It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.  It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.–Mark Twain

Nobel economist Paul Krugman is the poster boy for Twain’s quote, but it runs in the ideological family as well.  Krugman, of course, is a primary leader of the steady drumbeat for more government stimulus spending and regularly laments that the current problem with the economic recovery is not enough spending, to wit: “Both textbook economics and experience say that slashing spending when you’re still suffering from high unemployment is a really bad idea…..”  Wrong on both sources, of course, and history is replete with examples which I will spare you.  But it was interesting to note the recent reminder of a survey conducted by Zogby International in 2008 which tracked the relationship between economic enlightenment and a number of variables, including presidential vote, party affiliation, race or ethnic group, religious participation, union membership, household income, gender, and marital status, among others.  The eight survey questions were those whose answers have long been settled by economic research and empirical results, such as:   True or False–”restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable”, and “mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services”.  The results were stunning.  Using six self-selected classifications along the political ideological spectrum, from very conservative to progressive/very liberal, the number of  incorrect answers from the three classifications on the left side ranged from three to six times the number from the three classifications on the right.   Clearly the left has a problem with calibrating sound economic thinking with predetermined sensibilities (I’ve always wondered who reads Krugman’s stuff).  One other result was also instructive–there was no correlation between economic enlightenment and college attendance.  Obviously, common sense makes a big difference, but common sense tells us that without a survey, right?

This past week we witnessed yet another missed opportunity to educate the body politic on our founding principles, one more casualty of the 1987 confirmation hearing that has now coined the verb form “to bork”.  In spite of the paucity of her written record and the fact that she hasn’t a record from the bench at all, the Elena Kagan Supreme Court confirmation hearings could have been enlightening on a number of wedge issues that are important to the country.  George Will went to the trouble of outlining a number of questions the answers to which would have been instructive, covering issues such as the Commerce Clause, eminent domain, the Citizens United free speech decision, diversity as a compelling public interest, and others.  Alas, for our next public constitutional refresher course we must await an appointment that threatens to swing the ideological balance of the Court, and then look out, we’re in for a bloodletting like none we have seen at least since the Clarence Thomas hearing and maybe Robert Bork’s.  It will be the “mother of all constitutional debates” involving the central arguments between the founding principles embodied in the Constitution of 1787 and those of the “living constitution”, the one the progressives have wanted for the past 100 years, and the left is simply biding its time until it has an opportunity to tip the balance in its favor.  Meanwhile, I say a prayer every day that Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and “swingman” Kennedy stay healthy and upright at least until 2013; they may be all that hold us back from the abyss.

It seems we’re spending a lot of time analyzing the Tea Party movement, and I have previously offered some thoughts, but recently I was struck by an essay in Policy Review, “The Tea Party vs. the Intellectuals”, by Lee Harris, author of a new book, The Next American Civil War: The Populist Revolt Against the Liberal Elite. Here is an excerpt that captures the essence of his thoughts:

The lesson of history is stark and simple.  People who are easy to govern lose their freedom.  People who are difficult to govern retain theirs.  What makes the difference is not an ideology, but an attitude.  Those people who embody the “don’t tread on me!” attitude have kept their liberties simply because they are prepared to stand up against those who threaten to tread on them…………The most important thing is simply to preserve this attitude among a sufficiently large number of people to make it a genuine deterrent against the power hungry.  If the Tea Party can succeed in this all-important mission, the pragmatist can forgive the movement for a host of silly ideas and absurd policy suggestions, because he knows what is really at stake.  Once the “don’t tread on me!” attitude has vanished from a people, it never returns.  It is lost and gone forever, along with the liberty and freedom for which, ultimately, it is the only effective defense.

Methinks this is wise counsel that should be heeded by the pragmatic leadership of the loyal opposition, while their “intellectuals” do the work in the think tanks to advance policy that adheres to first principles.  It is the latter that concerns many of us and many of the Tea Party stalwarts.  As painful as it is to admit, conservatism has forfeited its reputation as a reform movement that was earned in the Reagan and Gingrich years and must regain its reformist heritage, a branding that has been severely damaged by the profligacy of  “compassionate conservatism”.  There is some good work underway here, such as the Mount Vernon Statement issued by leading conservative thinkers recommitting themselves to the ideas of the American founding.  Great, but not enough.  It will be impossible to nationalize an election without a well documented commitment to sound policy that has been translated from these principles, in other words, policy that makes these principles relevant to today’s issues and that can be understood as such by the American people.

For example, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is one young leader who has done this with the health care issue, with policy details that make sense while he boils down the choices to two incompatible alternative understandings of America–one based on the principles of progressivism and rule by “experts” and the other on a Constitution with rule by free individuals under limited government.  Sound familiar?  This is where the battle lines will be drawn and this is where the wedge points in policy will be fought.  The tea partyers, the pragmatists, and the intellectuals all have a critical role to play in advancing this model, and they need to come together and get on with it.

One more point that has been advanced by Jeffrey Friedman in National Review.  He reports on a Pew survey that reflects a majority attitude among Americans that the central Tea Party idea, that modern government is tyrannical, fails to resonate, and he concludes that this is because Americans are by nature problem solvers and that the appeal of progressive, activist government is in solving the problems of ordinary Americans, while the tea partyers elevate individual freedom over pragmatism.  This is another issue that requires careful thought and policy that correlates with principle and, as Friedman suggests, it may be that the world will belong to those who can explain why it must not be entrusted to central planners.  Another role for conservative intellectuals, and let’s hope this hasn’t become an oxymoron.

Like many enthusiasts of college sports, I monitored closely the daily drama of the near implosion of the athletic conference alignments that recently unfolded over a period of  several weeks involving several major football conferences, with primary focus on the Big 12 and its potential dismantling.  I won’t belabor all the various cross-currents; I will simply say that I am generally pleased with the outcome for the time being, although I believe that it is merely a transition to another round of contention in just a few years.

Obscured by the headlines that followed these high profile machinations was the announcement of the third report of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, entitled Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values, and the Future of College Sports.  This report was not as provocative as the first two, but it was certainly timely, dealing as it did with the impact of the enormous and rapidly increasing funding of college sports that seemingly overwhelms all other considerations in the strategies of these programs and the deliberations on conference affiliations.  In fact, in the release of the report, the Commission noted that recent events give “new urgency to the finding of a survey in which a majority of university presidents agreed that current spending trends cannot be sustained”.

The recommendations offer three principles for reform: (1) require that financial reports be public and transparent; (2) reward institutions that make academic values a priority; and (3) treat athletes as students first and foremost–not as professionals.  The Commission further recommends that the financial reports filed by each institution with the NCAA be made public and include an additional measure comparing spending in athletics and academics, with athletic revenue distribution more closely tied to academic values and standards.

I am on record in this publication in agreement with almost every conclusion and recommendation of the first two Knight Commission reports (see The Student-Athlete Myth, August 2001 and A Profile in Academic Courage, November 2003) and I certainly have no problem with the current recommendations, although some of them seem to require significant transformation of human nature.  But here is the immediate problem:  Of 119 colleges with NCAA Division 1-A football programs, only 19 were profitable in 2009 and only six have been profitable for five consecutive years, so the “arms race” in college athletics is producing a clear demarcation between the “haves” and the “have-nots”, and the gap is becoming more pronounced with every passing year.

In the interest of full disclosure, my alma mater, The University of Texas, is one of the six and leads the nation in annual gross athletic revenues at $138 million, a fact that gives me no great cause for celebration, but I will add this–although I am no fan of the current system, until we fix it, UT has no intention of unilateral disarmament.  And I should also add that UT athletics is one of the very few programs that not only doesn’t require any subsidy from its parent, but rather distributes significant funding to the academic side of the institution on an annual basis.  Common sense dictates that sustainable coexistence by UT and others among the “haves” in the same conference with schools on the other end of the financial spectrum is problematic at best.

So what will be the outcome?  I certainly don’t know and I’m not sure anyone can predict.  But I fear that if the leadership of the schools at the upper end of financial success do not take aggressive action soon, there is a risk of government intervention on issues such as tax exemption, compensation of student-athletes, and anti-trust considerations, not to mention intervention in matters of conference membership, none of which will be productive for college athletics or academics.

Let’s take a quick look at the “religion clause” of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The genius in this phrase is striking and it is a major foundation of the idea that produced American exceptionalism.  No established church, but free religious exercise.  This has resulted in a competitive marketplace of religious preferences that has allowed many flowers to bloom along with the weeds, and the resulting outlet for expression of belief has spared us from untold grief and conflict while making us the most religious nation on earth.

There is a growing problem, however.  We are now being informed in myriad ways that the protection of  free exercise has a meaning much different than intended, and this is producing a perversion of the purposes of religious freedom.  Some examples: the substitution of “freedom to worship” by officials such as Hillary Clinton in place of religious freedom, as she did in a speech at Georgetown University; the limitation of religious freedom to private expressions of faith and the proscription of religiously grounded convictions from public expression, as with health care providers who object to certain medical procedures; and the constant public intimidation to accept the radical gay/lesbian rights agenda.

Some of these encroachments are more subtle than others, but all of them offer what George Weigel calls “a diminished view of religious freedom”.  Further, he suggests that religious freedom, properly understood, cannot be reduced to freedom of worship.  If this were the case, there is religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, where ex-patriots can attend Mass.  No, religious freedom, rightly understood, includes the right to make religiously informed moral arguments on public policy in the public square without interference from the state.  If this is not the common understanding derived from a reading of the First Amendment, then let’s have the debate before we wake up and find that the right to free exercise has been taken away.

The Business Roundtable appears to have been finally awakened to the realities of the Obama agenda.  Recent comments from its leadership criticized the administration for decisions that “create an increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation”.  It’s about time.  Where have they been?  Everything dear to a climate of growth and opportunity has been in reverse since this administration took office and the Roundtable has been at best missing in action and at worst complicit.  Everywhere one looks, capital is under attack, from tax policy to trade policy to EPA regulations to flawed financial institution regulation to health care legislation.  Capital goes where it is welcomed and stays where it is well-treated and this is increasingly not the United States.

A major culprit in this attack on capital has been what Arthur C. Brooks, in his book The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future, calls the Obama Narrative.  This is the administration’s basic account of how we got into the financial crisis of 2008 and how President Obama said he would get us out of it.  It blames Wall Street and weak regulation for getting us in and promises big government and strong regulation to get us out.  Both premises are dead wrong, which should have been clear from the outset to any sophisticated observer like the Business Roundtable.  But better late than never, so I welcome big business to the fight and I hope it’s not too late.