Mad As Hell

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One of the most successful films of 1976 was “Network.” The movie featured Howard Beale, a network anchor with declining ratings. In a rage about his impending cancellation, he screams out a window, “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” His anger becomes the feature of a new show and his angry man persona garners a large audience by using his rant as his slogan. He finds that his audience is also “mad as hell,” although not really about any common grievance. Beale becomes the face of their anger.

As an amateur political scientist, I have been puzzling over the continued support for Donald Trump. It defies conventional wisdom. At any other time, his personal failings, bombastic behavior, and legal travails would have long ago eliminated him as a candidate. But now is just not any other time.

I think Trump is a modern Howard Beale, but a presidential candidate instead of a news anchor. For quite a while, perhaps more than two decades, a growing segment of the US population has been undergoing a slow boil. Economics, taxes, government regulations, cultural breakdowns, seemingly endless war, and on and on have hit sore nerves and spiked anger. Who used to be called members of the Silent Majority are no longer silent and they are angry about the state of affairs in the nation. As with the followers of Howard Beale, they may be “mad as hell” about a wide variety of things but their anger coalesces around Trump. Trump says things about the establishment that they want to be said and attacks people and institutions they want to see attacked.

There were approximately 75 million citizens who voted for Trump in 2020 and polls suggest he may have similar support now. For how many of them Trump embodies their anger, who knows. I suspect a number that would surprise many. If only 50%, that means we have roughly 40 million Americans who are fed up with the status in the United States and angry enough to support a candidate for President that the intelligentsia cannot understand and dismisses them merely as deplorables. That is a problem.

Howard Beale’s audience grows bored with him and eventually moves on. Trump’s opponents believe the same thing will happen when Trump is defeated. By election day in 2024, however, Trump’s supporters will have been behind him for eight years. Unlike Howard Beale’s audience, they have not moved on even though they have a host of reasons to do so. The pundits believe Trump is the source of their anger rather than merely its face; that he is nothing more than a boil that, once lanced, will lose its force. But what if he is nothing more than the rod for the populist lightning? What if even if he is defeated, he leaves the angry energy behind? What if once Trump leaves the stage 40 million Americans or more remain “mad as hell” and determined to show they will not take “it” anymore? And what if they conclude they have given the ballot box a try and it no longer works fairly, and must try something else?

I have no idea what the answers are to the questions I pose. I know, however, that the anger is real. How broad and deep? I have no measure, but I think it is real enough that it should not be casually dismissed. Something is happening in this country and whatever it is, it strikes me as dangerous. If it was just the Trump supporters that would be bad enough. But I have a sense that many across the line from the Trump supporters are just as mad. How easily our streets filled with angry Hamas supporters may just be another coal mine canary.

The United States has been at such a crossroads many times before. Often, we have found a way to reconcile the competing interests and become a better society. But sometimes those who have been “mad as hell” have resorted to violence, which occasionally has been widespread. I am not a prophet and cannot foresee our future. I know only this: each crossroads presents the choice of a path. Nothing is inevitable until we make the wrong choice, and only history is the judge. But I fear our time at the crossroads is coming.

© 2023, Thomas Trezise

Drumhead Justice

Drumhead justice refers to the process of summary trials, with little or no investigation, which often result in preordained convictions and severe punishments. The term derives from drumhead courts-martial used by the military, where in the field during the eighteenth century they often occurred at a drum and the drumhead used as a table. Whether the circumstances warrant their use may be debated. Whether they have a place in modern civil society cannot.

Our security and judicial institutions seemingly assure that we prosecute individuals only after thorough investigations and procedural protections of the defendant’s rights. Unfortunately, those institutions wander occasionally, and more frequently, toward summary actions. Events attract the attention of the media, a clamor arises almost immediately for prosecution and conviction of someone, and the police and prosecutors rush to charge and convict to appease the digital mob. They focus on and lionize the victims, and vilify the defendants, with truth lost in the process.

The Kyle Rittenhouse prosecution offers the most recent, and currently most celebrated, example. Almost immediately after the shootings, a meme emerged in the press and social media that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist who traveled to Kenosha to shoot innocent protesters. He should not have been there and armed illegally. That supposed motive, and those facts, fueled the demand for charges against Rittenhouse for murder and nothing less than conviction. The police and prosecution rushed through an investigation and brought those charges within days. The trial has illuminated that shoddy investigation and inept prosecution. Nonetheless, the meme persists despite that facts have emerged to the contrary.

I write not to defend Rittenhouse. His attorneys have that responsibility, in tandem with the judge’s obligation to assure protection of his rights. Instead, I express my concern that the prosecution has attempted to enshrine the meme, grounded neither in fact nor law, as a centerpiece of the trial, and more broadly that we as a society drift each time one of these events happen one step closer to advocating drumhead justice, where only conviction of the defendant matters. I offer three hypotheticals that I hope to illustrate that the defendant’s reasons for being at the scene of a crime are dangerous grounds for prosecution.

In my first hypothetical, I decide one evening that I would like to see what occurs at 2:00a.m. on the block in Atlanta with the highest incidences of violent crime. Perhaps I can engage people there in a discussion and persuade them to abandon their criminal tendencies. Poor judgment? Undoubtedly. Foolish? Certainly. Predictably, I barely start my walk down the street when I am assaulted by a gun-wielding miscreant who robs, shoots, and kills me. At trial, he offers the defense that he is not guilty because I did not belong there and provoked the event. Would you convict or acquit on that defense?

Let’s tinker with the hypothetical. My motives are the same, but I decide to carry a handgun with me even though I have no permit to carry. I am still foolish, but not so much as to ignore the possible risk of harm. As I start down the street the miscreant emerges and places a gun to my head. Tapping my inner Navy Seal, I quickly draw my gun and shoot and kill him. Because of a racial disparity, a hue and cry immediately fills the press and social media labeling me as a racist and the shooting as a hate crime. The prosecution quickly presses murder charges and asserts my guilt is evident as I was where I did not belong and illegally armed, so my shooting was unjustified murder. That I had a gun to my head appears irrelevant to everyone except my attorneys. Would you acquit or convict me of murder and a hate crime?

My gender changes for the final example. The hypothetical is the same as the first. Now I am dressed provocatively. As I walk down the street, I am assaulted, stripped naked, raped, and left lying in the street. The racial disparity from the second hypothetical also appears. At his trial for rape, the defendant asserts as a defense that I intended to provoke him and, as I should not have been there if I did not, the crime is my fault. The racial disparity receives no mention but taints the environment. For decades in this country, white rape defendants successfully defended the charges by turning the focus to the victim in just that manner, while black defendants were convicted and sentenced to death. That has ended, usually.

Do we really want to inject into criminal trials as relevant facts the motives and justifications for either defendants or victims for being at the scene? Don’t we want the prosecutions to address instead their behavior? I submit if we choose the former, we will hold the sheep responsible when they become dinner for the wolves.

Election Fraud Evidence

The nature of evidence admitted in courts may not be as obvious as a lay person might think. Trials invariably involve two types of evidence: Direct evidence and circumstantial evidence. For example, in the context of a murder direct evidence would be testimony of a witness who says he witnessed the defendant shoot the victim. If no eyewitness is available, the prosecution may establish that a gun was found at the scene of the murder, that it had been recently fired, that the gun matched the bullet found in the victim’s body, and that the defendant’s fingerprints were the only fingerprints on the gun. That the gun was found at the scene is direct evidence, but only that the gun was found at the scene and even then a chain of proof would be required to establish that the gun in the courtroom was the same as the gun found at the scene. The rest of the evidence is circumstantial.

Lay people often think circumstantial evidence is unreliable and a matter must be proven by direct evidence. That is not accurate. In fact, most evidence adduced at trials is circumstantial. In the murder example above, the evidence is almost entirely circumstantial but would likely convict beyond a reasonable doubt. Nonetheless, the myth has great influence.

Nowhere is the myth more prevalent than in the arena of election fraud. Social media, pundits, the press, and indeed elected officials and courts, give the Trump allegations of fraud little to no credence because the discussion almost entirely focuses on one type of election fraud – actual fraudulent ballots. That almost always involves a challenge to the authenticity of the voter that cast the ballot. Moreover, the evidence required also is almost always direct evidence. Unless a campaign can show that a witness saw a ballot forged or altered, or that the voter was dead or ineligible under registration rolls, a challenged ballot will stand. The standard is almost impossible to meet and particularly so with a sufficient number of challenged ballots to overturn an election.

Election challenges in the United States almost always have focused on ballot authenticity, which is why almost all have failed. The burden of proof of sufficient errors to reverse an election is practically insurmountable. The challenge to the 2018 election for the Ninth Congressional District in North Carolina is an exception. The hearing into the legitimacy of the election heavily addressed fraud in the process used in the creation and counting of mail-in ballots. The evidence of actual fraudulent ballots sufficient to reverse the election was inconclusive. Evidence that the Republican campaign suborned the process, however, was very persuasive. As the evidence mounted and was heading toward a possible perjury charge against the Republican candidate, he conceded that a new election should be called and short-circuited the investigation. Whether the final conclusion would have been a new election because of process fraud instead of actual vote fraud will remain a mystery.

In the current presidential election fiasco, a complete hash has been made of the issues by all involved. The Trump campaign has alleged both vote fraud and process fraud. It has neither made a distinction between vote and process fraud, nor a distinction regarding direct as opposed to circumstantial evidence. That has proved to be fertile ground for Trump’s opponents in the Democrat Party, the media, the pundits, elected officials of both parties, and even the courts to narrow the analysis to direct evidence of actual fraudulent votes.

Despite allegations, the Trump campaign will never meet the standard of direct evidence of fraudulent votes. It has already lost its contest in the court of public opinion and will lose in most judicial courts, with perhaps an exception of Pennsylvania in the United States Supreme Court as there the US Constitution may have been violated by the court decisions over-riding state election law. Trump will eventually have to concede. The only question is how much pain he will cause his supporters and how much damage he will do to the nation.

Although the handwriting is on the wall for Trump, there is a very large baby in the bath here that I hope is not thrown out with the water. A significant number of Americans, of which I am one, have been losing faith in the legitimacy of our electoral process gradually over the last few elections. This election may push them over the edge if they have not already stopped believing in the integrity of the process. The number of irregularities across the country this time simply defy common sense. When tranches of mail-in ballots appear and are counted late in the process and all for one candidate, evidence that any individual ballot is a fraudulent ballot may be difficult to prove, but it defies common experience and sense that nothing was amiss. In the face of those irregularities, continuing to proclaim the platitude of the sanctity of American elections is difficult.

The irony is that the standard to which we hold ourselves for election veracity is far less than that to which we hold other countries. In 2018, the Scientific American reported on the analysis of a number of foreign elections by US officials. The methodology employed was statistical analysis which looked for statistical anomalies from disparate results from similar districts or variances from historical trends. Comparing the analysis of the foreign elections to US elections, the article observes that election data quality in the US is not as sound or transparent as foreign countries. Tellingly, the author concludes, “The most unexpected takeaway from electoral forensics may be that it is easier to analyze Russian elections than those in the U.S.”

The deadlines that must be met for certification of state election results and the voting in the Electoral College, and the evidence standards being employed, make us ill-equipped to address the irregularities of this election in a meaningful way in the short-term. That does not mean that because the irregularities will not be outcome-determinative in this election that they should be ignored. As a nation, we face an imperative. If we permit these to be swept under the rug voter confidence will be damaged, perhaps beyond repair. We have to examine carefully and thoroughly the results, not by a search for the elusive fraudulent ballots, but through a disciplined analysis of the statistical anomalies. Confidence in the process will not be strengthened by assertions that fraudulent votes were few when the process appears suspect. The process must be addressed.

I have little faith that the analysis of the electoral process that I believe is urgent will occur. The old maxim “to the victor go the spoils” will control. No matter the party of the victorious candidates, they will not support any analysis that might call into question the legitimacy of their election. The rug has been lifted and the sweeping is already occurring. Blaming the Democrats and the media is easy and they certainly bear much of it. Nonetheless I fault the Trump campaign. As too often the case, Trump has blasted with a shotgun without defining the target and seeming irresponsible in his fire. It is tough to raise a hue and cry when you cannot tell people what you seek.

I have never bought into the complaint that Trump’s words and actions destroy our democracy.  Until now. He has been served with a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the major problems in our electoral process. This election cries out for examination of process irregularities. There will likely be none better. Trump, however, has failed to embrace the opportunity with the clarity required. He has fallen into a trap of his own making. Unfortunately, I fear he has pulled the country with him.

The Election Mess

No matter who wins this election, I think most of us can agree that it has been marked by so many irregularities that it is easy to conclude if so inclined that the election results are not legitimate. I am not naive and cannot delude myself into thinking otherwise.

Issues of election integrity have long been with us. Our history is replete with them. I have seen at least the possibility of it personally. I was a Republican poll watcher once in Maryland. It was long ago, but I recall being escorted out of the polling location after closing, supposedly for a break or something similar while the judges could complete their process until ready for me to observe the vote count. The Democrat observer was not escorted out and when I was permitted to return the seals at the back of the machines had been broken. That was supposed to occur in my presence. I don’t recall the explanation given, but it was probably as simple as the judges forgot. I raised an objection, but it went nowhere.

I favor challenging some of the results for this election, but only to the extent that doing so will highlight irregularities and persuade people we have a problem. I hope, however, that charges of fraud are abandoned quickly unless something fairly dramatic emerges.

The simple fact is fraud is extremely difficult to prove. By its very nature, it takes place in secret. Unless someone confesses, it usually goes unproven. In my legal and insurance claim career that spanned 40 years I was able to prove it only once. The evidence there was pretty clear and the person effectively confessed by withdrawing the claim, as criminal insurance fraud was the likely result.

With the chances of fraud being proven extremely unlikely, whatever the results are after appropriate recounts, the country cannot afford another Bush v. Gore. We were a divided country then, but nothing like we are now. I have no doubt that neither Biden nor Trump can heal the divide, but we certainly do not need to drive it deeper unless the fraud is demonstrable. I think it will not be.

That brings us to the election process. We have to fix this and do it nationwide. There are probably constitutional issues around Congress doing so broadly, but it might be able to pass something applicable to Federal elections, which would likely be adopted by the states to avoid having parallel processes. Even if beyond the authority of Congress, it could establish a bipartisan review and provide enough incentives to make changes so that we might accomplish uniformity nonetheless.

The issues in my opinion are twofold: (1) authenticating voters, and (2) securing the actual votes of individual voters once authenticated as a legitimate voter. Taking the second question first, I know just enough about the bowels of technology to be dangerous. I know enough though to believe that we can create a secure process, even one that could occur online. No transaction can be completely secure. Anything invented by the mind of humans can be corrupted by humans. Nevertheless, if we feel that internet transactions are sufficiently secure to allow our money, even life savings, to be transmitted through the internet, I have to believe we can create a process for voting in which we can have the same confidence.

If we could create a process that permits in person and online voting, it would allow us to abandon paper ballots and eliminate, or restrict, early voting as a voter would not even have to leave home or could vote anywhere on election day. It could even happen from a smart phone. Designing a more convenient process than that would be difficult. We may still have to provide for absentee ballots for a small group without internet access or who would be unable to go to a polling place for a few acceptable reasons. Even with that, I have to believe we can fix this in a manner to create a high degree of confidence in the process.

The more difficult question is voter authentication. Here again, I suspect we have the technology to do this. Identification chips in voter cards similar to credits cards could solve the issue for in person voting. I imagine that something similar to a personally assigned QR Code could accomplish the same for online voting. Although I am out of my depth here, I still have to believe this is a solvable problem.

The bigger problem with voter authentication is political. We cannot create a secure means to authenticate voters without abandonment of the opposition to voter ID laws. It is axiomatic that if we refuse to connect a reliable means of ID with the voter registration we cannot securely identify the voter. We cannot move to any form of online voting without it. Indeed, we should not even be doing mail in voting without it.

If we are committed to accomplishing this goal, it probably will take a massive effort to reach voters and accomplish the new registrations. It may even take an effort similar to a census and require Federal funding not only for the registrations but also to create the voting systems at the states, to assure sufficient bandwidth at the states that votes will be received promptly once made, and to train voters to the extent necessary. Moreover, it must be a bipartisan effort and not be done in secret. Otherwise, we will have circled right back to the legitimacy question.

At this point I am ready to support any serious effort to accomplish these changes, no matter how expensive. Each election we slide further toward chaos in our electoral process. Whether spoken or unspoken, we are seeing large segments of our citizens losing faith in the legitimacy of our election results. Pretending that is not so will not make it go away. If we lose that faith, what we really are losing is faith in the legitimacy of our government. That is a very dangerous place for us to be.

© 2020, Thomas M. Trezise

The Unspoken Election Divide

As we approach the presidential election, we are a divided nation in so many ways. We even have institutionalized that division in a new way. This year we are voting for president, but in different elections.

Not too long ago, the presidential election occurred on an election day. Some voted by absentee ballots, but in accordance with firmly administered rules. The community turned out that single day and voted in a process that bound us together as a civic body even if we voted differently. Most important, almost everyone voted with at least an opportunity to know everything about a candidate as all other voters.

Election day is now a lost concept. We have election months with people voting at different times and by a much broader range of methods. Whether those methods are trustworthy has become a source of division by itself. The real division, however, is in the bases of information upon which voters are making their decisions.

Millions of votes have been cast without the voters knowing that there is at least a little fire behind the smoke that Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings even though he has specifically denied it. Fewer, but millions nonetheless, voted without knowing that Trump contracted COVID and being able to evaluate whether he reacted responsibly or irresponsibly. Fewer still, but still a significant number, voted without knowing that Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Those are just prime examples. Many more could be cited.

Experts tell us that early voters are committed to their choice and would not be persuaded otherwise. I think that too facile and simply justifies the division. We have no way of knowing whether any early votes would have changed based upon subsequent information.

This may seem like a minor concern, but I think it is not. Democracy relies upon voting by an informed electorate. What we are doing now not only divides solely by the time at which information emerges, but also by how it emerges. The extended voting encourages information to be manipulated by withholding it, misrepresenting it, and generally distorting it. That possibility would remain without extended voting but extended voting increases the incentive considerably. The extended voting period encourages the manipulation as the information needs to managed for a shorter period of time.

By accepting early voting as a matter of convenience, we have made ourselves much easier targets for manipulation. If we can be manipulated then the election is being manipulated. This is not a partisan issue, although the cries of manipulation by the main street media in favor of Biden are worthy of consideration.

We have made many accommodations to our electoral process because of COVID. The result is that we are now voting in different elections whether or not we know it. COVID undoubtedly will work permanent changes to our society. This is one area, however, from which we need to retreat.

Liberty in an Age of Pandemic

I am a closet libertarian. My default inclination is to favor individual liberty over government authority. As with most, I was far more ardent in those beliefs as a younger man. As I matured, I came to recognize that there are times and situations where individual liberties have to subordinate to governmental requirements. Otherwise, chaos ensues. So I shuttled the libertarian to the closet. He appears rarely now, but tempered by history, makes this appearance.

I have Facebook Friends that may readily be classified as Conservatives or Progressive. I have been following the posts and discussions of both groups regarding the many aspects of the circumstances we face because of the coronavirus pandemic. I find comforting that both groups share similar posts and discussions about faith, particularly Christianity. There seems to be similar concerns also regarding the health of others. Unfortunately, they part very visibly on the governmental response to the virus.

My Friends are dividing fairly clearly into the camps. The Progressives support whatever actions the state governors take in response to the pandemic and view the actions of  President Trump and his administration as too late, inadequate, incompetent, and as to the President personally, arrogant, self-serving, and overbearing. Conversely, the Conservatives rally to the President who can do no wrong and decry some state governors and the restrictions they impose on individual liberty in an effort to manage the spread of the virus. The Anti-Trumpers are just frequently hard to follow logically.

As a libertarian I also am very concerned about what some state governors are doing. I am even more concerned, however, about how we as a people are responding not only to the circumstances and actions, but also to those with whom we disagree. On these issues, my Facebook Friends are breaking into what can fairly be described as echo-chambers. They post scathing original or linked critiques of the opposition, followed by responses and discussions almost invariably by supporters. The linked stories are sometimes patently false and ridiculous but still offer fuel for the fires. Each respondent seems to try to do the prior one better and come up with even more creative invective to be used to criticize those who are the objects of the original post. I characterize this as an echo-chamber because opponents rarely respond. The few that do usually immediately face responses similar to jackals with a wounded wildebeest. With blood in the nostrils there is little room for human decency and intellectual curiosity. Little wonder then that we simply reinforce each other’s opinions instead of entertain and consider the opposite.

I also am concerned about some of the governmental responses and how we are responding as individuals. Each carry danger that may, and I fear will, last far beyond the end of the pandemic. The pandemic has provided government officials both great and small incentive to feed their authoritarian tendencies. They overreach, but most of us still submit in the interest of safety while some resist. Some resisters have taken to the streets and some favoring submission demonize them for doing so. That alone is disturbing, but is yet another manifestation of a fundamental rift in our society and moves us further along a very dangerous path.

Our President represents one overreach. In his usual and unfortunate bombastic way President Trump declared that he has absolute power to order the states to release coronavirus restrictions. Of course, that is completely unmoored from the Constitution. He was rightly and roundly criticized for the statements. Fortunately, as has been all too often the case, he has not yet followed his ridiculous statement with actions that would precipitate opposition, protests, and a Constitutional crisis. Nonetheless, some rationalize and justify this patent misconception of his authority.

We can hope that the President has learned from the experience that the government he leads is a federal republic. He does not have the plenary right of kings. The federal government can only take actions authorized in the Constitution and not otherwise limited in that same Constitution. The President’s powers and that of the US government in relation to the states and their citizens are thus limited.

That the federal government was created by states and not through the act of individual citizens often goes unnoticed. That fact is significant, however, in a way that has emerged to the fore in the pandemic response of some governors and state officials. Unlike the President, the powers of state governors and governments are plenary. They do exercise the right of kings. Unless restrained by state constitutions, laws, or the US Constitution, they can act as they choose. The restraints are significant, but in the end many governors have substantial power. As with kings, they can be disciplined and measured in the use of their powers, or they can arrogate to themselves the power to tell their subjects to do or not do whatever their whims or inclinations suggest. Unfortunately, some have done the latter in the current crisis. If they go unchecked, a sad and dangerous precedent will have been set and undoubtedly followed in the future.

The actions of  Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are the most celebrated of governors using the plenary police power of the states to restrict individual liberties without any reasonable relation to the need to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.  You can find a discussion of the most controversial of the restrictions here. Perhaps the most illustrative is the restriction against the use of motorboats while the use of those energized by paddling is permitted. There is no science to support the proposition that vehicles powered by gasoline spread the virus. Motorboats, however, can be used for fishing, a time-honored recreational activity for Michiganders. There is no evidence that those same Michiganders cannot use their boats consistent with social distancing guidelines. No matter, the boats fuel some animus in the Governor who has used the virus as an opportunity to choose between favored and disfavored persons and activities. Why? Because she can, at least until she faces the wrath of her citizens in court or at the ballot box.

Some citizens of Michigan resist the restrictions placed upon them. The Governor faced a protest by what some have reported as 10,000 vehicles blocking the streets of Lansing. That some of the protesters violated the social distancing guidelines was apparent. Most, however, stayed in their vehicles, although the use of the vehicles for the protest problem itself probably was a violation.

Protests by small groups of eccentrics has long been a facet of our society and fuel for cartoonists. Confronted by thousands of protesters, however, most government officials might at least stop and think about the merits of the arguments raised.  Not Governor Whitmer. She immediately doubled-down and threatened to extend the restrictions. The Raleigh Police Department recently evinced a similar disregard of the of right citizens to protest, declaring it a “non-essential” activity. Equally troubling has been the almost universal condemnation by Progressives and the Progressive press of all governors who have resisted plenary and universal coronavirus restrictions. Now is the time to establish the absolute power of government and it must not be wasted, for once accepted it can be used in so many ways.

The willingness to proceed with actions limiting individual liberties in the face of challenges by citizens has become an increasing aspect of governments. Earlier this year, over 20,000 citizens protested peacefully in Virginia in opposition to legislation restricting the rights to acquire and own guns. The planned protest so threatened the government that the governor declared a temporary emergency so he could use his police power to restrain the protesters. The Democrats announced in advance that they would ignore the protests and carried through by passing the legislation. 

Government cannot respond to all protests, otherwise we would have mob rule. Government officials, however, can give the protesters respect. That has been missing with regard to the recent protests by conservatives regarding restrictions on individual liberties. Governor Whitmer relies on the need to provide absolute safety against the coronavirus. Preventing death trumps all other concerns. Safety is a common theme for the restriction of liberty. If liberty can be restrained any time death can be avoided, however, then there is no limit to restraints. Large construction projects can be prohibited because someone invariably is killed. Individual automobiles can be prohibited, forcing the use of mass transit, as auto deaths are in the tens of thousands annually. The use of fossil fuels can be prohibited to avoid supposedly climate change deaths. And so on and so on. The possibilities are limited only by the creativity of the authoritarians. If all that is required to suspend individual liberties is for a governor to declare a state of emergency to protect deaths then we have no liberties. That the deaths  are caused by a pandemic may have broader support for the restrictions, but they are nonetheless problematic.

The tension between those who favor a controlling government presumably acting for the greater good and those who favor the precedence of individual liberty is the central struggle and a defining characteristic of the American experience. I have written on the subject several times over the last decade. See Health Reform and The Great American Civil War and The Great American Civil War Revisited. When protests and civil disobedience have not been sufficient to relieve the pressure that builds around issues that mark the differences, violence ensues. Our history is replete with examples, the American Revolution and the Civil War being the most dramatic and costly in lives and treasure. 

The current protests and civil disobedience are more significant than some in the past because of who is protesting and what they are protesting. The current protesters are not fringe movements. They are mainstream citizens. Many are Conservatives but not all. Some acknowledge to the press that they have never engaged and do not even vote. These are people who do not normally take to the streets because they have a deep respect for law and order. But now they are in the streets. They are there because they perceive the government is ignoring, perhaps even callously so, core rights to work and thereby provide and care for their families, their freedom to move about their state and between states, their freedom to purchase and bear arms to protect themselves and their families from crime and government abuse, their freedom to worship and express their faith as they choose, and in some cases even their freedom to speak.

Agree or disagree, history will show that these are things over which people will fight and die. History also shows that when civil disobedience is ineffective the next step is violence. Perhaps our core respect for the outcome of elections will override. Let us hope. We have a growing drumbeat that elections are not valid for a host of reasons, so we also may have weakened that line of defense such that it fails as well. The options other than violence regrettably are narrowing.

This brings me to my final point. If we depersonalize our friends and neighbors, they more easily become our enemies. If we depersonalize them they and their issues no longer are worth the time and energy listening and understanding the opposition will require. Depersonalize them and they are much more easy to face across a barricade. The brothers and friends who literally fought and then died in each others arms during the Civil War speak to the truth of that.

If you have read to this point and think you would never do that, just look at your Facebook News Feed. Perhaps you do not do so (I suspect we all are guilty to some degree), but look at how many people viciously attack and demean their Friends and those who respond to the posts you make or of your Friends. Do that and tell me that we are not depersonalizing each other. Divide people into opposing camps where they associate only with people who think the same, watch the same news channels, read the same books, newspapers, and journals, and vote for the same candidates not because of who they are as individuals but solely because they are of the party they support, then throw in each demeaning and demonizing the other side and reasons to fight over core freedoms, and I’ll show you a country one match away from a conflagration. History also shows the match will come from somewhere, at some time, and in some manner no one sees coming.

If you think this cannot happen in the United States then you need to read some history. Revolts happen in all societies, be they authoritarian or democracy. Indeed, authoritarians by their very nature can keep lids on violence much easier than democracies. Moreover, it happens quickly once ignited. All it takes is law enforcement officials to refuse to obey the orders of the government. Sound familiar? It is happening now. Only sporadically, so perhaps the tinder does not yet exist. Let’s hope.

Perhaps none of this is real and I am just a lunatic fearing phantoms in my mind. Indeed, I somewhat hope I am. Nevertheless, I shall end with the same conclusion I have had in the other articles:

A final word of warning. The news today is filled with hysteria regarding some acts of minor violence and threats toward representatives. Everywhere people of all political stripes condemn it as not characteristic of Americans. That is utter nonsense. We are a violent people who have had few reservations throughout our history of resorting to violence and warfare, domestically and internationally, in defense of our liberties. We are not Europeans with a history steeped in submission to authoritarian governments who surrendered meekly to democratic socialism. Individual liberty runs deep in the fiber of Americans.  To dismiss the potential of serious violence, from either side of the conflict, is foolish and historically ignorant.   The Great American Civil War has already produced two battles of arms and numerous incidences of civil unrest. We should not assume that it will end with a whimper if this battle in the courts and the polls ends in defeat for the opponents of central authority. This great conflict has resulted in violence before and it can happen again. That is the climax that I fear, but pray will not occur. History has not ended, however, and human nature has not changed. We must be vigilant.

 

 

 

 

The Great American Civil War Revisited

Already this electoral season we have seen a number of protests by Progressive groups across a broad continuum of the left in American politics. Many of those have been legitimate protests. They have been expressions of opposition, primarily to Donald Trump, by words and lawful symbolic speech with assemblies in lawful locations. Their legitimate common goal is to express contrary positions and hope you will find them persuasive. Those protests are constitutionally protected by the freedoms of speech and assembly. Whether or not you agree with the messages, and even may be offended by them, you should recognize that the protection of those protests also protects your own freedoms of speech and assembly for those liberties cannot be predicated on content.

Unfortunately, we are also seeing protests that go further. They block roads and access to campaign rallies and speeches. Speakers are shouted down and threatened in public squares, colleges, and events organized by those who want to hear their messages. Physical force is used to prevent others from attending the events and hearing the speakers, including confrontation, intimidation, pushing, shoving, and hitting. Some groups, such as Black Lives Matters, promise even more severe violence. Their goal is not to persuade, but rather to suppress the freedoms of speech and assembly of others. You may speak and assemble only if you agree with them and if you do not you must be stopped by whatever means available.

What has become truly remarkable, however, is that responsible political and civic leaders and political and social analysts sanction, encourage, and support the unlawful, and at times dangerous, behavior. Politicians opposed to Trump criticize him for inciting violence rather than condemning the unlawful protestors and in so doing encourage more protests. In an ironic juxtaposition to a college as a marketplace of ideas, college professors and administrators sanction and support those who shout down, disrupt, and threaten speakers with whom they do not agree, sometimes with such success that the event is cancelled. Now we have progressive politicians and commentators threatening that this summer will repeat the political violence of the summer of 1968, with the violence directed primarily against Republicans and Donald Trump specifically. Apparently if you agree with the message of the protestors and view the opposition as illegitimate, then anything done to stop the opposition is worthy behavior. And it also is appropriate to criticize the victims of the violent protests as inciting the violence because the opponents to their positions just are too aggrieved and righteous to be restrained.

The commentators at least are correct that political violence is neither unexpected nor unusual in the history of the United States. Six years ago I wrote an essay titled Health Reform and The Great American Civil War that details that from the Revolutionary War forward the history of America has been marked by ebbs and flows of confrontation between those who support a strong controlling central government and those who do not. It was written in the context of the debate occurring then on Obamacare. Sometimes those confrontations have manifested themselves in severe and on a few occasions broad violent conflict. So those who now decry the reemergence of political violence as something outside our experience simply have no understanding of our experience.

What is different now, however, from at least recent experience are that people are beginning to respond to the intimidation and violence of the protestors with intimidation and violence. I’m in my seventh decade. Throughout my lifetime the illegal and occasionally violent political protests have been confined almost exclusively to the progressive left. They have been met with violence, but almost exclusively by law enforcement groups. The responsive violence by police has occasionally gone way beyond the necessary and been indefensible. Conservative citizens, however, have very rarely taken independent action. Respect for the rule of law inherent in conservatives has held them back. And conservative leaders have universally condemned such behavior and refused to encourage it in any way. Until now.

Although hardly common yet, some supporters of Donald Trump are responding to unlawfully disruptive and sometimes violent behavior of protesters with unlawful and violent behavior of their own. And Trump gives mixed messages about the violent responses and may be said to even give them a metaphorical wink and nod. If the populist and conservative supporters of Trump conclude that the unlawful and violent behavior of protesters must be met with equally, or greater, unlawful and violent behavior, we are entering a new and very dangerous chapter in our recent experience. For history teaches that the events can more easily and more quickly slip into a far more general environment of violence than most can imagine.

The essay that I wrote 6 years ago ends with the following paragraph:

A final word of warning. The news today is filled with hysteria regarding some acts of minor violence and threats toward representatives. Everywhere people of all political stripes condemn it as not characteristic of Americans. That is utter nonsense. We are a violent people who have had few reservations throughout our history of resorting to violence and warfare, domestically and internationally, in defense of our liberties. We are not Europeans with a history steeped in submission to authoritarian governments who surrendered meekly to democratic socialism. Individual liberty runs deep in the fiber of Americans.  To dismiss the potential of serious violence, from either side of the conflict, is foolish and historically ignorant.   The Great American Civil War has already produced two battles of arms and numerous incidences of civil unrest. We should not assume that it will end with a whimper if this battle in the courts and the polls ends in defeat for the opponents of central authority. This great conflict has resulted in violence before and it can happen again. That is the climax that I fear, but pray will not occur. History has not ended, however, and human nature has not changed. We must be vigilant.

For conservatives the battle in the courts that I mentioned is mostly over and we lost. The ballot box is the last redoubt. And now progressives are reacting to stop the discussion of conservative ideas and, in the case of Trump supporters, from even exercising their right to assemble and inform themselves for their vote.  Just as some progressives cannot distinguish between protected verbal and symbolic speech and try to suppress others, we now see Trump supports acting out violently not in response to violence, but rather in response to the verbal and symbolic speech alone of their opponents. The fear I expressed 6 years ago is now very real. If conservatives are reaching the point where they refuse to go with a whimper we are indeed at risk.

We are a society arming ourselves at a rapid rate. We are divided more than ever and crossing that divide with political violence more frequently. The last eight years of executive regulations, court decisions, and political correctness that often seems directed at and suppressing conservative thought and positions have pushed conservatives to a line that I have not seen before. Those that are responding with violence are over that line. I pray that they have few behind them. But those on the progressive left should understand that they stand at a point where they have not stood for a long time. The projected “Summer of 68 Redux” that they long for from the glory days may not be met this time just by the police. You now have a political leader who may tacitly encourage followers to respond with more than words. The random punchers may soon become groups and then crowds responding with violence. The “Summer of 16” could bring us the unthinkable…pitched street battles between opposing political groups. And if those groups begin to represent defined ideologies or cultural groups, we could spin out of control. History tells us it can happen even if you think it cannot.

Six years ago I cautioned that “We must be vigilant.” I think what we see now is the result of our failure to have been vigilant and stop the small episodes. The time for vigilance unfortunately has passed for the problem is growing rapidly. We now must act. Leaders on all sides of our political divides must act to stop unlawful protests and suppression of speech and assembly from within their groups, wherever it raises its ugly head, whether the rally, the church, the office, the classroom, or the streets. Leaders on all sides must condemn and take whatever measures are necessary to stop violent responses of their groups to the protests of opponents, and Donald Trump has to stop winking at the violence.  History tells us not to turn aside and tolerate such behavior, and certainly not tolerate our leaders to manipulate these circumstances for their own short term gains. No matter what, history will serve us an end. But we get to control that end if we choose to stand on our constitutional heritage. We can choose whether it is another step forward for American greatness or tragedy. But make no mistake, we are choosing now and so far the end does not look promising.

I Am Not a Murderer

I have followed all of the Facebook posts and many columns in the media, mainstream and social, regarding guns after the Oregon shootings. They are filled with emotion and anger, which is understandable in the face of senseless evil.  I have been have been saddened, however, that the rhetoric has degenerated to the point where those of us who have opposed further background checks have been characterized as “Murderers.” It is sometimes emotionally satisfying to reduce your opponent to someone who is defective morally or intellectually, but doing so does not enhance the merits of your argument. It simply diminishes your credibility as the advocate.

I realize that we live in a time where our President and several of those who now aspire to that office have made the use of insults a common part of the public discourse. I submit, however, that if you really want to be heard by and persuade your opponents, resorting to insults is not an effective strategy. All the more so when those targets are also your friends and neighbors.

Although I am an opponent of further gun purchase background checks, I don’t believe I am either morally or intellectually defective. Nor do I believe I am a murderer. So I must confess there is a temptation the respond in kind. But just as the insults of my opponents do nothing to advance us one iota toward a solution, neither would responsive invectives. I, therefore, would like to put aside the emotions and address facts.

If the goal is to begin to reduce the frequency of these events we have to begin to discuss the facts of the problem. Let’s start with the question of background checks. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence is a proponent of gun control laws. I cite to it in the hope that those of you who advocate further gun controls will give it credence. They summarize here all of the problems they see with the current background check process and laws. If you take the time to review the discussion and approach the discussion with a measure of intellectual openness and integrity, I think you will have to concede that if each proposed change in the laws had been in place before the Oregon shooter sought his first weapon, none would have prevented this event. Moreover, a good deal of what they address concerns problems in the enforcement of current laws. That is precisely the core of the opposition to further background check laws: pass no more laws that cannot be enforced; enforce those we have. Do not restrict liberty just to feel better emotionally.

The current Federal prohibitions to the sale and purchase of guns are set forth in 18 U.S.C. §922. If you really care about the issue read it. You will find that the restrictions are extensive as is the object of the background check. My perspective on the Oregon shooting is that there is something that can be done regarding the background checks that would help reduce violence, but it is not what those of you who regard us as murderers want to address.

From my observations, there are two commonalities in almost all of these events: (1) they occur in gun free zones, and (2) the shooter has demonstrated mental health issues that went unaddressed. Many gun supporters have focused on the gun free zones, but I do not want to debate those as I don’t think that armed citizens in our schools are the answer. They might reduce the frequency and reduce the numbers of those killed and injured in the events, and there have been events to support that conclusion, but we still will have the events and people will still die. We need to move further back in the chain of causation to cut out the shooter before he gets to the scene of the planned shooting.

One of the provisions of 18 U.S.C. §922 makes it illegal for any person to possess a gun who “has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution” and makes that a point of investigation for the background check also. Enforcement fails, however, because many states do not even have records to be checked or will not incur the costs of cooperating and producing them, but even if they did the check would still be meaningless. The check is meaningless because over the past 50 years the standards by which a person can be adjudicated as having a committable mental illness have been raised so high that as a practical matter few ever happen. A person almost has to be walking the streets with a gun looking for targets before he will be determined to be a threat to himself or others. That standard used to be much broader and permitted family members, professionals, and the community at large to petition a court to force an individual who exhibited threatening behaviors to seek treatment.

At the same time when the legal process was more effective, we also had a fairly extensive network of public institutions to provide that treatment. They were almost universally closed, however, in an overreaction to very justifiable criticisms of horrific abuses and failures in those institutions. So with the remedy being eliminated both institutionally and legally by misplaced compassion, society now feels that challenging the people with these problems is coercive and socially unacceptable. The result, however, is simply that we ignore the problem of those with mental problems and violent tendencies.

I believe that if you look carefully at the background of the shooters in the recent mass killings, except for the true terrorists most of them were identified by someone as exhibiting signs of mental illness. In earlier decades there is a fair likelihood that would have led to an interaction with the judicial and mental health communities. Now the pot just boils until they explode.

We have a real problem in this society and it will not be solved by another empty and unenforceable gun purchase background check. If you really care about stopping this violence, start pushing for something that will help. We need to rebuild our public mental health services and face the fact that we have people that cannot be addressed as outpatients because their illnesses and violent potential are too severe and threatening. We have to have resources to care for them in an inpatient environment. The solution is complex and expensive. But until we can identify them and remove them from society in a way that provides them due process we will still have mass killings. If you do choose to push to solve the problem, then I am with you and I will support forcing states to systematically record the adjudications and make the background checks effective. But if you just want to feel good about yourself well then go ahead and call me a murderer, or an idiot, or a gun nut, or whatever else will make you feel good. I won’t hear you because I won’t be listening.

Health Reform and The Great American Civil War

Twice this week I have read commentaries suggesting that the health care reform has brought us to a state of civil war in the United States. At National Review Online Dennis Prager proclaimed us to be at war. Sunday Michael Graham made a similar suggestion in the New York Post. If we use the term “war” in the broad context suggesting a conflict that is not necessarily violent, I agree. But I do not think this is a new development. Indeed, I believe this civil war is embedded in the American experience. My fear is not that we are at war, but rather that it may finally be coming to a climax.

What we think of as the Revolutionary War may also be characterized as the commencement of The Great American Civil War. After a lengthy period of escalating disputes and tensions, British citizens in America revolted and resorted to warfare against the British king and other British citizens in Britain and America. Brother against brother; father against son; a civil war. As with all great conflicts, the causes were complex. But the emotional animus was the intrusive nature of the central government on individual rights and its disregard of the prerogatives of local governments.

In time the actual warfare came to an end and the colonies became independent, but the conflict regarding central versus local government and individual rights continued. Although some argued from the beginning for a strong national government, the distrust of strong central government produced an over-reaction in the Articles of Confederation. The states of America, having freed themselves of tyranny, had no appetite for submission to any central authority, with a weak confederation being the result.

Eventually, the ineffectiveness of the confederation and the practical needs of the nation brought the states and people to the Constitution of the United States. In the Constitution they ceded limited authority to the federal government, but nonetheless sufficient to bind the states into a unified nation. Nevertheless, the battle raged between the federalists and the republicans as to the proper balance between the central government and the states. The states not only reserved their traditional rights and powers as independent states, except as ceded in the Constitution, but also  demanded the immediate amendments in the Bill of Rights to assure that the natural rights of their citizens would be protected. Even though the federal government gained power, the distrust of the center remained strong.

The ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights did not end the war. It continued to surface in different venues and issues such as the national bank and the role of the Supreme Court, occasionally with manifestations of civil unrest. The power of the federal government to restrict or end slavery in the states, however, eventually again brought the war between opposing concepts of national authority to a battle of arms. That the states were defending their right to enslave, when doing so was morally indefensible, muddies to this day the point that the Civil War resulted from a country  split on the constitutional roles, rights, and powers of the states and the federal government. The Civil War may have resolved by force of arms the battle over slavery, but it did no more than force below the surface the controversy over the proper role of the federal government. That aspect of the war did not end.

With the end of fighting in the Civil War, most citizens of the United States returned to a life where the government of the United States rarely had direct contact with them. Their state and local governments remained the primary forces in their lives. With the advent of the Progressive Movement toward the end of the 19th century, however, support grew for governmental intervention in society in ways previously unthinkable. Enthusiasm grew not only for dominance of the federal government over states, but also now for direct intervention in ways that impacted individuals. Social engineering by the governments, federal, state, and local, began to gain favor.

World War I brought the Progressive Movement into the federal government. The Depression, World War II, and the Cold War brought the ascendancy of the federal government as the dominant force in America. But the Great American Civil War continued. The entirety of the Twentieth Century was marked by the ebb and flow of the power of the federal government, such as the Reagan Revolution following the Great Society. The trend, however, has been unmistakably toward increasing action of the federal government in the lives of individuals and the diminishment of the role of the states as more frequently actors implementing federal directives than independent entities.

The passage of health care reform marks the latest battle in the Great American Civil War. It marked a completely partisan division regarding the most significant legislative change to the United States in almost a century. But we have not seen such a marked division regarding the role of the federal government since the conflict degenerated to a shooting war in the 19th century. We are a deeply divided nation regarding fundamental issues. History teaches that with such a clear divide in the  country we are in dangerous times.

Some states filed legal challenges as soon as the legislation was signed by President Obama to contest the constitutionality of the personal liberty intrusion of the individual insurance mandate and the infringement on states’ rights presented by the Medicaid mandates and special deals. Beneath the tip of that iceberg lies a multitude of issues that have frustrated and angered protaganists on all sides of the issues. The catalyzing issues may not be slavery, quartering of soldiers, or unjust taxation (ok the taxation theme is a constant), but the core of the contest follows a straight line back to the Revolution. Will we permit the central government to infringe our natural rights and arrogate power to itself that belongs to local governments?

Congressman Thaddeaus McCotter of Michigan succinctly summarized the division, and its seriousness, in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding the health care reform. He is worthwatching.

McCotter speaks eloquently to the transformation of the federal government in the eyes of Americans to the status of a ruler to be opposed. Substitute “King George” for “President Obama” and his speech could easily have been one delivered before the Continental Congress instead of just days ago in Washington.

Never in our history has the government of the United States attempted to force a citizen, under penalty of a fine, to purchase a good or service. The constitutional power to regulate commerce between the states simply cannot be so distorted to permit such a bald exercise of power over individuals. But if that is permitted to stand the war is over regarding individual liberty. If the government has the power to do that, then it can force us to do just about anything. It can tell us what cars to purchase, what food to eat, what books to purchase…..anything. And if it can fine us if we do not comply, then it can jail us also. The power to penalize is the issue. Once the power is affirmed, the nature of the penalty is only a question of degree.

The power of the federal government to force the states to expend money and act toward their citizens in ways they choose not to act is equally suspect constitutionally. Years ago I studied the Tenth Amendment and wrote a law review article regarding it. That the founders of our country did not intend the federal government to have such power is manifest. It is beyond historical dispute. The states, however, have for so long acquiesced in such an arrogation of power by the federal government as a matter of fact, contrary to the Tenth Amendment, that the actual strength of the concept of limted powers embraced within the amendment is now legally ambiguous.

So the battlefront in the Great American Civil War now turns to the courts and the ballot box in November and 2012. The courts, however, are themselves instruments of the federal government and have a long record of expanding the powers of the federal government far beyond the stated limitations of the Constitution, at the expense of states and individuals. There can be no confidence that they will not do so again. So citizens who value their freedom must be prepared to fight this battle at the ballot box and reverse this action. For if it stands, the war will be lost. For the power of the federal government will be without bounds.

A final word of warning. The news today is filled with hysteria regarding some acts of minor violence and threats toward representatives. Everywhere people of all political stripes condemn it as not characteristic of Americans. That is utter nonsense. We are a violent people who have had few reservations throughout our history of resorting to violence and warfare, domestically and internationally, in defense of our liberties. We are not Europeans with a history steeped in submission to authoritarian governments who surrendered meekly to democratic socialism. Individual liberty runs deep in the fiber of Americans.  To dismiss the potential of serious violence, from either side of the conflict, is foolish and historically ignorant.   The Great American Civil War has already produced two battles of arms and numerous incidences of civil unrest. We should not assume that it will end with a whimper if this battle in the courts and the polls ends in defeat for the opponents of central authority. This great conflict has resulted in violence before and it can happen again. That is the climax that I fear, but pray will not occur. History has not ended, however, and human nature has not changed. We must be vigilant.

 

 

 

 

Great or Greek?

Those of us who are Babyboomers were raised in the shadows of our parents. Our parents lived lives of sacrifice. They came of age during the Depression and many struggled to survive. They stood in the path of totalitarianism and defended and preserved freedom in World War II and Korea. They returned from the fight, rolled up their sleeves, and pitched in to re-build the nation. They stymied the expansion of communism and won the Cold War. They made the United States the greatest nation the world has ever known. Tom Brokaw paid tribute to their sacrifices in his book, “The Greatest Generation.” They were great.

The Greatest Generation also transformed American society in ways that now present a challenge to us, their children. Our parents sacrificed in ways great and small to assure that we would never have to do so. In the homes of our youth, most of us lived protected and sheltered lives where we never wanted for food, clothing, entertainment, transportation, education, and security. That we will have our wants and needs fulfilled has become a foundational expectation of our generation. The Greatest Generation not only saved our nation, but also birthed the entitlement society.

Our parents not only attempted to provide security to us in our homes, but also nationally through the construction of a massive “safety net” of entitlements. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches, education loans, and grants and subsidies of a broad variety became embedded as fixtures in our lives. The Greatest Generation had created such wealth that the nation seemingly could afford anything. Now that Babyboomers have come to leadership they focus on expanding those entitlements and creating new ones such as national health care. We have accepted government as a primary caregiver.

The entitlement society took root in Europe long before the flowering of social programs here. And the consequences of the concept of government as caregiver are bearing evil fruit there first also. Greece, burdened economically by increasing debt necessary to fund rich public jobs and entitlements, is on the verge of financial default. The citizens of Greece, however, addicted to the entitlement narcotic, have taken to the streets to fight any changes that might save them. They will sacrifice their country rather than accept modifications to their benefits. The descendants of the 300 who sacrificed their lives at Thermopylae to preserve Greece from the Persians will not sacrifice a euro to save their country. How sad!

The reality, however, is that the Babyboomer generation in America will face soon the same choice. Entitlements consume a greater portion of the Federal budget and our Gross Domestic Product each year. The entitlements that seemed affordable to our parents now exceed our capabilities. They are already not sustainable and if the health care entitlement passes our debt will be beyond any reasonable bounds. As the Babyboomers pass into senior status and consume more and more of these entitlements, we too will be beggared. Greece is our future unless we choose to change it.

Unlike the Greeks, we Babyboomers do not have to look back thousands of years for models of behaviors to guide us. We only have to look at the preceding generation. Our parents showed us the way. Yes, they laid the foundation of the entitlement society and gave us permission to live self-absorbed lives. But they also showed us that when America is in crisis, Americans have the courage and determination to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to preserve this nation. They showed us the no sacrifice is too great in the cause of liberty.

The unfortunate reality is that our nation simply cannot afford to fund the entitlement society for aging Babyboomers. The debt poses a threat to the existence of our nation as we know it. Yet the fear of the political consequences of confronting that reality trumps the economic reality in the minds of our political leaders.  They simply do not have the courage to keep us from hurtling down the same track as Greece. So it comes to us, the entitled, to make the difference. Unlike the citizens of Greece, rather than demand that we receive our due, no matter what the cost to our country, we must take the lead and concede that the entitlements must be reduced.

I’m not sure of the answer. Perhaps we must accept means testing so that only the truly needy receive the benefits. But I am certain that the time has now come for our generation to sacrifice to save our nation. We have been a generation of privilege that has sacrificed little for our country and taken much. As the primary beneficiaries of the entitlements, unless we are willing to sacrifice our “rights” to the benefits, nothing will happen. Our electoral strength is too great. The sacrifice demanded of us is not of the kind our parents made, but it is to surrender the security that our parents wanted to bequeath to us. The sacrifice that we must make is to take greater responsibility and risk for our lives in order that we might bequeath to our children an America that can be as great as that our parents left to us. Do we love our country enough to make that sacrifice? Are we made of the same stuff as our parents? Can we be Great?