PeteFree.comDoes Institutionalized Mindlessness Make Us Dumber or Only More Cynical? — The State of the Union’s Annual Bouncing Clown Show Would Have Embarrassed Me even in Elementary School
© 2013 Peter Free
15 February 2013
The partisanly foolish State of the Union Address, as practiced today, takes us nowhere productive and makes us more stupid just watching it
Like undergoing water torture, some of our still functioning brain leaks out with each splat.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s regular absence from the State of the Union speech strikes a blow for the exercise of thoughtful intelligence
The State of the Union has devolved into a parade of cynically delivered campaign-like nonsense (see transcript), mixed with an interruptive display of pop up/sit down, clap and eye-roll dolls.
The speech and its Congressional setting have institutionalized the regular assemblage of apparently sub-chimpanzee intellects.
Cage-rattling Justice Antonin Scalia characterized the nonsense this way:
"It has turned into a childish spectacle, and I don't think that I want to be there to lend dignity to it."
© 2013 Richard Wolf and Catalina Camia, Scalia: State of the Union 'a childish spectacle', USA Today (12 February 2013)
Perhaps someday a President will do away with this unrequired excess
And maybe that person will go on to become the leader that our miserable State of Disunion would, metaphorically, like to see.
As Doug Mataconis noted, the Constitution does not say anything about having to make this usually go-nowhere speech in front of Congress each year:
After all, the Constitution merely requires Congress to keep Congress apprised of the state of the union “from time to time.”
It doesn’t require that the President address Congress in person.
Heck, it technically doesn’t even require that the President perform this duty on an annual basis.
As it stands, it became the practice starting with Thomas Jefferson for the President to send a written message to Congress on an annual basis, and that tradition continued for more than 100 years until Woodrow Wilson became President and decided to revive the practice of speaking in front of Congress that had been followed, to some extent, by Presidents Washington and Adams.
© 2013 Doug Mataconis, Let’s Eliminate The State Of The Union Address, Outside the Beltway (12 February 2013) (paragraph split)
The Constitution’s full wording regarding the State of the Union requirement is —
From Article 2, section 3:
He [the President] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient . . . .
How is it that so many people twist this unmistakably plain language into requiring more than it does?
Each year, I am struck by the number of journalists and pundits who make reference to this passage, without recognizing that “Information” does not mean “speech” and “time to time” is so unconstrained as to be meaningless.
In other words, the President can do whatever he or she wishes.
The problem with following an unrequired political tradition
Tradition, almost by definition, means “uncritically followed” — as if we have all lost our ability to think.
Some traditions are valuable because they organize experience in the absence of a better way of doing it.
On the other hand, most traditions are exercises in preserved stupidity — because there are provably superior ways of doing what needs to get done. The State of the Union speech is one of these head-scratching carry overs.
The moral? — The State of the Union’s bone-headed display of regularized “jump up/sit downs” reflects our incompetence in minimally governing ourselves
The State of the Union has become just another campaign stop.
Performed in front of a combined group of sycophants and obstructers — neither side (apparently) visibly possessed of a shred of productive brain function.
Justice Scalia is right to be skeptical of the worth of this annual display of American jack-assery.