Those Who Fail to Learn From History are Doomed to Repeat It
Every succeeding human generation tends to think it has mastered and conquered the problems of its past, the things that led to hatred, war, destruction, the stunted growth of cultures and societies and nations, the evil that led human beings, who are theoretically the most intelligent beings on the planet, to torture and murder each other and bring down each other's civilizations because they were perceived as weak and inferior. And yet here we are, in the United States of America, in the twenty-first century, with serious problems that have the potential to bring down our 247 year old democracy.
As time passes, humans are supposed to learn from their past, to understand mistakes and figure out how to make things better. Our history has not been perfect, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, reading through any honest history that hasn't been whitewashed for textbook presentation to students in school will show that not much was different in our history than that of anywhere else in the world. The native population and civilization that was already here was attacked, brutalized, and virtually wiped out because of a technological disadvantage, not because it was inferior. Unity was achieved in the patchwork of colonies based on the common pursuit of wealth, and the ability to take advantage of being separated from world powers by the width of the Atlantic Ocean.
Virtually every war we have fought has involved greed, and the quest for wealth. The world wars of the twentieth centuty were about economic power, haves vs. have nots, who fixes the currencies, who controls the markets, who controls the exploitation of the resources of underdeveloped continents, and protecting our own interests under the guise of keeping ourselves safe from invasion and conquest by using invasion and conquest. That has all been mixed with some form of idealism based on the hope that human intellect does learn from its mistakes, and that we can do better, both as a nation and as a people in the world.
But I don't want to sound too cynical. There are many bright spots in our idealism which has, in many cases, reached its goals or at least, moved in the right direction toward them. There's always resistance, prejudice and bigotry have their influence and consequences, but the fact of the matter is that we do live in a free society, we have a functioning democracy which, in spite of its flaws, does reflect the will of the people and it has made a lot of progress toward the lofty goals of its idealism.
We have emerged from past threats intact, and having learned from our mistakes and the mistakes of others. Looking back from the vantage point of a history textbook, the success that we have experienced in turning back challenges to our freedom were not as certain in their outcome as they seem to us now. In fact, there were times when the successful outcome of a crisis was in doubt right up to the moment that it ended, and the resolution of the problems that causes the crisis also not certain, even after the critical moments were passed.
During the Civil War, there were many times that an outcome guaranteeing the United States would remain intact, and that freedom would be won, was in serious doubt. Anyone who has been to the Gettysburg battlefield knows about the copse of trees which are a physical "high water mark of the Confederacy," and that a series of small events which took place over the course of three days changed the entire outcome of the war in what were the darkest days for the cause of preserving the union and freedom.
This is a Mess Made by the Conservative Right Wing
Claiming tyranny, but bending constitutional minority protections into unrecognizeable shape for their own political benefit, Republicans have created the current political mess. There is no tyranny, in that they can't point to a single constitutional right or individual freedom that they have been denied under the leadership of Democrats when they have controlled Congress and the Presidency. Not one legitimate example. They seem very angry that people who don't think and act like prosperous, white, religious fundamentalists have rights and can go about their business, and make their choices with the same degree of freedom as everyone else, but they have not experienced tyranny, either by the technical definition of the work, or in any other way.
I frequently use Jefferson's way of explaining what true freedom looks like as an example.
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
That's a challenge, by the way, if I didn't hint at it strongly enough. Go ahead. Point out, specifically, where any conservative, or extremist right wing radical has had their pocket picked or their leg broken because they have a neighbor who is atheist, believes that life doesn't begin at conception, believes that global warming is real, believes that people have the right to express their sexual identity or gender orientation, believes that God inhabits a distant planet called Kolob with his millions of celestial wives, believes that life is a cycle of the forces of good and evil, or thinks Bernie Sanders would make an excellent President of the United States.
I'll state this in as clear and concise a manner as I know how. Tyranny, by definition, does not exist in the United States of America for prosperous, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, English speakers. So the overwhelmingly white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, English speaking mob who violently attacked police in order to over-run the Capitol and attempt a coup to overturn the provisions of the peaceful transfer of power in the Constitution were enemies of the United States, not American patriots defending the country against tyranny.
Oh, and by the way, in case anyone was wondering. When other people exercise their constitutional right to free expression, they are not "jamming" their perspective down anyone's throat. But when conservatives push legislation making matters of conscience matters of law instead, they are, indeed, jamming their views down the throats of those who do not accept their worldview or their bigotry and prejudices.
Let's talk about having something jammed down our throat, like businesses celebrating and acknowledging pride month. Does resistance to libs and cancel culture permit boycotts of those businesses because they're "jamming" the freedom of persons of LGBTQ orientation down our collective throats? Then let's have a conversation about businesses which celebrate Christmas. Isn't that doing the same thing, jamming Christianity down the throats of those who are not Christians? This is America, where our idealism and coincidentally, our intellect, should recognize, and at the very least tolerate, someone else's right to free expression. The commercialization of Christmas, which should offend most Christians, is far more invasive than pride month.
No one is compelled to participate in pride week or Christmas, though the commercial celebration of Christmas, by a long shot, is far more offensive to true Christianity and invasive of the rights of those who don't celebrate it in such a commercial way, than pride week. There is no law compelling participation in either event and someone with reasonable intelligence can figure out the best way to exercise their own freedom is don't participate in it. There's no tyranny involved.
What Have Americans Had to Endure Under Conservative Control?
Liberals tend to be much more patient and much more accepting of a culture in which true freedom of consicence exists. True freedom cannot exist in a culture where individuals or groups are persecuted because they are different. Americans have always been part of a struggle for true liberty, which we have not yet attained and likely never will. The whole idea behind the Constitution was to limit the powers of government in order to protect individual freedom of conscience. Laws should be written to protect us from, in Jefferson's terms, having our pocket picked or our leg broken. In other words, they establish the boundaries of infringement. But they should not infringe upon the rights to freedom of conscience or the free expression of any Americans because they are part of a racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, or social minority.
Being "American" means accepting its ideals, not assimilating into the cultural majority. One of the most patriotic Americans I know was my university Civics professor, a native born American citizen whose parents were from Jordan, who knew the Constitution like the back of her hand, because she loved the freedom that she had here, and appreciated it.
But after making some progress when Democrats have controlled Congress and the Presidency, we are clearly moving in a much different direction now. As Republicans have had to build their constituencies from more conservative elements of the culture, including the more conservative, fundamentalist and Pentecostal/Charismatic wings of far right Christianity, along with more radical, anti-government hate groups, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the whole array of conspiracy theorists, we have seen a clear erosion of acceptance and tolerance, and a sharp increase of anti-semitism, mass shootings and gun violence which is almost always perpetrated by a far right winger.
This has predictably produced chaos.
- We saw a group of anti-government insurrectionists follow the lead of the President of the United States in attacking the Capitol during the joint session of Congress certifying the electoral votes, based on the provable lie that the election had been "stolen" through massive voter fraud. No such evidence was ever produced, but radical right wingers who don't pay attention to current events were easily swayed by a politician who opened the door to their destructive hatred.
- We saw, in four years, the government run up 25% of the total debt it has accumulated throughout its entire history. Yes, 25% in just four years under a Republican administration from a party that has done nothing but whine about spending and the debt for four decades. And for what? To give tax cuts to the 1% of Americans who are bribing their way to an oligarchy of the rich.
- We are no strangers to corruption in the legal system. But we now have three Supreme Court justices, all far-right wing conservatives, all Republican appointees, who have scoffed at and ignored ethics in accepting what amounts to bribes from rich petitioners who have cases pending in front of the court.
- We have endured four years of a President's corruption that included the expectation of favorable treatment for himself from appointees to the federal courts, justice department and FBI.
- We have seen a sharp rise in attacks on minority groups, including deadly attacks on Jewish synagogues, on Muslims, on gays and lesbians, and, perhaps because they are most vulnerable and the terrorist aspect of the attacks get a lot of attention, on our children while they are in school. This is a legacy of far right wing Republicanism that they will never, ever live down.
- We have seen the appointment of known subversive anarchist advocates to positions in the White House under the previous Republican President.
- The voting rights act was dismantled by this conservative Supreme Court, along with Roe v. Wade.
- Another legacy of the extreme right wing of the GOP running amok is Citizens United, which has corrupted elections with a flood of money from the corporate rich in their attempt to buy influence and power in Congress and the Presidency. Their money elected the 45th President of the United States and bought most of his administration.
- The Russian oligarchy and its dictator successfully interfered in an American Presidential election.
Oh, I could go on, but that would be depressing. The real question here is not to rehash the lowest points of the Republican party in its history, and it has hit bottom before, but not like this. The question is, how do we stop this and how will we ever recover from it?
Paralized by Polarization
The brightest spots in the 21st century history of American Democracy have come during the Presidential administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. These two Presidents, who will go down in history as being among the best, have managed some colossal achievements in the face of Republican opposition and obstructionism. We have the first framework for actual health care reform which bears the name of the President who pushed it into place. "Obamacare" was a term of derision used by Republicans but it is still there, still in place, still helping millions of Americans have access to health care they wouldn't have otherwise. So yes, call it Obamacare.
The chapter on the Biden Administration is still being written, and along with his legislative accomplishments during a window of Democratic party control of Congress, is the fact that his administration is a bulwark against the anti-patriotic, anti-American stance of the bigots and anarchists that make up the core of the MAGA movement. He is helping to restore, as best he can, the damage that was done in just four years of the Trump administration.
I don't expect that there will be a quick turnaround in the thinking of those who have become caught up in the anti-patriotic, un-American MAGA movement or the subversive white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and anarchists that direct its movements. That kind of dark, negative ideology lasts a long time. We're still dealing with the effects of the racism and hatred that spewed out of the old Confederacy after Reconstruction was brought to an end. But we can keep it from spreading, growing, and render it ineffective in achieving its goals. I do have a few suggestions.
1. The former President must be brought to justice, not only for stealing classified documents, or in business fraud or civil sexual assault cases, but for charges of seditious conspiracy and inciting insurrection on January 6th, 2021.
Laying out the mountain of evidence that exists which shows him to be an un-American traitor to this country and its ideals and convicting him of the real crimes he committed, along with whatever consequence that involves, preferably spending the rest of his life in prison, will affirm the fact that American Democracy is here to stay, and will prevail. Frankly, that doesn't look political at all, it looks like real justice.
2. All Americans who have seen this for what it is, must make a commitment to use the tools that Democracy gives them, which are free expression and THE BALLOT BOX!
All elections matter. And that's all I need to say about it.
3. The public education system, from pre-Kindergarten to the graduate level of colleges and universities, need to experience major reform in civics education.
Along with high level reading skills, excellent writing skills and top notch math performance, civics education, "social studies" if you will, needs to undergo major reform as a required subject for all students every year of their education. American History should be taught, correctly and factually, not as mythology, every year that a student is in elementary or high school. Three of the four years of the high school curriculum should involve a segment of American history, and one full year of American Government, including a requirement that students pass, with a score of 80% or higher, a comprehensive exam on the U.S. Constitution. Credit hours in American history and government should be pre-requisites for any college degree program. And we need to train our best teachers in history and government.
Ignorance is the real enemy. It will take more than a generation to get rid of the evil that has infiltrated our society and culture. We must always be proactive and on the lookout for an invasion of ideology intended to destroy us from within. And the only cure for ignorance is education.
