By Edwin Cooney
What’s more dramatic and, at the same time, more empty than to feel alone?
One of my childhood heroes, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, was as famous for the fact that he was the first to fly the Atlantic alone as he was for being the first to fly the Atlantic at all. (“The Lone Eagle” was one of his nicknames!)
I got a call last Tuesday night from a gentleman I hadn’t seen in some time. When I suggested we get together for lunch, he told me he was in the hospital for the amputation of his leg due to diabetes. He is proud and quite stoic, but I could hear his sense of aloneness.
When I think about the things I do, depending largely I suppose on my mood, I’m likely to experience one of two primary emotions: either aloneness or fulfillment.
Aloneness usually occurs when I think about myself, by myself and for myself. Fulfillment usually occurs when I feel empowered to share the best of myself with others. I occasionally discover that I’m the main beneficiary of my own sharing. Wow, what a discovery!
The gentleman who called to tell me of his condition isn’t a particularly close friend of mine. In fact, on two or three occasions over the past 21 years, we’ve had some conflict. He was, for some time, a candidate to be my young sons’ stepfather. Ultimately, because he was of sufficient substance to be a candidate for that role, he knew (at least secondhand) some of my own very personal shortcomings. Still, somehow his vulnerability got to me across the distance the other night. He really didn’t want anything except perhaps acknowledgment and at the very least he was entitled to that.
His plight stirred my awareness, as nothing else has lately, of how our success or failure in life is ultimately up to us. Until he was about twenty-six, this gentleman was a success in almost every conventional way. He was a mechanic in the United States Air Force working out of Okinawa when his sight began to fail. Still, he persevered and became a carpenter making cabinets and working out of his own garage for a chain store. He kept the business up until a disgruntled employee burned him out of his home and his profession. Hence, time hasn’t been much of a friend. Now, at age seventy-one, he’s blind and faces the uncertain prospect of living with a double disability.
Whether he cares to keep on keeping on isn’t clear to me as I write this.
Like most of us, his lifestyle has contributed to his fate and yet he’s also a victim (as are we all) of nature’s time clock.
In many ways, his story is all of our stories. I don’t know a single person, and my guess is that you don’t either, who has lived an entire lifetime without at least one setback or challenge. Some people have so many challenges to live with that you get dizzy contemplating how they deal with one or two of them let alone all of them.
As I listened to him the other night, I became sharply aware of my incapacity to ease his predicament.
Some years have passed since I became aware of the well-known tendency of men to want to fix things. Last Tuesday night, I wanted to get in there with all the tools at my command to repair and straighten everything out for him. Alas, I could not. What still gnaws at me, though, is the reason for the anxiety I’m feeling about this man who hasn’t ever been a particular friend of mine.
The answer is that he is me and I am he. Fate is both natural and inevitable. Like that Ole Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. We can store some of life’s energy for use during times of uncertainty and offer that energy to others, but it’s up to others to draw on that energy once it has been offered.
Whatever I feel about this gentleman or how long I feel what I feel doesn’t really matter. Hopefully, he’ll realize a sense of peace in the comfort of those he loves best. Hopefully, he’ll grant himself the benefit of all of his emotional, intellectual and spiritual strengths.
Ultimately, however, his path to personal peace is his alone to trod—and trod it alone he must along with all the rest of us.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 27, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
PROUD TO BE WHITE? — HELL NO! THAT’S JUST LUCK
By Edwin Cooney
I try to be upbeat about most things, but when I receive a piece of writing such as the one sent me a few weeks ago not only justifying white pride, but also its accompanying license to racial and ethnic slander, it seems to me that American civilization is closer to the dismal swamp than the heavenly stars.
This piece purportedly represents former standup comedian Michael Richards righteous defense in court in the wake of his November, 17th, 2006 Laugh Factory tirade against blacks. It is a fraud on its very face. Mr. Richards never went to court as a result of that infamous occasion. The point of this piece of internet garbage is that our rights are being endangered due to our unwillingness to stand up and be proud of being white.
I bring this to your attention because I deplore racial prejudice and hatred as a vehicle for political success. More to the point, name-calling is juvenile and any defense of such name-calling is even worse. Sadly, too many Americans are willing to be energized by rabble-rousing pieces such as this one. The strategy is victimization: beware -- somebody scary is out to get you!
It is true, especially over the last eighty years, that politicians of all stripes have appealed increasingly to our victimhood rather than our pride. It’s also true that at some point in all of our lives we are in fact victims: victims of disease and disability, victims of exploitation, victims of crime and discrimination, and, finally, victims of pride itself.
Every potential president from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama has offered his personal service to the American people on the grounds that he will free them from exploitation by some entity whether it be corporatism or big government. It’s perfectly true, of course, that both of these forces have (when insufficiently regulated) overstepped their boundaries. However, we all learned back in grade school that liberty requires eternal vigilance. What’s even truer is that we’re too often willing to victimize ourselves.
The main question raised by this piece was whether the expression by whites of pride in one’s race can legitimately be called racism. My response to that question is that as long as we consider our race a sign of superiority over those of other racial and ethnic groups, then, of course, such pride is racism. The next question this piece raises is whether blacks and other religious and minority groups by creating such organizations as The United Negro College Fund, the Congressional Black Caucus, and BET (Black Entertainment Television) are themselves indulging in racism. To that question, I reply “absolutely not”.
America is the most wonderful country in the world but, like the rest of the world, it has historically been governed at times by powerful people who were too often willing to cruelly exploit the well-being of others in their climb to the top of the economic, social and political pyramid. In the United States, blacks, Native Americans, Catholics, Jews, and, more recently, Latin and Asian Americans have suffered such a fate. Hence, minority Americans have been forced (by our insistence on the right of the more powerful to exclude) to create their own institutions for advancement based on the models established by the dominant majority.
In other parts of the world, different races and power groups practice racism. The fact is that had Catholics, Jews and others been welcomed into American society, there would have been no need for such institutions as Catholic schools, the United Negro College Fund, or even Miss Black America. What puzzles me is why this reality isn’t obvious.
Human frailty is an equal opportunity tempter. Therefore, blacks, gays, the disabled, and other traditional minorities are perfectly capable of racism, ableism, and ethnism—along with other “isms” yet to be identified or categorized.
Although my vote for President Obama last November was largely for his inclusive outlook rather than for him as a black man, I’m sure a large percentage of black Americans voted for him primarily because he is black. “Does that make them racists?” the emotionally insecure author of the piece I’m referring to would invariably ask. Answer: individually perhaps, as there are black racists among us, but as I see it, the black vote for President Obama last November was an affirmative vote for one person and not for racial dominance!
No, you are not a racist for being unashamed of any aspect of your God-given being. Be proud of your associations: your parents, your friends, your religious faith, or your commitment to secular ideology. Those are emotional, spiritual and intellectual achievements. Also, be proud of America’s achievements, principles and ideals. However, if you are forced to be proud of your disability, your gender, your race, or perhaps your criminal nature, then you are a victim of your very being.
Race, gender and disability are, of course, beyond our individual control. How we process and internalize the world’s response to that which is beyond our control depends on our individual capacity for perspective.
Magnanimity in one’s perspective is invariably a key to personal superiority, not race. If you were born white in America, it isn’t an achievement to be proud of… you were just damn lucky, that’s all.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I try to be upbeat about most things, but when I receive a piece of writing such as the one sent me a few weeks ago not only justifying white pride, but also its accompanying license to racial and ethnic slander, it seems to me that American civilization is closer to the dismal swamp than the heavenly stars.
This piece purportedly represents former standup comedian Michael Richards righteous defense in court in the wake of his November, 17th, 2006 Laugh Factory tirade against blacks. It is a fraud on its very face. Mr. Richards never went to court as a result of that infamous occasion. The point of this piece of internet garbage is that our rights are being endangered due to our unwillingness to stand up and be proud of being white.
I bring this to your attention because I deplore racial prejudice and hatred as a vehicle for political success. More to the point, name-calling is juvenile and any defense of such name-calling is even worse. Sadly, too many Americans are willing to be energized by rabble-rousing pieces such as this one. The strategy is victimization: beware -- somebody scary is out to get you!
It is true, especially over the last eighty years, that politicians of all stripes have appealed increasingly to our victimhood rather than our pride. It’s also true that at some point in all of our lives we are in fact victims: victims of disease and disability, victims of exploitation, victims of crime and discrimination, and, finally, victims of pride itself.
Every potential president from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama has offered his personal service to the American people on the grounds that he will free them from exploitation by some entity whether it be corporatism or big government. It’s perfectly true, of course, that both of these forces have (when insufficiently regulated) overstepped their boundaries. However, we all learned back in grade school that liberty requires eternal vigilance. What’s even truer is that we’re too often willing to victimize ourselves.
The main question raised by this piece was whether the expression by whites of pride in one’s race can legitimately be called racism. My response to that question is that as long as we consider our race a sign of superiority over those of other racial and ethnic groups, then, of course, such pride is racism. The next question this piece raises is whether blacks and other religious and minority groups by creating such organizations as The United Negro College Fund, the Congressional Black Caucus, and BET (Black Entertainment Television) are themselves indulging in racism. To that question, I reply “absolutely not”.
America is the most wonderful country in the world but, like the rest of the world, it has historically been governed at times by powerful people who were too often willing to cruelly exploit the well-being of others in their climb to the top of the economic, social and political pyramid. In the United States, blacks, Native Americans, Catholics, Jews, and, more recently, Latin and Asian Americans have suffered such a fate. Hence, minority Americans have been forced (by our insistence on the right of the more powerful to exclude) to create their own institutions for advancement based on the models established by the dominant majority.
In other parts of the world, different races and power groups practice racism. The fact is that had Catholics, Jews and others been welcomed into American society, there would have been no need for such institutions as Catholic schools, the United Negro College Fund, or even Miss Black America. What puzzles me is why this reality isn’t obvious.
Human frailty is an equal opportunity tempter. Therefore, blacks, gays, the disabled, and other traditional minorities are perfectly capable of racism, ableism, and ethnism—along with other “isms” yet to be identified or categorized.
Although my vote for President Obama last November was largely for his inclusive outlook rather than for him as a black man, I’m sure a large percentage of black Americans voted for him primarily because he is black. “Does that make them racists?” the emotionally insecure author of the piece I’m referring to would invariably ask. Answer: individually perhaps, as there are black racists among us, but as I see it, the black vote for President Obama last November was an affirmative vote for one person and not for racial dominance!
No, you are not a racist for being unashamed of any aspect of your God-given being. Be proud of your associations: your parents, your friends, your religious faith, or your commitment to secular ideology. Those are emotional, spiritual and intellectual achievements. Also, be proud of America’s achievements, principles and ideals. However, if you are forced to be proud of your disability, your gender, your race, or perhaps your criminal nature, then you are a victim of your very being.
Race, gender and disability are, of course, beyond our individual control. How we process and internalize the world’s response to that which is beyond our control depends on our individual capacity for perspective.
Magnanimity in one’s perspective is invariably a key to personal superiority, not race. If you were born white in America, it isn’t an achievement to be proud of… you were just damn lucky, that’s all.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 13, 2009
GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN -- SAUCY BUT SAD!
By Edwin Cooney
True, I would never vote for her let alone encourage her, but it’s still sad to see someone hoping for the White House stumbling instead toward the political “Out” House!
There are, after all, worse circumstances than being a one term governor or a governor who was defeated for re-election. Defeated one-term governors such as James K. Polk of Tennessee have been elected president. Polk, elected Tennessee’s Governor in 1839, was defeated for re-election in 1841 and again in 1843.
Defeated vice presidential candidates in the 20th Century:
-- have been appointed Chief Justice of the United States (Earl Warren, Thomas E. Dewey’s 1948 running mate);
-- have been nominated for President of the United States (Robert Dole, Gerald R. Ford’s running mate in 1976, and Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s losing Vice President in 1980);
-- have served as Ambassadors (as did Henry Cabot Lodge, Nixon’s 1960 running mate); -- have served as Secretary of State (as did Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey’s second in 1968);
-- or, finally, have served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Jack Kemp, Dole’s political teammate in 1996. Kemp, of course, possessed star billing even before Dole’s 1968 election to the U.S. Senate.)
Defeated vice presidential candidates have even made television commercials as did Bill Miller, Barry Goldwater’s 1964 running mate. He made a “Do You Remember Me?” commercial for American Express in the late 70’s or early 80’s. William Edward Miller the son of a Lockport, New York factory floor sweeper, also holds two other distinctions. He was among the prosecuting attorneys at the Nuremberg Nazi War Criminal Trials in the late 1940s. He also is the only Roman Catholic the GOP has ever nominated for high national office.
The point is, it’s no disgrace to be a defeated candidate for the second highest office in the land. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, the defeated vice presidential candidate in 1876, became VP under Grover Cleveland in 1885. More dramatically, the Democrat’s vice presidential candidate who was defeated in 1920 was a dapper gentleman named Franklin Roosevelt, yet he became President four times —although most of Governor Palin’s constituency continuously disparage that happy historic reality! To have been nominated, even by the smallest party, is an honor. Think of it this way: how many people do you know who have even been considered for high national office? What a defeated vice presidential candidate can’t afford however is to add dereliction of duty to political defeat. Governor Palin’s announcement that she’s leaving her office with more than half her term to go amounts to exactly that. Even if her most devoted supporters will forgive her, it’s certain that her fellow GOP presidential candidates in 2012 won’t.
In her press conference announcing that she will be turning the affairs of the people of Alaska over to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell at the end of the month, she gave two reasons. The first was the high cost, in both time and money, to successfully defend herself against frivolous law suits filed by those not as interested as she is in the well-being of either Alaska or America. Her second reason was that her pledge of independent leadership and her decision not to seek a second term as governor would place her in a “lame duck” political category thereby diminishing her effectiveness to the people of Alaska.
Listening to her rather rambling presentation, I couldn’t decide whether she was energetic or hysterical. Even if I were to grant that she was merely energetic, her assessments still lacked specificity and she spent much of her time on ideological bromides while attacking the media and her ideological opposition. Sarah Palin, while seemingly on the offensive, was ultimately on the defensive.
As Harry Truman used to say: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Obviously, Governor Palin can’t stand the heat. Whether she’s getting out of the kitchen, however, only time will tell.
If Governor Palin is as wholesome for the people of her state and nation as her political opponents are bad for both, then it seems to me that she’s doing her current and future constituency a double disservice. Mrs. Palin wasn’t a “lame duck” and thus less effective politically until she herself started energetically or hysterically (take your choice) imposing “lame duck-dom” on herself, cinching it tighter with every word. I find her constituency politically unpalatable, but they are a legitimate and mostly honorable constituency. They only want to be led and loved -- and it’s so sad that Saucy Sarah has let them down.
For the record, it should be noted that Virginia’s John Tyler resigned his House Seat in 1821 and his Senate seat in 1836 and yet he became President of the United States. Ah! But he achieved that lofty position via the vice presidential road. That, it would seem, is Mrs. Palin’s only potential path to presidential glory. In order for her to travel that route once again, another future GOP presidential candidate would have to be as brave or foolish as John Sidney McCain III. Do you suppose there are any likely takers? If so, you’re a braver supposer than I am.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
True, I would never vote for her let alone encourage her, but it’s still sad to see someone hoping for the White House stumbling instead toward the political “Out” House!
There are, after all, worse circumstances than being a one term governor or a governor who was defeated for re-election. Defeated one-term governors such as James K. Polk of Tennessee have been elected president. Polk, elected Tennessee’s Governor in 1839, was defeated for re-election in 1841 and again in 1843.
Defeated vice presidential candidates in the 20th Century:
-- have been appointed Chief Justice of the United States (Earl Warren, Thomas E. Dewey’s 1948 running mate);
-- have been nominated for President of the United States (Robert Dole, Gerald R. Ford’s running mate in 1976, and Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s losing Vice President in 1980);
-- have served as Ambassadors (as did Henry Cabot Lodge, Nixon’s 1960 running mate); -- have served as Secretary of State (as did Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey’s second in 1968);
-- or, finally, have served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Jack Kemp, Dole’s political teammate in 1996. Kemp, of course, possessed star billing even before Dole’s 1968 election to the U.S. Senate.)
Defeated vice presidential candidates have even made television commercials as did Bill Miller, Barry Goldwater’s 1964 running mate. He made a “Do You Remember Me?” commercial for American Express in the late 70’s or early 80’s. William Edward Miller the son of a Lockport, New York factory floor sweeper, also holds two other distinctions. He was among the prosecuting attorneys at the Nuremberg Nazi War Criminal Trials in the late 1940s. He also is the only Roman Catholic the GOP has ever nominated for high national office.
The point is, it’s no disgrace to be a defeated candidate for the second highest office in the land. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, the defeated vice presidential candidate in 1876, became VP under Grover Cleveland in 1885. More dramatically, the Democrat’s vice presidential candidate who was defeated in 1920 was a dapper gentleman named Franklin Roosevelt, yet he became President four times —although most of Governor Palin’s constituency continuously disparage that happy historic reality! To have been nominated, even by the smallest party, is an honor. Think of it this way: how many people do you know who have even been considered for high national office? What a defeated vice presidential candidate can’t afford however is to add dereliction of duty to political defeat. Governor Palin’s announcement that she’s leaving her office with more than half her term to go amounts to exactly that. Even if her most devoted supporters will forgive her, it’s certain that her fellow GOP presidential candidates in 2012 won’t.
In her press conference announcing that she will be turning the affairs of the people of Alaska over to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell at the end of the month, she gave two reasons. The first was the high cost, in both time and money, to successfully defend herself against frivolous law suits filed by those not as interested as she is in the well-being of either Alaska or America. Her second reason was that her pledge of independent leadership and her decision not to seek a second term as governor would place her in a “lame duck” political category thereby diminishing her effectiveness to the people of Alaska.
Listening to her rather rambling presentation, I couldn’t decide whether she was energetic or hysterical. Even if I were to grant that she was merely energetic, her assessments still lacked specificity and she spent much of her time on ideological bromides while attacking the media and her ideological opposition. Sarah Palin, while seemingly on the offensive, was ultimately on the defensive.
As Harry Truman used to say: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Obviously, Governor Palin can’t stand the heat. Whether she’s getting out of the kitchen, however, only time will tell.
If Governor Palin is as wholesome for the people of her state and nation as her political opponents are bad for both, then it seems to me that she’s doing her current and future constituency a double disservice. Mrs. Palin wasn’t a “lame duck” and thus less effective politically until she herself started energetically or hysterically (take your choice) imposing “lame duck-dom” on herself, cinching it tighter with every word. I find her constituency politically unpalatable, but they are a legitimate and mostly honorable constituency. They only want to be led and loved -- and it’s so sad that Saucy Sarah has let them down.
For the record, it should be noted that Virginia’s John Tyler resigned his House Seat in 1821 and his Senate seat in 1836 and yet he became President of the United States. Ah! But he achieved that lofty position via the vice presidential road. That, it would seem, is Mrs. Palin’s only potential path to presidential glory. In order for her to travel that route once again, another future GOP presidential candidate would have to be as brave or foolish as John Sidney McCain III. Do you suppose there are any likely takers? If so, you’re a braver supposer than I am.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, July 6, 2009
INDEPENDENCE—ONLY THE GATEWAY TO FREEDOM
By Edwin Cooney
It happens every three-hundred and sixty-fifth day—okay every three-hundred and sixty-sixth day during leap years. We, the people of the United States celebrate our independence—as we should.
Ever since you and I were in the third grade, we’ve listened to the stirring stories of 1776. We’ve heard how thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson, aching with concern over the frail health of his young wife Martha back in Virginia, nevertheless eloquently stated the case for our independence as he sat at his portable writing desk in that hot Philadelphia attic. We’ve thrilled to the story of Caesar Rodney of Delaware who made the “all night ride” to Philadelphia from Wilmington to cast Delaware’s vote for independence from George III. We’ve been inspired time and again by stories of the fate of the fifty-seven signers of the Declaration of Independence who pledged each other their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” for our independence. Still the question remains: why? to what purpose? Did the “founding fathers” -- who would be so labeled for the first time by one of our least revered presidents, Warren G. Harding -- fully understand the consequences of what they were doing?
The answer is clear – not all of them did. Independence from Great Britain was a gateway to freedom, but it was only the first step. Even after the combination of George Washington’s evasive generalship and the French Navy secured our independent nationhood, most Americans hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with the independence we’d just won. Example, you ask?
In 1783, George Washington found it necessary to severely scold Lewis Nicola, an Irish-born Brevet General in the Continental Army, who wrote to him suggesting that he become the new nation’s first king. In 1786, either Nathaniel Gorham, President of the Continental Congress, or Frederick von Stuben, one of Washington’s favorite Prussian military advisors, recommended to Alexander Hamilton that Prince Henry of Prussia—younger brother of Frederick the Great—be offered America’s crown. Hence, not all of our “founding fathers” saw either democracy or republicanism as the new nation’s loadstar.
As we celebrated the two-hundred and thirty-third anniversary of our independence last weekend, Americans remained divided over the meaning and application of liberty, the noblest if not the most immediate gift of the “Spirit of 1776”.
Though we gained independence from George III on that bright afternoon of Friday, October 19, 1781 when General Washington and the French Navy cornered the forces of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, our national independence created only the opportunity for our personal freedom.
What Thomas Jefferson once referred to as “the disease of liberty” came first to white male property owners and both gradually and painfully over time to laborers, women, blacks, and the “politically incorrect”.
Thus, even as we swallowed hotdogs, potato salad, sweet corn and watermelon, even as we swilled down soda and beer last weekend and watched baseball and fireworks displays, it was “independence” not “freedom” that was the object of our celebration. The political question, even today, invariably is: whose freedom is most precious?
If a rich corporate magnate is granted unfettered freedom, what does that say about the rights of the laborer or of the consumer? If no man or woman is granted rights because of race, religion or gender, what does that do to the freedom to either associate or disassociate one’s self? Was Franklin Delano Roosevelt right or wrong when he asserted: “Those words ‘freedom’ and ‘opportunity’ do not mean a license to climb upwards by pushing other people down.”
Even as our newly minted president Barack Obama seeks to stabilize and expand our economy, widen the benefits of healthcare, and regulate credit, the debate goes on as to whose freedom he’s expanding or curbing.
All of us are, in one way or another, producers, laborers, consumers, and, ultimately, voters. We’re jealous of our own freedom while too often not jealous enough of the freedom of others!
Looking for a national holiday all of us might well endorse with enthusiasm? How about National Freedom Day? The ideal date would be October 19th, but come to think of it, we’d probably have to eliminate Halloween thus abrogating the rights and freedoms of every kid in America.
Whoops! That won’t do! Who said inviting Prince Henry of Prussia to be our king was the worst idea ever contrived? I just beat it!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
It happens every three-hundred and sixty-fifth day—okay every three-hundred and sixty-sixth day during leap years. We, the people of the United States celebrate our independence—as we should.
Ever since you and I were in the third grade, we’ve listened to the stirring stories of 1776. We’ve heard how thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson, aching with concern over the frail health of his young wife Martha back in Virginia, nevertheless eloquently stated the case for our independence as he sat at his portable writing desk in that hot Philadelphia attic. We’ve thrilled to the story of Caesar Rodney of Delaware who made the “all night ride” to Philadelphia from Wilmington to cast Delaware’s vote for independence from George III. We’ve been inspired time and again by stories of the fate of the fifty-seven signers of the Declaration of Independence who pledged each other their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” for our independence. Still the question remains: why? to what purpose? Did the “founding fathers” -- who would be so labeled for the first time by one of our least revered presidents, Warren G. Harding -- fully understand the consequences of what they were doing?
The answer is clear – not all of them did. Independence from Great Britain was a gateway to freedom, but it was only the first step. Even after the combination of George Washington’s evasive generalship and the French Navy secured our independent nationhood, most Americans hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with the independence we’d just won. Example, you ask?
In 1783, George Washington found it necessary to severely scold Lewis Nicola, an Irish-born Brevet General in the Continental Army, who wrote to him suggesting that he become the new nation’s first king. In 1786, either Nathaniel Gorham, President of the Continental Congress, or Frederick von Stuben, one of Washington’s favorite Prussian military advisors, recommended to Alexander Hamilton that Prince Henry of Prussia—younger brother of Frederick the Great—be offered America’s crown. Hence, not all of our “founding fathers” saw either democracy or republicanism as the new nation’s loadstar.
As we celebrated the two-hundred and thirty-third anniversary of our independence last weekend, Americans remained divided over the meaning and application of liberty, the noblest if not the most immediate gift of the “Spirit of 1776”.
Though we gained independence from George III on that bright afternoon of Friday, October 19, 1781 when General Washington and the French Navy cornered the forces of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, our national independence created only the opportunity for our personal freedom.
What Thomas Jefferson once referred to as “the disease of liberty” came first to white male property owners and both gradually and painfully over time to laborers, women, blacks, and the “politically incorrect”.
Thus, even as we swallowed hotdogs, potato salad, sweet corn and watermelon, even as we swilled down soda and beer last weekend and watched baseball and fireworks displays, it was “independence” not “freedom” that was the object of our celebration. The political question, even today, invariably is: whose freedom is most precious?
If a rich corporate magnate is granted unfettered freedom, what does that say about the rights of the laborer or of the consumer? If no man or woman is granted rights because of race, religion or gender, what does that do to the freedom to either associate or disassociate one’s self? Was Franklin Delano Roosevelt right or wrong when he asserted: “Those words ‘freedom’ and ‘opportunity’ do not mean a license to climb upwards by pushing other people down.”
Even as our newly minted president Barack Obama seeks to stabilize and expand our economy, widen the benefits of healthcare, and regulate credit, the debate goes on as to whose freedom he’s expanding or curbing.
All of us are, in one way or another, producers, laborers, consumers, and, ultimately, voters. We’re jealous of our own freedom while too often not jealous enough of the freedom of others!
Looking for a national holiday all of us might well endorse with enthusiasm? How about National Freedom Day? The ideal date would be October 19th, but come to think of it, we’d probably have to eliminate Halloween thus abrogating the rights and freedoms of every kid in America.
Whoops! That won’t do! Who said inviting Prince Henry of Prussia to be our king was the worst idea ever contrived? I just beat it!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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