Americans celebrated the 4th of July yesterday. Meanwhile, in Egypt, a military coup has thrown that country into chaos. First up, a recap of this morning of Independence Day.
Jonathan Bernstein at
The Washington Post writes that we should indeed salute the military on the 4th but we should also recognize and honor all of those who make government work too:
All of these people — millions and millions of them who take some direct part in self-government beyond merely showing up to vote every once in a while — all of them create and re-create freedom by enriching the politics of the United States of America. They make us free by allowing us to create our own collective destiny, letting us choose our own path as a nation — they make us free by preserving the possibility of effective political action for those who, for the time being, would rather search for our own private happiness.
That, and not a purely or primarily militarized vision of the United States, is what the founding was all about. Even when they got some of it horribly wrong, and even when we still struggle to get it right. That vision of a people defined by their shared ability to make collective choices about themselves is why even those who were harshly excluded from inclusion then, and even those who are still excluded in part, can find something in the founding of the United States of America to find inspiration in.
Jay Bookman at
The Atlanta Journal Constitution write a poignant piece tying together our Independence Day and the stuggles of demcoracies across the globe over the court of history:
Think about that strife, and the price that was paid by so many [during the Revolutionary War], and then think about what's happening right now, as we speak, in Cairo and Alexandria and other Egyptian cities, where millions of people are stumbling blindly, hopefully and at times violently toward what might -- might -- be a better world for themselves and their children. The events in question may be separated by chasms of time, distance and culture, but the reflection from each casts an interesting new light upon the other. It makes the historic more immediate, and the immediate more historic.
You look at what's happening in Egypt, where everything teeters on the brink, and you begin to better appreciate the fear, desperation and profound, bone-deep uncertainty that our own ancestors must have experienced at their hour of challenge. We look back on it now as if the outcomes at Gettysburg and Saratoga were somehow preordained by God and history, but it sure as hell did not feel that way to participants at the time. If Ben Franklin did indeed warn his colleagues that they must hang together, or surely they would hang separately, those words would have had literal meaning.
Likewise, when you read the Declaration's then-revolutionary assertion that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," when you contemplate its claim that "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it," and when you remember that 237 years ago, the rest of the world considered our forefathers to be a bunch of primitive rubes, what might seem to be a chaotic, formless mob in Egypt begins to take on a certain definition and purpose.
History -- the real history, as carried out and experienced by real men and women -- is a sloppy, often bloody and tragic mess. The passage of time tends to sand all that down, and the clarity of purpose and purity of vision that we like to attribute to our heros are actually shiny varnishes that we apply long after the fact.
More analysis on the day's top stories below the fold.
The Washington Post urges Congress to withhold aid to Egypt:
THERE IS no ambiguity about what happened in Egypt on Wednesday: a military coup against a democratically elected government and the wrong response to the country’s problems.[...] Having not spoken up against the excesses of Mr. Morsi’s government, the Obama administration has, with equal fecklessness, failed to forthrightly oppose the military intervention. But there should be no question that under a law passed by Congress, U.S. aid to Egypt — including the $1.3 billion annual grant to the military — must be suspended.
The Los Angeles Times analyzes the complexity of the situation but disagrees that a coup was the way to go:
Mubarak was a self-perpetuating tyrant. Morsi came to office as the result of a legitimate vote of his people. His replacement by an acting president chosen by the armed forces — even if it is followed fairly swiftly by new presidential and parliamentary elections — is a defeat for democracy and constitutional government. Morsi's critics accused the president of betraying the Arab Spring, but so, in their way, did Egypt's generals, even if they acted out of patriotism and a desire to restore order.
For the United States, the convulsions in Egypt posed a perplexing dilemma. This country sees itself as a champion of democracy, and as recently as April the U.S. ambassador to Egypt publicly said that "military intervention is not the answer" to Egypt's political crisis. But Egypt is an ally in the Middle East, and there are close ties between the U.S. military and the Egyptian armed forces.
Michele Dunne, vice president of the Atlantic Council and director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, lays out his complaints with the administration's Egypt policy:
Egyptians and outside observers are arguing fiercely about what exactly has happened in the world’s most populous Arab country: Was it a popular revolt against an inept and domineering Muslim Brotherhood, or a counterrevolution of the old regime against the country’s first democratically elected president? Using the word “coup” about this week’s events sparks a barrage of criticism from the secular camp, while justifications for the army’s removal of President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday are anathema to most Islamists.
What is apparent to all, however, is that the United States has made a hash of its Egypt policy. U.S. officials were late in seeing the crisis coming, and their advice — much of it out of step with events — was ignored by all sides. [...] They’re suspicious because for the past year the United States has focused on building the closest, most cooperative relationship possible with Morsi’s government and has assiduously avoided criticizing his actions — even after he decreed greater powers for himself in November, including declaring his decisions above judicial review, and the next month forced the controversial constitution through via a deeply flawed process.
The Obama administration avoided criticizing Morsi’s undemocratic actions not, as many Egyptians believe, because of a secret alliance with Islamists but because, since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011, its policy has been based on fear of losing security cooperation with Egypt — even though no one has threatened to cut it off. The administration has not presented any significant economic or rhetorical support to Egypt’s effort to transition to democracy.
Switching to domestic policy,
Ruth Marcus looks at the healthcare law and warns of other problems on the horizon:
reports of the impending death of Obamacare have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, reports that postponing the mandate demonstrate that the law is too unwieldy to work have been greatly exaggerated.
Put another way, if you are a fan of the Affordable Care Act and worry about its implementation, or an enemy salivating at the prospect of its implosion, you should focus on other potential problem areas.
This is a must-read piece by
H. Gilbert Welch in
The New York Times about our healthcare system:
RECENT revelations should lead those of us involved in America’s health care system to ask a hard question about our business: At what point does it become a crime?
I’m not talking about a violation of federal or state statutes, like Medicare or Medicaid fraud, although crime in that sense definitely exists. I’m talking instead about the violation of an ethical standard, of the very “calling” of medicine.
Medical care is intended to help people, not enrich providers. But the way prices are rising, it’s beginning to look less like help than like highway robbery. And the providers — hospitals, doctors, universities, pharmaceutical companies and device manufactures — are the ones benefiting.