The Village People

The Village People
by Dave Munger

Jeremy Lott (as encouraging an editor as I have ever heard of) suggested to me that I write a column on Hillary. He's suggested several personalities to me as topics, and that's kind of thrown me off. See, I don't believe in people, don't even like them much.

Politics is one of the areas in which people can submerge their disgustingly human personae in a set of principles. One of the reasons I love the two party system so much is that it forces candidates to choose a set of principles instead of trying to get me to vote for the man himself. So when he suggests that I write about George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, or Richard Simmons, I am at first surprised at how little I initially feel led to say about individuals. I had thought that had shown through as a certain awkwardness in my George Bush Jr column (especially after reading this superior one by Stephanie Herman), but Jeremy tells me that was my best column yet. I suppose I could take that two ways, but I'm decidedly in favor of taking it in the way that motivates me to say "I'm going to go ahead and take a similar approach to some other pieces, it's easier anyway".

By writing of Hillary now, I risk appearing to kick Mrs. Clinton when she's down. She is after all, no longer perceived as a pure symbol of strong womanhood, or a spokesman for all women of the world. She is not personally the threat to the American way of life that she once was. She is still emblematic, however, of disagreements that divide us on a more basic level than is generally acknowledged.

When Hillary's assertion that "it takes a village to raise a child" was "attacked" (liberal for "disagreed with") by conservatives, it was pointed out that if someone else, say Bill Bennet, had quoted this African proverb, he'd have been met with a rousing round of "right on!"s. This is probably true. The difference is not due to Republican hypocrisy, but the deeper difference between the meanings of words as used by Clintons, and the meanings those same words have when they are used by humans.

In its original context the term "village" refers to a large extended family or small group of extended families living in the same neighborhood and being mutually and personally concerned about the well-being of one another. This is perhaps the most deeply conservative concept ever conceived, although anarchists also embrace it.

Anyone who's been paying attention knows that that is not what Hillary means by "village". When she uses this term, it is in reference to the government, preferably the federal government. Sometimes, her version of a village can be a local community in which a federally controlled public school replaces the family, neighbors, churches, and custom as the means of binding society together. The true meaning of the word village is almost precisely the opposite. It refers to a private, voluntary, truly compassion based alternative to coercive government activity. Context, and her record, make absolutely clear Hillary's implied alternate definition of many apparently simple terms.

"Society" is another word that has a special, and almost totally alien, meaning when spoken by a Clinton. When Hillary says that society has a duty or a right to do something, there is no doubt that what she means is that the government should do that thing, preferably at the federal level. Society is then the exact same thing as the government to her. In fact, the word has little use unless it refers to almost precisely the opposite of political government.

Perhaps no modern thinker more profoundly grasps the classical meaning of the word "society" than George Costanza, with his impassioned declaration, "We're living in a society!" When an individual responds in a spontaneously compassionate way toward his fellow man, for instance, giving him the time of day, he is acting as a member of society. If society consistently fails in this, the government will expand to fill the gap, perhaps mailing out "free" watches (paid for with taxes). Society and government are almost mutually exclusive. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other.

A good rule of thumb for translating the speech of Hillary or a fellow Hillary-speaker is that every fifth or seventh word actually means "the federal government", regardless of what the ordinary definition of these words would be. This is especially true of certain words, among them: community, nation, country, culture, civilization, order, society, America, God (usually only Bill has the nodules to use this one, and not directly), concerned people, mothers, you, I, and we.

As for the future of the cult of Hillary and her chances of getting elected to anything, she is now a much more powerful motivating symbol for the right than she is for the left. Only people who would vote for any Democrat would vote for her. Some habitual non-voters will turn out just to vote against her. She could probably never beat any Republican incumbent. If one was unpopular enough to lose to Hillary, chances are he'd be replaced by another Republican.

She had a chance when being a woman automatically got you lots of female votes, but that's over.