July 3, 2008
There are a couple of ways to characterize the annual Gallup poll that ranks America's institutions according to our confidence in them. It's a dashboard idiot light that simply indicates that there is something wrong, but doesn't reveal what is causing it.
Americans seem to have few problems with the military which, over the past several years, and historically, has identified a problem, analyzed it, and come up with mostly successful solutions. I.E. the much vilified "surge" which now makes nearby volatile Mexico appear a more imminent threat. Or a robust MRAP vehicle that now protects soldiers and Marines from IEDs. Hence the DoD's 71% approval score. That's the top of the Gallup ranking. At the bottom? A shiny, only driven to Sen. Obama rallies, two year old Democratic Congress with a 12% approval rating. Or, rather, a 88% disapproval score.
The Congress has felt compulsion to distinguish itself, not so much from the Republican performance, as from its principles. So you have 300 billion dollar farm support bill that even 129 Republican's groped like a hungry baby for its mama's teat.
Nothing, that is, only tongue lashing for our declinig domestic oil producers, has been done about soaring energy costs. Democrats and Republicans await the next coronation, or in Sen. Obama's case, beatification, in November.
From September 1991 to May 1994, I waged a one-law-student campaign to engage professors and students in a conversation on institutional integrity of the rule of law in the minds of most Americans. In the Gallup poll, the criminal justice system snags a 20% confidence vote. The Supreme Court (SCOTUS), 32% consumer confidence. Law schools don't discuss the integrity of the law mostly because they view the American legal system as irredeemably compromised by racism, sexism, homophobia, and the barely perceivable slights of an ever-expanding coalition of the oppressed with its Continentally stylish declining populace.
On the B side, integrity of the law is brushed off like the flaky crumbs of a fine Manhattan pastry because professors and social activists are covetous of the power the law can bring to bear on say, the Eagle Scout more concerned with saving a fellow scout in a tornado storm than the speculative oppression of NEA's "gay teens." The Left hand doesn't want the Right hand to know what it's grasping for. Not surprsing then that the Detroit Free Press editorial page laments the necessity of a referendum of the people to eliminate Republican justices elected by the people and not oppointed by "qualified" lawyers and judges. Going to the people is always a bad idea -- just see what the people have said about affirmative action and same-sex marriage in the benighted provinces of Michigan. Not to mention the aforesaid conservative justices that dominate Michigans Supreme Court.
So, the conversation was never had on the grounds of Queens College on Main Street. Not even a professor and future Wall Street Journal "Woman to Watch" could be lured into discussing why Americans are losing faith in a criticial instititution at the same time that the "justice mission" has been going so well.
So the decline continues. The ACLU and its judcial catamites send their goon briefs after Evening Prayer on the USS Nimitz or a nondenominational thanksgiving before an Annapolis dinner. America is appalled, but your average law school dean is only appalled that America is appalled.
The Institutional Idiot Light doesn't steer anyone into the shop, much less toward a decision to act at all. There is little curiousity in Congress or the Supreme Court or Ninth District Court of Appeals about why they are doing so badly in citizen surveys. Why were average homeowners so upset when Congress gave eminent domain to development of private marinas and gated communities? SCOTUS was baffled, as were their hipster clerks with hipper new theories to spring on the Constitution.
So is the Gallup Poll's measure of confidence in institutions merely a list of gripes? Pretty much. Because, in addition to being a warning idiot light, the poll is something more disheartening. For so many citizens stranded on the American roadside, it is a Disgust Index.
Sam Macomb
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