We Stand at Odds Together

As much as we bemoan it, the current divisiveness in American society is not unique or even very remarkable in the history of our Republic. Many issues have divided us more sharply (we did fight a civil war.) Most of these issues have been resolved or have become irrelevant. For instance nobody argues that we should no longer have a whiskey tax or that the Louisiana Purchase was a usurpation of presidential authority.

Within our divisions there are fundamental beliefs on which we all agree.

We believe that individual liberty is of such paramount importance that infringements should be made only after deep thought and extensive debate. In fact the “infringements” that we allow are usually a decision of which individual liberty takes precedence when two or more of them are in irreconcilable conflict. Many of the issues that occupy our attention today involve such conflicts in liberty. A pregnant mother has the right of choice and an unborn infant has a right to live. One person has a right to equal opportunity, and other people have the right to choose with whom they will associate and do business. One person has a right not to enable actions that they see as wrong, and other people have the right to services that person provides. For most of these issues both sides have a viable argument and there is no solution that everybody will agree on.

Fortunately we also believe that disagreement does not warrant violence. There are a few outliers who occupy federal buildings in Oregon, but consider the Bush-Gore election controversy. In many countries this discussion would’ve involved AK-47s in the street. In our country the court made a decision and the losers grumbled while they complied. Today people still argue about this issue but it’s a historical discussion almost devoid of passion. Some of today’s “hot button” issues will also grow cold. Others may remain controversial as long as there is a United States of America and perhaps beyond.

One issue has divided us since before there was a United States of America, and continues to do so today. The division is founded on a common belief, which is that government should represent the will of the people. In one view this means that the role of government includes identifying and eliminating or mitigating situations that adversely affect the people. Such “situations” range from poverty to disaster relief to climate change. In all of these there are people who sincerely believe that government should be figuring out what is wrong and fixing it. In the opposing view, regardless of noble beginnings, government will inexorably intrude into people’s lives and impose restrictions and “solutions” to problems real or imagined. The inevitable result will be unacceptable infringements on personal liberty. Therefore the people must be eternally vigilant in restricting government activities, even those that seem to have desirable results, because in the end the price will not be worth the benefit.

The line drawn between these viewpoints moves over time. For example in the early days of the Republic there was a powerful argument that national defense was the responsibility of states and there should be no military power at the federal level. Until the Louisiana flood of 1927 the government was not seen to have any role in disaster relief; by the time of Katrina in 1995 no one questioned that there should be federal measures to aid in relief and recovery. The EPA, in its early days, administered and enforced many regulations that today are the province of state agencies. At one time the US had a central bank, and today it does not. Every one of these changes has been fraught with argument and acrimony.

There is only one argument that makes no sense, although you hear it frequently, and that is “The people who disagree with me are going to destroy the country.” In all of our history there has been only one issue with that potential and that one has been resolved although we still deal with its echoes every day. For any other issue that you can name the most that can happen is that the line will be drawn – probably temporarily – and that will leave people dissatisfied who are on the near side of the line. Government will undertake programs and make laws to resolve “situations “and some people will see this as unacceptable infringement on personal liberty, whether actual or potential. Government will not address some “situations“ and some people will see this as failure to fulfill a basic role of government.

So the next time you hear somebody wailing that somebody or something is going to destroy the country (or, even more laughably, has already destroyed it) please remind them that they do not have a monopoly on defining America or what it means to be American. We do stand at odds on many things but we stand together on the things that matter.

Known and Unknown Nasty Mega Death

I don’t know the right answer on what to do with Syria –there probably isn’t one.

I do know some things based on the research I have done in chemical warfare in my role as historical author.

I know that the US Army Chemical Corps has intelligence capabilities that you would find hard to believe – I did when I learned about them. If they say Assad used chemicals in Syria, he did. In 2003 they did not say Iraq had chemical weapons, but our leaders of the time weren’t interested in facts. I don’t know if what Obama is telling us is what the Chemical corps is telling him, but I am positive that whatever they are telling him is correct.

I know that chemical weapons, and even more biological, make it easy for somebody to create an even that would make 9/11, by comparison look like a bad multi-car freeway accident.

I know that chemical weapons are disturbingly easy to obtain and use, and are an overwhelming temptation to people who want to hurt us. I know it is critical to our best interest to have them view that step as the third rail of terrorism. I want Abdul el Bozo and his buddies to think about chemical options and decide “Let’s do something else instead – chemicals are about the only thing the Americans are serious about.”

I know the only way to make el Bozo think that way is for him to observe that anybody who sues chemicals gets slapped so hard that they wish they too had done something else instead. I know that having UN resolutions, congressional action, and Presidential red lines be violated without somebody incurring a lot of serious, violent pain will encourage and not discourage el Bozo. 

I know it is not morals, it is not politics, it is not outrage, it is straightforward self-defense to extract a very agonizing price from Assad or whoever else uses chemical weapons. Anybody, anywhere. That is the only chance we have of discouraging their use in our subways, malls, schools, malls and sports events.

I read a long article yesterday about how everyone in Congress is figuring out how to vote based on their constituents opinions – which of course are totally uninformed except for what the media and politicians tell them. Which means all those Congressman view their own re-election as more important than preventing chemical attack on those same constituents. Sad to say, this is shameful but not surprising.

Imagine yourself at Tiger Stadium watching the Ole War Skule whip up on whatever hapless opponent is on the field. Suddenly there is a series of five explosions at about twenty yard intervals down the middle of the fields. You don’t know it, but these are mortar shells fired from the river batture, a mile away over the levee, by el Bozo. He has already jumped on a fast bass boat and is half a mile down river getting safe at 40 miles an hour.

You also don’t know that the vapor cloud spouting up from each explosion is an aerosol mist of SARIN nerve gas. Probably bought pretty cheap as surplus from Syria or Iran.
If the wind is blowing away from you, then after about thirty seconds you notice that pretty much every body on the far side of the stadium seems to be doing some weird dance, a cross between the Zombie and the Robot. If you have binoculars you can see a lot of them are puking and drooling and have dark stains on the front and back of their pants. You won’t notice when they start to fall over and writhe on the bleachers, because by that time everybody up wind will be running for the exits, stomping and grinding each other in the process, and  you’ll have to watch your step to avoid falling in the slippery red mess. Unless of course you are part of it.

If the wind is blowing in your direction, you will feel a mist, kind of like a cloud of hair spray except there is no odor and it feels thick, like tiny motor oil drops. Within a minute you will be doing the Robot/Zombie dance while you drool, puke, poop and pee all over yourself. Good news: this won’t be embarrassing because by this time you won’t really be aware of what’s going on. You won’t even notice when the fat guy behind you falls over, and knocks you down between the bleachers breaking both your legs. 

You will probably lie there in the autumn heat, rotting steadily for several days. SARIN is a persistent agent, meaning it remains a threat to anyone without protective gear, and it takes that long to equip “rescue” workers with full-enclosure suits from other states and military supply centers. A few will be able to come in early to look for survivors; it won’t take many for that purpose.  Probably, Chemical Corps units equipped for heavy decontamination will come in and hose down the entire stadium, bodies and all, and maybe the surrounding parking lot and vehicles. But the odds are pretty low that you will be bothered by any of this.

Think about this scenario before you make up your mind about proposed action in Syria based on what you near from reporters and from Congressmen who want more than anything else for you vote for them. If they’re lucky, el Bozo won’t get his mortar to the batture before you can do that in the next election.

I Believe in America

I believe in America.

 I believe it will continue to be a leader among nations to the ultimate benefit of humanity.

This is not a popular viewpoint today. The vocally patriotic, in between repeating that this is the greatest nation on earth,  among us focus on what they perceive as our short comings and failures, the loss of treasured values and beliefs and various factors that sully our good name and foretell the end of our nation as we have known and loved it.

There is widespread disagreement about what these factors are. We have heard that the nation cannot survive another four years of Bush or of Obama. Our greatness will be brought to an end by the continuation of abortion, or by its prohibition. By the allowance of same sex marriage, or by its restriction. By increased regulation of high finance, or by failure to regulate it. By aiding foreign rebels or by not aiding them. By allowing surveillance or by curtailing it. By allowing amnesty or by not allowing it.

These are all important issues. The idea that any of them, or all of them, will somehow lead to the end of our nation, or even of its leadership role in the world, is simplistic. Anybody who seriously believes this is abysmally ignorant of our history and of our system of government. There has not been a moment since April 19, 1775 when our nation has been free of problems of as great in complexity and import as those of today. At each of those moments, a majority of the population has believed that the welfare, if not the survival, of the United States depended on resolving those issues in the manner that they individually preferred.

Where are we after 238 years of living constantly on the edge of disaster wrought by our own acrimonious decisions? We are imperfectly but undeniably in a position of leadership, wealth and power that has no precedent. We have made incomplete but unquestionable progress in the inclusion of minorities, women, handicapped, and others whose ability to participate in society was unfairly restricted for many decades. Our system of education continues with unaddressed flaws while producing a disproportionate share of the world’s front ranks of innovation and intellect. The rights and freedoms in our Constitution have suffered assault and misinterpretation. Some, after extensive analysis and debate have been curtailed temporarily or permanently, or redefined in ways that not all of us like. The effort to win treatment under those rights is often far more difficult than it should be. And yet our rights have survived centuries of constant attrition.

We remain a land of opportunity. In every field of endeavor, the great achievers and successes include people who started with wealth or other advantage, but also those who started in poverty or with other challenges that would have prohibited their advancement in many societies.

In our 238 years we have done things that were visionary, generous and noble. We have done things that were short-sighted, selfish and shameful. Our record has been mixed by any measurement, and yet we are better off today than we were in what many wistfully regard as the Good Old days even though they were not.

This record of success results from a chaotic process of lurching from crisis to crisis, often ill informed, and governed by emotion and wishful thinking rather than by facts and logic.  How is it that this process has brought us success, rather than to one of the disasters we have so often skirted? I suggest these causes:

1) Our system is tolerant of chaos. Human advances are not made in an orderly fashion. They involve argument, false starts, wasted effort, mistakes and failures. Many cultures and systems insist on a single approach, or treat failure as the closing chapter of an effort. Our system allows all of these to occur repeatedly, while leaving room for continued effort until somehow from the unmarshalled confusion something good results.

2) Our system resists concentration of power. Within my life time I have heard that each of the three branches has become dominant, shifting forever the nature of our government. In each case, the dominance has been curtailed by conscious action, by events, or by counteraction built into the Constitution. The curtailment of states rights is oft-bemoaned, especially in the former Confederacy, and yet each of the states devises its own solutions to many problems, giving us fifty laboratories in which to experiment with the aforementioned chaos.

3) Our system recognizes that humanity is fundamentally motivated by the attraction of benefits for an individual family or other small social unit. “Society” and “Our country” are concepts too grandiose to motivate the everyday activities of most people.  Progress through chaos works because every individual exerts effort for the benefit of self, family and friends. Taken en masse, these efforts amount to general progress because “a rising tide floats all boats.”

4) We believe that there is some higher reason for doing all this, however much we may disagree about what that reason is. With many visible exceptions, the mass of Americans want to pursue their own interests in a way that also contributes to the good of others.

Winston Churchill brilliantly observed that “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.” If we examine democracy as practiced in the U.S. it does not earn many words of praise, because it is flawed in ways that are obvious and continuing. But it passes the ultimate test: it works, as demonstrated by our survival – stumbling, imperfect, but successful – through uncounted threats that could have destroyed us. I expect we will continue to do so, and amid the short-sighted, selfish and shameful we will find our way to some actions that are visionary, generous and noble. That is why I believe in America.  

Mama. Mattie and Dennis Rodman

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