I’ve been reading the text of President Obama’s commencement speech at the University of Michigan last week – something I couldn’t have done years ago; I’d’ve had to rely on reports and sound clips. Then I shifted to the various commentaries on the speech, and saw immediately how reading the opinions and arguments of those who disagree with us can – just as the President suggested – make our blood boil. And yet I can’t imagine doing anything different. Why else do we try to teach civic responsibility and debate in our schools?

Last summer the Tea Party patriots were in full cry on the subject of the Nanny State, Big Brother, and Socialized Medicine. Since the passage of the health care reform bill and the emergence of the issues of financial and immigration reform, I sense that a little steam has gone out of the boiler. Even Tea Partiers can see a need for government regulation of the institutions that cynically engineered such a huge dent in our IRAs and retirement plans. They seem a little loath to criticize a new Arizona law that allows the constabulary to demand proof of citizenship from anyone they wish to stop; and they seem conflicted by the blatantly racist slogans and banners that bob up and down at their rallies – to the delight of the television camera crews.

And yet..and yet...they may have a point. The fact that people lash out blindly in their frustration is not evidence that the frustration has no rational basis. Of the three branches of our government, which one consistently earns our deepest and most heartfelt scorn? If you said, “Congress,” you agree with a vast majority of your fellow Americans. We perceive our national legislative branch, deservedly or not, to be virtually catatonic. The reasons appear to be ideological, but I think we suspect that campaign funds and powerful lobbies have a lot to do with it.

In the face of chronic legislative gridlock, some states have decided to go it on their own. Thus Arizona, though its rationale for eliminating illegal aliens may be on shaky ground, has enacted not the reform that’s needed, but regulations that can cause little but trouble – court challenges, lawsuits, and perhaps a bit of freelance vigilantism. California, though at the moment engaged in a furious campaign to roll back its tough anti-pollution standards, has led the way toward cleaner air. And now Vermont appears to be getting into the independent mood, as well.

Last Saturday was a lovely day in the state capital. It was trash cleanup day in Vermont. It was also May Day, though I heard not a single strain of the “Internationale.” (I’m not sure anybody knows it anymore.) The day was also Health Care Is a Human Right Day. A crowd gathered in front of the Montpelier City Hall for some music, entertainment, and speeches. Then everybody, led by a fifer and drummer dressed as Revolutionary War musicians on Casual Friday, marched to the Capitol on State Street for a rally in the warm sunshine. Bernie Sanders, the state’s junior senator, sat as inconspicuously as possible on a sidewalk bench, apparently gathering his thoughts and strength for another stemwinder.

After a few remarks by the organizers, thanking those who’d contributed and reminding the crowd of their goal, Bernie did it again. Why, of all the industrialized nations, he asked rhetorically, are we the only one that doesn’t guarantee its citizens adequate health care? Why do we spend twice as much as other nations per capita for health care and end up with inferior results? Why should people face bankruptcy because of medical bills when the executives of the for-profit insurance companies take home tens of millions of dollars in compensation?

Now, as far as I know, I don’t have any relatives working for Blue Cross, or Bankers Life, or Cigna, so it was easy for me to agree with the senator. And you can well imagine that the crowd was with him. There was much the same sentiment I felt during the successful gay marriage campaign: Little Vermont can lead the way!

Pass single-payer health insurance in Vermont, Bernie said. I’ll take it to the White House and ask them to let us try it. Then I’ll take it to my conservative colleagues and say, here: You favor states’ rights. Let Vermont go ahead with this. And we’ll show the nation the way to do it!

I’m quite aware that the devil is always in the details, and that there are certainly hundreds of them in such an apparently simple idea, as well as thousands of opinions, many strongly felt. But the beauty of a small state (Iceland also comes to mind) is that it can wrap itself around a problem, propose and debate solutions, and enact legislation to realize them. It doesn’t take long to evaluate whether they work. If they don’t, you quit, tweak, or try again.

Most of all, I think it important to focus not upon what we’re against – scapegoating is for barren imaginations – but upon what we’re for. For example: Is health care a human right in a modern nation?. It’s probably time to play out that question on a smaller stage.