“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average”

Garrison Keillor

 
While we are perennially dismayed by the annual numbers that show how poorly American students rank in academic standings compared with other less prosperous nations, there is one category where our children continually excel, where we are seldom anything but first place… and that is self esteem. Though it is not uncommon in other cultures, the extent that we Americans consider ourselves superior is particular to the U.S., often in the absence of evidence to support that conviction. In Psychology, this is referred to as illusory superiority, or more commonly, because of the above quote, the Lake Wobegon effect; the statistically impossible situation where large majorities of a population believe themselves superior to the rest of the society. We are all familiar with the study that showed that 93% of American drivers consider themselves to have better than average driving skills, 80% think they’re in the top 30%! When polled, 90% of college professors consider themselves to be above average teachers, two thirds of them place themselves in the top 25%. And those high school students scoring so well in self esteem? Well, only 2% of them consider their leadership skills to be below average, and just 1% believe their social skills in general to be so. How fortunate we are to live in a nation so full of geniuses!

It’s not that there is no one who sees themselves more accurately, or more humbly at least. Research has shown that while people with lower than average IQ’s tend to overestimate their IQ, people with above average IQ’s tend to underestimate themselves. A study showed that humble people don’t downplay their strengths or achievements, rather they don’t consider themselves entitled to special treatment or accolades because of them. These people are rare finds, and if the actors we’ve seen in the impeachment hearings over the past few weeks are any indication, rarer yet in the realm of elected officials and bureaucracies.

How remarkable to see how the Democrats have now embraced the deep state bureaucracy, the which they once disdained. How far from the sentiments expressed by their darling, Eugene McCarthy, from decades ago “The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.” How has the the liberal view of bureaucracy changed, from a necessary evil, a lurking power to be carefully monitored; to now a group of selfless, brilliant, apolitical heroes who should be left unfettered to perform their skillful duties as saviors for the nation. As criticism was leveled at the Commander in Chief for having the audacity to countermand the “established policy” of the “seasoned public servants” (albeit unelected), I could only think of the iconic character Jack Nicholson played in “A Few Good Men”, Colonel Nathan Jessup. The bureaucracy is apparently now the power that keeps the machine running, that loyally guards the wall; they “don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to”, and “would rather you just said ‘thank-you’, and went on your way”… “You can’t handle the truth!”.

The arrogance and self satisfaction on display there are emblematic of what happens when a group of people arrive at the decision that it is their right, indeed their duty, to impose their will without consideration, and sometimes even in defiance of, the will of the people they are charged to serve. Why? Because they are convinced that they are smarter, more skilled, more experienced, less naive, more entitled. Their opinion should count for more than others, they suppose, because they are right. We almost all see ourselves as right; who would consider their opinion wrong and continue to hold it? Tyrants rarely see themselves as wrong, or ignorant or evil, they see the world as ordered correctly when it is ordered after their “superior” will. Religious tyrants don’t use force because they think their religion inferior to others, but because they believe themselves to be right, and others to be wrong… they are certain of it. And so the Pilgrims found it necessary to venture to the shores of an untamed land, to escape the tyranny of the “right”.

Fully understanding the reality of illusory superiority, our forefathers established a nation based not on the concept of “rightness”, but of rights; not on the imposition of the superior will, but on liberty, and the freedom to be wrong, and rule of the people. As appealing as a benevolent monarchy might appear, they recognized that Arthur’s Camelot was the stuff of fairy tales, and that a King George Washington’s reign would one day necessarily give way to just another King George. When almost all people consider their own opinions to be the right ones, the Constitution’s protections from the imposition of that “rightness” against those who do not hold the same convictions, become the more precious. From before the 2016 election was even decided, the process of circumventing it was begun from people who considered themselves smarter than the rest of us. Hillary’s comments about the deplorables foreshadowed the attitude that would permit the attempts to overturn an election by whatever means necessary. The Hollywood elites came out with, hopefully tongue in cheek, comments about blowing up the White House, or “actors killing Presidents”. Deep state actors began discussing “insurance policies”, and using a salacious dossier to obtain FISA warrants to spy on the administration, along with other unorthodox tactics that James Comey admitted would never have been used on an Obama or Bush administration. The elusive bogey-man of “Russian meddling” was employed in the hopes of delegitimizing a legitimate election, and legitimizing an unparalleled and uninterrupted attempt to unseat a duly elected President.

Impeachment is indeed provided for in the Constitution as a remedy for when someone elected President is found to be corrupted beyond the pale. It is, frankly, a way for the people and their representatives to say, “we made a mistake, and this cannot stand”, a way to take back a vote when the offense is so egregious that waiting for the next election is not something the people will stand for. It is so fundamentally against the principles of Democracy, that it cannot just be used as one more tactic to undo the people’s will; and that has long been the intent of many on the left who are convinced they are right. Rather, the impetus for such an action should emanate from a collective groaning of a clear majority of Americans grieved by what is a monumentally outrageous infraction seen as such by not just a few. The case should be overwhelming. In the case of removing a legitimately elected President with another election a few short months away, we the people have been, and continue to be… underwhelmed.