A friend asked me...

A friend asked me about politics and said he was meeting another conservative friend and would return loaded for bear

By now I’ve had a lot of experience talking with people who have other opinions (gasp). These talks have not, for the most part, gone well. They all tend to unravel into each person talking over the other or into agreements to disagree. Nothing seems to get resolved.

I myself try to apply critical thinking to politicians, especially presidential ones. This means that I do research on them whether I like them or don’t. When I’ve finished I usually have a good idea of what they really stand for and who they really are, at least sufficient knowledge for me to support or reject them.

My criteria are:

Is this person out for power or for service?

Do they understand the importance of the Rule of Law?

Have they read and understood the Constitution and it’s time and context?

Do they understand justice and compassion?

There are more of course but these are a start.

If I don’t want to get into arguments about bullet lists, what do I want?

I want to say to people: Here these are some of the books I read and some of the people I spent time with, trying to figure things out. I had to absorb this knowledge to get to a place where I could place things in their proper perspective, identify the real players and understand their agendas. These are the tools you need to get real about things.

It took me thirty years to get to this point so don’t despair. I also don’t expect everyone to have these experiences – frankly – if you just read all of Shakespeare you could throw about 95% of this stuff out. In fact you’ll learn more about human nature than all of the other books combined.

Economics

Adam Smith

Frederic von Hayak

Milton Friedman

Joseph Steiglitz

John Galbraith (Older and younger)

Paul Krugman

Karl Marx

Thomas Piketty

Politics

Sun Tzu – Art of War

Musashi – A Book of Five Rings

Von Clausewitz

Julius Ceasar – The conquest of Gaul

Marcus Aurelius – Meditations

Thucydides

Modern Times

William Schreiber – The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Bruce Catton – The Civil War

The Federalist Papers

The Anti-Federalist Papers

People Whose Work You Should Know About

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Roger Taney

Benjamin Cardozo

Thurgood Marshall

William O. Douglas

Howard Zinn

People and Organizations You Should Know About So You Can Run From them in Terror

Charles Koch

Davis Koch

Fred Koch – yes, their father and the founder of the John Birch Society

Peter G. Peterson

James M. Buchanan (not the president, the economist)

The Heritage Foundation

The Cato Institute

The Fellowship – Doug Coe

The Ku Klux Klan – doing quite well thank you very much

David Duke

Jeff Sessions – remember him? He’s now US AG

A.L.E.C. – look it up

Alex Jones

Michael Savage

Rush Limbaugh (still)

Know your enemy. All war is a crime.

On the Subject of July 4th

As I often do on the 4^th I reflect on our history and, more specifically on those who have fallen in its honor. Some who think they know me may be surprised but most of the others know of my deep respect for true patriots and true honor, however earned.

Since the Vietnam War was the war of my time, I focus on that conflict and try to understand the things I can’t. Perhaps the burning flames of that conflagration concentrate my thoughts in a way nothing else might.

Let me start (and end) by saying: “All War is a Crime”, by now this must be obvious to everyone yet we go about our daily lives acting as if this was not the case… I have no answer to this, it baffles me.

I was intimately aware of the Vietnam War insofar as I was eligible for drafting to serve (having exhausted my student exemption)… I was reprieved by a high draft number and escaped. 

I did have to consider my options:

I could have claimed conscientious objector status, except that I would not have – I thought that fighting Hitler was justified, for example.

I could have gone to Canada, except that I couldn’t justify that to my parents.

I knew that if I went to Vietnam, I would die… very hard to reconcile with abject cowardice.

So I was ecstatic and grateful for the draft number that spared me from that decision. 

As a natural consequence I have been troubled by the omnipresent moral monitor who always demands an answer: did you really do the right thing? I usually buy her a drink and try to forget…

Literature abounds with books on war which constantly smack me upside the head, sometimes they make movies…

In modern times there have been two movies, no, three, that bring things to a crux for me.

Oliver Stone’s ‘Platoon’ of course, which posits they conflict of Good and Evil sergeants to limn the way before us.

The masterful Terence Malick (James Jones) movie The Thin Red Line that was buried by the usual sloppy, soppy Saving Private Ryan of schlockmeister Steven Spielberg.

But there has also been another movie made more recently of “We Were Soldiers Once and Young”. Taken from the book (memoir) of the first real battle between the North Vietnam regulars and the US regular forces.

I need to stop here and say a few things:

First rant

I think Mel Gibson is a decent actor, not great, not horrible but pretty good within his limited range. I don’t begrudge him the money he has made Hollywood and good looks being what they are. But I do take exception to his truly awful personal beliefs. I don’t mind that he’s some kind of weird Christian fanatic but I do mind his faith-based opinions of others – I’m sure you’ve heard them many times over. And actually I don’t even mind that he has those beliefs: just shut the fuck up about them, please? Then we can all get along quite nicely.

Second rant

I generally like war movies and action movies in a desultory way. They while away the time and display manly men doing manly things in a manly way… they go well with popcorn. But I do get annoyed by the laziness of directors I guess. Almost always the battle scenes are just two groups of soldiers screaming and running at each other, seemingly with no battle plan thought out, no tactics or strategy. I realize that the 10,000 ft view can’t be detailed and that no plan survives contact with the enemy but it annoys me that there’s only chaos in view.

Rants over, thank you for listening.

We Were Soldiers… is a memoir by retired Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway (the journalist at the battle).  It is a remarkable retelling of that battle at La Drang that went on for three days in November of 1965.

The movie is also remarkable, showing the tactics of both LtColonel Moore and North Vietnamese commander Nguyen Huu An. Attack and counterattack, backup plans and swift response to unexpected situations. And also showing the gritty reality of the battle itself.

Technically speaking the Americans were outnumbered 4 to 1 but they had far superior cavalry and aircover and were able to beat back NVA assaults. There is of course the irony of the ending when, having driven the NVA out of La Drang valley, they leave only to have the NVA forces immediately return.

As good a performance by Gibson as he could manage and Sam Elliot’s turn as the crusty Sgt Major is epic.

In its own way it is an anti-war movie in that it shows the senselessness and futility that all wars exhibit but it is also a showing of respect and honor for those who fought and those who fell.

Well done and a credit to all involved especially Moore and Galloway, it’s one of those things we can invoke on fourths of July.