A More Perfect Union

June 15, 2017

Anger is a deliciously satisfying emotion, an easy high and best when shared. Americans share it well. For years we have engorged ourselves while our politicians and pundits have slopped us with it in troughs, as we slurp, our righteous indignation running down our chins and over our bellies, swollen with hatred and contempt. We have discovered our drug and lost ourselves, viewing our fellow citizens – the source of our strength and sustenance of our nation – as our enemies and those of the State and Party, to which we now bow prostrate, cravenly pledging obsequious fealty to the end. 

This is not America. Americans bow to no one. To no individual. Americans stand together, united, in singular service to an ideal – our Constitution – and in the defense of those rights and freedoms granted, and of those who cannot fight for themselves. In America, the end does not justify the means; rather, the means are the end itself, and shape that end, for if we uphold our laws, guided by our constitutional tenets, we form a more perfect union together – one that is consistent, predictable, stable, and trustworthy to the end. The path on which we set ourselves in recent years carries us instead to a place from which return is uncertain at best and historically catastrophic at worst. We must all stop, listen, and recall that time in America when we disagreed without hate, compromised without derision, and collaborated for the betterment of all. We did. Your parents did. You did. We can do it once more, if only we reclaim the strength of character and resolve to be the first among us to stand. 

Will you?

Vulnerability’s End

April 11, 2017

Listened to a radio program about Jim Jones and the events in Guyana nearly 40 years on. This man’s path to extinguishing almost a thousand lives, many willing and complicit, is at once darkly fascinating and frighteningly felicitous: a demagogue convinces his followers that he is the only answer; that he alone represents a greater good. That the cause is larger than just one man, bestowing a sense of morality on his loyal following. This great force of personality needn’t possess understanding of process nor of governance, only of psychology. He is a master of mental gymnastics, and will induce the flock to look past his obvious faults and naked transgressions, persuading them that criticism of him is indeed criticism of the movement itself. Your enemy, once an external force, becomes your neighbor. And you believe him. He prays upon the disadvantaged, exploiting intrinsic and chronic vulnerabilities to chimeric promises. He knows that if he can keep them poor and hungry, clinging to hope, they'll continue to need and support him. But as with Jonestown, the charade always comes to an end. And it never ends well.

When America was Great

March 21, 2017

George Washington viewed swagger as a moral failing. He served reluctantly and humbly, and redefined statesmanship in quietly passing the baton of leadership to John Adams. Was that when we were great? Abraham Lincoln once called forth the better angels of our nature, while Teddy Roosevelt admonished the nation to speak softly, and to carry a big stick, the New World eventually rising up and coming forth to the rescue of the Old, as Winston Churchill so eloquently stated. Was that when we were great? We had a dream, once, and crossed that Southern bridge together to finally stand equal with all our brothers and sisters. Was that when we were great? We poured our resources and intellect into research and innovation once, and stood like giants aloft heavenly soil. Was that when we were great? We brought the world closer together, and fostered a web of community interconnected and unparalleled among the pages of history. Was that when we were great? We did these things, in the words of a statesman whose measure seems so far beyond our own today, not because they were easy, but because they were hard. Not only for ourselves, but for all mankind. God grant us the strength of purpose and fortitude of character once again to remember who we are as a nation, and to recapture our hard-won legacy before it slips its fragile bonds forever.

What we Fear is Us

February 28, 2017

When negotiating a traffic circle, the idea is not to bisect the circle at high speed. Rather, these circles enable vehicular traffic to flow efficiently and harmoniously, where drivers enter in turns and navigate the lanes using mirrors, signals, and a dose of civility. For my friends in DC who travel Chevy Chase Circle, we understand too well that this latter description can fail utterly.

And that’s really an apt metaphor for today’s United States, isn’t it? We’re no longer working in concert with others; no, by contrast we’re charging angrily into the circle, cutting through the lanes, sowing risk and spreading destruction in our wake. Everyone else be damned. So, for all those well-meaning and nostalgic individuals who say, “this isn’t America” … let’s labor no more under such delusions: this is who we are as a country. This is us. We’re going to try being the bullies on the block for a while, and see what that feels like. Are you ready?

As an historian recently (and wrongfully) detained at an airport so aptly put it, “We must now face arbitrariness and incompetence at every level.” Ever looked down your nose at those banana republics and their graft-ridden low-level apparatchiks? Well take a look in the mirror. Do you enjoy the freedom to say what you want, and be what you want, without the fear and reprisals with which other populations must contend? Better start watching your back. You should also get used to violence and intimidation against religious minorities; we see more of it with each passing day. Get used to people who are in this country legally now fleeing across the northern border (illegally) just to escape you. YOU. Get used to well-educated and economically additive immigrants choosing to leave the United States, or instead to never come here at all but to go elsewhere, and make those countries wealthier and more powerful – not us. For those of you that took the course, we’re going to try tossing macroeconomics out the window, and see how that goes. Let’s all slam the doors and throw up tariffs and walls and all of those things we’d once consigned to the trash heap of fiscal experimentation. Can we fix it? Perhaps, if it isn’t already too late, but that will take a lot more effort than we’ve shown ourselves willing to give.

So together we have a front seat view now of just how little is required to dramatically alter a nation’s climate to one of fear and intimidation, and to let loose the less savory and more violent instincts of what psychologists will tell you is a larger part of the population than you probably wish to imagine. How much fun that will be, for all of us. Oh, what a small number of words from a powerful set of lips can unleash, like a few crooked stones in the Oroville spillway. Before us now is a farcical tyranny of the masses, tossing gasoline on a fire in a desperate last act of irrationality and recklessness.

But the thing about burning down the house is, my friends – you’ve got to be prepared to stand in a pile of ashes. Ever sneered at those other countries which lacked our social, political, and economic stability, or maintained our professional and civil standards? Our long-standing religious rights and protections? You’ve got to be prepared to lose those rights, privileges, services, predictabilities, and opportunities you’ve come to expect (and perhaps never even really considered), as they were built on the very foundations you just torched. Have you enjoyed the comfort and peace of mind that comes with being the adult among nations? Say goodbye to the prestige you once carried, the doors held open, the elevated pathways afforded you.

Welcome to your Brave New World, America.

Our Intellectual Crisis

February 11, 2017

Many of you have expressed exasperation with political posts. OK – you’re not alone. This morning, I poured my coffee and turned to MSNBC. Reporting from Tehran indicated that while the demonstrations included some typical anti-U.S. rhetoric, there was a notable reduction this year in the number of burning American flags, and many demonstrators expressed solidarity with protesters of the current administration. There were pictures, of course, and this all seemed believable. I turned to FOX. The story line was of a belligerent display, that there were shouts everywhere of “death to America”, and presented to the viewer a picture of a U.S. flag aflame. Clearly this was also quite believable, as it’s the Tehran we've come to know and follows years of the same. So, what do we take away? Who is correct… and is there even a single “correct” here?

What did I take away from this morning’s news? Well, yes, our old adversaries in Iran are still there and must be managed, and they’re still aiming both invective and policy our way. But also that the populace itself may actually hold a more nuanced and shifting view of our country and its inhabitants, and that this divergence might present some kind of opening in the future if properly exploited and leveraged.

The larger point, perhaps, is this: if we are to return to civility in discourse, to thoughtful discussion, we must recognize the difference between opinion and fact. Between feeling and spin, and objective reality. You’re entitled to your feelings and opinions. They’re of course more compelling when fact and evidence-based. You are not entitled to your own versions of facts; these are simply obstructionist opinion. That a thing may fit a chosen narrative does not in itself bestow merit. And while that’s sometimes discomforting, the truly strong, substantive personality and mind is equipped to understand it and to adapt. If we were on the ground, there amongst the demonstrators, that would be rather direct evidence and basis for a fairly concrete stance. Were we, however, to have established a perspective based upon viewing only one of these news outlets, we’d have limited our impression of today’s events. Perhaps we'd now hold a less-informed perspective. Having not been there, of course, we must consult multiple sources to build a more circumspect opinion. And even then… it being indirect evidence… we must concede to not being primary sources and thus should be open to listening, to consulting other sources of information, and to conducting objective discussion – especially with those (should we be so fortunate) who are direct sources, and have studied or participated in the topic at hand.

Our country is in the grips of an intellectual crisis long in the making. I cannot possibly enumerate all of the causes and contributors here in this post. But unless and until we recognize the difference between what we wish or assume to be true, based upon narrow and indirect sources, versus demonstrable fact through direct evidence or at the very least based upon a broad survey of credible indirect sources, we will continue to follow an unsustainable path of division and discord of our own creation.

Oh, and these are Mr. Jefferson’s Books, Library of Congress.

How Big is Your Bubble?

December 15, 2016

It's incumbent upon all of us not to dismiss out of hand information that conflicts with our established views. If you bristle when people unfairly cry "racist" every time they hear the word Republican, just imagine what it's like for Democrats to hear "America-hating communist" every time they’re mentioned. That's pretty much what I've witnessed for years now. We’re better than that, aren’t we? Hatred and animosity are amplified in echo chambers; it’s easy to dismiss (and even to hate) people and things with which you don’t often interact. Especially when others around you are constantly shouting that they’re the problem…. and that is neither a totally red nor blue statement. This chart should give all of us pause. (and please do not dismiss it because it’s from MIT...)

Winter has Come

November 19, 2016

Winter has come for the greater generations; we've only these monuments to our better angels now. They elevated knowledge, while we suborn it to emotion. They remained calm under fire, while we burn with hair-trigger outrage. Their humility and quiet actions spoke of their character; our hollow and sanctimonious bellicosity belies our own. We're no longer the people we once were, nor those we so loudly profess to be. But while these stone memorials to discarded ideals remain, I will enjoy them and share them with you on this beautiful fall day, in rapidly fading hopes for our return to worthiness of their provenance.