DRUGS

 Long before I read “The Fort Brag Cabal” by Seth Harp I had determined, through my experience, study, and observation that drugs, illegally obtained and used, represent a top, if not the top, problem facing America. The book didn’t reinforce this. It only created a primal fear that my country has been elicit in teaming with international drug warlords. They help our government fight anti-capitalist regimes and our government allows them to amass fortunes by creating havoc in American neighborhoods.

Now it seems that havoc is even more pronounced in certain of our military units.

Thinking people with whom I discuss things tend to believe that the case of a majority of American voters choosing to elect a total charlatan, grifter, and demon as president of our country is a unique phenomenon.

My primal fear this morning suggests that maybe that isn’t true. I worry that the metaphor for the election of this monster is closer to the peeling of an onion. As each layer is removed, it reveals a rottenness that began when the first slave stumbled in chains from a prison ship to work lands obtained by murdering the original inhabitants.

I wish nothing more strongly this morning more than that I be proven wrong.

DREAMS

 America has forgotten how to dream. I saw something like that in a quote and it started me thinking. My thoughts: Yes we have. No we have not.

It seems to me that we have forgotten to dream of the things that make our country stronger.

We once dreamed of eliminating poverty. Lyndon Johnson tried. It may have represented a classic example of applying the right solution to the wrong problem. Perhaps the problem wasn’t poor people in poor areas. Perhaps the problem was the exploitation of poor people in almost every segment of our country since 1619.

Ronald Reagan dreamed of accommodating poverty by enabling the rich to become richer and the poor to become ashamed of being poor. More wealth was to trickle downward from the rich to the poor and obviate the need for the ones he pictured as being like his “Welfare Queen.” Wealth, falling from the sky like manna from Heaven would enable those below to free themselves from the quagmire of poverty.

It may have contained a twinge of applying the wrong solution to the right problem. It is a characteristic of the rich that that last thing on earth they want is to share in their hoard.

Our poor still wait like hungry pets for the largesse to fall their way.

Oh, we dream alright. The rich dream of a pure capitalistic society in which they face no regulations or pay any taxes.

The poor dream of not having to make a choice between food or shelter.

Many of the rest of us dream of our state’s college sports team winning a national championship.

REASON

 Binary arguments plague us these days. These are situations which offer only two opposing sides or choices, often implying that if one is true, the other must be false. A form of "either/or" thinking, it is sometimes considered a logical fallacy because it may ignore the possibility of more nuanced or complex realities.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that I don’t believe in abortions, but health care choices should be determined by a woman and her physician, making abortions safe and rare.

If I am a far-left progressive, I can’t say that gender dysphoria is a medical phenomenon affecting less than one percent of the population who should be loved and cared for, but that some gender-selection advocates have pushed the extremes of thought to uncomfortable levels.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that regulations stifle the economy, but some are necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the general population.

If I am a far left progressive, I can’t say that protection of the welfare is essential, but that America has become over-regulated when we fine companies for not placing "Do not stand." warnings on the top of stepladders.

We must, as in some Biblical admonition, choose whom we will serve and how we will serve them, never in the lukewarm, or rational, middle, but hot or cold.

 Increasingly, we don’t seek to serve the vast general public.

Increasingly, we avoid reason to guide our thinking.

Increasingly, we approach life from the extremes of thought.

That’s how we have ended up where we are.

THE CENTER

 Heard a new phrase today that fits me perfectly: "The sensible center." Do you sometimes feel like you are in a crater in the middle of "no man's land" and both sides are firing heavy artillery at one another and it passes over you in a dreadful exchange?

That's me. I don't think there is a place in the center for me. Not to trivialize the poor, but I feel that I, and many of my friends, represent the politically homeless. Life wants one to choose from the extremes these days. I don't feel comfortable with either. Here are some examples, not intended to change your mind but to illustrate how I feel as the bombs pass overhead.

I believe strongly that I have no standing on the abortion issue, and I support the privilege of a woman's deciding, along with her physician, what is best for her body.  On the other hand, the use of abortion to determine the sexual makeup of a family's children bothers me.

I believe that there is a portion of my homo sapiens colleagues, some 0.6 percent of the adult population, born with a condition called gender dysphoria. I believe they deserve acceptance, grace, and treatment. On the other hand, I accept the consensus of scientists who state that there are two sexes, male and female. Telling young children that gender is an arbitrary choice from which they may choose disturbs me.

I believe that capitalism, along with the exercise of life, must be regulated. On the other hand, I think America is often over-regulated. When one's job is to address the problems that confront dense living, one must often use regulations to meet those problems. When one's job is to write regulations, one does so, regardless. Using regulation for aspirational purposes and not for the betterment of society disturbs me.

I believe, as Oliver Wendell Holmes stated, that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. On the other hand, waste and pork-barrel spending suck the lifeblood from America. Rewarding loyalty with government largesse disturbs me.

In short, I think that societal choices are complex and not to be addressed with sound bites or on social media. For example, I think the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan was a horrific act. But then, I was not a 22-year-old man who had landed on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944 and had helped defeat the Nazis only to be assigned to a legendary infantry division that would have been in the first boats ashore if the United States military had landed at Kyushu.

Don't get me wrong, my safe place tends toward the left. But I don't choose blind dogma. I think, and therefore I ponder and evaluate. At the end of the day, I love America more than I love a political party.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 There’s a French term: “L'esprit de l'escalier” or  ”staircase wit” meaning the predicament whereby one thinks of the perfect reply too late, i.e. as when going down the stairs. One for me in 2024 came from overhearing two well-educated young men discussing the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

“I don’t like either candidate,” one said.

“I don’t either,” the other said, leaving the conversation hanging like the Sword of Damocles.

Many times since, I’ve wished I’d said something along the lines of:

Fellers, it’s not a popularity contest.

It’s not a reality-TV show where the principles of theater determine a winner.

It’s not an issue to be regarded as lightly as choosing a coffee shop.

It is the result of a hard-fought battle that allows you to cast a vote for the future of your country.

It requires complex analysis in determining which party, admitting neither meets our beliefs exactly, will leave our country in better shape.

On a planet with probably less than 100 years of sustainable life remaining, it is a chance to choose leaders that may try to lengthen that life.

It is a chance to choose a party that will offer succor to "the least of those among us," for your near ancestors were likely among that group for a time.

It is a change to pay homage to decency in America.

It is complex situation like the Greek myth of Scylla and Charybdis in which a choice must be made between two less than perfect outcomes.

You men will not face the situation I faced in which a faceless Draft Board could send your young bodies to war. But you face your own test of love of country. For goodness sake, treat it with the respect it deserves. Your children and grandchildren demand it of you.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

 Useful idiots abound these days, unfortunately on both sides of the political spectrum. It is a term that originated with Russians Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, mega-madmen who raised mass genocide in the pursuit of power to a level not to be matched until Pot Pol arrived on the scene in Cambodia. It refers to those who help maintain power but aren’t part of the inner circle of actors.

A more apt descriptor might be “useful idiot” for we cannot assume these folks are stupid. Rather, they are sometimes quite intelligent enablers who do not consider the harmful effects of a given cause, political or otherwise. They attribute to a given cause its positive effects. They ignore the harmful, even disastrous effects.

The tragic aspect is that they exist on both extremities of rational behavior and can join hands to place pure evil into power.

On the far right, useful fools pursue the eradication of a women’s choice for abortion to the extent of supporting laws that subject a 12-year-old to the bearing of a rapist’s child.

On the far left, they respond to the actions of a renegade police officer by supporting the demolition of entire commercial areas of a city by mobs screaming, “Defund the police.”

Sadly, we have reached a point in our approach to universal problems such as inadequate health care, lack of housing, crime, and poverty that we now cling to the far margins of rational thought.

Imagine the process of addressing of cognitive thought to solving a problem.  Our workspace is a long spectrum of analysis allowing for major complexities. Take the issue of immigration, for example.

On one far end the useful idiots scream “open borders.”

On the other far end the useful idiots scream “concentration camps, walls, and machine gun nests.”

Any person advocating an approach lying somewhere in between based on logical thinking and compromises encounters vicious, sometimes career-ending attacks on their personal and professional stature. Moving even beyond the strictures of Mafia doctrine, even family members and friends lie within the field of fire.

Fascists love the strife and opportunity caused by this dialectic.

It has placed America in her current condition of impending doom and will get worse as we end progressive education and replace it with indoctrination based on loyalty to the forces in power (FOP).

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 COACHES

 Thinking about football coaches. Never sell one short.

Some years ago, I was sitting in the lobby of a real estate office in a mid-sized Arkansas town waiting to see the owner about his current development plans. A man entered and walked through the lobby and the sight shocked me. Later I told the owner, “That man looked like our old football coach Marcus Kaufman.”

“Yep.”

“Really?”

“Our top salesperson.”

“He was our football coach and math teacher for years.”

“Sells real estate now. And does he ever."

It was true that he had been a coach. Legendary ain’t the word. Rumors abounded. A prevalent one had him flying a fighter plane in WWII. An adjunct rumor had him shot down, an incident that left him with an uncontrollable tick when he got excited. He had two modes: telling you to do it and telling you how you did. He once gave my sister an A+ on her report card and scribbled a note to my parents saying he was sorry it couldn't have been higher. How would you like to carry that on your shoulders through High School?

“Your top salesperson?”

“He is great with young folks. He shows them several houses and when they opt to see another, he stops the car and tells them they have seen enough and they need to pick one so they can get settled in and start their family. Works every time.”

Never sell a teacher short. I think Coach Walz said that.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 DEBATES

There are things about the telecasting, nationally, of so-called presidential "debates" that bother me. Yes, first and foremost is the fact that they aren't debates at all. They don't even resemble the classic confrontations of Lincoln and Douglas. In fact, it is hard to say of what they actually do remind one.

Best analogy I can think of is a verbal confrontation between Hulk Hogan and Jake "the Snake" Roberts.

Then there is the fact that some people simply appear more likeable on TV. Back during the start of modern debates, people hearing "Kennedy v. Nixon" on the radio tended to grant Richard Nixon the nod of success. Those watching on TV picked the young and vibrant John Kennedy over the sweating and unshaven Nixon.

Then there is the lack of discipline imposed by the producers. This is, after all TV. These events are not designed for information, much less for decision-making. They are designed for ratings-making. Producers jump for joy when an unmanageable bully like Donald Trump treads all over the time allotted to a policy-wonk, and female, like Hillary Clinton. "Eye-God, he showed her" or something like that dominated the headlines.

Then there is the fact that the aftermath, the denouement, the score in effect, is managed by the pundits. Say two debaters perform miserably. Reports of that won't sell. Pick one as "the loser" and let the public decide through some form of mental subtraction, that the other was "the winner."

Above all, though, is the issue of expectations. Take the Bush Jr. v Gore debates. All the former had to do was not say "I haven't a clue" and remember who the president of Mexico was, and he achieved Mt. Everest-sized accolades. Oh, and poor Al Gore sniffed more than once. When one has the Supreme Court of the United States in his corner, the achievement of expectations falls in importance.

Now we have an upcoming debate in which the following standards exist. Achieving them all will gain a resounding worldwide claim of victory for one of the contestants:

CONTESTANT ONE:

Outline a clear plan for world peace. Outline a clear plan for establishing an economic system that is equally fair and equitable for all, Outline a clear plan for solutions to nagging problems such as supply-chain delays. Solve a major immigrant problem caused in great part by Americans' penchant for illegal drugs from South America. Reduce grocery prices while on stage. Appear like the kindly neighbor down the street. Convince all under 40 years of age that this is the contestant with whom one would most like to share a beer or two.

CONTESTANT TWO:

Make it to the podium without wetting himself on national TV.

One suspects that the pundits have already written their reviews. 

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 BOLDNESS

A popular sci-fi series in America included, in its introduction, “…to boldly go where no one has gone before.” That serves us well, we think, as a guiding principle.

Sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.

Two United States generals during the Battle of Gettysburg, Sickles and Barlow, didn’t like where their units were deployed so they moved boldly into new positions they liked better.

Both created havoc that decimated their commands and almost cost the Union the battle.

One of Ernest Hemingway’s most popular novels, “The Old Man and the Sea,” features a man who ventured too far out to overcome disappointment.

The magnificent edifice of Mount Everest is littered with the frozen bodies of those who wanted to boldly go where few had gone before.

Custer certainly learned a lesson.

And then there was the time America told France, “Don’t worry, step aside and we’ll settle these pesky Vietnamese down in a few months.”

On the other hand, we could list countless examples where boldness carried the day, the spirits of those still haunting the beaches of Normandy would demand it of us as would those who stormed Missionary Ridge under the leadership of the man who boldly led America into passage of the Emancipation Proclamation. But his life ended at the hands of one who no doubt saw himself as the boldest person who ever lived.

Where does boldness end and idiocy begin?

We must decide, each for ourselves. In the meantime, does compromise work?

It gave us Medicare.

It saved our economy several times over the last few administrations.

It gave us the United States Constitution. Yes, a flawed document, but one that has gained strength over the years, and is held in awe throughout the world.

Public administration examples suggest that too much boldness can result in bankruptcy. To little boldness can result in a rusted polis.

Things seem to work best with healthy doses of each.

Just some thoughts.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 THE LAW

There is a legal defense of sorts that used to be taught in the law schools of my state. It may still be. I don’t know. I’m not an attorney, not a law school student.

Anyway, the defense was named after a prominent attorney and state legislator from Arkansas in a case some years ago. Accused of some malfeasance or other rising to the level of potential illegality, he formed a remarkable line of reasoning. The logic employed was so remarkable that its use was taught to future attorneys at one time. It was something along the lines of:

“I’m accused of doing something that, on analysis, is very stupid. Am I stupid? No. I graduated from college and law school, and passed the bar exam. I’m savvy enough to be elected to our state legislature, perhaps no great, but certainly no mean feat. I have a successful law practice. So, I’m not stupid. When one considers that what I’m accused of would be a stupid act, and one sees that I am obviously not stupid then, ipso facto, (a legal term meaning: darn tootin’) the chances of my guilt are zero.”

I seem to remember that it worked but I’m not sure.

So now we have what I propose to label the “Donald Trump Defense.” It would run, in contra-conception to one mentioned above, along the lines of:

“I’m accused of doing wrong. I’m new at this. But I was once President and there is no way a president can be held to the standard of what is right or wrong. My Supreme Court said so. Therefore, libet dicere (rough translation: bite me) my innocence is assured beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

A few words of caution bear consideration. As I mentioned earlier, wise men will avoid this defense with spouses. Also, members of progressive political parties should eschew its use as they labor under the legal assumptions of intelligentes estis and  competentsus est assurdant. (legal terms meaning: don’t try this crap with us).

There exist many examples where the efficacy of the “Donald Trump” defense would not prove appropriate, getting caught parked in Mike Tyson’s spot for example. And, in the event of accidently initiating a nuclear war, don’t bother. We’ll be operating under another legal principle, id est moot, (a legal term meaning alle ist kaput).

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 POLICIES

Time was when political elections featured well-formulated policy statements, called platforms, from which voters were to choose. For example, look at the 1952 election, a time seemingly proposed as worth returning to by many Americans (of specific race and gender.)

Both political parties spelled out their aims clearly.

The Republican platform pledged to end the unpopular war in Korea, supported the development of nuclear weapons as a deterrence strategy, to fire all "the loafers, incompetents and unnecessary employees" at the State Department, condemned the Roosevelt and Truman administrations' economic policies, supported retention of the Taft–Hartley Act, opposed "discrimination against race, religion or national origin", supported "Federal action toward the elimination of lynching", and pledged to bring an end to communist subversion in the United States.

The Democrats favored a strong national defense, collective security against the Soviet Union, multilateral disarmament, repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, equal employment opportunities for minorities and public assistance for the aged, children, blind, and the disabled, expansion of the school lunch program, and continued efforts to fight racial discrimination.

Americans chose the Republican candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who claimed victory graciously, over the Democratic candidate Adlai E. Stevenson, who accepted defeat graciously.

Neither vowed to claim fraud or to spur violence over the results.

Voters then went on about their business.

Neither platform sought simply to build raw power at the expense of the common good.

Neither platform described the other party as “garbage.”

Neither platform vowed the use of religion as retribution if enacted.

Neither party employed a professional wrestler as its spokesperson.

Maybe there are some tidbits of the past that could make America an even better country.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 LEADERS

When I started my professional career, I had the opportunity to work for many of the cities in our state. Without fail, the leaders of those cities, not necessarily the elected ones but those holding power, looked like I do today.

Old fat white men.

Yep. And as time passed, I heard a consistent message from younger potential leaders. “Those old men won’t step aside and let us assume leadership positions.” Of course, women and minorities weren’t even part of the conversation. But that’s how the baby boomers felt.

Now the baby boomers are in charge, today even joined by selected females and people of color. Guess what the young folks are saying?

Yep. As a friend pointed out during a lunch yesterday, it’s probably true with each generation.

“They just won’t get out of the way and let us in to lead.”

That’s one—just one—of the magnificent aspects of President Joe Biden’s speech this week. The most powerful man in the world, not the leader of some mid-sized town in Arkansas but the most powerful man in the world, is “getting out of the way.”

One immediately hears the opening of the fourth movement ofBeethoven’s Fifth symphony erupt.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

CHILDLESSNESS

Evidently one political party endorses the view that a childless woman, expanded to a childless couple, doesn’t deserve a role in determining the fate of America.

Having a history involving this concept, I can offer a personal opinion.

This is a political stand of almost unbelievable cruelty.

We, my life’s partner and I, produced no children in our marriage. Once, we were on the path, but a miscarriage ended the process and no further attempts proved successful.

If Cult members could see the look on the face of a woman who has just seen the process of motherhood fail, would it change their minds?

I doubt it. Cults demand the repudiation of empathy as much as they do reason.

There is a larger picture here, though. A couple having suffered through a miscarriage or a failure to procreate doesn’t represent the only childless Americans.

Men have had the opportunity to avoid the responsibility of parenthood for years. Women haven’t. Now they face opprobrium by their personal decision. That should lose the cult half the vote in an election.

It won’t. Cults demand obedience to doctrine over any sense of personhood.

Finaly, the Cult accepts, by non-refutation, the concept that those who have no children don’t deserve the honor of having a stake in the future of America.

Really?

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 NEW DAYS

There is an old British idiom that warns, “There's many a slip twixt cup and lip.” Who in their right mind would predict the results of a November election in these troubled times? Too much could happen in a country already weary from false and hyperbolic dialogue. There are too many chances for a “black swan” that could topple our dreams.

But some things are starting to simmer in this stew we call American politics.

Using racial slurs and “dog whistles” against political opponent is so “1950.” Even though transporting America back to that age is the avowed platform of one of the parties, racial foghorns don’t seem to be selling tickets for the ride. Good for us.

Another idea floated to the surface in a speech last eve is the idea of sacrifice, the notion—out of favor in recent years—that a person should sacrifice personal aspirations for the good of the country. It resounded with me, and I’m sure others who made such a decision during the Vietnam War era. "What's in it for me" does mock the very premise of the Sermon on the Mount. Oops, forgot.  The evangelicals on the far right recently redacted that passage.

Then there is the concept of reaching bottom and looking up. Four nearly eight years, many Americans have asked themselves, is there a bottom to the depraved words and actions of politicians on the national stage? First it was mocking the disabled, then veterans, then it was medical professionals, and only this week it was women who have not given birth to a child.

That all may be over. It’s like Americans looked up from dark pit and saw the sun break through.

May its rays reach us all and everyone.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 POPULARITY

One hears it often during this political season in America: “I don’t like either candidate.”

That’s all. No policy analysis. No review of historical records. No consideration of past actions. No prediction of future implications. No educated guess about what either candidate might do to hurt or help the people of America if elected.

Just, “I don’t like either candidate.”

The election of a president of the United States of America might be likened to a taste test of two sodas. 

Elections have more potential consequences.

Germany had an election in 1933. It’s very likely that a majority of Germans didn’t like any of the candidates involved. Perhaps many stayed home.

The Brownshirts didn’t.

In 1945, General Dwight David Eisenhower, head of the allied troops in Europe, forced the people of selected villages in Germany to march past the final result of the 1933 elections. The programs and intentions that brought about these results had been spelled out very clearly in a 1925 manifesto that sold over 12 million copies, including a braille edition for the blind.

People had known.

How many people in these sad lines do we imagine might have been thinking, “But I didn’t like either candidate?”

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 ELECTIONS

Our next election won’t rely on facts. Both extremes of the political factions denounce any facts that don’t resonate with embedded emotions and this phenomenon is spreading laterally.

It won’t rely on the Rule of Law. We are abandoning that.

It won’t rely on majority rule. The electoral college obliterates that.

It won’t rely on history. We distrust the telling of history, sometimes for good reason. (See: The Lost Cause Myth.)

It won’t rely on information. Too few control the dissemination, quality and content.

It won't rely on calm reflection. Our cell phones demand too much of our time for that.

It won’t rely on a concept of morality. The most commonly accepted source of morality in America is a book that lauds mass extermination, the murder of innocents, slavery, and harems, among its other tenets.

It won’t rely on sacrifice for the common good. That goes without saying.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 VIOLENCE

The first time I ever saw a dead body that wasn’t a victim of old age, it made an impression on me. It was that of a Vietnamese man of maybe his late thirties. He had been found by a Marine patrol on a routine mission. He hung from a tree on Monkey Mountain in Vietnam on the South China sea. It was an area which I, myself, had covered on patrol.

The noose still hung around his neck as his body rested in a pickup truck bed on our Navy base. It was located next to an enlisted men’s club, so the drunks had a good time commenting as they passed it by.

Our leaders used it as a lesson for caution and strict obedience.

The village next to our base was especially quiet for the next few days.

What caused this death? Who knows?

Was it a warning as to who controlled this barren spot of real estate outside the City of Da Nang?

Was it punishment for a failure of courage?

Was it a warning to other villagers whose loyalties might waver?

Or was it, as I tend to think, simply the remains of a poor being who tired of living in a country that had been at war off and on for over 300 years?

Violence has its collateral costs.

It also always has its adherents.

Today in America, we read of violence again.

Political parties will “make hay” of it.

Special interest groups will frolic in unilateral explanations.

The media will know it has fuel for another week.

All of this will occur, though, while families mourn and America bows her head in shame.

Mid-week Grumbling

No, I didn’t watch the so-called debates. Those things make me nervous. I sort of place them in the same category as watching an automobile race. The main objective of the crowd is to hope that someone in the group destroys herself or himself. Petty, inconsequential things rule. One word. One poorly shaven or perspiring face. One second of consideration of a trick question similar to, “Do you still beat your wife?” or “Do you think that, as human being placed on Earth in horrible, debased, cruel, and vicious circumstances, and fleeing to a safe haven to save your family from a lingering and tortuous death … you should receive comfort and basic health care from the richest country on the planet, while thoughtful, reasonable people contemplate your fate?”

Oh, that wasn’t the way the question was asked, now was it? What if the question ended with, “If you think the Galilean would have you say 'yes,' raise your hand?”

It seems we have conditioned too many Americans to say, “No, my Jesus would tell them to go back to where they came from.” They don't follow "the pale Galilean," but the orange evangelist and his crew of merry-makers.

That’s why I don’t watch the debates. I do try, though, to watch what’s happening to us, and it ain’t a pretty sight these days.

A full heart ...

I never go out of my way to offend. Well, sometimes I veer that way, but, I hope, without malice. Today, though, my soul is too full. Please just give me some leeway for the outpourings of my heart at this moment.

First, let me say that I have had, and continue to have, close and dear friends on the other side of the political spectrum from me. I believe that they have sound beliefs and honest convictions. For example, concerns about the unbridled growth of government are valid, I believe. Also, I have found, during my professional career, that if one’s job is to write regulations, one tends to write regulations, whether they are needed or not. On the other hand, most agree with me that the climate is changing and that we need to address the issue.

So, we have many reasonable things to discuss rationally over a friendly beer or cup of coffee.

That stops, though, at some point. If one belongs to a political party that dishonors the military service of brave shipmates of mine like John Kerry or John McCain, then we have a problem, and I feel that I must acknowledge that, as I acknowledge the mendacity of my liberal colleagues who dishonor the brave police officers of our country.

I don’t support the morality of what John Kerry and John McCain were doing in Vietnam. Yet, while they were doing it, I was in the same military, doing exactly what my country told me to, at the same time, and close to the same place. I don’t support the morality of what my country had me doing, but, like those two heroes of mine, I did it because my country asked it of me. I didn’t think up the Vietnam War. Neither did John Kerry or John McCain. The Vietnam War was thought up by men who valued real estate above honor—men like Robert E. Lee. It was prosecuted by people like myself who believed service to their country shouldn’t be questioned.

So the two sailors did their duty. One survived the experience of war and went home. One had his plane shot down.  Both then achieved their moments of greatness. John Kerry spoke out against sending more of America’s finest young men and women to die in an unjust war. “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” he asked.

John McCain spent five and a half years being brutally treated in a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam. At one point therein, he was offered the opportunity to go home, due to the fact that that he was the son of an admiral who served honorably in “the good war.” The publicity would have greatly enhanced the international status of his captors.

“No,” said John McCain, “Not unless you release the other prisoners as well.”

Vietnam veterans have become used to, over the years, a lack of gratitude from their country for the service to it during that miserable “police action.”

None were ready, however, for the sight of a political party saying that John Kerry and John McCain were deserving of shame for their service, Kerry because he spoke “truth to power,” and McCain because he was “shot down.”

I hang my head in shame over this. We all should.

I’m not asking my friends on the other side of the political divide to abandon the valid beliefs of their party. I’m asking them to root out the evildoers who have taken it over. Replace the odious serpents that have hijacked the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower. As the greatest of them said, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

It’s only a small step from the wrong side to the right side of history. Let us all believe again in honor above party, and let’s all go home together.

A Break

It’s Sunday and I’ll take a day off from the story of my professional life. Maybe I’ll mention my political and religious preferences instead.

I’m a lifelong Democrat. I would have voted for Winthrop Rockefeller had I been home at the time. But since I’ve been in Arkansas, I’ve only pulled an “R” once. That was during a minor conspiracy designed to rid the state of one of the worst disgraces in our political history, second only perhaps to Orval Faubus. There not being major controversies in the Democratic primary once upon a time, many folks switched primaries to rid the state of Arkansas of the further shame of Tommy Robinson. Can’t blame me for that, can you? I sincerely believe I have always voted from conscience and not from hatred.

Because of my personal history and beliefs, I will never vote for a member of the party that allowed the scurrilous attacks upon the patriotism and military service of my brother and shipmate John Kerry, known as “The Swift Boat Attacks.” I apologize for my intractability, but it is a decision both carefully and deliberately made.

I subscribe primarily to progressive ideas. I do share my conservative friends’ apprehension of over-regulation. I think this occurs, to a large degree from the failure of American government to establish a policy and strategy structure that might find bi-lateral agreement. For example, we have no workable transportation policy, much less do we have a compassionate and workable national policy on the criminal justice system.

Consequently, our highways face imminent obsolescence and we incarcerate people at a rate higher than any country should contemplate. We jail people for long periods of time when, for most, a short period would be just as effective. On the regulation side, we have a vast army of bureaucrats who see their job not as one of problem solving but simply one of writing regulations. And when one sees one’s job as that of writing regulations, they … will … write regulations, whether they make sense or not.

The can backfire into a knee-jerk revolt against regulations of any sort, even badly needed ones. I fear that is what we are seeing now.

I do not despise taxes, believing, as did Oliver Wendell Holmes, that they buy us civilization. I do despise the wasting of tax dollars. In this area, let him who is without sin …

To the other point, I’m not a big fan of organized religion. I do, however, vote more in harmony with the Sermon on the Mount and the 25^th Chapter of Matthew than upon the execrable rantings of Ayn Rand.

To those on either the Left or Right that pass falsehoods, personal attacks, mean-spirited postings, racists comments, or outright slander on social media: we must strive to do better.

Here is where I think I differ from many friends on the other side of politics:

Based on my education and analysis, I disagree with the policies, style, personal behavior, statements, and unwillingness to heal America, as exhibited by Donald Trump. It is my personal conclusion that America will suffer for years because of his lack of leadership. I find him shallow, vindictive, slippery, mercurial, and mendacious.

Please form your own opinion and act accordingly. I gave four years of my life to protect that privilege. I believe in the right of all to examine the facts as I have done, come to their own reasonable decisions, and vote. We differ in conclusions, not in brotherhood.

Now for the challenge …

President Trump is supposedly planning a sit-down with Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, a country with which America has been at war since the 1950s, and which now has nuclear weapons. The purpose of the talks is to seek a more harmonious relationship between the two countries.

In contrast with many friends of the opposite political party, as per my observations during the presidency of Barrack Obama …

I do sincerely hope the President of the United States is successful in the talks.