On Honoring Our Veterans

October 5, 2013October 5, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

As Senate Democrats continue to back the President’s cherry-picking approach on which public sites to shut down and who deserves funding, veterans simply do not contribute anything to their Party agenda that merits respect or support. In the midst of what is supposed to be a Government “shutdown,” we saw the reinforcement of the World War II Memorial fencing by seven Park Service employees. At the same time, the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France has been chained shut “due to the U.S. Government shutdown.” So, we are spending money to reinforce gates and place guards at closed sites because we no longer have the money to keep them open?

Meanwhile, Camp David, the Presidential retreat, is kept open. The Blue Angels and NASA programs have long been shut down as visible symbols of American achievement and patriotism. Now Senator Harry Reid is refusing every effort to fund the National Guard, salaries for Reserve personnel, veterans’ services, and museums and parks. Taking all of these together, combined with the rabid attacks by Democrats against our military for serving in Iraq and Afghanistan during the previous administration, it forces the question: What do the Democrats have against our Armed Forces? Of course, they do not have value to the agenda.

Calvin Coolidge, upon being officially informed of his nomination as Vice Presidential candidate, spoke at length on what the country needed. He saw America suffering under a militant White House, continuing to prosecute the powers of wartime in peace. When a return to respect for our laws and institutions was needed, President Wilson and his Party kept the hostility and obstruction going. Evading their responsibilities to govern, the Democrats had assumed control at the expense of the people’s sovereignty. Millions were now unemployed, many of them World War I veterans and their families. The economy was stagnating under high taxation rates extracted by the Internal Revenue Service. A culture of fear was being perpetuated by Wilson’s Justice Department. The Democrats were shirking the duty they held not only to all the people but to those who had served. The unrestrained waste of the people’s substance had to be stopped. It was time to change those in charge. What they were doing was wrong and the first opportunity for the people to correct the direction in which America was going came with the 1920 election. As we know the people took their country back decisively, sweeping the White House, the Congress and state governments across the land.

When it came to veterans, while there could be no price quantified for what they had sacrificed, America had an obligation to them they could not pass off to anyone else. Coolidge said,

Whenever in the future this nation undertakes to assess its strength and resources, the largest item will be the roll of those who served her in every patriotic capacity in the world war. There are those who bore the civil tasks of that great undertaking, often at heavy sacrifices, always with the disinterested desire to serve their country. There are those who wore the uniform. The presence of the living, the example of the dead, will ever be a standing guaranty of the stability of our republic. From their rugged virtue springs a never-ending obligation to hold unimpaired the principles established by their victory. Honor is theirs forevermore.

The form this honor should take is what compelled Coolidge to stand on principle against cash payments to veterans, or any other special demographic. He knew what the perception of a Government giving money away does even to good and honest people. He knew that no amount could adequately recompense those who risked all, some giving life itself, for America’s ideals. When he vetoed measures to bestow cash bonuses to veterans, he acted with full awareness of what it might cost him politically. Principle mattered more to him. The principle of honoring sacrifice to Coolidge did not consist of merely appropriating money to show that “we care” but by embracing a deeper, more profound respect and reverence for what our veterans have done. The Congress of his day, overrode his veto.

Americans had made promises to veterans and those promises must be kept. Coolidge continued,

Duty compels that those promises, so freely made, that out of their sacrifices they should have a larger life, be speedily redeemed. Care of dependents, relief from distress, restoration from infirmity, provision for education, honorable preferment in the public service, a helping hand everywhere, are theirs not as a favor but by right. They have conquered the claim to suitable recognition in all things.

This recognition would be desecrated, however, if honoring our veterans became nothing more than a cash giveaway. More is required than simply to throw money at the problem and walk away. Unless we take up the service of those who served, no amount we give purchases the compassion and respect we owe. By helping the veteran who lives next door, providing for the assistance of his family, supporting the education and upward mobility of our defenders, wherever they are, ensuring the wounded are healed, the forsaken encouraged and the war-torn are built up, we are meeting that obligation. Responsible government appropriates the funds but it accomplishes nothing without the active participation of you and me serving those who served.

On numerous memorials across our nation, what Coolidge said next is fittingly preserved for posterity on the stones we have established in recognition of our veterans’ sacrifices. He reminds us still, “The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.”

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.

On Senate Rules

September 28, 2013September 28, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Having voted yesterday 79-19 to invoke cloture on the debate of the House’s Joint Resolution 59 as well as to authorize the Senate Majority Leader to defeat the House’s measure with a simple 51-member majority, it is reminiscent of what Coolidge once said of Senate rules. As Vice President according to the Constitution, Coolidge served as the presiding officer of the Senate from 1921 to 1923. It was, needless to say, an educational and preparatory time for him.

“At first I intended to become a student of the Senate rules and I did learn much about them, but I soon found that the Senate had but one fixed rule, subject to exceptions of course, which was to the effect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do it. When I had learned that, I did not waste much time on the other rules, because they were so seldom applied.”

Having successfully completed this show vote of fake opposition yesterday, most of this body can go back to “business as usual,” ignoring their constituents and trusting that time (and their voters) will forget what they have done by November of next year. Having voted to make funding Obamacare easier (79-19) they can tell their constituents they fought the good fight by voting against it in the next roll call (54-44-2). Conveniently omitting their role in empowering a 51-vote majority, they can hope to fool the people. Only 19 Senators refused to play this political charade.

It is worthwhile to recall Coolidge’s warning about the majority of these officeholders, “Nothing is more dangerous to good government than great power in improper hands.” If the Senate is to change its ways, it is up to us, the people, to send to it members of wisdom and character. Next year affords the opportunity to select or reject 33 of them. It serves us well to know who they are, for what they have voted and send them home if they are not faithfully representing us.