Category Archives: culture

Civics in Education

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A great part of what ails our country is ignorance of our history and so of who we are—how the US came to be, how we got where we are today, the nature of our culture and ethnicity. This hasn’t been taught with any seriousness since the middle of the last century, beyond a couple of semesters of civics-like courses in high school and a once-over lightly few units of American and European history in grade school and junior high. Throughout the current century, civics, American history, the form and style of American governance, and the like almost are not taught at all. Symptomatic of this is the growing emphasis on identity politics and the differences among those who live in the US, rather than our share culture. Too often, we African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Chinese- or Japanese-Americans, etc. There’s too little thought given to the concept that we’re all Americans, full stop. American, albeit some of us might have African heritage, some of us might have Hispanic heritage, some of us might have Chinese or Japanese heritage, etc.

If we don’t know whence we—our nation—came, how can we be expected to understand who we are, or where we ought to go?

Civics, though, and Government also, and American history, English and European history, Western Civilization, are too important to be taught in a couple of semesters in high school with a few short programs in grade school and junior high school. These subjects must be taught, in depth, throughout every child’s K-12 education. Furthermore, they must not be taught from a moral equivalent or moral relativist perspective—our culture is at the core of our greatness, after all, and Civics and Government must be taught from that perspective. In the end, too, these courses need to be especially intensive for our immigrant children, as they’ll have, depending on their age when they enter our school systems, quite a bit of catching up to do.

It is, after all, how we came to be, how we arrived at our social compact, that led to our American ethnicity and our American culture—the very things that made us so powerful, so prosperous, and for which others from all over the world go to lengths they do (highly risky lengths in a large per centage of the cases) to become a part of.

Our culture and ethnicity can be preserved and strengthened only through the education of our children in these components of our culture. We need to go back to taking that seriously.

This also demonstrates the…foolishness…of the moral relativism (masqueraded often as “cultural proficiency”) of folks like Oxnard Union School District Superintendent Dr Gabe Soumakian, with his insistence that the patriotic chant of “USA! USA!” is—or may be in some mythical context—racist, himself racist. One might ask of Dr Soumakian whose cultural proficiency?

Paying Ransom

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Although I’m writing this article in the context of terrorist kidnappings, it should be noted that the principles discussed apply to any form of kidnapping.

The beheading of freelance journalist James Foley has forced a new debate between the longtime US and British refusal to negotiate with terrorists, and Europe and the Persian Gulf’s increasing willingness to pay ransoms in a desperate attempt to free citizens.

The case:

The dilemma: How to save the lives of captives without financing terror groups and encouraging more kidnappings.

Here’s the misunderstanding:

By paying ransoms, governments in the Mideast and Europe have become some of the biggest financiers of terror groups. By refusing to do likewise, the US and Britain are in the thankless position of putting their own citizens at a disadvantage.

The utilitarian side of this is that the ransoms do two things: they reward the terrorists for their labor—ransoms are nothing more than wages for work done—and ransoms fund terrorists’ future activities, from additional kidnappings as a continued source of funding to additional acts of outright terror.

As State’s Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf has indicated, ISIS already has collected millions of dollars in ransoms this year alone. That funds far more than additional kidnappings (although the ROI on kidnappings certainly has been attractive in its own right), it pays for a lot of terrorism, and not only for ISIS but for their clients. Those millions of dollars, also, is money with which to buy nuclear weapons from Iran and/or northern Korea.

Here’s Clinton Van Zandt, the FBI’s former chief hostage negotiator:

…government-paid ransoms help create “a growing cottage industry in kidnap ransoms.”

“You may get that person back that time, but what you’ve done is put a price tag on the head of every American overseas. And you’ve advertised that we pay to get Americans back.”

The moral side of paying ransom is quite simply stated: those who pay put the one they think they’re rescuing at risk of further kidnappings, both from the original kidnappers and from others who are looking for funding. Worse than that, those who pay the ransom are extending that risk to complete strangers. By making kidnapping a profitable enterprise, those payers make everyone a potentially profitable target for the project.

Paying the ransom also makes the payer, morally if not legally, an accessory to the crime: it’s tantamount to aiding and abetting; in the case of terrorists, it’s the moral equivalent of giving aid and succor to the enemy in time of war.

Clearly, then, the ones who put others at disadvantage are those who pay the “kidnappers” for their labors. And these also put their own citizens at greater risk by demonstrating empirically the returns to be had from the labor.

On the other hand, there is a morally, as well as politically and fiscally, sound alternative: to attempt rescue of hostages. That was how the US freed hostages in Colombia in 2008, for example, and Israel rescued hostages in Entebbe in 1976. That such efforts aren’t universally successful is demonstrated by the American attempt with Foley, the Son Tay raid in 1970, and the raid into Iran in 1980. However, it’s entirely too likely (although not certain) that the kidnapped victims will be killed, anyway. Such rescue attempts represent the only legitimate means, and they don’t pay the terrorists for their kidnapping labors.

This is, to be sure, a tough decision to make, wrought with emotion, but for all that, it’s the only right answer. We cannot betray the victims or their honor by attempting to purchase a sometime, ephemeral release.

—–

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

And

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods….

The Democrat’s View of “Justice”

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[State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D, MO)] predicted Friday that if prosecutors don’t win a conviction against the police officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown, it could trigger a new wave of unrest in Ferguson.

“There’s several people out there including the protesters that I’ve been with this morning who seem to feel as though there won’t be a conviction,” she told Fox News.

“If that happens, we’re going to have exactly what you saw two weeks ago, with a lot of tear gas going all over the place.”

There is, after all, only one Politically Correct outcome, and the facts don’t matter. Chappelle-Nadal will be sure and join the protestors to ensure the right outcome is achieved. Never mind a jury’s verdict.

And

[Senator Claire McCaskill’s, D, MO] office said Friday that the Department of Justice hasn’t given a timeline for the federal investigation, which centers on whether a civil rights violation occurred when officer Darren Wilson fatally shot the unarmed Michael Brown on Aug 9.

Nor will DoJ give a timeline. They’ll also not release their results until after the grand jury, and if necessary the subsequent trial, reach the wrong answer.

Because, votes.

A Gun Control Loss

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The gun rights sheriff incumbent, David Clarke Jr, defeated his Democratic primary challenger for the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) County job (and he’s in because there’s no Republican challenger for the fall general election). This also had been, among other things, a referendum on ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control philosophy, as that one had thrown down $150,000 on TV ads in his own attempt to influence the election.

However, primary challenger Milwaukee Police Lt Chris Moews‘ own justification for gun controls demonstrates the fallacy of the gun control position:

If I have the opportunity to defend myself and my family I will do so to the best of my abilities but I’m certainly also going to call 911 if I have the ability because I need the cavalry to come and help me.

Indeed. Because the cavalry—those police on the other end of that 911 call—are minutes away, plus the time to make the call, the man on the scene is the one who must deal first with the situation.

Moreover, as Moews intimated, it might not be possible for the man on the scene to make the call, leaving him without aid in facing the threat.

And there’s Moews’ implied strawman that an armed man wouldn’t call 911 at all.

Forcing that man to remain unarmed maximizes the danger to him.

e pluribus unum

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This post is adapted from a passage in Chapter 4 of my book A Conservative’s Manifesto.

What is the “many” in the title, the pluribus? When the phrase was first proposed for the Seal of the United States in 1776, it referred to the 13 States being joined into one nation. It has come to mean, in addition, the several peoples, religions, languages, heritages, and so on who come to the United States to join our great experiment in individual freedom and individual responsibility.

What is the one, the unum? That’s the point of this post.

We Americans take in and incorporate (note that verb) immigrants, and gladly so, for they bring fresh ideas as well as fresh approaches to old problems and a renewal of dedication to nation. However, we should not become our immigrants—they need to become Americans, or alternatively to recognize their resident alien status. Those who come to the United States do so for the opportunities here, and they’re welcome to share in these opportunities—immigrant and legal alien alike.   Immigrants come to America specifically for the economic opportunities, the political freedoms and opportunities, the sociological opportunities—in a word, for the American culture, which they know a priori to be different from their own—and which they understand to be the foundation of our American exceptionalism.

Immigrants need to adapt to, and assimilate into, our culture. Some will argue that this implies an imposition of a particular majority culture on minorities, but it is not an imposition. It is a recognition and an acceptance that to benefit from what America has to offer, to benefit from American opportunities, and to preserve these for Americans already present and for future Americans, native born and immigrant, it is necessary to preserve and to adapt to that which is America. Immigrants holding themselves apart denies to them the very reason they came—our opportunities and escape from the restraints of their old countries.

What immigrants must do is accept the current political structures, which they knew from the start, and take part in their new community. These new citizens, like the “original” citizens, must speak a common national language and share the commitment to maintaining and defending the nation. And so, having committed to the nation—to America—they will have their impact by engaging as citizens in our common discourse. However, this is not a demand for sublimation. On the contrary, once immigrants have become citizens, rather than having chosen to remain resident aliens, they can, they should, actively participate in that common discourse and make their influence concerning the nation’s goals and future through free discussion.

Parenthetically, the need to preserve these American attributes, these fundaments of American exceptionalism, emphasizes, also, the importance of providing civics courses that teach the American social contract and American citizenship in our schools, so as to reach all American citizens.