While American politicians wag their tongues and fingers over the intractable issues of the day, wallowing in demagoguery and denunciations, and while the media follow their lead like baby quail, a stunning irony is becoming apparent: the issues have been resolved.

I am referring to these issues: race relations, immigration, and the war on terror. While politicians and talking heads miss the point, the reality is that three doors have opened that will resolve these matters once and for all. History’s turnstile has given way and we are stumbling into the future like winos chasing butterflies.

Consider race relations: Brown vs. Board of Education and Mississippi fire hoses spawned late 20^th century liberalism, a vibrant concoction of rage, guilt, enlightenment and entitlement. The latter half of the 20^th century spawned remedial programs like school desegregation and affirmative action. They were designed to correct historical wrongs, like segregation and disenfranchisement. Those programs were strong medicine, and cured many social ills. De jure segregation ended. Schools were integrated. Racial minorities found entrée to the work force, and all races were invited to participate in the political process.

Strong medicines have side-effects, called "unintended consequences" in politics. Affirmative action frequently was wrongly applied, elevating unqualified individuals over others simply on account of their race. Government programs designed to eliminate prejudice based on race and national origin spawned a class of public servants whose worst nightmare was the elimination of prejudice.

This brings us to Door Number One: No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This controversial and cumbersome law, warts and all, is doing more to kill late 20^th century liberalism than Rush Limbaugh’s medicine cabinet. NCLB, the "love child" of George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy, has a simple and powerful message: the United States will educate all children, regardless of race, gender, or national origin, and will punish any public school or school district that fails to do that. Furthermore, NCLB requires that education be data-driven, something that terrifies superintendents and school administrators who have carefully avoided accountability for decades. Those who believe that teachers unions resisted accountability are dead wrong. Administrators have been the problem, not teachers.

NCLB is desegregation on steroids. It goes far beyond the limits established by desegregation lawsuits and the 1965 Civil Rights Act. It is quite possibly the most liberal piece of legislation ever passed by Congress. Despite its flaws – high stakes testing being the most obvious – NCLB is the strongest effort in American history to kick down historical barriers founded on racial and gender prejudice. At some point, probably after Bush leaves office, liberals will "discover" NCLB, get rid of the unnecessarily punitive high stakes testing (which punishes kids for adult failure), and use it to build an egalitarian society.

NCLB portends the death of federalism by nationalizing the educational process and reducing state education agencies to hand-servants of the federal Department of Education, which will spawn another class of public servants with its own agenda. But that unintended consequence is the subject of another column.

Immigration: One of the comments I frequently read is that illegal immigration can be corrected if the United States adopted a national identification card, usually followed by a "but, of course, that won’t happen" comment, especially if the commentator is liberal or libertarian. The concept of a national ID summons up visions of South African apartheid and Sizwe Banzi Is Dead imagery. In the United States, we don’t have to show our "papers" if we want a job, government benefits, or an education.

But we will. While the American media was obsessed with Natalee Holloway’s disappearance and Terry Schiavo’s vacant smile, Congress passed, and Bush signed, the "Real ID Act." It was appended to the defense reauthorization bill, so most congresspersons were afraid to oppose it. The few commentators who mentioned it characterized it as a "driver’s license" bill, which is incorrect. The provisions of the bill are not limited to driver’s licenses. Anybody who wants to participate in a program that takes a dime of federal funds, from schools to clinics to day care, will need the card. The card will be state-certified, digital-imaged, and embedded with a microchip that carries data from blood types to birthdates, or anything else the Secretary of Transportation wants to place there. The law even permits the use of RFID technology which, to simplify the concept, can let an employer or cop know whether you are an American citizen by waving a wand at you. The era of fake ID’s will be over.

The unintended consequence is that the right of privacy will be eroded and the average American citizen will be tracked like a rabid bat. But, again, that’s for another column.

The War on Terror: The last three years of conflict in the Middle East, including the disastrous war in Iraq, have demonstrated that a war on terror makes about as much sense as a war on the color yellow. Terrorism is a tactic, not an ethos. Terror gravitates to conflict, but terrorists are not territorial. Chen, the terrorist in Andre Malraux’s Man’s Fate, was not an ideologue; he was a killer. Terrorism is its own end, even though terrorists frequently try to justify their behavior with political rationale. Terrorists may claim to serve other masters (the Palestinians, for example) but their purpose is to scare their victims stupid, like any bully.

911 was the most successful terrorist attack in history, because Osama bin Laden scared America stupid. How stupid? Consider these statistics: 2,595 individuals perished in the attack on the World Trade Center. As of this writing, 2,570 American servicemen and women have been killed in the Iraq war. By the end of this year, more Americans will have been killed in the war in Iraq than were killed in the World Trade Center attack, even though Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had nothing to do with 911. George W. Bush and his advisors conflated Iraq with the global war on terror, by misapplying the term "terrorist" to include anybody they wanted to get rid of.

Peel away the onion skins of the "war on terror" and you find other realities: Sunni versus Shiite, religious versus secular, Jew versus Muslim. Those who declare a "war on terror" simply demonstrate their ignorance of history. And, to quote the man who had the most to gain from 911 and lost the most instead, they will be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Remember "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance?" Liberty Valance was a terrorist, but he would have been powerless were it not for the forces that employed him. The fight was against them, not Valance. That might have been the only thing that Ransom Stoddard and Tom Doniphon agreed on. And Democrats and Republicans will come to agree on that, as well.

And the unintended consequence? Barak Obama.

© July 27, 2006 by Mike Tully