Recently I had the opportunity to participate as a panelist in a conference sponsored by the Texas Lyceum Association to explore the “problems, issues, challenges, ventures, and goals that the state of Texas should be pursuing in the public sphere”.  In a couple of hours, five of us and a moderator conducted a fairly spirited dialogue on our perspectives on the top priorities in this context.  Of course, to no surprise, public education was at the top of everyone’s list, and in second place was a variety of lesser items.  But here I want to address one area that was not fully laid out that I poorly attempted to introduce late in the session, one that represents a serious threat to our prosperity, and one that is largely external, at least in the sense in which Texas policymakers have very limited control over its impact on the state.

The threat I have in mind is the growing  negative attitude toward free and open trade and the protectionist leanings that have become much too evident across the broad spectrum of public opinion.  Here are some indicators:  In a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 53% said that free trade agreements have hurt the U. S., up from 46% in 2007 and 32% in 1999.  Further, 86% named outsourcing as the major cause of the country’s continuing economic distress, and this sentiment was consistent across party lines, job classification (professional and blue collar), and income levels.  No other factor was even close in the poll, and this outcome was strongest among managers and professionals at 95%!  Even more instructive, the “Pledge to America” recently unveiled by House Republicans, supposedly the party of free trade, doesn’t even mention the subject, and in the WSJ poll 61% of those who self identify as Tea Party members said that trade agreements have hurt the U. S.

Given these numbers and the attitudes they reflect, there is little wonder why trade agreements with Korea, Columbia, and Panama are stalled and a dispute with Mexico over trucking deregulation remains unresolved.  Nor is it surprising that the Democrats in both houses have proposed significant protectionist legislation–in the Senate a bill to use tax policy to penalize companies that outsource jobs and in the House a bill passed entitled the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act that would mandate consideration of a foreign country’s currency interventions in determining unfair trade practices, a measure clearly targeting China.  The fate of these proposals await the return of Congress in the lame duck session after election day, but both have bipartisan support, the message in them is clear and dangerous,  and the atmosphere smacks of the days of the  Smoot-Hawley tariff debacle of the early 1930′s.

Some of this hostility can be attributed to the very slow economic recovery and much of it is prompted by the fact that corporate America is sitting on the largest cash horde in history and is reluctant to invest in new ventures, new facilities, and the job creation that follows.  Of course this reluctance and underlying uncertainty is understandable, but why is this the case?  Again, no surprises, and several reasons readily come to mind:

*Our government pursues fiscal policy, including tax, spending, and regulatory policies, that is destructive to capital and drives it offshore where it is often treated much better.

*We have pursued our monetary policy as though America is alone in the world and has no responsibility as the steward of the world’s reserve currency, which must have stability in value above all other considerations.

*In trade policy, we seem to have forgotten that, despite those economists who believe it has been repealed,  the Law of Comparative Advantage is still alive and well and that the American comparative advantage is the creativity, innovation, and skills of its people.

*Far too many in our education establishment are slow to recognize that this historic advantage is slipping away because of our interminable delay in drastically transforming our public education system and moving it into the 21st century.

*In spite of the lessons of recent economic history, neither political party seems to remember that economic growth trumps austerity-only as the best cure for economic distress and that supply side economic policies are the best drivers of growth.

Let’s hope these leading indicators are nothing more than election year temper tantrums, but if the election results do not produce a significant change in leadership and direction, we are in big trouble, and Texas, in spite of its clear advantages in people, policy, and spirit, cannot fully escape the threat.

I haven’t yet completely read former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s book, The Journey, but have read enough reviews,  excerpts, and interviews to be impressed that he represents the best of the special Anglo-American relationship that has been so important to the world for the past century.  Margaret Thatcher he isn’t, but he is about as good as it gets as an ally in terms of the courage that was so important to the West and America during the most critical moments since 9-11-01.  And he is still doing yeoman work in defending the Iraq war policy he helped implement as well as the important elements of the Bush Doctrine, in spite of the heaps of abuse he has endured from his own people for doing so.  He is also equally as certain that Iran is up to no good, is outraged at the role it has played and is playing in Iraq and Afghanistan, assigns that regime the moral equivalence of al Queda, and is convinced that it should be vigorously confronted.

In economic policy, he has some very pointed criticisms of the tired, worn out myth that the recent financial meltdown was primarily the fault of the bankers.  In fact, he says “the market did not fail, one part of one sector did”, and adds that government, regulations, politicians, and monetary policy failed, but it was not a conspiracy of the banks.  Another gem is his remark that “The most important thing is to encourage strong growth, for the economy to create wealth.”  (Somewhere I heard that) And he makes a final point on domestic policy that should be heeded by those who would lead us beyond election day 2010:  “…..in the 20th century, a progressive party that stands essentially for the state and big government is not going to succeed.  Simple as that.”  Very perceptive stuff, coming from a progressive.

Quite a lot has been written about the disconnect that obviously has widened in recent years between the so-called “elites” who populate the governing classes in politics, the media, and academia and the rest of the citizens who must find a way to get through the day in dealing with the results while keeping their lives and fortunes intact.  Peggy Noonan has been particularly good at describing this phenomenon and senses that this gulf has never been as wide as it is right now.  I agree, and one particular aspect of this gap that is especially worrisome is the one between those who have some connection to past or current military service and those who have not.

In a recent article, Gary Schmitt and Cheryl Miller note that, despite the fact that we have been at war for almost ten years continuously and although Americans hold military service and sacrifice in very high regard, they do so increasingly from a distance, and they believe that this trend is a threat to America’s civic ethic of equal sacrifice.  The latest figures show that veterans now represent 9% of the total population, a percentage that continues to decline, and that less than 1% serves in any of the military services, active duty or reserves.  The data also show that our soldiers come from an increasingly narrower segment of society–geographically and culturally.  Not surprisingly, Southerners disproportionally populate all the military branches, while the middle-class suburbs surrounding the largest cities produce relatively few service members compared to their large populations of young people.

The all-volunteer military has served our country very well, and I am certainly not suggesting the return of the draft.  But we should be concerned about many of the attitudes among our opinion leaders and some of its resulting policy that smack of a certain dismissiveness of the willingness and commitment of our young people to serve their country.  To wit, several weeks ago, during a discussion about the “end of combat operations” and pending troop reductions in Iraq on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe”, commentator Lawrence O’Donnell made the comment “If you want to end U. S. involvement in wars, reinstate the draft; that will do it instantly”.  Commentator Doris Kearns Goodwin said that she was struck by the reaction at a party in New York when she mentioned that her son had chosen to enter the military.  There was disbelief among those at the party, as though they could not imagine why he would do that.  To which O’Donnell then replied “That’s because the elite understand the burdens and risks of war as others don’t.  The volunteers are full of a lot of naivete”.   The final comment from a discussion participant from Rolling Stone magazine  was “And they volunteer because they need the employment”.  If this dialogue doesn’t represent the ultimate in elite condescension, I don’t want to hear anything worse.  Is there any doubt about how out of touch this crowd is with the warrior class and the patriotic sense of duty of the kids who defend this country and the families from which they originate?

Over ten years ago, in the June 2000 issue, I wrote of “The Demise of the Warrior Class” in which I noted that it is clear that, as the World War II generation passes on, fewer Americans feel a direct connection with or obligation to military service.  I also quoted Kirk Kicklighter, a former Marine Corps Captain, who said that the military and the civilian culture it serves are becoming estranged, and that the problem began with Vietnam, as the students who protested the war became the tenured faculty and civilian government leaders of today and are highly skeptical of the military.

Coincidentally, Duke University was then conducting a study of this estrangement, which produced some disturbing results.  Large percentages of military personnel reported being annoyed by what they saw as a breakdown in virtues like honesty and sacrifice within civilian institutions, and they believed that civilians are in the midst of a moral crisis.  Seventy-seven percent of military officers believed the adoption of such military values as honor, accountability, and teamwork would help civilian society reform itself.  Eighty-one percent of newly commissioned officers felt the military’s values are closer than civilian values to those of the Founding Fathers.  Of course, this survey was completed before 9-11 launched us into our current conflicts and it would be interesting to know how these attitudes would compare ten years later, but my guess is that they would be fairly consistent.  They are certainly worthy of our attention.

I repeat:  The attitudes and sensitivities of our elites to the contrary notwithstanding, no great republic can endure without an effective, committed warrior class, preferably one that is representative of the body politic, properly accountable to civilian authority with a clear vision of the society’s vital interests and the proper uses of power.  God help us if we ever forget this.

David Broder reports the results of recent Gallup polling that reflects the highest percentage of self-identified conservatives since they began asking the question about personal ideology in 1992.  Currently, 42% so identify, compared to 35% as moderates and 20% as liberals.  We’ll see what this means, among other factors in the upcoming elections, but savvy observers know that this has consistently been a center-right country and, as Peter Berkowitz noted several months ago, the death of conservatism was greatly exaggerated after the 2008 elections.  He also points out that, traditionally, progressives like to believe (and demonize them for it in the process) that the mission of conservatives is exclusively negative, “the party of NO”, and they see nothing in this but hard-hearted indifference to misfortune.  In his view, this is a misreading.  What conservatives do in times like these is ask the question that is avoided by progressive promises: at what expense?