Chicago Daily Observer

The two Americas

Could Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards actually be right about something? Not where to go to get a haircut, mind you, I mean about there being two Americas.

There is the vibrant America . . . and the stagnant one.

There is the America of ever-increasing wealth, innovation, creativity, of a dynamic economy, new jobs, new products and services. Choices galore. Information overload. The abundant work product of freedom.

And there is the politician’s America: The regulated America, the subsidized America, the earmarked America. The failing America.

In one America it is what you produce that gets you ahead. In the other it’s who you know.

In one America, to earmark some money means setting aside funds (into savings) for a purchase — a car, house, college.

In the other America, to earmark is to grab from taxpayers to give to cronies. It is the highest rite ... Read More...

A fifteenth-century Florentine is speaking to Chicago.

His name is Lorenzo Ghiberti and he is remarkably well preserved, as you would be if your image was cast in bronze and burnished in gold.

Forget King Tut. Forget the museum blockbusters. Right now, at the Art of Institute of Chicago in a single small gallery, you can see a small piece of one man’s magnificent life work, absent of hype, speaking for itself.

It’s a set of doors, or, to be more accurate, a few panels. A miniature exhibit of a monumental work.

Fly to Florence and go to the Cathedral. Stand outside its main entrance. Look west, and you’ll see a green-and-white marble building. It’s the Baptistery, a place not only for baptisms but for other religious and civic activities. There you’ll see two enormous bronze doors (they’re seventeen feet high and weigh three tons) with ten relief panels telling ... Read More...

This nation fought a War of Independence because it knew that British Rule was “illegitimate.” Abraham Lincoln brought an unwilling nation to war because he knew that slavery was “illegitimate.” What if America’s current public education monopoly is “illegitimate?” Would we be willing to do what
was necessary to restore its “legitimacy.”

A few weeks ago, I read an article titled “Reagan the Astute.” It detailed Reagan’s unerring belief in his ideals and the ideas that flowed from them. For example, rather than “negotiate” and/or “peacefully coexist” with the Soviet Union, Reagan merely decided that a “superpower” that enslaved its people didn’t deserve to be a superpower. When confronted with such
ideological views, the striped pants set at the State Department recoiled. Rather than listen to their appeals for diplomacy, Reagan stated, “How about we win.” And we did.

There is something very powerful in questioning the legitimacy ... Read More...