In this age of personal statement by bumper sticker, I frequently see the message “We Still Pray” on the back of cars in front of me. Actually, I am glad that the folks in that car apparently do so. God has given us so many forms in which to engage in prayer, meditation, or just quiet contemplation, the more people engage in prayer in their own way is no doubt to our collective benefit.
The thing I don’t quite understand is why someone feels the need to tell me that they do so. Did someone tell them they could not pray anymore? If it is some form of “I do it, maybe you’d like to do the same,” perhaps God doesn’t mind a little recruitment on his/her behalf. But more often than not, I suspect it is offered more as a political statement than a spiritual one. In reaction to a perceived threat from the secular world that prayer, and those who do so, are under attack. This brings us to a political theme of the last 30-odd years of legal decisions against prayer in the public venues (e.g. public schools, government functions, and public-funded recreational activities).
I confess I am strongly on the side of very hard lines of separation regarding legally-sponsored spiritual and religious activities in publicly-funded venues. Certainly not because I am opposed to spiritual activity and expression by people. But when you do those activities in publicly-funded (secular) places, the problem is --- whose spirituality will you use? Whose religious ritual and dogma shall be used by a collective group of dissimilar taxpayers?
The U.S. is the most mixed cultured country in the world. It has been so since our beginnings ever since religious and economic pilgrims from a multitude of European countries and religions first encountered the Native Americans already here. We have certainly had our difficulties throughout our history in assimilating and respecting all of these forms and cultures, but in our own erratic way we’ve continued to generally do pretty well with it over time. Yet we also still have many pockets of isolated culturally homogeneous areas, such as in my current home here in western North Carolina.
Some groups today insist on trying to define America as a “Christian nation,” yet nowhere do I see that codified in any of our founding documents. And given all the different religious forms that claim the mantel of Christian, and the track record of argument (if not violence) that has occurred within that label, I can hardly see how that standard can provide a unifying framework for religious expression in America. As we also watch non-Christian religions growing in number in the U.S., the idea that one spiritual language, one religious practice, one faith can be made either universal or a yardstick implodes on its own improbability.
No, the founding fathers were, as usual, highly insightful in understanding what was needed for this country to truly be free, united and welcoming. Make every possible opportunity for people to find and express their faith, in the company of like-minded spiritual worshipers, in their homes and those places dedicated to worship. Given its abysmal track record, leave the state out of this.
In the secular world of tax-supported institutions, my dollars are equal to your dollars. So in an open and public setting, will your prayer be used, or mine? Will we say the Catholic Lord’s Prayer or the Protestant version? Will we bow in Christian prayer, meditate in Buddhist silence, close down the post office for Yom Kippur, or fast together in the school cafeteria for Ramadan? Prayer has not been forbidden; where one might pray, and your ability to tell me how to pray, has correctly been limited. The religious majority today could well be the religious minority of tomorrow. Then whose prayer will we use?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Freedom of Speech Defended
Columbia University recently invited Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on its campus and submit to a Q/A session. For this, the University has taken a lot of flack in conservative quarters for giving Ahmadinejad a public forum from which to speak. I, however, was delighted that the invitation was extended. Certainly not because I am any fan of Ahmadinejad and his positions. Rather, I do think he is an ill-informed political ignorant given what he has said are his beliefs and his views of the world that surrounds him. (Then again, we fail to acknowledge that we are generally quite similarly ignorant of the world, belief systems and cultural history from which he comes.) But by extending this invitation, we demonstrated to him (and the citizens of Iran and the world) what freedom of speech really means in this country, versus in Iran; we created the opportunity to Q/A a national leader in an open, non-staged debate (something our U.S. President has shown no willingness to do), versus in Iran; and we allowed that national leader the opportunity to make his case for his beliefs, or to fail, through civil discourse, versus in Iran. And in this instance, Ahmadinejad managed to fail miserably to convince, almost to the point of the laughable.
It is a shame that this important example of democratic free speech was lessened by the self-serving, uncivil and rude introduction of Ahmadinejad given by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. It was, nevertheless, an otherwise “America at its best” moment: our willingness and ability to let hate and ignorance fail on its own through the light of the spotlight rather than exist in isolated darkness. Hard as it may be at times, requiring the courage of our willingness to air that with which we disagree, it is still what we are to be about: the faith that extremes will ultimately be exposed for what they are, and that truth ultimately wins out. Or, as a quote stated that I read in an unlikely place, “If we don’t protect freedom of speech, we’ll never know who the idiots are.” The reality is that we are never able to create an effective dialog, or reach a negotiated conclusion, with another individual until we first at least understand what that person thinks, and why she/he thinks it, no matter how foreign those may be to our own background and thought process. We must first listen before we speak. Only from that basis can effective dialog begin.
It is a shame that this important example of democratic free speech was lessened by the self-serving, uncivil and rude introduction of Ahmadinejad given by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. It was, nevertheless, an otherwise “America at its best” moment: our willingness and ability to let hate and ignorance fail on its own through the light of the spotlight rather than exist in isolated darkness. Hard as it may be at times, requiring the courage of our willingness to air that with which we disagree, it is still what we are to be about: the faith that extremes will ultimately be exposed for what they are, and that truth ultimately wins out. Or, as a quote stated that I read in an unlikely place, “If we don’t protect freedom of speech, we’ll never know who the idiots are.” The reality is that we are never able to create an effective dialog, or reach a negotiated conclusion, with another individual until we first at least understand what that person thinks, and why she/he thinks it, no matter how foreign those may be to our own background and thought process. We must first listen before we speak. Only from that basis can effective dialog begin.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Potpourri #1
Some short thoughts on various subjects passing by ….
***
Alberto Gonzales. Finally gone, finally resolved. Hopefully we can now get back to respecting the Constitution with apolitical justice. Have any lessons been learned?
***
The talk show commentators are continuing their goal to trivialize important issues in favor of ratings-producing hysterical rantings over distracting trivia. To wit:
- does Obama’s recent decision not to wear an American flag lapel pin really denote a non-patriot / un-American? (I personally have never been too fond of bumper stickers on my car or on my lapel.)
- Does MoveOn.org’s New York Times ad about “General Betrayus” really require a Congressional denunciation over not being respectful of our soldier(s), while concurrently skipping over denouncing the Iraqi killing fields fiasco which has created the problem in the first place? (And since when did any self-respecting right-winger start admitting that they read the New York Times?)
- When you have no case of substance, we need to beware the demagogue who moves to distracting sloganeering.
***
George Bush has apparently suddenly become our historian-in-residence. He now says that “we failed to learn the lesson of the Viet Nam War.” He said that lesson to be learned was “not to leave early, but to see the mission through.” (Even though I thought the Iraqi “Mission [was] Accomplished” a couple of years ago.) I would hardly call 10 years of a stalemate quagmire and 40,000+ American deaths in Viet Nam as “not seeing it through.” Like Iraq, an outsider cannot “save” a country that does not really want to be saved or does not want to achieve the outsider’s vision, while it seeks to pursue its own ideological aspirations. In the long run, you cannot prop up an unrepresentative and ineffective government through a military presence. You can only at best conquer a country, which we certainly have not achieved in Iraq nor did Russia achieve in Afghanistan in the eighties during their middle-east intervention fiasco. You cannot win a military objective by lying and covering up to the American public the realities occurring on the ground. And the body count of how many dissenters you have labeled “un-American” diminishes fighting strength, not enhances it. Those are the real lessons of Viet Nam that the mid-level military men of the mid-1960s-70s and the American people learned. George Bush apparently skipped class that day, and read a different history book than the rest of us.
***
Alberto Gonzales. Finally gone, finally resolved. Hopefully we can now get back to respecting the Constitution with apolitical justice. Have any lessons been learned?
***
The talk show commentators are continuing their goal to trivialize important issues in favor of ratings-producing hysterical rantings over distracting trivia. To wit:
- does Obama’s recent decision not to wear an American flag lapel pin really denote a non-patriot / un-American? (I personally have never been too fond of bumper stickers on my car or on my lapel.)
- Does MoveOn.org’s New York Times ad about “General Betrayus” really require a Congressional denunciation over not being respectful of our soldier(s), while concurrently skipping over denouncing the Iraqi killing fields fiasco which has created the problem in the first place? (And since when did any self-respecting right-winger start admitting that they read the New York Times?)
- When you have no case of substance, we need to beware the demagogue who moves to distracting sloganeering.
***
George Bush has apparently suddenly become our historian-in-residence. He now says that “we failed to learn the lesson of the Viet Nam War.” He said that lesson to be learned was “not to leave early, but to see the mission through.” (Even though I thought the Iraqi “Mission [was] Accomplished” a couple of years ago.) I would hardly call 10 years of a stalemate quagmire and 40,000+ American deaths in Viet Nam as “not seeing it through.” Like Iraq, an outsider cannot “save” a country that does not really want to be saved or does not want to achieve the outsider’s vision, while it seeks to pursue its own ideological aspirations. In the long run, you cannot prop up an unrepresentative and ineffective government through a military presence. You can only at best conquer a country, which we certainly have not achieved in Iraq nor did Russia achieve in Afghanistan in the eighties during their middle-east intervention fiasco. You cannot win a military objective by lying and covering up to the American public the realities occurring on the ground. And the body count of how many dissenters you have labeled “un-American” diminishes fighting strength, not enhances it. Those are the real lessons of Viet Nam that the mid-level military men of the mid-1960s-70s and the American people learned. George Bush apparently skipped class that day, and read a different history book than the rest of us.
Friday, September 21, 2007
The Individual Learner - Part 2
Prior to the 1900s, learning was highly individually directed, even if done in small groups. The early spiritual masters taught in parable and broad example, challenging the individual to think through and determine his/her actions within those truths. Socrates perfected his “teaching through questioning” methodology, idealized still today by many educators as the “perfect form.” Early teaching forms in England, and carried over into colonial America, followed a religious-based liberal arts education driven by a educator (typically a religious figure) who served more as a mentor, guiding his students into learning through readings and 1:1 or small group discussions. Formal education stopped when the student was out of money or moved out into work and commerce.
American public education was a huge social commitment coming out of the 1800s. A commitment that this country justifiably took pride in then and still now. It was generally epitomized by the world of the 1-room schoolhouse. A body of learning that could be done, underwritten by a core expectation of reading and writing, taught to students of all ages, working together in one shared environment. With peer support provided by “those who knew helping those who didn’t,” regardless of respective ages. With the teacher providing individual mentoring and guidance on the side to students as they expressed interest, aptitude, and curiosity. And out of those times and simple backgrounds America produced some intellectual and creative giants in the arts, literature, politics, science, and commerce & industry. They discovered knowledge and creativity combined with culture and entrepreneurship to produce an incredible explosion of growth and development in America.
So how do we recapture the benefits of that directed, individually-based learning environment from yesteryear, but meld it with the vast new knowledge and teaching tools that we have today?
- First and foremost, we destroy the “grade level” concept and relegate it to the trash heap where it belongs;
- we provide learning sessions grouped around subject matter (instead of age);
- we let students enroll in subject matter sessions as they are ready, interested, and capable without regard to age level;
- we let classmates help classmates;
- we certify “competencies” where the outside world requires such certifications;
- we let the student accumulate competencies over time (including a lifetime), resulting in a broad “completion” credentialing.
Under this approach, the role and goal of the educator is more clearly to:
- expose an individual (at any age) to what is available across the learning spectrum;
- help the student identify where his/her interests lie;
- bring out and maximize those talents.
The only core minimum education required should be:
1) to achieve the ability to read and digest the written word;
2) to understand how past experiences, history and culture are shaping the present; and
3) how to continually and enthusiastically learn throughout one’s lifetime.
With those three starting points, the human individual can go to virtually unlimited places.
American public education was a huge social commitment coming out of the 1800s. A commitment that this country justifiably took pride in then and still now. It was generally epitomized by the world of the 1-room schoolhouse. A body of learning that could be done, underwritten by a core expectation of reading and writing, taught to students of all ages, working together in one shared environment. With peer support provided by “those who knew helping those who didn’t,” regardless of respective ages. With the teacher providing individual mentoring and guidance on the side to students as they expressed interest, aptitude, and curiosity. And out of those times and simple backgrounds America produced some intellectual and creative giants in the arts, literature, politics, science, and commerce & industry. They discovered knowledge and creativity combined with culture and entrepreneurship to produce an incredible explosion of growth and development in America.
So how do we recapture the benefits of that directed, individually-based learning environment from yesteryear, but meld it with the vast new knowledge and teaching tools that we have today?
- First and foremost, we destroy the “grade level” concept and relegate it to the trash heap where it belongs;
- we provide learning sessions grouped around subject matter (instead of age);
- we let students enroll in subject matter sessions as they are ready, interested, and capable without regard to age level;
- we let classmates help classmates;
- we certify “competencies” where the outside world requires such certifications;
- we let the student accumulate competencies over time (including a lifetime), resulting in a broad “completion” credentialing.
Under this approach, the role and goal of the educator is more clearly to:
- expose an individual (at any age) to what is available across the learning spectrum;
- help the student identify where his/her interests lie;
- bring out and maximize those talents.
The only core minimum education required should be:
1) to achieve the ability to read and digest the written word;
2) to understand how past experiences, history and culture are shaping the present; and
3) how to continually and enthusiastically learn throughout one’s lifetime.
With those three starting points, the human individual can go to virtually unlimited places.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The Individual Learner - Part 1
We have all seen and heard the last few years the growing discussion about the state of education in America, a discussion probably ranking only 3rd behind Iraq/terrorism and the healthcare crisis. “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) was supposed to be the curative for our public school education ills. Yet the results from this initiative are questionable at best, partly for lack of funding but more due to a premise that remains highly suspect.
Within NCLB, all children are to have equal access and equal, if not extra, support for their educational needs or shortcomings. Millions have been invested in tutors, extra learning programs, etc. to bring the lowest levels of learning up to a national par --- a par based upon defined expectations and outcomes for specific grade levels. Yet, as a recent TIME magazine article discusses, a significant portion of this support has come from redirected allocations for programs and opportunities for the brightest kids, the “gifted” ones. These students, forced to also work to the “statistical norm,” suffer from boredom and increasing social disconnections from their grade-level peer group. Dropout rates for the gifted can be as alarming as the dropout rates of the so-called underachievers. Home schooling continues on the rise, now affecting somewhere between 1-2 million students (according to one recent statistical report). The students who are in the statistical norm fluctuate on either side of ‘average,” and overall school dropout rates are still alarmingly high in many states (over a quarter of the students in my state of North Carolina).
Bad teaching going on? Yes, but there are lots of would-be good teachers trying to make a creative difference in “learning.” Teaching to the test? Absolutely, with avenues for creative thinking and expression from our kids rapidly disappearing. Stigmatizing of our children? Yes, creating defeatism in kids who should be experiencing positive and reaffirming growth in who they truly are. The real culprit? An archaic, antiquated structure left over from the early 1900s that does not meet the needs of our students, or prepare them for their future, nor does it find, expose and develop their best individual talents. A primary culprit here is the ridiculous, counter-reality concept of “Grade Level.”
We group students together based upon their chronological age. Yet every study done about childhood acknowledges that children have different learning styles, mature at different ages, identify interest and talents at different points and from different stimuli, often differentiated by gender, geography and culture. Many new parents are often downright fanatical (and frantic) about measuring the tricks and skills their child shows at a particular age point. Yet at some ridiculously early age we put all of these individual kids together by age group and say “this is what you should now learn and show competency in.” Completely divorced from what the child’s potential and future may be, regardless of relevancy to the child.
It is assembly-line education ——— education’s version of Henry Ford’s Model-T automobile assembly line. The foreman’s job is to maintain order, ensure proscribed process, create outcomes to a predicted expectation, all the while judging the competency of the worker. The worker performs the specific detailed task, at the proscribed time, in the regulated manner dictated by the manufacturing plan. Our teaching is predominately done on the same model. Assembly-line students needed to become assembly-line workers.
So what is our true priority for educators, governments, and parents:
a) WHAT students learn, over time, when it may be relevant? Or;
b) B) WHEN students learn it? (or don’t learn it, as the case may be)
In this age of vast information and learning media made available easily and rapidly, with so many options possible for living one’s life, and longer lives capable of experiencing multiple forms of life and career within one lifetime, this narrow and limiting approach to education is not only not working, it is indefensible. Educating to the individual instead of to the statistical middle, presenting learning at the time that learning is ready to be absorbed, and helping children find and exploit their true talents and future life directions, should be our true goals for educating our children. But is this achievable in America, given our embedded institutions and way of thinking?
See forthcoming blog entry for Part 2 of this discussion.
Within NCLB, all children are to have equal access and equal, if not extra, support for their educational needs or shortcomings. Millions have been invested in tutors, extra learning programs, etc. to bring the lowest levels of learning up to a national par --- a par based upon defined expectations and outcomes for specific grade levels. Yet, as a recent TIME magazine article discusses, a significant portion of this support has come from redirected allocations for programs and opportunities for the brightest kids, the “gifted” ones. These students, forced to also work to the “statistical norm,” suffer from boredom and increasing social disconnections from their grade-level peer group. Dropout rates for the gifted can be as alarming as the dropout rates of the so-called underachievers. Home schooling continues on the rise, now affecting somewhere between 1-2 million students (according to one recent statistical report). The students who are in the statistical norm fluctuate on either side of ‘average,” and overall school dropout rates are still alarmingly high in many states (over a quarter of the students in my state of North Carolina).
Bad teaching going on? Yes, but there are lots of would-be good teachers trying to make a creative difference in “learning.” Teaching to the test? Absolutely, with avenues for creative thinking and expression from our kids rapidly disappearing. Stigmatizing of our children? Yes, creating defeatism in kids who should be experiencing positive and reaffirming growth in who they truly are. The real culprit? An archaic, antiquated structure left over from the early 1900s that does not meet the needs of our students, or prepare them for their future, nor does it find, expose and develop their best individual talents. A primary culprit here is the ridiculous, counter-reality concept of “Grade Level.”
We group students together based upon their chronological age. Yet every study done about childhood acknowledges that children have different learning styles, mature at different ages, identify interest and talents at different points and from different stimuli, often differentiated by gender, geography and culture. Many new parents are often downright fanatical (and frantic) about measuring the tricks and skills their child shows at a particular age point. Yet at some ridiculously early age we put all of these individual kids together by age group and say “this is what you should now learn and show competency in.” Completely divorced from what the child’s potential and future may be, regardless of relevancy to the child.
It is assembly-line education ——— education’s version of Henry Ford’s Model-T automobile assembly line. The foreman’s job is to maintain order, ensure proscribed process, create outcomes to a predicted expectation, all the while judging the competency of the worker. The worker performs the specific detailed task, at the proscribed time, in the regulated manner dictated by the manufacturing plan. Our teaching is predominately done on the same model. Assembly-line students needed to become assembly-line workers.
So what is our true priority for educators, governments, and parents:
a) WHAT students learn, over time, when it may be relevant? Or;
b) B) WHEN students learn it? (or don’t learn it, as the case may be)
In this age of vast information and learning media made available easily and rapidly, with so many options possible for living one’s life, and longer lives capable of experiencing multiple forms of life and career within one lifetime, this narrow and limiting approach to education is not only not working, it is indefensible. Educating to the individual instead of to the statistical middle, presenting learning at the time that learning is ready to be absorbed, and helping children find and exploit their true talents and future life directions, should be our true goals for educating our children. But is this achievable in America, given our embedded institutions and way of thinking?
See forthcoming blog entry for Part 2 of this discussion.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Presidential Election - August 2007
About six months into this overly-protracted election contest, the next set of some interim observations:
Biden: very smart and knowledgeable on foreign affairs. But unable to stand out overall.
Clinton: oozes assuredness and competence. Electable?
Dodd: very smart and knowledgeable on domestic affairs. No chance with the public.
Edwards: still hard to resolve the “substance” questions.
Gore: remains on the sidelines, unlikely to come in; the field is too strong for its base.
Gravel: counterweight to the discussions who cuts through political correctness, but too angry for any message to be heard.
Kucinich: has well thought-out positions that need to be heard, but won’t be able to convince the general election voters.
Obama: oozes charisma and believability, but questions of experience remain; has a couple of months left to convince. Memories of Michael Dukakis?
Richardson: still has the great resume, but cannot find a leadership style to sell.
Brownback: probably would have been Falwell’s choice.
Guliani: amazing performance thus far given the Republican base he bears no resemblance to. He wins the terrorism issue, but is that enough?
Huckabee: a rising star, the most reasonable and least dogmatic of the conservatives.
McCain: he may be the only person who doesn’t know it is over; now trying to reclaim his 2000 "straight talk," but too late? Very sad.
Romney: is there any real person under that façade?
Paul: Gravel, without the anger. The counterweight on the Republican side.
Tancredo: he would blow up the holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina if the Moslems don’t behave. That should certainly fix everything! Very, very scary person.
Thompson (Fred): still on the sidelines, but will come in; the field is too weak for its base. He will go through a fast “baptism by fire” that will unmask his positions.
Thompson (Tommy): gone.
What I Would Like To See (but probably won’t):
· An end to endless debates where people speak 1-2 minutes of buzzwords on major social / political issues
· More in-depth debates on one topic at a time with a selected mix of participants, e.g.:
+Gravel and Paul
+Kucinich and Trancredo (or Brownback)
+Hillary and Guliani
+Obama and Romney
+Biden and Huckabee
+Dodd and Thompson
+Edwards and McCain
· More candidates appearing on Charlie Rose’s in-depth 1:1 interviews (PBS late-night; highly recommended)
Biden: very smart and knowledgeable on foreign affairs. But unable to stand out overall.
Clinton: oozes assuredness and competence. Electable?
Dodd: very smart and knowledgeable on domestic affairs. No chance with the public.
Edwards: still hard to resolve the “substance” questions.
Gore: remains on the sidelines, unlikely to come in; the field is too strong for its base.
Gravel: counterweight to the discussions who cuts through political correctness, but too angry for any message to be heard.
Kucinich: has well thought-out positions that need to be heard, but won’t be able to convince the general election voters.
Obama: oozes charisma and believability, but questions of experience remain; has a couple of months left to convince. Memories of Michael Dukakis?
Richardson: still has the great resume, but cannot find a leadership style to sell.
Brownback: probably would have been Falwell’s choice.
Guliani: amazing performance thus far given the Republican base he bears no resemblance to. He wins the terrorism issue, but is that enough?
Huckabee: a rising star, the most reasonable and least dogmatic of the conservatives.
McCain: he may be the only person who doesn’t know it is over; now trying to reclaim his 2000 "straight talk," but too late? Very sad.
Romney: is there any real person under that façade?
Paul: Gravel, without the anger. The counterweight on the Republican side.
Tancredo: he would blow up the holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina if the Moslems don’t behave. That should certainly fix everything! Very, very scary person.
Thompson (Fred): still on the sidelines, but will come in; the field is too weak for its base. He will go through a fast “baptism by fire” that will unmask his positions.
Thompson (Tommy): gone.
What I Would Like To See (but probably won’t):
· An end to endless debates where people speak 1-2 minutes of buzzwords on major social / political issues
· More in-depth debates on one topic at a time with a selected mix of participants, e.g.:
+Gravel and Paul
+Kucinich and Trancredo (or Brownback)
+Hillary and Guliani
+Obama and Romney
+Biden and Huckabee
+Dodd and Thompson
+Edwards and McCain
· More candidates appearing on Charlie Rose’s in-depth 1:1 interviews (PBS late-night; highly recommended)
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Remembering Republicanism
My father was a life-long Republican. The only thing remarkable about this statement is that he was so throughout most of the 20th century while living in Arkansas. Which meant that his vote was essentially pointless given that Democrats won virtually every election and every office during that period. He never really told me why he was a Republican, leaving me to only speculate. Yet one of my early clear memories was sitting in front of our floor model radio listening to the 1952 presidential election returns, cheering on president-to-be Eisenhower.
During his life, he watched the Republican Party move from a center of northeast moderates to a western center of conservatism as espoused by Goldwater-Reagan. He did not live to see the more right-wing Republicanism of Gringrich-Bush, and I think that is just as well. I am not sure he would recognize modern Republicanism, and he certainly would have trouble supporting it.
My father was a businessman, and he knew Republicanism as a party reflecting business thinking (save Teddy Roosevelt, perhaps) which provided the necessary balance to Democratic populism. He believed fervently in the Constitution and the respect for the law that that document represented (which left him bewildered by the civil rights and anti-war demonstrators of the 60s, even if he might be sympathetic to some of their aspirations). He absolutely believed in keeping government out of our personal lives, and having a power to keep it always in check. And he was driven personally by a (perhaps unrealistically) high expectation of always seeking to act honorably from an ethical basis. So Richard Nixon was an inexplicable disappointment to him, while he continually respected the character and honest talk of Barry Goldwater. The Republican fixation on conservative spending and small government was fully in sync with his professional life as a Certified Public Accountant.
The Republican Party we see today in the White House and Congress bares no resemblance to this Republican Party of my father. The unbridled intrusion of the federal government into the private lives of our citizens --- under Bush’s all-encompassing rationale for his “war on terrorism”; the extreme deficit spending of our budget; the tax cuts and selective corporate tax breaks that have not generated promised off-setting revenues. Most importantly, the continuing ethical lapses, overtly politicized crassness of language, and the failure to take responsibility for one’s actions would have been abhorrent to him. That which the Republican Party once decried is that which the Party has become. For my father, honor and dignity were primary values. To have seen his party finally return to the majority, only to then see the current fallen standing of this government and his party, both internationally and here at home, would have been a severe disappointment and embarrassment to him.
We have seen so many times over what happens when institutions and individuals veer from their basic values and beliefs in the name of ambition and expediency. We learn and mature, and from such learning and maturity our values and beliefs can and should evolve, refine and change over time. But what has remained consistent over time are the American people and their basic common sense, who have always ultimately rejected extremism, hypocrisy and phoniness. Sometimes it just takes a little longer for them to clearly see the evidence, and to then make that rejection.
During his life, he watched the Republican Party move from a center of northeast moderates to a western center of conservatism as espoused by Goldwater-Reagan. He did not live to see the more right-wing Republicanism of Gringrich-Bush, and I think that is just as well. I am not sure he would recognize modern Republicanism, and he certainly would have trouble supporting it.
My father was a businessman, and he knew Republicanism as a party reflecting business thinking (save Teddy Roosevelt, perhaps) which provided the necessary balance to Democratic populism. He believed fervently in the Constitution and the respect for the law that that document represented (which left him bewildered by the civil rights and anti-war demonstrators of the 60s, even if he might be sympathetic to some of their aspirations). He absolutely believed in keeping government out of our personal lives, and having a power to keep it always in check. And he was driven personally by a (perhaps unrealistically) high expectation of always seeking to act honorably from an ethical basis. So Richard Nixon was an inexplicable disappointment to him, while he continually respected the character and honest talk of Barry Goldwater. The Republican fixation on conservative spending and small government was fully in sync with his professional life as a Certified Public Accountant.
The Republican Party we see today in the White House and Congress bares no resemblance to this Republican Party of my father. The unbridled intrusion of the federal government into the private lives of our citizens --- under Bush’s all-encompassing rationale for his “war on terrorism”; the extreme deficit spending of our budget; the tax cuts and selective corporate tax breaks that have not generated promised off-setting revenues. Most importantly, the continuing ethical lapses, overtly politicized crassness of language, and the failure to take responsibility for one’s actions would have been abhorrent to him. That which the Republican Party once decried is that which the Party has become. For my father, honor and dignity were primary values. To have seen his party finally return to the majority, only to then see the current fallen standing of this government and his party, both internationally and here at home, would have been a severe disappointment and embarrassment to him.
We have seen so many times over what happens when institutions and individuals veer from their basic values and beliefs in the name of ambition and expediency. We learn and mature, and from such learning and maturity our values and beliefs can and should evolve, refine and change over time. But what has remained consistent over time are the American people and their basic common sense, who have always ultimately rejected extremism, hypocrisy and phoniness. Sometimes it just takes a little longer for them to clearly see the evidence, and to then make that rejection.
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