Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs

I’ve written in the past on this theory of society, its villains, and its protectors.  I was introduced to it when I listened to a presentation by LTC Dave Grossman[1], USA (Ret), author of “On Killing” who related this story from an old Colonel[2].

“‘Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.’ This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

‘Then there are the wolves,’ the old war veteran said, ‘and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy.’ Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

‘Then there are sheepdogs,’ he went on, ‘and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.’”

I was reminded today of that analogy when I listened to a speech by Victor David Hanson to Hillsdale College on George S. Patton[3] and the tragic reality of how we as a society view our sheepdogs.  Those people who view the dark side of humanity and choose to engage it.  Examples he gave in leading up to the discussion were Generals William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgeway, and Curtis LeMay who all had made the mistake of having views in opposition to the popular (i.e., therapeutic we are nice and shouldn’t kill those who are responsible for this mess we are in) view of most of society.

Remember when President Trump ordered the drone strike on the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and how outraged the political opposition was and how this was going to cause a massive Iranian response?  Soleimani was the mastermind behind attacks that had killed hundreds and was responsible for Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war.  Just because he was responsible, they said, it was just not right to actually target him as an individual. What was the result?  After his death there was a lot of Iranian chest-beating, a lot of leftist noise about how a war was inevitable, but really not much more.  At the end of the day was Trump’s decision to execute this Soleimani any different than Obama’s to execute Bin Laden, or all the drone strikes he approved against nameless terrorists in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula?

Islamic apologists and supporters of Hamas like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush like to talk about how most of the followers of Mohammed are peaceful, but it is just pure deflection.  As Brigitte Gabriel[4] explains in this video on Benghazi accountability[5] most people are irrelevant to the issue of confronting terrorism, whether done in the name of Allah, the Third Reich, White Supremacy, Black Lives, or simply anarchy. 

As we look at the tenor of American politics today it seems, at least to me, our young and the most highly educated among us have been trained to be sheep and to fear the sheepdogs. They believe the right government will protect them from the evils of the world. But at the end of the day is the government any different than a simple fence or pen, intended to keep the herd all in one place and make it easier to gather them all up when it comes time to be sheered? To keep up the illusion the pen is there for their protection and that the masters are to protect the weakest in the herd they are taught from the earliest time the government will care for the weakest, and must always be on guard of the sheepdogs. (e.g., Defund the Police will lead to safer, more tolerant communities.) 

The DNC has leveraged this with great success, suggesting they are the bravest of the sheep and those mean sheepdogs are just out to destroy the herd.  That works, at least until a real wolf appears.  So, to avoid having to confront a real wolf, they create problems that seem solvable but really don’t seek rational solutions as long as those problems keep the herd moving in its endless circle around the field and inside the fence.

For example, poverty.  Since the beginning of recorded history, there have been those who’ve been doomed to live in poverty.  Today, in America, that is equally true, although what is classified as poverty today would almost certainly be well above the survival standards of yesteryear.  With the crash of an overleveraged stock market in 1929, the government has taken increasingly expensive steps to help the poor us.  In the 1960s while expanding our role in an unwinnable war, and racing the Soviet Union to the Moon, President Johnson and Congress created the “Great Society.” 

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson and the Congress (2/3 majority Democrat) got to work overcoming the resistance of the Southern Democrats to significantly expand America’s support for the disadvantaged and underprivileged. They created Medicare and Medicaid, training programs for the unskilled and illiterate, and priority placements for the underprivileged to provide them a helping hand up, educational assistance, and welfare programs for the poorest of the inner cities.  Of course, to administer all these programs and the redistribution of America's tax dollars they established sizeable new bureaucracies, which have continued to grow and flourish over these past five decades, as have the criminal abuses of these programs.  Human greed being what it is, whenever free money is available there will be those who attempt to gain that wealth for themselves.

But let’s stop for just a minute and ask ourselves one simple question.  Have all these programs and all the redistribution of wealth or the expansion of Government debt served the needs of the poor and the quality of life in the United States to achieve their stated purpose, or have they simply been a tool to increase our individual dependence on the government as it moves to eliminate our faith in God, or our faith in family and our faith in each other as a vital aspect of life in America?  Have these programs, and all the other programs like the “War on Drugs” or the ebb and flow of criminal incarceration helped the poorest of the nation, or eliminated the racism of those who believe they are superior to others based on the color of their skin?  By the way, it doesn’t seem to matter what the color of someone’s skin is for those feelings to exist.  

As we devolve from a nation-state with a unified vision of ourselves and the world, into an amalgamation of tribes at some point there will be too many sheep for the sheepdogs to protect and the wolves of the world will fall upon those flocks and gobble them up.

 

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[1] David Allen Grossman is an American author and trainer who conducts seminars on the psychology of lethal force. He is a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.

[2] https://www.mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJsC-buIkSE

[4] Brigitte Gabriel is a Lebanese-American conservative author, anti-Islam activist, and founder of the anti-Muslim group ACT! for America.

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-vvoRwJSPc

What is it About All These "ISMs?"

I was reading this morning and it occurred to me we’ve created a lot of “isms.”  You know all those really cool things people like to opine on.  We have Feminism, Popularism, Nationalism, Globalism, and of course Racism.  All of these “isms” seem to be good things to have opinions on, but at the same time, none of them seem to have a universally agreed definition that applies to all members of society.  Why is that?

For example, there are “feminist” women who believe women should be equal to men, but can’t define what equality actually means.  Should men and women compete in sports whereas of today women would seem to have a disadvantage when it comes to strength and speed, or should there be similar competitions for men and women with equal prizes?  Why don’t women golfers make the same money as their male counterparts, even though revenue from their events seems to be lower than in the men’s tournaments?  

But then we have feminists who think women are superior to men and it is only through the chauvinist nature of society that women are prevented from showing that superiority.  Which feminist is right or is there no right?

The same can be said about Popularism.  Who can truly define what the legitimate popularist movement is?  On the one side, we have a minority of hardcore conservatives who believe the Trump movement was a popularist uprising.  On the other, we have a minority of hardcore radicals who believe ANTIFA and BLM represent the populist uprising.  Of course, the Democratic party, the party of hate, has long played this game on how best to divide the country to maintain its power, while the Republican Party, the party of greed, has stumbled about trying to keep up with their political opponents.  From a strictly legal perspective, I’ve got to put my money on the legitimacy of the Trump movement as being more mainstream since most Trump supporters are not destroying the towns and cities, they live in.

Is nationalism good or bad?  I was brought up thinking it was good.  I joined the military to see the world and protect the nation (actually in that order) and thought I was doing a good thing.  Now I’m told nationalism is bad and we should all agree globalism is the way to go, although it doesn’t appear to hold worldwide appeal, at least in places like China.

Finally, what is up with Racism?  We didn’t hear a great deal about how racist we all were, at least us white folks, until President Obama decided to choose sides in isolated local events was a good thing.  Now with the transmogrification of Critical Race Theory into a social justice standard it is widely accepted that only old white conservative males are racist and everyone else just wants to get along peacefully.  Although somewhere along the line the inner-city youth may have missed the memos since they seem to beat up and kill a lot of people who are not old white conservative males.

So my real question is, is the world better for discovering all these cool “isms?”

Building Utopia

A recent exchange with a well-educated young liberal discussed how to end “systemic racism.”  Her ideas all involved having the government do more for the African-American, and in turn (I assume) for everyone.  Below is her list of recommendations.

“The things that have been done to make society "equal" are drops in the bucket. There is a logical fallacy in the idea that just because we don't know exactly what to do, then we shouldn't do anything. What laws should be changed?

We should be transitioning funding into community programs instead of law enforcement. Social workers, free healthcare, better schools, after school programs and training programs, drug abuse programs, mental health resources, affordable housing.

We also need more training and accountability for police. Require licensing, 2-4 years of training, and clear and severe punishments for infractions, including jail time for breaking the law. If police are so scared, they are murdering people, they shouldn't be police. We should absolutely pay police more to compensate for the additional requirements but we need to hold police at a higher standard.

We should have more incentives for businesses to hire underrepresented groups and for colleges/universities to do the same.

We encourage more representation in voting. First, all citizens over the age of 18 should be automatically registered to vote. We should have mail in voting for all elections, and election day should be a national holiday.

We should abolish the electoral college and have rank choice voting (look up Ireland's voting system for an example).

We should get rid of citizens united and limit campaign contributions. All campaign contributions should be public.

We should prohibit anyone in public office from becoming a lobbyist and strictly limit lobbying to politicians.

And to anticipate your next question of how we are going to pay for this? Raise taxes, yes, please, I will be happy to pay more taxes.

We should also eliminate for profit prisons and for-profit hospitals. We should change our sentencing laws to focus to rehabilitation instead of punishment and put more training, mental health, and overall resources into our prison system.

We should give felons the right to vote after they have served their time and make it illegal to ask about felony charges in a job interview except for those directly related to the job position.

Get rid of the death penalty. Improve funding for social workers and public defenders. Many people are in prison because they were pressured to take plea deals because the current criminal system is overburdened. We need a complete over hall.

make marijuana legal on the federal level and provide incentives for small marijuana businesses and marijuana businesses of color.

Limit drug pricing inflation and create a nationalized health care system.”

For our purposes let’s put money aside.  That “how we’re going to pay of it” seems to be a sticking point on both sides, but as we see with the current pandemic, printing money is no object if there is the political will to do so.

What I find in this list is all the progressive talking points from the last few years.  All have some value in creating the utopia the left envisions, but many don’t seem to be grounded in the reality of how our nation is governed and assumes one single/central point for all decisions.  That strikes me as a clear desire to eliminate the federal system we now use and move all decision making to a single capital.  I’m not sure how you get a 2/3rds or greater majority to do that since it would clearly take abandoning or radically changing the current constitution.  The second concern I have is how getting some far-off power to impose its will on the people will actually change the nature of mankind to eliminate racism.

As we look back on our history, that of the United States, we see the great minds have struggled with the question of how do we create a society where all are equal?  The problem with this society of equals is the assumption we are all equally endowed with the same attributes.  I think we can look around today and determine how incredibly false that assumption is.

Looking at sports, since we actually admitted the racist nature of organized sports and began to accept African-Americans into the professional ranks the Black Americans have taken over a dominate role in Basketball, Football, and Baseball (although Hispanics are now replacing many, it is probably from the shift of culture preference more than pure ability).  Is that move based on a demand for racist equality, or a competitive desire to have the best athlete available?  Is the desire to win, a racist notion?

How about Education?  Does everyone perform equally in school and university?  I believe we see the answer is clearly no.  Why is that?  Is it because of systemic racism or is it from some other cause?  Does performance in education require a leveling of opportunity where more people of one race are afforded advantages not afforded to other races based on some arbitrary metric like global origin?  What other social variables might account for why one person performs better than another?  If the latter is true, how does a central government mandate the elimination of those variables? 

Assuming everyone should have the same educational opportunities, regardless of individual ability, at what level does that demand end?  Must everyone complete high school?  College?  Post-college? MS/MA, Ph.D.?  How do we account for those who have less desire but ability, or those with less ability but desire?  If we are to build a Utopian World then who gets to make the decision on what is fair?  Is it the individual, the educational institution, or the Government?

My final thought on this utopian world is captured in my young friend’s statement, “The things that have been done to make society "equal" are drops in the bucket.”  There seems to be one truth in moving towards a utopia.  We can always do something better.  That is a human quality found in all our existence.  We discover fire, but that is not enough we build ovens.  We invent the wheel but let’s hook it up to horses, then steam engines, then automobiles.  We invent a rocket to bomb another country, let’s take it to space, then the moon, and perhaps beyond.  If we were to do all the things, she suggests would we end racism, or would those ideas be simply a “drop in the bucket?”   

How about the rest of the world?  If we made the United States the country, she envisions, without making her plans part of a single world wouldn’t all the evils still exist?  The problem with Utopia is one person’s utopia necessarily becomes another’s Hell until we are all identical in wants, needs, and desires.

This exchange with my young friend only served to reinforce the difference between the progressive approach and the views of our founders.  On the one side, our founders saw too much power in the hands of a single entity ultimately led to the corruption in the purpose of government, while the progressive movement seeks to eliminate personal responsibility from the equation and put the responsibility of moral decisions in the hands of a government (as long as that government does what they want).

Racism in America.

Racism is alive and well in America, which has been made abundantly clear since the election of Barack Obama.  Let’s spend a few moments considering why it seems to persist despite over 150 years of government policy, five amendments to the Constitution and several laws that attempt to abolish the idea anyone has the moral right to enslave another or restrict the rights of the individual to participate fully in the choices afforded the average citizen in our Republic.

Could it be a mistrust of others is inherent in our nature/character?  Do we retain the ties to family and tribe and as a result carry forward a prejudice we can’t really come to grips with?  Or is it we lie to ourselves to build a world view where we are always right and those others are always wrong?

I watch as young liberal whites join in the protests and riots, just as the liberals of my generation did in the 1960s to counter the racial hatred so evident in the south.  I’m not talking here about the anarchists who take advantage of the conditions, but those who honestly believe in attempting to end the discrimination. Unfortunately, here we are 50 plus years after the years of Dr. King and the movement that led to a national dialogue, and if anything, the war over racism rages just as it did back then, without any apparent success at eliminating this us versus them approach.  Why?

I don’t have any real answer, but I think a CNN analyst named Van Jones hit a nerve when he was talking about how the affluent liberal white women of the cities are every bit as racist as any member of the KKK or Aryan Nation.  When push comes to shove they will pick up their phones, dial 911, and accuse an African-American of attacking them if they get the least bit upset by something he did.

Finally, when will we begin to question personal motivation on the part of the media, the celebrities, and our politicians?  Who benefits from creating discord and class/race warfare?  We talk a lot about the income disparity between the wealthy and the poor, but who is talking about the destruction of the middle class?  The people who moved from the cities and the rural areas to create the suburbs where there were two cars in every garage and Mom could stay home and raise the kids.  How many of those families exist today?  Today to make ends meet don’t most middle-class families need two incomes?  Why is that? 

I wish I had answers, but then again it is clear the experts don’t either.  I can only shake my head as we continue to decline as a civil society.  The one thing I do think is Trump is a result of that decline, not the cause of it. We have witnessed for the last 20-years how the influential are impervious to legal threats, while the poor are victimized by police forces increasingly structured as urban assault units.  Something must change, but I am not sure we are capable of that change for we expect the government to mandate something that must be a moral choice.  I don’t think the government can do that.

The Evolution to Propaganda

It used to be news came to us in manageable doses.  A television hour here, a newspaper hour there, a few radio snippets thrown in for good measure.  There was a clear separation between the morning “feel good” shows like NBC’s Today Show and real news.  In fact, they would make a point of when they were changing to a 5-minute news break.  We didn’t really view the stars as real journalists, they were “personalities.”

That all began to change with the creation of Ted Turner’s Cable News Network, where we got the news 24/7/365.  They found that filling 61, 320 hours of airtime would be cost-prohibitive unless they played the same stories over and over.  People got bored so they had to come up with "discussion hours" where opinion became the main course.  The other networks found they were losing market share and thus began the evolution from morning personalities to “journalists.”  But to fill the airtime they still had to attract personalities the viewers wanted, and the best way to do that was to get in people who had a personal agenda in appearing.  It could be as simple as hawking a movie or book, or as complex as detailing a scandal.  The more scandals the better for the networks.  If they didn’t have a real one, then why not make one up?   That had been the way entertainment had sold itself for decades, and as news became entertainment they naturally fed into the tried and true ways of self-promotion.

As we’ve seen - the evolution from journalist to entertainer has been gradual, and most news people seemingly still live with the delusion they are “Journalists and members of the fifth estate,” charged with keeping the government honest and the people informed.  Unfortunately for all of us, they are unwilling to be candid and honest about the views they hold as dear and are used to flavor the news they choose to present, or the fashion they choose to present it in. 

As we’ve seen, with increasing clarity, these organizations have shifted from simple reporting of the news to flavoring news to support of a political agenda.  Now when something happens, they roll out not only the story but a wealth of “talking heads” who are supposed to be experts in the area of concern who will tell us what the event really means.  That keeps the real purpose intact.  We are not obligated to think for ourselves, they are happy to tell us how to think.

Let’s review the history on this whole Jussie Smollett affair and please feel free to jump in and tell me where I am wrong.  Since Smollett is an actor, let’s put this into the form of a tragedy in three acts. 

Preface:  Setting the stage:  The left hates Trump and Trump supporters and since his election has done anything and everything to discredit and vilify him and them.  (That is my opening position.  Feel free to show me how I am wrong).

Opening Act, Scene 1: Jussie Smollett (JS) an activist actor, who was allegedly attacked on the snow-covered streets of Chicago in the late hours of a freezingly cold night by two Trump supporters, (JS claimed they were wearing Make America Great Again ball caps), who were apparently wandering around looking for a gay black man to vent their homophobic and racist views on.

Opening Act, Scene 2:  JS is courted by a media who is totally on-board with the idea that all Trump supporters must be homophobic-racists, and his story is broadcast repeatedly without questioning the logic of his story.  (For the record, and to their credit, I believe the Chicago police took a good track in believing the victim until reasonable doubt became obvious.)

Act 1, Scene 3:  Every prominent liberal politician and media personality jumps into the fray with condemnation of the crime without one shred of evidence to support this was, in fact, a legitimate crime.  (It was critical for both the politicians and entertainment celebrities to be seen as sympathetic of JS victim status and confirm America’s intolerance is so great Trump must be destroyed.)

Act 2, Scene 1: Questions begin to arise as to the details of the JS storyline as the police continue their investigations into who actually executed this “hate crime.”

Act 2, Scene 2:  Details of previous problems JS has had with telling the truth begins to emerge.

Act 2, Scene 3:  Good Morning America has JS on and is interviewed by what could only be described as a totally sympathetic Robin Roberts to defend his victim status.

Act 3, Scene 1:  The men first highlighted in Chicago’s CTV video are identified and questioned.

Act 3, Scene 2:  Rumors begin to float that the men knew JS, worked with JS, and perhaps were hired by JS, and they were agreeing to testify about what really occurred.

Act 3, Scene 3:  Chicago police and the District Attorney have sufficient information to charge JS with filing a false report and he is arrested.  Fade to black.

Postscript:  This story has not fully played out, but it does not appear there will be any serious self-appraisal on the part of those in the alleged journalist profession.  The agendas will remain intact, and JS will soon be just a Wikipedia footnote.

One final thought:  There was someone on twitter who had what I consider a brilliant summary of this whole affair.  “Jussie Smollett is what happens when the supply of racism fails to meet the demand.”  It is my hope the supply of racism continues to decline until it can’t be used by those who would claim it as a defense for bad acts.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time in America we had a racial policy that called for “separate but equal” provisions for the black minority.  The legal doctrine arose from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Plessey vs Ferguson, in 1890[1].  The court, in effectively modifying the 14^th Amendment, said the states could create separate facilities and thereby segregate the two populations. 

As we’ve come to know “separate but equal” is neither truly separate nor equal. For the next 65 years, the black minority in America suffered the racial discrimination imposed by this doctrine.  It wasn’t until the case of “Brown v the (Topeka) Board of Education” in the mid-1950’s did the Supreme Court move to correct the injustice it had created in its earlier ruling.

I find it interesting therefore that we see cries from the left now that we should return to the doctrine where one race or another has exclusive rights not held by the other, or that one gender or another have certain privileges not granted to the other.

When you couple this with the #MeToo sexual assault campaign the ideas of dating and relationships is undergoing a transition.  I doubt anyone can reasonably forecast the final outcome of that change.

In an earlier time, we would accept the premise of separate but equal and move to the logical conclusion that women should only work for women, blacks should only work for blacks, and so on, perhaps portioning down to natural blonds can only associate with other natural blonds.

But until “Brown v Board of Education” is overturned we are kind of forced to live together, despite the deepest wishes of those who would pull us apart.

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[1] http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/separate-but-equal.html

They Say Clothing Makes the Man

This will be a post seen by only a handful of people, for I won’t post it to Facebook as I am wont to do for most of my posts, but I did want to jot down a couple of thoughts I’ve had about the ongoing cycle of political posturing, and violence, regarding the removal of Confederate commemorative statues, the white supremacists, and their opponents the BLM and Antifa (Anti-fascist).

Many of the millennial youth agree that if the statues offend someone they should be torn down, others argue they are part of our history and should remain.  As a society, we have the right to change our minds about things we’ve done in the past, and for better or worse we have elected people to make those choices for us.  This is the way it is in a Republic.  The fact we may not like the choices of our elected officials is why we have the protection of the 1^st Amendment and the right to protest those decisions, or protest the protestors of the decisions.

But with the KKK, BLM, Antifa, or any other hate group we cross over the line where intimidation or violence serve as political sledge hammers to force people into line.  The fact some groups are supported by one party while others are condemned only serves to reinforce for the average person the party that offers them shelter sees political gain in their hate.

So, we come to this question.  What is the difference between a fascist and an anti-fascist?  The color of their clothing.  One likes brown (or white), the other likes black.   

  As far as I can tell that is the only difference. Oh, their supporters will go on and on about how stark the contrast, and how evil fascism is for all the people the Nazis or Japanese killed when they controlled power, but is that relevant?  Do we really think the anti-fascists or any racially driven movement wouldn’t violate another’s human rights if given half a chance?  

   I don’t.

Life in a Post-Eclipse World

“Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.[i]”  Yesterday was a historic day.  The press spent almost as much time talking about the darkening of our sun as it did vilifying the President.  It was as if the world stood still.  Millions of North Americans, (500 million by NASA’s estimate), had at least some opportunity to see a part of this event.

Having made a cereal box viewer, I was not impressed. I think I needed a bigger cereal box or perhaps some fancy look at the sun glasses.  Although it got really dark, and wet for a time, I attribute that to the passing cumulonimbus that seemed to block out the moon, blocking out the sun.  But enough about me.

Today we return to what has become the norm, the people at ABCNNBCBS and Fox will again tell us how a statistically insignificant group is threatening our civil liberties with their hate and violence.  Of course, they will take sides and one hate group will be okay, while the other will be damned.

Politicians and celebrities will continue to climb on board with the idea that statuary that was placed by politicians a previous generation or two ago are now dividing our country unlike anything that has gone before.  In the political frenzy, they will not separate the profound from the mundane and will trample on them all.  They will, of course, be aided by the vandalism of one or two politically acceptable hate groups.

What they won’t cover, what we won’t discuss in reasonable terms, and what we won’t make an effort to fix is why are so many young people killing each other in the inner cities?  Why has gang violence escalated to the point that Chicago is now on track to break last year’s total of 789 murders[ii]?  Unfortunately, most of these are African-Americans, or the politicians would be forced to actually do something.  We see politicians talk in grand terms of government support to the poor, or closing our borders, or expanding/contracting our civil rights, but at the end of the day it is all meaningless if we let the one segment of society engage in murder without consequence.  We can fill our prison’s but they are already filled, and all they seem to be doing is returning the vicious back to the streets with better street cred. 

What would happen if we stopped talking about gun control for just a while (Chicago has among the strictest in the nation), and talked about how society has set itself up for this war in the inner cities?  The problem, as I see it, is we have abandoned the concepts of family, faith, and neighborhoods that form the sense of belonging to the young.  Even in our most liberal of areas we still discriminate with expectations for a successful life.  Those who can afford to send their children to private schools do so, those who can’t are left to the mercy of political agendas of the school board and the unions.

Is it better to allow everyone to become victims in this age of victim-hood?  For the major cities it would seem so.

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[i] Simon and Garfunkel, “Sounds of Silence”

[ii] http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/homicides 

But It's Heritage, Isn't It?

As the world of manic reaction sweeps through the nation I am amused at the outrage we generate on behalf of a few.  The latest adventure in political correctness is beginning the removal of all vestiges of the confederacy, so in a few years the history books will reflect the Union had a war, but we don’t know who the combatants were, or why they fought.  I can only assume given enough time and support, this movement will accomplish what Hurricane Katrina could not, the destruction of Jefferson Davis’ home and library, Beauvoir, located in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Don’t mistake these thoughts as support for the Confederacy, or the institutions it attempted to defend.  I grew up in the North, where separate but equal was never mentioned, and we did not have to forcefully integrate our schools as they did in the South.  I am not a proponent of flying the Confederate battle flag and calling it heritage as so many do, because a simple search into when the flag became so important to the South will show it was a white political response to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

I suppose you could say the statues, monuments, places of interest, and schools recognizing or named after leaders like Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, or Robert E. Lee are the same thing, but let’s consider this for a bit.

Does renaming Lake Calhoun in Minnesota to “Bde Maka Ska” change history, or just eliminate the possibility people will ever wonder who John C. Calhoun was and his role in the political reality of mid-19^th century America?

Does the removal of statues and other historical relics reflect that we have moved beyond racism, or does it just change the flavor of the racist rhetoric?

If we are to purge all reminders of our distasteful past then shouldn’t all the places like Fort McHenry,  Fort Monroe, and Fort Sumter be torn down?  These garrisons all benefited from the labors of slaves and stand as reminders of our ugly past.

How about destroying all the western forts, where we waged an unjust war against the natives so we could take their land? 

Speaking of the west, clearly Mount Rushmore needs to go.  Of the four faces carved so beautifully into the South Dakota landscape, there is nothing to love there.  Two were slave owners and two were Republicans.  How can we let that scar on the face of the earth remain?  While we are destroying the landscape, I understand there is already a movement to level Stone Mountain, Georgia.  Maybe when they are done with that -- the experienced team could just move on to Rushmore?

If you hate America, for all the sins of the past and present, then why celebrate any heritage?  Let’s just wipe it all off the face of the earth, from Alcatraz to Washington DC with all its monuments to racism and manifest destiny.  If you take down some, why not take down all?