Tag Archives: president donald trump

March 15, 2017 · 06:30

“I am not a tool of any President!” Will a Republican Emulate Stephen A. Douglas?

Stephen A. Douglas

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Barbara Tuchman wrote in her book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam something that we are observing up close and personal as President Trump and his administration flounder in a sea of make believe, a cloud cuckoo land of alternative facts, alternative truth, and alternative history:

“Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.”

To be true, the Trump administration is not the first in history, in fact not even in our own country to ignore facts when making decisions. However, it is remarkable in its ability not only to shun facts but to make up its own narrative that depends on denying reality while impugning the character, honesty, and decency of those who present facts and truth that is verifiable. To be sure, competence and prudence are not and probably will never be marks of President Trump, his closest advisors, or his enablers in Congress. My hope is that some Republican in either the House or Senate rises up to confront the ineptitude and folly being demonstrated on a daily basis.

President James Buchanan

In some ways the incompetence and refusal to deal with reality by the Trump administration reminds me of the administration of James Buchanan during the years before the American Civil War. Buchanan’s collusion with Chief Justice Roger Taney regarding the Dred Scott decision before his inauguration stained him from the beginning and poisoned his relationship with Congress by declaring that the Congress never had the right to limit slavery as it had in the Missouri Compromise. Buchanan’s presidency is considered by most historians to be the worst in American history, incompetent, arrogant, and ineffective.

Likewise, Buchanan’s attempt to jam the Lecompton Constitution through Congress as a reward to Southern Democrats blew up in his face. The Lecompton Constitution was a gerrymandered bill which ignored the will of the vast majority of Kansas’s settlers who were anti-slavery. The work of the pro-slavery element in Kansas was so onerous that it brought Republicans and Northern Democrats together for the first time as Southern Democrats threatened secession if Kansas was not admitted as a Slave State. Ignoring warnings that supporting a measure that would open the door to slavery in all the western territories would split his party, Buchanan pushed on. His intransigence on the matter brought Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois to the fore in opposing it. Nicknamed “the Little Giant,” Douglas was the odds on favorite to be the Democratic nominee for the Presidency. Douglas was not against the institution of slavery, and he was a racist, but he had no tolerance for those who would upend carefully crafted compromises to expand it through the whole country. Thus he  took his case to the floor of the Senate and to the President himself.

The Confrontation between the Senator and the President was unparalleled. Douglas recalled, “The Lecompton constitution, I told Buchannan bluntly, was a blatant fraud on the people of Kansas and the process of democracy, I warned him not to recommend acceptance of it. With his head titled forward in that bizarre habit of his, he said that he intended to endorse the constitution and send it to Congress. “If you do,” I thundered, “I’ll denounce it the moment that it is read.” His face turned red with anger. “I’ll make Lecompton a party test,” he said. “I expect every democratic Senator to support it.” I will not, sir!”

Angry and offended by the confrontation of Douglas, Buchanan cut the senator off and issued his own threat to Douglas and his political career saying, “I desire you to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an administration of his own choice without being crushed….Beware of the fate of Tallmadge and Rives,” two senators who had gone into political oblivion after crossing Andrew Jackson.” The redoubtable Senator from Illinois was undeterred by the President’s threat and fought back, “Douglas riposted: “Mr. President, I wish to remind you that General Jackson is dead, sir.”  It was an unprecedented action by a sitting Senator, to confront a President of one’s own party and threaten to oppose him in Congress was simply not done, but now Douglas was doing it, but doing so to his President’s face, and the consequences for him, his party, and the country would be immense.

Undeterred by facts, Buchanan and Southern Democrats fought for the bill’s passage. When Buchanan’s supporters pushed for Lecompton’s approval and the admission of Kansas as a Slave State, Douglas fired back, warning “You do,” I said, “and it will lead directly to civil war!” I warned the anti-Lecompton Democrats of the North that the President intended to put the knife to the throat of every man who dared to think for himself on this question and carry out principles in good faith. “God forbid,” I said “that I ever surrender my right to differ from a President of the United States for my own choice. I am not a tool of any President!”

Under Douglas the Northern Democrats joined with Republicans for the first time to defeat the admission of Kansas as a Slave State. Douglas recalled the battle:

“After the Christmas recess, the Administration unleashed its heavy horsemen: Davis, Slidell, Hunter, Toombs, and Hammond, all southerners. They damned me as a traitor and demanded that I be stripped of my chairmanship of the Committee on Territories and read out of the Democratic party. Let the fucking bastards threaten, proscribe, and do their worst, I told my followers; it would not cause any honest man to falter. If my course divided the Democratic party, it would not be my fault. We were engaged in a great struggle for principle, I said, and we would defy the Administration to the bitter end.”

Douglas and his supporters did just that, Buchanan and his supporters were outfought and outmaneuvered by Douglas’s Democrats and their Republican allies. The bill was sent back to Kansas where in a new election the people of Kansas voted solidly against the Lecompton Constitution. In the following Congressional elections the thoroughly discredited Democrats lost their majority, their party now hopelessly divided with Southerners determined to destroy Douglas at any cost, even if it meant losing the presidency, the conflict opened the door for the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

I wonder if there will be a Republican in the Congress with the courage that Stephen A. Douglas displayed in confronting the incompetent and vindictive President Buchanan during the Lecompton Crisis. Will there be a Republican with enough courage to stop the insanity of the Trump administration even if it means in the short term to divide the party and doom their political future? Honestly I doubt it, but if Trump’s march of folly is to be stopped, someone in the Republican Senate or House will have to have the courage to stand up and defend the necessity of thinking for themselves, and doing what is right.

Have a great day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under History, laws and legislation, leadership, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

March 14, 2017 · 06:30

Character: “The Decisive Factor in the Life of an Individual and of Nations Alike.”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I teach ethics, and as I observe the words and actions of President Trump and his closest advisors I see a massive attack on facts, truth, reason, intellectualism, and with them, more importantly, on integrity and character. It is actually very disconcerting to see those in power attempting to re-write facts, history, and even their own statements and promises before our eyes, denying truth, subverting facts, and pretending that with the exception of what they say today, there is no truth.

When Sean Spicer praised the February jobs report, a report that he and the President used refer to as “phony” he was asked if President Trump thought that this report was accurate. He grinned and said “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.”

But then what can be expected from an administration that when contradicted calls the contractions lies, and those who insist on facts to be liars? It has insisted that alone of Federal Government employees that White House staffers don’t need to follow government ethics rules, and removes them from required ethics training. This goes to the heart of the problem with this administration, it does not care for truth and has long given up, if it ever had it. President Trump’s long history of not being an honest businessman, his numerous adulterous affairs during his marriages, and a list of people that he has cheated that runs into the hundreds with thousands of lawsuits against his business practices should have warned us that he would be the same man that he has always has been, and now he is in a position not only to continue to destroy any hint of his own integrity, but that nations as well, and many of his followers do not seem to give a damn.

Ethics do matter and facts do matter. Steven Covey wrote that “Moral authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, treating people with respect.” This is sadly lacking in the current administration, and it will be the death of the Republic. When the American President cannot be trusted to tell the truth and when his administration works to shield themselves from the law there will be reverberations. The moral authority of the American nation is at stake, and that matters more than the power of our economy or the military might of the nation. Once that trust, once that moral authority is eroded, the very foundations of the country are undermined, and quite possibly fatally undermined. As Thomas Paine noted: “Character is much easier kept than recovered.”

A nation founded as ours on the proposition that “all men are created equal” which depends on its leaders and citizens caring about their fidelity to the Constitution must understand that its character is linked to how we live up to those great secular scriptures. Character as Theodore Roosevelt noted is “in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.” 

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under ethics, News and current events, philosophy, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

March 13, 2017 · 06:30

The Totalitarian Contempt for Facts

A Short thought to begin the week that kind of follows my posts of the last several days. Hannah Arendt wrote in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism this poignant fact and warning:

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.” 

In my life which now spans almost 57 years I have never seen an American political leader attempt to present a full-blown counter-factual narrative to support their desire for power; but that was before the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. This not only comes from watching the campaigns of various presidential candidates and the actions of those men who have gained the Presidency, but from my study of history. Yes, I have seen Presidents lie with varying degrees of success. I have seen politicians twist facts and numbers for specific ends, but I have never seen one do so on such a scale and magnitude as our current President; nor have I seen any President so boldly attack and attempt to discredit the institutions established as checks and balances in the Constitution.

Hannah Arendt’s words describe in terribly precise detail the kind of propaganda campaign that has been waged by the President and his chief advisor, Steve Bannon since last summer, which is reinforced by his spokespeople on a daily basis. Arendt wrote: “The outstanding negative quality of the totalitarian elite is that it never stops to think about the world as it really is and never compares the lies with reality.” Arendt’s statement is very descriptive of this administration. I am going to leave things here for now.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under News and current events, philosophy, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , ,

March 12, 2017 · 06:30

The New Freedom of the Mass Movement: “freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I was startled when I read the latest Quinnipac poll numbers regarding the views of Republican supporters of President Trump. According to the poll 81% agree with the President that “the media is the enemy of the American people” while 86% believe trust the President to tell the truth rather than the media. In a world where during the election campaign the President’s statements were proven factually incorrect about 87% of the time this is stunning. Facts no longer seem to matter to most of the Republican Party loyalists, who once prided themselves on their individualism but now take their pride in the mob mentality of the mass movement that is built around the personality of the President.

I began to think about this and my mind was drawn back to the words of American philosopher Eric Hoffer who wrote about mass movements. Hoffer wrote of the people who become subsumed in mass movements:

“There is also this: when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”

President Trump has unleashed a new kind of freedom for his followers, a freedom from personal responsibility for their words and actions. This is a dangerous moment, for if our democracy does break, and the President and his supporters establish the authoritarian state that their words and actions seem to show that they aspire to, there will be little to restrain the base passion of those who have embraced the mass movement. This was shown true in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s as democracies flirted with, or in some cases embraced authoritarian rule with dreadful results. Timothy Snyder notes that “The European history of the twentieth century shows that societies can break, democracies fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands…”

This is not an over exaggeration or hyperbole, the signs of a coming authoritarian regime are everywhere, in the statements and actions of the administration, the acquiescence of the GOP majority in Congress, the actions of GOP dominated statehouse and legislatures, and in the words and actions of Trump supporters, from the most powerful to the most humble. Some of Trump’s supporters had a rally last week where Muslims, Jews, and immigrants were threatened and told to leave the country because it is a “Christian country,” called Senator John McCain a “Communist,” while an “Oath Keeper” told a reporter “I just want to let them know that I can’t wait for the liberal genocide to begin.” Other speakers, included a Congressman Anthony Kern added to the din. In a separate incident Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King called for a “purge” of leftists from government in a tweet so authoritarian sounding that it came right out of the Third Reich.

Obviously the people who are speaking in this manner are the more extreme proponents of Trump’s movement, but more concerning are the majority who are not saying anything in criticizing them, or him. In the face of evil, silence is tacit agreement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted: “It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people…”

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 11, 2017 · 06:30

“In Their Hearts there is Unspoken Fear…” Observing the “Enfant Terribles” of Washington D.C.

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

It seems like nearly every day we are treated to a new round of manic midnight tweeting by our President, usually because he has been criticized by someone or has went into a rage over after watching the conspiracy theorists and propagandists who support him.

He lashes out like a trapped animal the rage barely concealed by the power of his office. Even his official photograph looks like he is about to scream and rip someone’s head off. I have seen the official photos or portraits of every American President and while some show some sense of serious strength, none exude the anger that drips from the pixels of his photo.

In the past fifty days I have observed that it is criticism of any kind that gets the President most worked up, it is as if his skin is so thin that any criticism will make him bleed. He shows all the signs of being a narcissistic personality, and seems to revel in his role as the enfant terribles of the Western World.

His response to criticism is that of the quintessential bully, or the abusive husband or father who cannot be criticized without fear of punishment.

He doesn’t seem to fear power or institutions, but he demonstrates a profound fear of words and ideas that he cannot control, thus his constant attempts to shut down debate, discredit democratic institutions, the institutions of government, the press, and even private citizens. Of course there is his unusual penchant for going after very same critics who have no power other than their ideas and the words that they speak.

I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s who wrote:

“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police … yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.” 

That is what I believe we are seeing from our President and those closest to him. They have power, real power that with the exception of the courts, neither the Congress nor bureaucracy has not seen fit to check.

These are not the actions of a leader committed to the democratic ideals of our Republic nor the constraints of the Constitution, law, precedent, and tradition.

This is something new, and it is frightening to watch.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , ,

March 10, 2017 · 06:30

Abandon Facts and Abandon Freedom: Contending Against Alternative Truth, Facts, and History

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Marcus Aurelius wrote:

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

I wrote a review of Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century on Tuesday and today I wanted to follow up on one of the key points made by Dr. Snyder in that work. Snyder wrote: “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis to do so. If nothing is truth, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”  I have been worried about that since the election campaign where Snyder noted that seventy-eight percent of the claims and statements made by President Trump on the election trail were demonstrably false.

As Snyder noted the falsehoods came so fast that they were overwhelming. The assertions were presented as if they were the truth, as if they were fact, creating as Kellyanne Conway said, a world of “alternate facts” and “alternative truths.” Of course there are no such thing as “alternative facts” or “alternative truths” when it comes to the reality that we know. There may be arguments about things that we cannot fully observe or understand, such as the ultimate issues of whether there is a God or not, and if so what is true about him, her, or it; likewise there are things that change the way that we see the world such as when scientists make new discoveries.

But in neither case do these examples posit that there are alternative truth, there are things like God that cannot be proven, and there is a universe that we do not fully understand, but those have nothing to do with people who flagrantly lie about things that are commonly known and claim that the lies are the truth. Such claims are cynical and designed to ensure that those in power cannot be challenged, and when deployed by demagogues in a society in which fear has become an overriding factor, can be frighteningly effective. Thus when the President says “I alone can fix it” or “I am your voice” those who have lost the ability to think critically and who have surrendered to the unending mantras of the demagogue do not question them, they are not matters of reason, they are matters of faith.

Throughout the campaign Trump and his campaign surrogates not only twisted truth, but lied so many times that fact checkers could hardly keep up with their untruths. After the election, Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes told Diane Rehm of NRP: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, of facts,” she continued, “Mr. Trump’s tweet, amongst a certain crowd, a large — a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some — in his — amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies, and there’s no facts to back it up.” The biggest problem in this interview was that Ms. Hughes lied and twisted what happened to fit the Trump campaign narrative that truth did not matter. The fact was that then candidate Trump’s tweets were devoid of fact and the criticism of them was based on fact.

I have written about how some people and parties present myths as truth, twisting history to meet their craven desire for power and control. This appeal to myth was the genus of the President’s campaign slogan “Make America great again.” Such slogans are the instruments by which demagogues in every place and time have used to not only gain power, but to convince people to do things that in normal times they would never consider doing. They are distortions of history that blind their followers to real truth, even worse, they compel people to never learn history and thus accept the lies as truth with all too often fatal consequences. Snyder calls this “the politics of eternity” which “performs a masquerade of history… It is concerned with the past, but in a self-absorbed way, free of any real concern with facts. Its mood is a longing for past moments that never really happened during epochs that were, in fact, disastrous.” To the politicians who like the President rely on them, the past is “a vast misty courtyard of illegible monuments to national victimhood, all of them equally distant from the present, all of them equally accessible for manipulation. Every reference to the past seems to involve an attack by some mortal enemy upon the purity of the nation.” These are the basis for things like the Myth of the Lost Cause, and the Noble South, and the Stab in the Back.

This is dangerous distortion of history. George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But I think that Howard Zinn said it the best:

“History can come in handy. If you were born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, you might easily accept whatever the government tells you. But knowing a bit of history–while it would not absolutely prove the government was lying in a given instance–might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth.”

I cannot help but think that the rapidity of the lies, the incessant attacks on the institutions of our country’s democracy, and the rights established in the Constitution by the President, people in his administration, and his supporters, especially those in the Breitbart universe of alternative media, are nothing but an attempt to delegitimize those institutions in order to gain total control and establish some kind of authoritarian and totalitarian state. The deluge of lies and distortions practiced by this administration and so many others who have taken power after being legally elected or appointed is designed to ensure that people no longer believe in truth. Hannah Arendt wrote: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction ( i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false ( i.e ., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

That is the very danger that we face today because many people, especially the President’s most stalwart and sometime violent defenders, as well as his enablers in Congress do not care, and others are so confused and distracted by the tactics of denial and deflection coming from the administration that they are growing weary. Polls show that many people are quite alright with limiting freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the role of the courts and other institutions designed to check executive power, and have no problem with limiting the rights of groups that they have identified as their enemy, and even limitations placed on their own freedom if it serves to absolve them of responsibility for things that they are too uncomfortable to deal with. The British military historian and theorist B.H. Liddell-Hart observed:

“We learn from history that in every age and every clime the majority of people have resented what seems in retrospect to have been purely matter-of-fact comment on their institutions. We learn too that nothing has aided the persistence of falsehood, and the evils resulting from it, more than the unwillingness of good people to admit the truth when it was disturbing to their comfortable assurance. Always the tendency continues to be shocked by natural comment and to hold certain things too “sacred” to think about.”

Believe me I desperately want to be wrong about this, but my study of history tells me that I am not. Thus I believe that every claim of the President and the administration must be questioned and its veracity determined, before it is accepted as truth. The time has come when we cannot simply wait to see what happens and give this administration the benefit of the doubt. Immediately after the election I was prepared to do that, but the actions of the President and his advisors have demonstrated to me that this is no longer an option. I will of course remain true to my oath under the Constitution, I will still respect the office of the Presidency, but I will always stand for the Constitution and defend those rights, and the institutions that are established by it.

Truth: historical, scientific, and verifiable is not our enemy. However, lies, and distortions, and the trampling of truth under the guise of “alternative truth,” “alternative fact,” and “alternative history” is the moral enemy of our republic and its democratic institutions. Thus truth must be upheld and fought for at all costs, because once you have sacrificed truth on the altar of political expediency you pave the way for freedom to be sacrificed.

So until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

5 Comments

Filed under culture, ethics, History, News and current events, philosophy, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 3, 2017 · 06:30

“To Act in the Light of Truth” Another Staff ride at Gettysburg

chamberlain

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today I am travelling up to Gettysburg for another Staff Ride with students from the Staff College. The weather this weekend looks like it will be spectacular for the visit, praise be Al Gore for the great weather, but admittedly weather like this probably isn’t that great for us in the long run, so say the climate scientists and researchers that I trust to tell the truth, but I digress…

Gettysburg is a good place for me to visit. It is a place that helps remind me that even in the midst of the most hateful, politically divided period of our history since the Civil War Era, which spans the 1850s, the war, Reconstruction, and the return of White Rule, Black Codes, and Jim Crow, that good has triumphed over evil more than once. That fact helps keep me grounded in history and reminds me that no-matter how hard the fight is that we must resist tyranny, racism, discrimination, and injustice at every opportunity, even when the odds are against us.

IMG_1249

Gettysburg inspires me for many reasons. I cannot go there without sensing the spirits of the men whose blood hallowed that ground, to preserve the Union, and helped pave the way for the slow but steady advances in liberty that our nation experienced, despite often violent opposition, which appear to be threatened again today. I may be a realist, but I still have a sense of idealism that will not let me give up.

One of my inspirations is Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a hero of the Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg. He was a Professor of Natural and Revealed Religion at Maine’s Bowdoin College, who against the wishes of his wife volunteered to serve, going on to great distinction during the war. He wrote:

“It is something great and greatening to cherish an ideal; to act in the light of truth that is far-away and far above; to set aside the near advantage, the momentary pleasure; the snatching of seeming good to self; and to act for remoter ends, for higher good, and for interests other than our own.”

We have to fight for the higher good, and not our own interests now. We have to act in the light of truth against the phalanx of lies deployed by the President, his advisors, and the propagandists that spread those lies as much as the press of the South encouraged disunion, and the hate of the North. When I hear the lies, distortions, and hatred being spread by them I get angry, but then I remember something else that Chamberlain wrote:

“But the cause for which we fought was higher; our thought wider… That thought was our power.”  

So, have a great day and never give up.

Peace

Padre Steve+

4 Comments

Filed under civil rights, civil war, History, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , ,

February 13, 2017 · 06:30

Compassion for a Bully

img_0002-1

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Let me say up front that this is going to be a weird article. I have been thinking about how to write this since Thursday morning when I read a column by David Brooks in the New York Times called A Gift for Donald Trump. I’ve linked that article at the end of my comments here. I know that those who have followed my writings about President Trump for nearly a year or more will have to be wondering what the hell is going on with me. So let me explain.

The article made me really think. As I read it I had to pause, think, and reflect so many times, that I read it again. Honestly, after I read it, I sat there at my desk for at least fifteen minutes in silence. I began to actually think about Donald Trump, not the President, not the businessman, not the reality television star, but the person; and I felt pity for him, even some amount of anguish, for the first time I felt compassion for him as a human being.

Please don’t get me wrong. Donald Trump reminds me of every bully that I have ever known, and I don’t like bullies, never had, never will. I was always the new kid in town and I was not a big kid. As a result I got bullied, but I always fought back, even when the odds were against me, so even when I lost those fights, I gained a manner of grudging respect from my tormenters. I didn’t like bullies when I was a kid, and I like them even less now. Likewise, I got in fights to defend smaller and weaker friends against bullies. I have grown up but I still try to defend the weak against the powerful in whatever way I can. This has led me to become, since my tour in Iraq, a civil rights advocate for minorities, women, and LGBTQ people.

Because of my experience I oppose almost everything President Trump, his administration, the Congress, or state and local governments propose when I believe that those policies will adversely effect people who are already treated with distain, contempt, and discriminated against by majorities. It seems that like Don Quixote I tend to joust against windmills. That being said I felt a deep sense of pity for Donald Trump the man when I read Brooks’s article.

I began to reflect about what I know about President Trump. He seems to be emotionally stunted, he brags about not having cried since he was a child, which I have to attribute to his upbringing. As an adult he has lived his life in perpetual conflict. It doesn’t seem to me that he has a real friend in the world,  I remembered the biographic film that introduced him at the Republican National Convention and that unlike most similar films, there were no statements by friends, colleagues, teachers, coaches, or pastors. At the time that struck me as strange, but now, watching his daily actions, especially his Twitter rants in which he targets specific enemies, real, and imagined. Then I thought about when he went to the White House on Inauguration Day, jumped out of his limousine, and left his wife in the dust in his haste to meet the Obamas. As I pondered those things I also realized that even among his closest advisors, he has no real friends; and I felt pity.

I watched as Republican Congressional leaders who were obviously uncomfortable with him, many of who had opposed him until he secured the nomination, jump on board the Trump train as long as he got them what they wanted. No real love or loyalty, just a slavish use of Mr. Trump to get their legislative agenda passed, with some speculating that they will dump him in favor of Mike Pence as soon as he outlives his political usefulness to them. But they are scheming politicians and have prayed for the day that they had a Republican as President for over eight years. But the key thing that I am observing is that they don’t really care about Trump the man.

But even worse, I began to think of the supposedly Christian leaders who threw their support behind Mr. Trump because they thought he would support their agenda, which he seems to be doing. Over 80% of Evangelical Christians voted for him despite the fact that in the past they would have demonized a man who had three marriages, committed adultery during them, cheated business associates, had his daughter convert to a non-Christian religion, and on and on. These jerks have condemned other candidates for much less, but in this case they had no problem: Christian ethics, virtues, character, and lack of any kind of Bible knowledge be damned. They ignored it all or made excuses in order to justify to their followers why this was right and the others weren’t.

When confronted about Mr. Trump’s decided lack of Christian character, virtue, or practice they made excuses for him. Some like longstanding political hack James Dobson said that he was a “baby Christian,” with the implication that we shouldn’t expect much out of him. Other’s like Paula White testified to knowing that he was a Christian. But as things went on, others, men like Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, and other political preachers, obviously implying that Mr. Trump is not a Christian, started using the metaphor of Cyrus the Great, the Persian Emperor, who helped deliver Israel from the Babylonian captivity. But they will use him to get what they want, his soul be damned. That my friends is sick.

These supposedly Christian leaders only care about President Trump for what they can get out of him, not because of anything else. For people who are quick to condemn others to hell for the slightest transgression, they don’t seem to care about President Trump’s very soul. That bothers me than the slimy politicians who are doing the same thing. If you want to know why people are fleeing the Christian church in the United States of America, look at their actions.

So I sat silently and I began to feel a measure of compassion for President Trump. Brooks said that if he could give President Trump any gift it would be the gifts of prudence and fraternity. Prudence to guide his actions, and fraternity, type of deep friendship by people that care.

So I began to think. What would I wish for President Trump? David Brooks says prudence and fraternity. I cannot argue with those, but I would also say that he would first find real friendship from people who want nothing from him, people who only care about genuine friendship, and what the Greeks called, brotherly love. Someone who actually has Mr. Trump’s best interest at heart, not just his profit or their agenda. Prudence of course would would obviously be something I would want him to have.

Sadly, that will not be any of those abominable preachers who only care about using him to fulfill their agenda, which they equate with God’s. Shame on them because they don’t give a damn about him as a human being. If I had had the opportunity that they had I would have just asked to sit with him, eat a bucket of chicken, watch television, and do nothing but be a friend and confidant who wants nothing from him, except to care about him as a person.

Finally, I would wish that Mr. Trump would have a sense of empathy for others. I don’t doubt his business acumen, or his ability to read weakness in others, nor his ability to demean, threaten, and humiliate people. He has wealth, celebrity, and now he is in reality the President of the most powerful country in the world. He seems to have everything, and at the same time he seems to have nothing, his life seems empty of almost everything that makes us human. Jesus said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?” In terms of soul I’m not talking the eternal one, I’m simply talking about the touch of humanity that has to exist in him somewhere, that must have been squelched at an early age.

I don’t know much about Mr. Trump’s father and mother, or his relationship with them, or his relationship with his siblings. Honestly, I can understand parents who want their children to succeed in life, maybe even continue the family business; but that being said, I wonder if they ever really cared about him as a son. I wonder, if in their quest to help make him a material success, his parents helped turn him into a narcissist. I wonder if they bred into him a contempt for people that doesn’t allow him to open up, that doesn’t allow him to become vulnerable to the point of having real friends.

I would hope for him, as a person, that something can break through the layers of whatever surrounds his heart, so he can know true friendship and learn how to empathize with people.

I can disagree with the man, I can oppose his policies, I can find how he treats others contemptible, but I cannot hate him, because in spite of everything I feel compassion for a man who was most likely emotionally crippled by the way he was brought up, maybe by parents who didn’t recognize the damage they were doing. Of course I could be entirely wrong. I have never met him, and know very little about his parents and how they raised him. 

That being said, I feel a sense of pity for him, despite my opposition to him I cannot hate him. I really do hope that he finds friendship, comes to know fraternity, gains prudence and wisdom, and develops a sense of empathy, if not for the country, for him, his wife, and young son.

I don’t expect that I will keep me from criticizing his polices or his actions in regard to people, I fully intend to be truthful in regard to those things, but I cannot but hope for him, his family, and for all of us since he is President, that he will come to know friendship, fraternity, and empathy. If you pray, I hope that you can pray for the same thing, even if you oppose everything that he does in office. In opposition we cannot lose our humanity, we cannot stoop to hate, or even worse, calculated deception to make our point, for if we do, it will be the end of our humanity. If we win the political battle and lose that, then there is no hope for us, and someone else will come along and do far worse than Donald Trump can ever think of doing because they will be more cunning, more ruthless, and able to make their crimes seem perfectly normal. Trust me, we don’t want that.

So have a great day.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

6 Comments

Filed under christian life, faith, leadership, Pastoral Care, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

February 6, 2017 · 20:00

Seven Days Until Pitchers and Catchers Report: Patriots Win Super Bowl

IMG_0177

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

My friends there are only seven days until pitchers and catchers report and life really begins again, for this my friends is the true harbinger of spring. If you like me need to keep track a link is provided below, but I digress…

http://whendopitchersandcatchersreport.com/

But anyway, in a world of so much uncertainty and woe, baseball is what helps keep me sane, or at least some semblance of sane. As Sharon Olds said back in 1987 “Baseball is reassuring. It makes me feel as if the world is not going to blow up.” Since Donald Trump now has access to our nation’s nuclear weapons, this is a very important thing to me.

But truthfully I am thanking whatever deity may be out there baseball is coming back, even though it is just spring training. You see for me, that is comforting because baseball is more than a game to me. I agree with George Will, the vociferous conservative critic of President Trump, “Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.”

By the way speaking of games I watched one last night, the New England Patriots beat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime at a magnificent and inspiring concert starring Lady Gaga.

Have a great night,

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under Baseball, culture, football

Tagged as , , , , , ,

February 5, 2017 · 14:24

Resistance to Authoritianism: Part Two 


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Yesterday I began an article about resistance to authoritarian movements or leaders. The underlying premise of the first part was to set the stage by talking about freedom, truth, critical thinking and the all too often fact that most people do not like facing unpleasant truths. I ended that section with a quote by Hannah Arendt that: 

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction ( i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false ( i.e ., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

That thought can be applied to any country where the evil of authoritarian rule threatens. The British military historian and theorist, B.H. Liddell-Hart wrote:

All of us do foolish things, but the wiser realize what they do. The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error. That failure is a common affliction of authority. 

Based on the performance of the Trump administration during the transition and over its first two weeks in office one wonders if most of its members have any capacity for reflection or ability to admit when they are wrong. Right now I see little proof that this tendency will change anytime soon. Thus it is imperative that all citizens, including those who serve in the institutions of government be the conscience of the nation. This is the most important part of successfully resisting the implementation of authoritarian government. All too often that does not happen. One can look at the histories of numerous nations where the citizenry, and those who executed the day to day functions of government did not do this, usually with very dire results for their nations. 

The reason for most, is usually nothing inherently evil on their part, they simply want to get along without asking too many questions, and turning their eyes from the unpleasantries, and evil. Resistance is dangerous. Liddell-Hart noted:

We learn from history that the critics of authority have always been rebuked in self-righteous tones, if no worse fate has befallen them, yet have repeatedly been justified by history. To be “agin the Government” may be a more philosophic attitude than it appears. For the tendency of all “governments” is to infringe the standards of decency and truth; this is inherent in their nature and hardly avoidable in their practice.

Hence the duty of the good citizen who is free from the responsibility of Government is to be a watchdog upon it, lest Government impair the fundamental objects which it exists to serve. It is a necessary evil, thus requiring constant watchfulness and check.

Authoritarian leaders who are able to gain control of an unquestioning populace and powerful bureaucracy are able to do much damage to liberty. Thus it it important that citizens constantly question it, and when it is failing to abide by the ideals, laws, and norms of the nation, to resist; using lawful means, and maintaining to moral high ground. However, that too is hard to do, many who resist do so in a highly emotional manner which sometimes leads them to tactics that are not helpful, even in the near term. 

That being said it is important that resistance be based on telling the truth in spite of opposition, and this means calling out the untruths and outright lies of the authoritarian leader and his sycophants. These are not hard to spot, but too many people are afraid to call a lie a lie. But the lies are the basis for the declarations of faith that authoritarian leaders uses to gain the support of both true believers, as well as the angry and disaffected people who recognize the lie, but due to their cynicism about government and disappointment in the democratic process support the authoritarian leader. The authoritarian leader takes advantage of the primal fears and hatreds of both in order to cement his bond with them which makes resisting more dangerous, because those who do resist are demonized. As Eric Hoffer wrote in his classic The True Believer:

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil. When Hitler was asked whether he thought the Jew must be destroyed, he answered: “No…. We should have then to invent him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one.” 

Those who resist or those who are different prove to be ideal devils for the authoritarian leader and his followers. Liddell-Hart understood this and noted that those who believe in freedom must resist authoritarian rule because it does not respect the power of thought and the intellect, so I am going to close for today with his words: 

It is man’s power of thought which has generated the current of human progress through the ages. Thus the thinking man must be against authoritarianism in any form, because it shows its fear of thoughts which do not suit momentary authority.

Any sincere writer must be against it, because it believes in censorship. Any true historian must be against it, because he can see that it leads to the repetition of old follies, as well as to the deliberate adulteration of history. Anyone who tries to solve problems scientifically must be against it, since it refuses to recognize that criticism is the life blood of science. In sum, any seeker of truth must be against it, because it subordinates truth to state expediency. This spells stagnation.

Those who resist cannot do so simply because they are against the authoritarian leader, but they must stand for something positive and far reaching in order to expand freedom for others. Liddell-Hart wrote:

But “anti-Fascism” or “anti-Communism” is not enough. Nor is even the defence of freedom. What has been gained may not be maintained, against invasion without and erosion within, if we are content to stand still. The peoples who are partially free as a result of what their forebears achieved in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries must continue to spread the gospel of freedom and work for the extension of the conditions, social and economic as well as political, which are essential to make men free.

Have a great day, and enjoy the Super Bowl, and remember God couldn’t care less who wins it; the Deity is a baseball fan. 

Peace,

Padre Steve+


1 Comment

Filed under History, leadership, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , ,