A friend who’s active-duty military and who was in Afghanistan remarked that he didn’t think the Afghans could get by “without our help.”

Hmm. I held my tongue, but hmm.

My friend is a decent enough sort, but he’s in the Army and sees the world from that viewpoint. As a matter of psychological self-preservation, he must see the world from that viewpoint.

Nobody likes to see himself or herself as a villain. We always try to believe that we do what is right. If not right, then necessary. If not necessary, then what we had no other choice but to do.

When my friend thinks about the American occupation of Afghanistan, he thinks about building clinics and dispensing antibiotics to kids. As much as he can, he avoids thinking about the more common instances of bombing wedding parties, shooting kids, and urinating on the corpses. He doesn’t do that, so he tries to ignore it and focuses on any positive images he can find.

But “helping the Afghans”? Forget about making a sarcastic retort. It was all I could do not to laugh.

The Afghans did not request American “help” any more than they requested it from the Russians or the British, who previously attacked and occupied their country. They did not request that the United States install a puppet government. They did not request that their country be bombed and that their people be slaughtered.

One thing I’ve learned is that war is constant. Three reasons are most important.

First, human nature contains an aggressive and destructive impulse that war satisfies. That impulse often drowns out the voices of conscience and reason — in some of us more often than others.

Second, war is financially profitable for some people. Not for the soldiers who fight in it, and certainly not for the victims of its carnage. But bankers and weapons merchants make a killing,  figuratively and literally. Smedley Butler, a Marine Corps Major General, discussed this in his book War is a Racket.

Third, war is politically profitable for government officials. It allows them to pose as courageous heroes who defend the nation. It enables them to crack down on dissent and enact oppressive laws. It distracts the population from the country’s real problems, “busying giddy minds with foreign quarrels,” as Shakespeare said. And it keeps the military busy overseas, instead of giving them free time to think about staging a coup at home.

I don’t have anything particularly wise to say to my friend about Afghanistan or America’s other imperial aggressions. As long as he wears the uniform, he has to believe in what he’s doing, and there’s no point in trying to talk him out of it. You or I would probably feel the same in his circumstances.

What I can do is talk more generally about how every person’s life is sacred; how war, killing, and destruction should be avoided whenever possible; and how America was founded to be a republic, not an empire.

War and oppression will always be around because they’re a consequence of human nature. However, from time to time, we can moderate and reduce them a bit.

It’s not as inspiring a goal as universal peace and brotherhood, but it’s what we can achieve on earth.

Copyright 2012 by N.S. Palmer. May be reproduced as long as byline, copyright notice, and URL (http://www.ashesblog.com) are included.

Graphic: United Federation of Teachers.

Like most informed people, I’ve watched in disgust as over a dozen Republican-controlled state legislatures have enacted laws to prevent Democrats from voting.

They don’t come right out and say that’s what they’re doing, of course. To hear them talk, it’s about preventing “vote fraud.” That follows a script from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing group that works for America’s super-rich against the 99.9 percent.

Those same people were curiously incurious about vote fraud in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. The 2000 election was stolen by rigged electronic voting machines, voter suppression, and “spoiled” ballots in Florida — where the election machinery was controlled by George W. Bush’s brother Jeb. The Bushes’ dirty tricks made the vote count so close that a recount was needed. Then, Bush’s friends on the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount and they awarded the presidency to Bush. Rather than cast doubt on the legitimacy of the U.S. government, Democratic candidate Al Gore conceded without a fight. Later, a consortium of six major newspapers (including The New York Times) and the University of Chicago did a comprehensive recount and analyzed the data under various assumptions. In every scenario, Gore won.

The 2004 presidential election was stolen by the Bush-Cheney machine in much the same way, but this time in Ohio rather than Florida. A University of Pennsylvania statistician found that based on the data, it was virtually impossible for Bush to have won the 2004 election. But the ever-subservient news media ignored the evidence of massive vote fraud when it benefitted the Bush-Cheney regime.

At the retail level, however — that of individuals or small groups of people conspiring to vote fraudulently — very few cases have been documented. Republican cries of “vote fraud” are simply a pretext to prevent voting by groups likely to vote Democratic: minorities, young people, the poor, and the elderly.

In the eyes of Republicans and their super-rich corporate paymasters, such people have no business voting in the first place. They’re not “the right kind of people.” If they were good enough to vote, they’d be rich. And corrupt. And white.

The Republican agenda is simple: Government should be of, by, and for the rich and the politically connected. Voting by the common people is a nuisance that should be minimized as much as possible.

Democrats want more people to vote for the same reason that Republicans want fewer people to vote: The majority favors ideas, programs, and policies that Democrats say they support, even if their actions often contradict their promises.

Progressives believe that for democracy to be legitimate, voting should be extended as widely as possible. No group should be deprived of the vote, either directly or through subterfuge.

But It’s Not That Simple

But the issue isn’t quite as simple as either side pretends. Democracy as an institution was not handed down to us on tablets from Mount Sinai. It has taken many forms in many different times and places.

In the South prior to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, literacy tests were used to prevent black citizens from voting. That’s an unsavory purpose. The law was also used to harass and humiliate black citizens. That’s despicable.

On the other hand, consider the official justification for the law: In order to be properly informed about the issues, voters had to be able to read. If they couldn’t read, then they couldn’t be properly informed. If they weren’t informed, then they couldn’t vote intelligently. Society has a legitimate interest in limiting the vote to people who can vote intelligently. You can say that the argument was abused, and it was, but it’s not a crazy argument. It makes sense.

In the early days of the American republic, voting was limited to white male property owners. Women couldn’t vote. Even if they were free and not slaves, blacks couldn’t vote. That limitation of voting rights led to a particular kind of government and political system. It was worse in some respects than our system, and better in other respects.

Even in the birthplace of democracy, ancient Athens, only white male Athenians could vote. Women couldn’t vote, and were considered about equal in status to horses. Foreigners couldn’t vote, and were considered fit for enslavement. That limitation of voting rights led to a government and society that was pretty good for white male Athenians. Its results were pretty good for all of Western civilization that came afterward, giving us foundations in science, philosophy, art, and politics. The cost was what we’d call injustice. Athenian males disagreed.

The Real Issues in Voting Rights

The real issues in voting rights are:

• What values do we consider most important?
• What kind of society and government do we want?
• And who counts as part of “we”?

From a political-science standpoint, democracy only works in small political units up to populations of about 500,000. When a political unit is bigger than that, democracy breaks down because (1) it’s impossible for the majority to know what’s going on, and (2) each individual’s vote is so diluted that it has almost no chance of making a difference. Ancient Athens had a population of about 250,000 — of whom only about 30,000 could vote.

With larger populations, democracy degenerates into oligarchy, just as it has in the United States. Democracy is no longer about rule by the majority, because that’s practically impossible. Instead, it becomes a device by which the ruling oligarchy deceives the majority into consenting to whatever the oligarchy does for its own benefit. It’s a way to give the majority of people the illusion that they have some control without actually giving them control. In essence, voting is transformed from an exercise in governance into an act of consent to be ruled and exploited by the oligarchy.

That said, there is some wider benefit in having people feel that they are part of the society. That applies even if the political system is corrupt. Voting rights are a way to recognize people as full citizens, giving them status and respect. People who feel that they are part of the society are more inclined to cooperate with others, help the needy, and contribute in other ways that the ruling oligarchy neglects because it’s too busy stuffing its bank accounts and starting wars.

For those reasons, I think that voting rights should be extended as widely as possible, even though the people voting are unlikely to have any power. It’s not a political but a social exercise: People who can vote are part of our society. We, as their peers, show them respect and acceptance.

Copyright 2012 by N.S. Palmer. May be reproduced as long as byline, copyright notice, and URL (http://www.ashesblog.com) are included.

Technorati Tags: voting, elections, Republicans, vote fraud, democracy, Jim Crow

I recently saw the movie “The Help,” which chronicled the insults and indignities suffered by black people in the early 1960s.

Its basic theme, of black people humiliated and oppressed by whites who were either racist or oblivious, rang true. It was consistent with my experience in life, though it took me many years to understand that experience.

As a child, I knew almost nothing about racism. It never occurred to me that racial differences were significant.

I don’t say that to establish how virtuous and enlightened I was, because I wasn’t. Virtue requires conscious choice. And children, no matter how clever, are almost never enlightened. I didn’t choose not to be a racist. I simply wasn’t one.

Even as a child, I was a nerd. I lived in a world of books and ideas, not of people. I still do. I might not remember your face (or your race), but I’ll remember numbers and facts about you. We nerds don’t dislike people, but people don’t register with us as vividly as do ideas, facts, and principles. As a character on the delightful and quickly-cancelled TV sitcom “Wonderfalls” said of himself, “It’s a borderline autistic thing.”

By the way, that’s not just a funny line from a TV show. Some neuroscience researchers think that autism is an extreme form of male cognitive organization. But I digress.

In my primary school class, Greg was the only African-American kid. There were no Hispanics or Asians, so except for Greg, we were all white. As far as I could tell, no one treated Greg any differently from the rest of us. I never noticed anyone make hostile remarks about him or pick fights with him. Of course, as a nerd, I wasn’t attuned to that kind of thing. However, I would have noticed it if it had been intense or repeated.

Much of the time when I was a child, one or the other of two black ladies took care of me.

Margie, my parents’ housekeeper, was from Alabama. She’d previously worked in an ice cream shop, which to a seven-year-old boy seemed like a glamorous and exciting job. She taught me how to scoop ice cream “the professional way” and how to make chocolate sodas. She praised the childish comic strips that I drew and she encouraged my artwork. She nagged me to practice for my piano lessons.

Bea, my grandparents’ housekeeper, was a plump, good-natured lady a little over four feet tall. Whenever my father saw her, he jokingly asked Bea if she was standing up or sitting down. She was devoted to my grandparents and to me. She taught me a lot, including personal hygiene.

And yet, there was something odd about Bea’s relationship to my grandparents. I didn’t understand it at the time. My maternal grandfather loved Bea but hated black people. That wasn’t what he called them, but you can guess the word he used.

After a while, I realized the inconsistency of my grandfather’s attitude: he hated black people in general, but every black person who he  knew personally was “different.” The ones he knew were all right. It was only the ones he didn’t know who were — well, whatever he thought they were. He never elaborated on the subject, at least not to me.

In high school, one of my best friends was John, an African-American who again was one of a very small number of black students at the school. Everyone, including John, made jokes about race, but as far as I could tell it was all good-natured. Just as with Greg in primary school, I was never aware of anyone being unfriendly to John or saying hateful things on account of his race. He was a very likeable guy, and as far as I could tell, everyone liked him.

In college, one of my friends was Charlie, a pre-med student. That was when I first became aware of race as an issue, though I was still fairly obtuse and insensitive about it. Charlie was one of a fairly small number of black students at our college.

My perception might have been unfair, but it seemed to me that most of our black students confirmed the worst racist stereotypes. I thought that they weren’t serious about their studies, and that they complained constantly about real and imagined insults. Looking back, I’d guess that my perception was biased by those very same racist stereotypes, but that’s what I thought I saw.

Charlie was different. (That sounds just like something my grandfather would have said.) Unlike the other black students, he wasn’t on scholarship. Whenever you saw Charlie, he was doing one of three things: studying, participating in class, or working at one of the part-time jobs he held to pay his way through college. The other black students thought he was “acting white” and viewed him with disdain. He graduated with straight ‘A’s. I’m sure that he’s now an eminent doctor somewhere.

How much hurt and anger lurked beneath the smiles and easy-going demeanor of all those black people? Were they really as happy as they seemed?

I hope so. But I suspect it was partly because they knew what happened to black people who expressed dissatisfaction or stepped out of line.

What have I learned from all that? I suppose it amounts to this:

• A just society doesn’t treat any group of people as second-class citizens.
• Even if people smile when they’re mistreated, it doesn’t mean they’re happy about it or that they think it’s okay.
• An injustice done to any person is an injustice done to all of us, and we should treat it as such.

As well as what I always knew:

• All people have infinite worth and importance. To the extent that we can, we should treat them that way.

Copyright 2011 by N.S. Palmer. May be reproduced as long as byline, copyright notice, and URL (http://www.ashesblog.com) are included.

Should America abandon its Constitution?

That must seem like a silly question. Isn’t the Constitution the bedrock of our society, our political system, and our legal system?

And didn’t the Republicans seize power in the House of Representatives to defend the Constitution against that awful Kenyan / Muslim / Socialist / “Uppity Negro” Obama?

No, and no.

I’m ambivalent about people who claim to be “defenders of the Constitution.” First, most of them aren’t. And second, though I’ve spent many years arguing that America should return to following its Constitution, I’m no longer sure that it’s a good idea.

Enumerated Powers for the Federal Government

Americans tend to forget — if they ever knew — that the U.S. Constitution set up a system of enumerated powers for America’s federal government and un-enumerated rights for the states and the people.

Under that system, the U.S. federal government is forbidden to engage any activities except those that:

• Are specifically authorized by the Constitution, or
• Are clearly necessary to carry out the Constitutionally-authorized activities.

In other words, the legitimate powers of the federal government are “enumerated” (listed) by the Constitution. However, the rights of the states and the people are not limited to those enumerated in the Constitution. The states and the people have not only specific rights listed in the Constitution, but also have all their historic rights from tradition, the British common law, and settled practice.

The general welfare clause, which states that the Constitution is intended “to promote the general welfare,” is often used as a catch-all justification for federal government activities. However, the general welfare clause states a goal of the Constitution, not a power of the federal government. It doesn’t authorize anything.

In 1787, the American population was divided about whether or not to adopt the new Constitution as a replacement for the Articles of Confederation, which had governed the United States up to that point. Supporters of the new Constitution wrote a series of essays called The Federalist Papers in which they answered objections to the Constitution.

The authors of The Federalist Papers opposed adopting “the Bill of Rights,” that is, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution which list specific rights of the states and the people. The main reason they opposed a bill of rights was that the federal government was already forbidden to do anything not listed in the Constitution.

For example, the Constitution did not list any powers for the federal government to suppress free speech, or to search people’s homes without probable cause and a search warrant from a judge. Because it didn’t list such powers, the government was not allowed to do those things. What would have been the point adding amendments to forbid things that the government couldn’t do anyway? In Federalist Paper 84, U.S. founding father Alexander Hamilton wrote:

I go further and affirm that bills of rights … are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

Hamilton’s fears were well-founded. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the fact that the Constitution lists specific rights has enabled supporters of oppressive government (who falsely call themselves “conservatives”) to claim that Americans have only the rights listed in the Constitution.

American founding father Thomas Jefferson, who often disagreed with Alexander Hamilton, agreed completely that the federal government had only those powers enumerated in the Constitution, and no legitimate power to infringe on the rights of the states or the people:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.” (Tenth Amendment) To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. (February 1791)

We have taken many thousands of steps “beyond the boundaries” of the Constitution, to the point at which the U.S. government claims not only unlimited power at home, but presumes to dictate to countries around the world what they may and may not do. Federal agencies and activities not authorized by the Constitution — and therefore forbidden under the doctrine of enumerated powers — include:

• All wars started without a declaration of war by Congress (including those against Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which attacked or threatened the United States)
• Direct taxation of citizens of the states (Constitutional amendment never ratified)
• National laws about abortion (whether pro or con)
• National laws about religion (whether supporting it or forbidding it)
• National laws about affirmative action and “diversity” (whether pro or con)
• Laws against racial and sexual discrimination
• The FBI
• The IRS
• The CIA
• The National Security Agency
• The Department of Education
• The Department of Health and Human Services
• The Social Security Administration
• All federally-operated welfare programs
• Direct election of U.S. senators (Constitutional amendment never ratified)
• The U.S. “Patriot Act”
• The Transportation Security Agency
• The Department of Homeland Security
• Imprisoning people indefinitely without trial
• Torturing prisoners
• Wiretapping people without independent court review and a court order
• Caging protesters in “free speech zones”
• Subjecting air travelers to “gate rape” and virtual strip searches without probable cause

Moreover, when Thomas Jefferson wrote, Congress was seen as the one and only law-making body in the federal government. Hence, when he talks about limits on the powers of Congress or the United States, he means limits on the powers of the federal government. No one among the founders even imagined that the executive branch and its agencies would be laws unto themselves. That, too, is a power not listed in the Constitution — and thus is Constitutionally forbidden.

In essence, contemporary political theory has turned the U.S. Constitution upside-down. Originally, the federal government was forbidden to do anything not specifically permitted by the Constitution, while the states and people were free to do anything not specifically forbidden by the Constitution. Now, the U.S. federal government claims that it is free to do anything not specifically forbidden by the Constitution, while the states and the people are forbidden to do anything not specifically permitted by the Constitution.

Should America Abandon Its Constitution?

But there’s another side of the argument. In the 21st century, should the United States follow a Constitution that was designed for an 18th-century society?

De Montesquieu (in The Spirit of the Laws, a book that inspired the American founders) said that laws should match the people for whom they were created. And though it’s doubtful that the legal sewage of the Bush-Cheney era and its timid aftermath would match any population above the level of particularly stupid and thuggish monkeys, it’s also true that the U.S. Constitution no longer matches the American population.

At the time the Constitution was written, the American economy was decentralized and largely agrarian. Americans were almost exclusively Anglo-European and were highly self-reliant. They were literate and informed: instead of being an assignment for college students, The Federalist Papers were printed in newspapers and debated in taverns. Americans considered themselves first and foremost to be citizens of their states, not of a vast nation-state. As recently as 1965, the American population was 88 percent white, 11 percent black, one percent “other,” and almost everyone spoke English.

Those things are no longer true. We now live in a centralized, urban, and technological society of multiple races, nationalities, languages, and cultures that is held together only by the armed might of the federal government and the economic power of giant corporations.

The United States is now quite similar to the Soviet Union just before it fell apart, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military bases and covert wars around the world, and the oppressive domestic internal-security state.

Nobody Really Wants to Follow the Constitution

If the United States followed its Constitution, the country would shatter into at least a dozen pieces. That might be a blessing in the long run, but in the short run it would be very, very difficult for many people.

That’s why Republicans like Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) aren’t serious about following the Constitution, no matter how much they talk about it to deceive their grassroots supporters. They work for Wall Street, giant corporations, and the super-rich, who would suffer financially if the United States collapsed. They won’t let that happen if they can avoid it.

Democrats aren’t serious about following the Constitution, either. Social programs that benefit the poor, regulations that help curb the power of giant corporations, and laws against racial or sexual discrimination are all un-Constitutional. The vast majority of Americans approve of those things.

So hardly anyone wants to follow the Constitution, but everyone wants to pay it lip service. It exists only as an empty symbol, to which people vow undying loyalty and then completely ignore.

Isn’t it about time we ended the pretense?

Copyright 2011 by N.S. Palmer. May be reproduced as long as byline, copyright notice, and URL (http://www.ashesblog.com) are included.

He's from the government and he's here to help you.

Reason Magazine, a venerable libertarian publication, recently published a column arguing for the abolition of drunk-driving laws.

Back when I was a libertarian, I spent some time as a Research Fellow at the Reason Foundation in Santa Barbara, California, writing papers and giving seminars about abstruse philosophical topics such as the grue-bleen paradox and St. Augustine’s theory of knowledge. I also wrote an article for the magazine, in which (foolish youth that I was) I argued for abolishing all public education.

Reason was established back in 1968, when the pointless but profitable Vietnam War still dragged on (much like the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, which are equally pointless but even more profitable). President Johnson had decided not to run for re-election, and America was graced with Richard M. Nixon as its new president.

The similarities between that election and the election of 2000 are striking. In both cases, a generally right-thinking and competent but un-exciting Democrat (Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Al Gore in 2000) had served as vice president in the previous administration. A ruthless and somewhat amoral Republican (Richard Nixon in 1968, George Bush in 2000) was able to win by tarring his opponent with the real and imagined sins of the previous administration. Unlike the 2000 election, the 1968 election was not stolen by the Republican establishment, but it was still a close call.

Now, I have a confession. As bad as he was in many ways, I’ve always had a soft spot for Nixon. As far as I can tell, Humphrey was a perfectly nice man whose heart was in the right place. Nixon was not, even though he was a patriot and he did care about the United States.

In 1960, when he ran for President and lost to John F. Kennedy in a close vote marred by allegations of fraud, Nixon did the same thing as Al Gore did in 2000. Rather than challenge the election and besmirch the legitimacy of the U.S. government, Nixon conceded the presidency to Kennedy. Nixon was a proud man of humble birth, and conceding a tainted election to the patrician Kennedy must have been one of the hardest things he ever did.

And Nixon was one thing Humphrey wasn’t: he was brilliant. He knew the issues inside and out, not just tactically but in terms of history, philosophy, and geopolitical strategy. Unlike most politicians, he wrote his own books instead of using ghostwriters. He wrote out the manuscripts in longhand on yellow legal pads. I’ve read some of those books. Their intelligence, learning, and insight rival those of Winston Churchill, who was also brilliant and had shortcomings, though he sometimes used ghostwriters.

I never met Nixon, though I did correspond with him once in an attempt to get him to write something for a book; he ultimately turned me down. Friends of mine who knew Nixon personally confirmed what I had inferred from his writing and his behavior: He had a mind like a computer but not much of a conscience.

I’d like to focus on that last qualifier: “not much of a conscience.” Nixon might not have had much of a conscience, but unlike some of our more recent politicians, he did have one. In a sense, he was an extreme version of all of us: he would do wrong sometimes, but then he would feel guilty about it. It’s his feeling of guilt that, in my eyes, redeems Nixon morally. He was a flawed man trying to do his best and often failing at it.

Most people have heard about the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to Nixon’s resignation as president. What most people don’t know is that it was indeed about a “third-rate burglary” that Nixon didn’t authorize, though he probably wouldn’t have disapproved either.

Nixon lied to Congress and to the American people not to cover up his own crimes, but to protect some of the people who worked for him. The lies and coverup brought down his presidency. At that time, it was unimaginable to most people that their president would lie to them. Even comic-book heroes shared that belief. In an early 1960s comic strip, President Kennedy impersonated Clark Kent to help Superman protect his secret identity. Echoing the sentiments of most Americans, Superman said “If I can’t trust the President of the United States, then who can I trust?”

Today, of course, we have lower expectations. President Bush and Vice President Cheney lied to Americans and to Congress about WMDs, illegal wiretapping, torture, and their own war crimes, but no one is surprised except the benighted viewers of Fox News. Bush and Cheney still walk free, living in luxury at taxpayer expense, instead of being in prison where they belong. And unlike Nixon, they seem incapable of guilt or remorse.

In any event, those were heady days for Reason Magazine and for libertarian true believers. The conceit behind the name of the magazine was the idea that only one political philosophy was rational and correct: libertarianism, in its mainstream or its Ayn Rand variant. Libertarians believed that their viewpoint was so clear and obvious, just like 2+2 = 4, that anyone who knew about it had to realize its truth. The only reasons why someone wouldn’t believe in it were that:

• They hadn’t heard about it (no one had preached the Gospel to them);
• They were stupid and unable to understand it;
• They were mentally ill;

or, and this was the favorite explanation,

• They were just plain evil and deliberately denied what they knew was the truth.

That attitude has interesting parallels with the attitude held about non-believers by some Christians. But I’ve gone far afield from my initial topic of drunk driving.

I agree with the Reason article that the main impetus behind drunk driving laws is “to punish sin,” as well as to give police and court officials an excuse to disrupt people’s lives for their own sadistic enjoyment. However, the issue is not as simple as one side being “right” and the other side being “wrong.”

Drunk driving laws, to the extent that they have any rational justification, are about risk. A drunk person is more likely to cause an accident than a sober one. The argument is that we cannot allow that risk. Of course, anti-drunk-driving fanatics exaggerate the size of the risk, but that is not the main point. Any society will legally prohibit some risks and not others.

For example, if I point a gun at you but do not fire it, then you have not been injured but you are at risk of being injured. For that reason, it’s illegal for me to point a gun at you. Technically, it’s a case of assault, but without battery because I didn’t fire.

It comes down to where we draw the line: how much risk is too much? That’s a value judgment that we should collectively make as a society and embody in law. Fifty years ago, it was illegal to drive drunk but it wasn’t considered a hanging offense. You could also drive with kids in the front seat and ride bikes without a helmet. You could get on a plane without being harassed by security guards, and the flight attendant would cheerfully stow your gun in the overhead compartment. People survived. They had a few more risks but they had greater freedom. Were they right? They thought so.

Our latter-day Carrie Nations seem to be obsessed with scourging “DDs:” Drunk Drivers. Drug Dealers. Deadbeat Dads. But their main phobia is risk: risk of any kind and of any magnitude, however small. We should not let them and their obsession with total safety stampede us into a totalitarian society.

Copyright 2011 by N.S. Palmer. May be reproduced as long as byline, copyright notice, and URL (http://www.ashesblog.com) are included.

Back in 2005, my friend Miles Gloriosus interviewed George W. Bush at the White House. He found that Bush was quite different from his public image.

Actually, I should say that Miles claimed to have interviewed George W. Bush.

Miles is a good man. He’s a war veteran decorated for his heroism in the Battle of Macho Grande. But he’s also a drunkard, a libertine, and an incorrigible liar. So I cannot attest to the accuracy of his report, but it does sound plausible.

Mr. Bush released his own book about his presidency last week, so I thought it would be a good time to revisit Bush’s revelations to Miles. What follows is his interview from 2005. I’ve added some links to explain people, places, and events that might be unfamiliar to readers who don’t know Miles.

–N.S. Palmer

My Interview with George W. Bush

By MILES GLORIOSUS

Copyright 2005 by Miles Gloriosus.

Morning. I was getting my laundry out of the dryer and preparing to see my girlfriend. Well, she’s not actually my girlfriend. She’s a model on the provocative-but-tasteful “Republican Vixens” Web site. There’s something fascinating about a blonde born-again Christian who mouths neoconservative war slogans while dressed in black leather. I firmly believe that if she knew me, she’d want to be my girlfriend.

The phone rang. I picked it up.

“Gloriosus?” the caller said.

“Yeah? You and what army?”

“The president wants to see you.”

“Roosevelt?”

“No.”

“Larry Summers?”

“No.”

“Martin Sheen?”

“No. Bush. George W. Bush. That one.”

It was starting to sound authentic. Secret Service agents are notorious for having no sense of humor.

I ended up that evening at the entrance to Blair House, a diplomatic residence across the street from the White House. A couple of thick-necked types with black suits and earpieces hustled me inside, then through a tunnel that led under Pennsylvania Avenue to a lower floor of the White House. We climbed some stairs and went into an office in the residence. Bush was sitting at a desk reading some papers. He waved the agents to wait in the hallway outside.

“You know why you’re here?” he said.

“I suppose that you’re either going to talk to me or have me killed. Or both,” I said.

Bush laughed. “You’ve got a pair on you, boy, I’ll say that for you. But it’s nothing so lurid as you might imagine. To tell the truth, you’re no threat. Do you own a TV network? Can you out-shout O’Reilly? Can you untangle Hannity‘s non sequiturs? Could you even get a letter to the editor published if we didn’t want it to happen? Not a chance. Killing you would be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“On the other hand,” he said, “you do seem to have figured out a lot of things. I don’t often get a chance to talk to smart people who don’t work for me and aren’t trying to kiss my keister. I just thought we could chat. It’s more fun to do that when you’re talking to someone who can understand.”

I pulled a micro-cassette recorder from the pocket of my sport jacket. It’s standard equipment for an old ex-newspaper reporter like me. I said, “Do you mind if I tape this, just to make sure that I quote you accurately?”

“No taping,” Bush said. “I’ll take that recorder, please.”

I handed him the recorder. Not much point in arguing about it when there were half a dozen heavily-armed Secret Service agents just outside the door.

Bush opened a desk drawer and tossed the recorder inside. He pulled a $50 bill out of his wallet and gave it to me. “That should cover a new recorder. Don’t worry. I’ll expense it.”

“Now, here are the ground rules for our chat,” he said. “You can take notes. That’s all. And when we’re finished, on your way out, don’t try stealing any of those White House coffee cups or ballpoint pens. The FBI warned me about how many Ramada Inn bath towels you have in your apartment. What you get is a one-on-one with the president. What you don’t get is anything that would prove you were really here.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

Bush got up. There was a Mister Coffee machine on a table in the corner. “Do you want a cup? It’s fresh. Then we can get started.”

“Sure,” I said. “Black …”

“… with three sugars,” he said. “I take mine the same way. Aren’t those FBI boys amazing? By the way, I can get you an introduction to that girl of yours on the Web site. Nice young lady. She’s in the neuroscience Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins. Jewish, too. That stuff about her being born-again was just to keep Ashcroft from raiding the Web site. He always had a bug up his shorts about that kind of thing.”

He gave me the coffee, sat down in an easy chair, and took a sip from his own cup. “All right, we’re comfy. Ask your questions.”

I took a deep breath. “Everyone thinks that you lied about Iraq having WMDs and being connected to 9/11. Did you?”

“You bet your sweet bippy I did,” he said. “But that’s not the question to ask. The important question is, why did I lie? That’s what makes me either a traitor or a true patriot.”

“All right, why did you lie?”

“Because whether you like it or not, the world economy still runs on oil. The country that controls the largest oil reserves will have guaranteed prosperity at home and irresistible clout abroad. Which country do you want it to be? Russia? China? Japan? For me, there’s only one acceptable answer: the United States, and only the United States, is going to control that oil.”

Bush dropped another lump of sugar into his coffee cup. “What’s the alternative? Picture gas at $20 a gallon,” he said. “Picture unemployment that would make the Great Depression seem like the roaring 1990s. Picture Don Rumsfeld prancing around in one of J. Edgar Hoover‘s old pink dresses.”

I broke into a cold sweat. I had a bicycle, and I was financially secure. But the image of Don Rumsfeld in a dress … I finally understood the kind of horror that the P.O.W.s at Guantanamo had to endure.

I said, “As for the 9/11 attacks, some people think that they were staged. They believe that your administration either let them happen or actively helped them happen. Did you?”

Bush waved his hand dismissively. “No matter what I say, people are going to believe what they want to believe about 9/11. A lot of them think it was damn suspicious that I kept sitting there with the schoolkids reading My Pet Goat after learning that the attacks were underway. Others think I was a coward for flying all over the country in Air Force One instead of going right back to the White House after the attacks. As for me, I don’t worry about that. I focus on moving forward, not on looking back.”

I said, “I notice that you didn’t answer my question.”

Bush grinned. “No I didn’t, did I?” He chuckled. “My, aren’t you the observant one? It’s too bad that The New York Times and The Washington Post don’t have anyone quite that perceptive. They might have caught on to my little Iraq scam in time to prevent the war. If they’d had any cojones, which of course they don’t, they might even have asked me a tough question or two.”

Bush got up and started rummaging through the piles of books on his desk. “You know what Ralph Waldo Emerson said? ‘Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.’ Emerson wrote that in his book The Conduct of Life. I have it here someplace, if I can just find it … It’s a really nice edition. One of those leather-bound jobs from Easton Press, I think.”

Bush stood up from his desk. “I can’t find it,” he said. “But getting back to your question about Iraq. Sure, I lied my head off to start that war. It was discreditable as hell, as Emerson said. But if my analysis of the geopolitical situation was correct, then my discreditable little war will save the American economy from ruin and preserve our country’s status as a world leader. I care more about that than I do about abstract morality. And though it sounds terrible, I care more about the welfare of Americans than I do about the welfare of Iraqis.”

“My job as president isn’t to be a ‘fair arbiter’ between the needs of Americans and those of everyone else in the world,” he said. “My job is to protect the interests of Americans and America. God bless the rest of the world, but if they get in the way of what I think is best for America, then I’m sorry, but screw ‘em. Bombs away.”

I said, “Excuse me, but you seem to have a very limited notion of who’s American. You aren’t doing what’s best for working people who see their sons and daughters killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose jobs get shipped overseas, whose wages go down and whose taxes go up while giant corporations and multi-billionaires pay almost nothing in taxes on incomes higher than they’ve ever had before.”

Bush sat back down and took another sip of coffee. He thought for a minute. “America is an abstraction,” he said. “It means something different to everyone. It means people you know, places you grew up, holidays and customs you cherish. It means your family, books you like, and TV shows you watch. At a slightly greater remove, it means people similar to you, whom you think you understand.”

“For you, America is those working people you talked about so eloquently. It’s the soldiers who fought beside you in the battle of Macho Grande. It’s cab drivers and unemployed computer programmers. For me, on the other hand, America is rich people. Very rich people. People who either inherited their money or made it through graft, monopolies, and crooked deals. I don’t apologize for it. I was born into that estate. So when I talk about standing up for America, I’m being perfectly honest. I stand up for the America I know. I’m not indifferent to the ‘little people’ you love so much, but they’re not on my ‘A list’ any more than I’m on theirs.”

I said, “You also talk ad nauseam about how Americans are free. And yet we’ve now got your so-called Patriot Act, pre-emptive arrests, and no-fly lists that stigmatize people as terrorists when they’ve done nothing ‘wrong’ except criticize your administration. We’ve got a government that taxes and regulates almost every aspect of life, from toilets to cars to our personal speech and conduct. How does that make you a defender of freedom?”

Bush nodded. “Yes, all that endless prattle about freedom bores me sometimes, too. But define what you mean by freedom. Is it everyone doing whatever he wants? Then you have no society. The freedom to fly on Air Force One? I’ve got it. The freedom to get thrown out of your house and live in a shelter? You’ve got it.”

“I support the freedom for myself and other members of my social class to extract wealth from millions of working schnooks like you and to commit egregious crimes with impunity. But notice that in all my public statements about freedom, I never define what I mean by it. And nobody ever asks me. Just like standing up for America, when I say that I’m defending freedom, I’m being perfectly honest. I defend what freedom means to me.”

“Let me tell you something else about freedom,” Bush said. “Most people really don’t want it. They want to be told that they’re free, because it flatters them and makes them feel like Davy Crockett. But when it comes to actually being free — and having all the responsibilities that freedom entails — they’d much rather have Uncle Sugar looking out for them and telling them what to do.”

He stretched in his chair. “What the American people want isn’t freedom,” he said. “What the American people want is cheap gasoline. Dirty movies and cable. Sports. Bread and circuses. They want a shot — even if it’s a very small shot — at the big score. Yes, the chances of an honest person getting rich are lower than ever before. But if he or she does hit it big, the payoff is bigger than ever before. That’s what I provide to every American: not a fair shake, but a shot at the big payoff.”

“Mr. President, may I ask you something … a little sensitive?”

“Ask away,” he said. “I might not answer.”

” I don’t agree with you about anything,” I said. “But you seem … well, smarter than I expected.”

“Ain’t it a bitch?” he said. “Do you think I enjoy letting everyone believe that I’m a drooling moron who’s just a sock puppet for Dick Cheney and Karl Rove? I don’t. I’m a human being. Sometimes it hurts my feelings to hear what people say about me. But it’s like Sun Tzu said in The Art of War: ‘Though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.’”

“What that means is, trick your adversaries into underestimating your strengths and overestimating your weaknesses,” he said. “It worked for me in Texas, and it works for me now.”

There was a knock at the door. A Secret Service agent stuck his head into the room. “Mr. President, they’re waiting for you in the theatre.”

“What’s the movie tonight, Frank?” Bush said.

“It’s ‘Sleepless in Seattle‘ again, Mr. President. The First Lady insisted.”

Bush snorted and looked at me. “Chick flick,” he said. “I’d invite you to stay, but I know that you have to file your story. Frank, would you conduct Mr. Gloriosus out?”

“Yes, sir,” the agent said.

Bush stood up and stuck out his hand. I hesitated for a moment, then I took it.

“It was good to meet you,” he said. “And if you ever get to be too much of a pain in the ass, we’ll always have Gitmo.” He laughed.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” I said. “Goodbye.”

With Frank and another thickneck at my side, I walked back through the tunnel to Blair House.

When we reached the entrance, Frank handed me a piece of paper. “The President told me to give this to you,” he said.

I looked at the paper. It said “Ilsa, she-wolf of the Young Republicans, 301-555-1111. Don’t call after 11pm.”

I hopped onto a Metro train and headed home. I still thought that Bush was a disaster for America, but at least now I understood him.

And I really liked the White House coffee cup I had in my jacket pocket. I hoped that Ilsa would like it, too.

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it — good and hard.”
– H.L. Mencken

America’s current election campaigns by the two major political parties remind us yet again of the stupidity, foolishness, and gullibility of the electorate.

In California, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate is  Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of computer maker Hewlett-Packard. So far, she has not promised in her campaign to do for California what she did for Hewlett-Packard: throw people out of work, run the state into the ground financially, and walk away with a Golden Parachute severance package.

In Nevada, Lunatic Republican Sharron Angle, who can’t tell the difference between the border of Mexico and the border of Canada, is running for the Senate seat held by Gutless Democrat Harry Reid, who can’t tell the difference between caving in to Republicans on every issue and fulfilling Democratic campaign promises.

In Delaware, anti-masturbation scold Christine O’Donnell is running as the Republican Senate candidate on the platform that she is just as ignorant as the most ignorant people still capable of signing their names on a voting register. One wonders if she really cares about winning, or if she just wants to raise some cash and get people to pay attention to her.

What gets lost in all the hoopla, gets lost on purpose. If you bog everyone down in nonsense about who’s a witch and who supports death panels, they don’t have time to discuss substantive issues. Like unemployment. And ruinously expensive, unjustified wars. And an increasingly  oppressive police state. And the fact that government should promote the greatest good for the greatest number, not just enact policies to benefit Wall Street, giant corporations, and the super-rich.

The truth is that democracy is a sacred cow but it really doesn’t matter that much. It’s just a means to a goal. The goal is to promote a just, free, humane, and prosperous society.

Whether the government is chosen by voting, by hereditary titles, or by a lottery isn’t important. If it does the right things, then it’s a good government. If it does the wrong things, then it doesn’t matter how many votes it gets: it’s a bad government.

We have a middling government that’s trending toward bad. Voting doesn’t seem to help much. I wonder what will.

A news story this morning reported that a lesbian couple was kicked out of a shopping mall for kissing. The mall management later apologized for the incident, of course, but it’s worth thinking about what happened and why.

Once upon a time, most shopping areas were on public streets. In public spaces, people have an uncontested right to engage in almost any behavior that isn’t dangerous, aggressive, or obscene. Kissing, especially if it’s just a casual display of affection and not a make-out session, certainly falls into that category.

In the last few decades, however, private corporations have swallowed up more and more of our public space. They argue, not without basis, that they have a right to control what happens on their private property. Thus, in a mall, you may not wear funny clothes, hand out political leaflets, or — apparently — kiss.

Thus, the areas in which Americans may exercise their Constitutional rights to freedom of expression shrink in tandem with the growing privatization of our public space. Libertarians and tea party activists should think about that.

And if they really want to understand privatization, they should look up the “enclosure movement” in 16th-century England, which turned over public land to wealthy private owners with political connections.

The morning newspaper reports several examples of life during the third Bush-Cheney term first Obama term:

• The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) searched the homes of anti-war activists. The announced reason was suspicion of terrorism, but the real reasons were obviously (a) to gather information about the activists and their groups, (b) to fish for material that could be used against the activists, either for trumped-up criminal charges or for blackmail, and (c) to intimidate the activists and anyone else who might be tempted to annoy the government. It’s the same tactic used by the Russian secret police, who search activists’ offices and steal their computers on the pretext of looking for illegal copies of software.

• The Army banned photos of dead prisoners in the trial of an American soldier who is accused of murdering three Afghan civilians without authorization. According to the article, “The decision reflects concern among the Army’s senior leadership that such evidence could anger Afghan civilians” who are getting a bit tired of being bombed and shot by U.S. occupation forces. There’s just no pleasing those crazy Afghans. And the Army’s decision has absolutely nothing to do with the danger of angering American voters who are forced to pay for the ongoing occupation and slaughter. American voters understand that closing schools and cutting Social Security are required by the nation’s priorities, the first among which are to enrich government contractors and the oil industry, as well as to keep the military busy overseas so it doesn’t get ideas about what it might do “in the homeland.”

• The latest Afghan elections, staged by the U.S. client government of Hamid Karzai, were rife with fraud. One reason that the Afghans need our “help” is that they don’t know how to tamper with elections in a way that preserves deniability, as the U.S. did in 2000 and 2004 to put Bush and Cheney in office for their first two terms.

• The Obama administration wants to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its right to murder American citizens without trial. If we learned one thing from the first eight years of Bush-Cheney rule, it’s that accusations of terrorism automatically trump the rule of law and all Constitutional restraints. If the Bush-Cheney Obama administration accuses someone of being a terrorist, then it must be true, right? You can’t let namby-pamby leftist judges stand in the way of officially sanctioned murder.

Government seems to have inertia and logic that keep going no matter who is in office. The only way to stop it is to exert an opposing force. The Obama administration can’t do it or won’t do it. Of course, its Republican opponents are even worse. They won’t stop what’s happening because they think that war, murder, and totalitarianism are great: Never mind their public statements, watch what they actually do.

Just another day in the former United States of America.

I am deeply disappointed in President Obama, but I like him. I think that he’s smart, rational, informed, and that he means well.

His performance in office is another matter. It’s been almost two years of timid half-measures. Obama has tried to make slight improvements without ever rocking the boat or giving up his hope that someday, the Republicans will like him.

They won’t. Ever. Not only is he a Democrat, but he’s black. He’s educated and he uses big words. Even if he doesn’t try very hard, he wants to help working people instead of just throwing more money at Wall Street sharks and military contractors.

What President Obama needs is not more sweet reason: he’s got bags of that. What he needs is steely resolve to get the job done.

There’s no better example of such resolve than President Judson C. Hammond, the fictional hero of the 1933 classic movie, “Gabriel Over the White House.”

When the movie came out, Franklin D. Roosevelt had just become President. The Great Depression had been going on for three years, and the American people were losing hope. Roosevelt saw “Gabriel Over the White House,” so he might have been inspired by it. Some of the things Roosevelt did to give Americans hope and end the Depression were similar to what President Hammond did in the movie.

Just like Hammond and Roosevelt, President Obama inherited an economic depression caused by policies that enriched the few while impoverishing the many.

Just like Hammond and Roosevelt, President Obama faces a stone wall of resistance from corrupt politicians who care only about their own power and privilege.

Just like Hammond and Roosevelt, President Obama must defeat big-money Wall Street sharks, corporations, and the super-rich who care nothing about the United States, its people, or the common good.

Just like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barack H. Obama could learn a few things from Judson C. Hammond — and from “Gabriel Over the White House.”

An Old-Style Politician

When he’s elected President, Judson C. Hammond is a typical corrupt politician. He cares only about the wealthy and politically connected. It’s 1933 and the Depression has devastated the economy, throwing tens of millions of people out of their jobs.

On the evening of his inauguration, Hammond talks to the influential party leader who helped him win the White House.

Hammond: When I think of all the promises I made the people to get elected …

Party leader: By the time they realize you aren’t going to keep them, your term will be over.

[Both men laugh]

But God has other plans for Judson C. Hammond.

Hammond doesn’t know what to make of his idealistic young assistant, Hartley Beekman.

Beekman: Sir, I’d like you to know how much I appreciate this opportunity to serve my country.

Hammond: Serve your country. Yes. Hmm.

A Near-Death Experience

After a near-fatal car crash, Hammond lies in a coma for several weeks. When he awakens, his former mistress Pendola Molloy finds him a changed man. Before, he was indifferent to the plight of the unemployed. Now, he wants to meet with them and their spokesman, John Bronson.

Molloy: Jud … Jud …

Hammond: Miss Molloy, I want all available information about John Bronson and the army of the unemployed. I want facts. Unbiased reports. The truth.

Pendola leaves the office and sees Hartley Beekman, the president’s assistant. “Beek … He’s changed. He called me ‘Miss Molloy’.”

Pendola tells Beekman that she seemed to feel a presence in the room, in addition to her and President Hammond. She felt that it was the Angel Gabriel, sent by God to lead President Hammond on a better path.

Meeting with the Cabinet

Hammond calls a meeting with the members of his cabinet, all old-style corrupt politicians. When one of them expresses relief that he’s recovered from his coma, Hammond replies.

Hammond: Please omit all condolences. Conserve your sympathy for the people of the United States, who are in dire need of it.

The Secretary of War tells Hammond that “the army of the unemployed,” consisting of a million laid-off workers, plans to march on Washington. He wants permission to have the military attack the marchers.*

Hammond: Every citizen of the United States should be ensured the elementary necessities for keeping life within his body. This cabinet, every member of Congress, each office holder, is answerable directly to the public conscience. Gentlemen, I refuse to call out the Army against the people of the United States.

Hammond orders the secretary of war to provide the marchers with food and shelter instead of attacking them.

Food for the Hungry

Later, Hammond talks with Beekman and Miss Molloy, who is now a White House aide. Surplus food is sitting in warehouses and on docks. It’s not doing any good for anyone.

Hammond: Tons of food rotting. Millions of people starving. What’s to keep us from putting that food into the mouths of the hungry?

Meeting with the Unemployed

Hammond travels to the outskirts of Baltimore to meet the “army of the unemployed,” who have set up camp there. Against the advice of his Secret Service bodyguards, he walks into the middle of the crowd of jobless workers and talks to them.

Hammond: It is not fitting for the citizens of America to come on weary feet to seek their President. It is rather for their President to seek them out, and to bring to them freely the last full measure of protection and help. And so I came to you.

The unemployed shout, “We want work!” One refers to their service in World War I.

Unemployed worker: Seventeen years ago, the government put guns and bayonets in our hands and told us to bring back peace. We did. Now, put shovels and picks in our hands, and we will bring back prosperity. We want work!

Hammond: You have been told that there is no chance of getting work. But I say there is work, necessary work, waiting to be done. I propose therefore to create an army to be known as the Army of Construction. You’ll receive Army rates of pay. You’ll be fed, clothed, and housed, as we did our wartime armies. You’ll each be put to work in your own field, from baking bread to building dams. Then, as the wheels of industry begin to turn, stimulated by these efforts, you will be retired from the Construction Army back into industry, as rapidly as industry can absorb you.

Facing Down Congress

But in order to start the Army of Construction, Hammond must face Congress, ruled by old-style politicians who care only about their own power and privilege. Congressional politicians and their Wall Street backers are outraged by Hammond’s attempts to help average Americans, the poor, and the unemployed. They want to impeach Hammond because “he is a traitor to his party” — that is, to the party of the corrupt and connected.

With clear and simple eloquence, Hammond explains why helping American workers is the only way to restore America’s economy and its greatness as a society. He refutes the transparent fallacy of “trickle-down economics.”

Hammond: A plant cannot be made to grow by watering the top alone, and letting the roots go dry. The people of this country are the roots of this nation, and the sturdy trunk and the branches, too.

Congressional leaders denounce Hammond for his remarks, saying that he shouldn’t try to help the American people when Congress plans to impeach him. Hammond replies frankly, speaking truth to power.

Hammond: You’ve turned your backs on the people in their hour of need. You’ve closed your hearts to their appeals. You’ve been traitors to the very concepts of democracy on which this government was founded.

Hammond reminds Congress that he is still President, and as commander in chief of the armed forces, he can declare martial law. Under that threat, Congress agrees to adjourn until the economic crisis is over. It cedes all authority to President Hammond.

Safeguarding Americans’ Homes

Hammond begins making weekly radio addresses to the American people. He reports on the progress of his efforts to restore jobs, justice, and prosperity. In one of his radio addresses, he makes a proposal that President Obama should consider.

Hammond: I propose to safeguard the homes of American citizens by a law to prevent the foreclosure of mortgages until the average American worker has had a chance to go to work.

Fighting White-Collar Crime

Hammond recognizes that Prohibition has spawned an enormous criminal industry that saps resources from the American economy and corrupts law enforcement.

After a gangster’s men attack the White House with machine guns and wound Miss Molloy, Hammond assigns Beekman to head the Federal Police, a paramilitary force that will bring white-collar criminals to justice. By this time, Beekman and Miss Molloy are engaged, so Hammond knows that Beekman will be highly motivated.

Tried before courts martial, gangsters and white-collar criminals get due process. Then they get the punishment they deserve:

Just for the record, these men did not work for Goldman Sachs.

World Peace and Disarmament

Hammond sees that the international arms race has cost hundreds of billions of dollars that would be better spent producing useful things that help people. He calls leaders of other countries to a summit on a U.S. Navy ship. By demonstrating the awesome might of the U.S. military, he convinces them that continuing the arms race will bankrupt all of their countries. He gets all the nations to agree to a treaty for universal disarmament.

Later, when leaders of all nations are at the White House and have signed the treaty, Hammond enters the room. He seems exhausted by all of his efforts. He walks to the desk and stands behind the treaty, preparing to sign it.

Hammond: With this document, this Covenant of Washington, the world takes its first real step to prevent our civilization from tottering, as did the forgotten civilizations before us.

One of the diplomats hands President Hammond a pen to sign the treaty. Hammond looks at the pen and then returns it to its holder. He picks up a quill pen, like the ones used by America’s founding fathers to sign the Declaration of Independence. He leans over and signs the treaty. As soon as he finishes signing it, he collapses on the desk.

The heads of state carry President Hammond to his office and put him on a couch, then they leave. Hammond’s doctor tries to give him some medicine, but Hammond refuses it. “There’s nothing you can do for me, doctor.”

Hammond: Hello, Pendy. Does the President of the United States meet with your approval?

Molloy: He’s shown that he’s one of the greatest men who ever lived.

Hammond: Pendy, please hold my hand.

The Aftermath

Beekman and Miss Molloy return from the President’s study. Beekman speaks to the heads of state who signed the treaty.

Beekman: Gentlemen, the President of the United States sends you his heartfelt gratitude for your magnificent accomplishment in achieving this Washington Covenant. His only hope was that peace on earth be preserved forever for the peoples of the world. Gentlemen, President Hammond is dead.

A grateful nation mourns the loss of President Hammond. Americans gather outside the White House and watch the flag lowered to half-staff.

Not Exactly a Libertarian Classic, But …

“Gabriel Over the White House” isn’t exactly a classic of Constitutional government or libertarian political philosophy. Vesting all power in one man can be a good thing if it’s the right man — a Marcus Aurelius or a Judson Hammond. But it’s also a dangerous precedent: instead of an Aurelius, you might get a Hitler, a Cheney, or a Bush (any Bush). One issue that the movie does not address is what happened after President Hammond died. Did the Vice President become a virtual dictator like Hammond?

But the most important point is that government should exist to serve the common good, not to frustrate it or destroy it. Sometimes, conciliation and compromise are not the right solutions. Sometimes, it takes a little steel to get the job done.

Will the Angel Gabriel ever visit the Obama White House? We can only hope that he will.

_______________________
* This is a reference to the Army’s July 28, 1932 attack on unemployed protest marchers in Washington. The attack was ordered by President Herbert Hoover and was commanded by General Douglas MacArthur.

Copyright 2010 by N.S. Palmer. May be reproduced as long as byline, copyright notice, and URL (http://www.ashesblog.com) are included. The motion picture “Gabriel Over the White House” was released in 1933 and is no longer under copyright. It is in the public domain.