On Columbus Day

October 12, 2013October 12, 2015 / gouverneurmorris / 1 Comment

Few individuals in Western civilization have undergone as pervasive a demonization as Christopher Columbus. He has been designated the “poster boy” of all that is wrong with the West, in general, and America, in particular. He is blamed for Western racism and slavery (as if those policies are unique to dead white Europeans) because of his enslavement of the indigenous population, despite discovering a New World that would establish freedom as the governing ideal of human existence. He is blamed for Western Christendom because of his conversion of the natives, despite taking the first step toward what would become a haven of religious liberty and freedom of conscience in America. He is blamed for Western imperialism because of his accidental destruction (by an uncontrollable lack of immunity) of the various cultures with which he came in contact, despite introducing a New World that would form the greatest melting pot of diversity ever accomplished. It was nothing less than American opportunity and freedom, at the basis of our institutions, that made this possible. None of the good America has meant to human history and its unprecedented advancement would have happened without that first step into the dark unknown.

The same folks who discredit and ridicule men like Columbus for his failures not only defend the most violent thugs and genocidal regimes of this and the twentieth century — one need only recall the Western media’s adulation for Mao, Castro, Qaddafi and “Uncle Joe” Stalin — to recognize the double standard. The “blame America first” mentality illustrates the failure, not of America, but of human nature itself. The principles that formed America as the exception to the rule of human affairs is not at fault here. We honor our heroes not because they lack imperfections or never committed any wrongs. We honor men like Columbus because we revere and love what good they did accomplish. It is a respect for good above evil that merits our praise and admiration. Meanwhile, as Coolidge would say,

[I]t is a very hasty and ill-considered judgment to conclude that there is more bad than good in any one. We are all a combination of both elements. While we ought not to approve of the evil in ourselves or in others…The only perfect man ate and drank with publicans and sinners. It did not scandalize Him, it was some of those who were not perfect who were scandalized.

The politically correct demand for perfection is chasing an eternally elusive object. When the only subjects worthy of study are those who never violated the politically correct creed, we will have an extremely narrow, and uninformed, view of human nature. We may know much but without a full understanding of our nature, the good with the bad, it becomes a fantasy fixated on the reality we choose, not the reality which is.

Coolidge reminded those reading his daily column,

There is enough good in all of us to support the law of human fellowship. We shall be much more effective for good if we treat men not as they are but as they ought to be. If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and every one else only by their conduct we shall reach a very false conclusion. When we have exhausted the possibilities of criticism on ourselves it will be time enough to apply it to others. The world needs high social standards and we should do our best to maintain them, but they should rest on the broad base of Christian charity.

If the politically correct code sought to lift and inform the culture with higher standards, it would not mock the only Perfect Man Coolidge mentioned. Christ would be its greatest example. The hypocrisy evident in “blaming America first” is laid bare by this point. The offense of Columbus, in these folks’ eyes, is not what they claim it to be. His offense is helping to make America possible. The exploitation and oppression he perpetrated (meant to assign the full guilt we should all feel for being Americans) defines all we need to “know” about him. The good he did — not the first to arrive but the first to introduce the New World to the Old — is spoiled and negated by his sins against political correctness. Nothing but the evil he represents matters to such people because it fits the political agenda not honest historical perspective.

Ultimately, it is a denial of good itself. Truth learns from both the wrong examples and the right ones, honoring good where it can be found, even in flawed and imperfect people like Columbus. Pessimists and cynics may long for the “good old days” when Meso-American empires sacrificed their own human populations and chiefs, like Powhatan, consolidated power through war and genocide. But, if not for the Christian boy Chanco, murder would have continued unabated. Considering Americans were the first to appeal to higher ideals, ideals grounded in a moral conscience, Coolidge could rightly say of Columbus on October 11, 1930,

He is entitled to rank forever as the greatest of all explorers. But the glory of his exploit, great as it was, becomes almost unimportant when compared with its results. It marked the inception of the modern era. The minds of men were opened to new thoughts. The gold and silver of America gave a new trend to the life of Europe. The arts began to flourish. The people began to assert their rights. More colonies brought more trade. A new age appeared, great in captains, admirals, statesmen, poets and philosophers, and finally new nations dedicated to human freedom arose on this side of the Atlantic. These are partly the reasons why Christopher Columbus is entitled to be honored.

The substance for recognizing Columbus in this, the five hundred and twenty-first year since his discovery, resides not so much in what he personally did, or failed to do. It resides in the part he played in the opportunity to establish, for the first time, a place where people can live free to govern themselves, keep the rewards of their own work, and practice, unfettered, the obligations of their conscience before God and mankind.

On Pretense and Truth in Politics

October 3, 2013October 3, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

As events unfold across America’s most familiar parks, monuments and memorials, it is becoming increasingly obvious that we are witnessing a very deliberate theatrical display by the Obama administration. Whether denying the request to allow D-Day veterans the permission to see their own memorial in Washington or barricading the publicly-owned parking lots furnished for privately-owned sites like Mount Vernon, the result is anything but an honest mistake. It is evident closing sites normally open to the public 24/7 (after Park Service personnel go home) that this is not real. It is meant to convey a false perception of reality in order to score cheap political points against a Republican Party leadership that has willingly conceded everything to avert “shutdown.” Instead, the President and his Senate majority leader have rejected every proposal to fund, by separate legislation, every program but one: “Affordable” health care because of the obvious harm it is already inflicting on millions of Americans. Obama, having no interest in working out any solutions, demands full support for “Obamacare” or no one gets any funding and he will make sure it hurts.

This denial for funds even applies to the National Institute of Health, despite the Republican measure (with no strings attached) to keep research and treatment provided for children with cancer. Asked by reporters on Wednesday, “[I]f you can help one child with cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?” Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid responded, “Why would we want to do that?”

Only in the artificial world of partisan showmanship does this kind of behavior on the part of Obama and his Party make sense. He is trying to create a perception of reality and no attempt to actually solve the problem is allowed, especially when it comes from those cootie-infested Republicans. Full funding for Obamacare or else kids will be denied cancer treatment, veterans will be refused access to their own memorials and privately owned properties will be barricaded…until all of you out there in this ungrateful country feel the pain of Government “shutdown.”

When Coolidge contemplated the true meaning of politics, he did not have much good to say about Washington, D.C. It was instructive, to be sure, but it was usually a lesson in what not to do rather than illustrative of the sound and noble purpose of statesmanship. To obtain guidance from politics as it ought to be, he had to return to the ancient principles of political philosophy learned from the Greeks. “Politics is not an end,” he would reiterate, “but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government.” This current regime, however, has been weaned on Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the influence of Frank Marshall Davis and a host of other violent and hateful men and women. Politics is the end result for this group. This is not a politics Coolidge would have tolerated. It has become a seemingly endless chain of subterfuge, calculation and disregard for any law that blocks the selfish interests of this man’s ideology. The agenda trumps everything. Nothing is allowed to divert, detract or disparage what this one man wants done. Governing never enters the picture. It is only by perpetually politicizing every event for personal advantage that politics itself is corrupted from its original purpose as a “minister to civilization” with a “candid and sincere service.” Instead, it is the “counterfeit” and “false,” the “spurious presentment” or fake imagery that defines politics now, Coolidge had said. “So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness.” The “mean” or lowest common denominator has become the central focus of political attentions. The “sordid” or shameful and sleazy character of politics, while distorting all sense of “true and dignified proportions” at present, can be defeated with a clear-headed and moral leadership.

Inspiring people to greater things is not gone. Though it be “obscured,” as Coolidge noted, it has not been eradicated. It is ready to come back with a righteous vengeance when honest and genuine leadership steps forward, rejecting the fraudulent snake oil salesmanship of this Administration and returning to a “sincerity and integrity of purpose” which comes from men and women, like us, who hold fast an “informed conscience.” “All the predominant political opinion of the nation which is worth cultivating is never impressed by decisions made for effect. Those who compose that body want responsible officeholders to try to find out what is best for the welfare of the people and do that…Pretense does not appeal to them…The people know a sham even when they seem to be trying to fool themselves and they cannot help having a wholesome respect for reality.” The staged political production Obama has orchestrated here to further a deliberately fake perception is no service to civilization. It is a repudiation of civilization for nothing more than concession to one man’s desires to instigate perpetual backlash against his enemies, force them to fund “Obamacare” in order to escape this and any future “shutdown” and cement a permanently uninformed electorate that will keep his vision for this country in power for decades to come.

We hold greater power than we realize to effect a far brighter outcome than this fate. Restoration remains in our hands. Every time we have united together and exercised that sovereignty over our Government, we ultimately prevail. It was true in the legislative triumphs after the 1995 “shutdown” as well as the 2010 election, winning control of the House. It was true in the defeat of gun control and even now in what is an incremental defeat of “Obamacare.” It may not yet appear victorious to us but greater are those who are with us than those who are with pretense and theatrics.

Coolidge, upon accepting his nomination to the Vice-Presidency in July 1920, declared, “All authority must be exercised by those to whom it is constitutionally entrusted, without dictation, and with responsibility only to those who have bestowed it, the people” (emphasis added). Coolidge embraced honesty. He knew that telling the truth, however much it challenged his listeners, served the good. He lived in reality, dealt straightforwardly with all and refused to manipulate people with deceitful fantasies for his benefit or the perceived gain of anyone else. When he reminded people, as he often did, to “work out salvation,” he was not engaging in callous platitudes or pollyannaish delusions, he was expecting nothing less than what Americans have proven is possible every day of our exceptional history.

On Shutting Down Opportunity

October 2, 2013October 2, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

“If the Federal Government should go out of existence, the common run of people would not detect the difference in the affairs of their daily life for a considerable length of time” — President Calvin Coolidge, “States Rights and National Unity,” given at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, May 15, 1926.

As a perverse enthusiasm for the “Government Shutdown” pervades mainstream media coverage, the total mischaracterization of the issue is propagating confusion and fear, not clarity and sound information. The press, having long ago shed the veneer of objective journalism, is no longer upholding its obligation to arm people with accurate and honest information.

The issue is skewed from the outset as a picture of vast human suffering all caused by a callous, unfeeling opposition to the President and his Party’s agenda. Disagreement with that agenda, instead of the agenda itself, is blamed as the problem. In actuality, the problem is never connected to its real cause: the President’s own policies. The cause is never attributed to a Government that has overgrown its very limited and specific Constitutional role. The problem is those lousy Republicans who want Government to shut down and people to die because they want to see “Obamacare,” the law of the land, undone, or so goes the absurd mantra.

Temporarily furloughing those the Government already deems “non-essential” while keeping Congressional and Executive offices open is not a shutdown. Suspending the online stream of the National Zoo’s “Panda Cam” is not a shutdown. Closing the gates of a few parks is not a shutdown. It makes it appear all those indispensably wonderful services Government provides us are going away permanently. It is political manipulation designed to force people yet again to justify a vast, all-encompassing Government in their lives. To believe an apocalypse awaits via Government “shutdown” demands the ultimate credulity. Threatening to withhold military checks while entitlement programs still keep the checks mailing out does not even begin to approach the genuine shutdown this economy is already experiencing directly because of this President’s decisions.

Playing a game of smoke and mirrors, the President and Senate leadership would rather provoke more suffering especially as it helps advance their permanent campaign against Republicans. The focus is never on the 90 million Americans no longer in the work force because of this President’s agenda. The concern is only ever how does the latest Labor statistics make the President look?

The attention is never on the creation of one “unprecedented” crisis after another to force by legislation what would never be passed if calmly and deliberately vetted. The angst is only ever on how can we survive without Government?

The entire emphasis is turned on its head. The priority is not upon removing the obstacles to ingenuity, opportunity and individual freedom. The priority is ever only on keeping Government alive and growing by “revenue neutral” tax schemes, continuing resolutions, and an endless debt, $17 trillion and counting, which our great grandchildren will still be paying! Add to this “Obamacare” exemptions for Congress ordered by President Obama, the reaffirmation of “quantitative easing” by Chairman Bernanke and now even “shutdowns” are tools to threaten any attempt to restraint this Administration and its agenda for the rest of the country. It is the transfer of authority from a self-governing people to subjects serving an autocratic elite. The focus is all in the wrong direction. The questions should be: How is liberty faring? Are the people being served? How does life look for the people with inflation, massive unemployment and generational indebtedness? Can we survive with Government as it is now, unlimited and absolute?

While Government was significantly smaller in Coolidge’s time, the temptation to encroach on people’s lives was no less alluring. It was leadership that made the difference. Moral character, humble perspective and faith in the institutions and ideals that make America have no substitute when it comes to our leaders. There is nothing that can possibly replace the lack of these qualities in order to lead and lead responsibly. But there is also a fundamental, even natural limitation to any Government which tries to do too much. Opportunity’s door invariably closes whenever and wherever Government gets involved. Consequently, nature itself will rebel against this offense. That is what we are seeing in our time. This is why there remains cause for renewed confidence in our ideals not a lazy and pessimistic resignation to circumstances. The status quo in Washington has already lost. Not living in reality, however, the establishment led by President Obama, does not realize it…yet.

Speaking to those who came to honor their fellow, fallen veterans of the heroic First Division in the American Expeditionary Forces, President Coolidge reflected on the cause for which they fought, saying,

…I cannot let this occasion pass without expressing my most strong and emphatic commendation for the reverence which your words and actions constantly express for the liberty-giving provisions of the fundamental law of our land. You have supported the Constitution and the Flag which is its symbol, not only because it represents to you the homeland, but because you know it is the sole source of American freedom. You want your rights protected by the impartial judicial decisions of the courts where you will have a right to be heard and not be exposed to the irresponsible determination of partisan political action. You want to have your earnings and your property secure. You want a free and fair opportunity to conduct your own business and make your way in the world without danger of being overcome by a Government monopoly.

Such freedom is what we now desire and expect. Government fails when it assumes the life of the individual can best be managed from its halls and corridors. Coolidge went on to explain what happens when Government ventures into the people’s business,

When the Government goes into business it lays a tax on everybody else in that business, and uses the money that it collects from its competitors to establish a monopoly and drive them out of business. No one can compete. When the Government really starts into a line of business that door of opportunity is closed to the people. It has always been an American ideal that the door of opportunity should remain open.

Coolidge saw the road Government takes every time it asserts itself in people’s choices. Opportunity closes. Freedom contracts. It is this road we are now on, with destinations including a single-payer scheme for American healthcare promised by the Government and paid by the rest of us, including generations not yet born. This latest frenzy over “shutting down” the Government is but the latest attempt to distract with fear and obtain by coercion the desired result of greater control and more of the same from an autocratic few. If people will simply stop opposing this Administration then the crisis will evaporate and all our pain will go away, they claim. This President is counting on both ignorance and addiction to the need for Government.

Coolidge reminds us to distinguish between what seems essential from what actually is. When we view it this way, it becomes obvious that the Federal Government needs us, not we it. If Washington ceased to be tomorrow, we would survive. We would even do better than we think. The importance rests with the individual and then his local and state authorities. The Federal Government would not leave a gaping hole which none could fill. The people, exercising their own judgment and creative abilities, would fill that hole. In fact, we would witness the return of choices, opportunity and freedom to our lives impossible when Government tries to “help” us.

Coolidge kept his faith in the ultimate triumph of the people to retain their liberties. The truly intimidating challenges faced by Americans of every time, place and background vindicates his faith. The confidence he had bore no time constraints, it was a faith firmly placed in the strength of ideals we share even now. The assurance of their truth and power for good rests on the conviction not only treasured by Coolidge but by millions of those who build, from nothing, lives of success and quiet excellence without a Washington subsidy. It is the solemn charge of our generation to ensure that door of opportunity remains open.