DASTARDLY DON PLODS ON!

By Edwin Cooney

If you're happy (even though I'm not) with President Donald and the GOP Senate's plot, you may well triumph in your justification, but beware of the wrath of an angry nation!

It might as well be cheerfully acknowledged, President Trump has the legal right to nominate a Conservative judge even with the approval of an unprincipled Republican Senate. After all, our Constitution empowers the President to propose and the Senate the right to dispose the nominations of cabinet officers, treaties, and justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. It also empowers both bodies of Congress to establish their own rules governing the creation, passage and rejection of legislation that appoints men and women to high public office. What it doesn't do is require the Senate majority to vote on the president's choices for office. Thus, back in 2016, the Senate could legally ignore President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that it was sufficiently late in the president's second and final term, that it was only right that the next president should have the right to choose the successor to Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia who had died in February 2016 while on a hunting vacation.

Now, especially in view of the possibility that the next president could be Democrat Joseph R. Biden, the 2016 GOP Senate principles are being abandoned by that Republican herd of pachyderms as swiftly and deadly as the herds of buffalos that once roamed the prairies of the Old West. "So," you may say, “what of it?"

During an election year where motives often rate above either principles or explanations, President Trump has just stirred the political pot full of young women throughout the country who believe firmly that they, and not the government, are the mistresses of their own bodies, social and spiritual fates. As the campaign rumbles on toward the first of three upcoming debates between Messrs. Biden and Trump, the president, so far, appears to believe that his base which left him nearly 3 million votes behind Hillary Clinton four years ago will carry him back into the White House.

What both Conservatives and President Trump don't seem to realize are two vital facts. First, the defeat of Roe v. Wade in a Conservative Supreme Court will not put this nation on a "moral path to salvation” since it will only limit the abortion rights to the poor. The well-off will meet their private needs without public notice or punishment. That would constitute no “moral story” that I've ever read or heard about. Second, once you solve the Roe v. Wade issue, the GOP will be that much politically weaker. 

There's a wonderful old story once told by Tommy (The Cork) Corcoran, one of FDR's aides. Tommy Corcoran was a young lawyer who originally worked for President Herbert Hoover in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He was originally embittered by President-elect Roosevelt's coolness toward President Hoover and the RFC. Fortunately for both Tommy and FDR, the Cork, at Hoover's direction, was assigned to stay on and work with the new administration to solidify the RFC and, within just a few weeks, Tommy found himself completely overwhelmed by the new President's humor and charm. So "The Cork" stuck with FDR. One day around 1935, the president sent the Cork to Capital Hill to lobby a Senate committee on a political matter. A few hours later, Tommy came back to say: Boss, I got it. The committee will support you on this thing. FDR grinned and took a long drag through his ivory cigarette holder and said: “Oh, Tommy, of course! You did a grand job to get me the votes I sent you up there for, but after thinking the matter over, I sent some other fellows right up there after you and they undid your work. After all, Tommy, next year is an election year and I'd rather have the issue than the solution!"

Politics being what it is, I told two Pennsylvania friends of mine that I thought that the president would select Judge Barbara Lagoa from Florida, an Hispanic jurist, believing that by doing so, he would be well on the way to winning the Sunshine State's 24 electoral votes. (Note: I'll let them be right while I remain provocative!)

The unhappy fact for "Trumpites" is that while Dastardly Donnie can be both decisive and even totally legal and he may not be impeachable these days, he is definitely both deflatable and defeat-able!

President Trump, unlike four years ago, possesses more foibles than his opponent.

Beware Mr. President, "Sleepy Joe" has been hibernating and he's as hungry as the proverbial bear when he awakens!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE EQUALITY OF OPINIONS - WHAT A CONCEPT!

By Edwin Cooney

Opinions equal? Really? Perhaps valid would be better, but even an invalid opinion is still just an opinion or, if you prefer, a point of view! Opinions or points of view may be dangerous enough as cultural tendencies, but they become downright lethal when they become law. At the outset of your message you insist that the idea of getting along is hip nowadays. Hip, really? Then how do you account for the "culture  war" through which we've been passing as far back as 1973, the year of Roe v. Wade?

How are we supposed to just agree to disagree with somebody with opposing views? We are supposed to see one man's views as equal but different from the other man. This is easier said than done. You're right, Colorado Dennis, that not all views are equal in applicability, but as mere points of view, they invariably invite legitimate objective analysis. Furthermore, they reflect the depth of public reaction to a controversial issue by a national constituency. 

First, I suggest that few people, politicians included, are as ideological as even they represent themselves as being. Also, we too often refer to one another as “far left” and “far right.” We revel in radicalism with ideological references too few of us really understand. For instance, if there’s a radical left or right by definition there must be a near radical or moderate left and right. Thus, who’s on the moderate left, the moderate right, or even in the exact center needs to be defined. It’s my guess that most people try to be practical rather than ideological.

Let's tackle the increasingly popular view that Civil War statues should not  remain as valuable historic relics.

In order to have an informed comprehension of what this point of view is all about, it's necessary to understand the significance of the Civil War in American history. First, it’s important to put the Civil War in context. Remember that for 18th and 19th century citizens, what was realistic was local. Most people were born, lived, and died in locations approximately 15 square miles apart. Few Americans were nationally-oriented. Thus when General Robert E. Lee left the United States Army and accepted the leadership of the Army of Virginia at the outset of the Civil War, he did so because in his heart, Virginia was his home and country. To Northerners, General Lee was a traitor. To Southerners, he was a patriot. Both Northerners and Southerners have been more or less locked into these values for the last sixteen decades. Hence, southern heroes are largely military heroes connected to Civil War history and, yes, even to family. Historically, few Southern heroes are Black. Of course, an abundance of Black Americans have been and are heroic. Perhaps had Southern leaders begun actively celebrating their heroism, the recent backlash against Civil War veterans wouldn't be as strong as it is. It's important to keep in mind that the protectors Civil War heroes have historically been quick to call “social heroes” socialists.

One of the saddest aspects of American history is our ongoing suspicion of immigrants. Most immigrants come to America to earn a better living. You can't earn a decent living when you come to destroy the system you seek to join. The very idea back in 2018 that a bunch of homeless and unemployed immigrants were about to invade America seriously lacked substance.

As for the abortion issue, I have yet to read or hear of a solution to the availability of abortions. Overruling Roe v. Wade merely restricts the availability of abortions to the wealthy. Well-heeled Americans have the resources to go to Canada or Mexico to obtain an abortion which is "none of anyone's business!" and return healthy and happy to practice their favorite brand of politics. A ban on the accessibility to abortions for one class of people doesn't outlaw abortions. There's an irony here. Only a few years ago, both during and after Roe v. Wade, social conservatives complained that too many poor people were having babies to collect money from the government for the raising of children. They were called welfare queens. If abortion is a question of morality, isn't assistance to the poor likewise a question of morality? After all, what does "love thy neighbor as thyself” mean? What is "do unto others what you would have them do unto you” all about? Those admonitions go back as far as both Confucius and Christ!

Here's a fundamental question. How interested are you and I in doing all we collectively can when it comes to giving people the benefit of the doubt? All of us are in some ways inconsistent in our attitudes and outlooks. Too many of us are willing to dehumanize political leaders with whom we have a conflict, be it attitudinal, intellectual or personal.

In Colorado Dennis's letter, he asserts that a person's views on public questions are a reflection of their decency. Some issues, such as white or Black nationalism, tolerance for or against LGBTQ behavior and marriage,    may seem unhealthy or even anti-social to some, but it's reasonable to this observer to take the position that no behavior that doesn't interfere with who I am, who I admire, or who I love is in any way my personal business. LGBTQ people aren't thieves, killers, child molesters, or agents of any political or subversive party.  If you're interested in tolerating others, there's no law of which I'm aware that prevents you from being wise, just, smart, gentle, caring, sharing, practical, and patriotic in all things! All of us are free to be tolerant of one another. I maintain that some of the most disagreeable people are ultimately pretty harmless. 

I'm grateful to Colorado Dennis for his letter which invited me to write what's here. I hope I've been responsive!

The late, great showman, humorist, and columnist Will Rogers, who was known for his observation "I never met a man I didn't like,” once told of a congressman who became unhappy when one of Rogers' columns was read into the Congressional Record. "I object," said the congressman, "to the remarks of a professional joke maker being read into the Congressional Record." Rogers went on to point out that the unhappy congressman had it wrong. "If I make a joke, you can take it or leave it, but any time Congress makes a joke, it's a law.” Then, after a pause, Rogers said, “…and any time Congress makes a law, it's a joke!"

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WORST/BESTS AND BEST/WORSTS OF YEARS AND TIMES

By Edwin Cooney

I don't do much that's very constructive or informative these days! I try and care for my wife, my two lads living in Northern California nearly 3,000 miles to my west, stay in touch with and care about my best friend who lives in New Jersey, write these musings once a week, attend church services every Sunday, and preside as President of the Syracuse Host Lions Club twice a month, as well as serve as President of the New York State School for the Blind Alumni Association. I don't have a lot of money and thus I don't spend a significant enough amount of it to add or detract from the national economy. However, I do observe, categorize and evaluate events in my head for the purpose of sharing and hopefully stimulating the thoughts of you, my readers.

On Thursday, November 25th, 1999, I sat over pre-Thanksgiving-Day dinner wine at my friend David's house and together we thrashed over the answer to my question: What year was the most historic of the 20th Century? Of course, David immediately asked: Whose history are you talking about? Well, of course, I immediately narrowed the question to focus on America and the western world in general.

As we talked, we narrowed the answer down to five possibilities. The first was 1901, the year the American presidency was modernized by Theodore Roosevelt. Then, there was 1919, the close of World War I, which saw the creation of the League of Nations and its rejection by the U.S. Senate. The year 1933 constituted a new relationship between the people and their government here in the United States. The year 1991 saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the "Cold War." The winner that day was the year I just skipped over chronologically, 1945. That was the year FDR died, the year the United Nations was founded in San Fransisco and, most significant of all, it was our use of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan which ended World War II. That event affected everyone's potential future for better or worse! The power of atomic energy was beyond most of our imaginations.

I offer this story not only because it’s a personal experience, but because it emphasizes the events that make the above five years significant. The years that David and I discussed 21 years ago we now say were years containing sea changes.

As for 2020, hopefully, we've been through the worst of times what with Covid-19 and wildfires in California and Hurricane Laura in Texas and Louisiana. However, the big question is whether these events are sea changes. Sea changes, as I understand them, are occurrences which markedly alter peoples values and behaviors despite previous inclinations or habits. One sea change a year is substantial enough to bring about political, economic and even social chaos. Two sea changes in a single year could be overwhelming to the body politic. After all, how many hurricanes around the Atlantic and through the Gulf of Mexico, how many wildfires throughout the west, does it take to demonstrate that climate change is far from a hoax? The same must be asked about the Covid-19 pandemic?

Because life must go on, we'll adjust to these sea changes. After all, the ability to adjust and thus normalize living conditions amounts to the stuff of which people are made!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY      

BALANCING THE FREE AND THE FAIR!

By Edwin Cooney

Despite what you're about to read, I still like both politics and politicians. However, everything in life must have its limits including political rhetoric!

Unfortunately, we've gotten ourselves into a national mindset that's anything but constructive or patriotic. When we view every political philosophy that's different from our own or any candidate we oppose as a criminal, we're setting ourselves up for a national nervous breakdown! If there is such a thing as a “National Nervous Breakdown” due to our national leadership's unwillingness to accept the result of the election this November, the ultimate fault will be our very own.

While I'm not sure that we have a "right"  to be protected from political annoyance, the fact of the matter is that we're suffering these days from political, emotional, and intellectual abuse. Even more, it's pretty easy to document that the public mind is being more than annoyed, it's being deliberately and systematically poisoned just as the climate in which we live is being polluted by carbons. Even worse, it too often seems that the word "united" (a vital word) is being slowly but surely obliterated from who we historically say we are.  

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that we're well on the way to destroying our own liberty. After all, if no two people of opposing points of view have sufficient legitimacy to be trusted in public office, how can we have any confidence in any political candidate’s capacity to govern once elected? What the United States of America needs most desperately today has less to do with "civil liberties" and more about "civilized liberty,” but how do we accomplish that while preserving freedom of speech?

Of course, the nature of politics is confrontational! Our British and European ancestors were invariably led by exceedingly rich and ambitious men and women who contested one another for the right to rule on battlefields. Even our right to self government was established by George Washington on battlefields between Massachusetts and South Carolina between 1775 and 1781. Not until the adoption of our own Constitution did party politics become the instrument for achieving executive, legislative and judicial power in the United States — and, as we all learned in school, George Washington warned in his "farewell message” in September 1796 of the potential evils of party politics. Note that since the retiring president suggested no substitution for political parties, all we’re left with are those parties.

Since the establishment of our federal system of elective government, we've taken pride in our capacity to peacefully transfer power from party to party as well as from president to president.

Of course, presidents have been exceedingly critical of one another from time to time. Both John Adams, our second president, and John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, refused to attend the inaugurations of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson in 1800 and 1828 respectively. Thomas Jefferson considered Andrew Jackson a dangerous man having observed Jackson from his vice presidential chair when Jackson was briefly in the Senate representing Tennessee in 1798. Andrew Jackson came to hate almost everything Quincy Adams stood for, especially after 1824 in the wake of that "corrupt bargain" between Adams and House Speaker Henry Clay that made Quincy Adams president and Clay secretary of state after the 1824 election. 

 

Herbert Hoover heartily disliked FDR following the 1932 election. Harry Truman considered Richard Nixon a "damned liar” who often "...lied just to keep his hand in." The 1952 presidential campaign made both Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, who were once friendly, into bitter political opponents from then on. Truman observed that “[Ike] doesn't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday!" Richard Nixon and Jack Kennedy (once friends of a sort) came to dislike each other. Nixon was jealous of Kennedy's wealth and glamour and Kennedy often insisted that Nixon had "no class!" Finally, according to Thomas M. DeFrank's book "Write It When I'm gone,” Jerry Ford, who became reconciled with Jimmy Carter, did so out of their mutual contempt for Ronald Reagan. (Although he vigorously campaigned for Reagan in 1980, Ford never forgave Reagan for challenging him for the GOP nomination in 1976.)

The above instances of political and even personal animosities pale in significance to the cultural divide that is all too apparent between President Trump and former Vice President Biden. Today our opponents aren't merely dishonest or incompetent, they are criminals, traitors, and terrorists. I assert this not from above the battle, for I, too, have little if any regard whatsoever for one of the candidates and, as justifiable as I regard my attitude as being, I hold it with considerable discomfort.

A few days ago, I read that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook intends to block political ads on his site one week before the November 3rd election. I think that’s an excellent idea, as this need for rhetorical responsibility and accountability is an absolute must — considering where we’re all headed!

At the outset of this musing I observed that the "Sons of Liberty" who offered us their lives, their fortunes, and their "sacred honor" did something vitally important. Before they fought for freedom, they thought about freedom.

Now, that's our task!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY