A cult of life

The “baby boomer” generation, when we were young, read tales of World War II, seeming distant to young minds but actually quite proximate. As close as the dreadful events of September 11, 2001, are to the current crop of kids, who view it as history, something which happened before they were born, or before they remember. So was World War II to us.

We read of grinding land wars in Africa and Europe. Of swirling naval battles and island campaigns in the Pacific. We read of the Holocaust, and the unthinkable cruelty of the Nazis to those viewed as “other.” We read of the fate of Allied prisoners imprisoned by harsh Japanese captors. And how seventy years ago this summer, it was all brought to a just and satisfactory conclusion.

There were many tales of heroism, from the small theater of a Marine falling on a hand grenade to save his buddies to the riveting drama of Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo. While militarily insignificant, the raid was the first truly good news of the Pacific campaign, that Japan was vulnerable to attack.

But as the war shuddered to its inevitable conclusion, there were disturbing accounts of desperation, of Japanese volunteers who willingly gave up their lives. Waves of kamikaze pilots, nearly 4,000 in number, attacked Allied ships with what amounted to human-guided, flying bombs. Kamikaze, “divine wind,” was a deeply foreign concept to young Western minds.

Perhaps from our foundation as a free country based on individual liberty, and certainly shaped by religion, we believed in the sanctity of human life. We admired heroism, but cheered the hero who survived as much as one who lost his life in an heroic act. The Marine falling on a grenade was deeply respected, but we did not expect thousands to do so. We would rather they would fight, win the battle, prosecute the war, and come home to take jobs and father children and mow the lawn and go to church on Sunday. We did not expect, nor would we admire, mass suicide.

If we had a cult, it was a cult of life. Death would come in God’s time, not ours.

But here we are, seventy years later, after the Japanese kamikaze waves proved ineffective, with a new cult of death.

We are now in a struggle with Islamic extremists, who twist their religion to justify their war on the West and Western values. Al-Qaeda, ISIS (or ISIL ), and Boko Haram are all examples of this theologically twisted philosophy. They share several fundamental features:

• A blind intolerance for other beliefs. Convert or die.
• Patriarchal and cruel. Women have no rights, gays are put to death.
• Regular use of suicide attackers. Your reward is in paradise, not on Earth.
• Unbelievable brutality. Kidnapping, torture, beheading, immolation, the more gruesome the better.
• Worldwide domination as a goal. International operations are underway, with recent attacks in France, Canada, Belgium, Australia, and the United States, among others.

What could be more antithetical to Western beliefs and culture?

And yet, and yet… we dither in the goal of containing a nuclear Iran. We stand by as the ISIL-declared Caliphate grows in Africa. We continue to avert our eyes… the Fort Hood terrorist attack is officially termed “workplace violence,” its victims denied crucial medical benefits. We refuse to openly recognize the Islamic roots of the enemy. A fringe, twisted, extremist Islamic belief system, but one with millions of supporters.

One only hopes that the next president, whoever he or she is, will recognize the existential nature of this struggle. That if we truly believe in the equality of women, gay rights, and the freedom of expression and religion, there is no accommodation that can be made, no moral equivalence that can be argued. It is time that we clearly state what we stand for: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is foundational. It is who we are.

Let’s only hope that January, 2017, is not too late.

Celebrate! The war is over.

President Obama, in a major foreign policy speech at the National Defense University,  has declared that the war on terror is over. This is a very interesting tactic that might have been very useful if only known to Franklin Roosevelt. In June, 1944, sixty nine years ago, the beaches and fields of Normandy were a muddy, bloody cauldron as allied troops strove to wrest a beachhead from the Nazi juggernaut.  Over 200,000 American, British, and Canadian troops were killed or wounded in a campaign that could have been completely avoided if only Roosevelt had simply declared the war over.

But no matter. The current administration has elected to choose a path of lessening America’s role in the world. The president, his supporters, and confidantes are of the view that America is an enemy of freedom rather that its defender. The newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, has said: “Some anti-Americanism derives simply from our being a colossus that bestrides the earth. But much anti-Americanism derives from the role U.S. political, economic and military power has played in denying such freedoms to others.”

So in support of this view, the administration is cutting military budgets, withdrawing from the heartlands of radical Islamic Jihadism, and is ceding the world  stage to our benevolent competitors. Surely the military planners in the Kremlin and Beijing are celebrating this wondrous gift. And in the vacuum created by America’s withdrawal, they will surely lead the way in advancing the cause of freedom and individual liberty. (News item – Russia backs Syria’s despotic leader, Bashar Al-Assad, and promises to deliver advanced anti-aircraft missile systems).

In the meantime, while asserting that America in the world is too big, the administration is simultaneously arguing that American government at home is too small. Even though the president has declared the end of the war on terror, his National Security Agency is spending billions to collate the phone calls, emails and tweets of hundreds of millions of Americans. The IRS, soon to be responsible for enforcing the onerous terms of the “Affordable Care Act,” was somehow unable to respect the constitutional rights of those who disagree with the President’s politics. And the Justice Department is going after journalists, wiretapping and threatening charges for simply reporting the news.

Where is this heading? Unfortunately, nowhere good. By reducing America’s presence in the world, the cause of freedom will be harmed. Likewise, by growing government’s scope and power at home, our individual liberties are lessened. If you believe that freedom and democracy are fundamentally good, this is not good news. Is this truly the path we want to follow?

Dreams of the sovereign

We’re an odd bunch, we Americans. We prize our individuality, our liberty; we compete, we like to win. But when the situation demands, we coalesce and pull together, then separate again as the crisis passes. World War II was a great example – individual liberty was sacrificed to the greater good of protecting and perpetuating our country, our values, our way of life. We willingly bought War Bonds, submitted to rationing, hung blackout curtains, and joined the services in droves. But after the war, sailors and soldiers and Marines shed their uniforms and returned to the bustling, unruly competition of civilian life.

The key to this collectivization is its voluntary and temporary nature. When we recognize a threat to “us,” we willingly take up the traces. But when subservience is tyrannically imposed, we bristle, resist, and subvert. It's human nature. Note the Arab Spring, the French Revolution, and our own Revolutionary War.

Societies vary in the degree of individualism permitted. For instance, under Islamist rule, thou darest not be Christian. In China, you must not speak your mind unless you are in alignment with the Party. Even in England and Canada, you may be prosecuted for the offense of “offending” another. And many countries on Earth demand that their citizens be disarmed (hint – subservient).

Much to the dismay of the United Nations, we in the United States come from a much different mindset. Our Founding Fathers, reacting to the strictures of the English sovereign, turned that paradigm on its head and declared that “all men are created equal.” Gasp – a concept unknown in the world at that time, and still unknown to vast reaches of the Earth today.

We have something special, folks. Think about it. You are the boss of your life. If you want to be Christian, so be it. If you want to be Muslim, that’s cool. “None of the above” is a perfectly acceptable alternative as well. The government is subordinate to you – you are the sovereign!

So how does a nation of over 300 million individual sovereigns accomplish anything? In spite of the protestations of those of the liberal bent, our system rewards individual effort and risk taking, and the sum of those parts is enormously powerful in giving us all the benefit of a brisk, growing, and munificent engine of wealth. Oh, to be poor in America – the reason that our borders are overrun.

Financial dislocations, depressions, recessions are wholly due to foolish governmental interventions. There are no exceptions. If we were free to each pursue our individual dreams, the sum of our efforts would provide increasing wealth and employment and security. It is government policies, distorting market forces, which cause us pain. Social engineering, the holy grail of progressives, is our bane. With the exception of equal rights for all humans (black, white, female, male, gay, or Episcopalian), they are wrong on all other counts.

Leave us our individual dreams; have faith that the collective result will be excellent. We are each, after all, sovereign.

Our wonderful gift of liberty

Statue of Liberty, 1901, Library of Congress

Two hundred and thirty six years ago, a new nation appeared on the face of the Earth, unlike any other. At its heart, with this core tenet, the Declaration of Independence was radical:

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

Equality was extremely rare on the planet.  The English had their Kings, the Catholics, their popes, the Egyptians, their Pharaohs.  But here was a new country dedicated to the principle that we are all created equal.  The individual freedom flowing from that simple principle has made us the greatest nation in the world.

All men are created equal – no one can tell you what religion to practice, or not practice, or which words you may utter, or print, or with whom you may associate.

All men are created equal – your property is yours, no one may confiscate or use it without your permission or fair compensation.

All men are created equal – the government has no divine right and serves only with the consent of the governed, the people, who have the right “to alter or abolish it.”

It is important to note that we imperfect humans have not perfectly implemented this equality, but have striven to achieve it, driven by bedrock principle, over many years.  Witness the Civil War, the 13^th amendment (slavery abolished), the 19^th amendment (women’s right to vote), the Civil Rights Act, Title IX… the list goes on as we continue to perfect this belief in equality. But to be clear, the individual liberty recognized by our social covenant does not guarantee equal outcomes, rather it affords equal opportunity. 

The results have been very encouraging.  President Barack Obama, billionaire businesswoman Oprah Winfrey, former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall (died 1993) are just the tip of the iceberg.  How about Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard, or Stanley O’Neal, former CEO and chairman of Merrill Lynch. The incidence of successful, powerful, minorities and women continues to escalate, all to our mutual benefit as their ingenuity and drive contributes mightily to our collective success and well being.

Our founding fathers have given us a wonderful gift and our military has sacrificed mightily to help us keep it.  But whether we keep or squander it is up to us.  We can easily vote it away while chasing a mirage of equal outcomes.  Because with individual liberty comes choice and responsibility - the freedom to make choices and then being responsible for the outcome.  If you want equality of outcomes, then we must, perforce, yield up our liberty, forgo our choices.

Here is a better way.  Studies of census data have correlated individual behaviors to poverty over the past 60 years, and some simple relationships have emerged.  Ron Haskins of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institute, recently testifying before Congress, made the following observation:

“… young people can virtually assure that they and their families will avoid poverty if they follow three elementary rules for success – complete at least a high school education, work full time, and wait until age 21 and get married before having a baby.”

Haskins went on to say that young people following those rules would almost certainly join the middle class and those who did not, would not.

Three simple rules.  Individual responsibility.  The outcome is your own doing, for better or for worse.  This is the cost, and the opportunity, of freedom.

Freedom's just another word...

In early May, a monumentally irresponsible MBTA driver crashed his trolley into the rear of another. Proximate cause? Texting while operating a public conveyance. In typical fashion, the Massachusetts legislature is now debating whether to ban texting for all Massachusetts drivers on all public roadways. (That this arose as an MBTA disciplinary matter is apparently not a material issue).

Don’t get me wrong – I do not text while driving and do not support it. But this micromanagement of human behavior is precisely what earned Massachusetts its abysmal 44^th place ranking in personal freedom (“Freedom in the 50 states, an Index of Personal and Economic Freedom”, February 2009, Mercatus Center, George Mason University). Given our existing laws and proclivities, here is the Massachusetts version of proscribed behaviors while driving:

1. Do not drink
2. Do not take drugs
3. Do not text
4. Do not watch DVDs
5. Do not eat pizza
6. Do not read the newspaper (except the Globe – that’s OK)
7. Do not shave or apply makeup
8. Do not shampoo the dog
9. Do not sauté food items on a hibachi
10. Do not weed your window planter boxes

It is possible to take an entirely different approach, one based on outcomes rather than behaviors. Outcomes are countable while behaviors are infinite. For instance, the entire traffic safety code could be replaced with:

1. Keep your vehicle under control at all times.

If you can drink, or text, or shampoo the dog while keeping your vehicle under control at all times, more power to you. (But you can’t – that’s the whole point). This approach would be elegant, efficient, and consistent with the principles of freedom on which our nation was founded. As a matter of fact, all of our laws could be re-crafted in this fashion. Thousands of pages of stultifying laws, regulations, and restrictions could be reduced to a few principled paragraphs.

But it will never happen – and here’s why. There would be no need for a full-time legislature. We would not need fancy offices and big salaries and retirement benefits and perks and multi-million dollar budgets for aides. Can you see your legislature giving up this cushy life they have crafted for themselves? No way – and it is you, dear citizen, who keeps voting (or failing to vote) and thus sustains the status quo. You must be satisfied with it.