Saturday, November 24, 2018

Twenty-First Century Universities: Civilization's Suicide Pill

A February 2014 edition of The Michigan Daily reported in a front-page story about a “$3 million donation to create virtual curriculum for Fall 2015.” The story appeared under the headline “Grant expands Islamic studies” and featured quotes from Professor Pauline Jones Luong.

The article prompts certain questions: are similar grants found for the study of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity? Or lesser-known religions such as Jainism or Sikhism?

From the article, one has no evidence to conclude anything specific about the Islamic Studies program, but in the larger context of the contemporary university, there is reason to wonder if it will promote Islam rather than present Islam. There is reason to wonder if it will shy away from concepts like Hadd and Hudud.

The larger context which motivates these questions is the contemporary university’s subversiveness. Western Civilization has historically valued political liberty; modern universities tend to stifle any diversity of political thought, even as they claim to champion diversity of race, religion, or gender.

European culture has fostered individual freedom; contemporary universities have worked to dampen freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other metrics of personal liberty.

It is reasonable to ask, then, whether the modern university will present Islam in a manner which complements the university’s general attack on Western Civilization. There is certainly a great deal within Islam which does not promote individual political liberty or personal freedom. Historically, Muslim-majority nations have been hesitant to adopt free speech, or to adopt a form of government composed of freely-elected representatives.

Among those Muslim-majority nations which have instituted some form of free election, the ideological implications of Islam’s social and political vision prevent a lively debate about issues which touch the Islamic worldview.

Will the contemporary university teach about Islam in a way which helps students to appreciate the unprecedented degree of freedom which Western Civilization has given? Or will that freedom, and the dangers which threaten it, be ignored?

Thursday, September 20, 2018

The Abuser-in-Chief: Bill Clinton Guilty and Impeached

In the United States, it rarely happens that Congress impeaches a president. It has happened only twice, so far, in the nearly 250 years that the nation has existed. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached.

Over a century later, Bill Clinton would be impeached.

Naturally, impeachments are both political and partisan. Because Bill Clinton was a Democrat, his party defended him. As historian Andrew McCarthy writes, “Democrats, prominently including women’s-rights advocates, closed ranks around Bill Clinton.”

Clinton had committed several crimes, which began to be exposed as investigators started to examine charges filed against him in connection with complaints brought forth in civil lawsuits. McCarthy writes:

According to the victim’s credible accusation, Clinton had raped Juanita Broaddrick in 1978.

This crime is shocking enough, but even more so when the reader considers that Clinton held an elected office when he committed the offense:

Clinton, at the time, was the 32-year-old attorney general of Arkansas.

As this crime was being investigated, others came to light. Bill Clinton had a habitual pattern of sexual assault. Officials eventually compiled a long list of victims.

Unlike other cases in which allegations of impropriety are made against some government official, in Clinton’s case, these were no mere allegations. The results of court proceedings confirm that Clinton acted criminally.

His sexual assault against Ms. Broaddrick came to light during the investigation of Clinton’s obstruction of a sexual-harassment suit filed against him by another woman, Paula Jones. She alleged that, while governor of Arkansas, Clinton had exposed himself to her, demanding oral sex. She declined and fled from the room.

The court worked to find justice for the victims. Clinton, in an effort end the proceedings, negotiated an agreement. He hoped to avoid further attention from judges.

President Clinton eventually paid $850,000 to settle the matter out of court.

But despite ending the civil suit with an out-of-court settlement, Clinton was still held responsible by the justice system for his crimes. Further victims, Leslie Millwee and Kathleen Willey, presented testimony.

When asked by investigators about his activities, Clinton lied. He lied after having taken an oath to present honest statements. He lied to court officials. That is a serious crime.

The president was later held in contempt of court by a federal judge for providing perjurious testimony. That testimony was about Monica Lewinsky. It was also through Ms. Jones’s case that we discovered that Clinton, while the 50-year-old president of the United States, had arranged Oval Office sexual liaisons with the then-22-year-old White House intern.

Because he was found guilty of perjury, Bill Clinton’s law license was taken from him. His is no longer allowed to appear as a lawyer in court, or to sign any documents as a lawyer.

The courts fined Clinton $90,000.00 for his perjury in the Paula Jones case, and $25,000 for the Monica Lewinsky case.

But President Clinton paid the highest price for his crimes when he was impeached by Congress. Only two presidents have been impeached in the 250-year-history of the United States (so far). Clinton’s legacy has been permanently marked: history books for centuries into the future will note his impeachment.

Oddly, although his crimes were against women, some of strongest supporters were women: Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, Gloria Steinem, Joy Behar, and others. These women spoke publicly, defending Bill Clinton.

There is no doubt that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assault. There are questions about why women would defend such a man.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

African-American Leaders Praise Eisenhower

On August 9, 1955, the Washington Post ran a headline proclaiming that President “Ike” Eisenhower had made “far advances in” the “field of civil rights.” The article underneath cited achievements which his administration had made on behalf Black citizens.

Eisenhower had been in office for over two years by the time this story appeared. The story was prompted by a report issued by Val J. Washington, a politically successful and influential African-American. Washington was

director of minorities for the Republican National Committee. Washington had sent him a copy of a report praising the record of the present Administration on racial issues and saying the Eisenhower approach on civil rights had been “one of action - not words.”

During the 1952 election, Eisenhower had explained the goals he would pursue as president: he would desegregate and integrate the military, the federal government, and the District of Columbia, including schools and public accommodations.

Despite fierce resistance from Democratic Party leaders like Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, Ike accomplished those objectives. In addition, he appointed Blacks to important federal posts.

It was during Eisenhower’s administration that, for the first time ever, an African-American was part of a presidential cabinet meeting.

Val Washington had written an assessment of Ike’s achievements during those first two years:

The report, which said the Republican Party has fulfilled its 1952 campaign promises on civil rights, and the President’s acknowledgement, were made public by the Republican National Committee.

As part of the report, Washington had identified fourteen promises made by Eisenhower regarding civil rights issues during the 1952 campaign.

He said with the recent appointment of E. Frederic Morrow, a Negro, to a post in the executive office of the President, the 14-point program of campaign promises to minorities has been fulfilled.

Morrow was the first Black appointed to an executive-level post inside the White House. Morrow’s work was at such a high level that he oversaw Nelson Rockefeller. In 1955, it was truly a novel idea that an African-American would be in a supervisory position over a member of the wealthy and influential Rockefeller family. But that’s the way Ike thought it should be.

The report not only summarized what Eisenhower had accomplished, but hinted at what lay ahead:

The report laid stress on the ending of segregation in the Nation’s Capital, elimination of “bias and Jim Crow” in Federal departments and agencies, appointment of Negroes to important Federal positions, strengthening of the civil rights section in the Justice Department which prosecutes violations of civil rights law, and enforcement of the non-discriminatory clauses of the Taft-Hartley Act.

When Ike took office, he found that there were a number of civil rights regulations which already existed, but which had not been enforced. In addition to the Taft-Hartley Act, there were laws banning segregation in the District of Columbia, and Executive Order 9981. He simply began implementing regulations which were already on the books.

Moving forward, Eisenhower would carry out the changes required by the famous Brown vs. Board of Education decision, also in 1955. This would ultimately result in the tumultuous confrontation in which Ike used federal troops. Orval Faubus and the Democratic Party were blocking Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Ike obtained admission into the school for nine students, the famous “Little Rock Nine,” by using soldiers to protect the students and secure their entrance into the school.

Fearlessly, Eisenhower pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and the Civil Rights Act of 1960, through Congress, against angry hostility from Senators Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy.

Although civil rights leaders were praising Ike’s work in 1955, they were overjoyed to see that he would advance even farther in the cause of civil rights in the subsequent years.

Friday, August 17, 2018

The Quiet Civil Rights Hero: Eisenhower Acts Instead of Speaking

In early 1952, General “Ike” Eisenhower was wondering whether or not he should become a candidate for the presidency of the United States. He had a number of characteristics which would make him a good candidate, and a good president: he was popular with the public, he had leadership experience both in the military and in politics, both in wartime and in peacetime.

He was also reliable advocate for civil rights.

But he was not yet certain that he wanted to be president.

On March 24, 1952, Herbert Brownell met with Eisenhower. Brownell had experience organizing political campaigns. The two men quickly found common ground: both agreed that a president should be “to eliminate discrimination against black citizens in every area,” as Brownell phrased it.

Brownell, and other leaders, persuaded Ike be a candidate.

Later that year, Ike accepted the nomination to be the Republican Party’s candidate for the presidency. His running mate was Richard Nixon. Like Ike, Nixon was in favor of integration and desegregation.

The opposition, the Democratic Party’s ticket, included staunch segregationist John Sparkman.

On the question of civil rights, there was a clear difference between the two tickets. Nonetheless, this was not an attention-getting concern in the campaign.

In the 1952 election, central matters were the Korean War, the global threats posed by the USSR and by communist China, and scandals about corrupt officials inside the federal government. There were also concerns about education and the economy.

Despite the fact that civil rights weren’t getting much attention in the media, Eisenhower explained to Brownell that, as president, he would take action to secure freedoms for African-Americans. This was not widely reported or discussed during the election, as historian David Nichols writes:

Civil rights would not be a major issue in the 1952 presidential election. A cluster of cases - subsequently known as Brown v. Board of Education - challenging Plessy v. Ferguson was scheduled for review by the Supreme Court, but no ruling was imminent. Eisenhower’s commitment to Brownell in invoke federal authority against discrimination was not a political strategy aimed at garnering votes; it was, as he stated years later, “a matter of justice.”

After winning the 1952 election by a solid margin - including a large percentage both of Black voters and of female voters - Eisenhower set to work on his civil rights agenda. He method was to act rather than to speak.

Ike appointed Herbert Brownell to be Attorney General. Brownell was Ike’s teammate in many of the civil rights advancements made during the 1950s.

Eisenhower didn’t give major speeches on the topic, didn’t release official statements about it, and didn’t discuss it at press conferences. But silently, behind the scenes, he accomplished significant milestones.

During his presidency, he desegregated the military, the federal government, and the entire District of Columbia. He generated, and gained congressional approval for, two civil rights bills. He implemented the actions implied in the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Famously, when Democrat Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, prevented African-American students from attending Little Rock Central High School, Eisenhower sent soldiers to protect the “Little Rock Nine” and assure their admission into the high school.

Although each of these events was a noteworthy step in the struggle for civil rights, Ike remained quiet. He gave no in-depth interviews about the matter.

The decade of the 1950s was a watershed moment in United States history. By the end of the decade, major civil rights objectives had been achieved: an inevitable movement toward the desegregation and integration of schools was in motion; Blacks were gaining equal access to public accommodations (buses, lunch counters, etc.); the percentage of African-Americans who voted was increasing.

The president who brought about this dramatic change worked behind the scenes, not seeking attention. It was Eisenhower’s actions, not his words, that changed the world.

Thursday, August 9, 2018

Eisenhower Works for Desegregation and Integration: A Lifelong Commitment to Civil Rights

Before and during his years in the White House, President Eisenhower worked for racial desegregation and integration. In late 1944 and early 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower deliberately defied the policies of Franklin Roosevelt’s War Department by ordering Black and White soldiers to fight side-by-side as equals.

After WW2 ended, Eisenhower spoke to Congress in April 1948, as historian William Hitchcock writes:

Soon after he left the army, while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on universal military service, Eisenhower was invited to give his views on racial segregation in the military. His response was quite lengthy. The army, he opined, “is just one of the mirrors that holds up to our faces the United States of America … There is race prejudice in this country.”

Ike’s statements to Congress moved President Truman to issue the famous Executive Order 9981 in July 1948. Truman’s order hoped to desegregate the armed forces. Sadly, the Democrats - Truman’s own party - prevented his order from being implemented.

Reflecting on his career in the military, Eisenhower saw that segregation was not helpful. He’d integrated the soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge because he knew that it was the right thing to do: it formed the most effective fighting force and gave the Allies a chance to win.

He spoke about the segregation that was in place when he first joined the army four decades earlier, calling it “extreme” and unnecessary.

Embracing the ideas of desegregation and integration, Eisenhower believed, were signs of maturity.

As president, only two weeks after his inauguration, Ike accomplished an end to segregation in the federal government, in the armed services, and in entire area of Washington, D.C.

Eventually, Eisenhower hoped, “the human race may finally grow up,” and such concerns would disappear.

Eisenhower’s support for civil rights was reliable and immovable, but also unemotional, unsentimental, and dispassionate. He saw equal civil rights as simple justice.

His most significant actions on behalf of civil rights were accompanied by his understated and calm words. When he ordered federal soldiers to Little Rock to override the Arkansas State Police, he did not give a fiery rousing speech on the matter. He simply did it.

Eisenhower saw segregation, and the laws which supported it, as symptoms rather than causes. They were the effects of a deeper problem in society. Segregation grew organically out of certain attitudes and beliefs, as William Hitchcock writes:

These comments reveal a man who believed that racial segregation in both the army and the nation had an organic quality. It was unpleasant and probably wrong.

In the 1952 presidential election, Eisenhower ran as the Republican candidate against a segregationist ticket put forth by the Democrat Party.

The difference was clear to the voters in general, and very clear to African-American voters in particular.

In his first press conference as a candidate, held in Abilene on June 5, 1952, he declared his “unalterable support of fairness and equality among all types of American citizens.”

Pollsters were stunned by large number of Blacks who voted for Eisenhower. During his first four years in office, he earned their confidence, which played a role in his re-election in 1956.

Friday, August 3, 2018

Clinton’s Wars: Bill and Hillary Use Military Force

President Bill Clinton was in office from January 1993 to January 2001. During those years, he requested and authorized many military operations. Both President Clinton and his wife Hillary often spoke publicly of her role: she not only advised him, but often made decisions with him.

The foreign policy and military policy of those years, then, is the product of both Bill and Hillary.

When discussing military activities, it is important to note that officially planned and authorized operations are given names in all capital letters.

The two major regions for Clinton’s military operations were the Balkans and southwest Asia. In these places, Clinton used drones extensively, both for reconnaissance and for attack.

Shortly before Clinton took office, the country of Yugoslavia had disintegrated into six or seven smaller nations: Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo. These nations were often at war with each other, and often experiencing civil war within themselves.

For a variety of reasons, President Bill Clinton made extensive use of the United States military, supporting one side or another in these conflicts.

Operations DENY FLIGHT (12 April 1993 - 20 December 1995) and DELIBERATE FORCE (30 August 1995 - 20 September 1995) were conducted over the countries which composed the former Yugoslavia. The latter operation alone dropped more than 1,026 bombs, primarily on Serbia.

An operation variously named ALLIED FORCE or NOBLE ANVIL (24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999) directed several thousand bombs and missiles against regions within the area of the former Yugoslavia.

The Balkans received much of Clinton’s attention. Other major operations in the territories of the former Yugoslavia included ABLE SENTRY (1993), QUICK LIFT (1995), NOMAD VIGIL (1995) and NOMAD ENDEAVOR (1997), PHOENIX MOAT and JOINT ENDEAVOR (1995), DECISIVE EDGE (1996), JOINT GUARD and DELIBERATE GUARD (1996), SILVER WAKE (1997), DETERMINED FALCON (1998), DELIBERATE FORGE (1998), BALKON CALM (1998), EAGLE EYE (1998), SUSTAIN HOPE or SHINING HOPE (1999), JOINT GUARDIAN (1999), and JOINT FORCE (1999).

In southwest Asia, Clinton’s main focus was on Iraq. Concerned about the dictator Saddam Hussein’s manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction, President Bill Clinton ordered numerous bombings in an effort to destroy the factories and laboratories which were producing biological and chemical weapons (including poison gas).

Clinton was also hoping to reduce or stop Hussein’s genocidal killing of the Kurds. Kurds are an ethnic minority in northern Iraq. Likewise, Clinton hoped to slow the Baath Party’s human rights violations. ‘Baath’ was the name of Hussein’s political party; it routinely tortured, blackmailed, extorted, and murdered Iraqi citizens.

The military uses the term ‘SW Asia’ for what the news media call the ‘Near East’ or ‘Middle East’ - operations there included INTRINSIC ACTION (1993), VIGILANT WARRIOR and VIGILANT SENTINEL (1993), QUICK TRANSIT (1997), NORTHERN WATCH (1997), PHOENIX SCORPION (1997), and DESERT THUNDER (1998).

A one-day operation named DESERT STRIKE (03 September 1996) sent 44 missiles in Iraq.

In operation DESERT FOX (16 December 1998 to 19 December 1998), over 600 missiles and bombs were directed against Iran’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The missions listed above, along with others not mentioned here, involved thousands of soldiers and aircraft. Thousands of sorties were flown, and thousands of bombs and missiles used in Yugoslavia and Iraq. A ‘sortie’ is a mission for a military aircraft.

President Bill Clinton requested and authorized missions in other parts of the world, as well. But his main attention was directed toward the two regions discussed above.

Naturally, there has been extensive political debate about these uses of the United States military forces. Were these missions in the best interests of the United States? Presidents are expected to take military action when the nation’s interests can be served that way.

Clinton’s predecessor in the White House, President George H.W. Bush, used the military less than Clinton did. Clinton’s successor, President George W. Bush, used the military to the same extent, or perhaps more, than Clinton did.

Monday, June 25, 2018

Eisenhower Chooses Everett J. Morrow and Val J. Washington as Top-Level White House Advisors

The U.S. presidential elections of 1952 and 1956 occurred in the midst of what has become known as the ‘civil rights movement.’ The Supreme Court handed down its Brown vs. Board of Education decision in May 1954, and the Montgomery bus boycott began in December 1956.

In 1952, the Democratic Party nominated John Sparkman, an avowed segregationist, to its national ticket. Sparkman was the candidate for vice president; the Democratic candidate for president was Adlai Stevenson. The Republican party nominated Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, who favored integration and desegregation. Black voters were faced with a clear choice.

African-American groups took observable actions: the National Council of Negro Democrats endorsed Eisenhower for president. The Stevenson-Sparkman ticket was shocking to Black voters. Historians at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center write that not only was Eisenhower popular because he was a WW2 hero and projected a friendly and likeable personality, but also that

Eisenhower also cut into Stevenson’s margins in many Democratic constituencies, including African Americans, who voted in larger proportion for the President than for any Republican candidate since Herbert Hoover.

Once in office, Ike moved forward: he appointed Everett Frederic Morrow to an executive office. No Black leader had held a job at a level this high before. On July 10, 1955, the Detroit Free Press ran an AP wire story about Morrow, under the headline “White House Picks Negro for Top Spot,” stating that

He will be administrative officer of the White House “Special Projects Group” which comprises advisers to the President on foreign, economic, disarmament and other problems.

Historian Steve Neal writes that Eisenhower also “established the United States Commission on Civil Rights.” In both 1957 and in 1960, Ike moved the first two civil rights bills of the twentieth century through Congress, against opposition from Democrats like Lyndon Johnson and John Sparkman. Democratic Senator Robert Byrd also opposed the civil rights bills, and opposed desegregation and integration in any form, yet Hillary Clinton called him a “friend and mentor.” Steve Neal writes:

Eisenhower enforced the Court’s decision in sending federal troops into Little Rock, and he went on to establish a civil rights division in the Justice Department in 1957 that committed the federal government to defend the rights of minorities and provided momentum to the civil rights movement.

Eisenhower appointed another African-American, Valores James Washington, to be a top-level advisor in the White House. Given his cumbersome name, he usually asked people to refer to him as Val J. Washington, and he had also worked as one of Eisenhower’s strategists during the 1952 election. He also held various offices within the Republican Party.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

African-Americans Acquire Significant Roles in the Eisenhower Administration: Black Leaders Manage Central Duties in Ike’s White House

On July 10, 1955, the Washington Post and Times Herald contained an article headlined “Negro Named to Ike’s Staff.” The article revealed that no previous president had ever appointed an African-American to such an important office:

President Eisenhower yesterday named a Negro for the first time to an important post in his executive office.

On July 12, 1955, the New York Times ran a brief article under the headline, “White House Aide Sworn.” But the small size of the article belied its historical significance.

When Everett Frederic Morrow took his oath of office, he was living proof that President Eisenhower was creating equal opportunities for African-Americans. Never before had a Black man achieved the high standing that Mr. Morrow obtained that day, as the Times stated:

Everett F. Morrow was sworn in today as a White House administrative officer, the first Negro to hold a position of that rank.

Mr. Morrow had experiences and connections from his previous work at the CBS network and in the NAACP.

Ike’s administration had implemented a list of fourteen actions designed to promote and establish civil rights. President Eisenhower also worked to obtain congressional approval for the 1957 Civil Right Bill.

Angered by Ike’s work, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd opposed the Civil Rights Bill by voting against it, while Democratic Senator (and later president) Lyndon Johnson opposed the bill by offering amendments which would prevent its implementation.

Despite such vicious opposition to civil rights, President Eisenhower continued to work in support of civil rights, confirming the decision by the National Council of Negro Democrats to endorse him in the 1952 presidential election. That shocking action was taken by this group because it understood that the Democratic Party’s national candidates offered no meaningful opposition to segregation.

Many leaders in the Democratic Party, like Senators Byrd and Johnson, were infuriated that African-American voters would dare to vote for a Republican candidate like Eisenhower. Black voters, however, defiantly disobeyed the Democratic Party, because they understood that meaningful advances toward civil rights, and meaningful opposition to segregation, would come only from Ike’s administration.

Saturday, June 23, 2018

Eisenhower Empowers African-Americans: Blacks in Significant Roles in Ike’s Administration

On July 10, 1955, the New York Times ran an Associated Press article with the dateline July 9, Washington. The AP wire story was headlined “Negro Appointed Eisenhower Aide” and represented a meaningful step forward as African-Americans worked toward full civil rights in the 1950s.

The same day, the Los Angels Times ran the same article under the headline, “Negro Appointed to Top Job in Executive Office.” The article stated that

The White House announced today that Everett Frederic Morrow, a Negro, had been named to a top job in President Eisenhower’s executive office.

Large numbers of Black voters took the news as confirmation of their decision to vote Eisenhower into the presidency in 1952. Groups like the National Council of Negro Democrats had taken the bold step of endorsing Eisenhower’s candidacy. The Democratic Party’s ticket for the national election did not convince African-American voters that the Democrats were solidly opposed to segregation.

The Eisenhower campaign drew up a list of fourteen actions which his administration took once he was inaugurated. The steps toward complete civil rights angered key Democrats like Senator Robert Byrd, whom Hillary Clinton called a “friend and mentor.” Byrd voted against Ike’s 1957 Civil Rights bill.

Concerning Everett Frederic Morrow, who’d graduated from Rutgers Law School, the New York Times stated flatly that

He will be the first Negro of such rank in the executive office.

Another Democratic Party leader, Senator (and later president) Lyndon Johnson, retaliated by offering amendments to the 1957 Civil Rights bill which were designed to make the bill’s provisions unenforceable. Johnson’s opposition was more of a stealth tactic, while Byrd’s was a head-on attack.

Inside the White House, Morrow brought important experiences and connections to the Eisenhower administration from his previous posts at the CBS network and at the NAACP.

Mr. Morrow served on President Eisenhower’s campaign train in 1952. He has been with the Columbia Broadcasting System public relations staff and at one time was field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

It was a powerful statement on Eisenhower’s part that Morrow was placed in a supervisory role over Nelson Rockefeller. To have a Black executive overseeing a member of the wealthy and powerful Rockefeller family was a clear sign of Ike’s commitment to civil rights.

The National Council of Negro Democrats shocked observers by endorsing the Republican presidential candidate, but this group knew that meaningful opposition to segregation would come from President Eisenhower, and not from the Democratic Party’s candidates.

Morrow’s grandfather had been a leader and an educator within the Presbyterian Church. The New York Times noted that

He comes from a family long identified with educational and civic development of Negro life.

Prior this appointment, Morrow had worked in the Eisenhower administration as “an advisor on business affairs to Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks.”

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Nixon in 1968: Freedom and Prosperity as Ideological Underpinnings

The name and reputation of Richard Nixon have been so closely linked with the Watergate Scandal and his subsequent resignation from the presidency that it takes a significant mental effort to understand the place he occupied in U.S. politics prior to 1972.

The 1968 election saw the voters of the Democratic Party split between the party’s official nominee, Hubert Humphrey, and a splinter candidate, George Wallace, who left the Democratic Party and took a significant percentage of the party’s voters with him. This split allowed Nixon to win the presidency in 1968.

As was more common at that time, it was not entirely certain whom the two major parties would nominate as their presidential candidates. The delegates would make significant decisions at the conventions.

Both parties vied for the votes of Blacks. Nixon’s Republicans had more success with suburban and rural African-Americans in the South, while Hubert Humphrey would find success among urban Blacks.

In August 1968, William F. Buckley analyzed the views of Richard Nixon which had brought him to the point of obtaining the party’s nomination:

This country has had the most phenomenal success of any country in the world graduating people from poverty into affluence, and that graduation has been the result of economic and private activity, not government activity.

Buckley was arguing that despite struggles about race relations, about the Vietnam War, and about the economic situation of the poor, the United States still enjoyed a fundamentally sound condition, both in terms of liberty and in terms of providing opportunities for its citizens.

The limits imposed by the citizens upon the government provide general prosperity and individual opportunities. The government being restrained, people are free to work, save, and find chances for advancement. The mechanisms for prosperity are, then, individual initiative and the liberty to do with one’s money as one pleases.

Buckley argued that Nixon’s view was to preserve the sources of America’s strength. “Under the circumstances,” Nixon “wants to maintain those wellsprings of action.” The civil rights struggle of 1950s and 1960s was taking on an added dimension: economic concerns.

Nixon’s view, in sum, was to find the foundations of what was working well for the people of the nation, and protect and preserve those foundations.

The earlier phases of the civil rights movement had focused on voting rights and access to buses. The later phases also addressed the concept of equal opportunity.

Nixon created opportunities, as historian Conrad Black writes:

On May 16, Nixon invoked “the silent center who do not demonstrate, who do not picket or protest loudly.” He was offering the African-Americans government tax incentives for small business and home improvements in their areas and neighborhoods. He had given up on notions of vast, horribly costly slum clearances compulsory relocations of people. If standards of living and quality of life could be improved where people were, all the rest would follow. He was promising a hard crackdown on crime and violence.

Violent crime was disproportionately impacting the Black urban community. Opportunities would be created by reducing crime and reducing the government regulations which had prevented African-American entrepreneurs from experiencing success with their small business.

Most voters were repelled by the idea, proposed by the Democratic Party, of forced relocations of citizens from one neighborhood to another. Nixon won votes by rejecting that idea.

Nixon also proposed an end to the draft and end to the Vietnam War. President Kennedy had placed U.S. combat troops into Vietnam, and Johnson had greatly increased the number of troops there. Candidate Humphrey proposed further troop increases. Nixon’s proposal to end the war was popular. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower had kept U.S. troops out of Vietnam, and had urged future presidents to do likewise. While Kennedy and Johnson ignored Ike’s advice, Nixon, having been Eisenhower’s vice president, would get American soldiers out of Vietnam.

Truly equal opportunities yield unequal results, because people make different choices. So talk of ‘equality’ in politics needs to be categorized into equality of rights and opportunities on the one hand, and on the other hand equality of property on the other.

Equality of property - i.e., everyone has the same amount of money - can only be achieved by the continuous violation of civil rights. Buckley said,

Unless you have freedom to be unequal there is no such thing as freedom. Every single person who owns a Ford car today is considered, by terms of international statistics, as being especially privileged. My point is that he worked to achieve it and that we ought to encourage a system which permits people like and you and people like Mr. Smith and people like the technicians in this room to make progress. The fact that they make more progress than other people is not their fault, nor is it the fault of other people. It’s the fault of freedom, but this I judge to be the price that we ought to be willing to pay in order to indulge the great animating force of progress in the world.

No matter how well-intended or how carefully calculated, government intervention is, first, a violation of the liberty of the individual, and second, not able to provide the anticipated equality and prosperity.

Although it is tempting to ask for government intervention, the price of freedom and dignity is the self-restraint not to request some manner of regulation. Buckley noted

I think that the strongest line that he could take is to face the people of the United States and say, “The reason, the principal reason, for the discontent of our time is because you have been encouraged by a demagogy of the left to believe that the federal government is going to take care of your life for you.” The answer is the federal government A. can’t, B. shouldn’t, C. won’t. Under the circumstances look primarily to your own resources - spiritual, economic, and philosophical - and don’t look to the government to do it because the government is going to fail you.

Although unpleasant to learn, the axiom underlying the phenomena of the modern world is, in Buckley’s words: “Freedom breeds inequality.” If liberty is violated in the pursuit of equality, not only will freedom be lost, but the hoped-for equality will not materialize.

Nixon’s presidency achieved increased opportunities for African-Americans primarily by restraining the government. Between 1968 and 1972, Nixon received increasing support from Black voters, who were encouraged by his actions. The early to mid 1970s are often considered be the end of what historians call ‘the civil rights era,’ as most of the goals of the original civil rights movement had been met.

Friday, March 9, 2018

An Insider’s View: The Sinister Rigidity of Upper-Middle-Class Progressivist America (Part 5)

Although some of them embrace various theologies, progressives are generally suspicious of religion. Those who do accept some manner of religious belief either tend toward institutions which place minimal intellectual commitments on participants (e.g., the Unitarian Universalist Church, or the leftist fringe of the Episcopal-Anglican communion), or they engage in some unique, self-generated, idiopathic spirituality.

Progressives distrust organized religion, and especially the organized religion of someone whose political views diverge from doctrinaire leftism.

The Judeo-Christian tradition, as it exists within Western Civilization, is a favorite target for progressives. It is assumed that such a religious belief system has a symbiotic relationship with racism, sexism, and bigotry of all sorts: in the mind of the progressive, racism causes religion, and religion causes racism.

This dogma is so deeply entrenched in the progressive mind that it is not shaken by allusions to, e.g., Martin Luther King’s founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in conjunction with the Montgomery bus boycott, or his collaboration with Billy Graham.

Likewise, the progressive’s belief that Christianity is evil is not shaken by the role of the Judeo-Christian tradition in the grand historical developments which led to the abolition of slavery and led to women’s suffrage.

When people diverge from the orthodox progressive view on any controversial social question, progressives routinely blame historical Christianity, despite the fact that large and significant numbers of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists also depart from the progressivist views on such social issues.

On religion and social issues, just as on economic matters, progressivists seem unable to see as reasonable any views except their own. The automatic attribution of racism and sexism to anyone who opposes the progressivist agenda reveals a lack of imagination.

Many progressivists also find it difficult to contemplate evidence which points to the failure of progressive policies - that programs designed to reduce poverty actually increase it, that programs designed to reduce crime really increase it, etc.

Progressivism is often characterized by the habit of dismissing both spirituality and liberty. It wrongly attributes all manner of evil to Western Civilization’s Judeo-Christian tradition, but denies the social good which this tradition accomplished. Likewise, it attributes both ill motives and ill effects to personal political liberty and to free markets, but refuses to acknowledge the opportunities which are thereby created.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

An Insider’s View: The Sinister Rigidity of Upper-Middle-Class Progressivist America (Part 4)

To live and work in a community filled largely with people who identify themselves as ‘progressives’ is to gain a certain insight both into their world and into their worldview.

Many of them, on a personal level, are friendly and even kind.

Progressivism, however, manifests itself within them as a rigidity of thought. A significant number of them imagine that racism and a desire to inflict suffering on the lower classes are the only possible motives for endorsing lower tax rates.

They cannot entertain even as a remote possibility that a proposal to reduce taxes would be motivated by a sincere wish to ease the burdens on the middle and lower classes, and a desire to create economic opportunities which could lift workers out of the bottommost classes.

Likewise, many progressives cannot conceptualize that deregulation, e.g., the easing of zoning ordinances about which buildings might be constructed on which types of real estate, as a principle could provide opportunities for creative and self-empowered economic activity on the parts of individuals in a society.

Progressives often find it difficult to belief that regulation in the forms of various licenses or permits often constitutes an obstacle to creating opportunities - equal opportunities - for workers and entrepreneurs of any race. The opportunities created by deregulation are paths out of poverty.

It is probably worthwhile to attempt to make a distinction between hardcore progressives, on the one hand, and on the other hand, voters who vote in line with the progressive agenda because they’re surrounded almost exclusively by people and media which endorse it.

Many progressives are dismissive of “outside information that doesn’t support” their agendas and “their belief system,” in the words of an anonymous author on the “Alternet” website.

They cling tightly to the notion that anyone who opposes their candidates or legislative initiatives must be a racist. Anything introduced as evidence to the contrary will be dismissed a priori as false.

Progressives usually simply ignore the leadership and accomplishments of women and men like Condoleezza Rice, J.C. Watts, Herman Cain, Alan Keyes, and many others. On those rare occasions when the existence of such people is acknowledged, they are written off as bribed or brainwashed, or simply labeled Uncle Tom.

When deregulation and tax cuts create jobs for African-American workers and Hispanic workers, and create opportunities for Black entrepreneurs and Latino entrepreneurs, progressive media outlets simply ignore these events.

When private sector corporations, not government agencies, create a system to fund ‘entrepreneurs of color’ in downtown Detroit, and when that model is copied by business communities in other cities, progressives merely bemoan a lack of taxpayer funded initiatives to deal with a situation which the private sector is already in the process of fixing.

Certainly, it would not be fair to expect members of the progressivist movement to embrace the very views which they reject, and which their movement was designed to undermine. But in rational discourse, it would be sensible to expect that they should at least understand the internal logic of opposing views, if for no other reason than to better argue against them.

But progressives do not seem to truly understand the notion that a free market, as opposed to a crony or statist system, is the best source of equal opportunity for individuals of any race, religion, ethnicity, culture, gender, or other demographic variable.

Historically, deregulation has been the chief effective opponent of racism: eliminating ‘Jim Crow’ laws was a form of deregulation. Rosa Parks fought against government regulations about the riders of a government-owned transportation agency.

The fugitive slave laws were examples of positive legislation promoting racism. Getting rid of them was an example of deregulation. Segregation was legislated, and enforcing it was a government program.

An entrepreneur hopes to, and will be successful only as long as she or he does, manufacture the largest possible amount of high-quality product at low prices. A laissez-faire economy cannot and will not bother to look at the color of a person’s skin.

Progressives usually assume or believe that anyone who does not enthusiastically support their candidates or legislative initiatives is a racist or a misogynist.

There is nothing less racist than a free market. This is a concept with progressives cannot entertain or understand.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

An Insider’s View: The Sinister Rigidity of Upper-Middle-Class Progressivist America (Part 3)

As a social or psychological phenomenon, progressivism began as an idealistic program of reform. Its first major appearance was in the early 1900s, and among the earlier followers of progressives like Woodrow Wilson, there were some who sincerely believed that they could benefit the nation, or even the world, with their progressive policies.

At some point, however, a segment within the progressive movement began to operate rather cynically, maintaining the rhetoric of political reform, social reform, and economic reform, but using that wording to cover their motives of self-interest.

The cynics within the progressive movement could exploit their more naive fellows.

Although progressivism did manage to implement some of its policies during various segments of American political history, it did not achieve consistent power: Coolidge was able to restore fiscal balance after Wilson’s excesses; Reagan was able to moderate some of Carter’s more bizarre actions.

Even during those time periods in which progressives managed to hold power and enforce their policies, they did not obtain the results they sought. Wilson’s extreme intervention into the economy didn’t bring about the benefits he hoped to obtain.

Over the course of the twentieth century, progressivism became frustrated, and frustration led to anger. Fear joined anger: fear that the progressive agenda would not be implemented or would not succeed if implemented. Additionally, progressivist propaganda generated fear in order to prompt the voters to embrace progressivism, warning the voters about some looming disaster which could be avoided only by adopting progressivist policies.

Characterized by fear and anger, later versions of progressivism operated mainly by catastrophizing and demonizing: to adopt progressive policies was to avoid a catastrophe; to reject progressive policies or candidates was a catastrophe. Candidates or policies which were not progressive were not merely wrong, they were evil, and had to be opposed at all costs.

Cynics fostering fear and anger; fear and anger leading to catastrophization and demonization: the electorate seemed to grow weary of this version of progressivism.

By November 2016, the voters saw Hillary Clinton as someone who promoted fear and anger, and who relied on that fear and anger to fuel her political activities. Whether or not Hillary herself was an angry person didn’t matter. Voters perceived that she needed and wanted the voters to be angry and afraid, and that she was working to ensure that they were.

Whether or not she had goals and a vision, Hillary was perceived as a candidate who was primarily “against” something, and who did not have a constructive or affirmative vision for the nation’s future. She didn’t communicate specific policy goals, although she may have had them posted on her campaign’s website.

By contrast, Donald Trump, despite his rhetorical flaws, projected a positive vision for the nation’s future and specific policy goals.

The progressive establishment co-opts and subverts educational institutions as one of its primarily vehicles. This has led to a skepticism among voters about some aspects of education. The influence of progressivism on schools, colleges, and universities is a complex phenomenon which would require a longer narrative than will be presented here. But because of progressivist influences, certain segments of the educational establishment have lost credibility in the minds of the voters.

The “insider’s view” of one who lives and works a community filled primarily with progressive voters reveals that they are often rather nice and friendly people, but they find it nearly impossible to entertain certain ideas.

Many progressives cannot believe, e.g., that anything brought forth under the title “tax cut” can be beneficial to middle-income and lower-income citizens. For the progressive, it is an article of faith that “tax cut” is always an excuse to line pockets of those who are already wealthy, and to do so at the expense of the poor. Despite any empirical or mathematical evidence, the progressive cannot, and will not, consider the possibility that tax cuts allow middle-income and lower-income citizens to retain more of their own hard-earned wages.

Likewise, progressives largely believe that any form of deregulation cannot have beneficial effects. They are incapable of entertaining even the possibility that deregulation of certain industries could create well-paying jobs and lift people out of poverty.

Reason would not demand, of course, that progressives accept ideas which are contrary to their own ideology. But reason would demand that they at least understand or explore such ideas, if for no other reason than to produce counterarguments. Instead, progressives reject such ideas out of hand, as if they are a priori identifiable as nonsensical gibberish.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

An Insider’s View: The Sinister Rigidity of Upper-Middle-Class Progressivist America (Part 2)

In the wake of the November 2016 presidential election in the United States, the ‘progressive movement’ was left in shock. Its followers did not understand how or why they had lost.

Why hadn’t the voters given an overwhelming landslide victory to the progressives? In the words of an anonymous author at the ‘Alternet’ website, many of the progressives

don't understand the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of the choices they’ve made and the horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe.

The big surprise was that many African-American voters, and many Latino voters, chose to vote against Hillary Clinton. The progressives were mystified. Although Hillary styled herself as a progressive who would be a messiah for the Black and Hispanic voters, her assumptions were in fact quite racist: she assumed that African-Americans and Latinos were obliged to vote for her simply because they were African-Americans and Latinos.

This is the essence of progressive ‘identity politics’ - Hillary assumed that people vote a certain way because they belong to a racial or cultural demographic group.

It had not occurred to the progressives that people might vote based on their desires for economic opportunity or their desires for political liberty.

Progressivism contains a hidden but patronizing and condescending racism within its ideology. It assumes that Blacks and Hispanics, rather than seek opportunity in the economic sphere, should and would seek security and dependence.

Because progressivism’s assumption is wrong, Donald Trump received more African-American and Latino votes than Mitt Romney or John McCain.

To dwell among progressives is, in the words of the anonymous ‘Alternet’ author, to listen “to their political rants” and wince “at their racist/bigoted jokes and epithets.” The progressives who present themselves as the ones who will end racism are in fact the ones who perpetuate racism.

A free market economy is the least racist thing in the world. It doesn’t care about the color of one’s skin; it cares about the amount of effort one produces.

Under the tutelage of progressives, American towns “go from a robust economy with well-kept homes and infrastructure to a struggling economy with shuttered businesses, dilapidated homes and a broken-down infrastructure,” as the ‘Alternet’ writer phrases it. Progressives express rage at these conditions, but don’t understand that their policies have caused it, and don’t understand that continuing their policies will only amplify the misery.

Progressives “don’t understand themselves or the reasons for their anger and frustration.”

Instead of data about society and about the changing beliefs of voters, progressivism “has shaped most of their belief systems.” Progressives seek to redistribute wealth, and to regulate the distribution of benefits and opportunities. They failed to internalize that people - of all races, cultures, and religions - value opportunities and freedoms.

“Systems built on a” progressivist “framework are not conducive to introspection, questioning, learning, or change. When you have a belief system built on” progressivism, “it isn’t open to outside criticism, especially by anyone not a member of your tribe and in a position of power.”

In other words, the progressives were certain that Americans wanted them to intervene in economy, in education, and in social trends. They couldn’t, or wouldn’t, believe that voters wanted an energized economy at home, and a strong national image abroad. Progressivism

doesn’t understand itself and will never listen to anyone outside its bubble. It doesn’t matter how “understanding” you are, how well you listen, what language you use … if you are viewed as an outsider, your views will be automatically discounted.

Progressives have so thoroughly internalized their foundational assumptions that when outside voices “present them any information that contradicts their entrenched beliefs, no matter how sound, how unquestionable, how obvious, they will not even entertain the possibility that it might be true.”

For example, progressives simply can’t bring themselves to believe that poverty can be alleviated by deregulating industries - that such deregulation would spur economic growth, creating not only jobs, but jobs that pay well.

Because they can’t conceptualize such dynamics, they were mystified, and remain puzzled, at the results of the November 2016 election.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

An Insider’s View: The Sinister Rigidity of Upper-Middle-Class Progressivist America (Part 1)

In the wake of the November 2016 U.S. presidential election, an anonymous author on the ‘Alternet’ website wrote:

As the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: “Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”

As the author notes, this analysis is at best incomplete. It is a misdirect. At worst, it’s simply wrong. President Trump received more votes from African-Americans and from Latinos than anyone expected him to receive, and he received more votes from them than any other candidate from his party (McCain or Romney) had received in decades.

Among many questions, one is this: Why did so many Blacks and Hispanics vote for Trump, especially when they were being told that Trump wasn’t their candidate?

Conversely, why did so many African-Americans and Latinos decide to vote against Hillary Clinton?

While it is true, in the words of the anonymous author, that there are “East Coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural America,” that’s not the whole story. The larger narrative cuts across racial, regional, or class groups.

Voters of various demographic groups simply had a hard time believing that Hillary Clinton had their best interests at heart. Donald Trump spoke about revitalizing the national economy and creating jobs. He spoke of the United States as something respectable, and that, in a community of nations, the United States deserves respect.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s message to Blacks and Hispanics was that they should vote for her because they owed allegiance and loyalty to her and to her party. She demanded, expected, and assumed that they would vote for her. They responded by doing the opposite.

The argument that the Democratic Party ‘failed to understand’ the voters is incomplete. In certain situations, Hillary Clinton’s organization may have understood the voters, but either ignored them, or expected party loyalty to overcome the hardships which they were enduring.

Under the Obama administration, African-American incomes and employment reached all-time lows. African-American unemployment reached all-time highs. Hillary Clinton gave no indication that her policies would diverge from Obama’s policies.

During the first year of the Trump administration, Black employment and incomes reached all-time highs, and Black unemployment reached all-time lows. Likewise Latino unemployment reached record lows, and Latino incomes and employment reached all-time highs.

Perhaps Hillary forgot her own slogan: “It’s the economy.” Economic freedom and personal liberty do not know race, religion, region, or culture.

Trump’s simple slogans connected with a sentiment among the voters: the notion that they were tired of sacrificing their personal incomes, their net worths, and their standards of living for some vague globalist ideals promoted jointly by Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Voters were tired of being told to endure shrinking personal freedoms for the sake of some ambiguous hope or fear. The Obama-Clinton message was that the citizens should make sacrifices, not to defend the nation against some existential threat like an attacking military force, but rather to fuel dubious causes.

Trump’s uncomplicated message was that he would simply do what’s best for the nation. Trump said that he would make calculations based on measures like employment, income levels, and economic growth levels.

Although the United States has had a number of presidents who graduated from Ivy League universities, Trump is the first one to have studied economics at an Ivy League university. Perhaps some of Trump’s policies, and their successes, can be traced to the fact that he is, at heart, an economist.