It’s funny sometimes how easy it is to lose sight of the basics. Case in point is the current strangling of the University of North Carolina system by the new GOP majority in the General Assembly. It’s a basic assumption of civilization: Education and knowledge are the most critical elements for having a thriving nation and culture. The state's New Bosses, however, either don’t know about that or couldn’t care less. The House’s budget cuts almost $472 million from the university system, a 15-percent reduction, while the Senate proposes a 12-percent reduction. Those kinds of cuts won’t just “trim the fat”; they will be as dramatic a change to our university system as we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Educators say the cuts would cost 3,200 jobs, including about one of every 10 full-time faculty positions.

The cuts also include drastic reductions in the state’s contribution to the UNC system’s successful need-based grants program for in-state students. As NC Policy Watch reports, the U.S., which was once a leader in the number of adults with a college degree, now ranks 12th out of 36 developed countries. For the New Bosses, however, again, that doesn’t seem to matter. Well, here’s something that should matter — to politicians, journalists, and regular citizens — and it fits right into that whole “basics” thing we mentioned. It’s called the North Carolina Constitution — specifically, Article IX, Sections 8 and 9. Here’s the relevant text:

Sec. 8.  The General Assembly shall maintain a public system of higher education, comprising The University of North Carolina and such other institutions of higher education as the General Assembly may deem wise. . .

Sec. 9. The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense.

“Free of expense”?! OK, the state probably cannot afford to educate all the people of N.C. for free, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that the New Bosses’ policies, which will result in a combination of higher prices and fewer students, is in 180-degree opposition to both the letter and the spirit of the state’s constitution. Maybe the Tea Party faithful who took over the state legislature need to look into respecting the state’s “Founding Fathers” as much as they claim to respect the nation’s founders.

It’s no secret that these are odd times in American politics. Just how odd is being revealed in Congress right now, as a “fantasy coalition” of Democratic liberals and Republican libertarians — something we wished for just the other day — is showing signs of developing. In a blog item on Friday, I reported that congressional leaders Harry Reid and John Boehner had agreed on a renewal of the odious Patriot Act. At the time, I wrote that “It will be interesting to see how far congress members’ love of individual freedom and civil liberties goes. Enough to bring together Tea Party libertarians and the more liberal-leaning Democrats in a 'strange bedfellows' coalition?”

Today, as TalkingPointsMemo reports, Vermont liberal Sen. Patrick Leahy and Kentucky libertarian Rand Paul  are joining forces to introduce an amendment to the Patriot Act that would phase out some of the worst  parts of the law. The Leahy-Paul amendment would let National Security Letters (NSLs) expire at the end of 2013. NSLs are a type of subpoena used by the federal government, which demands that particular organizations or people turn over various records and data such as credit card transactions, phone calls, e-mail addresses, etc. Under the Patriot Act, the government doesn’t need to show probable cause for the NSL, and there is no judicial oversight of the process. If you history buffs out there think this sounds a little like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, apartheid-era South Africa, or recent Egyptian policy, you’re right.

Leahy and Paul’s amendment would also mandate that the Justice Dept. audit the issuance of NSLs, and would expand public reporting on the use of NSLs. As TPM reports, Rand Paul said, "We were so frightened after 9/11 that we readily gave up these freedoms. Not only would I let these expire, but I think we should sunset the entire Patriot Act."

Nitpickers will say Leahy and Paul could have gone farther and dumped other appalling features of the Patriot Act, but I welcome this move by progressives and libertarians to find common ground on a particular issue. Like we said Friday, if this kind of coalition could be nurtured and grown, “it could lead to other interesting Tea Party/Progressive coalitions, including getting us the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

• Illustration by Propaganda Remix Project

About a month ago, an acquaintance, we’ll call him Bob, took offense when a mutual friend — umm, Jimmy — described the Republican Party as a coalition of “big business and bigots.” I ventured that perhaps the phrase could be re-worded to be less offensive, something like “a bunch of moneybags and goobers.” That really set Bob off, who, although he didn’t seem to mind the “moneybags” part, insisted that the GOP did not cater to racial bigots. I thought that sounded about as reasonable as claiming Democrats don’t cater to union members, but Bob was insistent. Republicans, he said, were primarily interested in the Constitution and small government, and neither racial attitudes nor the backward modes of thinking we had discussed earlier were in any way indicative of the GOP. Jimmy and I soon parted ways with Bob, none of us wanting to spoil someone else’s party with a full-blown argument. If only I had seen a poll of North Carolinians taken on the 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.

That poll, conducted last month by Public Policy Polling, shows that North Carolina Republicans are almost evenly divided on the question — get this — of whether they wish the South had won the Civil War. Among N.C. Republicans, 35 percent said they’re glad the North won, 33 percent wish the South had won, and 29 percent aren’t sure. Overall, 48 percent of North Carolinians are glad the North won, 21 percent wish the South had won, and 31 percent couldn’t care less one way or the other.  Among Democrats, the numbers were 55 percent North, 15 percent South, 30 percent don't know; for independents, support for the Union cause is slightly stronger — 57 percent North, 14 percent South, 29 percent don’t know.

To this writer, these results are amazing: 33 percent of the GOP in North Carolina actually wishes the South had won the Civil War. I think it’s fair to say that in nearly any other country, if a full third of a major party’s members said they sided with the losing, rebel faction in that country’s previous civil war — not to mention implying that they are in favor of slavery — that party would be, to put it very, very mildly, discredited. But here? We’re so used to goobers having a say in how things are run — N.C. House Majority Leader Skip Stam, anyone? —  it’s a one-day blog item that quickly sinks from public view.

• New proposed logo for N.C. GOP