Today upon the Stoa, I sweep off the empty beer cans, stack up the protest signs, and scrub the anatomically impossible slogans off the walls. I have been away from the Stoa, attending to life and other such things. In my absence, all that was in decline continues to decline. That which was worrisome has become terrifying. Thoughtful contemplation turns to meloncholy.
Since 2012, the American Culture Wars have become global, though I'm certain they always were, we just did not notice. Our Technology is plundered, our children and grandchildren endebted, thought has become regulated, five-year olds can be suspended from school for using the word, "she", people can be denied a boarding pass on a plane for having a cartoon drawing of an imaginary weapon on his t-shirt. Corruption is no longer hidden, but proudly on display. American royalty, worshipped in place of God. Uncontrolled, ney, encouraged illegal immigration, abdication of space exploration, flouting of common morals and common sense...memory holes and thought rehabilitation.
Where to start? Where to begin tying up all that has become frayed? Is the America of my childhood dead and gone? That of my parents and grandparents certainly is. In fact, it was dying, in stages, for the last 150 years, I would suppose. We are only just now, in the terminal stages of something that started a long time ago. My only hope is that President Trump could be our Diocletian, our Constantine. A chance to arrest the slide, go give our Republic one last chance at redemption.
In my humble, amature historian, opinion, the seeds of today's major problems stem from the converging cultural, religious, political, and geopolitical detritus of the American Civil War. Feel free to disagree, in fact, it is your intellectual right to do so; however, this is my site personal musings, so if it irritates you too much, simply browse away and leave in peace.
So, to expand upon my thoughts.
I believe that the Civil War was more about defining the 10th Amendment to the Constitution then it was about Slavery. Slavery, as an institution in America was in decline. Cheap labor, import/export imbalances and all that were secondary to the centralizing tendency of the Federal Government. Every power that the Federal Government took, or reserved, for itself, was a denial of the State's ability to excessive said power. The Consitution enumerated quite clearly what the Federal Government could or could not do. However, if the State acquiesced and did not challenge (as the Supreme Court has ruled about Congress), then the theft becomes an accepted exception to the Law. Southern States had their own vision and the North had theirs. We shared language and religion, common historical parentage, and a desire for our home State to thrive and prosper. The issue of Slavery has simmered and boiled for decades, a thorn even in the side of our Framers. A confluence of history and a spark set off the Civil War. When a forest burns, its encourages new growth. Change and evolution is granted space to experiment. I leave it to you to draw specifics, there is certainly not enough to space to get bogged down here. On to the next.
President Andrew Johnson. President Lincoln had a vision for Reconstruction and Reconcilliation between North and South. Republicans in Congress had their vision, and the President had his. Unfortunately for Johnson, the swinging pendulum of Presidental vs Congressional power had swung back towards Congress, and they had powerful interest groups to enrich, er, listen to. If the stated goal of Reconstruction was to mainstream blacks into free society then it failed. I'm thinking Jim Crow laws, tax polls, reading rules, KKK (version 1.0, 2.0, etc.) and other variety of Democrat inventions. Republican members castrated Johnson and saw to it that he got nothing done, and when he dared attempt to go around them, he got impeached. Now we arrive at the dawn of Progressivism.
The Constitutional amendment allowing the Federal Senators to be elected via popular vote. This was not what our Framers intended. The Federal Senators were supposed to above the civil emotions of the masses and remain true to the States, fighting for their rights just as the Representatives in the House were fighting for the constituency. This placed a major warp in our governmental machinery. The carefully constructed checks and balances, structure within structure slowly broke down. The Senate simply became a more elite version of the House, regardless of what all the original arguments for the amendment promised.
The creation of the Federal Reserve. This Progressive monster had been aborted twice in our nations' history. The first was killed early on when someone noticed it was unconstitutional and had it dissolved. The second time was by the only Democrat I could have voted for, President Andrew Jackson (I see a lot of Trump in him). Jackson too found it unconstitutional, however, this time, the Supreme Court said that somehow this time it was ok. He dissolved it anyhow. When told he was disobeying the High Court his response was something along the lines of, "what police force are they in charge of?" However, this time it stuck. It was a major crack in the foundations of the Republic. Immediately the value of the dollar began to decline. The stated purpose of the FR was to prevent or dampen the cyclical nature of the American free market economy. Too much boom boom pretty soon boo boo, to borrow a common phrase. This same progressive was to ram through another amendment allowing federal taxation. For some reason, this was necessary, though for the entire past hundred plus years a Federal Tax was unnessary. We built the Erie Canal, the Panama Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, built bridges and turnpikes and fought a dozen wars (1812, Civil, and WWI to name a few ) all without a permanent Federal Tax. Sounds do me like a quickly centralizing Federal Beauracracy was getting greedy.
Coupled with these dry historical facts is the complex cycles of culture. I recommend a series of books by the authors of the good "Generations" for an in-depth explaination of those complex, cyclical changes in our society. To give a brief over-view of these changes just consider how our morals swing back and forth over time. Victorian morals as it related to a woman's virtue gave way to Flappers and independent women. Hollywood in the 20's and 30's and 40' had ALOT of what we would call Rated R films that were mainstream for the public audience of all ages. Then things swung back hard the other way and in a short time you had "My Three Sons" and "Leave it Beaver", plus Hollywood clamped down on nudity and suggestive behavior. Twenty short years later and you had Helter Skelter and It and Rosemary's Baby, plus a host of other....types of films. Depending on when hisorical events land in the cultural cycle depends on how much of a 'big' deal that event becomes. More on that in another post.
The Progressive Era never really died, it simply evolved to camoflage itself. It created Copy Books and slowly infiltrated the schools and the courthouses. It changed its name and its appearance, but it was always there, building the "Uniparty". A single political agenda, but one with full fat and the other, slightly less fattening. Democrat and Republican, two wings of the same party. Granted, not all at once, and not all the time. There were notible exceptions to this, but if you draw a trending line, it will trend straight towards Uniparty.
So much, so much. So many threads. I grow more and more certain that there are hands at the other end of those threads, tugging and pulling to get us to jump one way or the other. The hands change over time, but the purpose seems insidiously consistent.
I have returned to the Stoa and will muse and ponder my seemingly contradictory stances and thoughts, though if you think about them long enough, you will begin to see the symmetry. Time to sweep off the rest of the trash and garbage that has polluted my Stoa over the years. More to come.
As always, live well.
Zavost
