Do you believe in the American dream — the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools — at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U’s College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of “the American Dream” in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace — and be prepared to teach our state’s kids — the task force’s own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.

The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U’s flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” contributes to the poor academic performance of the state’s minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.

The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the “overarching framework” for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep.

The first step toward “cultural competence,” says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize — and confess — their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China’s Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

Recent unemployment figures reveal the daunting dimensions of the job crisis. Unemployment stands at 10.2 percent, and underemployment — those who have given up looking or who have taken part-time jobs — is at a mind-numbing 17.5 percent: almost one in five. In this greatest crisis since the Great Depression, many Americans are becoming desperate — watching bills mount, facing foreclosures and giving up hope.

Alarm bells may be sounding for the American people, but not — it seems — for President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders. Instead of making jobs their urgent priority, they have launched a wild-eyed, budget-busting crusade to remake America’s health care system. They are doing this at a time when two-thirds of Americans say they are happy with their current health care, and in a way that will paralyze job creation and act as a massive drag on the economy for years to come.

To get a handle on this, you’ve got to get inside the heads of the political class now running Washington. For this purpose, there’s no more insightful guide than economist Thomas Sowell’s 1995 classic, “The Vision of the Anointed.”

The “anointed” — who today include Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Co. — are an intellectual and political elite infatuated by their own exalted status. They are convinced of their brilliance and superior abilities, but most of all of their moral righteousness. From this elite’s perspective, Sowell explains, “problems exist only because the rest of us are not as wise or caring, or imaginative and bold, as they are.”

For the anointed, public policymaking is a forum for moral preening — a chance for ostentatious display of the benevolence in which they take such pride. It’s also a vehicle for their will to power, as they strive to radically restructure American society despite the resistance of ordinary folks.

The anointed like to appeal to noble-sounding goals like “social justice.” But their schemes to “fix” society always transfer power and decisionmaking authority from individuals and families to the central government — dominated by people like themselves. In the vision of the anointed, writes Sowell, “Public policy-making is to be seen as ego gratification from imposing one’s vision on other people through the power of government.”

Obama and Co.’s health care crusade is a case in point. The almost-2,000-page bill raced through by House Democrats on a Saturday night transfers control over one-sixth of our economy to a vast new government bureaucracy, and invests an Orwellian-named “health choices commissioner” with power to shape millions of Americans’ life-and-death decisions.

Voluminous evidence suggests that this monstrosity will reduce the quality of American medical care while placing our economy on life support. Some of its elements have been tried in Europe or at the state level here, resulting in higher costs or reduced health care benefits — especially access to expensive medical technologies.

But Obama and other members of the elite dismiss concerns raised by this evidence. They attribute critics’ opposition to ignorance or malign intentions, or accuse their opponents of being in thrall to special interests.

In fact, as Sowell points out, the anointed generally resist testing their grand theories against reality. After all, they are so brilliant and have such good intentions — how could they be wrong? In many cases, they actually view widespread opposition as evidence of their superiority.

“The very commonness of common sense is unlikely to appeal to the anointed,” explains Sowell. “A public outcry against what they are doing is not a reason to reconsider but music to their ears. To disdain it is a badge of distinction.”

Obama’s health care crusade is likely to add to the long line of 20th-century ideological misadventures perpetrated by arrogant and self-absorbed elites. (Think of the failed 1960s war on poverty or race-based school busing.) In each case, soaring speeches and utopian plans carried the day, but the problems addressed became worse.

Unfortunately, the anointed seldom learn cautionary lessons about the need for prudence and humility from historical failures. Their cherished view of themselves as a moral vanguard makes this impossible. “What is at stake for [them] in their discussions of public policy issues is their whole image of themselves as people whose knowledge and wisdom are essential to the diagnosis of social ills and the prescription of ’solutions,’” writes Sowell.

For America’s anointed, Sowell concludes, “reality is optional.” Today, our nation can’t afford such willful blindness. On the economic front, families’ livelihoods are on the line. On the health care front, their lives are at stake.

“How would same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?” Advocates of changing our marriage laws tell us this is an unanswerable question.

A typical couple — Mary and John, married for 15 years — may find it tough to answer. That’s because it’s the wrong question. Mary and John won’t stop loving each other or be bounced out of their house if same-sex marriage prevails. To get at what’s really at stake, we need a different question: “How will same-sex marriage harm the institution of marriage — and in the long run, all of us?”

Marriage is a universal human institution. Across the world and throughout history, it’s been exclusively male-female. That’s not because of antigay bigotry, but because marriage is anchored in a primal biological and social fact: Sex between men and women creates new human beings.

The primary purpose of marriage is to ensure the best environment for rearing the children born of male-female sexual acts. Marriage channels men’s and women’s sexual attraction into productive ends, and harnesses the male sex drive by binding men to the mothers of their children. The evidence is overwhelming: Boys and girls flourish best with a married mother and father, who perform different and complementary roles in preparing them to deal with the world and the opposite sex.

Same-sex marriage would not — as advocates claim — merely extend the benefits of marriage to more people. It would gut marriage of its fundamental meaning and transform it from an institution centered on children and the mother/father nuclear family to one centered on adults. Marriage would become an artificial institution, bestowing state approval on any adult relationship based on affection and interdependence.

Such a redefinition would compel us to repudiate time-honored ideas of social organization. Last year, in mandating gay marriage, the Iowa Supreme Court rejected the belief that children need a mother and father as a mere “stereotype.” Courts are also beginning to upend our ideas about parenthood — jettisoning biological ties, recognizing “psychological” parents and including three-parent arrangements, with unpredictable results.

Same-sex marriage may not change the lives of John and Mary. But their children and grandchildren will bear the brunt of this cultural revolution. Today, only 59 percent of children live with their married biological or adoptive mother and father — a result of divorce, cohabitation and rising out-of-wedlock births. If same-sex marriage prevails, the marriage culture is likely to erode further.

In European countries and American states where same-sex marriage is legal, the proportion of gays choosing to marry is well below that of the heterosexual population. In America, about two-thirds of gay couples who seek legal recognition are lesbians. The larger society does not expect or pressure gay people to marry — for them, it’s just a matter of personal preference.

Over time, this attitude could reshape the larger institution of marriage. As social norms that have encouraged men and women to take on the hard work of raising a family unravel, heterosexual couples are less likely to see marriage as important or relevant. Increasingly, marriage is likely to become just one of many options in a lifestyle smorgasbord.

If marriage is primarily about children, some ask, what about infertile and older couples? If infertile male-female couples do adopt or have a child, that child will have a mother and father. The human body’s design makes clear that men and women — whatever their age — are naturally directed toward each other and complement one another.

If same sex-marriage prevails, we are likely to see further attempts to “expand” marriage.

Once marriage is stripped of its organic purpose, why restrict it to two people? Two lesbians and the sperm donor for their child, polygamists, bisexuals: All will want society to recognize and respect their relationships.

And why should marriage be open only to people with a sexual relationship? That discriminates against two female friends who want to share the burdens of rearing their kids, or a disabled brother and sister who live together. Some of the most influential proponents of same-sex marriage seek to “get the state out of the marriage business” altogether.

It’s ironic that in other realms of life, Americans are very aware of the risks of tampering excessively with nature. Many of those urging us to transform humankind’s fundamental social institution are the very people who preach about such risks in the environmental context and warn that the actions of individuals affect the well-being of all. The natural world, they say, can stretch only so far before breaking as we tinker with the realities of its systems.

We understand little about how marriage has undergirded the order and prosperity we take for granted. We tamper with marriage at our peril.

The “flying imams” and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are declaring victory in their legal war against law-enforcement personnel and safety procedures at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Their “victory” — aided and abetted by a judge arrogantly dismissive of law-enforcement realities — is a major setback for transportation safety.

The case made news three years ago when the six imams were removed from a U.S. Airways jet after passengers and airline employees reported that the six were engaging in suspicious behavior, including changing seats into a so-called 9/11 pattern; cursing the United States and its conflict with Saddam Hussein; chanting “Allah, Allah” when boarding was called, and unnecessarily requesting seat-belt extenders that could be used as weapons.

The imams were questioned and released. Subsequently, they sued U.S. Airways, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), the officers involved and even passengers they suspected of reporting their behavior, until an outraged, bipartisan Congress passed a law giving the passengers immunity.

Last week, a settlement was announced in the case. Details remain confidential, and the judge must approve the agreement. But the parties have said publicly that — though there is no admission of guilt or fault — money will change hands. MAC’s insurance company exercised its right to take charge of the defense and chose to settle, according to MAC spokesman Patrick Hogan.

No wonder. In a ruling this summer, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery pinned the law-enforcement officials involved to the wall — one from the FBI and six from MAC — second-guessing their conduct with the luxury of a Monday-morning quarterback.

When the officers were summoned to Flight 300 on Nov. 20, 2006, they believed that passengers might be in danger, and they had to make quick decisions based on limited information. Montgomery, in contrast, had the opportunity to review hundreds of pages of briefs, depositions and exhibits before concluding — in hindsight — that the officers had erred in detaining the imams. After hearing lawyers’ arguments, she deliberated for almost three months before penning a 47-page dissertation on what, in her view, the officers should or shouldn’t have done that day.

Most important, she — unlike the officers — knew with the benefit of hindsight that passengers had not been in danger.

On July 24, 2009, Montgomery issued her ruling. “No reasonably competent officer,” she wrote, could have believed he was acting legally by detaining and questioning the imams in a way that, in her view, amounted to an “arrest.” The fact that at least 15 officers involved in the incident — from the MAC, the Federal Air Marshal Service, the FBI and the Secret Service — had all apparently believed they were acting appropriately and responsibly did not appear to give her pause. The MAC officers, Montgomery ruled, were actually guilty of a “willful or malicious wrong.”

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, worries about the impact of a settlement reached under such circumstances.

“Terrorism operates on fear,” says Jasser. “Transportation authorities don’t know when, where or how terrorists will strike, so they must be vigilant.” After this settlement, he adds, the men and women charged with protecting the public will have to contend with a “competing fear” as they make tough decisions: “They may ask, ‘If I detain and question someone who is acting suspiciously, will I cost my employer thousands of dollars, or even lose my job?’”

This chilling effect may lead to risky changes in airport security policies and pilot training, Jasser warns. As a result, officials may miss “vital nuances” in behavior that put the rest of us in danger.

Despite a potential increase in safety risks at the airport, is the flying imams’ settlement at least a victory for Muslim civil rights, as CAIR has declared? On the contrary, says Jasser — a Muslim — it’s a victory for the legal strategy of “victimization,” which grievance groups have often employed to “shake down” defendants. CAIR and the imams dismiss national security concerns, he says, in order to portray airport security measures as motivated by ethnic and religious bigotry. In the process, they ignore the central role of suspicious behavior and cast themselves as victims of irrational bias.

This obsession with victimization leads CAIR and the imams to ignore Muslims’ real interests, Jasser adds.

“Muslims have responsibility for religious reform, aimed at removing the fuel that powers the growth of radical Islam. We will have succeeded when we no longer see arrests for terrorist-related activities — as we did recently in Denver, New Jersey and Boston,” he says.

“The real victory for Muslims will come when the cancer of political Islamist ideology, which feeds terrorism, disappears.”

“The progress of women over recent decades has been extraordinary,” write researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in a much-discussed new study.

“The gender wage gap has partly closed,” they continue. “[Women’s] educational attainment has risen and is now surpassing that of men; women have gained an unprecedented level of control over fertility; technological change in the form of new domestic appliances has freed women from domestic drudgery; and women’s freedoms within both the family and market sphere have expanded.”

No news here, you may say. We all know that women’s opportunities have grown exponentially in the last 40 years, as stereotypes of every kind have been tossed in the cultural dumpster.

But wait. Read on:

“Yet … measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being … is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries.”

Pundits are scratching their heads over the new Wharton study, called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.” Its message about women’s growing misery is especially startling because in the 1970s, the “happiness” gender gap ran the other way — with women consistently reporting being more satisfied with their lives than men, the authors say.

Why this flip-flop on happiness by the most fortunate generation of women in history? Why have progress and liberation on every front — educational, professional and sexual — left many women in a funk?

Old-guard feminists have a party-line explanation: the “second shift.” That’s the idea that women bear a double burden because as they moved into the paid workforce, they still had to do the lion’s share of the work at home.

Sorry, the data don’t bear this out, according to the Wharton study. Since 1965, it says, men and women have experienced relatively equal declines in total hours worked. Women are working more hours in the market but significantly fewer at home, while men are working fewer hours in the market and more at home.

What does seem certain is that the path to liberation and expanded opportunity has entailed some unsettling tradeoffs.

Take the sexual revolution. In 1970, women on my college campus began sporting T-shirts declaring that “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” In their eyes, marriage and family were a ball and chain — more likely to bring women bondage than fulfillment. To find happiness and an authentic identity, they insisted, women would have to cast off social convention and obligations to others and “explore” their sexuality without restraint.

But this philosophy had a catch: men began to embrace it too. Encouraged by women, many men began to back away from the responsibilities and burdens of marriage and fatherhood and to join enthusiastically in the sexual free-for-all. Increasingly, they came to view women as sex objects — the very thing feminists had claimed to want to avoid — rather than as long-term partners in the common enterprise of family.

We know what followed: Marriage and family began to unravel. The divorce rate doubled between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. Today, no one of either sex can count on marriage or family for the social support we need to get through life’s inevitable challenges. But women and children — more vulnerable — have paid the biggest price.

Women’s quest for happiness in the work world also brought tradeoffs. In the 1970s and ’80s, many women, long shut out from high-powered careers, confidently sought freedom and fulfillment from a shiny briefcase and a VP nameplate on the office door. Success brought financial self-sufficiency and a fuller stage for the use of talents.

But the search for identity in the work world also brought disappointment. As women pinned their hopes for happiness on professional careers, they began to discover the mixed bag their male counterparts knew too well: the pressure to produce, the outright drudgery, the risk of failure, the boss from hell. For some, the process may have shed light on why men have traditionally died at a younger age.

Maybe we women got the whole happiness thing backwards. Years ago, we assured ourselves of a golden road ahead if we could throw off all that had tied us down and limited our options in the past. But perhaps there was something in those ties themselves — those “prisons” of family, marriage and other fundamental obligations — that had the power to bring us closer to our true goal.