An Unfinished Work

The other day I had a brief exchange with a high school classmate.  He observed we were probably on different sides of the political spectrum.  As is almost always the case this gave me something to consider both about myself and the political spectrum.

Let’s start with the political spectrum.

When I was young there were two dominant parties in the American political system.  Today there are still two dominant parties, but things have changed dramatically in the form those two parties take.  When I first became aware of the two-party system, I found the following truths.  Each party had a mixture of beliefs. There were socially liberal Republicans and socially conservative Democrats.  There were financially responsible liberals and financially responsible conservatives.  Racism existed in both parties, although the racism of the northeast was better masked than the racism of the south.  At the time members of both parties could find common ground to work with like-minded individuals on the other side.  Democrats made up the majority parties in the Southern states and Republicans were the clear minority.  Cities around the country were run by “political machines” where the Democrats excelled at getting out the vote for their candidates.  Republicans have always been the minority party and would only win by capturing the “swing” or independent vote.

Over the years, and I blame the media for this, the parties changed.  As each party moved to occupy spaces the other party abandoned, we’ve become a two-party system of the extremes.  Perhaps it is unfair to blame just the media because in my opinion the primary system should also be held responsible. With the adoption of the primaries the people nominated are the most politically vocal and play to the activists on the fringe.  Is this better than the party bosses getting together in the smoke-filled back rooms and finding the best compromise candidate?  Although if the DNC process in 2016 and 2020 is any indication the primaries are really just a sham as the power brokers really do still decide who their candidate for President will be.

Today, as I look at the two parties’ somethings become crystal clear for me.  The first is classic liberalism no longer exists in either party.  In the Republican party, it was pushed out by a shift to political activists from the southern religious groups abandoned by the Democrats.  For the Democrats, although they still use the term liberal it no longer means liberal in the classic sense of tolerance for opposing views.  It is self-righteous liberalism where only progressives know what is right for the nation as a whole.

The idea of fiscal responsibility with our federal spending has also gone the way of gas-guzzling muscle cars of the 1960s.  It is claimed Senator Everett Dirksen, the late Senator from Illinois, once said, “A billion dollars here and a billion dollars there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”  Today Congress has no problem spending trillions of dollars without blinking an eye.  Unfortunately, for the nation, a very large percentage of the money they are happy to spend is money we have to borrow from someone.  We never seem to worry anymore about how we will pay that back.  We have Democrats talking about universal health care, expanding welfare, eliminating our use of fossil fuels, and forgiving college debt, while the Republicans complain about it but then when given an opportunity do little to balance our needs and moderate the cost of defense spending.  From 2010 to 2021 our excess spending averaged a little over $641 billion a year and now stands at over $30 trillion for the national debt.  The interest payments alone are eating significantly into our ability to provide the fundamental services Americans expect and need: things like infrastructure with safe water, clean air, and good roads. 

I grew up near the home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  In and near Hyde Park, New York we have the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge across the Hudson River, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Home and Library, Val Kill (where Eleanor lived after Franklin passed), and of course, I went to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, home of “The Presidents.”  Our discussions of history were filled with how FDR had saved the nation during the great depression.  How his fireside chats calmed and inspired the nation, and how he was the first to recognize the need for a social safety net for the elderly while employing out-of-work artists and entertainers to help with the building of monumental works like the Hoover Damn.  That last thing is something all Democrats continually bring up to show how they care for the poor and elderly.  What doesn’t get discussed too much is how at the end of the day both parties came together to create a plan to sustain this act and voted overwhelmingly to approve.  In the house, the vote was 372 yeas, 33 nays, 2 present, and 25 not voting.  Of the dissenting votes the Democrats had 15 nays, and 20 "not voting," while the Republicans had 15 nays, 4 "not voting", and 2 voting as "present."  The farm labor and progressive parties made up the difference.  In the Senate, there was a similar result with 77 yeas, 6 nays, and 12 "not voting."  That is truly bi-partisan support.

The basic premise for Social Security to work and be sustainable is just like any insurance.  There must be more money coming in than going out.  For over 70-years that has been the case.  The problem we are now facing is a shrinking workforce, paying fewer dollars into the fund than the elderly are drawing out.  In this bipolar world of soundbites and talking points, we seem unable to come to grips with this reality and everyone wants to talk about how they’ve earned their payments and it's now the Republicans' fault some are beginning to point out the fund is running out of money.  Some will talk about how the social security “lockbox” has been raided to pay other bills, but if you think about it this is nonsensical since all the money comes from one source and is backed only by the faith in the nation to pay its bills.  If we were actually backed by some physical standard, you could make that case, but you either have faith the government can pay its bills or you don’t.  That is where I begin to differ from my Democratic friends.

As I pointed out earlier, I grew up in the heartland of the Democratic ideals, but those ideals have changed, and so have I.  I’ve been to or lived in, a fair bit of the world, I’ve seen the richness of western Europe, rebuilt after the last World War by American dollars spent under the Marshall Plan, while also seeing eastern Europe suffer under the disregard and oppression of the Soviet Union.  I’ve seen the far east, rebuilt after the war by American dollars in investments as well as the industry of the people to make their lives and families better.  I’ve been to several islands throughout the Pacific where they have found tourism as an industry, or American bases create a cash income for the citizens.  I’ve seen the middle east where distrust of the Judeo-Christian faith has driven the religious leaders to a more extreme form of Islam than had been previously allowed.  I’ve driven down the streets of Karachi Pakistan where I’ve seen white-clad boys playing cricket behind walls topped with glass shards to keep out the homeless boys and girls standing just outside the gates of the school.  I’ve been north of the Arctic Circle where the only thing there was a radar site to watch for a Soviet attack of the homeland, and south as far as Brazil where I saw a remarkable city cut out of the middle of a rain forest where people lived in gorgeous homes or ramshackle boxes (with nothing in between).  What has amazed me the most in all these travels is the human spirit and a desire to be free from the oppression of government, but at the same time needing the protections of a government just to live the best lives they can.

When I graduated from college I began to think as a fiscal conservative, but I retained a true appreciation of the social programs this country could, and perhaps should provide.  Social Security had, by then, become the accepted standard of how a program should be set up.  The larger working population would take a percentage of their paycheck and give it to the government to care for the elderly.  The only real problem I saw was the idea held by too many that social security wasn’t a “safety net” it was a retirement plan.  This, in my opinion, led them to not save for their future but spend on the things they wanted today.  This was akin to Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper.  Those fables were all supposed to teach us some underlying life lesson, learned from experience.  How many of us actually pay attention to these things, but when given an excuse believe it is someone else’s job to take care of the future.

Our founding fathers, having fought a war to achieve freedom from the English King and having learned the hard lessons of a weak confederation of the separate states determined to write a constitution forming a new government.  Even then some feared a too-powerful government, while others fought to establish the supremacy of such a government. Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist Paper 84 argued the Constitution alone was sufficient to protect the nation and the desire for a “Bill of Rights” detailing the specific freedoms of the citizens was unnecessary.  Time has proven the wisdom of those who argued for the necessity of detailing those rights. 

In reflection, does the government taking on more responsibility for our personal welfare improve society, or simply make the government more powerful? We’ve chosen to expand the role of government beyond what even a staunch Federalist such as Hamilton believed was essential. In so doing we must realize that every government decision comes with a cost.  Sometimes those costs are financial, other times those costs are a loss of individual freedoms.  This pandemic has brought into sharp focus the debate of individual freedom versus social responsibility.  At the heart of my concern is the question:  does the expanding government actually enable the mechanisms to teach a shared social responsibility or does it destroy them?

As I’ve aged, some would say I’ve become less compassionate for the poor because I don’t believe the government has actually done a good job caring for them.  The money spent does not, on the whole, seem to have made their lives better.  If we look at the results of government in our Democratic-controlled states and cities, do we find the poor better off today than they were before the creation of the Great Society?  Naturally, those who favor the programs are unwilling to admit the inherent failures.  They can shift the blame of failure to those “other uncompassionate politicians in the GOP” who have the gall to question the cost-benefit of throwing money at the poor to improve their lives.  Do those social safety net programs work, or are they simply another way to make one class of people a slave to the state?

I hear a lot about the disparity between the richest of the rich and the poor in America.  The simple question I ask is has any or all of the government welfare programs closed that gap over the past 55-years?  We routinely hear from the left a complaint about the wealth gap, where statistics like how rich the three richest men in America are compared to the bottom half of the population as if this is something new and disreputable.  They almost always point to the years of Reagan as the point where wealth disparity started.  Since Reagan, we’ve had how many Democratic-controlled Congresses, and how many Democratic Presidents.  Each and every one of those individuals or groups had an opportunity to alter the path of divergence of wealth but chose not to.  We complain about Reagan, yet no one questions the wealth acquisition of our politicians who enter government with little and leave as multi-millionaires (e.g., Biden, Pelosi, Obama, and pick as many offsetting Republicans as you need). 

I’ve written about this in the past, here is what drives me to my conservative views and how I find the liberal/progressive movement out of touch with what I think is critical to the survival of our nation.

I believe a social safety net is a grand idea, I believe universal health care is good, and I believe universal employment is a wonderful goal.  Where I begin to diverge from historically liberal thought is who is best served by a safety net, how its benefits are measured.  What does universal health care get us and is it affordable?  Finally, how do you achieve universal employment when people don't want to work?  

Unfortunately, as I look at the history of the past 70 years, our government is incapable of creating all these things without destroying families, moral values, and creating a debt load that will destroy the nation.  The welfare state actually destroys the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs because it places the burden of achievement on individuals who really don’t care about humanity, they are only doing their job spending someone else’s money.

As I noted earlier how do individuals deal with welfare and other safety concerns?  The programs of the Great Society seem, upon reflection, to have destroyed the very fabric of the African-American society.  We have more single-mother families whose children grow, not to great success, but to greater crime and poverty.  We no longer expect our poorest to pay income taxes, but we steal their wealth with sales taxes and poor education so they are unable to break the chains the government and society, in general, have placed around them.  What government program will change this reality?  I believe change can only come from within and unfortunately, we are teaching our young to be victims, not champions.  To have ever greater expectations of government and fewer expectations of themselves?

Has affirmative action actually improved the lives of those it was supposed to help with a step up or has it lowered the credibility of the education system by lowering the expectations of those who compete within it? I don’t know but in looking at the racism of the colleges I’m not sure it has helped achieve the equality it was supposed to.  If it had, would we still be hearing about how systemically racist America is?  Having been to parts of the world where racism is alive and well, I find these claims of Americans being horridly racist uninformed about the world we are a part of.  Go to Japan if you want to see racism.  Go to China, India, or South Africa.

Universal health care is a wonderful idea, but if we implemented it how would it be administered?  Would we expect the government to have an over-abundance of capability, or would we see the empty shelves of medical supplies we see today in our retail markets?  When the Affordable Care Act was passed the government promised it would be wonderful for all.  Its opponents questioned the costs and we’ve seen those costs actually occur.  The supporters said there would not be government panels that would question the decisions of the doctors, but the Pandemic has shown us that government experts only look at a limited data set in making their choices.  Will our care be the envy of the world, or would it be akin to the United Kingdom where the rich can travel to the U.S. for the care, they desire versus the care the government provides, or as we sink into pure socialism will we become like Venezuela or Cuba?  This is the question I have for those who wish to spend dollars we don’t have.  Do the people who believe in the inequality of wealth believe taking 100% of that wealth from them would actually create a viable and sustainable health care plan?  Wasn’t Medicare and Medicaid supposed to do that when they were created?  What have they achieved besides increasing health care costs at a rate above annual inflation?

The thing about the progressive mindset is the belief they know what utopia is, and how to reach it.  I question that “one size fits all” utopian belief, and I believe history has shown us the zealots of progressivism have actually done more harm than good in their pursuit of the perfect world.  We make a big deal about the Nazis, but at the time they were a progressive movement.  We talk about Margaret Sanger as if she was the ultimate feminist, but so easily dismiss her racism and her desire to eliminate the unacceptable from society with universal abortion.

That said, if we were only to concern ourselves with tradition, we would still be driving horse-drawn carriages.  There must be a balance, unfortunately, we seem to have lost that ability to compromise for the common good.  They say the pendulum swings both ways, and perhaps it is beginning to swing back towards a more common view on what is good for America, but unless we find a way to talk, understand and accept opposing views, and work toward compromise we will remain a nation in turmoil  Both the nation and I are certainly an unfinished work.

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.”

Free Speech?

Today is March 24^th, 2018.  A notable day for me, and a day of protest for many.  But I wonder how many of the actual participants really know what they are protesting against, or protesting for?

With the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, the 13 colonies embarked on their second attempt at self-governing.  It became the basis for our government on June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire became the 9^th state to ratify it[1]. The government began to function the following March, and the first order of business for the new Congress was to create a set of amendments to limit government and address concerns about federal power.  The first ten amendments, also known as the bill of rights was ratified by the several states in 1791. 

I’ve written in the past ( here, and  here)  about the amendments but would like to think about the First Amendment again, since it is in the news these days.

There seems to be a misunderstanding among the various groups within our society about what the First Amendment is intended to do, who it is intended to protect, and how “We the People” have developed under previous assumptions. 

To begin, we refer to the First Amendment as our guarantee we have a right to have something called “free speech”, but speech is only one component the founders hoped to establish.  The first thing the Congress established was there would be no official state religion as had been the case in Europe and what had led so many of the original settlers to migrate in the first place.  In the second they set out the right of the people and the press to exchange information (ideas, opinions, and news) without the fear of government creating laws to prevent that.  Finally, it clearly lays out the right to protest government actions that the people find disagreeable.

While the idea of “free” speech was groundbreaking when it was adopted, over the past 40 or so years the left has moved to impose social restrictions on individuals for the political strength that comes with control.  With the advent of online social media offering a two-way exchange of dialogue, it is also obvious that many believe their vitriolic speech is possible without direct consequence.   In both extremes, the individuals who advocate and do these things seem to have lost their way in the role of building a free republic as established by our founders.

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[1] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-constitution-ratified

Are Political Protests an American Right?

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There is a resurgence of protests in the nation these days, similar to what I saw as a young man in the 1960s and early 70s.  Then, as now, the protesters were condemned by their opponents, just as the protesters themselves condemned the establishment.  In the 60s, we had the civil rights movement seeking equality for blacks in the nation, led by Dr. King’s group protesting in the South.  They were supported by young liberals traveling from the north to show support.  Opposing them were the various state, county and local governments as well as the white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan that continued to thrive through the political acquiescence of sympathetic whites in power.

Then, of course, we had the anti-Vietnam war movement, led by student political groups in the major urban campuses claiming a variety of righteous reasons to oppose the war.  They claimed to be protesting Americas involvement in an internal Vietnamese struggle, or rallying against the oppression of American Imperialism.  Perhaps I am being cynical, but I think the biggest reason the student elites protested was the potential they could be drafted and forced to fight. In the course of those protests; the young men and women who answered their nation’s call were cast aside, and their lives forever affected.  Some through exposure to herbicide known as Agent Orange, others through the exposure to the stress of combat, and others through the rejection or apathy of the American public.

Each of these movements had both moderate and extreme participants, for that is the way we humans are.  Take for example, the Black Panthers in comparison to the NAACP or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. King Jr.  The 1968 Olympics is remembered for the “Black Power” salute offered by Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal presentation.  For the anti-war movement, we saw actions range from marches the major cities to bombings. For example, the Sterling Hall bombing at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, or the weather underground bombings of NYC police buildings and the Pentagon.  Bill Ayers, as a member of the weather underground, still defends the bombings as a legitimate form of protest. 

We come now to the present.  We see a resurgence of racial protest either in the streets or now the sporting events.  At the same time, we see a counter protest movement from a significant number of sports fans, and politicians.  Including now, the President.

When Colin Kaepernick first took a knee, a friend thought the Commissioner of Football would quickly put a stop to the whole affair.  I was not so sure, for his business model has about 85% of the organization made up of African-American athletes.  If he had – perhaps the protests would have stopped, but he didn’t and we can speculate all day over what might have been.  With the President’s engagement through that wonderful medium of “Twitter®” we can now expect a greatly expanded group of protests.  Whether they have a legitimate beef or not is irrelevant at this point.  They will be supported by the political opposition to the President, including both politicians and media personalities.

What I find almost amusing is how those who are upset with these actions seem to be equally upset when the protesters shut down the speech of people like Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, or some other conservative speaker.
ADDED:  I find the left's position equally non-nonsensical (or hypocritical if you prefer), all on-board with protesting the symbols of our country,  while deeply offended by those who view freedom differently than they  do.

If we think political speech is to be protected, like the Constitution requires – then it should be an all or nothing approach.  If you don’t like the speech, don’t watch or listen to it, but just let it flow without comment.  Unfortunately, with “Twitter®” and student indoctrination, that seems an impossibility.

Everyone has their own opinion on what is acceptable for free speech, but if you think only one form of protest is acceptable, and not another, then why is any protest acceptable?  If universal healthcare is now a right, why isn’t free speech?

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One last point, free speech is not the same thing as speech without consequences.  There are always consequences to our choices.  That is an entirely different conversation.

So you decide, should we allow political protest or not?

Race Relationships and the Evolution of Freedom?

Image from Inquisitr.com

Tonight (9/13/17), while watching the Oakland Athletics play the Boston Red Sox on ESPN, they reported fans were removed from Fenway Park for hanging a sign on the Green Monster that read “Racism is as American as Baseball.”  In watching the video of the sign being displayed, it appeared the sign holders were young and urbane, so I am guessing they were protesting against racism, not in support of, but in today’s world it is increasingly hard to tell.

Over the past ten years we have seen an amazing transformation in the state of race relations in America.  Perhaps it is necessary and should be expected.  You cannot solve a problem unless you are willing to confront it, but the problem of racism will not go away as long as everyone chooses to make it the central issue of every aspect of our lives.  We now hyphenate our Americanism to show pride in our heritage.  Yet for some reason we set aside specific months to celebrate the culture and heritage of only select minorities like the Hispanics and Africans, casting aside the Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Russians, or Polish.

In 2008, this country elected a mixed-race President who identified as an African-American and had rejected his childhood name for his formal name, Barrack.  It appeared to many the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. were finally coming to fulfillment.  Granted, there would always be the hate-filled groups that would not surrender the racists views that bound them together, but for the average middle-class American, we as a nation thought we had achieved a maturity in our attempt to reach equality.

Unfortunately, President Obama and his party chose to make race the central focus of his administration.  Choosing not to bring reasonable people together, but using it for its political advantages.  Anyone and everyone who disagreed with any position the President or the left put forward was automatically given a label, racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, the list goes on.  The question I can’t answer with certainty was did this occur because of his active political decision, or was he merely floating along with the reactionary forces within his political sphere?  I tend to believe the latter because he rose so quickly on the national stage that I suspect there must be a “king-maker” in the background, and I saw very little true leadership coming directly from the President.  He was a gifted speaker when his teleprompter was working, but I sense he looked to others to make the hard choices as we see in the timing of his public positions on marriage, and sexual identity.

President Trump, who clearly breaks with the approach of the traditional parties, has been under continuous attack from the left, and regular condemnation from the moderate right since his election.  This war of identity politics has clearly escalated as those who don’t like the President now resort to physical violence to achieve their political goal.  Again, maybe this is the natural evolution of the identity politics we have used for the past 20-years?

If so, then what will be the next stage in the evolution of individual freedoms I grew up understanding, and spent my life protecting?  We see, in our young, an intolerance of opposing views, of only one right answer, coming from one source.  It seems to the casual observer that our schools have moved from education to indoctrination.  We have, under the guise of entertainment, gone to selecting nameless people and highlighting them as foolish or stupid to make the point one side or the other is clueless regarding some fresh political issue.  With each showing we erode the middle and encourage political attack, not on solid reason, but on the visceral emotions of the viewer.

Sadly, this is encouraged by the broadcast media.  As commercial enterprises, they are more interested in seeking profit, even if it comes at the sake of a common good.  We see it as well from the personalities we enrich with our viewing who have chosen their political positions and push those opinions forward as the only right answer.

Then we come to the next stage of information flow, the internet.  With the creation of social networking with billions of members on a few sites, what kind of control will go to those who guide what is and is not allowed on those sites?  I suspect the idea of a free exchange of ideas will fairly quickly be squashed in the name of safety.  Yet another of our rights cast aside, or was it only an illusion all along?

The historical view of freedom rested on the acceptance of responsibility by the individual citizen.  As more and more refuse to hold themselves accountable for the common good, and move towards their more selfish instincts, what will be the next version of freedom here in the United States?

A Few Thoughts on Freedom.

“War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength.”

George Orwell, 1984

We approach the celebration of our Independence, and in a couple of weeks there will be fireworks, parades, family cookouts, and a vast amount of political speech about the courage of our founders, and the greatness of our nation.  How much of this will actually have a meaningful impact to the average man or woman living in this land?

Our independence was gained through the blood and sacrifice of a people who fought to form their own union, not beholding to a far distant King and his Parliament.  We were not a perfect people, but our founders knew enough to understand unlimited government enslaved its people, just like the institution that ultimately led us to our great Civil War.  Therefore, from the beginnings we sought a limited central power.  After the failure of the Confederation of States, the leaders of the many states sat together in debate and compromise to write a new Constitution to ensure the limits of power, and safeguards to the individual.

Those original ten safeguards have been built upon, or in some cases reduced, through the passage of time, or the conscious act of the nation.  For example, at one point the political will of the vocal minority led us to prohibit the distillation of spirits and brewing of malt through the passage of the 18^th Amendment.  Of course this did not stop the demand for them, it just made it illegal.  The by-product of this decision was to create an underground industry to meet the demand.  Men like Al Capone and Joseph Kennedy made their fortunes though this enterprise.  Ultimately we repealed that decision with the passage of the 21^st Amendment.

Also, in this new endeavor the politicians and judges have had to feel their way through the framework to find the best solutions to the checks and balances the founders built into our nation.  Every President has sought to expand his power, the Judges of the Supreme Court have exerted their rights and have from time to time stepped into a leadership role in attempting to engineer the society to fit the model they like, the Congress has fought with the other two branches to exert itself.  Of course there have been times when the Court and the Congress have willingly ceded power to the President, but always with consequence.

So here we are on this 23^rd day of June in the year 2016 on the Gregorian calendar.  And my question is how much of our liberty are we willing to surrender to secure the illusion of safety?  This seems to be a recurring theme for me as it was pointed out I wrote a similar piece three years ago (Ben Franklin Had it Right).

Again, as in the past, we have had some calamitous event and everyone wants to do something to ensure it won’t happen again.  As much as we would like to live in a perfect and safe world that is an impossibility so maybe we should consider that as we debate what to do?  Alas we won’t.

On the one hand we have those who favor increasing controls of the guns proposing additional restrictions on the purchase of those weapons.  That makes sense, doesn’t it?  We had a terrorist legally buy a rifle and a lot of ammunition and kill 49 people in Orlando.  If we had those additional restrictions this would not have happened.  As my Senator, Bill Nelson, wrote me. 

“Earlier today, I spoke with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota about the new bipartisan gun bill Sen. Susan Collins and I recently introduced to prevent anyone who is on the No-Fly List from buying a gun. To me, it’s common sense — if we don’t let someone on a plane because the FBI thinks they may have ties to terrorism, then we shouldn’t let that person buy a gun.

Another provision included in the bill is one I introduced last week to ensure that the FBI is notified if someone who was once on the terrorist watch list purchases a gun.

We’re not saying: don’t sell guns to someone just because they were investigated. But having a system in place that alerts the FBI if someone they once investigated is suddenly trying to purchase multiple assault weapons is just common sense.”

Call me a skeptic but I always worry when the phase “just common sense” is thrown around as a justification.

In opposition we have those who would like nothing to change at all, offering little in the way of options.

If the Court, the Congress, the President, and a significant number of individuals feel strongly we should not have guns for protection from others, or the state, then why are they taking halfway measures to address the problem?  Why isn’t the President calling for a Constitutional Amendment to repeal or rewrite to the Second Amendment?  This is a rhetorical question, for the answer is obvious.  There would be significant opposition, and there is much more political capital to be made in keeping the issue alive with supporters and vilifying the opposition.

But at the end of the day we come back to the question.  How powerful do we want the central government, and how much of our individual freedom are we willing to surrender to have it?  As our founding fathers understood; freedom is not an absolute and if power rests with the few they will exercise it at the expense of the many.  Think about that as we remember our founding.

We Are a Nation of Immigrants

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This nation springs from an idea, unlike any idea before us.  We are copied in only a handful of places elsewhere on the planet.  A nation of free people can govern themselves and provide for the greater good. We are a nation of settlers, refugees, outcasts, persecuted, abandoned and enslaved peoples.  Science shows that even the Native Americans came to this land from Asia.  Our fathers and forefathers came to this country to escape from where they were, or they were brought to his country by slave traders.  We have been improved and the ideals of our nation built on by waves of immigrants.  Some would condemn our past, but as much as they would seek to undo it they can’t.  We can condemn what has been, but that seems to serve only one purpose, to divide society for some larger purpose and place the blame on inequity on things beyond today’s ability to correct.

So now we come to another crossroad in our nation.  A great debate on the acceptance of yet another group of refugees.  We seem to forget that we have this debate every time a new people comes to this idea we call the United States.  We had it when the Irish came, the Germans, the Poles, Scandinavians, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Indians, the Pakistani, the Jews, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and now the Syrians.  In the 1930’s as the Jews fled the Nazi German persecution, this nation went through the same debate, denying immigration to hundreds of thousands, and as a result condemning them to the death camps.

In the past we would assimilate the cultures, taking a bit of theirs and adding a bit our ours to form a melting pot where ideas were spawned, industry created, and commerce flourished as they become a part of the greater whole.  Now we seem determined that each culture will bring their unique customs and maintain them as individual entities within a fractured greater society.  The real question before us then is if we allow in the refugees from Syria and the Middle East will they come with the hope of making for themselves a better life in the model that has been the United States, or will they come with the intent of bringing their existing social structure and imposing it upon those who welcome them?

It must be understood the uncertain answer to that question is what lies in the heart of the public debate.  Despite the rhetoric of the President, despite the inflammatory statements of the far right, for most -- it is the question of assimilation or differentiation that lies at the heart of the concerns.   

Of course, this question is influenced and shaped by the acts of terror that are in the news or past acts of terror from individuals who’ve been welcomed into our society only to turn against it.  For example, the Tsarnaev brothers of the Boston Marathon Bombing, or Major Nidel Hasan who murdered 13 and wounded 30 others in Fort Hood Texas.

A by-product of this debate will undoubtedly be yet another chip from the bedrock freedoms this nation was built on, and now are so willingly sacrificed in the name of safety.

Thoughts on Us.

Have you ever considered how nations fail? Are they destroyed by cataclysmic disaster or do they fail from small wounds quietly inflicted from within? I believe great nations are similar to mighty trees and suffer similar fates. Think about the American elm tree.  Reaching over 100 feet in height, with a trunk up to four feet in diameter they were once one of the most dominate trees in the country.  They were homes for nesting birds, woodpeckers, squirrels and others. Over the past 50 years they have been ravaged.  Not from over deforestation, but by Dutch elm disease and the bark beetles that carry the fungus from the sick to healthy trees.

Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome all reflect the ebb and flow of a nation-state.  In modern times we see Spain, France, Prussia, England, and the Austrian Empire reflect this truth.  They rise with purpose only to slowly decline from a breakdown of its core strengths until some small insignificant outside force eventually topples it over.  Without the internal blight… would the nation remain strong and capable of withstanding those outside forces?

I watched a movie that has given me reason to consider the lesson of the elm as it applies to me, and our nation. This movie, its obvious political message, and the nature of its portrayal recognized and understood for what they are – I still find the foundation of its premise compelling. There is a growing movement in this country to attack the founding principles of this nation, in the name of a variety of causes, but most generally disguised as some form of sensitivity or right.

Let’s start with the most basic of these attacks.  There is an idea that some religions must be tolerated, but others can be attacked.  We see this in the movement by those who are opposed to the Christians right to recognize Christmas as a celebration within our communities. As if the fact that since our independence we have been a Judeo-Christian nation is somehow an intolerable wrong that must be not only corrected, but erased from our memories.  We cannot tolerate the recognition of Christmas as the birth of Christ by public display and acknowledgement.  Schools must shelter children from the discussion of religion and God because atheist parents are offended and file civil actions. Our courts have expanded civil code and the premise of the constitution in the name of civil liberty to allow this to happen. Administrators strive to avoid conflict and allow the concerns of the few to override the value to the many.  They abandon the ideal of education, to expand the mind of the young, and choose instead to train our young not to think independently or question, just to  conform with their peers.

When we talk about liberty and our rights what do we mean? I see a lot of discussion about this from the left as liberals condemn the conservatives, but unfortunately it is generally in the form of some propaganda effort, and not intended as a serious debate on fundamental rights. On the other hand I see the conservatives referring back to the founding fathers as if they were demi-gods whose words must be strictly adhered to insure we remain steadfast and true to their intent. Hmmm, their intent, what was their intent?

When we gained our independence from King George, the men who risked all sought only the escape from a repressive government they had no voice in. Each was loyal to his community and viewed their colony as an independent entity. Each attempted to stand alone, but recognizing interdependence, they formed the Confederation of States.  After 10 years of what must have been extremely frustrating economic and political turmoil these leaders again came together in a constitutional convention to resolve the problems the confederation created.

We see in the writings of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay the arguments for a stronger central government.  The Federalist Papers outline the causes of failure of the Confederation and the importance of a central government, checked by the division of powers, to secure the nation, and provide a framework to the nation.  The political leadership of the founding fathers became convinced that if this nation were to prosper there had to be a strong unifying force that could bring the various people to agreement.  They knew, as was the fashion of the time, that rigorous debate and argument was inefficient in the short-term, but ultimately led to a stronger acceptance of the final agreement.  The papers were intended to spur those debates in anticipation of the votes on the new Constitution.

So I come back to the question, what are our rights as citizens of these United States?  This has been the subject of lengthy debate and is really at the heart of the great conflicts we see in government today.  On the one side we have a group of people who believe passionately that whatever cause they believe in should be protected as a right by a strong and compelling central power that sides with them.  On the other we have a group that believes a overwhelmingly strong central government will do more harm and they as individuals should be left to lead their lives as they want.  Is this really any different than the positions our founding fathers were addressing?

We see in the Preamble of the Constitution the purpose our founder’s envisioned.  To “…establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.”  Almost immediately after crafting the basic document they recognized a need to identify the rights of the citizen, and added what is known as the Bill of Rights as part of the original ratification.  This forms the basic understanding of our rights, and supports my opinion that amendments to the Constitution should expand, not contract, the rights of its citizens.

Let’s start with the first amendment:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Does the recognition of Christmas as a federal holiday violate the prohibitions of the first amendment?  Is Christmas Constitutional?  Clearly the argument was made that it does, but the amendment does not say the government can not recognize religion only it cannot write laws to establish or prohibit the free exercise there of.  Activists have twisted these words, and willing judges have agreed, that recognition of the celebration of Christ’s birth is somehow in violation of this amendment and must be condemned.  Yet the holiday remains for as the court has pointed out the term Christmas preceded the Constitution by a millennium, and even the atheists want every day off they can get away with.

How far will those who don’t know what freedom is go… as they labor under the false premise that a more powerful central government will protect them, or that litigating anything and everything that annoys them so that they feel some small victory is right?  Call me a cynic but I see nothing but personal self-interest propelling those who encourage the societal warfare we see in today’s America. 

When we condemn those who disagree with us, through humiliation, intimidation, or outright violence we weaken us as a nation, and by each small act we weaken our fundamental strength.

So as for me, I will continue with the ideal of Christmas and acknowledge it in my greetings.