Cries from Woonsocket

            I was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, an old mill town astride the Blackstone River in the northeast corner of the state. The city once had the greatest percentage of French-Canadian immigrants in the country. It had a French newspaper, a French radio station whose theme song I can still remember, and many churches where only French was heard from the pulpit. In 1950 Woonsocket was designated an All-American City. It had good schools, a thriving Main Street, and full employment in the many wool and cotton mills that stood like giant red cliffs along the fast-flowing river that supplied their power. But then the textile industry moved south to more favorable economic climes, and Woonsocket gradually became a shell of its former self.

            The city of my birth has never recovered. With high unemployment, an aging population, and a shrinking tax base, Woonsocket can no longer fulfill its long-term contractual obligations and is now facing bankruptcy. Downriver Pawtucket is also close to declaring bankruptcy, while nearby Central Falls already has.
            These are but three of the many troubled cities that are popping up like mushrooms all over the nation's map. Already In bankruptcy are Stockton, San Bernadino, and Mammoth Lakes in California alone. Not far behind are San Diego and San Jose, as well as Las Vegas and Reno next door in Nevada. Even Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York are experiencing daunting fiscal crises. And, closer to home, our northern neighbor Norfolk is not in such great shape either. Can we imagine the outcry if the mayor of Norfolk reduced all public employee salaries to the minimum wage like the mayor of Scranton did?
            These cities are but a microcosm of what is happening on the national level with unbridled entitlements exploding the national debt by over $4 trillion in just the last three years. Yet all attempts at reform are met with accusations of pushing grandma off the cliff or starving the poor. Heaven forbid! And while we're at it, let's add on another trillion for Obamacare. The country can't go bankrupt. All we have to do is print more money and borrow the rest from China. Anybody else want food stamps?
            Can't our leaders smell the rot in the system they've created? Haven't they seen the disastrous consequences of Socialism in Greece, Spain, and Italy? Can they not hear the moans of despair from Woonsocket?

           

Character, not Color

            In his memorable speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King dreamed of the day when his children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.  On June 28, 2012, Dr. King would have been ashamed to see blacks tarnish his words and his dream.

            In response to the Congressional Black Caucus walking out of the House of Representatives to protest the vote to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, Alan West, the only member of that caucus not to do so, said it perfectly, "Today, the Congressional Black Caucus and other liberal members of Congress judged the Attorney General by the color of his skin and not by the content of his character."
            Fast and Furious is an enormous scandal. It is clear that the Justice Department authorized the ill-conceived gun-running operation that resulted in the death of an American agent and hundreds of Mexicans. To make matters worse, Justice Department testimony before Congress was proven false, and Holder himself lied about his knowledge of the operation. Congress had no choice but to hold the Attorney General in contempt when he refused to turn over subpoenaed documents and got the President to invoke executive privilege to prevent the truth from coming out. Holder richly deserved to be held in contempt. But blacks, abetted by leftists like Nancy Pelosi, accused Republicans of conducting a fishing expedition and suggested that it was linked to Republican attempts to suppress minority voting. This was in direct reference to the Justice Department suing states to prevent them from instituting voter I.D. , brazenly defying a ruling by the Supreme Court that such a requirement was constitutional.
            As if on cue, the Reverend Sharpton, who long ago established his racist bona fides in the Tawana Brawley case, picked up his banner of hate to accuse Republicans of racism in the Holder matter, just as he had cried racism in the Treyvon Martin case.
            We know there is racism in this country. But nowhere is it more evident than in the race baiting of the Sharptons of this world and the bias of the Congressional Black Caucus.
            President Obama could put a stop to all this by firing Holder and denouncing black racism. Instead he puts his own racist attitude in full view by defending Holder and supporting Sharpton, a regular visitor to the White House. This is consistent with his record of pre-judging white guilt in matters such as the police arrest of black professor Henry Louis Gates in Cambridge (the cops acted stupidly) and the Treyvon Martin case ("If I had a son, he would look like Treyvon").
            Racism, wherever it rears its ugly head, is disgusting and wrong. Let's just not excuse it when it comes from its supposed victims. Character, not color, should be the only measure of a man.

Our Panderer in Chief

            Barack Obama is a nice guy. I think I would enjoy playing a round of golf with him. As long as we didn't talk about any serious issues, I might also enjoy having a beer with him afterwards. He also appears to be a great family man, a loyal and faithful husband, and a loving dad. These days, when the responsible black head of family is a vanishing breed, the President is a superb role model. Too bad he is such a lousy president.

            It has become clear that Obama was not ready to hold such a high office. He has never held a real job, unless you count the time he was a community organizer or an undistinguished state legislator or U.S. senator; he has never run a business or been responsible for a bottom line; he has never understood the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise; and he has never appreciated the exceptional role this country plays on the world stage. What he has learned, on the other hand, is how to manipulate public opinion to get elected.
            Candidate Obama wanted us to believe that he would unify this country. He has done exactly the opposite: he is the most divisive president in history. He has encouraged us to resent the rich and successful. He has blamed Bush and the Republicans for the country's economic failures. He has also blamed the Japanese tsunami, the big banks, big oil, Wall Street, and Europe for delaying the recovery. As for himself, well, he accepts no responsibility for any of our country's ills, not high unemployment, not the housing crisis, not the raging deficits.
            Meanwhile, he is in full campaign mode and has been for close to a year. At last count he has made 180 trips on Air Force One to beg for money and to preach to selected adoring groups. All on the taxpayer's dime, of course.
            If there is one word that characterizes the President's style, it is pandering. It's all part of his divide and conquer strategy.
            He panders to the environmentalists by funding failures like Solyndra, by killing job-creating ventures like the Keystone pipeline, and by unleashing his EPA attack dogs on fossil fuels. He panders to the abortion lobby by enacting a health care law that affronts Catholics. He panders to gays by rejecting the Defense of Marriage Act.
            He panders to blacks by encouraging the likes of Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Sharpton to fan the flames of racial hatred and by suing states to prevent them from enacting voter I.D. laws. He panders to Hispanics by refusing to enforce immigration laws and by suing those states that would, and by issuing executive orders to bypass Congress in achieving his ultimate goal of amnesty for illegals.
            He panders to the UAW, the AFL-CIO, the NEA, and public sector unions. He panders to Food Stamp recipients, to seniors, to the Occupy Wall Street crowd. He panders to Muslims by celebrating their non-existent contributions to the nation's history.
            If you belong to a group that he hasn't pandered to yet, let him know. I'm sure he can find a way to fit you in.

Facts and only Facts

            My niece is one of the lucky ones, When she graduated from college, she was able to land a job with the Atlantic, a classy magazine with a long history of good writing and intellectually challenging articles. When I sent her a subscription to Smithsonian, she reciprocated by subscribing me to the Atlantic.

            A short piece in the June issue by James Parker really got my attention. Entitled Glenn Beck in Exile," the article generally is a putdown of Beck's new venture, a Web/TV network called GBTV. Parker calls it "building a 24/7 media empire in his [Beck's] loopy image."                  The writer doesn't hold back in his scorn for the one-time major irritant of the Obama administration. Labels he hangs on Beck, like "patriotic unction," "zodiac of personal demons," "vials of his wrath," and "quivering curds of his indignation" leave no doubt about his disdain for the former star of Fox News. For good measure he takes irrelevant and gratuitous shots at conservative icons by describing Rush Limbaugh as the kingpin of malevolence and accusing Sean Hannity of triumphant mendacity.

            Parker may be a dexterous wordsmith, but his commentary is neither fair nor defensible. He clearly believes that dripping venom all over the page is more effective than a balanced presentation. His piece is a perfect example of why people distrust the media. Why do writers like Parker resort to character assassination rather than honest analysis? Since when does slander carry more weight than  facts?

            We all have our opinions and biases. I am an avowed conservative with a dollop of libertarianism. Some people agree with me, others don't. But if I take a position on an issue without facts to back it up, then I deserve to be slapped down. Similarly, if a liberal presents a cogent argument, I am likely to concede the point. In support of any political persuasion, accusations of loopiness, malevolence, or mendacity are no substitute for a reasoned and sustainable point of view.

            We are now entering the high season of campaigning for national office. And we are already seeing shameful attacks coming from unscrupulous supporters of both sides. I hope voters will be wise enough to disregard the nonsense and the puffery, and weigh the pros and cons of every important issue facing this country. The future is too important for us to choose our leaders based on scurrilous accusations and shameless demagoguery.

Me Injun

            Elizabeth Warren, Senate hopeful from Massachusetts, recently made news with reports that she had used a highly doubtful claim of Native-American ancestry to obtain preferential treatment as a minority. I had to chuckle at this cynical and absurd ploy, because I could have done the same thing myself.

            Not long ago my sister Louise and I decided to do our family tree. The research was great fun. By the time we finished, we had documented ancestors going back to 16th century France. Fortunately, we got plenty of help from genealogical societies and one book in particular that detailed my paternal grandparents' lines back to the very earliest settlement of their village in Canada. We also had a family photo album that my grandparents had maintained religiously over the years. The most intriguing photos, however, were found in a shoebox. Of those, the most startling was a tintype of my maternal grandmother's mother.
            She had very definite features of a Native-American.
            "I knew it!" blurted my sister. "We have Indian blood coursing through our veins."
            Louise had insisted for years, even before our genealogical research, that we must have had an infusion of aboriginal genes somewhere in our ancestry. That's because our dad looked like he could have posed for the Indian nickel. He had high cheekbones, a swarthy complexion, a prominent hooked nose, and straight jet-black hair. In addition, he shared  those characteristics with one of his brothers, and passed some of them on. We were not able to trace our great-grandmother's line back far enough to prove our Indian ancestry, but it was enough for me to shout, "I could have  built a casino!"
            Joking aside, claims of special status based on remote connections to a minority group are laughable. Worse, they are racist and un-American. They are no better than demands of reparations for ills committed generations ago.
            All Americans are descendants of people who were oppressed,  some more than others to be sure, but vilified in one way or another. American history  is filled with stories of religious persecution, famine, tyranny, enslavement, and murderous bigotry. Fortunately, these tales of human degradation are overshadowed by stories of courage in the face of adversity, determination to succeed, indomitable spirit, and struggle for freedom and equality.
            It is high time for Americans of all colors, creeds, and ancestries to reject policies of class warfare and divisiveness, the cult of victimhood, and the culture of imagined rights and unearned entitlements.
            We are not a hyphenated people. We are Americans. Let us celebrate our diverse heritage, but let us not forget our motto, E pluribus unum.

Whose Social Justice?

            I have always refrained from including religion as a factor in any discussion of issues. I must now make an exception to this self-imposed rule.

            I will not take a position on abortion, contraception, or same-sex marriage. Enough has been said on both sides of these issues. But I would like to address the question of social justice, a term that, in my view, has been used and misused by both our government and our religious institutions.
            In the context of our Judeo-Christian heritage, social justice has come to mean how we approach equality, fairness, and compassion, specifically with regard to the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged. Christians, in particular, turn to the teachings of Jesus as a guide to the love and care of others. In the extreme, he would have us sell everything we own and give the proceeds to the poor. Unless we have the convictions of a Francis of Assisi,  we are not likely to find this advice terribly practical. So we form communities that translate our good intentions into programs run by civic and charitable organizations. Fortunately, Americans have been most generous in this regard.
            The church--and I use the term in the most inclusive sense--also seems to support social justice as a function of government. I cannot recall any sermon objecting to welfare in its various incarnations, to redistributive policies to achieve equality of outcomes, to calls for fairness through increased taxes on the rich, or to the role of government in defining what's good for every segment of our society.
            On the surface, these two methods of achieving social justice seem to be compatible: if individuals can't do it, then let the state do it. There is a flaw, I think, in that view. Jesus never appealed to the Romans or to the Jewish state to care for its citizens; he preached directly to individuals to love and care for the least of their brothers. He said the rich should be generous; but he did not advocate forced redistribution to achieve fairness.
            More importantly, Jesus would not have viewed equality of outcome as a goal of social justice. His parable justifying unequal pay for workers in the field would not be viewed as fairness by our government. Further, his parable on talents underlines the fact that we are not equally gifted, but that we should make the most of our opportunities. This sounds to me very much like the principles underlying capitalism and free markets, not the progressive policies of president Obama and the Democrat-controlled Senate.
            Is there a moral argument to be made here? I think so. Is it not more moral to achieve fairness through individual freedom than to compel it through coercive methods? Is it not more moral to allow people to keep more of what they earn than it is to take more and more of it in increased taxes? Is it not more moral to create opportunities for individuals to succeed than to pursue policies that enslave half our population in a hopeless cycle of dependency? Is it not more moral to give citizens confidence in their leadership's fiscal responsibility than to saddle them with a debt they and their offspring cannot hope to repay?
            In sum, it is more moral, in my view, for a government to achieve social justice by encouraging individual talents and resourcefulness that benefit society as a whole than to mandate it through over-taxing, over regulating, and punishing success. And It is more moral for our churches to preach individual generosity than to support elected officials who cynically espouse a phony compassion to ensure their survivability.