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The ugly gorge cut into Capitol Hill
facing Franklin Street
in Richmond
is a most dramatic indication that the rehabilitation of Virginia’s Capitol is well
underway. The draping of the western walls of the
Capitol to shield work and workmen is another.
Despite current disfigurements, this project
ultimately will strengthen the foundations and
utility of the structure originally designed by
Thomas Jefferson. To that end, project directors
have installed seismic devices as an early warning
system to ensure their work doesn’t erode or
undermine that foundation.
The Virginia General Assembly, which
meets in the Capitol until the end of the month,
is hearing the beeps from its own early warning
system that the work of delegates and senators may
erode or undermine the constitutional foundations
for representative democracy and a free citizenry.
After casually ripping through 10 different
proposed Constitutional amendments on Feb. 8 on
everything from amending Jefferson’s article on
religious freedom to defining marriage, a House of
Delegates leader remarked facetiously as he
stepped outside that the Assembly might as well
amend the Constitution to require the mid-winter
weather to remain sunny and in the range of sixty
degrees.
At a base level Virginians understand
that improvements in the depth and breadth of
social goods -- public health and safety, public
education and transportation, national defense and
justice -- are the characteristics, even
requirements of civilization and a healthy
democratic society. But that understanding can
wear thin when it appears someone is getting
something for nothing, or someone is paying
something for nothing, or someone is getting away
with something. Humans do have their nature.
The first time I heard the gap between
individual interest and a broader public interest
expressed starkly was over 20 years ago. A
down-the-street neighbor suddenly proclaimed, “I
don’t have children in Fairfax County Public
Schools, so why should I have to pay property
taxes that go to the public school budget?” That
there may be a broad societal benefit from an
educated citizenry apparently didn’t occur to
her, though she certainly expected the correct
change from retail clerks when she shopped, proper
observance of traffic signs when she drove and a
high level of informed, creative partnership from
her fellow Congressional aides.
This week there were similar sentiments
quoted in the local newspaper. Speaking about a
proposed increase in tolls along the Dulles Toll
Road in Fairfax to help fund extension of
Metrorail to Tysons Corner and on past Dulles
Airport, a 26-year old school teacher who drives
to work along that road remarked, “We're not going to use the Metro -- so why are we paying
for all these other people?"
That
in the absence of Metrorail her own commute by car
would steadily worsen apparently didn’t occur to
her, though as a teacher, she might be one to
supply a good answer for that down-the-street
neighbor on the public school question. This
teacher missed the fact that she and her husband
didn’t pay for more than an inch of the road she
drives daily or the possibility that both she and
her husband are likely to change jobs and housing
at some point and could find an expanded Metrorail
system both convenient and of great value at that
time.
The kinds of questions posed in both
these cases are rhetorical in some respects. They
are questions driven by frustration about taxes,
traffic congestion, military adventures,
lifestyles and dozens of other aspects of a
complex and fast-paced life. Questions also are
driven by misunderstandings about the way social
goods are created, distributed and valued and
about the role of government in encouraging or
restricting behavior. As Virginia-born President
Woodrow Wilson once observed, it takes an
extraordinary man to understand the need for
things that he himself may not need.
Political and community leaders in
Virginia as elsewhere face a dilemma when a
negative tone drives the discussion of social
goods. They hear arguments that smokers or
alcoholics or obese Virginians haven’t taken
care of themselves and, therefore, that they
shouldn’t have the same health benefits at the
same price their more conscientious neighbors pay.
Or they hear that foreign nationals who are not
legal residents of the Commonwealth shouldn’t
have the same access to community colleges or
emergency medical services that legal residents
have (although there is no question that those
foreign nationals pay taxes if they work and to
obey the law in every other way).
They hear that gay Virginians shouldn’t
have any legal structure to their relationships,
that teenagers (whom apparently no parent can stop
from getting a drivers license at age 16, despite
the odds of such a teenager being in a traffic
accident approaching 100 percent) should be denied
the right to talk on a cell phone while driving,
and that Virginia businesses that grow in-state
should get the same shot at the Governor’s
Opportunity Fund that businesses elsewhere get for
moving here. And they hear that baggy, hip-hop
clothing that reveals underwear should not be worn
in public, certainly not in public schools, while
religious beliefs should be celebrated in public.
Sharing and catering to fears,
frustrations and misunderstandings, rather than
making the case for how a larger society and wider
community can progress, regrettably, can be
winning politics. It can be more convenient, even
remunerative to press the most narrow, purely
individual or expressly partisan interest over a
broader public interest. Humans do have their
nature. But that prospect alone should be enough
to set the seismic alarms ringing.
Care and improvements to carry the
Capitol and its history well into another century
are the mark of a proud and enduring people, whose
ancestors fostered a revolution in mind and spirit
that continues today. Similar caring and
improvements well distributed across a society are
the hallmark of a progressive society. But
erecting barriers to opportunity, cutting deep
gorges into freedoms and forcing one’s beliefs
on others are not. And Constitutional amendments
should find it way harder to command a majority
than a little bill to create a new license plate.
Careful.
--
February 14, 2005
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