Click on the pic and scroll down to Rex Parker's definition of "nimrod". In 1973 I was studying history at Portland State University.
There was a lot of pressure to study music. I would later receive a scholarship at Oregon State to sing. That year I was simply playing my horn in the university band and studying history. Music I could do. History? It's the narrative of social evolution. And I had a fantastic US History prof at PSU. His lectures were galvanizing.
I know that a lot of his lectures put other students to sleep. This man read from lecture notes that were probably started thirty years previously. But his grasp on American history was phenomenal.
Are antecedents necessary for consequences? Does push come before shove?
As a side note, I never understood the divorce between a Political Science department and the university's History department. Imagine studying epidemiology without studying disease. Few "political scientists" actually know little of what they speak, as a result. Which gets me to the following:
It was in 1974 that
Russell Richey wrote "American Civil Religion (Mellen University Press 1974)". One of the precepts of this work was that the best indication of the meaning of mens' words was the simple words themselves. At the time I objected to this. But over time I have--more or less--accepted this fundamental. This against backdrop of my early years and fascination with both the absurdity and image of the story of the
Tower of Babel. (For a fun introduction to the mythology surrounding, listen to Benjamin Britten's "Rejoice In The Lamb",
Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter. You can listen to an excerpt from the work
here. This courtesy of MIT's
Chamber Chorus.)
That is to say, that over the years I have found myself in agreement with Professor Richey. The simplest path to understanding a man is to listen to his simple words. Let those words speak for themselves. This can be difficult. Many of us have a hard time reading serious writing. So the path to understanding the views of another are conditioned upon our own willingness to read these words. My best advice is, before you attempt to read Satanic Verses is that you read Giles Goat-Boy first. Sorta ease into the metaphor before you attempt shifting into another culture. (Metaphor/metaphenomenal...another push/shove example.)
So, I present these words:
"I am proud, very proud, to have come to public office as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. And if a few of my positions have raised your concern that I have forgotten my political heritage, I want to assure you that I have not, and I am as proud of that association today as I was then. My record in public office taken as a whole is the record of a mainstream conservative. I believe today, as I believed twenty-five years ago, in small government; fiscal discipline; low taxes; a strong defense, judges who enforce, and not make, our laws; the social values that are the true source of our strength; and, generally, the steadfast defense of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which I have defended my entire career as God-given to the born and unborn."
Do you know who
spoke these words? It is a man for whom words seem easily spoken. And during the next eight months you're going to hear a lot about the words of this man.
I am not a foot-soldier of the Reagan Revolution, having campaigned for John Anderson at that time. I have never been far from my political heritage. I celebrate the lives of Patrick Henry, John Adams and Madison, have read with glee the works of Diderot and Rousseau, Newton and Smith. I've been amused by the perniciousness of Berkeley and the brilliance of Johnson. I can only imagine hoisting a glass with Swift. And read with uncloaked admiration for the writings of John Marshall Harlan.
My belief is in myself. I have none of
Ellison's pessimism. Instead, I have the optimism of
Solzhenitsyn, who, writing of some of the darkest days of socialist tyranny shared the quintessential joy of merely being human. The life of
Natan Sharansky. I have walked the streets of Moscow during the time of the
FSU. Talked to intelligent men and women who wanted their freedom and yet yearned for a return to Communism. Having fought so long, freedom terrified them.
Freedom is terrifying. It is, in essense, the source of existential debate. It is the source of all religion. Uncertainty. What is going to happen? Perhaps, God Knows.
What I know is that simple solutions are rarely simple. We are the only creatures on this earth that propose to emplace rules upon our behaviour as externals to choice. All for "good" reasons. But a re-imposition of thought police, the kind and type exhibited by
McCain-Feingold, is counter to thousands of years of political, social and cultural evolution. Most of us rely upon Louis Brandeis' "sunlight is the best disinfectant" when talking about First Amendment Rights. (Interesting citation and article
here.pdf) What one candidate for president has done comes as a break in our political tradition, best evidenced in
New York Times v. Sullivan (1964):
"(b) Expression does not lose constitutional protection to which it would otherwise be entitled because it appears in the form of a paid advertisement. Pp. 265-266. [255]"
So, when one candidate offers himself up to us as a "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution" one needs to ask,
huh?
"In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty--that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom."
Tear down this wall. Chilling words. Bleak. Hopeful. Optimistic. Frightening. Elegiac.
"Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
My criticisms of Reagan's political campaign and its consequences on the composition of the Republican party have been shared before. It is not, in my view, the party of evangels. That their views are in part reflected by the respect Republicans pay to those with religious beliefs is not to say we need impose those religious beliefs. The freedom to worship is the freedom to accept beliefs. I can't believe that Jesus wished to impose. "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."
You can't force belief. You can force a lie. Lies must be forced. Reason must not be allowed time to gather up her skirts. And yet, at the end of the day, that's all we have, neh?
