12-03-05 -- The First Blog.  The Constitution, the War on Terror and other topics of interest.

 

* MODERATE IS NOT MIDDLE-OF-THE ROAD, WIMPY OR UNDECIDED

 

The 'middle' can CREATE a valid, viable, voteable position which is NOT currently on either of our other option's lists. There have been very famous Moderate politicians, in fact. Ronald Reagan, despite his marriage to the Religous Right as a voting bloc, actually was a tremendous Moderate, by and large. And what I purport, is that IF Ronald Regan were here today, HE might champion several measures/bills/strategies regarding ALL of the HOT topics of today, and he might very, very well come up with VERY different answers/bills/strategies/measures than this current administration. And so, what I am saying is while one CANNOT vote "Uh....I'll take the best of the two sides", one can SUPPORT and even try to MANDATE (with one's vote) a voteable, decisive method/strategy/bill which is neither Bush nor Liberal-Europa.

 

So, before we barge into those voteable, decisive things, let us recap what got us here.  After all, in this great story that is The United States, an utterly unique governmental experiment on this Earth, we need to understand a little about how we managed to even get to this point.  I won't go through 200 years of history, I promise, but we need to talk about The Ultimate Moderate Fanatics…the Founding Fathers…the Framers of the greatest human-written document ever:  The Constitution of the United States of America.

 

Remember…the entire reason all of us are here and free today, is because a bunch of very, very brave men took the ultimate stand to give up there lives to preserve the notion of Moderation.  To prevent rulership by the extreme,  to withstand against even what  John Stuart Mill described as "The Tyranny of the Majority".  James Madison wrote: "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure." Many of the features of the Constitutional organization of the Federal government are meant to keep any branch or department from attaining domination of the others, but in fulfilling that function, they also serve as a safeguard against any popular majority. 

 

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams…these men were so fearless in defense of moderation that they knew even then not to trust themselves or any government, and they created a document which in every way is bent on assuring that not only will no King rule over America, but no single voice will drown out the others.  The Executive branch is protected against by the Legislative, and should those two factions be united, then the Independent Judiciary is the final arbiter.  All designed to allow voices of dissent to speak.  So, these absurd geniuses gave us the weapons we need still, to this day, to speak up…to have our voices heard, whether they are in the majority or not.  Many such brave men died then to give us the right to do what I am doing right now:  speaking my voice, even though it is viciously opposed.  And today, the most viciously opposed viewpoint is that of The Moderate.

 

So we come to:

* A DIVISIVE TIME IN OUR HISTORY

Well, first let me say, I agree that we live in the most divisive time of our last 30 years. However, many of the things the popular pundits say about the absolutes of black and white/left and right and the soul of America...those very same words were spoken during a period just 40 years ago. Between 1967 and Jan. 27, 1973, the United States was probably as close to "a civil war for its soul" as it had been since 1860, as the Vietnam War raged on. Now, unlike "lefties", I am not comparing Iraq to Vietnam. However, the diametrical opposition and general unrest and polarization of the populace is in fact very similar. And, again, the comments from the right and left were essentially the same as the ones being made now: that by following one path, we are "uniquely American", and following the other path descends us into Socialism and modern Impotent Polyglot Parliamentary Eurpoean-ism

 

* ONLY TWICE IN US HISTORY WAS THERE TRUE BLACK-AND-WHITE

Where I disagree with the pundits of today wholeheartedly, and with the pundits of that era, is that there is no "middle" ground, and that there is only this black and white choice to "save America". I actually believe there were only 2 times ever in US History where such a true set of opposites existed; in the 1770's, and in the 1860's. In 1770, after all attempts at moderation and reconciliation with King George, you really were either on one side or another: actually for The United States, or you stood for England. In the 1860's, the polar opposite, despite popular and reasonable thoughts to the contrary, was not with Slavery in and of itself. Slavery was the fulcrum upon which the polar opposite existed, but it was not the political opposite in and of itself.  The polar opposites were either you were FOR the UNITED States of America, or you were FOR secession.   The United States Of America stood for, and I paraphrase our greatest President, "… a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, and that such a nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.  That government OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people, shall not perish from the earth."  If you were FOR Secession on the other hand, there were a myriad of reasons, Slavery most certainly being the most critical one…but underlying that were notions of states rights, independence from Federal centralized governmental control and many other elements.  Brother does not fight Brother lightly.

 

So, I am "fanatically" opposite to any of the current pundits who purport the belief that the country is now in a civil war for its soul, and that there are only two points of view and that one leads to America and the other leads to Impotent Europa. I do not believe that there are only two opposite points of view on any of the major topics of the day. 

 

And so it's time to get to those topics. 

So, let's dive in with the hard stuff.

 

#1) The War against Islamic Terror; Well, I'll agree to one black and white here -- either you agree with the notion that the senseles murder of civilians helps anyone, anywhere...or you don't. At least 90% of all humans, I think, DON'T. However, 10% of all humans is still 600 Million people, which is way, way, way too many. I don't think that 600 million people actually commit acts of terrorism, but their tolerance and support of the perhaps 1 million or fewer who do makes all the planet a dangerous place to live. Astounding, isn't it, that so small an actual number of participating enemy-combatants can cause so much harm. So, that part, I concur, is black and white. But how to fight them? I find it hard to believe that you think the solution is either-or, black or white.

The Conservative, Administration view is that the ONLY way to fight them is through violent response.  However, I do not think that the Liberal point of view is as ridiculously simplified as Conservatives purport…no one, left or right, denied the validity of Afghanistan, or of doing anything we could to oppose Al Qaeda.  But the current Administration wishes us to presume that ANY actions it takes "in the name of the war on terror" are automatically justified by giving it that name.  So, I suppose if we attack Iran, Syria, North Korea…well, whatever the Administration wants to do, I guess it's OK in "The Name Of The War on Terror".  Iraq, the Administration purports, is OK for the same reason.  And voices who disagree…oh, they must be traitors.  Here then, is the Tyranny of the Majority in action.

 

This is a very, very tough problem, one which has dozens or even hundreds of possible solutions, and the ones that this administration is pursuing certainly isn't working right now in many ways (No attacks yet in the US since 9/11, but lots of others all over the world...and these people are notoriously slow-brewing). But will it work in the long run? Neither I, nor they, actually know the answer to that for sure. But what I am saying is that there are other solutions, and ones that well-respected current and former military/intelligence officers support and propose. Do they say that all of those persons whose credentials are as good as or better than the administration's (and many of whom are Republicans too, by the way), that they have nothing valid to say? Nothing "meaningful"? I say this because the way the argument of pure pro-administration-viewpoints being "white" and all other sides being "black" puts all of those well respected, learned folk in the "black" category. Whereas I, instead, purport that neither the Bush Plan is "white" nor are all other plans "black". I say there is in fact just shades of gray all over this one. To be a Moderate does NOT mean wishy washy, or weak. To be a Moderate means trying to find solutions that WORK, regardless of the political leanings. Maybe some Righties have some good ideas on this. However, maybe some Lefties do too.

 

#2) The War in Iraq.  You see I make sure to SEPARATE this from "The War on Terror", because the two are entirely and utterly not the same.  I can't disagree more that this is black and white, Left or Right. This is the greatest jumble of gray that I have seen in a LONG time. No one denies that the "public" reason to go to war was WMDs and it ended up being a bust. Doesn't that already put the whole war on AT LEAST a Gray plane, rather than B&W? Believe me, I know that Saddam violated UN rules on WMDs and I know he was one of the most evil Men on earth, and that either or both of those might indeed have been enough to oust him. We certainly ousted other evil Men for less. But, again, does not the fact that this was a pre-emptive war upon which the basic facts of its inception later turned out to be wrong...and that now, it is a universally agreed-upon quagmire (both sides agree on that, they just disagree what to do about it)...doesn't that lead to "fair and reasonable debate among reasonable men as to its merits and disposition"? Seems to me that it does, in the finest traditions of the First Amendment. This is a free country. Let us not truly lose to the terrorists by silencing voices of debate.   I do NOT have an easy answer to this quagmire, and I am the first to admit it.  But "Staying The Course" when the course has gone so badly so far…that just doesn't seem like the right answer either.

 

And that leads us to:

#3)Timetables (for our "surrender" in Iraq), The administration itself has always said we WILL leave Iraq, because we claimed we were never intending to occupy it permanently as some kind of vassal-state. The question at hand is simply WHEN will we leave. I'll bet you in the very Pentagon meetings about this that there are 10 opinions around the table as to when and how it is most functional to exit, and what milestones can be used to measure the appropriateness of those actions. The Moderate view on this is not that we pick somewhere between "tomorrow" and "never", or even between "tomorrow" and "a timetable".  The Moderate view is that there are persons with reasonable notions of how to do this, and some or many of those notions are put forth NOT by the administration, but by those outside of it. And I think that the people who disagree with the administration on this are NOT surrendering the soul of America. They are trying to save it, and the lives of American troops, and MOST of them are also trying to save the Iraqi's. Do I agree with Murtha, personally...no. But as a hugely successful ridiculously Patriotic American who VOLUNTEERED to fight for this country in war not just once but 3 times, to dismiss him as being Anti-American, as being somehow "pro European Socialist Liberal" or the opposite of the soul of America...sorry, I just can't disagree more. I may not agree with the guy's initial solution of a bailout, but I think he is making a valid point with his outrageously loud (and highly experienced and highly respected) voice.

 

How about onward to:

#4) The Patriot Act.  Even the architects of this thing have differing opinions about what PARTS of it are necessary and what parts are potentially constitutionally illegal. The Senate itself has serious differences with the House. And we are talking about Republicans here, not even just the Democrats who want to trash even more of it. If the people who are theoretically actually PART of this administration which is so pro-American Soul, if even they disagree with each other about how to implement it, doesn't that imply that it is not perfect as is, and that in fact there is room for reasonable debate on how it is implemented? And does a person's being a Democrat inherently mean that their ideas are invalid, while those Republicans currently in disagreement are OK. Or, are the only people with right ideas the ones who are simply "pro whatever Bush says". To me, that's the most dangerous thinking of all. This is a country where only the military is supposed to follow orders blindly...and even they actually have an ethical disagreements clause which allows soldiers to refuse unethical orders! Any law which encroaches upon the Constitution is absolutely the place for the Moderate Voice to be heard, fair debate, voices on every side.

 

A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post came out with a highly detailed article about some of the effects of The Patriot Act.   From the Post Article, this excerpt : " The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms."  Let me repeat that…it is not twice as many, or even ten times as many.  It is 100 times as many.  And, the hard-right-wingers would tell you it's all for our safety, to protect us from terrorists.  But the majority of these inquiries are into people that are not alleged to be terrorists at all.  The article goes on to say, "The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans."  No one denies the majority of these letters are to investigate people who are not alleged to be terrorists.  They are just…anyone…literally, anyone.  For any reason.  Or for no reason at all…just some random bureaucrat who wants to sniff around your private affairs, he can do it now.  The administration maintains that the Law is OK because no one has been shown to have abused it…they do not deny that the utter lack of judicial or any other oversight COULD be abused….they simply deny that anyone has proven abuse so far.  But I repeat, every one of you listening to me, no matter who you are, you could be investigated.  I could be investigated, just because I chose to speak out.  In every way I want the United States to defeat the terrorists…but if the only way they can do that is by surrendering our constitutional rights so jealously guarded and fought for by our Founding Fathers…well, then haven't the terrorists won?  If they curtail our freedom, do they not achieve their goals, to make us all like them…  Now, the standard rhetoric I hear to support this measure in its entirety is "I have nothing to hide, so let them look."  Really?  The people who say that, are, right now, in the governments favor.  What if 5 or 10 or 20 years from now, "their" side is on the opposite side of the majority, and their ideas are suddenly being considered subversion, and "worth investigating, just in case".

 

I am going to read a famous quote now.  I want everyone to understand, up-front, that when I read this, I am NOT comparing the United States to fascists.  I am NOT saying this or any other US Administration is evil, or is "out to get us".  I want to read this quote simply as a cautionary tale.  The quote is entirely about a people who stop being vigilant about their freedoms, who stop being vigilant about their government.  This is NOT the United States.  But the warning message is still valid.  Things that are taken away from you are taken slowly.  And we let them go because "we have nothing to worry about…we have nothing to hide."

 

The famous quote begins;

They came first for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.

 

Again, I stress, I am NOT comparing anything about The United States to the Germans that Pastor Martin Neimoller spoke of there.  But the point is clear:  just because something is happening which only affects "…the other guy…", it does not mean that sometime, possibly soon…it may affect you.  All I am saying, is be vigilant.  When you are surrendering your rights guaranteed you by the geniuses that were our founding fathers…be very careful.  Ask questions.  Stand up and voice your opinion.  And do it before it is you they come for.

 

So, since this is a question of 'who they will come for next, I'd like to talk about a little of that.

 

* LIBERALS , CONSERVATIVES, REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS

A friend of mine asked me to talk about why Liberals all call themselves Moderate now, and if they are afraid of the label.  Well, first, I'd say he's wrong about that.  Several of my other quite extremely right-wing friends noted that my show's title was a misnomer in general, because everyone thinks of themselves as a moderate, no matter how extreme their views.  So, it isn't just Liberals, it's Conservatives, it's Republicans, it's Democrats.  The majority of people, in fact it seems some 60% of radio listeners, identify themselves as either Moderates or at least as non-extremists to left or right. 

 

I'll tell you proudly what I am:  A Liberal Republican, which they don't really "make" anymore.  They used to.  Liberal and Conservative used to be entirely separate from Republican or Democrat. There were some very tough Conservative Democrats before, and some equally unflinching Liberal Republicans.   To distill that, lets talk about the original schism which created those two wonderful cross-breeds.  Andrew Jackson essentially founded the Democratic party as a pretty hard-line Conservative.  However, in 1860 his party broke off into another faction that became The Republicans, and their first Presidential Candidate was our greatest president, one of the most profound Liberal Republicans in history:  Abraham Lincoln.  I could not be more proud to share the label of Liberal Republican with the man I think is the Greatest of All Americans.  However, a serious change occurred beginning in 1964 and terminating in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan (who was, actually, a quite Moderate Republican in many ways), the Liberals and Conservatives staked their ground on each side of the partisan fence.  However, I still hold that the "radical centrists" of the two parties, those who still are Conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans…it is in those Radical Centrists that we have the most hope.  In those Moderate Fanatics, who are far closer to our Founding Fathers than any of the extreme Right-Wing or Left-Wing politicians out there are.

 

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.  The whole point of this show is that NO ONE PERSON HAS THE RIGHT TO DEFINE THEIR WAY AS BEING THE ONLY ONE WHICH IS AMERICAN, PATRIOTIC, AND ACCEPTABLE.  The Constitution GUARANTEES each of you, and me, the right to disagree wherever we want to, and according to that law, as long as we do not support or endorse the overthrow of the government or the support of its enemies, we are being TRUE AMERICANS by practicing our RIGHT to the FREEDOM OF SPEECH! 

 

I wholeheartedly HATE our enemies, and I MORE than wholeheartedly LOVE MY COUNTRY more than anything.  I think this current government, this administration is short-sighted, but that it has the interests of the United States at heart.  I simply wish to exercise my disagreement with their methods by talking, and most importantly, by casting my vote.  And that is all I advise or ask of my listeners…agree or disagree with me, fine, and do so in public, and use your vote to guide this country to the destiny our Framers intended. 

 

The greatest man ever to walk our hallowed roads in America, once wrote this most noble of all speeches, which I mentioned earlier.  I am humbled to simply try to repeat it.

"… Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate–we can not consecrate–we can not hallow–this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

 

God bless you all, and may we all see Lincoln's dream continue to come true.

 

From Matthew Thomas, The Moderate Fanatic, I'm signing off until next week.