Late Summer Musings

                                     Late Summer Musings

                 Published in Marietta Daily Journal August 28, 2016

            Regarding fellow columnist, Professor Melvyn Fein …

            A conservative sociologist is one thing, but a conservative sociologist who teaches at a large university and consistently lays out conservative principles through lucid writing is quite another.

            I met the good professor several years ago when he spoke at the Madison Forum, and have talked on the phone with him once since.  The man has a mind like a bear trap, which is to say he can clamp down on illogic and faulty premises quicker than you can snap your finger.  Lazy thinking is not his province.  Lack of knowledge has never been his problem.

            My most recent journey into Dr. Fein’s rich thought world took place on Monday, August 22 when, in his Marietta Daily Journal column, he broached the subject of America’s supposed invincibility.  Fein doesn’t believe America is invincible.

            Neither do I.  But as Dr. Fein pointed out, Vice-President Joe Biden does.  In the column, Dr. Fein faulted Biden for his recent remark, “We own the finish line,” delivered at the Democratic National Convention.  In his address Biden virtually stated that everything in America is sweetness and light and that our status as a world leader will continue in perpetuity.  Biden, of course, was defending his boss’ record.

            Biden’s over-confidence troubled me as well.  10^th grade world history should be enough to teach us that nations come and go, including great empires.  Whether blessed with chariots, horsemen, the greatest of scientists, or the most bombs, nations can still fall.

            When my soon-to-be-born grandson is just 45, what do you suspect America will look like?  Will we still be a beacon of freedom sought after by people from every corner of the earth? Will our cities be thriving or languishing?  What will the home be like?

            More important are the questions: What brought America to her greatness and what are the characteristics and conditions that brought about the demise of every great civilization before us?  Fein mentioned Rome, Britain, and others that today can only tell of past glory.

            How do things as simple as manners fit into the picture?  Work ethic?  Standards?  Desire for excellence?  Regard for others?  Religious freedom?  The proper role of government?  Morality?

            I’m just saying that Professor Fein set me to thinking.  The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome are no more.  If America’s glory is to continue, what must Americans do and be?

            Regarding the emerging topic of pornography …

            If pundits and preachers won’t address it, Elizabeth Smart will.  Kidnapped in 2002 at age 14 and held captive for nine months, Ms. Smart is now revealing how her captor read hardcore pornography magazines and then acted out his desires on her.  Because her life “became a living hell,” Smart is now working with the anti-pornography organization, Fight the New Drug.

            With speaking engagements and videos, Smart is speaking out against porn.  We should wish her well.  Anyone who thinks pornography is harmless has never worked with teens or college students.  Anyone who thinks porn purveyors are sleazy, backstreet weirdoes hasn’t kept up with technology or noticed what the most famous hotel chains offer their guests.   Pornography is ubiquitous. It is in our homes.  Parental controls for television or smart phones are laughable.

            My line of work keeps me in libraries and bookstores, but don’t take my word for it.  See for yourself that a large per cent of current fiction is now laced with hardcore verbal porn.  An image is an image whether on a screen, in a magazine, or in the words of a novel.

            All of which leads me to ask if any political or religious leaders are willing to speak out against the drug Elizabeth Smart is now fighting, and if any hotel chains are willing to forego some dollars for the sake of those (mostly men) who are fighting porn addiction.   Or if America’s love for porn is in any way related to the kind of culture my soon-to-be-born grandson will face.

            Regarding how we elect our presidents …

            The road to the White House is exhausting for both candidates and voters.  The fact that it brings out the worst in us is not new.  More and more discussion is being focused on how to best reform the Electoral College system which is as confusing as it is arcane.  Is it time to elect our president by popular vote?   Louie Hunter, former Cobb County Commissioner and an astute student of politics and government, is one of many who are advocating change.  We might want to stay tuned. 

            Happy Dog Days of summer!

Roger Hines

8/23/16

Definitions Matter … Until Someone Succeeds in Corrupting Them

Definitions Matter … Until Someone Succeeds 
                in Corrupting Them

                        Published in Marietta Daily Journal August 21, 2016

            Definitions of just about everything are changing.  Recently I watched a video in which Dr. Ben Carson, a man of science, was attempting to convince journalist Katie Couric that male and female mean two different things.  The good doctor was not successful.

            “But Dr. Carson, don’t you think that if one feels he or she is of a gender different from that into which he or she was born, we should be kind enough to acknowledge their feelings?”

            Again the brain surgeon did his best.  “Our gender has nothing to do with feelings.  Gender is a matter of fact, not of choice.  For thousands of years we’ve known what males and females are.  Are you saying now we don’t?” 

Even when the famous surgeon presented a clear, respectful lesson in anatomy and relevant psychology, Ms. Couric frowned.  Her argument illustrated that gender, like so much else, has been politicized.  Moreover, it is being used as a cudgel to shame traditionalists like Carson.

            Thinking makes it so, Couric seemed to be saying, but that isn’t quite what Descartes had in mind when he said, “I think, therefore I am.”  Descartes was comparing man to beasts, asserting that man alone, not animals, is endowed with mind.  Though animals may be “smart,” they are simply sophisticated creatures of instinct, not of logic.  Couric got even her philosophy wrong.

            Carson’s exchange with Couric illustrates the unsettling of so many beliefs that for millennia were settled.  For millennia we believed that children need a mommy and a daddy.  Now, if Heather has two mommies, life can still be hunky-dory.  Masculinity and femininity are out.   Sexuality is so yesterday.  Turn loose of gender.  And of “home” and “marriage.”  We’re all just persons.  And citizens of the earth.  Let us now all sing “We are the world / we are the people!”  Sing loud.

For millennia, marriage was extolled as a fit foundation for societal structure.  Now, “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” or so claimed feminist Gloria Steinem.  Now, children need only a village (the new word for family), of which government must be an integral part, say, the nanny.

            Politically and philosophically, the broadest terms we have used for the past half century to describe our world views are liberal and conservative.  On this spectrum, the essence of liberalism is tolerance and the essence of conservatism is restraint, reasonable attributes both.  But even before Donald Trump came along, this philosophical construct was being turned on its head.

            Today’s liberals are not very tolerant of their countrymen who prize liberty above security, or who believe that an unborn baby should be given every benefit of the doubt when it comes to dealing with when life begins.  Incredibly, “life” is one of those words that are now murky. Liberals in the media and in academia have become most judgmental and condescending toward those who disagree with them, particularly regarding “life” and sexuality.

            Liberal once meant generous.  The great liberals of the 18^th and 19^th centuries in both England and America were generous, open minded, and prone to listen to views of others.  Most of today’s media stars and university professors cannot be so described.

            Conservatives have changed also, no longer the restrainers.  Like liberals, they now believe in the perfectibility of man and are willing to support any and every government program that might hasten that perfection.  Their affection for Edmund Burke, Barry Goldwater, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan has definitely cooled.  Somehow, their 1994 Contract with America got buried in somebody’s desk.

            Even Reagan’s “Government is not the solution; government is the problem” is now out of fashion with conservatives.  They are quite eager to go with Hillary Clinton in re-defining yet another word, taxes.  Taxes are now “investments.”

            This re-defining of words, particularly as it affects middle class values, is part of the dynamic that drives Trumpsters.  “A pox on both your houses,” they are saying to liberals and conservatives alike.  Why not try a new guy who, instead of professing an ideology he does not hold to, concerns himself with practical things like borders, jobs, and trade, and who garners the favor of plumbers, truckers, carpenters, and electricians instead of the intellectual elite?

            Weasel words and ambiguous definitions have produced a fountain of confusion in American life.  Oh, for a Mark Twain who once implored us to “use the right word and not its second cousin.”   Anti-Trump, blue collar bashers probably don’t like Mark Twain, though.  He loved commoners.

            Americans are yearning for authenticity.  The way politicians mess around with words is not helping.  That’s why a guy who doesn’t mess around with words is getting so much positive attention and votes.

Roger Hines

8/17/16

Grant and Lee – America’s Military Odd Couple

                  Grant and Lee – America’s Military Odd Couple

                     Published in Marietta Daily Journal August 14, 2016

            In May of this year my wife and I were traversing U.S. Highway 52 from Cincinnati toward Charleston, West Virginia. 

            52 meanders alongside the Ohio River.  Although not always within sight, the occasional prolonged views of the river amply justifify the state’s declaring the path a scenic route. 

            Not as vast as the Mississippi, the Ohio is just as beckoning.  At New Orleans, Natchez, Vicksburg, and points north, the mighty Mississippi implores you to stand, stare, and ponder its greatness.  Along Highway 52, the gentle Ohio bids you join her.  The Mississippi is showy.  The Ohio is welcoming.

            These two rivers, whose confluence occurs at Cairo, Illinois are fit reminders of two men who loom large in American military history and whose confluence at Appomattox determined a nation’s future.  One river bears the name of a northern state, the other a southern state.  One of our two most famous military leaders hails from the north, the other from the south.  Both rivers played a big role in the conflict that would bring these two men together.

            Enthralled by the river to my right, I would have missed the little community of Point Pleasant, Ohio had my wife not called out, “Look!  The birthplace of U.S. Grant!”  Looking to the left I saw the little house and the non-pretentious sign that identified it.   Once inside, we were well informed about Grant’s life.

            Arriving home a few days later, I plucked from my library the still unread biography of Grant by Jean Edward Smith.  (Smith also penned “Lucius D. Clay: An American Life,” Clay being the grandfather of Marietta’s Chuck Clay, attorney and former state senator.)  Smith’s biography of Grant is quite exhaustive, providing interesting details of a heralded general who became an unheralded president.

            It is widely held that Grant was a brilliant and successful general, but a failed two-term president.  It is not so widely known that all of his life he suffered financial reversals, even after his presidency.  Grant was simply incompetent in personal financial matters.

Nor perhaps would most southerners view him as the kind soul portrayed by all of his biographers.  Grant was no Sherman. Nor was he among those who urged tough punishment for the South during Reconstruction.  On that topic, Grant was like Lincoln, preferring to welcome the South back into the Union.

            Always an admirer of Robert E. Lee, I have only recently become a student and an admirer of U.S. Grant.  (I have at least two relatives to whom I will never reveal this admiration.)  Unlike Lee, the patrician son of a Virginia governor, Grant was the son of a tanner.  The Grants were not of the social or political class that the Lees enjoyed.  Aside from the issue of class, however, Lee and Grant were more similar than they were dissimilar.

            Unlike the raging Sherman, Grant hated vindictiveness.  Like the stately Lee, Grant always maintained a calm demeanor.  At Appomattox, while the terms of surrender were being drawn up, Lee sat quietly.  According to biographer Smith, the terms required that all Confederate soldiers surrender their horses and tread their way home by foot.  Lee pointed out to Grant that his cavalrymen owned their horses and requested they be permitted to retain them.

            Grant relented, telling Lee that although he would not change the written terms, he would still instruct his officers to allow all the men who owned a horse to take their animals home with them to work their farms.  “I didn’t know that any soldiers owned their own animals,” Grant opined.  After receiving Lee’s gratitude, Grant walked away.  He forbade the firing of celebratory victory salutes, stating, “The rebels are our countrymen again.”

            His presidency wrought with scandal not of his own making, Grant still elicited from Oliver Wendell Holmes these words: “I never met a man in whom power was so well combined with modesty.”

            The Ohio and the Mississippi are still flowing.  So also lives on the magnanimity of Grant and Lee.  Historians have given little attention to the similar personalities of these two men of war who were anything but warlike.  Yet, in studying them both, we can learn much about what it means to be civil, even during a most un-civil war.

            If Grant and Lee could respect each other and if the rabid abolitionist Horace Greely could pay Jefferson Davis’ bail, there is still hope for Americans today to settle their differences.

            I also suspect that Grant would oppose today’s cultural cleansing of all things confederate.  He admired Lee too much and understood the causes of the conflict between the two of them all too well.

Roger Hines

8/9/16

Heroes, Cause and Effect, and Frog Kissers

                    Heroes, Cause and Effect, and Frog Kissers

                          Published in Marietta Daily Journal August 7, 2016

            Well, well.  I thought it was Christians who were self-righteous.  That’s what I’ve always heard.  If they are, why, in light of Donald Trump’s alleged moral slackness and Biblical illiteracy, did over 1000 Christian leaders meet with him recently?  Why did so many of those leaders announce they were supporting Trump?

            Quite a few political commentators and Republican elected officials have said that Trump lacks “the moral fortitude” to be president.  One must assume Trump’s critics consider themselves the moral standard.

            At least 8 of the evangelical figures who attended the meeting are my spiritual heroes, all men in this case, who have lived consistent Christian lives and who, incidentally, have always spoken out against self-righteousness.  Those 8 are either pastors, leaders of para-church ministries, or political activists.  They are all educated, humble men and effective communicators.  All of them have now endorsed Trump for president.  I suspect that out of the 1000 plus at the meeting, Trump garnered far more than 8 supporters.

            Just who, then, is being self-righteous toward Mr. Trump?  The list is long.  Many on this anti-Trump list are actually my intellectual heroes, men and women who through their writing and speaking have informed and challenged my thinking, but with whom I must part company on their estimation of Mr. Trump.

  One such intellectual is George Will.  When the Marietta campus of Kennesaw State University was still “Southern Tech,” Will came to speak at one of the college’s outstanding symposiums.  Chatting with him briefly was quite stimulating.  Quiet, wry, and almost non-communicative up close, Will still evidenced smarts and character.  He still does in speeches, columns, and books, except when he is self-righteous.  

            A political conservative and a religious agnostic, Will is one of Trump’s harshest critics.  Although the blue collar billionaire candidate is well educated, he appeals to working class folks a little too much for the professorial Will.  Perhaps the most condescending of all of Trump’s critics, Will argues that Trump is ill-suited for the presidency, intellectually and temperamentally.  The famed columnist exudes self-righteousness with every word he writes on Trump.  To Trump, Will in effect says, “Be as I am,” which is the essence of self-righteousness.

            I’ve examined several dictionaries to find definitions of self-righteous.  The rendering of The New International Webster’s Standard is as good – and terse – as any: “confident of one’s own moral superiority.”  Will is certainly confident.  So are several more of my intellectual mentors such as the writers at National Review Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Their morally condescending tone would deeply offend the Christian leaders I referred to above.

            Second only to Will is the Wall Street Journal’s Brett Stephens.  Intoning that Trump fails to arouse “the better angels of our nature,” Stephens recently channeled the worst angels of his own nature by asserting, “Those who believe Trump will transform into a statesman also kiss frogs,” a reference of course to the storied frog that turned into a prince when kissed by a princess. 

            Stephens, Will, and a long list of Republicans who slunk out of sight during the GOP convention must not realize that it was the frog kissers who brought Trump to where he is.  Trump isn’t the cause.  He is the effect.  And when the self-righteous anti-Trumpsters trash Trump, they are trashing millions of frog kissers.

            All of Trump’s detractors should return to Logic 101.  Every effect has a cause, and the cause is bigger than the effect.  If Trump is defeated, the cause will not die.  Those who are fed up with regulations, illegal immigration, a stagnant middle class, and a $20 trillion debt will engage another leader.  Think 1964 and the passing of the mantle from Goldwater to Reagan.

            Although I don’t know personally all of the nationally known religious leaders who met with Trump, my local spiritual heroes are opposed to self-righteousness just as surely.  Whether or not they support Trump, area Christian leaders like Ike Reighard, Perry Fowler, Terry Nelson, Mike Stephens, Nelson Price, Scotty Davis, and Charles Sineath have had to live and minister in a culture that often casts them as Elmer Gantry hucksters or as prideful men who are “confident in their own moral superiority.” Yet these men and many others like them are as far from self-righteousness as anyone could be.  They are humble lovers of people.

            As it turns out, it’s not Christian leaders who are looking down on Mr. Trump.  It’s  media stars, conservative columnists, and establishment Republicans, they who have already attained moral perfection.

Roger Hines

8/3/16

LGBT Community Should Be of No Special Concern to Smyrna Police

    LGBT Community Should Be of No Special Concern                                 to Smyrna Police

                         Published in Marietta Daily Journal July 31, 2016

            In the Sunday July 24^th edition, the Marietta Daily Journal reported that the city of Smyrna’s police department was finalizing a list of best practices for interacting with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered citizens.  Last year police Chief David Lee appointed Lt. Tim Sharples as the department’s LGBT liaison.

            According to the MDJ article, Lee and Sharples have no hard numbers on the size of Smyrna’s LGBT population, but in Sharples’ words, “It does seem like we have a growing LGBT community.”

            Teachers of writing and speaking usually tell students to avoid “seems” whenever possible.  Instead, they should gather the facts and present them.  Facts beg for stronger verbs than “seems.” 

             My beef with the good Mayor Bacon and his police department is that, based on Lt. Sharples’ “seeming,” Sharples and Atlanta police officer Eric King, both of whom are gay, are concocting a solution and looking for its problem, all on the taxpayer’s dime.

            The solution is, you guessed it, “diversity training,” that tired old euphemism that boils down to “think as I think” or you’re guilty of a hate crime.  Sharples has not pointed to any attacks on homosexuals or any crimes in Smyrna that have prompted the spending of time and money for diversity “guidelines.”  He has only employed vague language such as “reflecting the community we serve,” “being in touch with the community,” and “having some sort of outreach” to the LGBT community.”

            Outreach.  OK, a good word, but for what, specifically, is the police department reaching out?  Why are homosexual citizens singled out for special attention, protection, or whatever it is the City of Smyrna is after?  Chief Lee has stated that since he has been with the department there have been no issues with the LGBT community.  So why the search for best practices and the plans for “interacting”?

            I guess when bandwagons are clamoring by, it’s hard for some people not to jump on.  If Atlanta is doing it, and Houston and Charlotte …

            I’m not a citizen of Smyrna, so why does Smyrna’s solution looking for a non-problem bother me?  It seems to me … no, I don’t have to seem.  I can count the cars that fill the huge parking lots of conservative churches in Cobb County and across metro Atlanta.  Owners of those cars are not haters, but thousands upon thousands of them hold views on homosexuality that are scorned and dismissed.  They are, we are told, homophobes.

            Perhaps municipalities and counties could designate a liaison to reach out to those thousands in the Christian community to be sure they are heard.  Perhaps the pastors of those conservative churches who preach what Genesis has to say about male and female and what Romans has to say about homosexuality should be granted some “pastor protection.”   

            Since Mayor Bacon’s police department is being pro-active, maybe conservative pastors could be given pro-active advice about how to deal with the IRS.  There’s really no such thing as total freedom of expression for America’s pulpits.  With the mainstreaming of transgenderism and the unbelievable bathroom issue that accompanies it, churches are more than ever under the government’s watchful eye.

            Another reason to question what Smyrna and many other police departments are doing is the effect it has on children and youth.  When words like “bisexual” are tossed around freely and  used in the context of “community,” they become acceptable.  The glib use of sexual expressions that were once unspeakable undermines what conservative parents and churches teach about human sexuality.  Tolerance has become promotion.

            It isn’t just police departments.  The culture at large, particularly Hollywood and the corporate world, is normalizing homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism.  The LGBT lobby has little use for respected psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh who put a stop to sex-reassignment surgery at Johns Hopkins University, and who decries all the “misplaced compassion” for the transgendered.  But the corporations are LGBT’s buddies.        

The Obama administration is using the cudgel against North Carolina because its brave governor took a stand for common sense regarding male and female bathrooms.  Jumping on the sensitivity bandwagon with Delta, Home Depot, Target, UPS and practically every other major corporation, the National Basketball Association is moving its 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte.

            On and on it goes.  Fail to think as I think and you will pay for your bigotry.

            The Smyrna police department is dabbling in cultural policing, and the long serving effective Mayor, whom we all know and love, ought to stop it.  Why won’t he and other political leaders stand against the cultural tide and speak up for regular conservative folks instead of bowing to the god of diversity training which is little more than indoctrination?

Roger Hines

July 28, 2016

Education: For the Mind or Mass Production?

                      Education: For the Mind or Mass Production?

                          Published in Marietta Daily Journal July 24, 2016

Modern education is obsessed with utility.  If it doesn’t help you get a job, education is considered useless.  More and more, Americans are viewing education as a sheer commodity, as job training and prospecting for careers.

            This view, less than 50 years old, is an unfortunate departure from the time-honored view of education as mind training and character building.

            Consider the word “educate.”   Its origin is the Latin word “edu-cere” which means to lead forth or draw out, not, as we have come to believe and practice, to put in.  Rather than put into students any information, skills, or biases which we believe will lead them to productive living, “edu-cere” actually means to draw out of students, and then hone, that which is already within.

            Doesn’t every child and youth have within them something that can be developed,  groomed, and heightened for their own good and for the world in which they must function?  Doesn’t everyone have a personality, an ability, an interest, or an inclination which if “educated” (drawn out), can lead to fulfillment as well as a way to make a living?

            The Latin word implies the necessity of encouragement and grooming.  I’ve not known very many teachers who were not encouragers.  Good thing, since the saddest sight in the world is a discouraged, already defeated child or youth whose life stands before them but whose gifts are not being drawn out. 

The task of the educator and of schools, then, is to learn how to draw out that which is within.  Just as surely as undisturbed water grows stagnant, so does the undisturbed, unstirred mind.  The question becomes what should we do to bestir the minds of those we are educating or drawing out?  What does the draw-ee need that the draw-er can provide?

            We hardly need to state (or do we) the necessity of the three “R’s.”  Beyond the three “R’s” is where draw-ers (not teachers, but educational policymakers) have gone wrong.  Draw-ers are insisting that all draw-ees need higher education.  But for what?  Are we to tell the manually gifted draw-ee, many of whom will make more money than the draw-er, that he best get a college degree?

            The second mistake draw-ers make is slightly ironic.  Although the draw-ers are telling the manually gifted that they need higher education, they are also telling non-manual (“intellectually oriented”) draw-ees that certain studies are useless if they don’t lead to gainful employment.  This is a whopper of a contradiction. 

            In Russian history lies an example of the debate between the value of “useless studies” such as history, literature, language, philosophy, music, and art and that of practical, job-oriented studies.  In 1862 Russian writer Turgenev published his novel “Fathers and Sons.”  The main character was a doctor, a man of science who troubled the “fathers” (conventional wisdom) by denouncing useless art and poetry. 

            The denouncing of classical values, personified in Turgenev’s hero, caught on.  The “sons” of Russia rebelled against their “fathers.”  Young educators in czarist Russia opposed their elders, arguing that only that which is “practically useful” has the right to exist, a claim akin to modern education’s claim that all learning must be measurable and test-able, and that teachers, incidentally, must be paid according to the findings.

            Russian monarchs were OK with utilitarianism because peasants certainly didn’t need to get any ideas about freedom or self-worth from poetry or music.  But three things happened: an enlightened czar and two writers.  Alexander II, the Gorbachev of his day, abolished slavery and loosened the chains of peasantry.  Tolstoy and Dostoevsky produced great novels read by millions.  “Useless literature” began to flourish as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky resisted Turgenev’s view of education.  Alexander, who didn’t like literature, began to see its value.

            Even in Czarist Russia minds and character were influenced and inflamed by two writers who wrote of freedom and of the relationship of man and God.  For a brief, shining 4 decades Russian life was different, a measure of hope introduced, because of a curriculum that touched mind and heart, not just spade and scythe.

            Yes, everybody needs a line of work, but students should not be led to believe that bread is their only need.  There is a natural world to learn of and appreciate, beauty to enjoy for its own sake, and human beings with whom to talk and laugh when the work day is over.

            No amount of industry will produce an educated man of character, but there is many a great work of literature that can.  Happy we will be when we acknowledge that proper schooling educates the head, the heart, and the hand.

Roger Hines

7/19/16