One Nation Divisible

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

There's that word -- indivisible -- the one we as elementary school children invariably stumbled over as we pledged our allegiance to the Republic every single morning at the start of the school day. We continue to stumble over that word today, though not in terms of its awkward pronunciation but in terms of its meaning. 

That's because our nation was established as a confederation of individual states, in that sense divisible, bound together as a constitutional republic. The respective interests, rights, and powers of those separate states versus those of the binding central government were established under the Constitution in an arrangement called federalism, subject to interpretation. 

Enter the Dobbs case, the controversial decision that overturned Roe. The subject of our discussion, however, will not center around the issue of abortion per se (possible subject of its own MM). 

Nor will it center around the finer legal points behind either this Supreme Court decision or the Roe case it overturned, except to say broadly both dealt with interpreting the 10th Amendment to the Constitution which says any powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are to be left to the states. Roe said, yes, such powers (right to abortion) had been so delegated. Dobbs said, no, that such delegated power had been conjured. Such power, therefore, reverts to the states.       

What we will discuss is the fear attendant to replacing the simple 50-year nation-wide assurance of a constitutional right to an abortion with a who-knows-what patchwork of state laws. The concern is that this state power disbursement might not end with abortion, perhaps broadening to such matters as birth control, gay rights, etc. Broadening Dobbs. Even if the application were deemed more narrowly defined, the reaction to the case surfaces a fundamental question whether the country sees itself more in national, regional, or even ideological terms.    

It is in this context we come back to last year’s MM 7/9/21 Four Americas discussion in which we looked at America as four distinct nations, i.e.:

Freedom America: this post-WWII notion of freedom in the Jeffersonian sense played out as rugged individualism in the sense of the Marlboro Man tinged with a kind of libertarianism; it further morphed within the conservative movement as it set the terms of politics through the Reagan revolution and later distorted throughout the Gingrich era;

Smart America: the kids went to college and created a new class of Americans within the emerging knowledge economy; this cosmopolitan class embraced a different sort of freedom as it operated in the global rather than the purely domestic arena;

Real America: the authenticity and patriotism was left to those in the small-town domestic front -- you know, those "you betcha" real people, with their guns and religion – where the real leadership comes from the ranks of the ordinary people;

Just America: those more focused on the perceived injustices of the nation than on the so-called Enlightenment values with the application of reason, being just another form of a presumed power structure.

We will discuss a nation turning, turning, turning in an ever-widening spiral as the falcon no longer hears the falconer and the center can no longer hold (The Second Coming, by W.B. Yeats) -- and if it can hold, what might that center look like?