What is Democracy?

        We talk a lot this election season about democracy as if it is an absolute. I suspect it is because we have created a bipolar world where all the political commentators speak as if one side is “absolutely” wrong and the other “absolutely” right. We just need to find out which side we agree with and listen to only them. This seems to play well with television or media ratings, but it is wreaking havoc on the administration of justice, and society in general.

We seem to have lost sight of the wisdom from the age of enlightenment, when men argued over the rights of the many versus the rights of the few.

Democracy traces its foundation back to the golden age of Greek civilization when Athens gave its citizens the right to decide the big issues facing the city. We tend to gloss over the fact those guys told Socrates to bugger off and while he’s at it never bother them again. I’m not sure that approach was really the best course of action for someone we now hold as a great philosopher. Of course, they say hindsight is 20/20.

As I’ve aged, I’ve changed, just as the world has changed around me. The one thing I’ve come to accept is the supposed truths I held at thirty are not the same as I hold today. Of course, anytime we talk about truths we seem to come back to the opening of the Declaration of Independence, where our learned politicians seeking to rebel against the Crown declared “all men are created equal” as a counter to the standard of the day where the Pope had declared the divine rights of the kings, and the nobility were happy to keep that idea alive. Today we can question what they really meant but should keep in mind the progressives of the day didn’t see a real problem with slavery.

As I look back on life, I’m not sure I’ve seen a move toward that utopian world all the progressives and media promised us if we would just let the government guide our individual destinies toward that united ideal where all men and women (or other accepted genders) within the galaxy would serve a single purpose. Excepting, of course, those worlds who are the baddies. In fact, it appears San Francisco is doing its best not to be considered as a campus for Starfleet.

In the roughly 80 years since it was chartered has the United Nations ever actually lived up to its original purpose to allow conflict resolution without resorting to war. Why is that? We have great documents, but not much faith in its ability to protect human life, religious freedom, the rights of all men and women, and the environment. From my perspective it seems to be just a big clearing house for money transfer from the haves to the wants. Of course, progressives love it for its purpose and happily gloss over its failures.

So, we come to our quad annual election of a Chief Executive. One side promises democracy, while telling us the other side will return us to the life of 1930’s Germany under a new Hitler. We are presented a black and white choice that so many young have come to believe is the only option. Neither party and the power brokers within it are willing to cast aside their old ways and find a moderate approach that will serve to fix America and its problems. The best we can do is vilify the other side. Until recently the right was complaining about having a President with dementia running the country. Now it is the left who worries about having a President with dementia running the country.  As an interested individual all I can say is giving every kid a trophy apparently didn’t grow kids who could inspire anyone. Between piercings and tattoos, gender fluidity, and various shades of hair I don’t think the next generation is going to be much different than the radicals and hippies of my generation who are now the elder statemen of the two primary parties.

At the end of the day the question of what is democracy remains open for discussion since I’m no longer sure we have a republic that honors the individuals as it once did.

The Last Eight Years (Pt 2)

            What created President Trump? By all accounts, Donald J. Trump was happy being the center of attention in his empire, both in development and then on TV. He donated to his favorite politicians like most rich do, and he basked in the associations with people like the Clintons, but something changed during the Obama years that led DJT to run for office. What was it? The left will tell us he is a manifestation of our racist nature, but since they use that for most of their primary justifications it has grown thin and is not supported by Trump’s past. 

            For what it’s worth I think he saw the social decline in our nation and realized he had an opportunity that was not available to him before. He played on the divisions created by the social warriors of the left, fighting to take control of the DNC and like a bull in a China shop charged into the havoc of the 2016 primaries. He was smart enough to know the left would not accept his position of putting America ahead of a one-world government, not making the LGBT… crowd the center of attention, or begging for the support of white liberal women, so he ran as a Republican. It should be noted that Trump has changed party affiliation several times switching from Republican to Democrat to Independent and back, like changing a suit. What he brought to the campaign was self-confidence and arrogance most professional politicians have been taught to hide. This resonated with the party faithful who really wanted to change the status quo of being the “loyal opposition” to the Democratic domination.

            On the other side, the Democrats played the primary game, but it was clearly a rigged contest as the brokers in the party ordained Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton as their future Queen.  She had filled all the right squares as first lady, one term Senator, and Secretary of State under Obama. Besides, who didn’t want a woman President, no matter how flawed? The party knew full well all her baggage but rested on their laurels as those deplorable Republicans ran such an awful candidate who didn’t care about all the social justice demands of the Democratic National Committee. HRC campaigned in places where she could feel adored like NYC, California, and Chicago. She left what she, and her advisors, were told were safe union states to fend for themselves. It didn’t look like she understood the American psyche for change every eight years or so. If the DNC did understand this they’ve put on a tremendous show of surprise when on election night all of a sudden the winner was DJT. It was as if they were shocked the public would elect a Philander. This is funny on its face since Hillary’s husband was elected despite his philandering. 

            Once the Democrats recovered from their shock, they spent the next four years doing everything they could to vilify the President. The Steele Dossier was their first shot. They denied the legitimacy of the election, marched in the streets with funny hats, waved rainbow flags, and voiced as much outrage as possible. This was all dutifully reported by a loving media who were equally shocked by Trump's victory. The Democratic-controlled House set records for the number of political impeachments they were willing to levy, knowing full well they didn’t have a snowball's chance of winning in the Senate.

            Meanwhile, Donald Trump basked in the spotlight of their hate, while he changed federal spending priorities, and had his administration eliminate regulations by the truckload. Article after article came out shaming him and all the professional politicians couldn’t understand how he remained standing against their harsh words. Then COVID-19 came from China and the world changed.  Now the nation was locked down, and the powers in the states wrestled with how to let everyone vote without having to prove they were voting. At the same time, they questioned the legitimacy of every offhand remark the President made as if they had been carved into stone tablets. What we see now is how the upper-level bureaucrats worked to undermine his positions as they prostituted themselves for the DNC. The death toll of the initial surge of COVID-19 deaths was frightening and the mismanagement of how to protect the most at risk is now legend. The fear of the average person grew to remarkable degrees, and seemingly along political lines for some reason. Today you still see liberals and Democrats who appear to carry those fears forward with masks, sanitizers, and limited social activities. The whole vaccine fiasco stands as a testament to how trusted bureaucracies like the CDC and the FDA can destroy confidence in their expertise and political neutrality. As a result, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had only to campaign from some basement to win the election. An election where about 20,000 more votes were cast than had ever been cast before. How is that explained?  For Democrats, it's simple – “Despite their best efforts the GOP was unable to curtail the poor black people’s ability to vote.”  For Republicans, the answers are a little more complex and perhaps suspicious. But at the end, the votes were counted and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris swept into office with the promise of unifying the nation.

The Last Eight Years? (Pt 1)

This next election is really about the last eight years, or is it? Perhaps we need to go further back to understand the choices we’ve made and the choices before us? I doubt this opinion will matter much to anyone but me, but if you choose to read it consider if I am accurate or just full of excrement. Those who know me know my political positions but let me give anyone else a synopsis. First and foremost, I am a FISCAL conservative. By that, I mean spending within our means is what matters most to me, as I see unrestrained growth of debt as a nation-killer. There is a lot of history in this position as we look at the ancient world up through WW II. Socially, I’ve moved from a liberal indifference to a moderate, as the two extremes drag the respective political parties to the extremes. What I see today are two primary parties led by people who no longer understand how to govern, they simply fight for media supremacy. I see an electorate who can’t be bothered holding their politicians to moderate positions as they all clamor for the federal dollars everyone wants. I’m not sure reason and accountability have ever been a key component for a politician, but by all measures, it does not exist today.

            In 2008 this nation faced a real fiscal crisis which many viewed as equivalent to the stock market crash of 1929. The federal government under Bush and a Congress led by John Boehner (R-OH) in the House and Harry Reid (D-NV) in the Senate. The crash came because of lending practices for home mortgages by the Federal Government when home sales stopped and people and bankers speculating with short-term “balloon payment” mortgages could not make their payments and had to declare bankruptcy. There was a decent movie made in 2011 called “Margin Call” that shows the type of crash that happened. As a result of this disaster the American people who had unified in 2001 to fight a terrorist enemy, again united to remove the GOP from power and instill a Democratic Congress and our first Black President.

            That President had almost total control over running the government and chose a path to redefine the role of the government as a social institution. His party passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. But in their arrogance, the Democratic liberals knew they had to lie to the American people about what this new “socialized medical scheme” would do. The GOP railed against the act and the costs, but with a coopted media they were simply painted as “evil men protecting the big businesses.” At the same time we were pushing into this world the government was attempting to save businesses “too big to fail.” Chrysler, GM, and others. As far as I know, Ford was alone in its choice not to take the federal dollars.  How much of GM, and how many jobs were saved by these efforts?  I know all the executive positions are still there, but how many plants employing thousands of UAW workers are left?

            In his eight years of leadership, did his choices on how to lead the nation make us a stronger and more unified people? He routinely argued against guns, and Americans went out and bought guns in record numbers. He recognized when an African American was killed by violence at the hands of a white man, but seldom when it was at the hands of another African American, or when a white was killed by a black.  Did his efforts reduce violence in the urban areas, or lessen the probability of school violence? In short, did he move us to that dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. where his children will “… one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character?” Looking around I don’t see his leadership in achieving Dr. King’s ambition.

            We can speculate as to why that was, the left would say our racism came out, but is that really the result of our institutions, or the agenda of those who would rebuild our nation to spend its time repaying others for the sins of the past? The one truth that seems obvious to me is as long as we make race the central component of every story we will never move beyond racism. It really doesn’t matter if we are speaking about white, Asian, or Brown. If we implement a race-based program of any nature we further the issue of race as a central dividing point amongst the people of our nation.

A Few Thoughts, January 2024

As we enter this new year, I thought I’d spend a few moments considering the issues of the day. Things political, social, natural, and religious. As always these are my thoughts and are open for debate, rejection, or perhaps even acceptance on the part of the reader. I know this last sentence seems to fly in the face of modern society where things are black or white with few shades of gray permitted. 

George (Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás) Santayana, a Spanish born, American Philosopher is famously remembered for his aphorism, “"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” While it has grown into a cliché, nothing reflects its truth more than the youth of today. Three generations were trained, not to think critically, but to accept the dictates of those they believe in. We have generations who follow beliefs and chant support for causes they don’t fully comprehend, but are pushed by the activists who give them 30-second sound bites. It is much easier to live in the echo chamber of your click than to question the values you say you believe in.

Life:

In 1972 a socially activist court rendered a decision that divided the country for 50 years. Politicians on either side of the issue did little to actually shore up or destroy that opinion, preferring to use it as a political football. From the very beginning legal scholars questioned how the Burger court could justify its overreach of the Constitution.  Of course, those who supported the decision found no issue in how the court could reject the protections of the 14^th Amendment.  Activists, on the other hand, went back to the court time and time again to challenge, defend, or expand the rights of that decision. Finally, in 2022, a conservative court was asked to rule on the issue when Jackson Woman’s Health challenged a Mississippi law that set a limit of 15 weeks for an abortion. In its 6-3 ruling the Roberts’ court effectively overturned Roe v Wade, saying the Constitution was mute on the issue and it was therefore a right for the states to decide.  Of course, both sides went crazy.  One side with complete and often irrational outrage, the other with the joy of seeing their efforts rewarded.  

What our elected officials did next did nothing to move the nation forward.  One side blamed the court, while the other side, which had worked to elect state legislatures, began passing increasingly restrictive laws.  The idea of working for a democratic solution on this was thrown out the window almost 50 years earlier when the court decided they knew best what the law should be. What most fail to understand is when the Supreme Court has done this in the past it invariably will come back to be redecided.  For example, in Plessey v Ferguson, the court decided as long as Negros had “equal facilities” they didn’t have to be allowed into places occupied by whites.  It took until the mid-1950s for the court to correct that overreach. For the record, that ruling lasted for about 60 years, not so different than Roe.

The tough question is deciding on the value of life versus the avarice of mankind. Those who seek an end to abortion cite the sanctity of life and the innocence of the unborn. Those who support abortion see the abuses of children and hope that they will be spared from the dangers of life, by not allowing their birth in the first place.  Once a child is born, for true political activists those positions change, and in some cases almost completely. We see from the left demands that we must stop killing children with guns, while the right (at least here in the USA) defends the right to bear arms, even with the risks of violence associated with that choice. We argue incessantly about the protections of the 2^nd Amendment, but in today’s black-and-white world, no one is willing to change those protections, preferring to nibble away on the edges with challenges they hope the “right” court will implement.

Of course, corporate profits have nothing to do with the decisions of those politicians who seek to justify one side or the other, but all campaign donations are gratefully accepted.

War:

War has been with us since at least the invention of the written word.  Some 7,000 years of history have taught us men like to kill other men. Our evolution over that time has not changed that simple fact. The illusions of Hollywood aside, it seems unlikely we will suddenly turn into a society where reason outweighs emotion.

Thanks to our evolving industrial capability we have dramatically changed the nature of war from that of our ancestors.  Back in history men would take up arms when necessary and set out on a battlefield to fight other men with ever-increasing lethality.  From clubs to swords, lances, bows, and arrows, to trebuchets. With the Chinese discovery of black powder, we changed to guns, cannons, and rockets. The invention of internal combustion engines and flight gave us tanks and aircraft.  Today with have moved to remote control devices, and soon artificial intelligence will give us the ability to kill without having to get our hands dirty at all.

In the last truly global war, we invented the ability to destroy all mankind. Fortunately, at the time we were governed by reasonably rational men and women who realized the nuclear weapon was an end game. For a very brief instant, some thought this weapon would mean an end to war since its use would signal the end of our current civilizations. Sadly, that was not the case. Now we seem to be moving beyond that rationale where lesser men, with lesser concern for humanity, have access to those weapons and the potential for their use appears to be increasing.

Today, thanks to the fractured nature of the US government we no longer seem to be a leader of nations, with the ability to control and limit conflict. Our politicians and military leaders no longer understand the basic principles of diplomacy and the use of force as an instrument of national power. We are willing to sustain indefinite conflict, as long as the personal political cost isn’t too great. 

The great international organization we established and once led has become something of a joke when it comes to negotiating peaceful resolutions between opposing nations. For example, the UN once fielded an army to stop Communist aggression of Northern Korea against Southern Korea.  That war continues to this day, although both sides have agreed to a truce, now coming up on 80 years. The one time a US President actually set foot into North Korea the Democratic party yelled so loudly about his being a traitor, that it was heard in Peking, whoops I mean Beijing.

We fought a war in Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years without ever achieving a desired end state. In fact, I’m not sure we ever actually decided what the best interest of the United States was in that conflict. We called it a global war on terror after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but now 23 years later terrorism is going stronger than ever, as evidenced by the Islamic attacks on the Jewish state of Israel. In response, Israel has begun a campaign to wipe Hamas off the map. Anyone who thinks rationally about their approach will realize its futility, but after 77 years of existence what approach should Israel take with the religious zealots (there is some irony with that term) of Islam who wish to destroy the nation and take possession “from the river to the sea.” In its counter-violence, Israel is creating tomorrow's terrorists.

The one thing this war has shown, here and in Europe, is the degree antisemitism exists, both among the educated liberals and the average white supremacists. They have finally found something to agree on. What I find somewhat amusing is so many modern Jews identify as educated liberals totally buying into their ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion while facing discrimination based on religion by those organizations they praise.

For those paying attention to the ongoing Russia versus Ukraine/NATO conflict you are seeing a gradual evolution in the West where a negotiated settlement is now recognized as the probable best-case outcome. Sure, there is some “gaslighting” on this issue since the original position of the West was, that we would bankrupt and destroy Putin and his stooges, preserve Ukraine and perhaps even return those parts annexed by Russia during the Obama administration.  Now some three years into the war that potential seems less and less likely. SECSTATE Blinken is now saying negotiation has always been a goal. Like our border security, this administration seems to have a strange way of doing what it says it’s doing.

Meanwhile, what’s going on in the rest of the world? As far as I can tell by modern reporting the rest of the world doesn’t really exist, except as it comes to payments of the Trump and Biden families.

Politics in the USA:

Here we are, entering the campaign year to elect our next President and his/her trusty sidekick. The media is swamping us with poll after poll showing how weak Biden is and how strong Trump is, while also telling us how evil Trump is and how our Democracy will die if he is reelected. Of course, the media has proven objective reporting is a thing of the past and now opinion polls are where we find truth. What they don’t say is how eager they are for the ratings Trump will bring to their networks as they praise or condemn him. He is the modern version of P.T. Barnum. There is no such thing as bad publicity. As long as his face is in the news 24/7/365 life is good.

The DNC has spent the last 8-years vilifying Trump, with impeachments and show trials in their effort to make him disappear. We should remember all this started with what has now been proven to be a campaign “dirty trick” from the Hillary Clinton camp. In all their efforts he has been able to portray himself as the defender of all that is holy and good, while those nasty guys on the other side are trying to burn him at the stake, just like they did with Joan of Arc.  A line from the original Star Wars film comes immediately to mind, “If you destroy me, I will come back more powerful than you can imagine.”

If it turns out to be a Biden vs Trump campaign, I think one thing is safe to say. Election integrity will be a central issue, and the media has so heavily invested in the “Election Denier” mantra that whoever loses and questions the results will be put into stocks and pilloried in the public square unless, of course, it’s a Democrat.

Justice, Social, Equal, and otherwise.

It has long been a central point in our society and among our politicians that we are a nation of laws and those laws must be fairly and evenly applied to all citizens.  If this century has proven anything it has proven how absolutely false that belief was. No one, and I really mean no one, wants equal treatment under the law. Every identifiable group: Blacks, Latinos, Greeks, Irish, Muslims, Palestinians, Environmentalists, Animalists, Atheists, Christians, City Dwellers, East Europeans, Women, Gays/Transsexuals, and even English, Germans, and French all want preferential treatment by the courts and by the public. As we’ve moved to the extremes in appointing our judges and our prosecutors it appears our judicial system is moving to provide those treatments for the oppressed person of the day. 

If, heaven forbid, some group feels they haven’t received that fair and demanded treatment they will call attention to this by taking to the streets and disrupting the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby.  My favorite cause of the day is the anti-petroleum protestors who’ve taken to gluing themselves to the streets. It appears most of them are using a petroleum-based adhesive to display their outrage. It appears that most authorities are caught in the horns of a dilemma on how to handle these poor, outraged, victims of modern society and are leaving them to their protests.  If I were king for a day, I would carefully remove the pavement they’ve attached themselves to, move them, and the pavement to the nearest landfill, and let their protest continue there. Then I would add guards to ensure they are not disturbed by anyone who might want to interfere with their protest/hunger strike.

Science and Academics, Natural and Otherwise.

In the name of science, we have a large group of people who believe the end of human life approaches if we don’t abandon all use of fossil fuels.  Those who would disagree with them are called science deniers, for in their studied opinions the “science is settled.” As Forrest Gump once said, “I’m not a smart man.” That holds true for me as well, but back when educators were trying to fill my brain with useless facts for the upcoming invention of Trivia Pursuit, I do remember them saying Science was the pursuit of knowledge and it was always possible some new bit of knowledge would change the beliefs of the scientific community. For example, we once thought an atom was the smallest piece of matter, now we know atoms are really pretty massive and made up of much smaller particles and bits of energy. This theory holds no water with the climate scientists who call anyone who disagrees with them science deniers.

These are, by the way, the very same people who believe gender is a matter of personal choice and that any 10-year-old, who was allowed to be born, should be able to make itself whatever it wants.  We all know how informed the average 10-year-old is, so what could possibly go wrong?

Somebody watched one too many Steven Spielberg movies and we now have Artificial Intelligence emerging to save mankind. Today, it is in its infancy but people are already using it to write their school assignments. It is also useful if you wish to call a renegade Ph.D. or three to task by checking their work for plagiarism. We’ve all been told plagiarism is a mortal sin for the academic world. For those who are not Catholic, you can find its definition “on the internet.”[1]  What the latest trials by fire have proven is even the most entitled and elitist of the Academic elite are not that concerned with actual plagiarism unless it’s a student’s paper they are grading and they can appear to be an academic god.

Speaking of God.

One final thought. God certainly has a sense of humor. He creates mankind, then confuses everyone with the creation of womankind, and then gives them “free will” to make choices. Along the way, we developed beer and then pickup trucks and now everyone is trying to outdo each other with stupid stuff.  We have three worldwide religions who all claim to worship the same God and most of the time we are arguing about who has the right version of what God wants done and how he would like us to deal with each other.  As if that isn’t confusing enough; we have people who think they know more than God and reject him as a concept. Unfortunately, those who believe in God get upset with those who don’t but those who don’t are one of those social justice groups that demand everyone agrees with them.

The End.

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[1] See the World Wide Web and search for mortal sin.

Those Who Don't Remember the Past

            We, as a species, have a short memory of our past. It’s probably a genetic thing since the past really doesn’t affect us, except if we choose to make something of it.

            It was George Santayana, a Spanish-American philosopher, who famously said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This has always been a sore point with me, in my profession I’ve sat through countless safety briefings reflecting on the findings of failure by unfortunate flight crews who made bad choices, yet the ability of future flight crews to make those same bad choices never seems to abate. The mistakes of Air Force aircrews in the 2000s weren’t that much different than those of aircrews in the 1970s, and probably not much different than those made in the 1930s. The equipment improved, but our brains didn’t seem to keep pace, they carry all the baggage of our species. Including the arrogance and hubris of pride and superiority over others.

            We see those qualities proudly displayed on the nightly opinion shows. Where the opinion of world events has replaced the simple reporting of those events. It really doesn’t matter what your personal political view may be, you can choose a news network to feed your views of the events and shape how you should view them. One of the terms I hear thrown about a lot these days, especially by the left when calling the right “Fascist.” Lately, it has become the condemnation du jour for all things Republican. Apparently, “Racist” has lost its appeal as a defensive repartee when the right attacks Joe Biden and his political failures/policies.

            As Mark Anthony famously said in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I’ve come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”  It will little matter[1] what I say about politics or world events. They will go on, led by the political entities who now squabble over the votes of those who have little say in their own lives. What has struck me though is how similar we are to the events of the 1930s when actual fascism arose, flourished, and died, taking millions with it. A time when communism arose, flourished, and survived, taking millions of lives as it went on, and a time when a man paralyzed by polio, but with extreme ambition and a famous name rose to rule the nation as an American Caesar, and led us into the world of American Empire.  Unfortunately for us all, we were never quite able to establish a modern PAX AMERICANA.  In fact, one could ask, were we better or worse as a globe after WW2?

            On the one hand, we invented a bomb that could destroy everyone on earth, and we haven’t used it. On the other, the UN has failed miserably in its primary role of stopping wars of aggression and conquest. I doubt we can name a single year since its founding when we didn’t have a war somewhere. So I guess you could say the American Empire hasn’t been much different than the English one, or the Holy Roman one. As of today, we’ve not yet blown ourselves into history, although there seems to be an increasing number of groups seeking to.

            The question I can’t seem to find a good answer to is “Does a surrogate war between Ukraine and Russia actually meet our national goals and does it keep the world safer from whatever boogie man we think is out to destroy us?”

Please let me know if you have an answer.  I’d appreciate it.

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[1] Thanks, Abe – Gettysburg Address.

'Tis the Season

As is our custom, we decorate our home every Christmas, and then place a small fire bowl outside where we sit and visit with neighbors who drive by.  We offer them a small sample of mulled wine, cookies, and dog treats for any pet they may be passing by with. Living in a relatively small gated retirement community we have an opportunity to visit with people we don’t regularly see, some old friends, and often children and grandchildren of other residents.

For example, one night a former player for the Indianapolis Colts, his wife and their two children stopped by to share the fire and the joy of the season. He was a graduate of Virginia Tech, and once his NFL career came to an end they moved back to Virginia.  We chatted about our time in Virginia and players we both new from the state, notably a running back named Terry Kirby who played for the Tabb, Va. High School while we lived there.

The temps were a bit chilly for us long-term Floridians, but for the families just in from North Dakota it was down-right balmy and several came by in shorts and sandals while their retired parents huddled under blankets in the golf cart.

Towards the end of the evening a golf cart with two ladies stopped in to compliment the decorations. The driver recognized me from pickleball so we started up a conversation that covered a range of subjects.  The passenger commented on how she fed stray cats and had caught a couple and had them neutered.  I mentioned the neighborhood cat club, which solicited a profane exclamation from her.  I assured her there was, in fact, a “Kit Kat” club, but made the mistake of saying you had to be a devout liberal democrat to belong.  The driver noted her passenger would fit right in.

We moved on to talk about our grandchildren arriving and how I taught them history.  She asked why they weren’t taught that in school, and I explained they were “home schooled.”  She then expressed her displeasure the Florida Governor wouldn’t allow real American History to be taught in public schools. I disagreed, but knew this conversation wouldn’t go well.  As she reached for a cigarette another golf cart pulled up and I said goodnight and moved to greet the next visitors.

These kinds of impromptu conversations always leave me with questions I wrestle with as I sip my coffee the next morning.

For example, what is “real” American History and more importantly, what is the role of publicly funded education?  

It’s been a while since I’ve offered my opinion on things so as my daughters dog rests by my feet, I figured I’d spend a few moments pontificating.

What is the role of primary education?  We hear a lot of complaints from the right that modern educators are not doing their jobs and are spending time “indoctrinating” the children instead of teaching them the fundamentals of “reading, ‘writin, & ‘rithmatic.” I certainly understand this concern, but as I look back on my own education, I realize teachers and educators have always had a role in the indoctrination and training of young people to fit into society. We were taught to honor our elders, respect the symbols of the nation, and in the words of John F. Kennedy, “ask what we could do for our nation.”  The difference?  Today’s problem is which society should children be indoctrinated to fit into?  The one we had, the one “they” want, or the one we have today?

One of the big problems in answering that question is who gets to decide what is right and how much say should the parents have in that decision?  As we look at the controversies coming with the COVID pandemic we see a modern rebellion with some parent groups when they believe the professionals have overstepped their authority.  This was apparent with the election of Governor Youngkin as Governor of Virginia. The modern educators have come to believe it is their role to begin the indoctrination of children into the society they believe is right for the nation.  One that holds our heritage as one to distain, while proposing a society where all minorities are to be favored over those with a European background.

This leaves open the question, what happens when those who are making these decisions finally recognize they’ve created a society where not all are equal under the law, but where discrimination based on race, gender, skin pigment, and sexual orientation are the acceptable outcomes of a bigoted majority? Where merit is of far less value than the above-mentioned qualities? In my opinion, this is what we see with the President Biden administration where an individual’s sexual orientation if more critical to an appointment than their actual abilities (e.g., Karine Jean-Pierre and Sam Brinton)

Historically, societal norms seem to swing, and the more politicians get involved with those swings the wider they become. If you think I’m mistaken in this I would refer you to the temperance movement where those who found drinking to be an evil of modern society fought for the elimination of that evil. Laws, simply weren’t sufficient.  Limits on the days of purchase didn’t meet the need. We needed a total national abstinence to eliminate this evil. They fought for and passed the 18^th Amendment, the only Amendment to the Constitution with a shelf life.  It was rescinded by the nation in 1933, fourteen years after ratification.  Just an FYI, the 18^th took about a year to pass, and the 21^st took about 9½ months to rescind the original, but that was when we had a Congress that would actually do its job. I can’t recall the last time we actually saw that kind of organization. Today it is far more important to vilify the opposition than actually work with them. But then all are politicians are doing is reflecting what we’ve become as a nation.

The first question was what is “real” American History?  This is almost an unanswerable question, since there is a truth that “history” is a function of the victors.  Those who win and survive get to write the history they choose. Let’s take for example the last world war, where we Americans painted the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan as the baddies.  Certainly, for the European Americans Japan was the worst of the lot, since they initiated a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and dragged us into the war, but there was also an racist undertone, reinforced by our politicians and the Japanese themselves.

Now, some 80 years after the war, scholars from my generation and later are striving to rewrite the history to reflect modern beliefs and facts that have come out well after the “Greatest Generation” made their sacrifices to save the world from itself.  I don’t recall ever hearing about Japanese internment camps until I was in college. It was certainly years after that that I came to understand the lingering hatred of Japan by the men who fought in the Pacific. 

In high school, I learned the Soviet Union were our allies, and it was only after the war they turned into an opponent.  Later I came to understand the viciousness of the Communist system and the willingness to slaughter its own people to protect the system and the Joseph Stalin.  America, in my education, was always the good guys, but was that really true? It is reasonable to recognize any government of man is subject to the imperfections of man. Ours is no exception. Perfection is an impossible goal for society, as so many define perfection differently. Whose view of perfection is correct?

Now we come to today, where a minority demands we change the views of history to focus on the abuses of slavery and the nature of those who participated in it. The question is, at what point in our education of minds to we transition from one view of history to a more comprehensive view that addresses the failures of past generations?

My liberal visitor, along with most liberals of today, buy into the idea we should be teaching the history they want, and if that is not done the schools are failing. Too often they defend the schools without acknowledging the other role of the public school system on teaching us about “citizenship.”  The right worries more about liberal “indoctrination” while also failing to understand the necessity of bringing young minds into a position to understand the “why” of history and not only the “what.”

We, in Florida, saw this same outrage a year ago, when the Governor and the Legislature passed the “Parental Rights Act.” Which placed restrictions on what and when issues like gender identify could be introduced to young minds, and what rights the parents of those young minds had in limiting those discussion. The debate became heated as the liberal left waged a propaganda war with the “don’t say gay” disclaimer. Almost no one who was outraged by the law could be bothered to read it. This included the Walt Disney Company, who chose to engage in the warfare and as a result will lose their autonomy in self-government here in Florida.

Politicans

            I can think of few professions that allow humans to operate as spoiled children more than being a politician in a western democracy.  Within the modern era we went from the first industrial revolution with its “age of enlightenment,” through the “Revolutionary Period,” the Imperial Age, the “Victorian Age,” a century focused on World Wars, and the “Information Age.[1]” Along the way, we in the United States have watched our government grow from one fearful of foreign powers to one which seeks to dominate the world stage. Our national identity has shifted from one seeking to remain independent to one which seeks out the largess of government and the protections it promises.

            This shift in the national psyche has created a nation run not by the citizens but by professional politicians seeking as much individual power and wealth as possible, while assisted by an increasingly bloated bureaucracy filled with individuals it is next to impossible to remove, and who increasingly seem to have loyalty not to the nation, but to a single party rule that will expand their own power.

            Within this century we’ve seen our Congress abandon its role as the keeper of the purse to one who thinks that purse is a huge piggy bank that will allow them to spend far more money than we as a nation probably should.  In 2000 the national debt sat at a little under $6 trillion and its ratio to our Gross Domestic Product was 55% (not good, but not too bad).  Today it sits at about $31 trillion, with a ratio to GDP of 123%. It has been over 100% since 2014[2] so this is not a single-party issue.  The last time we had debt-to-GDP ratios like this was WW2, and then the dollars were measured in billions.

            One of the issues in the 2008 election was the fact Congress had forsaken its role in creating a national budget and just spent its days inflating the budget given to it by the President.  This created a “tea party” movement that was the first version of those racist citizens who sought to hold our government in check because they challenged the status quo, then led by our first African-American President.

            During President Obama’s two terms the Congress ebbed and flowed (as it always does) between the Democratic Party and the loyal opposition, Republicans.  But there was a sea change in how the politicians behaved towards each other and the voters. It became easy for them to accuse those who disagreed with policies of being racist, and the loyal media was happy to go along with that.  The opposition spent most of its time trying to explain they were not racist, but no one was really that interested in the facts.  If you couldn’t fit it into a sound bite it wasn’t worth broadcasting.

            Even with the racist club available the Democrats in power were upset they couldn’t snap their fingers and get their way.  So, they began to change to rules of the game, apparently without much thought about what happens when you abandon the rules that forced moderation.  For example, led by Senate Majority Harry Reid, led an effort to abandon the 60-vote majority required for approval of cloture. Cloture is a parliamentary procedure for closing a debate and moving to a vote on the issue. The 3/5 requirement had been in place since 1975, but the Democrats reduced that requirement for “lower court justices to a simple majority” in order to move more approvals through the Senate.  The minority complained about the move and warned of future consequences.  Those consequences became real when the GOP gained control of the Senate and the Presidency.  As a result, there were three justices nominated and approved and all the Democrats could do was rant and make accusations about their ancient past.  Personally, I didn’t feel too bad listening to their childish tantrums other than wondering what future brilliant jurists would think twice about subjecting themselves and their families to this political theater?

            Over the entire four years of the Trump administration, the Democrats were far more focused on destroying Trump than really working to improve the nation.  Can anyone name any outstanding piece of bi-partisan legislation that came from the House through the Senate that made America stronger?  I can’t.  I do know the President made a lot of wild claims about how great the nation was doing under him, some of that a result of his direction to reduce regulatory oversight, but most of it was as much a function of government stalemate where the politicians focused on destroying each other and the nation moved along without them, mostly because no matter what their other focuses where they created trillions of dollars in debt.  When Trump assumed office, the national debt was at around $20 trillion (104%), and when he left $30 trillion (124%). The real question is was all the “science-based” choices we went through with COVID really worth the inflation it has caused?  That is a question with a million opinions and zero real answers.

            So now we come to national disasters and who or what is the cause.  For the left, the cause is clear and beyond dispute, or as they like to say, “the science is settled.”  All these climate impacts, from the draught in the west, and resultant fires, the destruction of tornados in the mid-west, to the hurricanes that have hit the US and its territory of Puerto Rico are all massively worse because they are a result of that growing impact on the climate.

            In Florida, I believe we are seeing massive impacts not because the hurricane was worse than historical ones, but is more accurately caused by man’s arrogance that we can ignore how the weather really works and build whatever we want, where ever we want as long as we can pay the right politicians the right amount of money.  We see build-ups in the barrier islands, where the property is built on the sand, and flooding in central Florida because the runoff has nowhere to go except into the streets and property of private homes.

            Of course. the politicians can’t let a good disaster go to waste so we will spend billions of federal debt to help convince the victims the government is there for them.  We will strengthen Puerto Rico, until the next hurricane when we will again strengthen them, and we will fix Florida while telling the insurance companies they need to keep their rates low, even for those on the greatest at-risk properties.

            As we approach the bi-annual renewal of the incumbent contracts for Congressional representation, and the reelection of almost 1/3 of the Senate it will be interesting to see what Americans truly believe are the important issues?

            According to which political party you prefer it is either the economy, crime, border security, and safety. Or it’s abortion rights and anti-fascism.  I guess sometime after the second Tuesday in November we will really know what the voters of the various districts think are the issues they will vote for or against.

 

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[1] https://examples.yourdictionary.com/historical-eras-list-of-major-time-periods-in-history.html

[2] https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287