocqueville long ago recognized that the distinctive nature of American society is in its voluntary associations and social networks—churches, unions, community groups, etc.—that provide buffers between individuals and their government. It is these organic associations that Butler believes should be the conduit for the transformation to a new distinctly American social contract. He would combine this concept with state insurance exchanges allowing portability, reform of tax treatment of health care insurance, and phasing employers out of health care insurance sponsorship. His is no purely libertarian idea and he too recognizes that the new contract must have a foundational element of basic security to cover the new risk profile. However, according to Butler, the last thing we need is to get all of the smartest people in a room in Washington to build the new system.

All of these plans, proposals, and debates are on a course to collision in November 2008, and all of them assume that there is enough enlightened leadership abroad in the land to finally come to terms with the broken social contract in the first place—which, together with the prosecution of World War IV, is another reason that I believe this will prove to be the most significant national election since 1932.

Some years ago (June 2000), I wrote about the demise of the “warrior class” in America and the degree to which the military experience and the commitment to military service have been diluted in America’s leadership class. To me, this is a troubling development, because I have always believed, particularly since the time of my service, that military service has been the “great leveler” for American youth, primarily males, as it cut across race, class, social, and economic lines in assimilating its recruits into service to the country. Despite its valiant dedication to our current mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, the all-volunteer military isn’t the same and the post-Vietnam, pre-9/11 generation missed this experience which, for most of our history, had been a “rite of passage” for us.

Now, six years after the most devastating attack in our nation’s history and in the midst of a significant external threat to our civilization, the divide seems much worse. The military and the civilian culture it serves are becoming even more estranged. Surveys show that large majorities of military personnel are annoyed by what they see as a breakdown in virtues like honesty and sacrifice within civilian institutions, and believe that civilians are in the midst of a moral crisis. And then we have the growing distrust between the elites of the left and our military leadership as manifest in the newspaper ad placed by MoveOn.org on the day of Gen. David Petraeus’ appearance before Congress, a shameful accusation of the worst possible kind levied at a career officer who has dedicated his life to our country’s service at great personal risk.

But it goes even deeper than that. Irresponsible groups such as MoveOn.org and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media feel that they can resort to such tactics with impunity because elected leaders from the left either condone or are complicit in them, and too often themselves resort to the politics of destruction of their opponents’ legitimacy and integrity. In fact, recent polling by the Pew Research Center shows that 76% of Republicans have confidence in the military to provide an accurate picture of the war, while only 36% of Democrats do. This is not a healthy situation. We can survive a political divide, but we cannot effectively defend our country and the civilization it leads with a large segment of our leadership elite viewing our military as a foreign culture and without trust in the integrity and fidelity of our military leaders, and no great republic can endure without an effective, committed warrior class.

Incidentally, the Republican Senate resolution to condemn the MoveOn.org “betray us” ad passed 72-25, with a majority of Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, among the “no” votes refusing to condemn. Is there any remaining doubt about the degree to which MoveOn.org and the antiwar left have Democratic foreign policy in a hammer lock?

Can you think of a wider one than exists between the leadership of our elite colleges and universities and the military culture, as evidenced by the current controversy over the appearance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran at Columbia University? Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger just doesn’t get it. He would like us to believe that the nominal leader of a country that has already committed acts of war against the U. S., who denies the very underpinning of the concept of truth on which our civilization is based, who has openly called for the elimination of this country and our leading ally in his region, and who is the 21st century equivalent of Adolf Hitler in about 1936 can be trusted with responsible dialogue befitting the concepts of academic freedom and open inquiry in pursuit of the truth. And, incidentally, how is it that Bollinger can provide a platform for Ahmadinejad but not for a ROTC program at Columbia?