A Word to fellow Conservative Bloggers

One of the several online “Tea Party” groups that I recently joined encourages its members to be active in blogging, chatting on Facebook and Twitter, writing letters to editors, and otherwise being prolific in using the “pen” as a means of spreading the word on the Movement’s agenda. I’d like to go a step further and suggest to those engaged in such worthy activity that we should follow a personal set of guidelines with everything we write in order to have maximum effect and avoid giving ammunition to our adversaries.

There are many that would like to dismiss us as ignorant rednecks and/or racist. Those few that actually fit that description should probably not engage in discussion and frankly bring no value to the Movement. For the rest of us the requirement that we let no hint of racism enter our discussions should be obvious. And name calling or other insults fall into the same category. Our goal is to convince others and to show that we are intelligent, informed citizens, not to score points with those that already agree with us.

We should also take the time to check our grammar and spelling. Everything I write for publication in a blog or elsewhere is written in a program that automatically checks spelling and fundamental grammar. Still I make many mistakes that are picked up only by careful reading and editing. Further, we should be careful about the proper use of homonyms such as two, to, and too; there, their, and they’re, etc, and generally try to write clearly and concisely and do enough research to be sure of our accuracy.

We don't have to be Hemingways, but it's important that we be aware that the delivery matters as much as our message and will make our message much more palatable to those we are trying to influence while giving them nothing to use against us.

Balanced Budget Amendment

There’s been much discussion among conservatives lately about a Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution. Many feel that if the federal government were forced by the Constitution to maintain a balanced budget then the reckless spending would stop and we would get our fiscal house in order. I strongly doubt such an amendment would be possible, but even if it were it's not a good idea.

I’m as fiscally conservative as anyone I know; I think the government should spend money on law enforcement and a strong military and not much else, but sometimes it’s vital that a country, just like a business, is able to spend money that’s not in the coffers. I can think of several examples in our history when this was the case, but the most compelling one is The Louisiana Purchase. If the central government of the United States had not been allowed to float bonds to pay for Louisiana, then the purchase from France could not have taken place, and America might still be a small nation clinging to the east coast with a dramatically altered history including a war with Napoleon that may not have been winnable. A Balanced Budget Amendment would not be wise, and should not be necessary.

We are a representative republic. American citizens choose representatives to go to Washington and make decisions on our behalf regarding the laws of our country and how our tax money gets spent.  I think our legislators represent us pretty well – they overspend just like we do.

Our Founders and Framers did not invent the concept of a representative republic, but they considered it superior to pure democracy which would be cumbersome at best, and also dangerous - leading to citizens voting themselves unsustainable benefits. They hoped that this danger would be averted by each community sending its best qualified as representatives; that those more sophisticated representatives would understand the proper functions and limits of government and the essential need for fiscal responsibility.

The nation quickly ran low on people the caliber of the Founders and inevitably not-so-sophisticated legislators were sent to Washington, but in spite of this the government remained reasonably fiscally responsible for almost two centuries – overspending only when conditions warranted and then only temporarily. This has changed dramatically in the last few decades and now our government overspends habitually without reservation, but a Balanced Budget Amendment is not the answer because it’s important that our representatives be able to borrow and spend when appropriate and necessary. The solution is representatives with discipline and fiscal understanding. The only way to get representatives with discipline and fiscal understanding is to elect them, and stop electing the ones that go off to Washington and immediately starting spending money that doesn’t exist.

We will have disciplined representatives when we become disciplined and elect them, if it’s not too late. Simply put there are two types of citizens that vote for tax-n-spend politicians – those that directly benefit from the “spend” and those that are not hurt by the “tax”. The latter type are further split into those that pay little or no taxes and those that have so much money that the taxes don’t matter and who benefit from having their consciences eased by having the government help the less fortunate. When these groups constitute a majority or near majority of voters then there will be no solution. I don’t think we are to that point yet, but we are dangerously close and when added to those that vote “liberal” simply out of habit we may be over the threshold in years that all of the above bother to turn out and vote, or when fiscally conservative voters don’t.

American Exceptionalism

President Obama has been much criticized over his answer when he was asked in front of an international audience if he believes in American Exceptionalism. His reply was a politically correct hedge: "I believe in American Exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British Exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek Exceptionalism." While I’m not a huge fan of our current President, this article is not meant to pile on in criticizing him for this statement; in fact if one reads the entirety of his answer he goes on to effectively praise America’s achievements and contributions. Instead I’m writing to answer the same question put to myself: Is modern America truly exceptional among the nations of the world?

We can’t be called the richest anymore because we’re deeply in debt and our per capita income ranks ninth or tenth in the world behind countries like Australia and the United Arab Emirates. We can’t be called the happiest; a perusal of various international polls shows the U.S. not even in the top 10 for happy citizens - it seems the happiest people live in northern Europe. We can arguably still be called the most free, but that distinction is subjective – partially for the happy reason that much of the rest of the world has become more free than previously, and partially for the unhappy reason that our liberties have been compromised over many decades.

The United States can claim to be home to exceptional innovation, but other parts of the world are quickly catching up. We can clearly claim an exceptional military, but I don’t think the ability to beat up other countries is what we mean by American Exceptionalism. Anyway, our military power is too often like a man using a shotgun to defend his home from ants; he can destroy many ants, but the shotgun will never make him safe from the little buggers getting into his pantry. There are many other ways, good and bad, that we are exceptional: we are exceptionally diverse; we are exceptionally generous when disaster strikes any part of the world, we are exceptionally obese, we are exceptional consumers, we live in exceptionally large homes… on and on; but none of these answer the question satisfactorily.

If American Exceptionalism exists, the roots of it must be found in our history, so I chose to ask myself a different question: “Was America exceptional?” To this I can shout a loud and proud “YES!” Our country was born a glowing gem on the world’s landscape. It was “conceived in liberty”, on the notion of a government of equally applied law rather than a hereditary aristocracy. This was indeed unique in the world at the time.

Long before Independence America was exceptional for its space, its opportunity, and its freedom. Its people were exceptional in their hardiness, their love of liberty; and because of generations of Bible reading, Americans were unique in their literacy. Prior to the Revolution virtually all men and most women in New England could read and write and the rest of the colonies were not far behind. At this same time literacy among men in France was about 50% and the same in the English countryside though the English cities could boast closer to 70%. And Americans read much more than their Bibles, they read newspapers that reprinted the political and philosophical debates from both sides of the Atlantic, and they read pamphlets by the hundreds on the same subjects. Since the “Glorious Revolution” in the late 17^th century England was arguably the freest country in Europe, though still subject to an oligarchic aristocracy, but the colonies in North America were an ocean removed from the center of authority and the average American colonist was very aware of his freedom and he cherished it.

Americans were exceptional in land ownership. The average citizen in Europe had no hope of owning land, but a large percentage of Americans did, or could. How can we overestimate the effects on a citizenry of land owners standing in their fields thinking, “This land is mine!” compared to tenant farmers or slum dwellers in Europe. Further, owning land meant being privileged with suffrage – taking part in the governing process, so Americans were unique in their political involvement which most took very seriously; Americans were exceptionally engaged.

Early Americans were exceptional because they thought of themselves as exceptional. The New England descendants of the Puritan Calvinistic believers in predestination firmly believed that America and Americans held a special place in God’s Great Plan, and the Quakers of Pennsylvania believed that God had provided their part of America as a haven for the religiously oppressed. By the time of the Revolution these attitudes in a general way had spread throughout the colonies. Americans believed in American Exceptionalism before there was a United States of America, and believing it made them want to live up to it. This may be the primary explanation for the willingness of so many to suffer the depravations of the Continental Army in the darkest, hungriest days of the Revolutionary War.

The eighteenth century was called the “Age of Enlightenment” when thinkers and philosophers throughout the western world challenged intertwined political and religious systems that had been in place for centuries. These philosophers developed concepts that can be summed up in five simple statements: All humans are born with equal rights; reason is superior to dogma; ones method of worship is a private matter; government and religion should be separate; and people are capable of self government. Our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, gave the liberty loving philosophy of the Enlightenment a unique living laboratory to prove its value, and the result was indeed exceptional, as were the amazing people that made it all happen.

For a century or more America was an exceptional place of opportunity. There was always more land in the west for those hardy and courageous enough to claim it, and every man had equal opportunity to apply his mind and his hard work toward making himself whatever he was capable of becoming. It’s difficult for Americans today to understand how unique and wonderful that was.

The land is all claimed now, and far too much regulation and taxation has eroded opportunities for the individual entrepreneur, but still America draws emigrants from around the world because the economic environment created by two centuries of freedom still shines of liberty and opportunity in countries stuck in oligarchy or those whose pendulum has swung past liberty into the injustices of socialism. So I’ve answered my original question: America is still exceptional, but we cannot perpetually claim exceptionalism because of the accomplishments of our parents and grandparents.

The generation of Americans before mine was so exceptional that they helped save the world; mine started out in confused anti-establishment, pleasure-above-all activism and then slid into decades of political apathy bringing America into danger of being swept along with the world’s collective pendulum. Recent re-involvement and self-education by a significant segment of the population is heartening, but so far it’s only a beginning, and we still suffer from too many Americans not understanding our exceptional history, or caring. I don’t know if a generation hence we will still have a legitimate claim to American Exceptionalism.

Our Founders and Framers had no desire for America to remain the exception in an otherwise despotic world. They hoped and predicted that other countries would join us in greatness, in liberty, and in our experiment in self government; they believed in the inalienable rights of all people, not just Americans. They did not fear foreign power as much as they feared internal complacency that would allow our government to do what unchecked governments naturally do, grow and amass power. The story of the world and of America since their time has exceeded both their greatest hopes and their greatest fears, but through it all America has remained exceptional.

Governments, Corporations and Unions

The following is based on the premise developed by philosophers of The Enlightenment and embraced by the Founders of the United States of America that every individual holds equal inalienable rights – rights that cannot be taken away or transferred to another person or entity.  Inalienable rights might be violated, but they cannot be morally eliminated.  A criminal person or despotic government might imprison an individual or even kill the person, but that does not diminish the person’s right to freedom or to life, even if death renders that right to the past tense.  The individual’s rights have been violated, but not eliminated. Inalienable rights cannot even be given up voluntarily; one has the right to submit, but retains the right to withdraw from submission.

From this first premise it follows that no group of individuals has greater rights than a single individual.  Each individual holds his or her rights inalienably, but rights do not add as a group grows.  If this were not true then any group would have more rights than any individual, thus rendering the individual’s rights as alienable rather than inalienable, and a majority would have the power to take away the rights of an individual or a minority.  We may see a majority violate the rights of a minority, but it does not have the moral power to do so, or to eliminate them.  In the natural order of things, organized groups of people do not have rights, only individual members do.  An organization assuming “rights” that it does not possess can be done only by force or fraud, or when granted immorally by a government (a form of force).

Softball teams, men’s clubs, and sororities are examples of organizations that do not have rights.  Two types of organizations that have artificially been given rights by government are corporations and labor unions.

Individual businessmen have the proper right to join with their fellows in a business venture.  They may choose to incorporate under a legally binding contract in order to define the venture and to record ownership, & etc, but the corporation should not have rights or responsibilities under the law beyond the rights and responsibilities of each individual involved.  Corporations can be very powerful business tools allowing individuals to pool capitol for far greater ventures than any single one could attempt, but a corporation should not be treated as an individual shielding the actual individuals from liability or taxation (nor should it be taxed as an individual).  No corporation should enjoy more government benefit than any other corporation or individual, and certainly no corporation should be considered by government to be “too big to fail”.

Similarly, while no individual has the inalienable right to the fruits of labor without laboring, each has the right to work or not work at any given job pursuant to agreeable terms with the employer, and each has the right to band together with his fellows and agree as a group to work or not work, and to negotiate collectively with an employer.  They may do so with the strength of contract if each so chooses, but no group of them has the right to compel any individual to work or not to work, or to enter into such a contract against his will.  Certainly many workers banded together for purposes of negotiating wages and working conditions have more negotiating power than any one individual, but the union of workers should have no rights under the law beyond the rights of the individuals.

The United States government began giving certain groups artificial rights and powers very early in its history.  The ink was barely dry on The Constitution before the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, began trying to help corporations by various means including manipulating tariffs.  His motivation was a tremendous desire to see the United States prosper in the budding industrial revolution, but motives notwithstanding, it was a mistake and a dangerous precedent to grant groups of citizens, in this case corporations of manufacturers, privileges beyond any individual citizen.

As the country grew up in the nineteenth century politicians with motives much less pure than Hamilton’s continued to manipulate the law to the benefit of corporations – often at the detriment of the fledgling labor movement.  But eventually the pendulum swung and government began manipulating the law to give unions more power and corporations less.  In this environment it became necessary for every politician to choose sides – Big Business or Big Labor.

Lost in the shuffle was the fact that business and labor are both honorable parts of the capitalistic system of free enterprise that made the United States an industrial giant far beyond Hamilton’s greatest dreams, and made the American worker the most productive and best compensated in the world under the best working conditions.  In general capitalism was not given credit for these achievements; the achievements of big business were chocked up to greed and deemed evil, while the ever improving lot of workers was credited to the unions.

What’s not well understood is that unions - the banding together of workers in order to multiply negotiating power - cannot create wealth.  The workers can create, not the union, but a worker’s ability to create in the industrialized world is dependent on the existence of a massive infrastructure of innovation.  Prehistoric men, women, and children had to toil at hunting, gathering and other related tasks virtually all waking hours in order to survive.  Modern society not only survives but thrives in luxury by the efforts of only part of the population working a small percentage of the time.  One cannot negotiate with the laws of physics and physiology; negotiation did not create this huge improvement in human life, innovation did.

The industrial revolution has been an exponential rush of innovation accomplishing in 200 years more advancement than all of previous history, and throughout this time most innovation has been financed by corporations or individuals destined to profit from incorporating.  Unions should be given their historical due; they have helped workers negotiate with often faceless corporations whose members were too often insulated by immoral laws from the responsibility of providing a safe work environment and honest negotiation, but when unions are given credit for the forty hour work week and our high standard of living, their importance is being inflated.  Unions may have been the negotiating force that helped workers obtain a share of the benefits resulting from centuries of innovation, but it was the innovation that made the benefits possible, and it’s the innovators and those that financed them that deserve the credit – and the lion’s share of the profits.

But in relatively recent history a union/employer relationship has come to exist that does not involve profit.  This is the case of public employees being represented by unions that have been made very powerful by government.  Assuming this takes place in a republic it’s a philosophically unique situation where the employer which represents the people has given artificial rights to a group of employees who are a subset of the people and are paid by the people.  If a majority of the people wants public employees to be well paid and fairly treated then there’s no need for a union.  If this isn’t the case then why do the people’s representatives give undue power to the public employee unions against the will of a majority of their constituents?  This makes political sense only when public employees make up a very large voting bloc and/or a very large donating bloc.

Generally a group of people that have only their profession in common would be expected to be diverse in other areas including their political views, but public employee unions often do not allow this divergence of political opinion among their members.  This writer has interviewed teachers who are forced by their unions on a regular basis to donate to the campaigns of politicians that the teacher does not willingly support.  Somehow the union has acquired the power to have money withdrawn from the teachers’ paychecks and donated.  This means public employee unions use their government granted artificial powers to create artificial political blocs to support candidates that reinforce and enhance the union’s artificial powers.

In any given community the percentage of teachers is relatively small and even as a bloc would not wield excessive political clout.  Neither would the fire fighters, the road crew, police force, postal workers, or other specific groups of public employees.  But when all of these workers are unionized in artificially powerful unions and those unions form an effective union of unions, all with the same political agenda of further empowering public employee unions, and when all members are forced to support the same political candidates, if not with their votes then certainly with their dollars, a huge political machine is created that many politicians woo with an ever ascending spiral of compensation and entitlements that has brought many American States to the verge of insolvency.

The political machines created by the unions of public employee unions are not actually big enough to have the power they seem to enjoy.  The power they wield is because they are incredibly active and focused.  The practical remedy is for the rest of us to become equally active and focused on politically combating the candidates that cater to the unions and refuse to see the obvious unsustainability of the current trend.  This practical remedy is in fact a means of pushing our government toward the proper remedy which is an adherence to the principles of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution giving rights only to individuals and not to organizations.

National Divorce

The below is written in response to a fun email floating around the internet suggesting that the conservative citizens of the United States divorce the liberal citizens - dividing the country.  It got me to thinking……

It would have to be agreed that the land mass of each nation would consist of area currently occupied by people of liberal or conservative respective ideology, and that the separation would be based on geographic or demographic boundaries rather than State boundaries. Therefore the liberal nation, which I'll call the People's Republic of America, or PRA, is severely divided, consisting of a fairly narrow strip along the west coast, the east coast from Boston to Washington DC with notable pockets of dissention, Hawaii, and Chicago. We'll assume the entire coastal region of California, Oregon, and Washington goes PRA including all of the LA basin, but north of that only as far inland as the coastal range in California and the Cascades in the two northern States. The PRA controls virtually none of the oil producing parts of the country except the offshore wells along the California coast which they are forced to ramp up to full production as even a Subaru or Prius requires some gasoline and because they lack almost all electrical power generation capability except fossil fuel production and limited nuclear.  Fossil fuel production of electricity is severely stressed while additional nuclear is brought online, this effort severely hampered by politics in spite of the desperate need. The PRA controls no timber or mineral resources and extremely limited food production, the California central valley and the Midwest "breadbasket" both being in the conservative region. The southern part of the west coast region of The PRA suffers from a severe lack of fresh water which had previously come from inland sources now unavailable. A huge public works program is initiated to bring water from the Willamette valley in Oregon to southern California, water rights protected by the United States being declared null and void, and the need to irrigate crops in the Willamette valley ignored.

The PRA does control, through the harnessing of labor, a large part of industry and technology, which provides them with something to trade for food, but their primary asset is complete control of the media and significant control of higher education as even though some notable universities lie within the conservative nation's land mass, the vast majority of faculty from these institutions immediately migrate to the PRA. They are temporarily missed.

Washington DC is maintained as the official capitol of The PRA providing a sense of legitimacy in its attempt to establish foreign relations throughout the world, but the true seat of power is Los Angeles. New York takes on a tertiary roll; its primary contribution to the PRA is the United Nations.

On the other hand... the conservative nation which I'll call The United States of America is a solid block of citizens somewhat hampered by lack of seaports except along it's southern coast, but never-the-less self sufficient. Still bound by the Constitution of the United States of America, and now giving it proper respect, this "New USA" would be temporarily challenged by debate over the location of a capitol, likely candidates being Denver, Houston, Atlanta, and Dallas. But in a brilliant political maneuver to become known as the Elvis Compromise, the new seat of federal government in the USA becomes Memphis and Graceland the new White House. Debates to determine a location for a new capitol building for housing the two houses of the federal legislature take place over the internet and realization dawns that nearly all legislative business can be carried on in this manner eliminating the need for a capitol building, and allowing legislators to remain in their home States in touch with their constituents while being less available to lobbyists.

The first order of business of this rejuvenated, relocated legislature is to authorize oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and northern Alaska. This followed by the creation of a fair tax code and the shrinking of government in nearly all arenas. Based on the notion that offshore and northern Alaska oil is the property of the people of the USA, a tax on this production makes funds available for research into a variety of energy programs based on the theory that the USA does not lack energy, but simply lacks portable energy.  Research is focused on using available energy sources such as wind, solar, natural gas, and nuclear for charging fuel cells. Further investment in the form of corporate loans goes into the creation of fuel cell automobiles and fuel cell distribution infrastructure.

No longer constrained by ever growing socialistic policies of the "Old USA" the new USA is free to develop into the capitalistic nation envisioned by the Founders and Framers. Of particular interest is, finally, the realization of social equality and acceptance. With each person free to rise to his/or/her full potential unhampered by unfair taxes and governmental control within a welfare state, resentment of ones fellow citizens dissipate and while old prejudices die slowly, they would be virtually eliminated within a generation.

With movies and television from across the border now completely controlled by blatant liberalism these forms of entertainment quickly fall out of favor at least until production capabilities develop within the new nation. In the meantime families would learn to communicate and young people would learn to think for themselves. This trend would be reinforced as young college students are exposed to educators previously unacceptable to the old order institutions of higher learning.

On the other hand... in the PRA, food and other essentials became more and more scarce even while the government is controlled by a naive liberal elite that refuses to give up the dream of cradle to grave welfare. Ever shrinking production produced by an ever shrinking percentage of the population leads to hoarding and resentment causing people to cluster to their own kind for comfort and support causing prejudice and distrust between races and classes. Eventually this leads to the break up of The PRA into its two primary geographical parts, East Coast PRA and West Coast PRA leaving Chicago dangling and turning to Canada, and Hawaii ignored except as a favorite vacation destination of West PRA government officials. This division would further complicate food and energy shortages in the east forcing that once great region to turn to the USA for help and eventual reunification - back into the fold with lessons learned by all but a few Kennedys.

Washington DC, back in the USA, becomes a virtual amusement park with the original White House and capital building along with many other ex-government facilities becoming part of the Smithsonian.  Visitors from around the world enjoy wandering through the oval office and speculating on various famous or infamous events that have taken place there…  The pentagon again becomes headquarters for the armed forces of The United States of America.

Other than Washington DC, the city most affected by these events is New York. Wall Street will never again be the focal point of world business. These functions within the USA have been split between Denver and Dallas, but during the uncertain times surrounding the original breakup, most stock traders turned to previously little known exchanges in Canada - notably The Winnipeg Stock Exchange due to its convenient time zone. The Statue of Liberty, unmolested but largely ignored under the PRA once again becomes a favorite tourist attraction - with possibly greater appreciation than before. Most of Central park had become grazing land for PRA government produced cattle. The bovine are sold at auction and the proceeds pay for a huge reunification celebration complete with fireworks over New York Harbor.

West PRA continues to go by that name even after East PRA ceases to exist. The northern portion of this nation, pulled into the original PRA only by the influence of the cities, notably Eugene, Portland, and Seattle, becomes more and more discontent with being the primary producers of food ever hampered by lack of water, while public policy continues to be controlled by bureaucrats that appear to believe that meat and produce are somehow magically manufactured in the basement of Safeway by contented union workers. Secret negotiations brokered by corporate officers at Boeing and Microsoft bring about annexation back into the USA of all of West PRA that lies north of the Golden Gate. West PRA is powerless to interfere, but Hollywood generates several movies and documentaries demonstrating how the citizens of the previous northern portion of West PRA were coerced.

At this point of course West PRA is crippled and completely dependant on the USA for food, wood products, fresh water, and protection from foreign interference - notably Mexico and Venezuela. In spite of this they remain quasi-independent for decades, the leaders refusing to admit defeat and the citizens refusing to vote them out of office in spite of their obvious failure.  By the time these attitudes break down under the strain of destitution, the citizens of the USA have become reticent to bring this hotbed of liberalism back into the country. People that once held some sympathy or apathy toward socialism have now had its personality unveiled and, more importantly, the value of true freedom and capitalism demonstrated. The obvious financial burden of revitalizing the now impoverished PRA is also a factor.

Final reunification is triggered, as these things so often happen in history, by the actions of a citizen rather than a government official. A young, talented, but previously unknown filmmaker creates a documentary called “America, the Unappreciated” in an underground studio in Hollywood in the heart of the struggling PRA. In it he shows the history of the United States contrasted with that of Europe, Russia, China, and indeed the entire world.  He features the philosophies of the American founders and other great thinkers of the Enlightenment, showing the conflicting politics and yet common love of freedom of great minds like Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Paine, Madison, Diderot, Smith, Voltaire, Locke, Franklin and many others that by apparent miracle existed at that critical time and combined to bring a new society of freedom to a new world. He shows the true heroism of Washington willingly giving up power when the crown of America was his for the taking. This young filmmaker does not gloss over the follies and mistakes of America: slavery, a horrible civil war, a too ready eagerness to fight without exhausting diplomacy; but he shows these compromises and mistakes in their accurate historic backdrop making them understandable, however unjustifiable. He shows how America learned and grew from all of its history, the good and the bad, to become the hope and deliverance of the world.  He shows how America rose at least twice to save the world from global despotism and many times to save parts of it from localized slavery. He shows the historic genius and generosity of the American people when allowed to create and to choose the objects of their charity. This young filmmaker shows a heroic America that had never been seen or understood by the general population of any part of the world.

The production quality of the film is poor demonstrating its tiny budget, but the research is thorough, the presentation brilliant, and the timing ripe. Released on DVD in the United States as its only commercial means of distribution it finds a hungry market. Most of the distribution in the PRA is pirated DVDs with no record of distribution numbers, but its influence is undeniable.  Within weeks patriotic fervor on both sides of the border generate rumors of final reunification.  Citizens of the PRA suddenly want to rejoin America; Americans are suddenly willing to foot the bill.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, the release is six weeks before elections in the PRA.  Liberal legislators are removed from office by the dozen, replaced mostly by slightly less liberal alternatives, but in a few cases by truly conservative legislators whose candidacies had been considered symbolic with no chance of success.

Total reunification is an anti-climax with only muted celebration which is more like a national sigh of relief.  Liberalism is not dead in the United States of America; there are still those that believe that citizens owe cradle to grave welfare to one another; from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, controlled by a large government bureaucracy. But their political clout is crippled for decades and their allies, Hollywood and academia, have been transformed, or at least politically silenced for the foreseeable future, though some in academia would privately lament the cruel coincidence that put food, timber, mineral, and oil resources in the conservative part of the US, continuing to lack the understanding that it is no coincidence that the producing regions of a civilization are also the conservative regions.

The world in general is also affected by “America, the Unappreciated” and for a time, criticism of the United States becomes unpopular around the world. 

Most Americans don't care.

American Religion and Tradition

I’m a strong defender of American tradition, including those derived from Christianity, especial those associated with Christmas, but I am not a defender of American religion because there is no “American Religion”; we are specifically secular.

Many of the men we think of as “Founders” were devoutly Christian while many others were Deists, believers in a vaguely defined Creator or Supreme Being with little additional dogma; but virtually all of them were opposed to theocracy.  While weeks were spent at the Constitutional Convention debating slavery and slave trade, the nature and tenure of the Presidency, bicameral or unicameral legislature, how senators and congressmen would be selected and how often, the Necessary and Proper clause, etc, there was virtually no debate about religion. The Founders and Framers were in nearly universal agreement that the United States would not fall into the trap of theocracy that had been responsible for centuries of bloody conflict in Europe.  It must be remembered that our founders were not the Puritan Christians that landed at Plymouth, the Quaker’s led by William Penn, or other Christian based colonists. These people hold a place in our history, and certainly in our traditions, but they were British colonists, not the founders of the United States.  One might say that many of the British Colonies in the “New World” were founded on Christianity, but not the United States of America.

None of this changes the fact that America is a country of Christian tradition. While most of the incredibly talented men that founded this nation were not particularly religious, the common people were, and it’s from the common people that we derive our traditions.  And traditions are important; they tie society together like no constitution or history book can. Traditional activities - weddings, birthdays, holidays, even funerals are sources of joy and comfort to all levels of society in good times and bad. A society that gives up its traditions gives up the term “society” and becomes just a bunch of people.

It’s a fine line between defending America’s traditions, including Christian traditions, while not supporting Christianity as America’s religion, but an obvious place to start is by defending the use of the term “Christmas” in all areas of American life, especially in the public classroom. It seems to me that the tradition of Christmas is as much American as it is Christian – not exclusively American of course, but deeply rooted in the soil of American tradition nevertheless.  Christmas is such a large part of American tradition that many American Jews put up Christmas trees, jokingly referred to as “Hanukkah Bushes”. This is strictly an American and Canadian phenomenon demonstrating that Christmas is a deep tradition in these countries independent of its Christian origins.

Christmas programs, a Christmas tree in the classroom, and Christmas vacation are all part of the tradition of American public schools and as long as they are kept relatively secular they should not be considered offensive to any segment of American citizenry. These as much as pep rallies and basketball games help young people cope with cold dark winters and the challenges of being young. Similar traditional activities in adult society serve similar purposes. Christmas traditions are among the most important that make us a society, so while I could never support a crucifix in the pubic classroom or a statue depicting the Ten Commandments at the courthouse – these are too specifically Christian and are not American traditions - I will always support a Christmas tree called by that name, not only in the classroom, but on Main Street.

Prayer in public school is another matter though one could argue that at one time this too was traditional; indeed I can remember grammar school teachers reading Bible verses after recess.  But while I can see no reason why actively, or perhaps passively, observing a traditional American holiday whatever its origins would be offensive to any reasonable person that chooses to live in the United States regardless of his culture, I can certainly see why any non-Christian person, whether emigrant or native non-Christian would be offended by having himself or his children engaged in public Christian prayer or Bible study.  The one is simply observing a traditional American holiday based on Christianity, optionally in a secular manner; the other is acting as a Christian.

America is a country of emigrants; this is indeed another tradition and a large part of what makes America the wonderful country that it is. Historically emigrants have come from primarily Christian societies, but recently we’ve been joined by many people of other religions and cultures. It’s extremely important that we respect their traditions and invite them to adapt to ours as they see fit, but it’s also extremely important that in attempting to be welcoming we do not abandon the traditions that make us what we are.

Progressivism

It seems that the entire Left has decided that they are “Progressives” rather than “Liberals”. Hillary Clinton has described herself as a “Progressive”; so has the President and many of his Czars. Progressivism is the “New Liberalism”.

So where did this “Progressive” term come from and what does it mean? As with most political questions, a study of history helps provide answers, but to get a true picture it’s necessary to go back much further than the emergence of Progressivism.

Our Founding Fathers, under the influence of the Enlightenment thinkers believed that all men by their nature deserved equal opportunity under the law. Certainly some would be born into more fortuitous circumstances, some more clever, some more talented, but all should be equal before the law with none set above it or specifically protected by it more than their fellows. They believed that some men would rise above others due to their talents or labors and become leaders among men, and that these men would form a Meritocracy of Gentlemen, but that no man could claim this status as his birthright or hold it perpetually without maintenance.

Unfortunately, as early as the Washington administration, government began the practice of “helping” one part of society or another. Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was so anxious for America to take her place among the wealthy nations of the world that he pushed for high tariffs along with other subsidies and measures to help American manufacturing. Ever since, through westward expansion, the civil war, reconstruction, into the 20^th century, the New Deal, and beyond virtually all politicians have sided with big business, agriculture, labor, or some other social entity. Of course as soon as politicians begin favoring one part of society at the expense of another corruption follows. Levels of corruption varied with time and location but became a constant in American politics.

This is not to say that all politicians were corrupt or were motivated by anything but conscience or desire to represent constituents, but as the country made the transition from Republic to Democracy as typified by the election and administration of Andrew Jackson, more and more lacked the sophisticated philosophical background of the Founders to avoid being influenced by expedience.

 “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx was published in 1848 during a time of war and hunger in Europe and mass emigration to the United States.  In the following 50 years millions of European emigrants came to the United States to escape poverty, war, and persecution. Many of these people had been exposed to various varieties of Socialistic theory and accepted its idealism. Over time a popular attitude emerged, even among many prominent politicians that Meritocracy embraced by the Founders was evil and that all men should not just be equal before the law, but truly equal in their economic circumstances; that accidents of birth such as inherited wealth, cleverness, or talent should not make one man rise above another; that even personal life choices such as education or hard work should not distinguish one man from another; that all men should be created and should remain equal in wealth or lack thereof. They believed that this was the natural order of things and that any step toward this ideal was Progress, the philosophy was called Progressivism, and politicians holding these beliefs to a significant degree came to be called Progressives.

The Progressive Party of the early 20^th century sprung from the People’s, or Populist Party of the late 19^th century which in turn evolved from the two major Farmer’s Alliance Organizations that were formed during the depression of the late 1870s.

Southern farmers, poor whites and blacks alike, were trapped in the tenant farm system that evolved during reconstruction as a method of farming large tracts of land that had previously been tilled by slaves. Tenant farmers typically owed the proceeds from their crops to the store or landowner that provided basic necessities before the crop was harvested. Each year tenant farmers tended to go deeper into debt. In 1877, primarily as a social outlet, farmers in Texas formed “The Knights of Reliance”. Similar organizations sprung up across the south and they became loosely allied into The Southern Farmer’s Alliance, and began trying to influence local Democratic politics, that party being virtually the only one in “The Solid South”. This was, of course, only white farmers, there was also a Colored Farmer’s National Alliance, but it was kept separate and never had significant political clout.

In the north farmers felt themselves at the mercy of low wheat prices, debt, and high transportation costs. The United State Government had granted large tracts of land to railroad companies to encourage the building of railroads across the nation in areas where it otherwise would have been economically unfeasible to do so. To a large degree, railroads were financed by selling the land to farmers. Such land was relatively valuable simply because of the proximity of transportation, but once the land was under cultivation and the railroad was operational, the farmers were extremely dependant on the railroad because no other form of transportation was available. So, also in 1877, the Northwest Farmer’s Alliance was born out of previous organizations such as The Grange. Initially their focus was social and on cooperative buying and selling, but they were soon trying to have influence on local Republican politics.

After some years of attempting to effect local politics to little benefit, the Farmer’s Alliances met in Ocala, Florida and formed what became The Populist Party, called The Peoples Party in some States. This effort was primarily by Northern Alliance membership because the southerners were reluctant to challenge the Democratic Party that they credited with maintaining white supremacy. The Populist Party’s “Ocala Platform” called for a progressive income tax on the rich, a loose money supply, and nationalization of the railroads. The Party had significant influence in several States north and south, though in the south there was no Populist Party to speak of, only sympathetic Democrats.

One of the Populist Party platform’s most popular planks was adoption of what became known as “bimetallism”, a plan to back American dollars with silver as well as gold, and fix the value of silver at 1/16 the value of gold. Since silver was not nearly this valuable, the effect would have been to devalue the dollar by about 50%. Populist farmers were in favor, because it would double the price of their crops when sold, while their debts remained constant, and agricultural States found ready allies in the silver mining States. Bimetallism became the indentifying issue for the Party.

Ironically, it was the depression of the 1890s that led to the extinction of the Pluralist Party when, in 1896, the Democratic Party was in need of a way to distinguish itself from the Republicans, and in spite of there being a large percentage of “Gold” Democrats they virtually adopted the Pluralist Party Platform including bimetallism causing a serious rift in the Party. They nominated William Jennings Bryan, a known Pluralist in all but name, as their Presidential candidate. The Pluralists were left with the choice of backing the Democrats or splitting what had come to be called the “Progressive” vote. The adoption of the Pluralist platform by a major party ushered in what became known as the “Progressive Era” with many progressive politicians in both parties who believed in more power to the central government, control and regulation of big business, trust busting, a weak dollar, government support of unions, farm subsidies, conservation, and other “liberal” policies. This growing progressive movement found allies in the labor unions which the Pluralists had not represented.

The Pluralist went on to nominate Presidential candidates through 1908, but were never again a political factor other than their influence on Progressive politicians in the other parties. This was a time when both major parties were split ideologically with little to distinguish the parties from each other, but much to distinguish the splits within each party. It’s as if people were Democratic or Republican by habit, or heritage, and what they actually believed determined which faction within the party they would support. There were many Progressives in both parties that had spent a political career wandering in and around of the Pluralist Party or growing Socialist Party – a product of European emigration at a time when Socialism was gaining popularity in Europe.

In that convoluted election of 1896 Republican William McKinley, certainly not a progressive, was elected to the Presidency, and yet again in 1900 when, with even more irony, his running mate was the progressive, Theodore Roosevelt, who would be elevated to the Presidency when McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist only a few months into his second term.

Roosevelt was elected on his own in 1904, and was followed in the White House by his friend William Howard Taft. Then in 1911 a progressive faction of the Republican Party formed the “National Progressive Republican League” to oppose the 1912 nomination of Taft for a second term. Instead they backed Theodore Roosevelt for a discontinuous third term. When they failed to nominate Roosevelt, they broke from the Republican Party and formed The Progressive Party and nominated Roosevelt as a third party candidate. Roosevelt the Progressive did much better at the polls than Taft the Republican, but Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected and through a World War and the following business boom the Progressive Party ceased to exist, but its policies and many of its members would be absorbed by the Democratic Party in the 1930s and from this the modern personalities of the two major parties would emerge.

A corollary to Progressive beliefs was that capitalism, the nominal economic system of the United States, has failed, forgetting that the United States from its earliest days never followed laissez faire capitalism. Always there has been government interference in one form or another, attempting to help business or control it. The amazing accomplishment that is the United States of America is the product of Almost Capitalism – one wonders what might have developed under true capitalism.