DID TRUMP SCREW UP THE CORONA VIRUS RESPONSE PART II: ANOTHER RESPONSE TO MY FRIEND BJORN JÜRGEN FLÜRGEN

Trump, Trump, Trump. Trumptrumptrumptrumptrump. Stop obsessing and you will be happier.



I don’t want to defend Trump; I want to defend the truth, which is simply that he’s not as bad as he’s portrayed. It’s not a sexy argument, I know. Trump is one man, an abrasive one at that, but the media and Trump-hating elites is a whole class of people. Their hate, corruption and dishonesty is far more damaging to the country than Trump. IMHO.



Here is a lesson we should learn: The President matters less than he (or she or ze or zir) seems. Presidents oversee a vast bureaucracy. It is a fact that the president rarely has a clue what the bureaucrats are doing. It’s why Trump refers to the Deep State constantly. You argued Trump is responsible for all the death because he’s the leader and the buck stops with him. That’s a nice sentiment and a useful one to guard against leaders being unaccountable. In reality, it’s ludicrous. Human beings control what they can control. Leaders set tone, enforce standards, choose goals, and create organizational culture, but they don’t have mind control over their subordinates.  Trump dismantled the NSA pandemic team and turned down WHO testing kits in favor of our own that didn’t work as well? Well, for one, conservatives are always trying to reduce the size of government. If 90% of the time, it’s a good idea, the 10% of the time it backfires, people like you scream about blood on our hands. Bigger government fixes problems? Ok. If you want to have this debate, I can bring my 237 volume “Encyclopedia of Government Waste and Idiocy” as exhibit A. And I’m certain somebody somewhere has quantified how many deaths have been the direct cause of bureaucratic ineptitude.



You suggested Trump’s travel ban was porous, more a press release than lock down. Fine. But what you are arguing is that this “racist” and “reactionary” travel ban, which came only one day after W.H.O. declared the international crisis and with only six Covid cases in the, should have been tougher and earlier. Should Trump have stranded Americans overseas? Can you imagine the weeping and gnashing of teeth?



People like you and I, sitting in our living rooms imbibing propaganda formerly known as news, simply cannot know whether Trump’s handling has been incompetent. We are not privy to the myriad of meetings and advice he gets. After this mess is over, when Dr. Fauci and the rest retire and write their books and when the responses to those books come out, then we will know. What we do know is that he has supposedly followed most of the scientific advice he’s gotten. Trump holds daily briefings and, right beside him are the government’s top scientists who sometimes correct his verbal bumbling, artfully, in real time. Are those the actions of a Macchiavellian tyrant?



Hatred has discombobulated the Trump haters so much that none can treat him or, more importantly, the truth, fairly. Greg Gutfield said the other day that if Trump cured cancer, the headline would be “Trump Cures Cancer, a Common Affliction of White Supremacists.” And yes, in some circles, the headline would be “Trump Cures Cancer: Is he God?” Sadly, the response to Covid-19 is politicized to the point of endangering society. Protecting the narrative is everything. My point is not to defend Trump, but to argue that the truth has been bashed to the point of unrecognizability. You want this to be about science only? Fine. A few questions for you:



Was it science that…

1.       Closed beaches and isolated horse trails when 90% or so of infections come from a person’s home and not outdoors?

2.       Shut down rural counties with few infections, treating them the same as extremely dense population centers?

3.       Caused police to issue fines for people sitting in their cars listening to church services on their radios?

4.       Caused American doctors to use Hydroxychloroquine at far lower rates than international doctors, who said it was the most effective drug?  Or was it because dirtbag partisans called it “snake oil”? Science now says it helps people in early stages and not in late stages.

5.       Caused W.H.O. to say Covid-19 could not be transmitted human to human as late as January 14th or did they blindly promote Chinese propaganda?

6.       Caused W.H.O. to not publicize Taiwan’s warnings on 12/31/19 that the virus spread from human to humans?

7.       Caused W.H.O. and CDC to tell us wearing masks was pointless? “Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” Surgeon General Adams wrote on Twitter. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus…” That was all a lie.

8.       Causes the W.H.O. to now say that Sweden’s strategy of not shutting down whole economies is a potential model for the rest of the world? Maybe. If so, why such certainty about the opposite before?

9.       That caused New York state to order care facilities to take back Covid patients when possibly 50% of all Covid deaths are in nursing homes or long-term care facilities?

·   25% of NY state deaths were in nursing homes/LCF’s.

·   70% of PA deaths are in nursing homes/LCF’s.

10.   That caused governors to shut down schools when there have been a grand total of 3 Covid deaths of children in the country?

11.   That caused the whole country to shut down when…

·         Almost ¾ of the deaths are people over 65 and 95% over 45.

·         75% of total deaths had or possibly had underlying conditions.

·         80% of total deaths were over 65 AND had or possibly had underlying conditions.

Wouldn’t it be better to just quarantine those over 60? Why aren’t states sending inspectors to nursing homes daily? Why are they forcing nursing homes to take back Corona patients? Why isn’t literally every nursing home employee and patient tested?


Age of Coronavirus Deaths

Data by New York City Health as of April 14:

AGE	Number of Deaths	Share of deaths	With underlying conditions	Without underlying conditions	Unknown if with underlying cond.	Share of deaths of unknown + w/o cond.
0 - 17 years old	3	0.04%	3	0	0	0%
18 - 44 years old	309	4.5%	244	25	40	1.0%
45 - 64 years old	1,581	23.1%	1,343	59	179	3.5%
65 - 74 years old	1,683	24.6%	1,272	26	385	6.0%
75+ years old	3,263	47.7%	2,289	27	947	14.2%
TOTAL	6,839	100%	5,151	137	1,551	24.68%

YAY SCIENCE!

I’ve already discussed that scientists’ opinions are as valuable as my belly button lint.  But even with actual science, 50% of all peer-reviewed science articles can’t be replicated. 70% of all scientists have tried to replicate experiments and failed. “Many scholars agree that the main reason for the spread of fake news in scientific journals is the tremendous pressure in the academic system to publish in high-impact journals.” “14% of scientists claim to know a scientist who has fabricated entire datasets, and 72% say they know one who has indulged in other questionable research practices such as dropping selected data points to sharpen their results.” We all love science with its antibiotics and internet and stuff, but maybe science lovers should have SOME GOD DANG HUMILITY!



As of 4/21/20, Trump did the following:

1.       Instituted travel ban.

2.       Temporarily shut down some forms of immigration.

3.       Modified many federal regulations to speed up delivery/manufacture of PPE.

4.        Distributed 57.4 million N95 masks, 85.3 million surgical masks, 6.4 million face shields, 12.3 million surgical gowns, 638 million gloves, and 10,998 ventilators.

5.       Ordered American company 3M to sell masks to Americans rather than foreign nations.

6.       Ordered GM to manufacture ventilators through the Defense Production Act.

7.       America has tested 4.3 million samples, more than all other countries combined.

8.       Deployed 5,528 military personnel to hospitals and other facilities.

9.        Called, 28,700 National Guard to duty.

10.   Established “Project Airbridge”, a public/private partnership to pick up and deliver crucial supplies.

Could Trump have done better? Maybe. But clearly he did some stuff. Could he have been less of a clown? Unquestionably. Yet, those who are saying ridiculous things like he has blood on his hands are not looking for the truth. For the haters, I think Trump’s greatest crime is that he embarrasses us. Yet, idiot or not, he usually listens to his people and he’s been rather successful overall. And that is good leadership. You surround yourself with people smarter than you, with contrary opinions, and you make choices unapologetically. And that is largely what he has done.

DID TRUMP SCREW UP THE CORONA VIRUS RESPONSE?: A RESPONSE TO MY FRIEND BJORN JÜRGEN FLÜRGEN

OK. I read the Atlantic piece from former GW Bush speechwriter David Frum. It reads like a scorned wife’s affidavit for divorce court, filled with obsessive detail and an ‘oh-so-certain-ness’ that the arguments are air tight and damning. Please.



Frum scorches Trump for not reacting earlier in January. Here’s Nancy Pelosi on February 24^th strolling around Chinatown in San Francisco, telling everybody to come and buy stuff because “we’re on top of it.” On March 4, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper said Corona was less dangerous than the flu. When Trump issued his travel ban from China, there were only six confirmed cases in the U.S. SIX. Clearly, a lot people didn’t know much early on. As data became available, it changed opinions.



Conservatives were skeptical at first because we’re used to leftist hysteria about health and environmental issues (vaccines, genetically modified food, global warming, overpopulation, dead polar bears, etc.) Our bias probably caused us, (me) to underreact for a while. Not anymore. But now, conservatives are pushing to reopen the economy because, while the left takes wealth for granted, conservatives believe a good economy requires good policy. The longer the quarantine, the more likely we trigger a depression. Economic harm causes real harm: suicides, alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse, etc. We will not know for a while, may never know, whether anybody’s actions were the right ones. We should be somewhat generous in judging people’s motives. I think both liberals and conservatives are doing their best and are genuinely scared of the consequences, just different ones.



Frum criticized Trump for bureaucratic problems like the CDC sending out defective testing kits. NEWSFLASH: Conservatives love talking about bureaucratic ineptitude. The leftist argument is always that more money will make bureaucracy work. Sure. One thing Frum mentioned might be legitimate, however, the fact that states were in bidding wars for ventilators and Trump should’ve used his emergency powers to end this. Maybe. It’s always more complicated but this is legitimate to debate.



Frum, typing furiously in a miniskirt and red heels, proved he’s a prostitute when he argued that the powerful economy under Trump was Obama’s. After a historic drop, the economy was teed up to rocket back to good times. Obama deployed liberal policies and got the most anemic recovery in history. Trump channeled Milton Friedman (mostly) and, as conservatives would predict, the economy boomed. An alleged conservative, Frum used weak Democratic talking points to counter the best modern case for long-standing conservative dogma. What a shill. The lesson? Trump Derangement Syndrome kills brain cells. And honesty.



Trump is slimy. He is also a trolling savant, and the press’ Pavlovian, epileptic fits show they are eager to wallow in the same filth. They are reactive and dishonest. Lounging on the weekends in their Harvard sweat shirts, they are mediocrities.



FromJonah Goldberg: Lots of people I know have convinced themselves to play the Trump game—pro and anti—because it is so vitally important to be “relevant.” Some of the folks who’ve ridden the Red vs. Blue horse for so long have cut a groove in the earth so deep that it’s now a trench they can’t climb out of…They have to blame the media or Trump for everything, reading from a script that no longer fits the plot or the actors on the stage. And one of the funny things about trenches is that, when you’re in one, it becomes all the easier for people to see over your head.

LETTER TO MY FRIEND KIRK VAN HOSENPFEFFER

or 

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trump.

Dear Kirk,



After your last tirade over text, I decided I must destroy you. Well, not you, just your belief system. You’re a good guy.



In “The Coddling of the American Mind”, liberals Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff present three leftist lies taking hold of the younger generation:

1.       What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.

2.       Always trust your feelings.

3.       Life is a battle between good and evil people.

The lies are nefarious enough as untruths but the real problem is their effect on the mind. The science says these beliefs cause anxiety, depression and resentment. They also tear us apart.



The core difference between right and left is not racism or greed but beliefs about the nature of man. The left believes man is good from birth. Or maybe with tweakable software waiting for the right programmer. Pain is an unnatural state caused by poor education, insufficient resources or racism or whatever. It’s not you; it’s the world. We could totally fix things, of course, if not for conservative obstructionism. But one man’s good idea is another man’s crazy scheme. Conservatives ask, “Yeah, but will it work?” We believe in progress, too. Life has gotten immeasurably better in the last few centuries (Thanks to OUR principles. You’re welcome.) But there are no “hacks” to life, no solutions, only tradeoffs. Plans that rely on society becoming more kind or selfless? Please. If you don’t believe humanity is flawed and selfish, you are doomed to forever watch the news in a state of confusion.

WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU WEAKER

This belief in fragility, the need for young minds to be protected from bad ideas, is not universal on the left but the underlying principle is that human happiness rests on the right experiences, the right structures, the right environment. If everything aligns, if a child is free from material want, indoctrinated into the ways of peace and brotherly love, that child is destined for happiness. The unintended consequences of this “safetyism”, however, are feelings of weakness, lack of control and disempowerment. Against it stands the whole of human history and the obvious point that some of the most wealthy and advantaged have also been the most miserable.



Some of the greatest humans in history have had deeply troubled pasts. Abraham Lincoln’s mother died. His father beat and berated him and Lincoln was so depressed at times, he was on suicide watch. Winston Churchill’s father was cold, harsh and abusive. In contrast, Hitler had a normal childhood, was a vegetarian, treated his mistress, subordinates and dog with kindness and respect. As the body needs exercise and stress, so does the human will and spirit. All are born with burdens. Happiness rests on overcoming them and choosing goodness.

Hitler’s dog Blondi: “I know, but he was a good master!”

ALWAYS TRUST YOUR FEELINGS

T.H. Huxley said, “A man’s worst problems begin when he is able to do as he likes.” An atheist, he agreed with the Christian notion of universal depravity. The anti-religious left mocks the religious and claims the mantle of reason but when you embrace notions of inherent goodness, you must also believe that feelings within are mostly trustworthy. Yet, think of people who follow not a code but their desires, who satiate every whim and act on every feeling. Are they good and decent people? More likely they are monsters. The screaming toddler acts on feeling. The man has learned to master his.



Haidt, in a previous book called “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Disagree on Politics and Religion”, describes research showing humans are inherently bad at reason. He describes the mind as an elephant and a rider. The elephant (subconscious mind or worldview) goes where it chooses. The rider’s job (the intellect) is to come up with post hoc reasoning for the elephant’s movements. Social science does not say man cannot reason but it does say objectivity is remarkably uncommon. Without considerable effort, the stew of biases, painful experiences and fears shape our beliefs. Feelings are not good guides for life. We would do well to examine where they have led us astray.



The conservative solution is to embrace reason as superior to emotion but also to tame our wild minds with the bridle and bit of doctrine and tradition. The answer is to choose what is tried and true, some proven system that has worked over time. Feelings betray us. Reason fails us. Look to the future, yes, but respect the past. Imperfect as this is, there is no other way. 

"TRADITIOOOOOOOOON, TRADITION!"

LIFE IS A BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL PEOPLE

Karl Marx’s contribution to the modern left is the idea that the classes are and should be at war. Conservatives talk about growing the economic pie for everyone. Marx says, “STOP EATING ALL THE FRICKIN’ PIE!” Rigged from the start, there is no game everybody can win, only winners and losers. What puzzles Omnipotentblog is that, after a century of failure, anyone is still attracted to socialism. It has been tried on all continents among all races, in states both industrialized and agrarian, totalitarian and free, in countries mountainous, tropical, and flat, in countries hot and cold. It has failed every time. Miserably. “What about Denmark? Or Sweden?” Listen to Denmark’s president scold Bernie Sanders, saying Denmark is most certainly not socialist. 



In the 60’s, thinkers like Herbert Marcuse argued that if tolerance for opposing ideas was not abandoned, society would never progress. Marcuse sowed the seeds of our current fractiousness because he understood the leftist vision could never transpire democratically. How could justice ever be realized except through imposition? Interests are too entrenched. Martin Luther King Jr. was successful because he thrust in America’s face the hypocritical rejection of our own values. We had only to live up to what we already believed. The current thinking on race is the opposite of King’s spirit of common humanity. Ta-Nehisi Coates argues that whites have the irredeemable stain of original sin. There is no reconciliation, only rectification. Can this ever work? Can the races truly never live as friends and equals until the darker-skinned get their turn at cracking the whip? Intersectionality forces on us a lens of conflict, revenge over peace, hate over love. One is victim. The other is victimizer. No others. Aren’t people more complicated than this? These philosophies allow no room for good white people or bad people of color. Isn’t that the very definition of racism and bigotry, to judge men not by actions but by accidents of birth? Ask yourself another question: If it’s good for people of color to fashion identities primarily from race, why wouldn’t whites do the same? What would be the likely result of a white racial awakening?



Kirk, think of the barrage of commentary you imbibe on MSNBC. Try this: Every time you hear “black,” substitute it for “white”, “Republican” for “Democrat.” If you are honest, you will see an ideology of hate, a fear that only through tearing opponents down, can they achieve success. Can you not see that it is the most cynical manipulation by people who think you are stupid? The fact they most certainly believe at least some of their own preaching makes it no less propagandistic.



In my next piece, I’m going to show you America is not the bastion of racism you believe it is and conservatives are, by and large, decent people.

TRUMP: WWJD?

Omnipotentblog just finished reading “The Immoral Majority” by Ben Howe. Evangelical Christians, he proclaims, have sold their soul to the devil who has taken the form of Donald Trump. Howe, himself an evangelical conservative, claims that political power has become an idol. As a child, he asked his father why so many people weren’t Christian. His father replied, “because so many Christians are jerks.” And there is the central theme: Christians are jerks. If they like Trump.



The book was painful to read, mainly because of the constant eye-rolling. Yet, Howe was infuriating not only because of his frequent non sequiturs, shabby logic, and clear-as-mud writing, but because some of what he wrote was true. It is hard to hear painful truths about one’s own tribe. The author, seemingly sincere in his lamentations, had plenty of low-hanging fruit to pick, much of it supplied by the likes of Jerry Fallwell Jr. and the phalanx of high-profile pastors surrounding Trump.



Howe skewers those who put Trump on a messiah pedestal, evoking the “anointed” Persian King Darius as another ungodly man who did the bidding of a sovereign God. Howe rightly points out that God could advance His cause through Hillary Clinton just as easily. Howe also calls attention to the rank hypocrisy of those like James Dobson who savaged Bill Clinton for sexual promiscuity but respond to Trump’s base appetites with a resounding “meh.” He also lashes out at those who claim Trump is a genuinely God-fearing man, with his favorite verses in “Two Corinthians”, his talk of “the little wine and the little crackers”, and his astonishing claim he never felt the need to repent.

  "He's not the messiah. He's a very naughty boy."

HEADLINE:

“Trump Requests Pastor Change Bread and Wine to Champagne and Crab Cakes, Says It Will Class Up the Joint.”



Howe is somewhat reminiscent of Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard looked at society and recoiled at the hypocrisy and corruption. He viewed Christendom itself as the mortal enemy of authentic Christ-centered living. In Kierkegaard’s developmental theory, the pleasure-seeking “aesthetic life” seeks to use human wiles to transform the boring into the interesting. It is carnal, a stage of immaturity to be passed on the way to an “ethical” and “religious” life. There is much to love about Kierkegaard but this bears resemblance to the old gnostic heresy that the material is evil and the spiritual is good. 20^th Century theologians Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer rejected this. Bonhoeffer asked who can cultivate music, friendship, games and enjoyment of life? “Certainly not the ‘ethical’ man, but only the Christian,” whose cost of discipleship is attended by Christian liberty.



You might say, “Omnipotentblog, why you always bringin’ up boring philosophers and people nobody knows?” To which I reply, “It’s my blog and I’ll bore if I want to, bore if I want to, bore if I want to.” The point is to make a…point…about Christian engagement with the culture. Like Kierkegaard’s Denmark, America was once largely Christian. Surprisingly, the overall decline in religiosity and identification has come wholly amongst non-churchgoers. Church attendance has actually remained steady. The secular left, crowing from its cultural heights, has gone on the attack, shutting down bakeries and screaming at teenaged drive through employees for daring to believe, nay, associate with people who believe the Bible. The loss of the culture and its protections is frightening. One response is to close the shutters, lock the doors and sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” in our living rooms but in a very quiet voice. The “Benedict Option” makes this argument, saying it’s time to become entrenched and disengage. Bollocks.


In “Dynamic Christianity vs. the Benedict Option,” an excellent piece, Rachel Lu writes that the world desperately needs the influence of Christianity and she implores Christians to be the salt and light of the world. She writes, “Jesus was not a politician but his political savvy was on full display on the final day of his mortal life.” Interrogated by the Sanhedrin, he toyed with the Pharisees. They knew he had previously called them snakes and vipers, telling his followers to obey them but not to emulate their example. Interrogated by the Roman governor Pilate, he was coy, at times reasoning with him and at others remaining silent.


Interpreting Jesus’ engagement with the Jewish government is tricky. His attacks on the authorities had primarily religious motivations but in a theocracy, this cannot be extricated from the general welfare. His famous dictate to “render unto Ceasar” was a command to submit to earthly authorities and also a reminder that His kingdom (and ours) is not of this world, a disappointment to the many Jews who desperately hoped the messiah was a temporal one who would overthrow Rome. Jesus’ episodes of political engagement are, like much in the Bible, somewhat up to interpretation. What He certainly did not do, was shy away from calling out sin. He turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple, grabbed a whip and went Indiana Jones on them.



What does this mean for Christians responding to Trump?  We should be reminded to not be “unequally yoked” with unbelievers. And concerning protecting ourselves from destruction, Howe rejects grasping at short term political victories at the cost of long-term losses. He is also correct in pointing out the lesson of the cross, that losing in the political realm is not the same as losing in the spiritual.



Would Jesus be a Republican? The Bible is frustratingly silent on governing: no advice on tax policy, social welfare, or democracy. Yet, Christians should care about policy, about the moral elements of poverty, justice and the rule of law, the sanctity and health of the family, unborn human life and other issues upon which conservative Christians feel the survival of the nation depends. How should we feel about Trump? Well, if one’s conscience agrees with what Trump is doing, one is morally bound to support him. The rub is that the man’s temperament and character seem so vile it should at least prick the conscience. It is tempting, seemingly almost imperative, to cheerlead this troubled protector of Christendom to victory. But here’s a simple truth: In doing so, Christians must remain….Christian. So if one simply adds up the math of Trump’s policies and persuasions through a Christian lens, I assert without waver that Trump is the lesser of two evils. To be a mega MAGA fan, however, a doughy-eyed rabid supporter, is to hurt the true cause, the only one that really matters. To be hated for upholding the truth of the gospel, sexual purity, the distinction of the sexes, and other controversial notions, is to obey Christ. To be hated for attaching yourself to a cretinous wanker is not.



BONUS MATERIAL: I wrote an 8 page piece some time ago arguing that the Bible contradicts modern progressivism and supports conservatism. If you want to read it, I will send it. Or, if my millions of readers clamor for it, I’ll post it.

JUDGING AMERICA Part II

“The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are…Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.”



You see, if not for slavery, the nation and its strength would not exist.



In leaked audio from an emergency townhall meeting with staff members, NYT executive editor Dean Baquet admitted the failure of his paper in pushing one narrative, the false Russian collusion story. Rather than just reporting the news, he announced the creation of another narrative.

“We built our newsroom to cover one story, and we did it truly well. Now we have to regroup, and shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story…this one is a story about what it means to be an American in 2019. It is a story that…requires imaginative use of all our muscles to write about race and class in a deeper way than we have in years.”

1619’ers argue that slavery provided the capital for the industrial revolution, propelling the nation to its current exalted status. It is uncontroversial to say slavery was big business. Northern textile factories certainly benefitted. Between 1800 and 1860, “King Cotton” was the primary driver of the Antebellum South’s wealth. American exports accounted for 66% of the world’s cotton. However, in “Did Slavery Make America Richer?”, Vincent Geloso uses copious data to assert that slavery’s windfall has been greatly exaggerated. Almost no cotton was grown in the United States in 1787. Geloso claims that per capita growth was actually greater in the North between 1800 and 1860. Regardless, the whole argument is unnecessary. The error is the conflation of Southern wealth with the entire nation. What is true is that America could not have defeated the British without Southern colonies’ support. However, the Northern economy grew independently. Northern victory was not due solely to overwhelming manpower but industrial might. The agrarian South had few factories, 1/3 of the rail and an economy based on a singular cash crop. They simply couldn’t keep up with the endless supply of arms, ammunition and supplies the North turned out by the trainload.



360,000 dead and massive debt retarded Northern growth for a decade. While slavery created great wealth between the invention of the cotton gin (invented to make the lives of slaves easier, ironically) and 1859, the Civil War destroyed the South’s economy miring the entire region in deep poverty for nearly a century. Nearly all Southern banks were ruined. The hog population in South Carolina shrunk from 965,000 to 150,000. Cotton production would not recover until 1879. Most Southern capital was invested in slaves. It vanished instantly with the 13^th Amendment.



America was a fledgling power in 1865. Our rise to superpower status was built on many things but not slavery. Did slaves make Cornelius Vanderbilt’s fortune in shipping and rail or build the Transcontinental railroad? Did slavery create Rockefeller’s enormous wealth or build the oil industry? Were slaves Carnegie’s steelworkers, J.P. Morgan’s bank tellers or Thomas Edison’s go-fers? Were slaves responsible for electrification, refrigeration or cars? No.



I am going to make another, somewhat disconnected argument in this piece as I build the series on the premise that the DNA of America was never uniquely corrupted. Our current greatness is not due to oppression, but the beauty and uniqueness of the American idea.



Some argue that American slavery was a special kind of violence against Africans. They argue that slavery was a more gentle affair across the Atlantic. Simply put, it was not. The section below is largely lifted verbatim from an excellent source. It is succinct and well-written and, well, why reinvent the wheel?

361,000 slaves were imported into English speaking North America by 1808…From the time of the Arab conquest of the Middle East in the seventh century, approximately 14 million black slaves were imported into the area that extends from Morocco through Iran.

Why had the Middle East not become overwhelmingly black and mulatto? One reason was extremely high slave mortality. As the Encyclopedia of Islam notes, “The high mortality rate which overtook these coloured men in Persia prevented them forming an important element of the population.” I will provide two examples of this—one from North Africa, the other from Iraq: “Of the Saharan salt mines it is said that no slave lived for more than five years;” and “the black slave gangs that toiled in the salt flats of Basra [Iraq] . . . numbering some tens of thousands . . . were fed, we are told, on a few handfuls of flour, semolina, and dates.”

In addition, casual mating was not permitted and marriage was discouraged. Consequently, of the 3,000 female slaves emancipated in Zanzibar in 1860, only five percent had ever had a child. Many of the children born to slave women were murdered. In 1856, the Anti-Slave Reporter observed that in Constantinople, the murder of the babies of black slave women was practiced “as a matter of course and without the least remorse.” As a result, in Constantinople, “it was commonplace for Turkish gentlemen to have numerous [black] concubines, [but] it was rare to see a mulatto.”

(Also)…many were castrated. Castration was lethal for the large majority of slaves on whom it was inflicted, especially blacks. White eunuchs were produced by merely cutting off their testicles, but blacks were subjected “to the most radical form of castration . . . level with the abdomen . . . based on the assumption that blacks had an ungovernable sexual appetite;” “every [black] eunuch represented at the very least 200 Sudanese done to death;” and at the beginning of the tenth century the caliph of Baghdad alone had 7,000 black eunuchs.

In “No Property in Man”, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz sketches a picture of abolitionist founders defeating the enshrinement of slavery in the Constitution. The first draft, explicitly pro-slavery, was voted down 10-1. The final document’s compromises with slavery “were substantial” but Madison’s notes, published posthumously in 1840, detailed the abolitionists’ dogged resistance, sowing the seeds of abolition by future congresses. The mission failed. The fault, however, rests not with the Convention.



In a famous 4^th of July speech in 1852, Frederick Douglass savaged America for the brutality of slavery. He also expressed great hope. The “eternal principles,” the “saving principles” in the Constitution, that “glorious document”, were real “and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it”. He later stated, “I base my sense of the certain overthrow of slavery, in part, upon the nature of the American Government, the Constitution, the tendencies of the age, and the character of the American people…. I know of no soil better adapted to the growth of reform than American soil. I know of no country where the conditions for affecting great changes in the settled order of things, for the development of right ideas of liberty and humanity, are more favorable than here in these United States.”



The old narrative of American greatness is under great challenge today. Perhaps it is time for honest reexamination but to do so requires honesty and facts. We should always strive towards a “more perfect union.” Yet, if a scarred runaway slave can see through such hypocrisy and brutality to believe in the founders’ promissory note of liberty, why can’t we do the same in 2019?

JUDGING AMERICA Part I

Four young congresswomen known ominously as “The Squad” are getting a lot of attention right now. Talented, attractive crackpots, they represent a mindset that, until recently, was only held by cranks and college professors. But I repeat myself. To them, the birth of America and Rosemary’s Baby are essentially the same story. To anyone with sense, this seems, well, stupid. But history shows that whole nations can go mad. The liberty we now enjoy is unnatural and against all human history. We take it for granted at our own peril. And now, arguments that were once self-evident must be pulled from dusty shelves and fed like mother’s milk to babies who believe that 2 + 2 = 4 is “white people math”.



When America is condemned as uniquely oppressive, the obvious question is “compared to whom?” Let us tackle the question by first looking at the two most resonant issues: slavery and Native American genocide.



When the Constitution was ratified, slavery was legal in eight states. Some argue this tolerance of slavery is like an Original Sin which can never be expiated. Far from eager acceptance, the debate over slavery during the convention was acrimonious. Compromises were made without which the embryonic nation would have been stillborn. Of these were the greatly misunderstood 3/5 compromise, which Madison introduced to limit slave states’ power, and the banning of the Atlantic slave trade in 20 years.



A few nations and locales abolished slavery around the 14^th and 15^th centuries but bans were never permanent until the modern era. The first modern sovereign state to abolish slavery permanently was Vermont in 1777. In Great Britain, abolitionist sentiment mirrored northern states’ discomfort with slavery. Yet, despite Britain’s economic dependence on slavery largely consisting of house maids and landscapers, they did not abolish slavery until 1833. Peter the Great in Russia and the Chinese Qing Dynasty abolished slavery in 1723 but the bans did not last or were not enforced. Several European nations banished the slave trade by 1820 but only Spain had full abolition by then. Mexico and Central America abolished slavery in 1824, France in 1848. After the 1791 slave revolt in Haiti, France threatened to invade. Haitians agreed to extortionist “reparations” amounting to ten times their GDP. Payments finally ended in 1947. Slavery was abolished in most Western countries in the 19^th century but continued to be ubiquitous worldwide well into the 20^th. Most African and Middle Eastern nations ended slavery between 1900 and 1950. It was abolished in Saudi Arabia in 1962, Oman in 1970, and equality-loving Mauritania in 1981, which finally criminalized it in 2007.



Few of these nations had purely agrarian economies almost wholly dependent on slavery. The Antebellum South is held up as an archetype of human evil but abolition was an unfathomably difficult proposition. It meant certain impoverishment and the obliteration of their culture. Yet, slavery was morally corrupting in a way that extended far beyond their treatment of blacks. White southerners’ blindness to this cost them dearly for generations.

While there are plenty of examples in history, defining genocide can be thorny. There are few issues more hotly debated than whether America’s shameful treatment of natives qualifies. The U.S. violated treaty after treaty, committed massacres and exiled tribes to unfamiliar lands. 90% of indigenous peoples may have died from contact with Europeans. While tragic, the historical record shows no intent to eradicate or destroy whole peoples. In other words, no genocide. The vast majority of these deaths were from diseases to which they had little natural defense.

We must also draw a distinction between the brutality of early Spanish colonists and later American settlers. Despite later government policies, many American settlers tried earnestly to coexist with natives. Early American literature is saturated in racial and cultural superiority but also with awe and reverence for natives. Feelings were mixed and sentiments were not monolithic. Despite attempts to link Manifest Destiny with Nazi ideology, they are not the same.  

There is also the matter of the moral nature of Indians themselves. The trope of Rousseau’s “noble savage” suffers under the weight of historical evidence. Intertribal warfare was pervasive and the dogma of natives’ harmony with the earth is more complicated. Often overusing and abusing lands, the effect was sometimes devastating and permanent. Tribes cleared whole forests with slash and burn techniques. Anasazis nearly caused the extinction of native Junipers. Their collapse was also due to some familiar issues: “…recent ideas include extremist politics and religion, and an unsustainable stratification between the rich and poor—the ancient equivalent of income inequality that so infuriated the masses, they couldn’t take it anymore and left.”

Murders and kidnappings of white settlers were common. “The Last of the Mohicans” was inspired by the real-life events of Daniel Boone rescuing his daughter from Cherokee-Shawnee raiders. Many tribes participated in the slave trade, selling native captives to white slave traders before Africans became the preferred commodity. Many tribes themselves owned African slaves. Cherokees owned slaves at a higher rate than Southern whites and brought them on the Trail of Tears. The 1842 Cherokee slave revolt inspired rebellions in other tribes. In a sad, greedy irony, Cherokee Nation elders, mumbling something about getting their own dang casinos, expelled descendants of Cherokee slaves from membership in 2007.

Controversy surrounds Aztec human sacrifice but recent scholarship suggests it was as bloody as Spanish conquistadors portrayed. One historian stated Aztecs were “a culture obsessed with death: they believed that human sacrifice was the highest form of karmic healing. When the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan was consecrated in 1487 the Aztecs recorded that 84,000 people were slaughtered in four days.”

Steven Pinker calls the advancement of freedoms in the world “The Rights Revolution”. For all of human history, slavery was uncontroversial and there were no such things as voting, free speech, or fair trials. Women had the right to shut up. Criticism of kings, who ruled by Divine Right, meant imprisonment or execution. Ancient man was ruled by an ethic of conquest. Nearly every people group on earth has a history of attacking, killing and raping their neighbors. What changed was the Enlightenment. The Protestant Reformation gave people the idea that individuals could decide for themselves what was good and right. By the 18^th century, Western thinkers determined that the rights of individuals were inherent and that man should be governed by reason. America was born from these ideals. If America’s founding and by proxy, the ideals that formed it are attacked, what foundation is there for the rights of women, gays, or minority groups of any stripe?  

The point of all this what-about-ism is not to excuse America’s crimes but to wrap them in a blanket of context without which there is no truth or understanding. America has many sins but why not speak of the virtues as well? The question should always be, “Compared to whom?” The sins of America are the sins of humanity itself. For some, this is hard to accept. Truth often is.

AMERICA, WE HAD A GOOD RUN Part III

It may feel right to blame Trump and white privilege for America’s implosion but there is a different story. The decline of religion and quality education (Parts I and II) are poisons working through the body politik but those are simple corruptions that are visible and comprehensible. The third poison is more insidious and revolutionary. It might just be the final nail in our coffin.

Remember squealing in delight at hearing “You’ve got mail!”? It was hard to see the downside to such an explosion of information and connectivity. As Custer said to Sitting Bull when he sold him a case of whiskey, “What do you mean, what’s the downside? A beverage that tastes good and makes you feel great, too? What could possibly be the downside?”

No force in history has democratized man like the internet. Vast distances are meaningless. Commerce and the spread of ideas are instantaneous. Instead of relying on McDonald’s to transport culture through the delights of saturated fats, flashy websites and massive commercial platforms now allow us to read thousands of user reviews from all over the world. The world is united in Stooge-ian bliss by a woman choking on a spoonful of cinnamon.  

The ability of anyone to publish without social connection or money has led to an explosion of ideas, many of them bad. It used to be that publishing meant impressing gatekeepers who were both judges of what would sell but also of what was worthy. This had its downside, of course. Herman Melville and George Orwell dealt with punishing rejection before experiencing success. But now, anybody can vomit ideas into cyberspace. Think Alex Jones and Infowars, QAnon, the proliferation of conspiracy theories and fake news. Think of how many terabytes of data have been wasted posting pictures of food.

The Great Sorting

This mass democratization started long before the internet, of course and curmudgeons issued dark warnings long before Omnipotentblog. Printing ended the monopoly of the Pope. Radio and TV ended the monopolies of newspapers. And now with Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, we don’t ever have to be bothered with anybody’s obviously false opinions again. Infinite choice has led to a sort of ghettoization of like-minded communities, a siloing of information and parallel realities. Maybe journalistic standards have always been low but there is no longer any internal pressure to be fair and balanced since there is confidence the other side will be told. We no longer have a common language, a common morality, or even a common understanding of basic facts. In 1953, historian Herb Butterfield wrote, “…the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness—each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked—each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity.” Is this not our world today?

Some believe enlightenment is the inevitable byproduct of knowledge; The human spirit, they say, is designed to grow. Aided by greater knowledge, man will inevitably strive towards self-actualization. Conservatives, obsessing over the difference between knowledge and wisdom, say this is bunk. Knowledge is meaningless without guidance, they say. Whether from ancient text or tradition or the old lady down the street who always seems to know the right thing to say, wisdom must be either forged through experience or handed down by others who have already done the heavy lifting. Wisdom is not something that just washes over us. We need a doctrine or heuristic to point us in the right direction. Can wisdom be found on the internet? Certainly. (See Omnipotentblog.blogspot.com) But one has to sift through piles and piles of garbage. And honestly, when one has not even begun to scratch the surface of all the hilarious cat videos out there, who has the time?

Now that information is essentially instant and free, another belief system emerges: With Google, who needs to know anything at all? Mankind has available an instant, voice-operated encyclopedia. We are drowning in a sea of information and yet, we seem to swallow none of it.

My kingdom for a “like”.

A whole new genre of media deemed “social” has led to a great irony: we are becoming more and more lonely. This new generation is the most fragile in history. Seen as a national crisis, British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a government minister with 200 million pounds to combat loneliness. One American study showed the level of anxiety of incoming college freshman is equal to the average mental patient in the 60’s. Parenting expert John Rosemond states the number of children diagnosed with a mental illness is 50 times greater than in the 1950’s. Suicide has nearly doubled in the last five years and psychiatric intakes at Children’s Hospital of San Diego have tripled. They are adding a new wing. A psychologist affiliated with the program acknowledged that cyber bullying has a nastiness that old-fashioned school yard bullying did not. Dr. Jean Twenge of SDSU has published research showing that social media and smartphone use is not only correlated with depression but is the clear and convincing cause of it

We are in a time where the values of the Enlightenment are being eclipsed by Romanticism. Feelings dominate reason. The criticism of the Enlightenment, especially that of the French philosophes, was always that materialism and cold rationality do not solve the problems of man. Are we not beings of beauty and light as well as intellect? Clearly. But we are also not designed for lives ruled by carnality and instinct. It seems the internet is basically designed for instant gratification and emotional itch-scratching. Are we not better than rutting tribal beasts fooled into believing this sort of thing will lead to happiness?

Man has never been healthier, wealthier or safer. We have also never been more sad. And we are becoming more ignorant about real life by the day. Of course, the internet doesn’t turn people into drooling masses; People turn people into drooling masses. It’s just a tool. But misused, it is a doomsday device of stupidity, insularity and loneliness.

The solution is to go out and meet someone for conversation. Read a serious book that is not political propaganda. Lie down on your lawn at night and contemplate the beauty and majesty of the stars. Reconnect with God through prayer or song. And for crying out loud, stop looking at your phone so much. Except when the new installment of Omnipotentblog comes out. Obviously.