S12770 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE December 10, 2001 Two: An attack upon majority rule as the and scattered among bodies at different lev- multicultural extremisms that helped shel- main mechanism of democratic government. els. Politicians no longer have to take re- ter the World Trade Center attackers. For, Majority rule, its opponents contend, gives sponsibility for hard decisions; they can pass as Americans above all should know, you insufficient weight to minority or ‘‘victim’’ them onto higher organs of unaccountable can’t beat something with nothing. groups, and should be replaced by a power- power. Civic patriotism is no longer the This, then, is a moment of great signifi- sharing arrangement among different prime civic virtue; it is displaced either cance and opportunity in American politics. groups. This ambitious concept has not been downwards, by a narrow ethnic loyalty, or Democracy and the nation-state are the Sia- totally enacted anywhere, but steps towards upwards, by a cosmopolitan loyalty to inter- mese twins of political theory; democracy it have been taken. The Voting Rights Act, national institutions. rarely survives apart from its twin. Every for example, requires that election districts But a terrible beauty has not been born. attempt to create a multicultural democracy be drawn in such a way as to ensure specific Instead, Leviathan, by dividing itself up into either has failed or is deeply troubled. Bush racial outcomes; and some European nations several spheres, has slipped free of constitu- could very reasonably weave a national ap- have recently introduced laws requiring po- tional restraints and popular control. For peal around the theme of defending Amer- litical parties to ensure that a given percent- the ordinary voter the world has become a ican democracy—with equal emphasis on age of their election candidates are women. mysterious place, far more difficult to navi- both words. It would resonate strongly with Three: Transferring power from political gate, let alone control. For political elites, it the American majority; command the sup- institutions directly accountable to the vot- has become a market in power in which bu- port of many voters in minority groups; pro- ers, such as Congress, to judges, bureaucratic reaucrats, pressure groups, businesses, and vide the GOP with a raft of popular domestic agencies, and international organizations international lawyers exchange favors be- policies; and attract Democratic constitu- outside the control of the voters. Originally, hind a veil of post-national irresponsibility. encies such as patriotic blue-collar workers. this transfer of power required the consent of For years, this progressivist revolution and if such an appeal is not make, the pro- proceeded rapidly, chiefly because the public the elected bodies; increasingly, however, gressivist revolution is going to end up win- was paying little or no attention to it. But judges interpret international law, including ning.∑ treaties that have not been ratified or that whenever it emerged into the light of con- have been greatly expanded in scope since troversy—as when Lani Buiner’s nomination f led to the revelation that law professors be- ratification, as overriding domestic law. IN MEMORY OF JAMES CLOEREN This process, still in its nervous infancy in lieved in something like John C. Calhoun’s the U.S., is far advanced in the European ‘‘concurrent majorities’’—the public reacted AND JERRY NORTON. Union—where the courts have overruled na- violently against it. The typical lack of pub- ∑ Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, on tional legislatures on issues as different as lic interest was due in part to the GOP’s October 30, the State of Maryland, our territorial fishing rights and the right of sol- nervous reluctance to raise such issues as ra- Nation, their families and the Johns cial preferences, bilingual education, or even diers to become pregnant. If allowed to con- Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory tinue, this trend must first erode and even- the International Criminal Court. Although tually render obsolete both national sov- conservatism dictated a principled defense of lost James Cloeren and Jerry Norton in ereignty and self-government. the Constitution against these attacks, the a tragic accident. They died while fly- Four: De-constructing and re-constructing Republicans backed off. In effect, they went ing their experimental aircraft near the self-understanding of America. Every na- from ignoring such assaults under Reagan, Westminster, MD. tion has a sense of itself and its history that to going along with them quietly under James Cloeren and Jerry Norton is embedded in a national narrative marked George H. W. Bush; to even embracing some were engineers and world renowned ex- by heroic episodes. In this traditional nar- of them with a show of enthusiasm under perts on ultra-stable oscillators used in rative, America is the progressive George W. Bush. If the revolution were to be universalization of English civilization— stopped, the political equivalent of a thun- satellites for navigation. They spent Magna Carta expanded to accommodate derbolt would be required. their careers advancing the technical slaves, and later immigrants, and enriched To everyone’s horror, that thunderbolt was development of our national space pro- by the cultures they brought with them. It is delivered, in the form of the attack on Sep- gram, both defense and civilian. They therefore a branch of a branch of Western tember 11; as everyone agrees, that changed built custom oscillators for the Na- civilization; but multiculturalism seeks to everything. In particular it revealed that tional Aeronautics and Space Adminis- undermine this self-understanding and to re- America had deep reserves of patriotism and tration, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that there was a wide, though not universal, place it with an entirely different narrative, and the European Space Agency. Oscil- in which America is seen as a ‘‘convergence’’ desire for national unity. In one terrifying of European, African, and Amerindian civili- moment, it created or revived constituencies lators are precision instruments, simi- zations (and therefore the natural basis for a for a firm assimilationist approach, for lar to a clock that would lose no more political system based on group identities tighter immigration policies that protected than a second in a million years. and rights). This re-constructionist impulse U.S. security, for a reading of American his- Clocks on data-collecting satellites has become the orthodoxy in many public tory as the narrative of a great achievement, must be precise and endure radical schools. and for the celebration of U.S. power against changes in temperatures and shifts in Five: Re-constructing the people by mass all the recently fashionable follies of post- magnetic pull. The Jet Propulsion Lab immigration from other cultures. As long as nationalism. In foreign policy, the Bush ad- new immigrants are assimilated into the ex- ministration met this public appetite with a described their instruments as ‘‘the isting nation, no problem arises; if assimila- clear declaration of war on terrorism, and a finest in the solar system in terms of tion fails to occur, the nation is gradually clear military strategy for waging it; it has the cleanliness and stability of their dissolved into a Babel of different cultural been rewarded for this with high popular output’’. At the time of their deaths groups with conflicting allegiances. Under support. they were working to complete four os- existing law, however, assimilation is not In domestic policy, however, it has been cillators that are the heart and soul of only made difficult by the sheer numbers of largely inert—preferring to constrain lib- a pair of NASA satellites. Using ultra people arriving, it is also discouraged by offi- erties internally rather than to strengthen stable oscillators, the satellite will cial policies of multiculturalism and bilin- protections against external threats. In the gualism. less tangible but vitally important matter of measure small gravitational perturba- Six: Divorcing citizenship from nationality national unity and moral, it has con- tions that reflect climate changes. The and bestowing the rights of citizens—includ- centrated entirely on (very proper) warnings satellite program is called GRACE. ing the right to vote—on all residents in the against anti-Muslim sentiment—but without Their colleagues at APL are working nation, including illegal immigrants. Ac- asking for expressions of loyalty from Mus- hard to finish Mr. Cloeren’s and Mr. cording to this theory, citizenship should be lim leaders or, more generally, asking immi- Norton’s work. NASA has directed APL carried on an immigrant’s back to whichever grant communities to make a public com- to affix the names of Jim and Jerry nation he manages to sneak into. If seriously mitment of their loyalty to the American upon the oscillators in recognition of implemented in law, it would transform na- nation. That is a profound mistake. Most im- tions into mere places of residence; the sym- migrants would be happy to make such a their pioneering work in space. What a bol of this kind of citizenship is Mohamed commitment; it is America’s cultural elites fitting monument that these two sat- Atta, the hijacker who destroyed the World who would resist it most strongly. ellites will carry the names of these Trade Center. But then, they are the shock troops of two colleagues who were united in In the post-national world Fonte described, post-national progressivism; and they would work, friendship and death. nations are no longer peoples united by a realize that the demand for loyalty would be Mr. Cloeren had worked at APL for 20 common history and culture, and ‘‘the mys- an unmistakable sign that America had re- years and Mr. Norton for 40 years. tic chords of memory’’; they are simply the covered complete confidence in itself, in its varied inhabitants of an arbitrary piece of own institutions of constitutional democ- Our thoughts and prayers go out to real estate.