PATRIOTISM – 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.

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.”

July 5, 2018

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2018

The Declaration of Independence of, what would become, the United States of America imposed on its signatories the pledge in dedication to their cause of “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred honor.” These last words of the revered text that launched an entire people into warfare, death, and conflict are momentous for the history of the world.

The text of the Declaration begins by informing the intended recipient of what they intend to do:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Then follows a statement of values:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .

Then the indictment:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. . .

And then twenty-six more paragraphs of the indictment follow in a barrage of accusations unequaled since the 97 theses of Martin Luther. Finally, the aforementioned pledge of life, liberty, and sacred honor indicates the length to which the signatories and supporters felt it necessary to go.

The ensuing bloody, vicious warfare underlined the serious intent of the Declaration. Divorce was acrimonious and occurred with enormous loss and suffering. Yet, the great document is for the ages and its sentiments endure to this day. Though the United States is a country that still struggles to make all men and women equal, it cannot be doubted that the pledge of the founding fathers endures to this day. The ideals, which it could be argued the founding fathers did not fully understand, and certainly did not implement, constitute a roadmap to the future from the past for the present.

Those who fought and died to liberate the people suffered the worst conditions of man and nature. It is not a myth that they trudged through snow in bare feet, starved in the woods, encamped in the depths of winter on a frozen patch of ground, and then faced a paid Hessian army that took no prisoners. Atrocities against the people embittered the opponents against the Crown, and alienation from families and friends during service to the promise of democracy cut deeply into the spirit of the revolutionaries.

In the end, the luminaries boldly leading the country into statehood found that success only posed a long list if challenges to the founders. Some would have reverted to monarchy and exchanged one King George for another. George Washington would have none of it, and neither would the rational leadership of the day Having defeated the Crown, the challenges grew. The intellectual champions of the day argued like brothers, and there was no clear winner among the intellectual giants. Hamilton and Jefferson, imperfect vehicles for the task, nevertheless, set the course. The Articles of Confederation, conceived as a loose binder of hope, failed. The country found that it had more in common than it had differences and the Benjamin Franklin reminder that they would hang together or hand separately, echoed beyond the past war and into future nation building. The failure of the weak Articles taught an important lesson about working together as individuals as well as states. What they organized set a standard for the rest of the world to follow. With the immediate addition of the 10 first amendments, they made the statement that The United States of America was a work in progress. And the rest is more history.

Consequently, the United States continues to evolve based on its constitution, amendments, and Supreme Court decisions. There is a sense that today, the country can detach itself from the constitution that has been fought for in bloody wars at home and abroad. Some advocates believe the courts are a tool of untethered political will. Yet the Declaration of Independence teaches a strict lesson. A people cannot use the logical traditions, amended as they are, to oppose the will of the founders whose constitutional wisdom was born from the womb of experience with tyranny. If the United States is to survive the rigors of the twenty-first century, It must resolve to the following:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to resolve the political bands which have disconnected them from each other, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of each member of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to their repatriation in honor of those who sacrificed and died before them.

October 17, 2017

THE FLAG AS SYMBOL

The NFL (Not For Long, Not Funny League) has modified its rules on political demonstrations to tacitly condone the protests against the flag of the United States. This, despite banning a tribute to 911 victims by the NFL in earlier years. Some have suggested, that by kneeling in protest in front of the flag, NFL players are not really protesting the flag. Really, it must be the Nazi, White Supremacist in Section 12, Row 8.

No, it actually was the flag that they protested. What courage is that? You soften your protest if you come back and say, it really wasn’t an attack on the flag as some have said. Suppose an opponent of abortion protested in the same manner and pointed to the crowd and said, “I was aiming for that right-to-do-with-your-body-whatever-you-want woman in Section 66, Row versus Wade, not the flag.” Yes, it is actually the flag.

The irony in this is that the flag covers even the flag protestors (if they are United States citizens). So, in a sense they are protesting themselves. Perhaps that is not wrong, but intellectually it means nothing; protesting the flag is a cry for (publicity) help. Protestors do such things to draw attention to their narcissistic selves as if they are above the flag. But the flag represents everyone and stands above them, and should represent a deeper solemnity for the pain and sacrifice of those who have suffered and died for the flag and what it represents.

Angry Iranians, as well as others, burn the American flag. It is not their flag. Americans have not taken to burning foreign flags, just their own. Such is the freedom in this country. When women and slaves lacked the vote, there might be an argument that they could protest by burning the flag to demonstrate their plight. But, again, American citizens with the vote protesting their own flag, protest themselves.

That it is offensive to many of their fellow Americans does not bother them. Offending foreign people of color insensitively is tantamount to a crime against humanity. Offending patriotic Americans – no big deal.

A fair person must honestly say, protest is honorable, and if a grievance is heartfelt, a thoughtful person must also say, go for it. But that is not a license for any action the imagination can summon. Physical harm is not allowed, and other societal proscriptions may apply. Dishonoring the flag is one of them.

But here is the heart of the matter: the American flag is a broad brush. Attacking the flag is an attack on Jew and Gentile, Black and White, Old and Young, Gay and Straight, and all the combinations and possibilities that come under the banner of Citizen of the United States.

The flag that the NFLers protested is the symbol that has draped the coffins of its soldiers of all kinds and colors. Those who have died and given up everything that comes with a long life, should remain the most honored citizens – revered and respected, and not a cause for diminishing the American flag. Let us remember, the first man to die in the Revolutionary War was the likely runaway slave, Crispus Attucks, who was half Black and half Native American. Since then many have suffered and died for their country – a country that honors protest, but not desecration or disrespect.

July 4, 2017

PATRIOT DAYS – JULY 4, 2017

Thundering overhead, the F15s liven the quiet sounds of the distant blue skies and impose themselves on the living creatures of the earth below. They are, like the fireworks of celebration, a reminder of American history.

The founding of the United States has been defined as a moment in human history as well as the history of a people of a particular geography. For it was the founding of the Republic of the United States of America that established the principal of a broadly elected form of government, “. . .of the people, by the people and for the people. . . .” These words by Abraham Lincoln were not spoken until well after the establishment of the United States, but they sum up the powerful motive of those who carried out the revolution necessary to attain its fortune. They were spoken at a moment in time when the nation was at the point of disintegration, yet like a phoenix, resurrected itself into a new state capable of rejecting the economic and social addiction to oppression and slave labor.

The hard road was bitter. Many times the country has reinvented itself in small ways and large. But the founding revolution has been vindicated at each step of the way. Sometimes the words, “God bless America” have been heard in song and prayer, evoking the emotional punch of heartfelt experience and hope. The history of America has suggested that divine intervention was, indeed, required to pass the Civil War test, tests in WW I and WWII. There have been more subtle moments as well in the great struggle during the cold war against communist powers. The Soviet Union no longer occupies numerous conquered peoples surrounding its true borders. In fact, the Soviet Union does not exist. We hope and pray that so much divine support becomes less necessary and the people, often virtuous in generosity to a fault, unify and find the solution to problems both foreign and domestic that plague its continuance.

Alternatively, the worst offense is to waste the love of our Creator and the lives of those lost defending America, and fall victim to hatred and malignant recrimination. America is no longer a juvenile country, but the leader of the world, and by extension, all of humanity. The cruelty of ISIS and the threat of nuclear war with North Korea rival the internal disseThention within America as existential threats. Then there are the traditional enemies of miserable poverty, starvation, and disease. The United States is our hope and our base for action, but civilizations fail and there are no guarantees of success, or even improvement on human ignorance and ill will. On second thought, God bless America.