Golly That Sounds Reasonable and Moral Too

I am so old I can remember the fear the right had when the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” was just passed on strict party-line votes.  The big issue I remember was the GOP talking about “death panels” that would make determinations whether a patient’s health care was actually a wise investment or should he or she be allowed to just die, either through assistance or just wasting away.

Of course, the left countered those were just flagrant exaggerations and no such thing would ever be done in this country.  A country and a party that claimed to value life as long as they were already born.

Now we see states with Democratic majorities moving to ensure an infant can be killed almost anytime the mother chooses to do so.  Right now, it is until the moment of birth in NY.  The Governor went so far as to have the new World Trade Center specifically lite to celebrate this great victory for women who don’t want to have a child.  I’ve heard them celebrate this as a woman’s right, but since roughly half the abortions are future women I don’t see how that can really be the case.

In Virginia, they are debating a similar statute, where the infant would be delivered and kept around while the Doctors and Mother talk about whether or not it should really live.

My question is why stop there?  If the rights of the child no longer start at birth, why not allow these decisions to be made until the child is of legal age to make their own choice.  Think of how much this would reduce the backlog in child abuse cases.  It would clearly be the mother’s (and why not the father or boyfriend’s) right to treat the child as an unwanted burden that should have been taken care of at birth, but they weren’t sure if they wanted it or not.

When these decisions are based on politics and we no longer believe there is a moral basis for life, can society last?

An Opinion on Utopia

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Tomorrow

I am so old I can remember when we thought tomorrow would always be better than today.  We were, for the most part, optimistic that the world could be great.  We could talk through all our problems, we could find common ground and solve the tough problems. 

We knew so much more than our parents, the ones who had lived through the great depression and fought a total world war, but then all the sudden the baby-boomer generation grew up and were in charge. 

As we became the governing generation we filled the schools with people who would spend their lives indoctrinating the young into the acceptable socio-economic beliefs of Marx and Engle.  We condemned war, at least until we had a chance to start them for ourselves. We celebrated the failures of the church and moved to ensure the smallest minorities in our society had the loudest voices in our collective culture.

While condemning the work of our elders - we created programs to teach our young that everyone who believed the right things were winners.  As our generation’s voices grew ever louder we moved from a society of us, to a society of us and them.  There could be no compromise, there could be only winners and losers. 

Along the way, we realized Captain Kirk and most of the men in Star Fleet were chauvinists (except for the redshirt away team members who would die anyway) and anyone who didn’t accept the extreme positions of the social justice warriors was a homophobic racist.

Today, the utopia we were told was just around the corner in 1969 seems even further away than it did back in those heady days of telling our parents to just take a chill pill.

The Art of Moral Outrage

 Over the past 20 or so years there has developed an interesting social dynamic where the progressive movement has laid claim to the “moral high ground” at the same time they’ve rejected the institutions, which have historically served to guide our societies moral standards.  The conservative movement has generally not put up too much of a resistance to the propaganda outlets used to foster these narratives and allowed the collapse of a shared (common) moral code.

Today we routinely see morality brought into every social debate, usually by the people who reject a common moral code as archaic, choosing to claim any and everything they don’t like as immoral.  A few cases in point.

The building of a wall to funnel immigrants towards approved points of entry is immoral – Nancy Pelosi[1]

It’s better to be morally right, then factually correct – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez[2]

In the two examples cited above both individuals are advocates for a larger federal government intended to provide all things to the residents (citizens and non-citizens alike) of the country.  It seems to me as if they are advocating that a belief in government should be the only theology allowed.

Yet, when in charge of government – a consistent morality seems to be a squishy thing, for the politicians.  The most recent decisions by New York State being a wonderful example.  They view the death penalty, as a punishment, to be morally wrong, but the killing of a fetus capable of life outside the mother as being a woman’s right.  So really, life isn’t sacred only the lives of those they favor are.  Once again, the democratic party seems to favor those who kill over the innocent.  Unless the innocent are non-human: perhaps a dog left out in the cold, or a Rhino killed for its horn, or a horse that is used for racing and then cast aside when it can no longer run.

The real trick here is to claim the moral high ground based on little more than personal opinion and demand the other side bow to your moral outrage.

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[1] https://www.dailywire.com/news/39177/pelosi-border-wall-immoral-we-need-secure-our-frank-camp

[2] Responding to Anderson Cooper on the show 60 minutes, reported in multiple sources e.g. http://republicbuzz.com/ocasio-cortez-people-more-concerned-about-me-being-factually-correct-than-morally-right

Children Are Our Reflections

This week we’ve been shown pictures of young people wearing MAGA hats, who were supposed to be a part of the Right to Life March, getting into the face of a Native American playing a drum.  The older man is perhaps a veteran and the actions of the young people are, from the perspective of the media disrespectful.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I am so jaded I never believe the allegations for I am never shown the before and after of the event.

            Of course, to counter this “bad act” the right rolls out past videos of young people dancing around and taunting an older man holding a sign, also allegedly a veteran, taken during the Judge Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.  In this video, the actions of the young are a lot more aggressive, but again we never see the before or the after so I don’t know what truly prompted the disrespect.  But to be honest, as much as I am saddened by the actions of the young I am not surprised. 

            Children reflect what we value in society, and in today’s society, we routinely show we value confrontation, disrespect, and bullying to suppress dissenting opinions.  It seems ironic to me that those who claim moral superiority and push for programs to end bullying and intolerance are among the most vocal of groups to deride, belittle, and dehumanize those who hold political views different than their own.  It is obvious, just as in the debate on border security, there can be no middle ground.  It is only in the complete submission of one side that we can reach tolerance and Nirvana. 

            With this as a backstop, why is anyone surprised with the behavior of our children?
Editor's note: The story, as of today 1/20/2019, is the Native American, playing the drum was actually the aggressor and confronted the teens.  Apparently, my jaded approach to what passes for news reporting remains justified.

Walls - Good and Bad

Walls

We are in the midst of a great political debate over the issue of approved and unapproved immigration, and like most things in today’s world it comes down to something as innocuous as a physical barrier at our border.  Why is this?  My guess is a simple one, the propaganda machines can fit the argument for or against a wall into their 15-second sound bites.

We hear on the one side about the crisis in border security that would be solved by a wall, while the counter arguments span the gamut from “there is no crisis” to a claim the wall is “immoral.”  I would like to take a few minutes to review what walls are and can be, and perhaps remove the idea that they can be immoral, for morality is truly a human thing.  A wall has no humanity it is just a barrier serving a defined purpose.

Of course, walls can be used to define borders, this has been true since the beginnings of empire.  Take the Great Wall of China.  It remains today as a testament to the willingness of the Chinese Emperors to define and defend their lands.

Walls can also be expressions of man’s pettiness and incivility to their neighbors.

But walls are also reflections of so much more of the human condition.  They can serve to represent the faith of a people in their God,

Or separate some from society.

They can help a nation heal from a tragic war,

Or inspire a people to continue to fight for independence

They can keep a people enslaved by a government that sees them as the property of the state.

Or they can serve as a canvas for an artist's expressions of humanity.

Walls protect us from the noise of our inventions.

 Or define the boundaries of our games.

Walls can protect what we hold most important.

Or just keep our neighbors from bothering us.

So, we come down to the final question.  Should we have a border wall?  I am not sure how to break this to a lot of you, but we already do, the question is not should we have one, but how much of one should we have and maintain?

Today’s fight is just the latest in a test of wills between two parties who see little value in efficient government.  Rather, they seek to dominate the political arena to gain the wealth it offers
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The Weinberger Doctrine.

When Should We Use Military Force?

I served in the USAF for just under 22 years, and in that time, I saw us end the Vietnam war, engage in a number of brief military operations (with varying success), and fight a short, but violent, conventional war to reestablish Kuwait sovereignty.  Along the way, there were a number of Secretaries of Defense, most of whom made some impacts that may have been newsworthy at the time but left little impression on me.  There is one exception to this and he was Ronald Reagan’s first SECDEF – Casper Weinberger.

In supporting the President, he along with the Secretary of State George Schultz created the conditions to broker an international reduction in Nuclear Arms between the Soviet Union and the United States and NATO with the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces talks.  But their shared strategic vision would ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yet, despite these successes for America, he was routinely criticized by President Reagan’s political opponents in the Congress.

During his tenure, we saw the military forces of the United States begin the rebuilding and modernization the Nixon/Ford and Carter administrations had put off after the withdrawal from Vietnam as they dealt with the inflation caused by unbalanced federal spending.

But what I find to be his greatest contribution was something I doubt any of our modern politicians have a clue about.  When it first came out it was known as the Weinberger Doctrine.  It was a simple set of statements on when and how the US should use its military force.  They are listed here.

1. The United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies.
2. If we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all.
3. If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives.
4. The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed–their size, composition, and disposition–must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.
5. Before the U.S. commits forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress.
6. The commitment of U.S. forces to combat should be a last resort.

What I think we are seeing today are the choices of a generation of politicians and statesmen who’ve not had the military experience to know the true cost in the human capital of a shrinking military as an instrument of national policy.  The one thing this current war without end will do is change that as more veterans enter into political office.  I just wonder what lessons and experience they will bring as they rise to positions of greater authority.

Unfortunately for us, there is no clear path for disengagement when administrations change or popular support wains.  Sadly, it seems for most of our politicians the commitment of American lives is not an important determination in their political decision making.  They think in much grander, and opaquer, terms where the morality of their position can be justified within the broader context of national security.

Is There a Lessor of Two Evils?

Someone invited me to join an alternative to Twitter, which promised it would not censor postings, thus allowing for the free exchange of ideas.  I did join, but only for about 36-hours as I found most the “ideas” on the platform to be racist, sexist, and in more ways vile then redeeming.   The thing though, it was my choice to stay or leave.  But this experience stirred this line of thought. 

What is the lesser of the two bad options?  On the one hand should mega-corporations or the government limit speech to only that some anonymous entity (or algorithm) finds acceptable, or should the decision to limit speech be left to individuals with no moral basis for sound decision making?

Before we can answer we should recognize that speech (in the form of individual expression) have always been limited by something.  It may be government, social pressure, or individual discretion, but there was always some filter to the speech.  What it looks like to me are the former moral and social codes that helped people self-limit hateful speech are being quickly cast aside – giving way to vocal social pressure for corporations and/or the government to act as the watchdog for our communication.

In times past, men and women could stand on corners offering any opinion they wanted.  If the government felt it was not good speech they would be detained and perhaps punished until they decided not to stand on the corner offering their opinion.  But from societies standpoint, the audience of these political pundits, social justice warriors, or religious zealots was extremely small.  Perhaps a few hundred people.

The news came to most people either in the form of town criers or the printed word.  They could digest the information, form an opinion and then act on that opinion, but most of the time the social groups they belonged to would temper rash reaction.  Of course, there were exceptions to this, but reactions were never instantaneous and it took time to overcome the inertia of society and the social structure.

As the means for global communication improved – the access to all the ideas of the world opened up.  Unfortunately, it is almost as if Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns have formed the basis for today’s opinion based social media where we find “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” of human interaction, and we have corporations who feed on this medium “For a Fistful of Dollars” or “A Few Dollars More.”

Couple these new forms of communication with the social reality of “good speech” and “bad speech” we are now faced with choices previous generations never had to consider.  For example, who determines what is good, or what is bad in speech?  In the past calling for the lynching or killing of someone was considered bad.  Now it seems to be okay as long as the person doing the communication is calling for the killing of someone a lot of people dislike.  Should the corporations or the government step in and limit that speech?  So far, they’ve not done so with a consistent application of fixed rules.  Thus creating a question regarding how the rules are applied and if their employees or the corporation’s bias is the determining factor?

To add another complexity to this whole equation is the idea that “social influencers” can change speech from good to bad or back again, based on a whim or vague new social contract then who knows anymore what constitutes acceptable speech?

So back to my basic question?  What is the lessor of the two evils?  If our moral codes will no longer help suppress the ugliness of so many human spirits then it would seem inevitable something else must replace it.  For most -- that is greater government regulation, but that comes with the obvious risk of government control of speech and its inherent use as a tool for control of the citizen, and their thoughts, as depicted in George Orwell’s novel “1984.”