A moral world requires moral violence

From the files of Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe

Pope Francis had harsh words for the arms industry on Sunday, condemning as "two-faced" those who claim to be Christian while manufacturing weapons or investing in companies that produce them. "It is hypocritical to talk about peace and make weapons," the pope told an audience of young people in Turin. "Doing one thing and saying another. What hypocrisy!"

It's not the first time Francis has blasted the defense industry. In May, he denounced the arms business as an "industry of death," run by people who "don't want peace" because "they make more money from war." In February, he labeled weapons dealers "merchants of death" and blamed them for "furthering a cycle of hate, fratricide, and violence."

So sweeping a calumny would be unworthy coming from anyone; from a moral teacher as prominent as the Bishop of Rome, it is inexcusable. Of course there are hypocrites and charlatans in the arms trade, just as there are hypocrites and charlatans in all professions. But to smear everyone in the weapons business as unethical and anti-peace is sheer demagoguery.

I wouldn't presume to instruct the pope in theology, but if Francis really means to execrate any commerce in weapons, he goes farther than even Jesus did. "Let him who has a purse take it and also a bag," Jesus instructs his apostles in the Gospel of Luke, "and let him who has no sword sell his garment and buy one." In both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, Saint Adrian of Nicomedia has long been honored as the patron saint of arms dealers. There is room for good Christians, the church seems to believe, even in the weapons business.

And would the pope want it any other way? Would the world be better off if the industries that make weapons, ammunition, and military equipment didn't employ men and women who aspire to live ethically? The Vatican itself is defended by a military force — the Swiss Guard — that is well-supplied with sophisticated firepower, including assault rifles and submachine guns. When Francis slams weapons-makers and firearms-sellers as "hypocrites" and "merchants of death," does he include those who provide the guns that keep him and the papal offices safe?

In Isaiah's messianic vision of a world in which universal peace and goodness reigns, human beings will "beat their swords into plowshares / And their spears into pruning hooks." But until that utopia arrives, there is nothing moral about pacifism. In the here and now, evil exists and the decent must fight it. And unless they are to fight unarmed, they will need the tools of violence.

In both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
traditions, Saint Adrian of Nicomedia is revered
as the patron saint of arms dealers.

The pope knows only too well what happens when good people — or good nations — aren't willing to fight the world's monsters with every available weapon.

At the very same rally in Turin in which he excoriated those who make and sell munitions, Francis retroactively decried the failure of the Western democracies to do more to stop the Nazi genocide and Stalin's terror. "The great powers had photographs of the railway routes that brought the trains to the concentration camps like Auschwitz to kill Jews, Christians, Roma, homosexuals, everybody," he said. "Tell me, then: Why did they not bomb them?"

Does the pontiff hear his own words? He laments the failure to bomb the rail lines and save millions of lives. Who would have made those bombs? Who would have made the bombers to deliver them? Who made the guns and tanks and missiles that did, in the end, defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? Who supplied the arms that ended the slave trade and eradicated piracy? Were all of them conniving merchants of death?

No, Pope Francis, it is not hypocritical to talk about peace and make weapons. For if the peaceable cannot defend themselves, they will have no peace. "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition," Americans sang during World War II. A moral world requires moral violence, and the wisdom to know when to use it.

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Lower the flag South Carolina

From the files of Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe

Away down South in Dixie, the Confederate flag is in the thick of battle once again.

Last week, South Carolina's Governor David Beasley plunged his state into controversy with a televised call to lower the rebel flag from above the statehouse and move it to a nearby Confederate memorial.

Four minutes after making his proposal, Beasley heard himself compared by state Senator Glenn McConnell — also on statewide television — to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who sought to appease Adolf Hitler. Attorney General Charlie Condon called Beasley's speech "a victory for the extremist groups." He declared that those who have "criticized the Confederate flag should be ashamed of themselves."

The state where the Civil War began is the only one that still flies the Confederate flag from its seat of government. The South Carolina Legislature ordered the banner flown over the Capitol dome in March 1962, a symbol of defiance as the civil rights movement was reaching flood tide. (Officially, the flag was raised to commemorate the Civil War's centennial.) It has waved over the statehouse ever since, a revered emblem of Southern "heritage" to some, a detested reminder of oppression and bigotry to others.

South Carolina has changed since 1962. For one thing, Beasley, McConnell, and Condon are all Republicans, along with most of the state's congressional delegation and about half of the legislators in Columbia. Not too long ago, Republican officeholders were among the state's rarest fauna. The grand old man of South Carolina politics, US Senator (and former Governor) Strom Thurmond, was a Democrat until 1964, and when he ran for president on a segregationist platform in 1948, the Confederate flag was his standard. But Thurmond was with Beasley last week, seconding the governor's motion to remove the flag from the Capitol.

Yet some South Carolinians, their heartstrings tangled around the 1860s, still revere the Confederacy and all its trappings. McConnell, the state senator, howls that moving the Confederate flag "will amount to cultural genocide." Condon, the attorney general, warns that if the flag is moved, "before long, our history will be rewritten. The children of South Carolina will be taught, in the name of political correctness, to be ashamed of their state's history."

As if there were nothing in their state's history to be ashamed of.

The Confederacy has been extinct for 131 years. Its brief life was the cause of unspeakable sorrow, pain, and death. To insist that its battle flag deserves a place of pride above the statehouse is worse than mossbacked, it is reactionary. It is morally tone-deaf. And it is, to anyone dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, appalling.

The men and boys who followed the Confederate colors into battle may have been honorable and decent, but there was neither honor nor decency in the cause for which they fought. The Civil War was about many things, but it was first and foremost about slavery. South Carolina and the Confederacy went to war to perpetuate the freedom of white Americans to buy and sell black Americans. To be sure, most Confederate soldiers weren't slave owners, and many believed they were fighting in self-defense. But there would have been no war had the South not seceded, and the South seceded to protect chattel slavery.

Conservatives incline to tradition, and this conservative adheres to the credo that that which it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. But the tradition of flying the Confederate flag over Columbia's skyline is a horrid one. To the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the flag may recollect the bravery of Stonewall Jackson and the cannons at Fort Sumter. To tens of millions of others, it evokes the agony of the Middle Passage and the long nightmare of Jim Crow.

It is not by chance that white supremacist hate groups have adopted the Confederate flag. It is flown at Ku Klux Klan rallies. It is the emblem of punks on the racist fringe. It has been taken up by neo-Nazis in Germany, where the swastika is outlawed. Does that mean that anyone who admires the rebel flag is tainted with bigotry and hate? Of course not. But the bigots and the haters embrace that flag for a reason: It was first raised in defense of the proposition that some men are no better than property.

South Carolina's governor, whose great-great-great grandfather Reuben Beasley fought for the South, has waded into an issue he could have avoided and made a lot of enemies he could have done without. He has also done the right thing. "Any banner we choose to fly over the Capitol," he said, "should be one that everyone can claim as their own." That is manifestly not true of the Confederate flag.

Americans of every color have reason to revile that banner. Three hundred sixty thousand Union soldiers, most of them white, lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands more were wounded, crippled, and shellshocked, in a war started by armies flying that flag.

It is an ongoing affront to the Union dead, as it is to the memory of 10 million enslaved and murdered African innocents, when the flag of the Confederacy whips in the breeze.

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The Politician ~ the Coach ~ the Founding Father

The politician, the coach and the Founding Father by Jeff Jacoby with the Boston Globe

No, winning isn't the only thing. North Attleborough track
coach demonstrated the importance of integrity, which
is far more valuable than any athletic trophy.

In a Christmas Day update to his email list and Facebook followers, Governor-elect Charlie Baker touched all the right notes: gratitude to Massachusetts voters who elected him, admiration for "the ideas and the genuine commitment" he encounters in his travels across the commonwealth, sobriety regarding the gaping hole in the state budget ("the only outstanding question is how big it will be"), and optimism about the "smart, experienced, and unabashed" individuals who have agreed to join his new administration.

But the most valuable part of Baker's message was his celebration of Derek Herber, a track coach at North Attleborough High School, who led his team to a second consecutive Division II state championship last spring ~ only to realize after the trophy had been awarded that a scoring error had given North Attleborough too many points.­­

"Herber didn't hesitate," Baker wrote. "He called state officials and notified them that Central Catholic from Lawrence had actually won the meet, and his team had finished second. Then he faced his kids ~ to inform them about what he had done and what it would mean. And everybody got it."

Baker is by no means the first to extol Herber's sportsmanship. After relinquishing the trophy, the coach told the Boston Globe, he was interviewed 34 times ~ which was 33 more interviews than he gave after winning the state title in 2013. To be praised for his probity by the incoming governor, however, was especially significant.

Some months back I deplored Baker's choice of "loyalty" as the quality he most valued in others. Loyalty in the abstract is a fine trait, but loyalty-above-all is an invitation to corruption, particularly in politics. The favoritism and venality in the Probation Department scandal, I wrote at the time, were only the latest reminder of what can happen when loyalty trumps integrity.

So it was heartening to see Baker make a point of singling out Coach Herber for putting integrity first and giving his young athletes a demonstration of honor far more valuable than any mere trophy.

When such exemplars of good character are "recognized for what they are and what they mean," Baker wrote, "we all benefit." That is absolutely right, and it can't be emphasized enough.

Which is why I hope Baker will seek out more opportunities to celebrate standout models of admirable character, and to make clear that the inculcation of good character is as important a policy goal as economic development or reducing opiate addiction.

"The development of character is perhaps the central task of any civilized society," affirms Richard V. Reeves in a recent essay in the journal National Affairs. To a generation raised to think that it is no business of the state to concern itself with shaping the civic virtue, prudence, and integrity of its citizens, it may seem radical or illiberal to claim otherwise.

In reality, argues Reeves, a British historian and philosopher now based at the Brookings Institution, to focus on the importance of character is to "echo classical liberal ideas about what government is for" ~ ideas stretching from the ancient Greek and Roman republics to the thinkers who inspired America's founding fathers in the 18th century.

Good character reveals itself in the choices individuals make, above all when those choices pit integrity against expediency, self-discipline against temptation, or ethical standards against popularity or personal advancement.

"Every man has his price!" exclaims the ambitious Richard Rich in the opening scene of "A Man for All Seasons" Robert Bolt's classic play about Sir Thomas More.

"In money.… Or pleasure. Titles, women, bricks-and-mortar, there's always something." The only defense against that cynical worldview is good character, and only where good character is cultivated can freedom and democracy thrive.

Over and over the founders underscored the indispensability of character to liberty. At his inauguration next week, Baker, like his predecessor, will take an oath to "bear true faith and allegiance and … support the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

The principal author of that constitution was John Adams, and his remarkable charter ~ the oldest still in effect anywhere in the world ~ directly links character and democratic statecraft.

John Adams, the principal author of the Massachusetts
constitution, knew that good character is necessary
for democracy and liberty to thrive.

"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people," the constitution declares, are "necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties."

Accordingly, it is "the duty of legislators and magistrates … to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings … among the people."

When good character is scarce, social problems multiply, opportunity shrivels, and freedom recedes. Every society needs more Coach Herbers, and the integrity they exemplify.

"Let's be great again, Massachusetts," exhorts the incoming governor. It will take a lot to make that happen, but character is where it starts.

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Police Officers and the duty of all Americans

Police Officers, and the duty of every American citizen from the files of Ken LaRive at the Examiner

Read the Ken LaRive Files at the Examiner

I've been sick two weeks with a cold, and finally went to the doctor. He gave a cortisone shot, antibodies, a decongestant. With the holidays upon us I was going to write about the Christmas spirit, but with a cortisone shot I've decided to write about police brutality, from my perspective, of course.

I remember my first experience with it. I was about 17. My ride was a 289, 66 mustang. My father supplemented the payments on that car, insurance and all, but most of that was supplied by me. Thursday to Saturday I worked a Bali' Hi, at Pontchartrain beach, as a waiter. On Friday night at about one o'clock in the morning I was hungry and wanted a beer.

Yes, I also had just started smoking too. My virgin body rejected both alcohol and smoking, and I was constantly getting sick. But I pushed through this 'caus I wanted to be a man. A Marlborough man, I suppose. (I had not yet found Maddy).

I went to a local bar and met up with a friend, and toasted two drafts. At 130 pounds I was indeed legally drunk, and previous experiences indicated to me that a third beer would have incapacitate me, loosing even the ability to articulate my words, and unless I got something to eat, would have had a horrendous hangover.

We drove our individual cars, a Volkswagen beetle and a mustang, to an all-night diner, and ordered fried chicken. Those were the good old days when I could eat fried foods, and we could drink under age.

We laughed and had a good time, and at about 2-thirty split company, and as I watched him drive off, only having to go two blocks to get home, I got into my car. It was a foggy morning and all of my windows were frosted. I started to back up and hit a car. I got out and guess what, it was a police cruiser.

I won't repeat what the two officers told me here, and one twisted my arm and slammed me over the hood of my car. Can't say that it hurt, I just remember his ability to "man-handle me." I thought of myself as a "hood" from the inner city, and capable, but I was just a pimply faced punk to him, and yes, I was.

I said something like, "I didn't see you sir! I'm sorry I hit your car. Yes sir, Yes sir!" And he let me up. "To much paper work." he said, and he looked in my eyes with his flashlight, temporally blinding me. "Be on you way son, and be careful." I was dazed, and overwhelmingly grateful.

The next encounter of substance, though there was a lot more between that... a lot I inadvertently saw that did not directly impact me specifically, was in San Diego... I was waiting for two weeks to be assigned to my new ship, the USS Kitty Hawk. I was dressed in my dress whites, on the beach, with my sister who had flown in to see me off. I was sitting there, like Steve McQueen, with my hat tilted back, kinda like the movie the Sand Pebble. I was 19, and my hero was Steve McQueen.

A little kid came up to me and said that those two men over there, and he pointed, want to talk with you. I looked and it was two MP's. I jumped up and walked over there with a smile on my face, "Yes sir!" I said, "What can I do for you?" They didn't reply. "Write him up. Needs a haircut, a shave, and out of uniform. You have two hours to report to your duty station." I was such a little kid, I asked "Are you taking away my leave?"

Now, if I would have complied, it would only have been a few hours delay, as I think back, but my sister came up and when she found out my leave was canceled, she got between us and demanded that he let me go.

"Do not get in the middle of this young lady, step back or you will be arrested for obstruction," and she did step back, and with a livid red face said the wrong thing... "You Pig!" she yelled out! Well, it all happened very fast. I was picked up like a sack of potatoes by the nape of my neck and my webbed belt, and thrown into the paddy-wagon without ceremony. And I looked at my sister as we drove off crying on the beach...

Something welled up in me... and I said to the officers. "I though you guys were on my side! What the hell are you doing here?" One of them looked at me through the little window that separated us and said, "You little bastard. If you say one more word we are going to go back there and beat the living s*it out of you. Got that!" I sat back there fuming, and then it happened, I threw up. "What! You been drinking! You stink up our ride!" He said with a loud and threatening tone...

"No," I said. "I always throw up before a fight." And his face got really red, and so did his partner, and they both bust out laughing. (I was in shock). Because they were not just laughing, but rolling in their seats. "You are going to clean every bit of that slime, and disinfect it too! ...you little bastard!" And I did. And I realized too, that there was a lot more to these men then I could comprehend...

I was out in eight hours, thanks to a third cousin who contacted my CO and told him I was a good man, and that he would take personal responsibility for me over the week end. I got my last two days leave, unimpeded, and the riot act explained to me by my lifer cousin, and then a face to face with my temp CO.

In essence both told me that I now belonged to the US Government, and to remember that if I didn't want to spend more time in the brig. I was the lowest man on the totem poll, an SN (seaman) an E-3, but that those men had the ability to arrest an officer too, for the exact same thing. Somehow I doubted that, but it was, in retrospect, a good experience... though the ego in me was bused.

When I got aboard we reported to the Personnel office, all of us seven from Louisiana. One lone seaman looked at my record, glanced at it and me, and asked to see my hands. "I see you have never done a days manual labor in your life." he said with a smile, “Can you type?”

" Yes sir! 70 words a minute, and no errors." I could do about twenty, with three. "I see you came from submarines, non-volved did ya. And," he said with a glance around the room, "Out of uniform on the beach. Well, good for you, and no need to call me sir." I looked around the room and everyone was smiling. This was X-division, and these men would all, to the last, as the weeks turned to years, be my friends. And even to this day get choked up about it.

"Thanks." I said. And I was then a part of X-division. And a very lucky man.

I was sent to the Captain's office as one of his five yeoman. And with time they liked me, and gave me the opportunity to practice my typing, though I never did get to that 70 wpm.

Over-site

Now, looking at these two examples, and seeing now the overwhelming negativity for the police today, lets try to dissect this in a rational way.

I saw a viral YouTube video a few weeks back of a woman charged with drunk driving who was pushed by an officer so hard she fell forward and hit her face on the bunk. She had to have reconstructive surgery, so it stated... she was charged with a DUI, and I don't remember what happened to the officer. And since it seems the officer lost his temper, I'd like to question why?

First off, an officer has taken an oath not only to protect and to serve, but to defend the Constitution of the United States of America form all enemies both domestic and foreign. Of the fifteen or so officers in my community who I have spoken to about this oath, usually while we are waiting to get our car washed, only two did not understand that concept. Yes, two is a high number in that ratio. And those who actually understood my question associated it with gun control. In essence, most of them immediately said "No way would I ever allow my guns to be taken."

Only a few, about three, said, "and I will not allow them to take your guns, and would not obey any order to confiscate mine." Now that a problem? ...and I gave them all my Examiner card and told them all about the Oath Keepers. Only one knew of them... only one, and I think, in a crisis, that would be enough, and here is why. All of them now do... they do because I told them about it. It made a difference. Your will to change has worth!

Police Motivation

I must admit, though I can not prove this, but I speculate that many police officers are motivated to the force because they want to have power, with a force for good secondary. I think this changes rapidly when they realize that they are responsible and accountable for upholding a rule of law. They also realize quickly and simultaneously, that rule of law is nebulous, broken, and as they arrest a person on the street, they are let out to do the very same thing the next day.

This is very frustrating to them, but it is far more than that.... Those with money too, can afford good counsel... It is also a very dangerous job, and they do take their lives in their hands every day they put on that uniform. And though, of course, there is also that very human trait called ego, that we all have, and both sides want respect. Both sides, even if one side is in the wrong...

So wait a minute! Let me tell you another little story... When I was a young boy, my father brought us to visit his friend, Mr. Wade, who was a sheriff in a place called Waveland, MS. He was with my Father in both WW2 and Korea, he as a mechanic and MP, and my father as the ship's nurse. From that experience he became a police officer, and my father a Barber.

He lived in a rural area, and owned a large tract of land. He was a hunter, with several amazing white-tail trophies on his wall. There was another thing there too, and I asked him about it. It was his shield, framed, with a date under it.

"Yes," he said. "That's my shield. I pulled a drunk man over..., very routine I thought, and he shot me when I approached his window. Knocked me off my feet, and he got away. The bullet hit my shield, and whats the chance of that?" He laughed. " He is still in prison for attempted murder of a police officer." I remember my dad telling me years later he had become Chef, and a little later that he had died of lung cancer.

Okay, so lets for a moment look at the officer who shoved that drunk woman. I'm sure he pushed her too hard, and didn't gauge her size or her amount of inebriation to catch herself. What was going on in his mind? Perhaps it was a wreck he was remembering, children dead, perhaps, and all by a drunk driver. Perhaps, just like those two gigantic MP's who had seen a lot, even in war, as they were indeed lifers.

I ask you...What if something simple can center them, like courtesy, or heaven forbid, respect, and they can again focus on the reality of the situation. What if all you have to do is comply? And even if you are being wronged? On the street is no place to argue. There are too many complications on-site for an officer to accurately ascertain. When he says put your hands up, do so immediately.

When he says to put your hands behind your back, say yes sir, while you comply, and turn so he can cuff you. If you do not comply, he will be forced to make you, and the more you squirm the more you resist arrest, and the more forcefully he will become. You will not win. What are you expecting, that you will be too much for him to handle? Is that the type of officer you want protecting you?

Go to the station, and in a short time you will be released. That is the place to sort this out, and sometimes with a lawyer...Swallow your ego, and look at the broader picture. And oh, we are now talking about the militarization of the military? Like that is a bad thing? How many officer's lives would have been saved if they would have had a vest on? My dad's friend only had a tin shield to protect him, and a bit of divine intervention perhaps.

Ask yourself, if you saw wrecks, drunk drivers, countless laws broken, and violence every day... If you saw it on the line, put the white cloth over kids that looked identical to your own, just what would that do to you? It is called Post Traumatic Syndrome, (PTS), and that is just as viable as a person with an M-16 shooting an enemy in war. An enemy he knows is fighting for his own cause, with children and a family all his own... and as you pull that trigger, that trigger pulls you.

That is a big problem for our military, because many of the men, once they get dispatched into the theater of war, question why? Seems to me they would have asked that question first, but that is the trust of boys at 19, and I know that all too well. Fortunately, as I was drafted, I had the foresight to enlist. But basically, at that age, what I really wanted was to be a man, and that is really what war requires. To do what you are told with out question.

Though I never pulled a trigger, indeed I was there, with twenty four-seven flight ops. All I saw was the flashes on the horizon, and it did something to me even so, just as the jetted JP-5 jet fuel we dumped on a crystal clear ocean, and the unused/unexploded ordinances that we dispersed into the Tonken Gulf.

The five crash landings, the two men in Hong Kong who died of a drug overdose, the man who commuted suicide, the officer hit with a grappling hook, the 600 men who got VD in the Philippines, the great white owl three days out from Hawaii I tried to capture... who flew out to sea... and so much more... yes, all of it still lingers... and in none of it did I see one drop of blood... actually, the only blood I saw was my own, as I got pounded in the ring trying to be a boxer.

I have the greatest respect for our police. I would die trying to save one, without a doubt, and I know they would do the same for me, almost to the last man. God bless them! They should be able to possess at least an equal amount of fire power in this crazy world, and I know, without a doubt that if the chips were down, they would be the only one who would come to my aid.

When we dial 9-11 they don't contact anyone but them, and an ambulance, and a fireman too, all of which have seen a lot. Think about that when you judge all for the failure of a few, from your computer screens.


My home town is New Orleans. Last weekend six men died there, and all of it black on black, and all of it about turf, all of it about drugs. I am opposed to this drug war on many counts, and I wonder at the many men in prison for non-violent possession of illegal substances with the intent to distribute.

Fortunes can be made, and they lost both freedom, and many years of their lives, and yet today many states have made that legal. How do you think that makes both sides feel? The officers who risked their lives to uphold the law, and those who risk their lives to make an unimaginable amount of money breaking it?

I sir, am a Libertarian. I didn't get that way just by my experiences, but by studying the greatest and most powerful force, the very backbone of our country, our Bill of Rights and Constitution. And these concepts are only as viable as the people, like you and me, who, by our knowledge of them, demand that the laws we have adhere to those basic premises, and we should accept nothing less. Read your Constitution, and know your civil rights, and demand that the force of law stands for that, might for right.

And if you do not have the fortitude to do that, don't cry if they are taken from you. Liberty is not free, and each and every generation must win that gift again. Our Constitution is destroyed because we don't have enough people to stand up against tyranny. It is that simple. That is the duty of the American Citizen, not crying.

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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. ~ Ayn Rand

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The more laws, the less justice. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. ~ Albert Einstein

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Authors note:

And then perhaps, if we had laws based on the Constitution and Bill of rights... deadly force, and the instruments to enforce them, would not be necessary... in most cases. And that is the rub isn't it? There are bad men in this world, and what separates them from us, is the police.

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Key to survival: The speculation of women?

Is the key to our survival the speculation of women? from the files of Ken LaRive at the Examiner

Read the Ken LaRive Files at the Examiner

In no way do I want to insinuate that only women are to blame. Men are responsible for what they do too. Government programs, the media in all of its various abilities, are also responsible... But to see this, to understand this, all of it must be laid on the table. It is the only way to fully understand it, and if you think it valuable, to reach out and change it.

Seems like many other institutions, from war for profit, intolerant and condescending religions, to the dominate control that government plays in our lives and very spirit, doing what is right with a loving heart will set a precedence, and others will emulate your good intentions.

Yes, by doing good, others will take up your standard and imitate it, one at a time... but a mean and ignorant spirit will be emulated too... and as it takes far less effort to perfect, and has become a growing cancer in our new Socialistic/Progressive world.

The miracle that is woman... intuition

Anyone who has ever been married to a woman knows first hand what speculation is, and it has little to do with the formal definition, i.e., The forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.

Call it what you will, an educated guess, a hypothetical synopsis, a conjectural affirmation, a supposition or presupposition, or perhaps a surmised opinion, but all of these descriptions would fall short in an accurate analysis of a woman's speculative power.

It is a true mystery, indeed, an enigma, and every person who ever had a mother knows of that precognitive connection to something akin to magic. Some even suggest it to be a supernatural ability, and it has confused and confounded all scientific scrutiny to describe it.

Like invisible lines of force, perhaps an ability to actually tap into the cosmic plasma of reality, a woman can predict the future, influence the present by sheer will, can see into the great vast myriad of random past possibilities, and choose the one most likely to occur in the future. Somewhere in this prediction, in most every case, is an element of fearful concern.

A mother's fear seems to be the catalyst that can connect the dots, to see the hand before it is played, to actually light a dark future path with a conclusive volition of certainty, and all of it designed as a survival technique. It isn't a base fear I am referring to, but a kind of fear that is so profound it can not truly be described, as there is nothing stronger than the Love between a woman and her child, and so too for everything she holds dear...And, without a singular doubt, it has lit the mind of men.

Take a look around at the men who do not take this amazing gift to heart, and you will find vast and empty space inside of their shells, shadows of what they could be...

Sure, no real way to prove, or show it on a graft, nor is there a statistic of any substance... but we all know that her cognitive ability saved our lives many times. Not only was this gift evident in her eyes, a recognition we learned at her knee, but it permeated from her from morning till night without fail, and could actually float above us like a guiding spirit, even in the middle of the night and far far away...

But I must admit: Some women have been twisted by strong willed, dominating, and unhappy men, and they have responded in like kind. There is a special kind of hate that a woman of this kind produces, and it is called vindictiveness. A vindictive woman has lost her loving will, and displaced it with slow, malicious, and evil intent.

They are, in many cases, a product of mean spirited men in their lives, from fathers to husbands... and they fight back with bitterness, resentment, and rancor. And so twisted, they actually revel in the pain of others, some of it they actually inflict, well hidden by deceit.


But there is another kind of women who relish in their speculative gifts... Though fear, in and of itself, may seem negative, when it is mixed with another powerful and primary force, Love (Agape, or selfless Love), they move together as one magical elixir. Could this singular element be the key to her amazing ability, the constant of Love?

And what of some men today, who estimates what a man is by the number of conquests he has had, and all of it based on lies and deceit, without honor or responsibility. Isn't it a woman who teaches them what and who they are, the actual potential of what they can be?

A vindictive woman, a jilted woman, builds walls around her mind because of a constant pain she can not extinguish, and in the process pushes and pulls those around her, to fulfill her needs with selfish motivations, and all of it designed by boundaries... Boundaries she creates by the bones of conquest...

We all have our parts to play in this confusing and convoluted world. Men and women are indeed two pieces of the same puzzle, and yet it seems that this ability, just as the strength of a creative spirit that permeates from our hearts, are dwindling fast.

In one generation the differences we once held precious, are actually akin to our very survival as a species, and is dissipating in one social experiment after another. B.F. Skinner would be jumping for joy, as his mice studies have mirrored the very breakdown of our society. And yes, metaphorically, some are now eating there babies.

Where once women looked to marry a man who could provide for her family, was genetically superior and healthy. or was deemed by her to posses inordinate survival skills, many of the new kind of experimental woman seek a man who can posses a soft (so called) feminine side... a sensitive side based on emotion, as promoted by the silver screen and the black box. Fitting together as one is not their goal, but dominance and control is.

Rolls that were typical and innate to men and women just a generation ago... are, in many cases, entirely reversed. Responsibility is devolving into a collective mindset, at conventionality at war with forms of social orthodoxy that took eons to develop, and some to prefect, are now disregarded as out of date.

Love is understood to now mean lust, self responsibility to selfishness, motivation to achieve is anti- social and unfair, and truth is found in the eye of the beholder where anything goes. And as we battle, 3100 abortions are performed every single day.

We have more incarcerations than any other country on the planet because rules are profitable, sex is promoted to be perverse and yet is the number one selling tool, government intrusion into our lives give us constant trauma, designed to justify their ability to take away Liberty.

And all of it tied together like a gift, for corporate profit, a black bottom line without a moral compass.

The losses are horrifying to a Libertarian, as we see this systemic failure of individual responsibility as designed, one mandate after another, in increments undetectable by the average person so involved in every day activities. It becomes a structure, and on it are nailed mindless pacifists, intolerant, self-centered, perfect fodder for a system that produces, by indoctrination, cookie-cut minds, easily controlled.

Women, who spend an hour in front of the mirror, shop in a super market where over 80 percent of the products they buy, to feed their family, are unhealthy if eaten on a regular basis. They can not tell you what the national debt is, or have even a remedial understanding of what a Republic based on law is, and the rote and cant of their limited and uninspired education is soon forgotten as frivolous... as are their counterparts, the new metro-sexual men.

In no way do I want to suggest that men do not have their own form of survival speculation, or that women no longer have their speculative ability, but that both are being systematically, and quite possibly irreconcilably destroyed.

Where once they motivated their men to hunt for food, now many abhor this practice to be barbaric, and sympathetic to the plight of a Bambi-like entity who cowers in fear deep in the foreboding woods crying to its mama, where critters like spiders, snakes, mosquitoes, tics and fleas and flies, heat and cold, permeates inhospitably. And it isn't as if they have quit the use of eating meat, but that the process of that kill is found too close to their microcosm of borders.

Borders that grow taller and stronger with each passing day in their lives, boundaries prescribed to them not from the inside out by a classical education, but by propaganda and scientifically formulated advertisement, with all of that point-of-sale directed right at them, an open vessel... an empty container needing fulfillment.

Divorce is up from 60 to 80 percent, depending on the color of your skin, and children out of wedlock hold about the same number. Some men no longer know how to even greet a woman, and a simple kiss on the cheek becomes awkward. A smile is interpreted by some as a come-on, because their minds are cluttered with false speculations... created by insensitive “new men”, and the tipping of a hat or opening a door forgotten and unappreciated.

Words like chivalry, gallantry, valor, heroism, honor, and respect, is lost by new and meaningless games of social confusion, and all of the muddiness is produced by a media mindset, where Black Friday and a January white sale become an every-day mentality, and women... who once would multitask an entire household, drives to the corner market for a frozen pizza or TV dinner while listening to the radio.

She cracks her window and displays her cigarette with a perfectly manicured and delicate hand that has known no physical work, because she does not want to stink up her new car, ...and her lungs are not much considered, because she thinks that she is can beat all odds. And as she paints her eyes in the rear view mirror, speeds and zing-zags while texting, she is no longer guided by a nurturing force for goodness and self awareness that we old men remember.

Instead, she displays an overt disdain, an arrogant demeanor, as she uses the lust of the new men as her personal power over them. Yes, I remember it well... Once taught to take a strong stance against the advances of a young man's libido, they now attempt to match it with the same verve, as they see others doing in the great wasteland, their true god.

Because their speculation is no longer based on unselfish concern and Love, but a nature of selfish needs, the outcome is given in like kind. It is a universal law, the law of cause and effect, as what you sow you will reap, and the questions we once asked this life are, to them, now demands, as if everything is self-balanced, fair, free, and deserved.

Without a pure and loving speculation from women, who were, and still are, the very cornerstones of our society, men are blind. And without strong men of value, so too are women... Perhaps, and I dare to say... our ancestors, who braved an uncertain and dangerous world arm and arm, might have had the true magical mixture, where men and women actually reveled in their differences. Here we find ourselves in a wondrous world, and few appreciate it...

There is no clear-cut method I can see to reverse this trend. The force we have to oppose is vast and powerful, with bright colored lights that dazzle a suggestive mind... but then there are some among us who still remember, when men were men, and women were...

A good partner

And I will continue to open doors, to put women and children on pedestals with awe and respect, to tip my hat with a smile, and to put my arm out as a gesture of chivalry... that the new woman considers to be a trap of male dominance. I still walk on the the street side, and as we walk together, I will have her hand on my arm, perfectly balanced, and there is a certain amount of comfort as we walk in the French Quarter.

She knows that I would die for her, and she considers me true, tested, capable, and trustworthy... and the new men know this too, and move out of our way without understanding... and under my coat I carry a 9mm, as some things do not change, and I consider myself on constant guard duty, just as the men of old must have been, so I've been told, so long ago.

I have been married to a real woman of speculation, for nearly 43 years, and I am so honored, lucky really, to have found her. But I had the ability to see her from across the room when she was just 14, and we have been together ever since...

Author's note: I'm finished “The Robber Barrons” by Mathew Josephson, (holy cow), and have started “The Presidency of John F. Kennedy” by Herbert S. Parmet, who has brought tears to my eyes from the very first page... Know your past, and you will know the direction you wish to take in the future. And oh, one other thing, or two:
Change does not always mean for the better.

Don't vote for a person because of the color of his skin, but what he is inside, but you won't know him unless you take the time to study. Trust no one with you mind, and immortal soul. Different does not mean better, and if you dress like a clown you should not be surprised when people laugh.

The reason I never got a tat is a simple one... I could not think of one symbol strong enough to outlast me, and what kind of person would want to go through life with the face of Micky Mouse on their arm... and the Chinese symbols on your neck? Well, this world has a place for everyone... And I'll have a pickle with my hamburger please. Thanks for listening, and good hunting.

Women are the conscience of men. Do you understand that concept? A hundred years ago most everyone knew this... I am not referring to our conscious ability, our self-awareness, but conscience, our moral compass.

When women lose that ability, society falls, and dominant men, evil in intent, will take control. Take a look at your world, and you will see it to.

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The Jewish state's newest hero wasn't Jewish

The Jewish state's newest hero wasn't Jewish from the files of Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe

Israeli police officers carry the coffin of their colleague Zidan Saif, an Arab Druze
who died after being shot during a terrorist attack in a Jerusalem synagogue.

By the thousands they streamed to Yanuh-Jat, Israelis of every description making their way on Wednesday to the remote northern Galilee district, where a fallen hero was to be buried with full honors. Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, was there to pay his respects; so were the minister of internal security and the nation's top police commissioner.

From around the country, hundreds of black-hatted haredi ("ultra-Orthodox") Jews came on chartered buses, disembarking to join throngs of Arabic-speaking Druze in traditional white turbans, police officers in dress blues, and so many other mourners that even the roofs of nearby homes were crowded with onlookers.

They had come to bid farewell to Zidan Saif, the Druze police officer who was the first responder on the scene of Tuesday's massacre at a synagogue in Jerusalem. Saif had put himself between the terrorists and the worshipers, taking a bullet in the head and dying of his wounds that night. Befitting a defender who had died in the line of duty, his coffin was draped with Israel's flag, its blue Star of David prominently centered.

Like many of the Jewish state's loyal sons and heroes, Saif wasn't Jewish. That didn't make him any less an Israeli, just as Israel's sizeable Arab and non-Jewish minorities don't make it any less the sovereign Jewish homeland. Nor did it diminish even slightly the honor and gratitude Israelis across the spectrum expressed for the slain officer.

In his eulogy, Israel's president extolled Saif as "one of the first guardians of Jerusalem." A rabbi from the Jerusalem synagogue where the bloodbath had occurred told residents of the village he had come "simply to be with you and to cry with you," and called the "devotion and the determination" of the 30-year-old patrolman "an example to us all."

There have always been pessimists convinced that Israel's multiethnic Jewish democracy is doomed to fail. For some, the horrific images from the Bnei Torah synagogue, where peaceful scholars were hacked to death as they prayed, their blood drenching phylacteries and turning prayer shawls crimson, only encourages such fatalism.

"The attack on the synagogue in Har Nof," wrote commentator Joel Pollak, sends the message that "Jews and Arabs may not be able to live together easily even in the same country." A New York Times analysis was bleakly headlined: "In Jerusalem's 'War of Neighbors,' the Differences Are Not Negotiable."

For all the savagery of the terrorism that has sent so many innocents over the years to early graves, though, the funeral of Saif is poignant evidence that peaceful coexistence is not only possible in the Jewish state, it's a daily reality, woven into the warp and woof of Israeli life.

Of course there are tensions, disputes, and resentments, just as there are in every imperfect democracy — and what democracy isn't imperfect? Yet Israel from the outset has risen to the challenge of building a society held together by centripetal forces stronger than the centrifugal differences pushing it apart.

Indeed, the Jewish state's declaration of independence, proclaimed by David Ben Gurion in May 1948, explicitly implored the country's non-Jewish inhabitants to remain "and participate in the building-up of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship." A great number did remain — including many thousands of Arab Druze — and went on to share in the blessings of Israeli freedom, democracy, and equality.

It's still a work in progress, but largely a successful one. The small Jewish state with the notable Arab minority not only survives but thrives, the implacability of its worst enemies and the violent instability of its neighborhood notwithstanding.

Yes, terrorism is a grim plague. Yes, the toxic Palestinian political culture that incites it is growing worse. All the same, Israel manages to stand out as an oasis of pluralism, respect, and tolerance in a part of the world not known for those qualities.

Israeli police officer Zidan Saif holds his baby
daughter in a family snapshot. Saif was killed
in the line of duty on Nov. 18, 2014.

One of the strongest condemnations of the synagogue slaughter came from — of all people — Bahrain's foreign minister, who blasted the "killing [of] innocents in a house of prayer." Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa warned sharply that "those who will pay the price for the crime of killing innocents in a Jewish synagogue and for welcoming the crime are the Palestinian people."

It was startling to see such strong language from a senior Arab official, especially when many Palestinian officials were "welcoming the crime," quite exuberantly and openly.

But as journalist Evelyn Gordon pointed out in Commentary, pragmatic Arab governments like Bahrain's know quite well that at a time when Muslims are being butchered and abused by fanatics across the Middle East, "mosques in Israel and the West Bank — including Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque — remain among the safest places in the Mideast for Muslims to pray."

That's no small achievement, even if the world does take it for granted. Terrorists may have killed Zidan Saif, but his memory will be a lasting blessing, for Jews and non-Jews alike.

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Politics: Patience isn't overrated but loyalty may be

In politics, patience isn't overrated – but loyalty often is from the files of Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe

He also prized loyalty

Over on the Metro page, my Boston Globe colleague Yvonne Abraham coaxed the Massachusetts gubernatorial hopefuls into taking the Proust Questionnaire, a survey of personality and values regularly featured in Vanity Fair magazine.

The responses she received from Republican Charlie Baker, Democrat Martha Coakley, and independents Evan Falchuk and Jeff McCormick weren't as daring as those of some of the luminaries who have submitted to the questionnaire over the years, but they were more revealing than you might have expected from political candidates with an election scant weeks away.

The whole series is worth reading, but I was particularly struck by the fact that three of the candidates gave essentially identical answers to two important questions. Asked what they consider "the most overrated virtue," Baker, Coakley, and Falchuk all nominated patience. And when asked "what quality do you most value" in friends, all three replied: Loyalty. (McCormick's very different answers: Physical appearance is most overrated, and honesty is what he values most in others.)

I wouldn't want to make too much of what candidates say in brief responses on questionnaires. Yet I can't help thinking that in singling out patience as the most overrated quality and loyalty as the most valuable, Baker, Coakley, and Falchuk get it exactly backward. At least in the realm of politics and public life, it seems to me that patience is a virtue in desperately short supply, whereas the loyalty of politicians to their friends — and the loyalty they expect in return — is prized altogether too highly.

Patience overrated? In today's political arena, it's more likely to be nonexistent. By "patience" I don't mean ignoring pressing problems or finding excuses for endless delay in rectifying injustice. I mean the willingness to hear out an opposing argument with an open mind, instead of instantly branding it racist or sexist or extremist. I mean the inclination to give the benefit of the doubt even to those you vehemently disagree with. I mean the forbearance not to treat every failing as a hanging offense.

On the campaign trail and in the halls of government, there is constant pressure not to patiently reflect and understand, but to instantly react — to fire off a press release, post a tweet, cut a campaign spot, deploy the "truth squad." The cut-and-thrust of politics is nothing new, but the digital and cable revolutions have placed an unhealthy premium on speed. Political attacks come faster and more intense than ever. A slip of the tongue at 10 a.m. is rocketing around the internet by noon — and featured in a new political ad or fundraising appeal before the day is out. The iron is always hot; it's always time to strike.

No, patience isn't an overrated virtue. But loyalty is a different story.

Of course we all want loyal friends and allies, but should that be the quality any of us most values in those we're close to? More than kindness? Than decency? Than integrity?

'I did it for a friend.' James Michael Curley,
the crooked legend of Boston politics, was an
example of what happens when loyalty
trumps integrity.

Loyalty is a fine quality in the abstract. But when a would-be governor — or president or senator or mayor, for that matter — puts loyalty first in his hierarchy of values, it's hard not to wonder how far that loyalty is expected to go.

"I did it for a friend," James Michael Curley defiantly explained in 1903, when it emerged that he had corruptly taken the Civil Service exam for an illiterate constituent who wanted a job in the Post Office. More than a century later, Massachusetts politicos are still corruptly pulling strings and dealing from the bottom of the deck to place friends and supporters in government jobs. The recent convictions in the Probation Department scandal are only a recent example of what happens when loyalty trumps integrity.

In "The Best and the Brightest," his 1972 account of the origins of the Vietnam War, David Halberstam quotes Lyndon Johnson's earthy formulation of what he expected in an aide. "I don't want loyalty. I want loyalty! I want him to kiss my ass in Macy's window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses. I want his pecker in my pocket."

The desire to be surrounded by fervent loyalists is not unique to political figures, but they more than most should resist the temptation. It is too easy for those in high office to be drawn into vindictiveness and abuse of power, to treat constructive criticism as treachery — or to protect loyal but incompetent lieutenants long past the point when they ought to have been ejected.

Loyalty in friends is a splendid trait, but loyalty above all? That isn't the mark of good character, it's a danger sign. Candidates beware.

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