HISTORY – CONSERVATISM BITTERSWEET

January 1, 2022

TRADITION

(Tevye)
“Because of our traditions,
We’ve kept our balance for many, many years.
Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything…
how to eat, how to sleep, even, how to wear clothes.
For instance, we always keep our heads covered
and always wear a little prayer shawl…
This shows our constant devotion to God.
You may ask, how did this tradition start?
I’ll tell you – I don’t know. But it’s a tradition…
Because of our traditions,
Everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.”

–from Fiddler on the Roof

Tradition is a part of the perfect equation that describes social good health. Tradition of a social nature (as opposed to a political nature) is a part of the equation of a peaceful and prosperous life—a goal most human beings seek but have never achieved. For Tevye, it is direction set by God, a way to eat and sleep, and how to wear clothes. The trappings of divine recognition, are physical and material, a cap (yarmulke), a shawl. Physical objects are not God. They are reminders of the spiritual, which is not a physical object. It is the physical bread crumbs that leads to the spiritual. Spirituality leads to God.

But tradition is not only religious. The formula works in many ways for many professions. A wig for the judges in England validates the continuity of the law. Medical jackets are white for doctors in part because they convey the continuity of the medical profession. The law and medicine change over time, but the stability in continuity stabilizes the anarchic and arbitrary actions of nature. There is no reason for a tree to fall on an unfortunate passerby, yet it happens. The randomness of arbitrary nature is inexplicable, yet tradition moves us along like a flowing stream.

Celebrations evoke tradition. Marriage ceremonies with their atten

tion to formality and dignity infer the importance of fidelity and love. The transfer of such information is often silent, yet profound. The union of a man and woman require discipline and morality. Not all these qualities are definable, yet information and values are transferred from one generation to another. Commitment, whether it is in marriage or a military platoon unites the unit against the falling trees of random injury. It isn’t fair, you say. But it is what it is. A meteorite streaking from the sky crushes a house and you wonder what the message was. But the continuity of tradition bears at least some of the burden of fear and guilt and we press on.

Holidays send messages the way a telegraph sends sentences. Christmas in the religious world evokes the life of Christ and his teachings. The secular world steals the theme of gift-giving and endows an economy that provides jobs to the producers and workers who purvey goods and services. The New Year’s Day holiday sends a message of renewal and dedication. New Year’s wishes turn into resolutions and sometimes into action. There is a purpose in honoring our traditions. Labor is magnified in its importance with a special day. Blood sacrifice and dedication to a greater good are honored by Veterans Day. Historical and special people are honored. Washington, Lincoln, Martin Luther King are heroes. Remembering them evokes the continuity of American history, and just as necessarily the American place in the world. Even a personal birthday honors a life as the human race is composed of individuals comprising a community situated on a single planet with a common destiny.

So, tradition itself is something to celebrate, for it has passed the test of time. No one knows from whence it has come. It simply is here. Neither is it obscure to the blind, but it is known to everyone, even by a fiddler on a roof.

April 30, 2020

TAKING CHARGE

Taking Charge

Photographs of President Trump often include a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the background, looking over the current president’s shoulder. This is no accident. From the beginning, The Trump administration seems to have channeled Jackson as if he were a spiritual essence haunting the White House. Jackson’s tenure as president was marked by political turbulence and controversy. Perhaps his greatest contribution was to avoid a civil war and hold the union together over the concept of nullification. Breaching the previous understanding of the U. S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land, South Carolina declared the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void within that state’s boundaries. South Carolina viewed its rights as a state to be superior to those of the Federal Government on the grounds that states had the right to nullify federal laws within their own boundaries.

Although a southerner, Jackson, with authority granted from Congress signed the Force Bill in 1833, which authorized the president to collect the tariff. The concept of nullification slept for 28 years until the Civil War. There was a revival of the argument, that the states had formed a compact. The reason the states are called states has to do with the view that they retained a certain amount of sovereignty over their own existence and could ignore the federal government. The Confederate states argued that the rights granted the federal government were revocable. They paid the price in dead and generations of wasted human capital until the current modern era. Indeed, each state has an executive, judicial, and legislative branch in the same vein as the federal government. Jackson thwarted the effort of South Carolina to nullify the federal government tariff.

Today, we have a desperate left-wing in states again broadly trying to defeat a President by nullifying law. The Left has banded together to form a compact of their own. The National Public Vote law passed by many states requires that each state agreeing to the compact will honor the popular vote result even if it conflicts with the electoral college. President Trump beat Senator Hillary Clinton by winning the electoral vote although she polled about 3 million votes more. The Democrats are unhappy because they have been burned twice recently by this phenomenon. The last time it happened was when George Bush defeated Al Gore in a closely contested election. Before that, the last such circumstance was in 1888. The National Public Vote law may be illegal. But the courts will decide the next time there is a conflict between the two kinds of votes. Since Trump has appointed the last two Supreme Court justices, and there is a fairly solid Republican core of five usually reliable justices, it is unlikely the nine-person court will go for a coup and rule against the primacy of the electoral college.

Governors of the Left have been a little more successful at thwarting federal law by not providing information on illegal aliens and not turning over criminals in custody no matter how severe the crime. That story is not finished.

The most recent left-wing attempt to thwart the President has been the agreement among a group of states to go their own way in opening up their state quarantine orders. California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Colorado have agreed among themselves that they will coordinate the stages reopening their states to education, commerce, and the usual routine business of people currently fettered by the orders of the state governors. Siting’s of large numbers of beach goers in California show that the people may decide for them. For his part, the president has ceded the operation of each state to the governors, although he still remains hands on regarding the administration of certain federal responsibilities.

Reopening the states have devolved into a partisan tool. Democrats are apparently willing to stop commerce in their states for the purpose of sabotaging the economy just enough so that Trump has difficulty getting re-elected. Trump, for his part, is intent on getting the economy going for just the opposite reason. Trump’s communicating ability with his supporters in arenas are threatened by a prolonged closure of close contact. That any leader in America would hurt people in this way for political gain shames the country. They are biting on what they see as a no-loose scenario. If Trump violates the states quarantine guidelines, they will say that Trump caused X amount of deaths, whatever the figure is at a given moment in time before the November election. If states remain closed and the economy does not rev up soon, they have the argument that it is Trumps fault, as they tie him, no matter how unfairly, to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. From here on in, it will be necessary to trust the American people with good judgment.

July 4, 2019July 5, 2019

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2019

Flag of the U.S.S.Constitution

A country is like a person. It is neither wholly good nor wholly bad. Countries have a lifetime and display national characteristics by which they become defined. The French are romantic, the Italians are creative, The Germans are precise, Americans are extroverted and brash. Any sort of generalization is both correct and incorrect at the same time.

On the fourth of July, Americans celebrate themselves, the founding of their country, and their country’s achievements. Celebrations are good as they force the negative, combatively contentious personalities to rethink their nature, ideals, and history in the form a more complete view.

Now that the left has taken to criticizing Donald Trump for everything and anything, they have also seized on the extravaganza he is planning to celebrate the Fourth as a day for criticism of his plans for a more military inclusive demonstration than some of his predecessors. Conservatism Bittersweet will pass by their carping and whining, because it is more important to reflect on the meaning of American history than it is to acknowledge the irrational hate speech of a deranged opposition.

The United States was the first nation to establish a modern Republican form of government, the significance of which cannot be overstated. Providing a constructive mechanism for disagreement and debate allowed the country to adjust to historical changes as it grew and matured based on established principles of equality in discourse. The founding of the United States Constitution has been the country’s finest achievement. The one great failure was the Civil War. But even the great failure was turned into a triumph when the country defeated the Confederacy after choosing Abraham Lincoln, the finest president since George Washington. Slavery, an archaic legacy left by the English, was eliminated and opened the door to other changes to the countries oppressed minority. Thus, the greatest of the Constitutional achievement has been the ability to change over time—to adjust to the evolving problems.

Contrary to the Marxian, Socialist view, the future cannot be predicted. The future is like the weather and is the summation of forces too complex for even supercomputers to understand. What took humanity so long to evolve to this point of industrial and intellectual accomplishment? Partly it has been a matter of scale. There must be an underlying economic base to produce what the world has produced in its abundance. But it has also been the ability to achieve free thought and innovate based on that free thought, where others feared to go or could not imagine. Greatness does not come so much from overcoming fear as it comes from individuals acting fearlessly for the next great idea that moves the world. All democracies owe the United States for the precedent that allows them to achieve and grow. The top ten innovative countries in the world are all democracies. The United States is third in per capita patents in the world. We are the engine of successful world economies, and have been so for many years.

Among the great achievements of the United States, has been the reaper by Cyrus McCormick, innumerable inventions from Thomas Edison, and many other Industrial achievements by Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton, Samuel Morse, Elias Howe, and a long list of others who facilitated economic growth. That the United States grew into a mighty industrial and international power allowed it to defend itself and others against dictatorships and oppressors around the world. One thing leads to another for a country as for a person.

Social growth has been marked by many successes. Overcoming slavery and granting women’s suffrage broadened the countries world view. Providing a haven for masses of poor from oppressive or depressed countries from around the world has benefitted the growth and understating of Americans and made the point that there is value in people around the world who only need a haven to survive and succeed. America has been that umbrella for the world—a place of comfort, opportunity, and rest from malevolent oligarchy.

Nothing is more significant than the amount of wealth America has produced. Sometimes this concept is maligned as greed or selfishness. But economic wealth has allowed the country to defend itself against vicious foes who do not uphold basic human rights. It has allowed the country to develop life saving drugs, medical devices and procedures for the entire world. The nation’s wealth has fed the world when a part of it would otherwise have starved. For many, the United States has been the savior from oppression of the body, mind, and soul. From the very founding of the country, disparate peoples have been saved by American generosity, openness, and innovation founded on a powerful economic engine.

Perhaps one of America’s great strengths is to acknowledge its failures. Slavery, mistreatment of native peoples, and the exclusion of women from political decision making, reflected poorly on the country, though world conditions were no better. In contemplating our ideals of democracy and capitalism, we can look backward and see how our democracy has led the world in human and material advancement.

We can and should salute our flag proudly for what we have accomplished. We can look upon our beautiful land as a gift from God. It is a gift we must work and nurture, for nothing is certain except we shall be rewarded for doing what is right, just, and fair in a world where these values do not always survive or flourish. We also salute those of us who never made it. We salute the dead of our wars who fell on beaches and fields so that the rest of us could carry on in their name. They rest in peace on foreign lands as well as domestic, and in our memorial to them we pledge a better life for those who arrive in the future. Individually we remember the immortal words of an American who did what no human could ever do again by establishing our flag on the infinities of space, as we live our principles, both individually and collectively, for every day; we take “one step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

January 2, 2017August 16, 2018

Setting the Scene

As America haltingly formed, first organized under the Articles of Confederation and then with that great achievement the Constitution, there arose the worst nightmare of those founding fathers-“faction.” Very early on, the scene was set. The faction known as the Republicans as led by Thomas Jefferson squared off against the Federalists whose standard bearer was Alexander Hamilton. From the time the former was named Secretary of State and the latter was named Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington, the scene was set for American history’s most vituperative confrontation, between factions and philosophies represented by two of the great men in history.

The conflict, which traces its beginning from the time that these two brilliant fighters took opposing offices under Washington, famously led to the death of Hamilton at the hands of the Republican Aaron Burr. During the time between the two secretaries took office and Hamilton’s death the printing presses of the day were filled with personal enmity that set a high standard for America’s politicians for the next two hundred hears and beyond. As Hamilton told Rufus King, “The political putrefaction of Pennsylvania is greater than I had any idea of.”

The passionate anger of those days could not have been more damaging to the development of the American government without causing an irreparable split between the states along a north/south axis based on the apparently opposing views of the partisans. Jefferson’s view of an agrarian society based on his vision of a farm economy clashed with the urban Hamiltonian view which set a hegemonic view of urban growth through commerce and industry.

There were numerous fault lines between these two groups. Hamilton was accused of monarchist views he did not hold. He viewed an economically strong central government as decisive to American growth, power, and safety. Keep in mind that at the beginning of their conflict America had no foreign reserves and was deeply in debt. Hamilton hit the ground running before Jefferson was able to return from France, and through a lifelong work ethic that had no equal in his day, was able to establish policies that set the new countries economy humming and made Hamilton popular.

Another fissure formed when Jefferson returned from France. His advocacy on behalf of French Hegemony clashed with the views of Hamilton who believed that, England, as the greatest economic power of the day, should continue its relationship with the United States, minus the odious taxes and unrepresentative control occurring during the colonial days. In Hamilton’s view, the most logical trading relationship should be with the country that was previously the dominant trading partner. The sentimental views derived from the support the French had given the colonies in their struggle against the British.

Early America was not only beset by north/south divisions, but also suffered an east/west fracture that split the young country. To some extent, this represented an urban/rural divide. Hamilton’s Whiskey Tax further alienated these factions and culminated in the Whiskey Rebellion which was put down by George Washington with a minimum of casualties.

Hamilton also took many hits, both personal and public. As the illegitimate son of a woman of dubious character, he battled demons his entire life. Affable in person, he was sensitive to slights and was quick to challenge an opponent who questioned his integrity and honor. Before his final dueling death he had several near misses with opponents who reconciled with him, perhaps realizing that Hamilton was not running a bluff.

The divisions in the American body politic ran deep and hard and did not abate after Hamilton’s death. The Constitution’s provisions did not deal with the issue of slavery. Hamilton was, perhaps, the leading abolitionist of his day, Jefferson a holder of over one hundred slaves. As is known today, the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans during the civil war seemed to have inevitability about it.

As America seeks to come to grips with the candidacy of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, there is a sense here that the level of personal conflict and policy have been seen somewhere before. It does not matter that the current candidates are as small as Lilliputians tying down a great country with their vanity and failings. Nor is it a comfort that the country survived the split between greater men, Hamilton and Jefferson, as well as a crushing civil war. There is no guarantee that civilization will proceed over any bump. Anthropologists believe a South American Indian culture collapsed after it ran out of lime to make the structures they built. An economy is not inevitable, either. Sometimes it doesn’t take much. The apocalyptic view has been wrong in the past, but past performance is not an indicator of future results.