Meaningless Words

The political culture in twenty-first century America is something to behold. Here words, labels, definitions, and classifications have little or no meaning. Turn on your favorite cable news network and you are likely to see Democratic Party activist “X” debating some Republican strategist “Y”. Sure, X and Y spout their respective party lines and generally put on a good show, heck they might even yell at each other, but in the end that is all it really is – a show, whose observers rarely stop and actually think about the issues being talked about and most importantly the actual arguments advanced by our favorite talking heads. If genuine conservatives ever get around to this they will notice something very important: the “right-wing” Republican rarely disagrees with the “left-wing” Democrat on the desirability of the ends of a given public policy.

The whole debate about “reforming” Social Security provides an instructive example. On this issue in particular, both establishment Right and Left agree: we must “save” Social Security for future generations. Instead of advocating the abolition of this socialist, coercive, statist system, our “right-wing” champion merely lauds the prospect of the President “allowing” American citizens to put their Social Security funds in government-managed “private accounts.” But why would any conservative (or insert your favorite Cato Institute “libertarian” here) want to save this socialist gift of Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Forgive my ungratefulness, but since when do I need permission from the federal government to plan for my own retirement? Where does Article I Section 8 of the Constitution authorize Congress to establish a system of forced savings for the American people?

The major point here is that both “right” and left are in agreement on big, unconstitutional government – the fruit of my labor is not really mine per se, my economic fate is up to the whims of politicians and government bureaucrats. It should be clear that this reasoning is utterly unconservative, for in the historic conservative view, the people limit the size and scope of the state, wealth belongs to the individual, and government doesn’t “allow” citizens to keep their earnings because they do not belong to the state in the first place.

So in effect, what we have in modern America are two sides (and two parties) to the same big government coin dressed up with “conservative” and “liberal” monikers. Both agree on the ends but only disagree on the stylistic means. When either win, liberty and the Old Republic fade away just a bit more - think about that the next time you watch cable TV or listen to talk radio.

The Trenton Circus: Government Unrestrained

Among even self-professed conservatives, there exists only a faction dedicated wholly to the cause of Constitutional government. On the surface, if one chooses it to define it as such, it seems frivolous to worry about how closely the governing of the country follows the text of a 220-year old document.

Of course, those of us in the faction know there’s more to it than that. The short form is, Constitutional government is the rule of law and the rule of law is the hallmark of civilized society. But the short form is rarely sufficient. There is, naturally, more to it than that. The purpose of the Constitution is to restrain government. There is no more important aim for a people that desire their freedom and quality of life to remain intact.

The opposite result is government unrestrained. The best examples of this exist in the states, where the government is closer to the people, holds more power over them, and is still intended to be guided by a state constitution. In no state is the government more out of control and ineffectual than in my home state of New Jersey.

Welcome to New Jersey

The “Governor” of New Jersey is Acting Governor Richard Codey. He’s the person legally obligated by state succession to clean up the mess Gay-American and former Governor James McGreevey left in his wake. Had McGreevey resigned before Election Day, we in the state could have chosen a replacement, but you should know, if you don’t live here, that we don’t get much say about what happens in Trenton. Mercifully, we were spared from seeing US Senator John Corzine’s bizarre offer to “take over” come to fruition.

Well, Corzine evidently took offense to not being allowed to usurp authority in the state, as he decided he was going to become Governor, come hell or high water. No one seems to have informed him that Governor is a position of less power and prestige than US Senator, as he committed a fortune to being the Democratic candidate for Governor in the 2005 election. Every Democrat of note in the state endorsed Corzine, abandoning Codey in the dust. Of course, inexplicably, Codey has the highest approval rating for a New Jersey governor in two decades. The same principle that got us Codey as a governor is cheating him out of his chance to actually earn it; that is, New Jersey voters do not deserve to vote. The Democratic gubernatorial situation is perhaps the most glaring example favoring primary elections in the history of politics.

Conversely, the Republican situation, with seven, count ‘em, seven candidates vying for the nomination, is perhaps the most fitting argument against primary elections. The two front-runners are Bret Schundler, the reform candidate with an impressive record as Mayor of Jersey City who, as some are coming to regret, could not beat McGreevey in 2001, and Doug Forrester, who would have beaten the criminal Torricelli in 2002 for the Senate, had the Democrats not bent state law to exhume Frank Lautenberg and run him to victory. Schundler is the better candidate. Forrester has the money. The other five represent all ends of the Republican spectrum and are itching to play spoiler. The only certain outcome is a vicious and expensive primary that John Corzine can watch, laughing while reclining on a tremendous pile of money.

Schundler has integrity, a good record, and solid ideas. Why isn’t he the overwhelming favorite? The mainstream Republican Party hates him. Why? Firstly, he wants to clean up Trenton, and, as Schundler has stated as part of his campaign, and the indictments in Monmouth County prove, Republicans are just as corrupt in this state as the Democrats. Secondly, he’s a true, fiscally conservative, pro-life, right-winger. Our last Republican governor, Christine Whitman, decided to write a book about how too far right-wing the Republican party is. That pretty much sums up how welcome conservatives are here. It’s her party, too. It hasn’t been mine in a good long time.

So the election’s going to be a mess. Maybe that’s why Codey decided to avoid it, after all. He seems to be having a good time. Firstly, he's suspiciously still president of the State Senate, while governor. He then began things by getting into a fight with a talk radio host, which made for some interesting press. Nothing like bringing some dignity to the office after the McGreevy scandal, eh? He next decided to respond to the budget crisis with a joke: "The good news is, we're not bankrupt. The bad news is, we're close." But, he can be serious, too. Just look at his fool-proof plan for ending it: we’ll cut property tax rebates. Then we’ll appropriate a couple hundred million dollars for housing for the mentally ill, without the legislature voting on it or having a referendum. What? Then we’ll add a commission of eleven people to the state payroll, without the legislature voting on it or having a referendum. Then we’ll add some vaguely-defined, high-profile administrative positions to the payroll to placate the anti-corruption crowd. Then we’ll create the office of lieutenant-governor, for no reason, and give the office its own executive department. Sounds like a plan.

Now, with all this chaos, corruption, and confusion about, what exactly is the State Assembly doing to govern New Jersey? Why, they’re debating whether or not the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. Why? Because they got it in their mind to declare it “state vegetable,” even though it’s a fruit. Well, scientifically, a fruit it may be, but in the eyes of New Jersey state law, it’s a vegetable. Besides, we already have a state fruit, the blueberry, which was only named as such last year. Anytime you name anything “state” something, it involves proclamations, events, speeches, and tax money. We need a state vegetable like we need a lieutenant-governor. And as far as these state symbols are concerned, ask how many New Jerseyans what our state folk dance or state dinosaur are. That’s about how useful a state vegetable would be.

In addition, as I heard on New Jersey 101.5 this morning, some Assemblywoman proposed making gambling-awareness education a mandatory part of the school curriculum. That’s right. A state which funds its schools with lotteries, horse tracks, and Atlantic City wants to teach kids that gambling is wrong.

Government Unrestrained

You may be asking yourself, “who cares?” Apart from being worth a laugh, why should the machinations of New Jersey state politics be worth a second glance from anyone?

Because this is what happens when the people decide that government is the solution to every problem. When the government fails, it just piles more government on top of itself, creating a self-contained leviathan which can eventually shut the voter completely out and dictate how each and every person’s money is spent, lives are led, and children are educated with absolutely no say needed from the constituents. This is what the future will look like in America the more and more detached the Federal government gets from the Constitution and the influence of the American people.

Let me tell you, it’s not a pleasant state of affairs. It’s frustrating for the citizen, ruinous for the state, and does nothing to promote either efficient or virtuous government. It honestly is the closest thing to a monster that grows beyond its creator’s control that we will ever see in our reality.

Yet, all that needs to be done to roll it back, preserve our freedom, streamline government, and creative effective leadership is to follow the letter of the law. Is that really so unreasonable?

Remember, even a fruit can become a vegetable if the Leviathan says so. The more control we exercise over it, and not it exercises over us, the better.

On Patriotism, World War I, and The Illusion of Victory

June 22, 2002. It is a typical summer day in suburban Arlington, Virginia. High school students from as far away as California have come to Marymount University to hear lectures from prominent names in the conservative movement at the Young America’s Foundation National High School Leadership Conference. In a wood-grained lecture hall Anthony, I, and around 150 or so self-described conservatives watch and listen as Nigel Ashford, program officer at the Institute for Human Studies, takes the podium. The title of Ashford’s speech is “What Type of Conservative Are You?” a talk designed to address the differences within the larger conservative movement on foreign, social, and economic policy.

Around a quarter of the way through Ashford begins to discuss foreign policy, putting forth three general right-wing classifications: so-called “neo-isolationist," national interest, and global democrat conservatives. I was immediately taken aback when Ashford announced the latter’s agenda – that until the world is “democratic” America will not be safe and therefore we are completely justified in using our power to go around the globe bringing democracy and “freedom” to far away lands. To me the whole concept sounded positively Wilsonian. Woodrow Wilson was no conservative, I assured myself. After all, World War I – the war fought to “make the world safe for democracy” – was an utter failure, making the world safe for Bolshevism, Nazism, and fascism. While Wilson’s internationalism as expressed in the League of Nations would have imperiled American sovereignty if not for the efforts of conservative Senate Republicans.

Yet I did not always have this understanding. My high school history classes gave the standard account. The Germans waged an aggressive war against Great Britain and France while conducting a relentless submarine war, which ultimately led to the death of 128 American civilians traveling on the peaceful passenger liner, the Lusitania. Enraged by such brutality, Congress declared war on Germany before the American people responded by going to the Western Front in droves, saving civilization in the process. This is, no doubt, the understanding of the Great War many of my colleagues took to the YAF conference with them.

To understand my change of mind I must take you back to the time I really started to take a serious interest in politics – late 2001, just months after 9/11. While channel surfing I stumble across The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC just as a segment featuring Pat Buchanan begins. At the time, I was vaguely familiar with Buchanan, mainly due to the 2000 election and his stance on the immigration issue. Pat is on to discuss his new book The Death of the West, which chronicles the imminent fading away of Western Civilization and the European peoples who gave it birth. My father, as intrigued as I by Buchanan’s appearance, suggests a run to the local bookstore. Within days I finish the book, determined to do something to roll back the destructive forces that endangered the way of life I had taken for granted. Impressed by Buchanan, I go to the library and pick up another one of his books, A Republic, Not an Empire, a volume in which Buchanan argues for a foreign policy based on “vital national interests” in the context of a sweeping history of American international relations from Washington to Clinton. It is in this book that I read my first critical account of American entry into World War I and the consequences of that intervention – reverberating, ultimately in the death and destruction of World War II, which the vengeful Treaty of Versailles made an inevitability.

A matter of months later, at the YAF conference, I meet Anthony for the first time. He is also well aware of the true history regarding American intervention in World War I – a history he attempted to convey to others at the conference on a number of occasions with varying success.

Why weren’t the vast majority of those he talked to persuaded? I believe the answer lies in the way the other students defined conservatism - a concept influenced largely by the mass press and establishment conservative media. To these folks, a conservative in America isn’t necessarily one who lobbies for smaller government, balanced budgets, tax cuts, and pro-life causes. No, a conservative is one who loves America to the utmost, a patriot rising in opposition to those resentful old leftists on college campuses who blame America – the ultimate force for good the world – for humanity’s problems. Now there is nothing wrong with defending a nation’s honor against irrational and groundless attacks, but unfortunately, what the establishment conservative eventually adopts is a psychology as irrational as its leftist counterpart, taking on the mantle of a hyper-patriot, an unqualified apologist for everything America has done in the world. Therefore, it is no surprise that students sickened by “the blame America first” crowd would not be inclined to favorably view a critical examination of America’s role in World War I, or God forbid, suggest that the United States should have never gotten involved in the conflagration to begin with.

The consequences of this chauvinism are exhibited by the attempts of neoconservative publications like National Review and The Weekly Standard to run the paleoconservatives – folks like Pat Buchanan, Thomas Woods, and the late Sam Francis – out of the movement. In a post-9/11 the world, the paleos are supposedly damned for their opposition to the Iraq war and President Bush’s crusade to bring “democracy” to the Arab world along with their insidious suggestion that the terrorists attacked us because of our policies in the Middle East, not our freedom. How unpatriotic! The paleos must hate America!

Let it be said clearly: a legitimate love for America does not imply support for every foreign adventure in the history of this country, nor are you “unpatriotic” for recognizing historical mistakes that have cost future generations dearly – World War I being just one these indiscretions.

The Illusion of Victory

Enter Thomas Fleming. Fleming, a historian and novelist, is the author of The Illusion of Victory, a history of America in World War I. Over the course of around 500 pages, Fleming crafts a thorough indictment of Woodrow Wilson and his administration, both on the international and domestic front. It is a tale written in characteristic story-like fashion, full of villains, heroes, and sub-plots.

Fleming begins by setting the scene on April 2, 1917 as Woodrow Wilson, who had just months ago won reelection on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” prepares to ask Congress to declare war on Germany. We are then taken to the fierce debate in the US Congress, as anti-war and pro-war factions clash. Here we are first introduced to Senator Robert La Follette, a Wisconsin Republican, and strong opponent of US intervention. Within an impassioned address to the Senate, La Follette makes a point applicable to our time and the legions of supporters of the American invasion of Iraq who insisted that it was the duty of patriotic Americans to “support the president”:

Robert La Follete took the floor. He opened with a brief, almost curt attack on the idea that every senator should ‘stand behind the president.’ What kind of doctrine was that? he asked. What if the president were wrong? That was the crucial question every legislator had to ask. In this case, he knew of no course but ‘oppose the demands of the chief executive.’

The sinking of the Lusitania, the conventional catalyst cited for American intervention, is covered, albeit relatively briefly. Although I was aware that the supposedly peaceful ocean liner had on it thousands of pounds of munitions before I read this book, I did not know that the German government actually published several warnings to American citizens in New York papers urging them not to travel on the ship. While the Americans seethed in rage about Germany’s unrestricted U-boat warfare off the coast of Great Britain designed to prevent the British from getting munitions, the Wilson Administration turned a blind eye to the British blockade of Germany – a gross violation of international law – which kept out munitions and food, a policy purposefully crafted to starve the German civilian population, thus breaking the national will to fight on.

Fleming’s discussion of war propaganda is fascinating and infuriating at the same time. According to Fleming, the American media, led by Anglophiles in New England presented British propaganda about German “atrocities” as fact time after time. This culminated in a series of lies about Germany in Belgium. During the years before American entry into the war, the American people were told that “the Huns” participated in mass rapes of young women and nuns, grotesque mutilations, and speared Belgian babies with bayonets. In May 1915, Lord Bryce released a report – long since repudiated by most historians, including legendary defense attorney Clarence Darrow – claiming to “prove” the claims of German atrocities in Belgium. Predictably, America’s Anglophile media ate it all up, dutifully regurgitating British themes that, according to Fleming, “Convinced millions of Americans and other neutrals – the report was translated into twenty-seven languages – that the Germans were beasts in human form.”

On the home front, the British propaganda mill with assistance from President Wilson succeeded in inciting a voracious anti-German hysteria across the nation:

Coalescing with hate propaganda spewed by Wellington House and its American collaborators, these sentiments inspired the American Protective League and thousands of other freelance patriots to join a nationwide attack on German-Americans and the German language and culture […] An article in the Atlantic Monthly accused the German language press of mass disloyalty. The New York Times agreed that German-language newspapers never stopped trying to surreptitiously support Berlin’s cause.

Eventually, the hate manifested itself in the wanton murder of a German born baker named Robert Prager, who was beaten by a mob, draped in an American flag, and lynched just outside of St. Louis. Not all, however, were apologetic. According to Fleming, the Washington Post editorialized that the Prager murder was “a sign of a ‘healthful and wholesome awakening’ to the reality of Germany’s evil in the heartland.”

The Bill of Rights were another casualty of Wilson’s war to make the world safe for democracy, which Fleming documents with a thorough discussion of the Sedition and Espionage Acts. Like in the time of Abraham Lincoln, the Wilson administration used its power to illegally suppress publications critical of the President and the war effort, eviscerating the First Amendment along the way.

The latter portions of Illusion deal with peace negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, and the League of Nations. Fleming shows The Treaty of Versailles with its proclamation of German war guilt and levying of astronomical war reparations payments as the grave and tragic injustice it truly was. In the context of the Senate’s debate over admitting the United States into the League of Nations, Fleming again shows us the real Woodrow Wilson – stubbornly unwilling to come to terms with Republican leader Henry Cabot Lodge who favored a treaty “with reservations” pertaining to American sovereignty and war powers. By this time, the President was gravely ill, his condition kept deliberately concealed by Edith Wilson (Woodrow’s wife) and the President’s cabinet. During this time period, Mrs. Wilson acted as a de facto President of the United States, making critical decisions in Woodrow Wilson’s name.

There is so much more regarding Fleming’s treatment that can be discussed, but at this point I highly recommend that you read his book for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

Back to Arlington

Woodrow Wilson, a historic icon of the neoconservatives, fits Nigel Ashford’s description of a “global democrat” well. From the evidence presented by Fleming in Illusion it should be clear to those professing a historic conservatism that he was not one, nor does he deserve to be honored by them. The Wilson Administration consistently demonstrated a lack of regard for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, greatly expanding government involvement in individual and business life from the Espionage Act to the institution of the progressive income tax.

In our present day, with President George W. Bush openly declaring his aim to foment a “global democratic revolution” the experience of America in the Great War is as instructive as ever. For Bush and the neocons that dominate his administration are the progeny of Woodrow Wilson. Indeed, they openly and proudly identify themselves with him.

Although it is understandable for some conservatives, exposed to the relentless musings of various multiculturalists within the academy, to have a knee-jerk revulsion towards historical criticisms of American foreign policy it is incumbent upon the Right to ask some very difficult questions about this administration and its foreign policy. For if the President and his advisors have it their way, the United States will be involved indefinitely in the Middle East, engrossed in the big government project of nation-building with no end in sight.

“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him,” says the Old Testament book of Proverbs. For American patriots, the same can be said of those who offer only unvarnished support for the foreign policy status quo – a policy of interventionism and incessant meddling in the affairs of other nations. For proper love of country does not just imply a critical analysis of international relations, it demands it – for the policies of the present dictate the political conditions for future generations.

Natural Rights versus Artificial Constructs: Another UN Disgrace

Normally, when public figures dealing in politics or social mores act contrary to my expectations or wants, I shake my head and bear it. I’m not happy, I’d like to see undone what they’ve done, and I won’t abandon my desire to see that change come about, but I am not shocked, I’m not surprised, and my view of the world isn’t drastically altered. I’ve come to expect failings morally and logically by the powers that be. That said, every so often, something comes along which not only shocks me, but lessens my faith in the world and humanity and general. Today, something came along.

And I can thank the United Nations for it. Allow me to explain.

When dealing with things of a political or social nature, one term that gets thrown around with more force and less sense than any other is “rights.” What constitutes a right is not concrete. Often, we think of rights as something which, no matter what, cannot be taken away from us, and we are born possessing them. In an effort to determine what rights are truly essential, efforts were made to boil the concept of rights into its most essential and most indispensable. This country was founded on the belief that there did exist rights, called “natural” by John Locke, which Jefferson said were given to us by God himself, indisputable and absolute, the existence of which is “self-evident,” that is, latently obvious and clear. These were life, liberty, and, depending on the author, property, estate, or the pursuit of happiness.

Remember that. Given to us by God, within the natural progression of things on Earth, unable to be taken away, and existing in a clear and obvious fashion, is the right to life.

Read this article.

An American delegate to an international, UN-sanctioned diplomatic conference, was openly jeered and harassed, which Reuters even admitted was “rare at the world body.” Why was she harassed?

Because, Sauerbrey, the head American delegate, wanted to include an amendment to a ten-year old document on women’s rights that would state that abortion was not a fundamental right. The amendment was dropped from consideration, under the improvised cover that the amendment was “redundant” and the point was made. However, the representative speaking for New Zealand, Australia, and Canada was quite clear that he felt the document protected women’s right to “control their own sexuality.”

Let’s be clear about what happened here. The main thrust of the American amendment would not have encroached upon any existing availabilities of abortion in the world. This isn’t a typical pro-life/pro-choice debate. The amendment merely stated that abortion is a matter of “national sovereignty,” and it is not a “fundamental” right. Basically, the United States wanted to make it clear that no international body could give people around the world the right to have an abortion as a fundamental human right; it’s a question for each country to decide on its own, in accordance with its own wishes, beliefs, and values.

The response from Europe, Asia, and Africa? Catcalls.

Did any nations agree with the American view? Yes: the Vatican City, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. Unlike the United States, those four nations are staunchly Catholic, and Catholicism has among its strongest social views that the concept of abortion is wrong and that the unborn are as alive and deserving of rights as the born. These members of the family of nations, as equal as any other, had their fundamental cultural views treated thusly by this “diplomatic” assembly:

Mary Ann Dantuono, the Vatican delegate, was interrupted by shouts when she said the Catholic Church "would have preferred a clearer statement emphasizing that the Beijing documents cannot be interpreted as creating new human rights including the right to abortion."

Ms. Dantuono spoke diplomatically. Sadly, she was not afforded the same respect. And why, what caused this shameful abandonment of tact and the dignity of what the assembly attempted to accomplish? Defense of a mythical right to abortion.

This isn’t a question of whether abortion is right or wrong. I personally believe it to be wrong, but I’m not arguing that. That’s a topic for debate in the public spectrum, a topic in which people take sides based on deeply ingrained senses of experience, belief, and faith. Evidently, the majority of the world wishes that debate to be ended, and, tragically, they wish it to be ended in favor of the side which does not protect to the right to life.

Yes, how far we’ve come! The United Nations hesitates to defend the right to life for all, yet will consider abortion as a fundamental right. Abortion as a human right—is that what we really have allowed the concept of natural and human rights to become? Is that what was intended when it was decided that human beings ought to have their God-given rights defended?

A man named Thomas Jefferson once said:

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

How far we’ve come in 200 years! According to the UN, governments have no place preventing the destruction of human life. Once, “the first and only object of good government” was the protection of human life, now…? Who knows. The right to have abortions has become more important and deserving of animated defense. But…

“The right to development is the measure of the respect of all other human rights. That should be our aim: a situation in which all individuals are enabled to maximize their potential, and to contribute to the evolution of society as a whole.”

Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General, did not say that 200 years ago. He said it in, and intended it for, our day and age. His quote does not appear controversial, and probably was warmly received when said. Yet, what if he had implied that “all individuals” included human life unborn?

I view abortion as an unequivocal evil. But I didn’t set out to make that point today, or to arouse that debate at this moment. If the UN had its way, I would not be able to.

My point is this. To borrow a line from a song, “You can’t trust freedom when it’s not in your hands.” Meaning, the farther and farther away from you those making decisions for your life are, the less faith you can put in what they give you. Ever since the concept of rights and freedom exploded across the Western world in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, and had its victories, two trends have become evident. First, more and more freedoms are called “rights” and attached to the list with those rare rights considered unalienable. Secondly, the center of power moves elsewhere, consolidating far away from the participation of those who will be affected by its decisions. It took the form of centralization, to begin with, and then mutated into internationalization and multilateralism.

What happens? A force we can’t control, influence, or stop gives us rights we don’t want or need, at the expense of those which form the cornerstone of the land in which we live. Pro-life, pro-choice—it doesn’t matter. It’s a sad day to be a human being. Not because the amendment wasn’t accepted, or even because of the poor statesmanship that shouted it down; rather, it’s a tragic day because its times like these we see how far gone the concepts of individual freedom have become. What was once sacred, inalienable, has become subject to debate. When it is the very concept of human life put to question, it is very hard to say that the world has become a better place because of it.