Saints, Strangers, and Savages

“In the name of God Amen.” So it began, the Mayflower Compact, the first contract to which the Saints and Strangers came together and agreed upon. The year was 1620 and the Mayflower had arrived in the new world. They could not have known it then, but those few settlers who survived the treacherous storms as they sailed across the mighty Atlantic in their frail little ship were founding the greatest and mightiest nation the world would ever see. Its sheer size would one day rival and indeed surpass the greatest empires of history, and much of its acquisitions, although certainly not all, would be peaceful.

At that first “Thanksgiving,” there were three types of people: The Saints, or the Pilgrims, as we know them, who had fled England and its religious oppression. There were the Strangers, the sailors, the adventurers and other, rough and tumble types of folks that had joined the party, some of them more upright and steady than others of their number.

And of course there were the “Savages.” Of course, they weren’t all savages, and quite a few of them were peaceful, but in their war paint, lack of clothing, and strange tongue, to the bewildered and storm tossed Englishmen they must have seemed savage indeed in their primitive and uncivilized way.

Already, four hundred years ago, the themes and patterns that would come to be seen as distinctly American were already forming. There was a belief in God, and a belief that one should be free to worship in his or her own way. That was the ultimate reason that the Mayflower came to the new world at all, and indeed it was to God that the thanks was being given in the first place. That belief in a Divine Being would later be laid down further in the founding document of the nation in the Declaration, and the freedom to believe in Him or not was cemented in the Constitution. It has never left us, expanding in later years to the pledge of allegiance and the very currency with which we trade.

The second thing that showed itself early as our first founding fathers took their baby steps away from mother England was that of a fierce independence. Indeed, the very Mayflower Compact was created because many of the Strangers wanted to run into the woods and do their own thing. These were hardy folk, they’d travelled three thousand miles through uncharted waters to an unmapped land just to be free. It speaks of a people who later go against the mightiest nation in the world in war, and win, because that nation had dared to step on their liberty.

There was also the “Savages” acceptance of immigrants. It wasn’t necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts, many historians tell us, as the Indians were simply hoping to gain a new ally in the tribal warfare of the day, yet still, the Pilgrims were refugees, and the Indians did let them come, whatever the reason.

And then there was unity. Three groups of people, who for the most part worshiped in three different ways and spoke different languages, from different places, with different goals and ideas, were able to come together without warring with one another, to talk over their differences. That peace would last for over fifty years, until a true savage, “King Phillip,” an Indian chief, would break it.

Today, we are many millions of people, with scores of languages, scores of religious affiliations, and ideas as to how we should govern ourselves too many too count. And yet, as the other motto on our currency states, we are “out of many one.” We have come here not to be Englishmen or Saints or Strangers or Savages, we have come to be Americans. There are plenty of things to divide us, but we shouldn’t bother being such small people as to focus on those. We have one language, one flag, one currency and one people. The Pilgrims came here looking for unity amongst themselves and peace with the outside world. It’s a goal worth fighting for, and one we can be thankful they gave to us.

Andrew C. Abbott

Paris Attacks: One Hundred Dead, Ten Thousand Homeless

Appomattox, VA – It has often been stated that when a horrific event happens, 9/11, the death of John F. Kennedy, Pearl Harbor, you remember the very place you were. For me, on Friday the Thirteenth of November, I was about to watch Batman Begins again when I checked the news for one last time…and I never did end up watching the film that night.

The Paris Attacks, like a shock wave, have vibrated round the world. The responses from the Western World were quick, as all of us hastened to change our Facebook images to French flags and everywhere from DC to Chicago to London-the ancient enemy of France, hastened to light up its monuments in the red, white, and blue of the French tricolor.

In the world of the barbarians, sometimes called radical Islamic Terrorism, the response was one of jubilation almost bordering on euphoria because they had done something only an animal (and I apologize to rats for equating them with terrorists) would find any pleasure in.

But the question is, how should our continuing response be measured? Anonymous, the online hacking group has initiated cyber war on ISIS, shutting down twitter accounts and hacking their bank accounts, and Britain’s next Prime Minister, George Osborne, has promised to do the same. France has taken the wise step of closing its borders, and of course all the other European Countries should do the same.  For too long insufficient border controls and a fear of being seen as racist stopped many from speaking out about the unspeakable crime of open borders. But hopefully these horrific acts in Paris will stop this trend and open the eyes of the world that the next time terrorists come through open borders, either through Mexico or Luxemburg, and the target could be Chicago or Brussels.

In America, anyone who may have been oscillating in the old fashioned isolationist or leftist positions of not continuing the war on terror have now been silenced for a few more years at least, Politico underscoring this with its headline article “On Terrorism, we are all Right Wingers now.”

But of course, here in America the most important question is not only how we will close our southern border to keep members of ISIS, who have already threatened to attack DC and New York out, but also what will we do with the 10,000 refugees that our president has promised to bring in, in the first wave of a mass migration a quarter of a million strong. The vast majority would be Syrians, many of them young men, coming from a nation torn by civil war and rife with terrorists and extremist Muslim propaganda.

Some have said let none of them in, some have said let them all in. Some have said let a few in, as long as they are Christian. The last one is of course not an option. Not only would it be a knee jerk reaction to this crisis, and a poor reaction at that, in a practical sense it would be an impossible proposition. Who decides who is Christian? How do we know if they are lying? It’s all nonsense.

For the moment, this wave of ten thousand refugees are perhaps the ones the most affected by ISIS’s acts of terror outside of the immediate friends and family of those who were murdered of wounded, which is ironic, because supposedly Muslims and non-westerners are supposed to be the very ones they are supposed to be fighting to protect.

Over thirty governors have so far said they want no part of the refugees, while everyone from Mitt Romney to Ted Cruz, and even a few Democrats have said that the refugees must not be allowed in.

Whichever side one takes in this debate, it cannot be denied that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. These people should not be left in limbo. A yes or no answer needs to be returned very soon. Our leaders must think through this very carefully. If the answer is yes then stringent background checks must be put in place that are more searching than the test to become Caesar’s wife. If the answer is no, we must stand by that answer, and explain to the world that we would love to take in innocent refugees, but since there could very well be wolves amongst the sheep, we can’t take anyone. And if we do return that answer, we need to stand by it, all angry charity groups or the UN itself to the contrary.

And one last thing, the president needs to stop talking. So far his pronouncements on this subject have not been helpful or constructive. He is saying the first thing that comes to his mind, and most of it isn’t any good. His calling anyone who doesn’t want the refugees here “hysterical” is ridiculous, a hundred people just got killed, and one of the murderers was reportedly a refugee. And his mocking of those who don’t want them here as “afraid of little girls” is shameful. It wasn’t a little girl that blew herself up in Paris.

Pray for Paris, and for our president, that he would start using wisdom before he opens his mouth; honestly, what happened to all that bipartisan discretion he exercised in 2008 when he first ran for the presidency? At this rate he will be labeled the Democratic Donald Trump.

But all of that aside, the terrorist attacks have now left 10,000 people in limbo, and we need to come up with an answer. But whatever that answer is, it must not put our compassion ahead of our security.

Andrew C. Abbott

When Emperors Walk Naked

In the humorous and timeless story of Hans Christian Anderson, The Emperor's New Clothes, the famously nude emperor parades himself throughout the town in a nonexistent suit, thinking, like all those about him that he had nothing at all on, but not saying anything for fear of being labeled "hopelessly stupid." But the brave and proverbial little boy shouts out "the emperor is naked!" All the town's people take up the cry, the two tailors are run out of town and the poor emperor goes and finds himself some pants to put on.

But herein lies the difference in this children's tale from reality. For in true tales, if a man or woman speaks up, exposes the lies, tells the truth, and shouts "the emperor is naked" the crowd will not take up the cry. They will gasp, turn, and then begin stoning the one that would dare, in his ignorant, unpopular, narrow-minded and unenlightened mind, think that he could say the emperor was naked, when goodness knows-everyone can see he's wearing very fine robes. The little boy would not have been a hero, he would have been the bigoted villain. In the real world those who tell the truth are rarely deified, they are more often crucified.

There are many ideas that must be challenged, many lies that need exposing, but as you do that, don't forget that those who discover the man behind the curtain are sometimes killed. If you take the glasses of the useful idiots mindlessly wandering around the city of OZ thinking it is made of emeralds, they probably won't thank you for it. More likely they'll despise the one who took away the illusion of great beauty, even though the only thing there was a lot of peeling green paint.

Andrew C. Abbott

How About them Dems?

Atlanta, GA – On Saturday, Bernie Sanders, the Jr. Senator from Vermont left his hotel, owned by a capitalist. Got in his car built by a capitalist, and checked the news on his phone invented by a capitalist. When he got to his destination, a debate on a television station started by a capitalist, Sanders looked into a camera run by a capitalist, and screamed that capitalism is destroying America.

Such was the Democratic Debate in Iowa on CBSN.

Sanders, a man who has never started a business in his life or even held a job for a prolonged period of time, spent most of the debate bashing those who do create jobs and decrying the evils of being rich. (Sanders is himself rich.) The senator once again said that the way to fix the country is to tax millionaires more than they are already being taxed, even though CNN recently reported on a study which shows that taxing the millionaires and billionaires, even a lot more, would make little difference to the vast US budget.

There was Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland who is polling around 2% or less. His main job on stage is to stick around so that if Hillary gets indicted, the Democratic Party Elite will have another choice besides Bernie Sanders. He had a very good debate, all things considered. Although his style proves why he is not polling better, O’Malley was better than last time. His oddest moment of the night came when he claimed Donald Trump is an “immigrant bashing carnival barker.” He must have forgotten Trump is married to an immigrant and has thousands of them working for him in jobs he has created. O’Malley has created no jobs in his life.

As for Hillary Clinton, she had a night which was ok for her. She's already on the road to victory, and unless she suddenly breaks down and has a blowout moment where she admits everything the GOP has said about her is true, Clinton will sail to the nomination barring anyone else joining the race. Her foreign policy statements were well thought out, as was to be expected, and she managed not to run too far after Sanders to the left of the party, which, if she were to do, would cause her problems in the general election.

CBSN hosted a fine debate; John Dickerson handled the candidates very well, even without a buzzer. I may just be biased because I am a regular viewer of his Sunday show Face the Nation, but I thought with his focus on the issues and well thought out follow up questions, along with his “governor, your breaking the rules,” Dickerson set a high bar for future moderators of Democratic Debates this cycle.

Andrew C. Abbott