July 4 and The Importance of History

I have neither the intellectual rigor nor academic credentials to claim the label “historian,” or really even “history buff.” Still, I do know stuff, a lot of it history from teaching and preparing to teach various courses. Maybe I can claim “history dilettante,” which kind of fits my approach to so many things.

Nevertheless, on the 4^th of July, I am disturbed by the number of people willing to ignore history, the number of people willing pretend history doesn’t matter, the number of people willing to twist history to fit their world view and agenda.

This holiday in particular seems to inspire people.

Conservatives proudly wave their flags and tout their beliefs, failing to recognize that the history of conservatism is the story of people swimming against the tide. In their time, conservatives opposed declaring independence and the American Revolution (Tories), ratifying the Constitution (anti-Federalists), abolition, passage and enforcement of the Civil War Amendments, women suffrage, organizational rights for workers, social security, social integration and Brown v. Board, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, civil rights protections for all people…. Change is scary and conservatives play an important role in making people slow down before adopting ill-conceived (even if usually well-intentioned) proposals without considering the inviolable Law of Unintended Consequences. But conservatives have consistently been on the wrong side of history. You can’t truly own your political philosophy without also owning its historical roots.

When you don’t know your history, you adopt slogans like “America First” without knowing its provenance. The slogan was used by the Ku Klux Klan in marches as early as the 1920s and as late as David Duke in 2016.

It was also used as an argument by Woodrow Wilson to keep us out of World War I and opponents of the League of Nations after that war. It was resurrected by Nazi sympathizers, anti-Semites, and isolationists, including Charles Lindbergh, during the 1930s to try to keep us out of World War II, or from even helping our (eventual) allies, and the short-lived AFC (America First Committee), formed in opposition to FDR in 1940, but disbanded for obvious reasons after Pearl Harbor. Pat Buchanan (who notoriously called WW II “an unnecessary war”) used it in his run for office in 2000 on the Reform Party ticket. Do you know who also tried to get the Reform Party nomination in 2000? Donald Trump (who called Buchanan a “Nazi-lover”). Although his campaign style may be consistent, apparently he forgot the origins of his now favorite slogan.

   And then there’s the just plain “bad” history. Although I reject that the Civil War, at its core, was about anything other than preserving and expanding slavery, I recognize the deep roots of the “lost cause” school. I also “know” that its goal was to transform sedition into nobility, but understand why others might reject that view. Today, however, someone said slavery was incidental and the true cause was taxes. Fortunately for my self-esteem, I do not know and did not teach this person; and my goal here is not to create a lesson on the cause(s) of the Civil War. I’ll just end with what I was tempted to say, the variously (and apparently often incorrectly) attributed quote, “It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool than to talk and remove all doubt of it.” I obviously do not always heed my own advice. 

Happy July 4, 2018.

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

Memes, almost by  definition, are simplistic and misleading.

In the wake of a restaurant’s request to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that she leave, (false) comparative memes have popped up: the (CO) baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding or the (WA) florist who refused another couple flowers; even more of a stretch, the refusal of restaurants to serve blacks prior to passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Here’s the difference. Refusing to serve or do business with any individual is always that business owner’s right (it must be nice to be able to turn away business). But to do it based on the accident of a person’s birth, by virtue of race or sexual orientation, is discrimination by definition because it is not a decision about an individual, but a group, and not based on the actions (or even attitudes) of a particular person.

Ms. Sanders chooses to work for an administration that many people find abhorrent. This is her choice, as is the business owner’s (and its employees) to protest the policies of the Trump White House, a White House of which she is the face (at least as much as President Trump is willing to share the limelight for anything). That choice triggered the business owner’s choice.

Whether that turns out to be a sound economic decision or not remains to be seen. This particular protest, and others it may inspire, strike me as meaningless challenges that will accomplish nothing except to further fuel the outrage and divisions that are already growing the chasm between citizens. Unless the energy of outrage can be channeled into organized action, it is really little more than self-gratification. So feel free to vent your own outrage with prank calls, fake reviews, etc. if you have nothing better to do with your time. For me, I have now spent more time on this event than it probably deserves.

As counterproductive as the owner’s action may turn out to be, it does not compare to a civil rights violation, as were the segregation laws and policies and discrimination against gays. Business owners can refuse service to any individual for virtually any reason (including “You were mean to me in high school!”), but only as long as it is not based on that individual’s membership in a protected class of people. By the way, except for the District of Columbia, party affiliation is not protected.*

* I do not dispute for a minute that similar outrage (and quite possibly charges of racism) would have been generated in the opposite direction had a member of President Obama’s staff been treated in like manner. That, too, would have been counterproductive. Hypocrisy is a two-way street with both red and blue cars in more or less equal numbers. Secretary Sanders deserves credit for handling herself with grace and class under the circumstances. More than can be said about her boss's tweet rant reaction.

Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance

Zero Tolerance implies a black and white solution for a problem shaded in variations of grey. It is currently being used by the Trump administration to the (worldwide*) problem of immigration, but this latest incarnation has been applied before to many problems with limited success, at least in part because it is almost always trumped (no pun intended) by the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Zero tolerance has been used to try to make schools safer, with minimal, at best, (perhaps even counterproductive) results. ¹ (Here’s an irony: many of those favoring zero tolerance re: immigration oppose zero-tolerance re: guns in schools, and vice versa.)

Companies are starting to re-think their zero tolerance policies toward employee drug use and testing as they are increasingly struggling to fill vacancies in a time of low unemployment. ²

I’m guessing very few of us want a zero-tolerance enforcement by police officers when we get pulled over on a minor traffic violation.

How many of us raised our children with a zero-tolerance approach? How did that work out for you when you tried?

How many of your best teachers had a zero-tolerance policy (s)he fanatically enforced? What was your opinion of those teachers who never made exceptions for anyone or anything? Be honest.

It seems to me that we all recognize the limitations of zero tolerance, except perhaps when it doesn’t seem to impact us personally.

    It’s a complex world and while laser sharp black and white rules might look attractively clean and simple, under closer examination, even those are pixilated. (Also see Rule #42: Most rules written in crisp, dark black print on starkly white paper may be clear but are also fragile and easily broken. )

Jimmy Buffet got it right when he sang, Simply Complicated.

* Immigration is a worldwide problem, replete with shades of gray. It is, in fact, the one issue where citizens we have met from all corners of the globe** agree is problematical for their country. Problematical, but not the same problem. Canadian concerns are not English concerns are not Swiss concerns are not Aussie concerns are not Kiwi concerns are not American concerns. You get the idea. We share the issue in general, but not the problems it generates, and certainly not the solutions required.

¹ The [APA] task force reviewed 10 years of research on the effects of zero tolerance policies in middle and secondary schools and concluded that such policies not only fail to make schools safe or more effective in handling student behavior, they can actually increase the instances of problem behavior and dropout rates.

The research also showed that zero tolerance policies failed to increase the consistency of discipline across student groups and failed to decrease uneven enforcement of punishment across racial lines.)

²  Desperate to fill open positions, some employers are beginning to soften zero-tolerance drug policies, particularly for jobs where safety is not an essential function.

Low unemployment and increasing use of illegal drugs are narrowing the pool of qualified workers in many regions and industries. State laws allowing medical and recreational use of marijuana are complicating recruiters' efforts to find drug-free employees, as is the continued abuse of prescription opioids. [SHRM]

** Now there’s an expression that makes no sense, but I decided to use the cliché anyway.

Collusion Confusion & The Partisan Divide

President Trump repeatedly tweets and claims that he is not guilty of collusion. It may come as a surprise that I absolutely concur, although it’s neither a compliment nor an endorsement; Donald J. Trump is not capable of collusion (as far as I know, it is not even one of the many words he has misspelled).

Collusion requires listening skills; collusion requires the ability to work with others; collusion requires discretion and self-discipline; collusion requires loyalty and commitment to a common goal; collusion requires consistency. None of those attributes are hallmarks of the current president. His minions, of course, are, perhaps, another story.

Beyond that, I don’t think the Russians really cared who won the 2016 election. (If you think HRC was in their pocket but Trump is independent, or vice versa, your “stink test” detector might need a new battery.) There were advantages and disadvantages for Vladimir Putin to both candidates. No, what Putin wanted was exactly what he got, a divided nation with citizens so busy fighting amongst ourselves that Russian objectives, prime among them restoring Russia to global player and superpower status, could be achieved with a minimum of American interference. Russian trolls continue working to perpetuate those divisions.

“We have met the enemy and he is us,” said Pogo, so far back in the day that few of you reading this even get the reference.

Getting it, however, is less important than its truth. Are you part of the problem that is our toxic, tribal political atmosphere? If you’re posting or even sharing partisan memes, my answer is, “Yes.” If you’re railing and ranting against either liberals or conservatives, as if one group has a monopoly on truth or virtue, my answer is, “Yes.” If you’re pointing fingers (not just the middle one) or shaking fists at one group or another, religious or political or racial, if you’re generalizing and stereotyping, my answer is, “Yes.” If you believe that your team is good or that the “other” team is evil, my answer is, “Yes.” Political beliefs do not qualify their adherents as either saintly or ungodly.

Rabid partisans, almost by definition, are not prone to self-examination. Asking yourself, “What if I’m wrong?” before jumping in or sharing vitriol at least has the potential of mitigating some of the anger so prevalent on social media, the anger that continues to drive that wedge between us even deeper into our national soul. Of course, that means we have to admit such a possibility. But I’m guessing if you won’t, or can’t, admit that maybe, just maybe, you could be wrong (and that an opposing point of view might have value), you probably never started reading this in the first place.