Seldom, if ever, however, did the questioner define “American Exceptionalism,” and it would have been a very foolish candidate who asked for a definition because if you have to ask, then you don’t believe.

But what does a questioner or candidate really mean when he or she declares a belief in “American Exceptionalism?”

The first definition of American Exceptionalism is also an historical observation.  It begins with the famous French observer of America, Alexis De Tocqueville, who commented on the uniqueness of the United States and its people.  Generally he said Americans were uniquely prepared for democracy and a market economy because:

1) Americans are the offspring of England, where ideas about democracy and free markets had been nurtured for generations.

2) Calvinists flocked to America, and brought with them a powerful commercial and often democratic impulse.

3) The United States is an immigrant nation and immigrants are usually the most independent and enterprising of people, and such people pass these values on to their children.

4) American immigrants settled a large and mostly vacant land and, due to distance and geography, further learned to govern themselves.

There is certainly more truth here than not.  America’s historical circumstances are exceptional and the above factors have made for an especially free and prosperous nation .  This kind of belief in “American Exceptionalism” is both credible and instructive.

Other definitions are not so benign.   Sometime during the 19th Century, America moved from striving to be a “shining city upon a hill,” by which Jonathan Winthrop meant an example to all, to an “exceptional” nation whose destiny was manifest.  Americans would sweep across the continent, using force when necessary, teach Latin Americans to “elect good men” at the point of a gun, make war with Spain because it was weak and despotic, and invade Iraq because neo-conservatives in the United States thought they could plant a democracy in the middle of the Islamic world in order to win a war on terrorism.  Ironically, if one believes in the kind of American Exceptionalism observed by De Tocqueville, then all of these attempts to impose democracy on others will be fruitless, because it is our situation that was exceptional, not theirs.

With America’s massive military establishment and far-flung military bases and commitments, the United States remains quite exceptional.  But is this exceptionalism – while necessary to fight World War II and counterbalance the Soviet Union during the Cold War- forever to be America’s role in the world?  Can we maintain this posture and remain an exceptionally strong country economically?

Nobody likes to hear someone say he or she is better than everyone else.  To foreign ears, whether they are allies, foes or something in between, “American Exceptionalism” sounds like bombast.  Or worse.  “American Exceptionalism”  might mean that we don’t think the rules apply to us.  In the inevitably multi-polar world of the 21st Century, the most successful countries will not be saddled with huge defense budgets, police actions and international commitments to ensnare them at every turn.  Rather, a balance of military preparedness and diplomacy, for which world public opinion matters, will be the keys to peace and prosperity.    Jingoism under the mask of “American Exceptionalsim” hurts American interests, and ultimately, American values.

A third and bizarre form of “American Exceptionalism” is a sort of Christian Nationalism.    These folks begin with the premise that America is a place blessed by God in a way that other nations are not.  This mindset goes back the Puritans of Massachusetts, who saw themselves as latter-day Old Testament Israelites – God’s chosen people in a new wilderness.    Among us are particularly religious conservative activists who actually believe that the Constitution was “divinely inspired.” Would a “divinely inspired” creation really have included a provision for slavery?  The founders knew quite well that their governing document might have flaws, particularly as the product of political compromise, and  that future circumstances could require the Constitution to change, which is why they left us an amendment process.    They were aware that all people are fallible, including themselves.  The founders’ wisdom, tempered by their humanity, is part of what makes them so compelling.  While the Israelites might have been a chosen people, Jesus taught that we are all equal in the eyes of God, and we should suppose that He meant even Americans.

This is a case of considerable urgency.  The United States, and several of those states individually, are on course to go bankrupt.  One of the major problems is the current and projected rise in medical costs.  If present trends to pack on weight continue, treating problems related to obesity will eat up $344 billion – or 21% of our health-care expenses – by 2018.

What’s behind all these bulges in waistlines and budgets?  Have we become a people and a nation who just can’t say no?

Uncomfortably aware of how quickly 2010 has come and is about to go, most of us resolve to accomplish more in 2011 and beyond.  Let’s start by reflecting on Yogi Berra’s observation, “We’re lost, but we’re making good time.” We’re so busy, all of us.  But where are we headed?  You tell me the meaning of life and perhaps we can work out a definition of what “success” is.  Meantime, we can reflect on my daughter’s observation, “You know, Mommy, I slow down to hurry, and you just rush.”  She was four years old at the time.

Americans eat too fast.  We’ve developed a whole “cuisine” of meals we can consume while watching and thinking about something else – TV, for example.  Why do we want “fast food”?  Why don’t we respect eating and cherish family time around the dinner table?  If we savored our gathering together, and talked between mouthfuls, our stomachs would be able to tell us we’re full, and maybe we’d even listen to them and stop scarfing down everything in sight, and out.  Must we eat, instead, while driving and writing papers and going to the movies?  No.  Instead, we should be measured and mindful with our meals.  Michelle Obama is on the right track with her “Let’s Move” initiative, and Sarah Palin is simply being silly with her defense of desserts.

Americans do almost everything too fast.  We want quick solutions to problems –for example,  pills or bariatric surgery instead of slow and steady weight loss from eating less (and better) and exercising more.   When there’s a problem in the private sector, we want the government to solve it, immediately and painlessly, as if we’re children and government is our benign, powerful, and wealthy set of parents.

Americans also multitask all the time, instead of focusing on one project at a time, consciously and conscientiously.  While we feel – and are – busy, we’re less productive with these work habits, particularly in the most important job of all: raising children. Kids know when their parents aren’t really listening.  Too many parents try to protect their children from failure, even as they ill prepare them for success.  Do we want our children to have their first disappointments at the age of forty?  Do we want to bail our kids out of problematic situations or teach them that problems are challenges that must be met?  Surely, the best way to gain confidence is to fix mistakes and keep moving forward.  Life is not easy, and trying to make it so just makes it less deep.We must raise children to be accountable.  And then perhaps we can make governments accountable, too.  We need to slow down and find the time to raise our children and monitor our politicians, rewarding both sets for good behavior, and chastising  them for bad.

Ours is a nation in relative and perhaps absolute decline because politicians and ordinary people alike are chasing money rather than value.  We have a public school system that some say benefits teachers more than students.   We go around calling every kid a “winner”.   This “culture” is making us a country of many self-delusional losers. While our colleges and graduate schools remain first rate, our high schools have become merely mediocre.  The most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report ranked American teenagers rank 14th out of 34 OECD countries in reading skills, an average of 17th in science, and a below-average 25th in math.

To reflect on President Obama’s recent  trip to Asia is to realize that we are no longer considered the preeminent economic and political leader of the world.  And justified as many of the criticisms of how we abused some of that power have been, can you think of a nation that would have used it better?  I can’t, and find the exercise discouraging.

We won’t regain our strength without a well trained and disciplined workforce.  We need to grow our way out of our problems.  And while it’s convenient  to blame teachers’ unions for our decline, parents and culture must share the responsibility for helping youths grow up.  We also need to say no to all the gravy — on the dinner plate and in politics.  You may love your Congressman for all the pork he brings home to your state, but do you realize you’re paying for other states’ pork and all the omnibus spending bills that pork makes possible?  Overall, your deal may not be good for you — or the country.  The real price is too high.

My favorite book is my mother’s old leather-bound dictionary.  It provides five definitions for “resolution”, starting with “Act or process of resolving, or reducing to simpler form; also, its result; answer; solution”.  After the fifth definition, which involves music, it sends the reader to the definition of  “decision” to add nuance.  “Resolution,” says Mom’s Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Fifth Edition, unlike mere decisions “implies constancy and courage, esp. in the face of difficulty or danger.”

Here’s hoping our resolutions for this new year of 2011 fit that first definition and that implication.  Then, and only then, can we save our children and our country.  We need to grow up so they can.

Am I saying to the States that those special benefits your Congress got for you weren’t free – or at least subsidized?  Yes.  For most of you, yes.  Because you’re paying your fair share, or even more, for all those earmarks that benefit other States, and perhaps even more importantly for all the omnibus bills that wouldn’t have passed without earmark handouts.

The two major insights of Economics are first that however rich we are, we live in a world of scarcity and second that behavior follows incentives.  Two of the most important scarce goods are information and time.  Facts are mostly generated locally, and the desire to get ahead inspires people to get the knowledge they need to prosper.  Just that, not much more than that – time is one of the other most important of scarce goods.  Had we “but world enough and time”…oh, well, we don’t.

One of the most important insights from the Federalist Papers lodges in #51 and, while political, reflects these sad facts of Economics.  As James Madison shared on February 6, 1788:

[W]hat is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Madison used this somber reflection to emphasize the importance of checks and balances.  But let’s be clear: the Government acts, in many circumstances, like a monopoly, particularly, but not only, at the federal level.  Even worse than being unrestrained by competition, it’s a monopoly that has to centralize information in order to act intelligently (this is a particularly sobering truth for its new responsibilities for health-care decisions) and its incentives follow the money, which come from special interests.  Uncle Sam is not impartial.  He prefers some of his nieces and nephews over others – and the main metric he uses to choose is money.

So there’s no such thing as Santa?  Such a question demands nuance in reply.  There are several levels to reality, and he’s real on some but not all of them. Symbols are important and real.  So Francis P. Church was telling the truth more than one hundred years after Madison when he responded in 1897 to eight-year-old Virginia in The New York Sun: 

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

Just remember that on other levels of reality, facts in fact matter.  The private sector certainly has its flaws.  But before we rush to government solutions, we’re obliged to act as adults and ask ourselves, “Will the Government make it better or worse?”  Perfection is beyond our reach, even if we could define it.  We’re never going to get rid of all problems, and sometimes our efforts will just increase and even entrench them.

Angels are real, too, in Church’s sense and maybe more.  Abraham Lincoln appealed to “the better angels of our nature” in his first inaugural address.  In the Christmas spirit, and all year round, we should be appealing to them too.  Our problems as a nation are huge and many.  They can only be solved by working together, respecting facts and different perspectives, and continuing conversations until reaching consensus.  This is my grownup Christmas wish.

Remember that concept?  Not that long ago folks would spend a good chunk of the morning reading a newspaper from cover-to-cover and digesting the information.  They’d gather ‘round the water cooler to share their ideas and opinions, and when they got home they’d turn on the evening news and learn what happened during the day.  Toward the end of the broadcast someone would offer an opinion, or a rebuttal, about an issue of local or national importance.

The world didn’t move quite so fast back then.  Journalists and columnists seemed to have more time to gather their information, form their thoughts, and convey them artfully.  Editors plied their essential craft to do more than catch obvious errors; they also made certain the reader got the best possible product that a news organization could deliver.  News was reported objectively as news, and opinion was offered with well-crafted logic and supported with fact and rhetoric (in the best sense of that word).

Today, the notion that we citizens should take the time to find, read, and consider essential information seems quaint.  We regard ourselves as too busy or too important to be bothered with trivial matters like civics, economics, or domestic and foreign policy.  We have (public) servants for that.  Any information that requires us to sit still for more than two minutes is an inconvenience, and when we do allow ourselves the luxury of a few moments, we demand entertainment rather than edification.  After all, we’re entitled.

The various information media outlets cater to our wishes by serving us “news” in frenetic, seconds-long chunks that titillate and sensationalize.  Precious evening news air time is spent promoting prime-time broadcasts.  Polarizing radio monologues have replaced political dialog; argument has replaced debate.  Online we choose YouTube and Facebook over long-form journalism.

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart recently articulated this phenomenon during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow when he said that, in an age of the 24-hour news cycle, the mundane must be elevated to justify the format.  The definition of what qualifies as breaking news has been cheapened.

As a result, the public has been inured to the nuances that allow us to determine what’s important.  Instead, we respond only to sensationalism and absolutes, preferring ideology over ideas.

Certainly there are issues that require black and white clarity, but making progress in a time of polemics is difficult when politicians, who owe their seats to unrealistic campaign promises and fear the consequences of negative perception, refuse bi-partisanship when such is necessary.

Healthcare reform?  All or nothing.  Taxation?  All or nothing.  Energy policy?  All or nothing.

Newt Gingrich, clinging to aspirations of relevance, is urging Republicans to block approval of the $1.1 billion federal spending bill as well as the new START treaty with Russia on such principles.  At a time when the country faces dire challenges, particularly economically, Newt threatens scorched earth.  Of course, he has no constituent accountability, yet Gingrich’s behavior and that of others who actually hold seats in Congress suggest that issues like the federal budget, tax cuts, unemployment benefits, and other fiscal issues will be held hostage on partisan grounds.

In the mid-1980s, in the age of the Reagan Revolution and during the peak of the Cold War, the bitterest of political rivals still managed to cross the aisle and pass sweeping tax reform.  A monumental legislative achievement given the political climate at the time, stories of Democrats and Republicans sparring vigorously in the House and Senate chambers, then sharing drinks at the end of the day, were nevertheless common.  Even amid the partisanship there was still a sense of public service that prevailed.

On Sunday’s edition of 60 Minutes, House Majority Leader-to-be John Boehner, when asked about the possibility of playing a round of golf with President Obama, wryly replied he’d not been invited.  Something about Boehner’s demeanor suggested he was absolutely fine with that.

The Cold War, apparently, is not yet over.  It’s merely moved from behind the Berlin Wall to inside the Beltway.

According to a recent USA Today / Gallup poll, a full 42% of us are bothered or angered by airport scans.   Most of these modern-day airport Puritans probably appear in the familiar guise of religious orthodoxy or the prudishly conservative.  We can at least sympathize with some of these folks.  But others come politically motivated as feminists or civil libertarians.

If feminists are so reluctant to show their breasts, then why did they burn their bras?

If libertarians feel infringed upon, they can start their own airlines with their own security procedures.  They can simply ask each passenger, “Excuse me sir, but are you by chance rigged to explode in flight?” And let it go at that.   The libertarian purists can even skip on FAA safety procedures altogether.  They can call their new airline  “Live Free and Die Airways.”  It would be perfect for such political purists, adrenaline junkies who like to play with death, and the depressed pondering suicide.  No doubt some of these same people who refuse the security scan will insist on the right to appear naked in public, maybe even in the airplane cabin after a smoke in the toilet.

Troubled travelers self-conscious about their body images should keep in mind that TSA officials gazing into the new scanners will see hundreds of body images each day, the vast majority of which will not even register in their memories.  And these same officials will not see the faces or read the names that go with these bodies.  A headless parade of humanity will simply pass by their scanners as security personnel search for items that suggest a threat to air travel safety.

TSA officials, being human, will of course notice the extremes.  They will remember people with especially beautiful bodies.  They will remember the grossly obese or deformed, but again, no identity will ever be attached to these images.  Our doctors will know us far more intimately, but in a doctor’s office the only thing that explodes is the cost of medicine.

What are we so ashamed of?  To watch television on any particular evening, we appear to be a nation without shame.  We embrace sexual promiscuity like a lost puppy.  Popular entertainment celebrate crassness and vulgarity as if being stupid and tasteless were accomplishments.  In modern America, everything is exposed all of the time, but we can’t anonymously walk through an airport scanner in order to insure that a madman on the plane doesn’t have a bomb in his underwear?  Talk about having our priorities backward.

If we are so embarrassed by our bodies then maybe it’s time to worry more about our caloric intakes and lack of exercise, instead of that TSA official behind the blind trying to protect us.  Maybe overeating, and thus not caring about our own individual health, goes hand in hand with a general recklessness about our own wellbeing and safety when traveling.

Stuff your face this Thanksgiving – and overeat every day if you must – but plan on getting carefully inspected with the rest of us who can still see our toes.  Better to have bodies in a scanner than body parts falling from the sky like so many dismembered turkeys.

“Columbus Day” should be replaced by “Discovery Day”.  It should be a celebration of the American character that has led to so many ideas and inventions and their incorporation into law and technology through hearty and bold innovation.  That spirit is in jeopardy now.  Many of us are timid these days, and hopeful our government will take over many of our responsibilities and decisions.  Many of us would rather not think for ourselves — would rather not think, period.

This cowardly and juvenile approach, this clinging to the notion that there’s some beneficent parent or grandparent out there who can take care of us with a near-free bag of goodies, is also based on truthiness rather than truth.  “Our” government is actually an awkward compilation of powerful vested interests.  It’s handicapped by the difficulties of centralizing information and inappropriate incentives for how to use those “facts”.  Our government does not represent us.  And everything it “gives” it gets from us.

The best way to get out of our debilitating tangle of high unemployment, high debt, and high deficits is to get working on higher productivity.  This comes from advancing knowledge and implementing new ideas.  It comes from spunk and education.

Benjamin Harrison was headed in the right direction in 1892 with this Presidential proclamation: “On that [Columbus] day let the people, so far as possible, cease from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the great achievements of the four completed centuries of American life.”  Rename the holiday, replacing “discoverer” with “discovery” and parades with science and education fairs, and we’re right where we should be.

Celebrating “Columbus Day” is both factually and politically incorrect.  “Europe” discovered the Americas in the 10^th, not the 15^th Century, when the Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland.  In the 21^st Century, do we really want this focus on Europe?  How about some respect for Native Americans?  How about reversing direction and studying the journeys from Asia across the Bering Strait to what’s now the United States?

Other national holidays celebrate groups, not individuals: Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthday are now celebrated as “President’s Day” with more than forty other national leaders.   “Memorial Day” and “Labor Day” honor groups, and “Independence Day”, the 4^th of July, is about a document, not its primary author, Thomas Jefferson.  “Martin Luther King Day” alone celebrates one person.  And MLK stood for inclusion – and the importance of the content of character over the color of skin.  Columbus enslaved and tortured “others”.

Opposition to “Columbus Day” dates back to the 19th Century.  The negative energy came from groups who were anti-immigrants and anti-Catholics.  “Discovery Day” could unite us and re-energize us as a nation of optimists who believe in progress both material and ethical.

No one knows exactly who invented Labor Day.  There’s symbolic merit in this ignorance, because the holiday doesn’t celebrate government leaders or captains of industry, or any individuals at all.  Rather, it pays homage to a group of “everyman” and, through time, “everywomen” as they toil not in the trenches of war but in those of the workaday world. Labor Day was also created by a group — the labor movement.  And it’s been dedicated to the social and economic achievement of American workers.

The first two Labor Day’s were held in New York City, in 1882 and 1883, both on September 5.  More municipalities joined this annual tribute, with ordinances passed in 1885 and 1886.  States then began to follow suit, and, with 23 in observance, on July 28, 1894, Congress passed an act legalizing the first Monday of September as a holiday in D.C. and the territories.  How appropriate, for a national celebration of us folks to have grass-root origins like these.

As more than a century has come and gone, Labor Day has morphed for many into a day of parades, too much food (and unhealthy, at that), parties, and other festivities, all held to acknowledge the end of summer.  But this, too, can be connected to labor.

The end of summer is also the beginning of the school year.  Not all work is rewarded by a paycheck.  The United States is a rich country not just because of our natural resources and investments in machinery and technology but also because of our investment in people.  It’s human capital that’s responsible for most of our technological breakthroughs; it’s human capital that makes our workers so productive and our country so prosperous.  And it’s education that’s at the heart of its formation.  Our students are putting in seven-hour days even before they start on their homework.

Robert Samuelson just wrote a discouraging  piece on the failure of educational “reform.” Although he makes many important points, he neglects to mention what may be one of the most obvious problems in our system: how much school time is wasted by restoring the skills lost over the 2-3 month break over summer vacation.  We really should rethink the length of summer vacation, surely an artifact of those long-ago days when ours was largely an agricultural society and children were needed to work on their parents’ farms during the growing season.  Wouldn’t one of the easiest reforms be to shorten this break?

Samuelson’s strongest point involves his concern about the lack of motivation in many high-school students – even those who have been well served by their elementary-school experiences.  This observation brings us to another, and final,  point.

A lot of work – and maybe the most important work – does not get included in GNP.  School teachers get paid; parents do not.  Those parents who are motivating their children to work hard and purposefully may have the most important jobs of all.

We should celebrate all labor, regardless of whether our jobs are in the workforce or in the household.  Let’s start now.

My oldest son got married on August 21, and his little sister gave a marvelous toast at the rehearsal dinner the evening before.  She was bright, she was bold, she was brief. And this is what she said before she was seated.  Liz began by observing that the quality of her brother’s presents used to be rather low. One particularly transparent gift was a tube for her brothers to tow – themselves – behind their jet ski.  In Liz’s first foray out into the bay behind our house, she promptly fell not only off, but under, the tube. Terrified, she never tried again: this start was also a finish.  Liz went on to say that the presents got better when Douglas fell in love with Dorsey and that the best of all was being given a sister.

Dorsey had earlier told me that she realized how much she loved Douglas when she saw him with his siblings. At the reception, one of those siblings properly noted that she might not have responded this way if she’d seen him in action at an earlier age.  Douglas is now a grown-up.  And he’s a better man because of his love for Dorsey and hers for him.

There’s something special about women.  They live, and develop, through connection.  Ask a man who he is, and he’s likely to respond with his profession:  “I’m a banker,” “I’m a lawyer”,  “I write for a living.”  Ask a woman, and she’ll tell you to whom she’s related: “I’m Julie and John’s daughter,” I’m Mark’s wife,” “I’m Cindy and Arthur’s mother.”  Men have tended to develop ethically through a process of abstracting and prioritizing; women through relationships and context.

Women already have massive influence as wives and mothers.  But what the world needs now is more women in power as more conventionally measured. Our world is too interdependent, economically, environmentally, politically, and militarily, for decision-makers to be predominantly male. There are too few women in government, and accordingly too little compromise, with too much focus on individual careers and not enough on group problem-solving. The Middle East lost its lead because half of its population is disenfranchised, economically as well as politically.    At its best, China, with its one-child policies coupled with a preference for males, may provide a test case of what happens when testosterone dominates a country.

Cynics may observe that female leaders like Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi appear more polarizing than the average male.  Objection granted.  But these four are women who have risen to power in a largely male world, according to male standards of behavior.  How would the world work if institutions had enough female leaders that other women could advance in a different fashion, with different assets highly prized?  Dare to dream, cynics; dare to dream.

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama wrote an essay that for years seemed prescient.  It also seemed exciting, at least to many a Conservative.  “The End of History?” stated that history was about ideas, and it was over, because a belief in individualism and free markets had triumphed.  Pace Mr. Fukuyama, even if history were only about ideas, it won’t be over either until humankind are also over because they’ve extinguished themselves or until we evolve into more cooperative individuals worldwide.

The biggest surprise blessing of my daughter’s birth was how she afforded all three of my sons the opportunity to be openly gentle at ages when most American males are emotionally constipated, oafishly bumping one another rather than interacting through thoughts and feelings.  “Women rule!!” is fun slang, but it should also be principled slogan for expanding their roles as representatives and leaders.

As the Cold War seemed to spin out of control, Bertrand Russell grew increasingly alarmed.  He understood sooner than most people the truly massive destructive potential of nuclear weapons.  Russell trembled at the thought of something so terrible as nuclear annihilation.  He was prepared to compromise the sovereignty of free nations, including his own, in order avoid what he believed was an otherwise inevitable nuclear holocaust.    Russell’s fear made him willing to enter into a world government and thus partner with the Soviet Union, whose leader Joseph Stalin had just died of old age after a career of committing genocide against his own people.   Stalin murdered 30 million Soviet citizens.  Russell nevertheless insisted that “paradise” was open to humanity, if only we could rid ourselves of weapons that risked “universal death.”

Here, Mr. Enzi, a man of the streets, would have something to teach the Nobel Laureat, Russell.  Enzi writes,  ”Servants and cowards offer themselves as doormats for life’s endless supply of would-be bullies.”  Indeed, evil men will not listen to reason, but as brutes themselves, they understand brute force.  The world will never be improved by well-meaning but ultimately misguided attempts at sweeping top-down change.  Instead, the human character must be developed one person at a time.  This is what Enzi, as Captain Black, is apparently trying to do in the hard inner-city world that he inhabits.  We should wish him well.

Russell’s radical idea is pacifism.  Enzi’s radical idea – which was once not so radical – is that a true test of character involves a willingness to personally and physically fight for justice.   In Europe,  Russell’s ideology is winning the day.  Europeans mostly depend on the United States for their  own defense.  Their feeble militaries could not have stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo during the 1990s without American help.   Today German “soldiers” will only serve in safe parts of Afghanistan where they will not see combat.  Having experienced so many wars, Europeans  now seem ready to surrender to the next aggressor, whether he leads an army across the border or lurks in an alley waiting for a passerby.

I know from a number of family stories not to expect any help from French citizens if one is accosted on the streets of France .  Expect them instead to stand around and watch while you are victimized.  France is a wonderful country, but like much of Europe it is desperately low on certain kinds of important social capital.  French society suffers from a pernicious and nearly omnipresent pacifism.

There is, however, the occasional bright spot.  During the Iraq war, Islamist radicals were preparing to execute a hooded Italian hostage.  At the last minute the hostage pulled the sack off his own head.  “Here,” he said to his executioners as he bravely looked into their eyes, “See how an Italian man dies.”  Then he was shot.   In his very last breath he showed to the world the kind of courage that all free people’s should aspire to when faced with evil.  Perhaps Europe is not lost after all.

Mr. Enzi’s article is ostensibly  about hypocritical conservative talk-show hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  Enzi doubts whether these tough-talkers really have the physical courage of their alleged convictions.  I don’t like Limbaugh or Beck either, because they come across as demagogues.  I too doubt their physical courage.  I bet they would be the first to crack under torture.  I know this judgment isn’t fair, since these men have never been tested, but I would respect them more if they spoke with less bravado and more humility.

Putting aside the issue of conservative talk-show hosts, Enzi’s subtext is the really interesting and provocative aspect of his article:  that we are not wholly moral unless we are willing to put ourselves in physical danger for the sake of our values and our fellow citizens.

Bertrand Russell, perhaps because he lived his life among the highly privileged, may seldom if ever have encountered brutality, except in books.  His world was full of pampered intellectuals, poets and idealists.   That free people would risk losing all of humanity in order to protect their freedom was a concept that Russell, for all of his intellect, could not grasp. Like many other intellectuals and idealists, he could not admit that there will be no paradise in the this world.  And his fear made him ready to throw away what civilization humanity has achieved for his own pie in the sky vision.  What Captain Black understands, and the great Nobel Laureat does not, is that free and moral people must be ready to fight and die for what they believe or else they and their values will be extinguished.

It was blazing hot in Philadelphia during  these same July weeks in 1776, but the Continental Congress labored on to complete the Declaration of Independence.  Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration edited by the Congress, likewise worked in that heat.  No one knows whether or not Jefferson took some time out from his writing for a siesta.  But maybe in some very indirect way, the torpid environment affected his choice of words.  As most everyone knows, Jefferson wrote that humans are entitled to “unalienable” rights, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

These words have become part of our unofficial  national American political poetry.  They are seen as nearly inseparable from each other.  In fact they are based on the words of one of Jefferson’s heroes, John Locke.  In Locke’s Second Treatise of Government the Englishman declared a natural right to “life, liberty, and property.” (italics added).  Jefferson’s innovation, hatched in the languid air of summertime Philadelphia,  was to substitute “pursuit of happiness” for “property.”  The change begs the question, why?

A socialist might say that Jefferson did not count “property” among such sacred rights as “life and liberty;”  taking property in the name of social justice is not out of bounds, a socialist might argue.  A libertarian might argue just the opposite; no one is entitled to property if born with none, but everyone is born with life and liberty and the right to pursue happiness, which might mean the acquisition of property.  The libertarian is surely closer to Jefferson’s actual world view, but Jefferson’s priorities give the socialist some room to maneuver as well.

At a more basic level, Jefferson suggests that mere “property” by itself is unworthy to sit in the company of “life” and “liberty.”  Property, says Jefferson, does not equal happiness.  We might pursue property to help make us happy, but property is a means, not an end.

So what does this have to do with the ungodly heat?    People from Protestant Europe have long blamed the hot climates for the perceived sloth of people unfortunate enough to live closer to the equator than they, themselves.  Indeed, Mediterranean cultures, less concerned than their Calvinist neighbors to the north about the acquisition of property, take more time off from work.  They linger over tables together in the relative cool of the evening with family and friends.  They take long vacations.  Rather than buy expensive cars or unnecessarily large houses, they pursue happiness in the truer forms of family and friendships that can only be achieved with the investment of time with others.

Gentleman like Jefferson who were products of an age known as the Enlightenment valued their time as a means to improve their knowledge.  Time free from labor meant the opportunity to study science, history, politics and art.  It is also true that in the age of the American Revolution gentlemen were under enormous social pressures to acquire and display their wealth and good taste; Jefferson himself was no slouch at this.  Perhaps Jefferson’s replacement of “property” with “pursuit of happiness” represented a social criticism of his own time and place.   In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson held up a set of ideals to the world, ideals that he himself did not live up to,  as he well knew.

The perpetuation of slavery in the new American republic was of course the greatest contradiction to the notion that everyone had a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  For Jefferson, slavery was not only a blemish, but an addiction.  He knew the system was immoral, but he personally depended on the existence of slavery in Virginia so that he would have the time to help build the new republic, study the arts, etc.   The terrible truth is that Jefferson’s own pursuit of happiness depended on the enslavement of others.

Thomas Jefferson’s friend, colleague, future rival, and ultimately friend again – John Adams – was burdened by slavery only to the extent he wished it abolished.  Adams had his own similar take on issues of time, property and priorities.  Writing from distant France to his wife Abigail, back in Massachusetts, he tried to justify his long sojourn away from home:

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

Adams’ formulation suggests that once we have established sufficient wealth, then our attention can turn to art.  For Adams, like Jefferson, the endless acquisition of wealth is not a worthy goal; it is rather a tool that can allow us as individuals to improve ourselves and the world around us.

These lesser known values of the founding fathers too often seem lost on us today, a time when Wall Street executives make astronomical sums of money mostly just for the sake of doing so.  For too many of today’s wealthy (and not so wealthy), vanity-driven consumption is the main end.  There are of course exceptions.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffett come to mind.

Relative to many other people from industrialized countries, Americans prioritize earning money over free time.  While some of us have no choice but to work harder, many others are opting for property over a broader and less superficial notion of happiness.  As recent data show, Americans take on average two weeks of vacation in comparison to some of their European counterparts, who take a whole month off each year.  According to the American Journal of Medicine, only 43% of American families  have dinner together every day, and of those, many watch television or use electronic devices at the same time.

In these months and years of economic trouble, the value of work seems at its height.  For those struggling to get by, this is understandable.  But for the rest of us, time away from work dedicated to family, learning, art, public service or just psychological or physical well-being is not laziness.  It is a pursuit of happiness beyond wealth and property.  In 1776 Jefferson and Adams could have stayed home only to build and display their own fortunes.  Instead, they risked everything, including  hanging at the hands of the British.  And even as they labored for the independence of their country in the summer swelter of Philadelphia, they surely also made sure to sit down as friends over a cool ale.   Let us make time, like them, to pursue happiness in its broadest and truest sense.