Were the Federalists right?

I had occasion to listen to a podcast featuring Newt Gingrich this past weekend as he discussed the Federalist Papers. Most folks will recognize Newt’s name as the Speaker of the House in the late 1990s, but before he went into politics he was a history teacher. As someone who worked the halls of congress and ascended to our third highest office, his perspective on history is uniquely well-informed.

I have had a particular interest in Gingrich over the years, even before he became Speaker. In one of those Forest Gump-like episodes in my life, I stumbled into an opportunity to spend three days with him back in the latter 1980s. I was a wide-eyed twenty-something working on an ill-fated State Senate campaign in Colorado when I was asked to attend a three-day professional development program for political activists.

GOPAC (ie. Grand old Party Political Action Committee) was the host of the seminar, and Newt was the speaker for the entire series. The seminar was shot in the style of an infomercial for distribution to party faithful across the country, and there were as many hot lights on the audience as there were on the speaker. I had been invited because they needed warm bodies in the audience, but the content of the training was extraordinarily rich with economics, political science, demographic trends, and of course, history.

Throughout the three days, Newt was very personable with us and answered every question asked during the intermissions. He was nothing short of encyclopedic and made quite an impression on me. Since that time, I have followed the ups and downs of his career and when I learned that he had a podcast, I had to listen.

His most recent recording discussed the Federalist papers in considerable detail. The Federalist papers, you will recall, was a series of pamphlets published anonymously by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay in 1787 and 1788. In a time before mass media, they were used to make convincing arguments for the adoption of the Constitution. On one hand, they were talking points for thought leaders to carry throughout the colonies, but they also represented the personal views of the authors on points where the founders were not in complete agreement.

One of the issues mentioned in the podcast was the ongoing disagreement between Federalists, like Madison and Hamilton, and the anti-federalists who included Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Monroe. Anti-federalists wanted the new constitution to include a bill of rights because they feared the powers of a strong government. They had just finished fighting off one tyrant and they weren’t particularly interested in creating another. The bill of rights, they argued, would ensure that at least a select number of liberties would exist regardless of what despotic directions the government elected to take.

It was and still is, a laudable view with noble intentions, but the pro-federalist faction took an alternative view. They argued that in the end, the bill of rights would become a list of special interests, leaving anything left out unprotected and subject to tyranny. That resonated with me immediately, because I think we are seeing that prediction play out, not with malice, but in a way that gives credibility to the federalist claim.

Although our Declaration of Independence extolled aspirations for a society where all “men” were created as equals, reality at the time was profoundly different. Since the founding, we have used amendments, in fits and starts, to eventually outlaw slavery. Then, after another hundred years of medieval Cerf status, additional laws eventually granted the full rights of citizenship to African Americans. A similar process was applied to women’s issues, granting voting rights in the 19th amendment, followed by additional laws ensuring equal employment opportunities. Those equal rights have since been extended to other ethnic minorities, minority religions, people with disabilities, different family orientations, and most recently, the alphabet community.

As we add one more protected class, then another, then another, it begins to look like the anti-federalists were correct. At the rate we are going, eventually, everyone will belong to a protected class–except for people like me. Let’s face it. White, Christian, heterosexual males will undoubtedly be the last group to win special privileges.

People will say, “Mike, you’re beginning to sound like a white supremacist.” Well, no. White supremacists would be upset about this stuff, and I am most certainly not. Let’s face it. White males have had a pretty good run for the last few millennia, and we didn’t always exercise that power kindly. We have nothing to complain about, except perhaps carrying the blame for all the evils of the world. Let’s let someone else take the lead for a while. It’s time to share.

I mention all of this because the trendline is more clear now to me than ever (and also because I wanted to share my Newt story). I am watching us moving away from the aspirational (however slow and complicated) goals of the American Revolution, just as I see us moving away from the teachings of Martin Luther King.

The color-blind equality that I was taught to strive for as a kid has taken an odd twist. I see it in initiatives that seek to guarantee equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities. I also see it in newly protected classes that represent extraordinarily small demographic groups, but have learned to use their status to gain disproportionate levels of power.

I believe with every fiber of my being that all law-abiding people are deserving of equal rights. I also understand that the establishment of protected classes probably had to happen for us to get as far as we have. I am just wondering where it all stops. When, someday, all groups are privileged (except for the one that looks like me) perhaps we might see fit to chuck all of the protected classes and have a society where we are judged by the content of our character and where all people are created equal–but this time, we will mean it.