Thomas Friedman, "Down With Everything": "Does America Need an Arab Spring?"

Prepare to be sick.

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Down With Everything" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/friedman-down-with-everything.html), Thomas Friedman begins by asking:

"Does America need an Arab Spring?"

Friedman proceeds to describe his conversation with Frank Fukuyama, a Stanford professor who claims, "If we are to get out of our present paralysis, we need not only strong leadership, but changes in institutional rules." Friedman tells us that this includes "eliminating senatorial holds and the filibuster for routine legislation and having budgets drawn up by a much smaller supercommittee of legislators." Friedman concludes this opinion piece by agreeing with Fukuyama's calls for change:

"I know what you’re thinking: 'That will never happen.' And do you know what I’m thinking? 'Then we will never be a great a country again, no matter who is elected.' We can’t be great as long as we remain a vetocracy rather than a democracy. Our deformed political system — with a Congress that’s become a forum for legalized bribery — is now truly holding us back."

Let me begin by responding to Friedman's question, "Does America need an Arab Spring?" The so-called Arab Spring toppled autocracies and brought to power theocracies grounded in oppressive Middle Age edicts. In Libya the flag of al-Qaeda flies over Benghazi. In Egypt Christian Copts fear for their lives as the Muslim Brotherhood and their even more radical partners, the Salafis, seek to impose Islamic law upon the populace. In Tunisia, where the Arab Spring had its roots, the new Islamist government is seeking to gag free speech as the economy unravels.

An Arab Spring in the US? No thank you, Tom.

And what about Friedman's call for "Down with everything"? Wasn't this the "philosophy" underlying Occupy Wall Street? Fortunately for all, OWS has had its day, notwithstanding the empathy expressed by Obama for this nihilist gaggle.

Friedman speaks of America's "deformed political system," a vetocracy rather than a democracy, which will prevent the US from ever becoming a great country again. Horsefeathers! Yes, I know, during the Obama years there has been growing partisan divide in Congress, but this does not mean that there is a need to trash America's system of checks and balances.

This is not the first time in America's history that Congress has been paralyzed by partisanship accompanied by an absence of leadership in the White House. As in the past, it is time for Americans to vote in November and seek redress.

Perhaps this time Americans will get sobriety and a readiness for compromise. Maybe this time Americans will actually get the "Change" they so deserve.

Friedman's call for "Down With Everything" reminds me of the language used by law professor Ronald Dworkin, who, in an item in The New York Review of Books blog entitled "Why the Health Care Challenge Is Wrong" (http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/apr/02/why-health-care-challenge-is-wrong/), refers to "the strict and arbitrary language of an antique Constitution." Whereas Dworkin would have us believe that the Consitution has lost its relevance, Friedman posits that the US political system is "deformed," and Congress, "a forum for legalized bribery," is "now truly holding us back." How easily, when the system is not working to their liking, both these men would throw the heart of America's governmental underpinnings under the bus. Rid ourselves of an "antique" Constitution? Eliminate a "deformed" set of checks and balances? If either should happen, what will be left of America, or more frightening, what will arise in its stead?

Imagine, if you will, a new Constitutional Convention including the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama with counterbalance from Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. I shudder at the thought.