An open letter to anyone seeking my vote for an elective office created by the Constitution of the State of Nevada
Dear office seeker: I am a registered Republican who will be voting in all upcoming primary and general elections. I am a political conservative who has rarely if ever voted for the Democratic candidate for any office. I support western land reform, including allowing more Nevada land to pass into the hands of private ownership. I also support cattle ranching, and believe the Federal Government’s need to balance environmental concerns with the economic needs of the ranchers has, for many years now, been out of balance, and that cattle ranchers have been subjected to overly onerous, harsh, and arbitrary regulations and permitting conditions.
However, I also support the rule of law, and not the mob, and do not want to see the Constitutional form of government by the people, for the people, of the people, which I was bequeathed by George Washington and James Madison and Alexander Hamilton replaced with a government by the most powerful demagogues with the most guns, for the most powerful demagogues with the most guns. I do not believe that my own personal political and policy preferences with respect to the causes of western land reform (upon which reasonable minds can disagree without raising issues of fundamental human rights or morality) are so compelling as to justify even civil disobedience (let alone violent or armed resistance) to existing law. I also do not believe that these causes are well served by those who feel they have the right to take the law into their own hands, or who believe they may live their lives as though they were above the law or beyond its scope and reach. Rather, I support the Nevada Constitution, which protects my rights, as John Adams put it, to live in a republic "of laws and not of men."
I am proud of my Republican party's Lincoln legacy, as the party that preserved the Union and ended
legalized slavery. The office you are seeking requires you to swear an oath to “support, protect and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States, and the Constitution and government of the State of Nevada, against all enemies, whether domestic or foreign, and that I will bear true faith, allegiance and loyalty to the same . . .” NRS 282.020. The Constitution of the State of Nevada which you will swear to uphold was written during the Civil War, and was designed to ensure that the claims of would-be secessionists would not be recognized in this State. It provides, in pertinent part, as follows:
“[T]he Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State . . . to . . . perform any act tending to impair[,] subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and perpetuate its existence, and whensoever any . . . people . . . attempt to . . . forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.”
In recent weeks, an unregulated and unauthorized group of citizens of Nevada and other states have collected themselves within Clark County, Nevada, some of whom purport to be members of one or more “militia[s]”. However, none of these persons are, with respect to the events described in this letter, acting under the authority of a lawful militia “licensed by the Governor” as required by Nevada Revised Statutes 412.026. Rather, they are in my opinion instead acting in violation of Nevada criminal law, NRS 203.080, which makes it unlawful for “any body of individuals” who are not acting under proper statutory authority, “to associate themselves together as a military company with arms without the consent of the Governor.”
These individuals and other supporters have recently engaged in conduct within the State of Nevada which violates and thwarts the principles of the Nevada Constitution which I quoted above. In contravention of that Constitution, they have taken up arms to “forcibly resist the Execution of [the Federal government’s] laws” by armed officers of that government, and they have engaged in other acts “to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States.”
They engaged in this conduct in order to support a man named Cliven Bundy, who had, prior to 1993, previously held an ephemeral grazing permit (issued with respect to land that does not consistently contain enough forage to sustain livestock) to graze his cattle on public land owned by the U.S. Government, which lies near his private ranch property. Permission to graze cattle on public land is a privilege, not a right, which may be revoked at the discretion of the government. Light v. United States, 220 U.S. 523, 535 (U.S. Supreme Court 1911)(grazing permits on federally owned land do not confer vested rights). This land had been held by the U.S. Government since 1848, when it was acquired as part of the property ceded to the United States by Mexico pursuant to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the U.S. Government’s rights to control, allow or not allow, limit or extend, grazing on this U.S. Property has been repeatedly recognized. Mr. Bundy declined to sign a new permit in 1993, because he objected to the landowner’s permit terms. Nevertheless, Mr. Bundy’s cattle remained on the property, although he then also ceased paying any grazing fees. This put him in essentially the same position as anyone else who leases property rights from a property’s owner, but who stays in possession after his lease has expired without paying any further rent: He was a holdover squatter trespassing on land he did not own and did not have any right to possess.
Based thereon, Mr. Bundy was ordered in 1998, and, again, in 1999, by Judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada (whose powers derive from Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution which your oath of office will also require you to uphold) to remove livestock from property “owned by the United States and administered by the Department of the Interior through the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service” upon which Mr. Bundy had been found to have no lawful authority, at the time the orders were issued, to be grazing his cattle. Mr. Bundy did not obey these orders. Indeed, beginning in 2000, Mr. Bundy began allowing his cattle to graze on land for which he had never held any permit. Based thereon, in 2013, Mr. Bundy was again ordered to remove his trespassing cattle from federally owned property.
Mr. Bundy admits he has never obeyed any of these three Orders and he also admits having disobeyed orders requiring him to pay fines and penalties as a result of this disobedience. However, he excuses his conduct because he states that he does not recognize the United States Government as even existing (a statement he made in an interview on the Dana Loesch radio program), and on the basis of other legal arguments of a similarly frivolous nature which he has raised in Court filings and which have been repeatedly rejected. For example, Mr. Bundy claims the jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts is fictional, and that the“Sovereign” State of Nevada actually owns the land on which he has been trespassing, even though numerous legal authorities have held otherwise, based on the language of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalogo, and other relevant law, including the Nevada Constitution, which expressly indicates to the contrary.
Mr. Bundy's assertions that he does not recognize the U.S. Government as even existing, and his arguments that Nevada is its own sovereign state, all seem to indicate that Mr. Bundy has adopted the legal theories believed in by members of the so-called "sovereign citizens" movement, or other similar "sovereignty" legal theories derived from this movement. For example, according to Court filings, Mr. Bundy has made threats to "sue" federal employees he has encountered on federal property which he claimed to be his land. Filing such lawsuits, or threats to file such suits, against government employees, are a common practice among members of the sovereign citizens movement, and Mr. Bundy's assertion of State sovereignty, and refusal to recognize the existence and legitimacy of the U.S. Government are also common themes within this movement.
The sovereign citizen movement has been identified by the FBI as an extremist organization, some of whose members may be considered to be dangerous domestic terrorists.
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/april/sovereigncitizens_041310
The legal theories advanced by advocates of "sovereignty" theory have been criticized by legal scholar Dallin H. Oaks, a former University of Chicago law professor, former Utah State Supreme Court Justice, former President of Brigham Young University, and current Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a religion to which Mr. Bundy happens to belong, although he has not, apparently, become very conversant with his religion's leaders' take on his unique political ideas). Mr. Oaks has thoroughly analyzed the various arguments made by earlier generations of "sovereignty" theorists, found them to be wholly without merit and bogus, and concluded as follows with respect to those who would rely on such theories as grounds for violating federal court orders and laws:
"I feel sad that persons can be so misled. The wise will beware of teachings on the Constitution that are based on peephole history and selective readings of historic documents. They should also beware of the related advice of persons who advocate private armies or the collection of heavy weapons or extraordinary quantities of private arms. Responsible citizenship has no shortcuts when the going gets tough--not draft avoidance, not tax evasion and not eccentric theories that purport to free us from the obligation to be subject to the constitutions and laws of our states and our nation." Dallin H. Oaks "Some Responsibilities of Citizenship" America's Freedom Festival, Provo Utah, July 3, 1994.
Throughout 2011, Mr. Bundy refused numerous offers to meet with BLM agents and other government officials to resolve the impasse between himself and the Federal Government. In April 2012, Mr. Bundy declined an offer to resolve the matter by having him cooperate with an effort to impound his trespassing cattle by shipping them to a facility of his choice and provide him with the proceeds from the sale.
Because of Mr. Bundy’s failures to comply with the lawful injunction orders for the removal of his cattle, the third of these U.S. District Court Orders authorized government agents to seize and remove and impound Mr. Bundy’s trespassing cattle, and further ordered that Mr. Bundy “shall not physically interfere with any seizure or impoundment operation” so authorized. Contrary to claims by some of Mr. Bundy’s supporters that any operations so authorized amounted to “stealing” Mr. Bundy’s cattle, the BLM obtained the impoundment order, rather than simply acting on its own authority, before engaging in the impoundment operations, in order to expressly comply with Nevada law, NRS 565.125, which allows impounded cattle to be resold with the proper brand inspection clearance certificates, only if a Court Order for impoundment has preceded the seizure. Legally, under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution and federal legal preemption doctrines, this was not necessary. Nevertheless, the BLM engaged in this step in order to cooperate with the reasonable requests of local authorities, and cooperatively defer to their practical needs and requests. Thus, the U.S. Government showed far more deference to Nevada law in this matter than did Mr. Bundy. Mr. Bundy was provided prior notice, as required by the court, of the government’s intention to undertake the operations authorized by this order. Instead of utilizing the notice period to attempt to cure his unlawful squatting and trespass upon federally owned real property on which he has no recognized grazing rights, or to otherwise resolve or cure the situation, Mr. Bundy, according to news reports declared a “range war” and called upon State officials to come to his aid against the federal government’s operations, which would have required those officials to violate the provisions of the Nevada Constitution quoted above. This was consistent with earlier statements which Mr. Bundy had made, under oath, in the litigation leading to the aforestated orders, in which Mr. Bundy had testified that he would do “whatever it takes” to physically resist any legal officers’ actions to remove his cattle from land he did not own, in an effort to “physically stop” such conduct and that he would call upon and solicit “the assistance of neighbors, friends, family” and other “supporters” to do so.
Under the authority of a U.S. District Court's lawful order, armed agents of the United States therefore sought to carry out impoundment operations. While some of their conduct in carrying out these operations have been criticized as overly intense, Mr. Bundy’s indications of an intent to resist and create a “range war” would seem to be a likely source for the armed nature of the government’s operations. Mr. Bundy’s supporters were, for example, asked to limit any protest actions to a specified First Amendment area, in an apparent attempt to prevent his friends and supporters from physically interfering with the Government removal operations, as Mr. Bundy had sworn under oath he would solicit them to do. I will not comment here on whether this request was a Constitutionally appropriate time, manner, and place restriction on Mr. Bundy’s supporters, in light of the circumstances and Mr. Bundy's promises in sworn testimony of what he would ask his supporters to do, but I will note that many of his supporters gave support which went beyond speech, by, for example, throwing themselves or their ATV’s in front of vehicles which were involved in the operation, in order to prevent those vehicles from accessing roadways. The events which followed were highly publicized and Mr. Bundy soon found himself surrounded by and perhaps in putative control of armed supporters, including those claiming to be operating as a militia. Mr. Bundy’s armed supporters resisted the completion of the government’s operations, thereby violating the Nevada Constitution and its express recognition that “the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people . . . to . . . perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States.”
Mr. Bundy’s supporters have been successful in carrying out the goals of their unlawful enterprise to thwart the U.S. Government from carrying out U.S. Court Orders on real property owned by the U.S. Government, and in their armed resistance (in violation of the Nevada Constitution) to the lawful conduct of the federal agents who were seeking to enforce court orders of a country whose existence Mr. Bundy does not recognize. More specifically, due to the conduct of certain of Mr. Bundy’s supporters in facing down enforcement agents, the federal authorities withdrew to avoid the possibility of violence erupting over the situation.
Mr. Bundy and his supporters have remained in place, such that, as of this writing, a little corner of my State is under the de facto political control of Mr. Bundy and his private outlaw militia, rather than being controlled by the lawful government in whose jurisdiction this territory rightfully belongs, including with respect to property not only under the jurisdiction of, but legally owned by, the U.S. Government. In a little portion of my beloved State of Nevada, the rule of law has been replaced with the rule of anarchy and mob rule.
Dear candidate, the more I have thought about these events, the more these events have sickened me. I have deep roots in Southern Nevada. I was born and raised here in Southern Nevada. My maternal ancestors are buried in Bunkerville, Nevada. My paternal grandfather was instrumental in creating the Las Vegas Convention Center. My parents and my wife’s parents both attended Las Vegas High School in the 1940s, and my wife and I both received our K-12 education here in Southern Nevada. I am a practicing Nevada attorney and my first job after Law School was to work in Carson City as a Law Clerk to a Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, where I was privileged to work on cases involving the application of the Nevada Constitution to cases and controversies of our State’s good citizens. I love, honor, and cherish the Nevada Constitution.
I do not wish to live in a third-world mobocracy, where local warlords or drug cartels or their ilk, together with their private armies, have authority over territory which should properly be controlled by the lawful government of the civil state. But it now appears that portions of my beloved State of Nevada have fallen prey to this kind of unlawful rule. I do not support Mr. Bundy and his unregulated little band of outlaws, who are assisting him in his continued squatting and trespass on lands he does not own, and it sickens and frightens me that they have won the day and have been successful in their unlawful enterprise. I am also deeply concerned that certain local political candidates have taken up the cause of populist demagoguery in support of Mr. Bundy, and that many of these politicians come from my Republican party. I had always thought the Republican party stood for upholding the U.S. Constitution, and honored its Lincoln legacy in standing against would-be secessionists. I do not understand how we can uphold the U.S. Constitution when we support a man who does not recognize the existence of the government established by that Constitution, and has called upon armed support to physically resist executive branch officers acting under Article II of the Constitution, enforcing legislation enacted pursuant to Article I of the Constitution, under Orders issued by U.S. District Courts established by Article III of the Constitution. If we conservatives are going to support this man, then what part of the U.S. Constitution do we exactly believe in?
As you are seeking public office, I would like you to answer for me and other voters the following questions:
1. If you obtain the office you are seeking, will you take the oath you are required to take, to uphold the Constitution of the State of Nevada?
2. If so, will you uphold that oath, by opposing “any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States” and recognize that “the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority”? Or will you violate your oath and stand with those who “forcibly resist the Execution of [the Federal Government’s] laws” and support those, like Mr. Bundy and his followers who oppose the aforestated principles of the Constitution of the State of Nevada?
3. In the event that, upon your taking office, Mr. Bundy remains in violation of the law, any of his cattle remain on Federal land without lawful authority, or he or any of his supporters remain in apparent de facto political control of any territory under the lawful jurisdiction of the State of Nevada and the United States of America, what acts will you take to remedy each and every one of these situations so as to ensure that those portions of the Nevada Constitution quoted above are upheld, mobocracy is put down, and the rule of law is restored?
As a Nevada voter I feel I am entitled to an answer to these questions, as I feel they directly relate to your fitness for the office which you seek.
D. Chris Albright
Las Vegas, Nevada
April 21, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
Bundyland (Now With a Timeline)
THE BASIC TIMELINE AS I UNDERSTAND IT AND MY OPINIONS OF THE BUNDY MATTER:
1. Prior to 1993, Cliven Bundy held an ephemeral grazing permit (for land that does not consistently contain enough forage to sustain livestock) to graze his cattle on public land owned by the U.S. Government, near his private Bunkerville Nevada area ranch.
2. Permission to graze cattle on public land is a privilege, not a right, which may be revoked at the discretion of the government. Light v. United States, 220 U.S. 523, 535 (U.S. Supreme Court 1911). This is an important point worth spending some time on. Many people who support Bundy's lawless refusal to abide by public agency determinations and Court Orders with respect to the disposition of public land where his cattle have been trespassing have insisted that some "right" was being violated. However, Bundy's personal political policy preferences, and those of his supporters, do not rise to the level of Constitutional rights. I wanted a different outcome in the last election, but I had only a "right" to vote and to campaign, not to win. As Dallin Oaks has explained: "[I] urge that we be more careful in the way we throw around the idea that something is unconstitutional. A constitution should not be used as a weapon to end debate. A public policy or a proposed law that is unwise is not necessarily unconstitutional. Even if it is a stupid proposal, it is not necessarily unconstitutional. A constitution gives the people and their elected leaders the opportunity to make many decisions that are unwise or even reckless. When that happens — when the government or one of its officials engages in some kind of action that we consider to be wrong — we should engage in vigorous public debate about it. But we should not use up a constitution by attempting to strike down every ill-conceived act of government or to discredit every unwise official. A constitution is the ultimate weapon, and we preserve that weapon best by using it sparingly and carefully. If we call some action unconstitutional, we should be prepared to explain what provision or principle of a constitution it violates."
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/fundamentals-of-our-constitutions-elder-dallin-h-oaks
3. The publicly owned land where Mr. Bundy previously held grazing permits has been held by the U.S. Government since 1848, when it was ceded to the United States Federal Government by Mexico, pursuant to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
4. This federally owned land is administered by the Department of the Interior through the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, pursuant to Congressional legislation granting these agencies the power to do so.
5. Mr. Bundy declined to sign a new permit in 1993, because he objected to the landowner’s permit terms, which would have reduced his allotment to 150 head of cattle, due to environmental concerns, including allegations of possible harm to the desert tortoise, which is listed as an endangered species. Notwithstanding his failure to have any permit for the grazing of any cattle after 1993, Mr. Bundy’s cattle remained on the property without permit, but as trespassing cattle, and he then also ceased paying any grazing fees. In social media postings, one of Mr. Bundy’s daughters has described Mr. Bundy’s decision to not sign the new 1993 permit as a decision by him to “fire” the BLM as his manager, according to which rather fanciful theory the BLM was somehow Mr. Bundy's hired manager, rather than the entity appointed by congressional legislation to manage the land for the property owner, namely the U.S. Government.
6. Mr. Bundy was ordered in 1998, and, again, in 1999, by the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada (whose powers derive from Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution) to remove his trespassing livestock from the property where he had previously held a permit. Mr. Bundy did not obey these orders.
7. Beginning in the year 2000, Bundy began allowing his cattle to graze on land for which he had never held any permit (described in later court filings as “New Trespass Lands.”)
8. In 2013, Mr. Bundy was again ordered by a U.S. District Court to remove his trespassing cattle from federally owned property.
9. Mr. Bundy admits he has never obeyed any of these three Orders and he also admits having disobeyed orders requiring him to pay fines and penalties as a result of this disobedience. However, he excuses his conduct because he states that he does not recognize the United States Government as even existing (a statement he has made in media interviews), and on the basis of other legal arguments of a similar nature which he has raised in Court filings and which have been repeatedly rejected. For example, Mr. Bundy claims the jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts is a self-created fiction, and that the sovereign State of Nevada actually owns the land on which his cattle have been trespassing.
10. These assertions regarding the non-existence of the U.S. Government and the fictional nature of its Courts' jurisdiction and Nevada’s status as its own sovereign State are not mainstream legitimate legal arguments. Rather, they derive from and reflect the ideology of the "sovereign citizens" movement (albeit with some customization unique to Mr. Bundy's purposes). For example, according to Court filings, Mr. Bundy has made threats to "sue" federal employees he has encountered on the federal property where his cows were trespassing, which he claimed in his encounters to be his land. These types of threats to bring suits against government employees are a common practice among members of the sovereign citizens movement.
11. The sovereign citizen movement has been identified by the FBI as an extremist organization, some of whose members may be considered to be domestic terrorists.
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/april/sovereigncitizens_041310
12. The legal theories advanced by advocates of "sovereignty" theory, as a basis for refusing to comply with federal laws and court orders have been criticized by legal scholar Dallin H. Oaks, a former University of Chicago law professor, former Utah State Supreme Court Justice, former President of Brigham Young University, and current Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a religion to which Mr. Bundy happens to belong). In 1994, Mr. Oaks, having thoroughly analyzed the various arguments made by earlier generations of "sovereignty" theorists, found them to be wholly without any legitimacy, and concluded as follows with respect to those who would rely on such theories as grounds for violating federal laws: "I feel sad that persons can be so misled. The wise will beware of teachings on the Constitution that are based on peephole history and selective readings of historic documents. They should also beware of the related advice of persons who advocate private armies or the collection of heavy weapons or extraordinary quantities of private arms. Responsible citizenship has no shortcuts when the going gets tough--not draft avoidance, not tax evasion and not eccentric theories that purport to free us from the obligation to be subject to the constitutions and laws of our states and our nation." Dallin H. Oaks "Some Responsibilities of Citizenship" America's Freedom Festival, Provo Utah, July 3, 1994. [Emphasis added.]
13. Throughout 2011, Mr. Bundy refused numerous offers to meet with BLM agents and other government officials to resolve the impasse between himself and the Federal Government. In April 2012, Mr. Bundy declined an offer to resolve the matter by having him cooperate with an effort to impound his trespassing cattle by shipping them to a facility of his choice and provide him with the proceeds from the sale.
14. Because of Mr. Bundy’s failures to comply with the lawful injunction orders for the removal of his cattle, the third of these U.S. District Court Orders authorized government agents to seize and remove and impound Mr. Bundy’s trespassing cattle, and further ordered that Mr. Bundy shall not physically interfere with any seizure or impoundment operation so authorized. This was not an action to “collect a bill” as some have characterized it, but to enforce an injunction for the removal of trespassing cattle from property where they had been grazing without a permit for over a decade, including from some property for which no permit had ever been held.
15. Mr. Bundy was provided prior notice, as required by the Court, of the government’s intention to undertake the operations authorized by this Order. Instead of utilizing the notice period to attempt to cure his trespass upon federally owned real property on which he has no recognized grazing permission, Mr. Bundy, according to news reports declared a “range war” and called upon State officials to come to his aid against the federal government’s operations.
16. Had Nevada state officials come to Mr. Bundy’s aid in his resistance against U.S. law and U.S. Court Orders, they would have been violating the Nevada Constitution which, having been written during the Civil War, was designed to ensure that the claims of would-be secessionists would not be recognized in this State, providing as follows: “[T]he Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State . . . to . . . perform any act tending to impair[,] subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and perpetuate its existence, and whensoever any . . . people . . . attempt to . . . forcibly resist the execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.
17. Mr. Bundy’s requests for a range war was consistent with earlier statements which Mr. Bundy had made, under oath, in the litigation leading to the last of the aforestated orders, in which Mr. Bundy had testified that he would do “whatever it takes” to physically resist any legal officers’ actions to remove his cattle from land he did not own, in an effort to physically stop such conduct and that he would call upon and solicit the assistance of neighbors, friends, family and other supporters to do so.
18. Under the authority of the U.S. District Court's order, armed government agents therefore sought to carry out impoundment operations. Mr. Bundy’s supporters resisted, and, as the matter received increasing media attention, supporters of Mr. Bundy’s cause, many of whom were armed and characterized themselves as “militia” members soon arrived. It should be noted that a lawful Nevada militia must be “licensed by the Governor” as required by Nevada Revised Statutes 412.026. Otherwise, it is a crime in Nevada, under NRS 203.080, for any body of individuals who are not acting under proper statutory authority, to associate themselves together as a military company with arms without the consent of the Governor.
19. An expert on the fringe “sovereign citizens” movement, reporting for Forbes magazine, has reported that much of the rhetoric employed by those who arrived indicated their affiliation with this movement.
(www.forbes.com/sites/jjmacnab/2014/05/02/context-matters-the-cliven-bundy-standoff-part-2/)
Although the FBI has indicated that certain members of the "Sovereign Citizens" movement may be considered to be domestic terrorists, I would not personally label any of Mr. Bundy's actions or those of his militia to be "terrorism" as they have not directed violence against civilians to spread fear. However, their use of arms to essentially play chicken with and stand down the lawful agents of the Federal Government, seeking to enforce a U.S. District Court Order on U.S. owned land, certainly qualifies, in my opinion, as domestic criminality, and had shots been fired, the terrorist label may at some point have become appropriate.
20. In order to avoid violence, the BLM eventually ceased its impoundment operations and released all of the cattle which it had impounded to date. As of this writing, so-called “militia” members apparently remain on the ground in the Bunkerville area, to prevent any future efforts by the U.S. Government to enforce U.S. Court Orders on property owned by the U.S. Government, under the apparent, but facially absurd, theory that it would be invalid or wrongful for the U.S. Government to enforce U.S. District Court Orders on property owned by the U.S. Government.
21. Everyone can make up their own mind regarding the foregoing. As for me, whatever sympathy I may have had for Mr. Bundy’s position in 1993, when the BLM restricted his grazing permit, is now irrelevant, given the conduct which Bundy has engaged in for the past 20 years, since that date, and the fringe ideology and extremist movement he has supported to justify his conduct. Armed resistance to the activities of executive branch officers of the U.S. Government who derive their executive authority from acts of Congress and are acting to enforce Orders of a United States District Court, authorized to issue those Orders under Article III of the United States Constitution, seems to me to be inherently anti-American, anti-Constitutional conduct. I support the Constitution of the United States and I oppose those who do not.
22. Nor are any issues of human rights involved in this matter which might justify civil disobedience to legal authorities. This is a question of the government’s use of government owned land, not an issue of extreme religious or ethnic discrimination. As was stated by Dallin H. Oaks: “At a clear and extreme level, violations of inalienable rights by a government might excuse citizens from the performance of some obligations of citizenship. But . . . any such exceptions would have to be . . . extreme . . . . As long as a government provides aggrieved persons an opportunity to work to enlarge their freedoms and relieve their oppressions by legal and peaceful means, a Latter-day Saint citizen's duty is to forego revolution and disobedience of law. Our doctrine commits us to work from within. Even an oppressive government is preferable to a state of lawlessness and anarchy in which the only ruling principle is force and every individual has a thousand oppressors. . . . We remain committed to uphold our governments and to obey their laws. One of the most important of the great fundamentals of our inspired Constitution is the principle that the sovereign power is in the people . . . . However, it does not follow from this principle that each citizen is free to determine which laws he will obey or that one or more citizens are free to redefine the concept of sovereignty. That would result in anarchy, a system in which the only source of power is the sword. In that system, no person is free.”
COMMENTARY:
So what exactly are we supposed to call the territory which is now under the de facto control of Cliven Bundy and his private militia, who have successfully ousted therefrom the agents of that Federal Government which still claims political jurisdiction over the territory’s citizens and ownership of much of its real property? Bundyland? That seems a proper fit. Since Cliven Bundy is not required to recognize or abide by any federal laws or any federal court orders or to even recognize the existence of the United States government, it is a very safe bet that he, and he alone, will be the only law in Bundyland. So it should probably be named after him.
More importantly, what are the boundaries of Bundyland? A certain perimeter around the Bundy home? The entirety of the Bunkerville grazing allotment which was cancelled when Cliven didn't renew his permit, but on which his cattle have continued to graze, without license from the property’s owner, and without paying any fees, for 20 years? Or are the boundaries flexible, tied to his chattel, and moving wherever his sacred freedom cows move?
This is an important point. If we are going to become Somalia, where the national government holds power over our territory in name only, but where local warlords and their private armies are actually in control on the ground, then we are all going to need to know the basics of which warlords are controlling which areas, so we can bring appropriate amounts of tribute money, or whatever else they take as payment, if we want to travel and need to pass through their borders. (I’ve heard that in Somalia, children are usually accepted.) Will the Bundylandian militia be setting up a toll booth to collect on the I-15? Or will they use pirates in Mad Max cars? I’m sure they’ll want to be paid. They need to eat after all, and they can’t leave Bundyland or the Feds might pull an Abraham Lincoln and try to take it over again. And who wants a big giant Obama statue in our nation’s capitol, sitting next to Abe? Are you kidding me? So, it’s only right that we should pay them. They are, after all, protecting our freedoms. Or so they keep ensuring us.
I’d like to thank George Washington and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison et al., for having bequeathed unto us a government of laws and not of men. It was great while it lasted guys, it really, really was. But apparently we’ve decided to forego all that now and pursue a more dynamic and, um, libertarian, direction. Because, you know, there are important rights involved here. I’m not sure what they are. The right to point guns at government employees and call it free speech? Or the right to use government owned land for free? I can’t seem to find anyone who will tell me the specifics, but they are apparently very, very, important. Real MLK natural higher law type stuff if you know what I mean. And people seem to be really, really, happy about it, and to be rallying around this Bundy guy and his little desert oasis of freedom like he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. And when has something like that ever gone wrong? So I’m sure it’s going to turn out just swell. But thanks for the memories. It looks like Bundy’s followers are going to keep your vintage flag (although I’m not sure I understand the logic there), so hopefully the other warlords will follow suit. It will be nice to enjoy that nostalgia.
Chris Albright
April 18, 2014
1. Prior to 1993, Cliven Bundy held an ephemeral grazing permit (for land that does not consistently contain enough forage to sustain livestock) to graze his cattle on public land owned by the U.S. Government, near his private Bunkerville Nevada area ranch.
2. Permission to graze cattle on public land is a privilege, not a right, which may be revoked at the discretion of the government. Light v. United States, 220 U.S. 523, 535 (U.S. Supreme Court 1911). This is an important point worth spending some time on. Many people who support Bundy's lawless refusal to abide by public agency determinations and Court Orders with respect to the disposition of public land where his cattle have been trespassing have insisted that some "right" was being violated. However, Bundy's personal political policy preferences, and those of his supporters, do not rise to the level of Constitutional rights. I wanted a different outcome in the last election, but I had only a "right" to vote and to campaign, not to win. As Dallin Oaks has explained: "[I] urge that we be more careful in the way we throw around the idea that something is unconstitutional. A constitution should not be used as a weapon to end debate. A public policy or a proposed law that is unwise is not necessarily unconstitutional. Even if it is a stupid proposal, it is not necessarily unconstitutional. A constitution gives the people and their elected leaders the opportunity to make many decisions that are unwise or even reckless. When that happens — when the government or one of its officials engages in some kind of action that we consider to be wrong — we should engage in vigorous public debate about it. But we should not use up a constitution by attempting to strike down every ill-conceived act of government or to discredit every unwise official. A constitution is the ultimate weapon, and we preserve that weapon best by using it sparingly and carefully. If we call some action unconstitutional, we should be prepared to explain what provision or principle of a constitution it violates."
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/fundamentals-of-our-constitutions-elder-dallin-h-oaks
3. The publicly owned land where Mr. Bundy previously held grazing permits has been held by the U.S. Government since 1848, when it was ceded to the United States Federal Government by Mexico, pursuant to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
4. This federally owned land is administered by the Department of the Interior through the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, pursuant to Congressional legislation granting these agencies the power to do so.
5. Mr. Bundy declined to sign a new permit in 1993, because he objected to the landowner’s permit terms, which would have reduced his allotment to 150 head of cattle, due to environmental concerns, including allegations of possible harm to the desert tortoise, which is listed as an endangered species. Notwithstanding his failure to have any permit for the grazing of any cattle after 1993, Mr. Bundy’s cattle remained on the property without permit, but as trespassing cattle, and he then also ceased paying any grazing fees. In social media postings, one of Mr. Bundy’s daughters has described Mr. Bundy’s decision to not sign the new 1993 permit as a decision by him to “fire” the BLM as his manager, according to which rather fanciful theory the BLM was somehow Mr. Bundy's hired manager, rather than the entity appointed by congressional legislation to manage the land for the property owner, namely the U.S. Government.
6. Mr. Bundy was ordered in 1998, and, again, in 1999, by the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada (whose powers derive from Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution) to remove his trespassing livestock from the property where he had previously held a permit. Mr. Bundy did not obey these orders.
7. Beginning in the year 2000, Bundy began allowing his cattle to graze on land for which he had never held any permit (described in later court filings as “New Trespass Lands.”)
8. In 2013, Mr. Bundy was again ordered by a U.S. District Court to remove his trespassing cattle from federally owned property.
9. Mr. Bundy admits he has never obeyed any of these three Orders and he also admits having disobeyed orders requiring him to pay fines and penalties as a result of this disobedience. However, he excuses his conduct because he states that he does not recognize the United States Government as even existing (a statement he has made in media interviews), and on the basis of other legal arguments of a similar nature which he has raised in Court filings and which have been repeatedly rejected. For example, Mr. Bundy claims the jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts is a self-created fiction, and that the sovereign State of Nevada actually owns the land on which his cattle have been trespassing.
10. These assertions regarding the non-existence of the U.S. Government and the fictional nature of its Courts' jurisdiction and Nevada’s status as its own sovereign State are not mainstream legitimate legal arguments. Rather, they derive from and reflect the ideology of the "sovereign citizens" movement (albeit with some customization unique to Mr. Bundy's purposes). For example, according to Court filings, Mr. Bundy has made threats to "sue" federal employees he has encountered on the federal property where his cows were trespassing, which he claimed in his encounters to be his land. These types of threats to bring suits against government employees are a common practice among members of the sovereign citizens movement.
11. The sovereign citizen movement has been identified by the FBI as an extremist organization, some of whose members may be considered to be domestic terrorists.
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/april/sovereigncitizens_041310
12. The legal theories advanced by advocates of "sovereignty" theory, as a basis for refusing to comply with federal laws and court orders have been criticized by legal scholar Dallin H. Oaks, a former University of Chicago law professor, former Utah State Supreme Court Justice, former President of Brigham Young University, and current Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a religion to which Mr. Bundy happens to belong). In 1994, Mr. Oaks, having thoroughly analyzed the various arguments made by earlier generations of "sovereignty" theorists, found them to be wholly without any legitimacy, and concluded as follows with respect to those who would rely on such theories as grounds for violating federal laws: "I feel sad that persons can be so misled. The wise will beware of teachings on the Constitution that are based on peephole history and selective readings of historic documents. They should also beware of the related advice of persons who advocate private armies or the collection of heavy weapons or extraordinary quantities of private arms. Responsible citizenship has no shortcuts when the going gets tough--not draft avoidance, not tax evasion and not eccentric theories that purport to free us from the obligation to be subject to the constitutions and laws of our states and our nation." Dallin H. Oaks "Some Responsibilities of Citizenship" America's Freedom Festival, Provo Utah, July 3, 1994. [Emphasis added.]
13. Throughout 2011, Mr. Bundy refused numerous offers to meet with BLM agents and other government officials to resolve the impasse between himself and the Federal Government. In April 2012, Mr. Bundy declined an offer to resolve the matter by having him cooperate with an effort to impound his trespassing cattle by shipping them to a facility of his choice and provide him with the proceeds from the sale.
14. Because of Mr. Bundy’s failures to comply with the lawful injunction orders for the removal of his cattle, the third of these U.S. District Court Orders authorized government agents to seize and remove and impound Mr. Bundy’s trespassing cattle, and further ordered that Mr. Bundy shall not physically interfere with any seizure or impoundment operation so authorized. This was not an action to “collect a bill” as some have characterized it, but to enforce an injunction for the removal of trespassing cattle from property where they had been grazing without a permit for over a decade, including from some property for which no permit had ever been held.
15. Mr. Bundy was provided prior notice, as required by the Court, of the government’s intention to undertake the operations authorized by this Order. Instead of utilizing the notice period to attempt to cure his trespass upon federally owned real property on which he has no recognized grazing permission, Mr. Bundy, according to news reports declared a “range war” and called upon State officials to come to his aid against the federal government’s operations.
16. Had Nevada state officials come to Mr. Bundy’s aid in his resistance against U.S. law and U.S. Court Orders, they would have been violating the Nevada Constitution which, having been written during the Civil War, was designed to ensure that the claims of would-be secessionists would not be recognized in this State, providing as follows: “[T]he Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State . . . to . . . perform any act tending to impair[,] subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and perpetuate its existence, and whensoever any . . . people . . . attempt to . . . forcibly resist the execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.
17. Mr. Bundy’s requests for a range war was consistent with earlier statements which Mr. Bundy had made, under oath, in the litigation leading to the last of the aforestated orders, in which Mr. Bundy had testified that he would do “whatever it takes” to physically resist any legal officers’ actions to remove his cattle from land he did not own, in an effort to physically stop such conduct and that he would call upon and solicit the assistance of neighbors, friends, family and other supporters to do so.
18. Under the authority of the U.S. District Court's order, armed government agents therefore sought to carry out impoundment operations. Mr. Bundy’s supporters resisted, and, as the matter received increasing media attention, supporters of Mr. Bundy’s cause, many of whom were armed and characterized themselves as “militia” members soon arrived. It should be noted that a lawful Nevada militia must be “licensed by the Governor” as required by Nevada Revised Statutes 412.026. Otherwise, it is a crime in Nevada, under NRS 203.080, for any body of individuals who are not acting under proper statutory authority, to associate themselves together as a military company with arms without the consent of the Governor.
19. An expert on the fringe “sovereign citizens” movement, reporting for Forbes magazine, has reported that much of the rhetoric employed by those who arrived indicated their affiliation with this movement.
(www.forbes.com/sites/jjmacnab/2014/05/02/context-matters-the-cliven-bundy-standoff-part-2/)
Although the FBI has indicated that certain members of the "Sovereign Citizens" movement may be considered to be domestic terrorists, I would not personally label any of Mr. Bundy's actions or those of his militia to be "terrorism" as they have not directed violence against civilians to spread fear. However, their use of arms to essentially play chicken with and stand down the lawful agents of the Federal Government, seeking to enforce a U.S. District Court Order on U.S. owned land, certainly qualifies, in my opinion, as domestic criminality, and had shots been fired, the terrorist label may at some point have become appropriate.
20. In order to avoid violence, the BLM eventually ceased its impoundment operations and released all of the cattle which it had impounded to date. As of this writing, so-called “militia” members apparently remain on the ground in the Bunkerville area, to prevent any future efforts by the U.S. Government to enforce U.S. Court Orders on property owned by the U.S. Government, under the apparent, but facially absurd, theory that it would be invalid or wrongful for the U.S. Government to enforce U.S. District Court Orders on property owned by the U.S. Government.
21. Everyone can make up their own mind regarding the foregoing. As for me, whatever sympathy I may have had for Mr. Bundy’s position in 1993, when the BLM restricted his grazing permit, is now irrelevant, given the conduct which Bundy has engaged in for the past 20 years, since that date, and the fringe ideology and extremist movement he has supported to justify his conduct. Armed resistance to the activities of executive branch officers of the U.S. Government who derive their executive authority from acts of Congress and are acting to enforce Orders of a United States District Court, authorized to issue those Orders under Article III of the United States Constitution, seems to me to be inherently anti-American, anti-Constitutional conduct. I support the Constitution of the United States and I oppose those who do not.
22. Nor are any issues of human rights involved in this matter which might justify civil disobedience to legal authorities. This is a question of the government’s use of government owned land, not an issue of extreme religious or ethnic discrimination. As was stated by Dallin H. Oaks: “At a clear and extreme level, violations of inalienable rights by a government might excuse citizens from the performance of some obligations of citizenship. But . . . any such exceptions would have to be . . . extreme . . . . As long as a government provides aggrieved persons an opportunity to work to enlarge their freedoms and relieve their oppressions by legal and peaceful means, a Latter-day Saint citizen's duty is to forego revolution and disobedience of law. Our doctrine commits us to work from within. Even an oppressive government is preferable to a state of lawlessness and anarchy in which the only ruling principle is force and every individual has a thousand oppressors. . . . We remain committed to uphold our governments and to obey their laws. One of the most important of the great fundamentals of our inspired Constitution is the principle that the sovereign power is in the people . . . . However, it does not follow from this principle that each citizen is free to determine which laws he will obey or that one or more citizens are free to redefine the concept of sovereignty. That would result in anarchy, a system in which the only source of power is the sword. In that system, no person is free.”
COMMENTARY:
So what exactly are we supposed to call the territory which is now under the de facto control of Cliven Bundy and his private militia, who have successfully ousted therefrom the agents of that Federal Government which still claims political jurisdiction over the territory’s citizens and ownership of much of its real property? Bundyland? That seems a proper fit. Since Cliven Bundy is not required to recognize or abide by any federal laws or any federal court orders or to even recognize the existence of the United States government, it is a very safe bet that he, and he alone, will be the only law in Bundyland. So it should probably be named after him.
More importantly, what are the boundaries of Bundyland? A certain perimeter around the Bundy home? The entirety of the Bunkerville grazing allotment which was cancelled when Cliven didn't renew his permit, but on which his cattle have continued to graze, without license from the property’s owner, and without paying any fees, for 20 years? Or are the boundaries flexible, tied to his chattel, and moving wherever his sacred freedom cows move?
This is an important point. If we are going to become Somalia, where the national government holds power over our territory in name only, but where local warlords and their private armies are actually in control on the ground, then we are all going to need to know the basics of which warlords are controlling which areas, so we can bring appropriate amounts of tribute money, or whatever else they take as payment, if we want to travel and need to pass through their borders. (I’ve heard that in Somalia, children are usually accepted.) Will the Bundylandian militia be setting up a toll booth to collect on the I-15? Or will they use pirates in Mad Max cars? I’m sure they’ll want to be paid. They need to eat after all, and they can’t leave Bundyland or the Feds might pull an Abraham Lincoln and try to take it over again. And who wants a big giant Obama statue in our nation’s capitol, sitting next to Abe? Are you kidding me? So, it’s only right that we should pay them. They are, after all, protecting our freedoms. Or so they keep ensuring us.
I’d like to thank George Washington and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison et al., for having bequeathed unto us a government of laws and not of men. It was great while it lasted guys, it really, really was. But apparently we’ve decided to forego all that now and pursue a more dynamic and, um, libertarian, direction. Because, you know, there are important rights involved here. I’m not sure what they are. The right to point guns at government employees and call it free speech? Or the right to use government owned land for free? I can’t seem to find anyone who will tell me the specifics, but they are apparently very, very, important. Real MLK natural higher law type stuff if you know what I mean. And people seem to be really, really, happy about it, and to be rallying around this Bundy guy and his little desert oasis of freedom like he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. And when has something like that ever gone wrong? So I’m sure it’s going to turn out just swell. But thanks for the memories. It looks like Bundy’s followers are going to keep your vintage flag (although I’m not sure I understand the logic there), so hopefully the other warlords will follow suit. It will be nice to enjoy that nostalgia.
Chris Albright
April 18, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Stupid 21st Century Ideas
Not to be overly curmudgeonly, but, herewith, in no particular order, some prevalent modern ideas which are, in my opinion, stupid, false, counterproductive, and likely to destroy western civilization:
1. The belief that a government dedicated to promoting equalized outcomes and "social justice" is performing a legitimate governmental function, which will not lead to totalitarianism.
2. The idea that the government's primary function is to promote equality (in outcomes, not in treatment before the law), rather than to preserve liberty and freedom.
3. The idea that the most important thing the founders ever did was to revolt from England, when, in fact, the most important thing they ever did was to thereafter establish a constitutional republic of laws and not of men.
4. The idea that sex, marriage, procreation, and child-rearing need not be integrated concepts, but can all be separated into independent processes bearing no relation to each other, without any adverse effects to society.
5. The single gender lie, which denies the basic biological fact that (with rare medical exceptions insufficiently common to upend society over) human beings come in two genders, chromosomally defined and determinable, and which promotes instead the claim that there are no inherent complementary differences between men and women, but only differences which are the result of unjust social conditioning, such that we should strive for a world in which all gender differences have been collapsed and we all behave and are treated as an undifferentiated unigender.
6. The multiple gender lie, which denies the basic biological fact that human beings come in two genders (with rare medical exceptions insufficently common to upend society over), and which promotes instead the claim that there are a multiplicity of genders, which we must each determine for ourselves regardless of the gender we were (arbitrarily and unjustly) "assigned" at birth.
7. All of the stupid ideas that flow from the single gender lie and from the multiple gender lie, including without limitation, cisgender privilege theory, marriage redefined (out of existence) as meaning whatever you want it to mean with no core constitutive elements, policies which terminate the role of fathers in children's lives, etc.
8. The biggest false promise of the 60's, which nevertheless continues to be pushed today, despite all historical evidence to the contrary: that unregulated and unfettered and government financed access to birth control and abortion, for singles as well as marrieds, for youth as well as adults, will decrease illegitimate births.
9. The "Millenials'" generation's insistence that their children are so unique and special that each one of them must be given a name no one has ever heard before, which must be spelled non-phonetically. This item will seem like a silly, overly-curmudgeonly, addition to this list ("Come on people, there are like 14 ways to make a long e sound in English, can't you use one of them?") But it is in its way symptomatic of the whole. This is, ultimately, a list about ignoring objective sources of wisdom which come from outside oneself (based on nature, or the facts, or the law, or tradition, or God) and replacing it with subjective and personal beliefs. The Millienials' insistence that they can spell their childrens' names one way and require they be pronounced a different way is of a piece with the Millenials' embrace of defining marriage to mean whatever any two or more persons want it to mean.
10. Disparate impact presumptions. The belief that in a socially just society, every single ethnic or racial or gender group will have exactly the same outcomes as every other such group, such that, if any study between whites and non-whites, or between men and women, or between any other two groups, shows any differences in their average incomes, or average test scores, or average loan approval rates, or average graduation rates, etc., invidious discrimination/racism/sexism must be legally and politically presumed to be at fault, and inherent differences in the goals and aspirations and choices of different groups of people from different cultures cannot possibly have anything to do with it.
11. The multiculturalism lie: The belief that no society should be judged as morally superior or inferior to any other society, except that western civilization is presumed to be inferior to all other societies.
12. The female multicultural lie. The belief that multiculturalism is compatible with feminism, despite the fact that no culture on earth treats women as well as western culture.
13. The constitutional inequality lie. The belief that it is constitutionally appropriate for the government to discriminate against Whites and Asians and in favor of other groups, granted preferential treatment in the awarding of public contracts and in public university admissions, and that this does not violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
14. The university diversity lie. The belief that a high quality higher education requires a university student to be exposed to a diversity of ethnic groups and skin colors, but does not require the student to be exposed to any diverse political opinions. Hence, admissions and tenure decisions are to be made on the basis of ensuring ideological conformity by people who all look different but think exactly the same.
15. The higher education as political monastery lie. The redefining of the purpose of higher education, which is no longer to teach students knowledge and how to think, but is, instead, to promote "social justice" via recruiting and converting students as adherents to and missionaries for the causes of the left, such that it is perfectly appropriate for speakers and teachers who do not share in those causes to be kept off of university grounds, since allowing such partisans a voice would be contrary to the purpose of the university, as those purposes are now defined.
1. The belief that a government dedicated to promoting equalized outcomes and "social justice" is performing a legitimate governmental function, which will not lead to totalitarianism.
2. The idea that the government's primary function is to promote equality (in outcomes, not in treatment before the law), rather than to preserve liberty and freedom.
3. The idea that the most important thing the founders ever did was to revolt from England, when, in fact, the most important thing they ever did was to thereafter establish a constitutional republic of laws and not of men.
4. The idea that sex, marriage, procreation, and child-rearing need not be integrated concepts, but can all be separated into independent processes bearing no relation to each other, without any adverse effects to society.
5. The single gender lie, which denies the basic biological fact that (with rare medical exceptions insufficiently common to upend society over) human beings come in two genders, chromosomally defined and determinable, and which promotes instead the claim that there are no inherent complementary differences between men and women, but only differences which are the result of unjust social conditioning, such that we should strive for a world in which all gender differences have been collapsed and we all behave and are treated as an undifferentiated unigender.
6. The multiple gender lie, which denies the basic biological fact that human beings come in two genders (with rare medical exceptions insufficently common to upend society over), and which promotes instead the claim that there are a multiplicity of genders, which we must each determine for ourselves regardless of the gender we were (arbitrarily and unjustly) "assigned" at birth.
7. All of the stupid ideas that flow from the single gender lie and from the multiple gender lie, including without limitation, cisgender privilege theory, marriage redefined (out of existence) as meaning whatever you want it to mean with no core constitutive elements, policies which terminate the role of fathers in children's lives, etc.
8. The biggest false promise of the 60's, which nevertheless continues to be pushed today, despite all historical evidence to the contrary: that unregulated and unfettered and government financed access to birth control and abortion, for singles as well as marrieds, for youth as well as adults, will decrease illegitimate births.
9. The "Millenials'" generation's insistence that their children are so unique and special that each one of them must be given a name no one has ever heard before, which must be spelled non-phonetically. This item will seem like a silly, overly-curmudgeonly, addition to this list ("Come on people, there are like 14 ways to make a long e sound in English, can't you use one of them?") But it is in its way symptomatic of the whole. This is, ultimately, a list about ignoring objective sources of wisdom which come from outside oneself (based on nature, or the facts, or the law, or tradition, or God) and replacing it with subjective and personal beliefs. The Millienials' insistence that they can spell their childrens' names one way and require they be pronounced a different way is of a piece with the Millenials' embrace of defining marriage to mean whatever any two or more persons want it to mean.
10. Disparate impact presumptions. The belief that in a socially just society, every single ethnic or racial or gender group will have exactly the same outcomes as every other such group, such that, if any study between whites and non-whites, or between men and women, or between any other two groups, shows any differences in their average incomes, or average test scores, or average loan approval rates, or average graduation rates, etc., invidious discrimination/racism/sexism must be legally and politically presumed to be at fault, and inherent differences in the goals and aspirations and choices of different groups of people from different cultures cannot possibly have anything to do with it.
11. The multiculturalism lie: The belief that no society should be judged as morally superior or inferior to any other society, except that western civilization is presumed to be inferior to all other societies.
12. The female multicultural lie. The belief that multiculturalism is compatible with feminism, despite the fact that no culture on earth treats women as well as western culture.
13. The constitutional inequality lie. The belief that it is constitutionally appropriate for the government to discriminate against Whites and Asians and in favor of other groups, granted preferential treatment in the awarding of public contracts and in public university admissions, and that this does not violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
14. The university diversity lie. The belief that a high quality higher education requires a university student to be exposed to a diversity of ethnic groups and skin colors, but does not require the student to be exposed to any diverse political opinions. Hence, admissions and tenure decisions are to be made on the basis of ensuring ideological conformity by people who all look different but think exactly the same.
15. The higher education as political monastery lie. The redefining of the purpose of higher education, which is no longer to teach students knowledge and how to think, but is, instead, to promote "social justice" via recruiting and converting students as adherents to and missionaries for the causes of the left, such that it is perfectly appropriate for speakers and teachers who do not share in those causes to be kept off of university grounds, since allowing such partisans a voice would be contrary to the purpose of the university, as those purposes are now defined.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Books Completed in 2014
JANUARY
Killing Jesus, by Bill O'Relly and Martin Dugard. January 6. Kindle. Three Stars (out of five).
A simple and straightforward account, counting on the inherent drama of the events to make a compelling narrative, without adding any unnecessary flourish. Worth the price primarily as a reference, with great footnotes, and helpful background explanations, especially regarding the fascinating but disturbing Roman history which had recently preceded Christ's birth. Not for younger readers.
Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. Two Stars. Audible. I read (well, listened to) the first Divergent book late last year at the advice of my younger teenage daughter, who is a fan. I liked it and found it to be tightly plotted and well paced. A little too heavy on the female adolescent romantic angst, but I guess that's where the big Hunger Games bucks are, and I'm clearly not in the target audience. What made the first book worth reading, for me, was its exploration of one of my favorite subjects: how communities are formed and maintained, based on shared values and reinforcing rituals which give meaning to the lives of the community's members, and how such communities can lose their way. I just didn't enjoy this second book in the trilogy nearly as much. It felt like the author had rushed it to print for marketing purposes rather than taking as much time as was needed to get it right, leading to a narrative mess. The big reveal at the end was pretty good though, better than anything they came up with on Lost.
Dead Mountain, by Donnie Eichar. 3.5 stars out of 5. Kindle. A fascinating and tragic true story which reads like an episode of the X-Files. What was the "unknown compelling force" (in the words of the official investigation) which, in February 1959, caused 9 Russian hikers to flee the security of their tent, and perish from hypothermia and other causes in the subzero temperatures of the remote landscape in which they were hiking? An American author investigates. His solution to the puzzle is itself highly intriguing. But it would be more credible if someone were to conduct some follow up testing. Could the right scientific monitors, installed over the course of a full winter or two, determine whether the area's topography really does sometimes result in the weather patterns and associated phenomenon the author describes? Maybe somebody someday will find out. In the meantime, there's a tragic slice of life story here which is worth reading for it's own sake to better understand life in Kruschev's Soviet Union.
In the Garden of Beasts, by Eric Larson. 3.5 stars out of 5. Trade paperback. The true story of how FDR's unlikely choice as ambassador to Germany in the 1930s, University of Chicago history professor William Dodd, slowly recognizes just how big a threat to the world Adolf Hitler really is, but is unable to convince anyone back home to do anything about it. Meanwhile, Dodd's promiscuous daughter Martha proves that stupidity in one's private life is often related to stupidity in one's politics. The tale culminates in the "night of the long knives" when Hitler liquidated the SA, and settled a few dozen other old political scores, in a 24 hour spasm of dictatorial violence, arrests and executions. An odd and unsettling book about an odd and unsettling family living through a nightmarish time.
FEBRUARY
The God Who Weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens. 5 Stars. Kindle. There's an ethereal and esoteric quality to the writing here that is a little hard to get used to. Not your normal LDS doctrinal writing style. And certainly nothing akin to the frank and matter-of-fact plainspoken style of the best non-LDS Christian doctrinal writers, such as C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton. Nevertheless, once you get used to that style, and learn to focus on what is being conveyed, there are some real treasures here. Deserves a place on that bookshelf of items I go back to again and again, for years to come.
The Triple Package by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld. 3 Stars. Kindle. The premise of this book is that certain cultural groups (including my cultural group: Mormons) rise and achieve more in America because they possess three qualities: a belief in their superiority which is innate to their cultural or doctrinal self-perception, an inferiority complex/insecurity based on their lack of acceptance in mainstream American society, and impulse control. There's a lot to be said, pro and con, about this book, but I'm not interested enough to write a full blog entry about it. Suffice it to say that I think Mormons can be charged with having a lot of confidence, but the idea that we feel superior is a misreading of our doctrine. Yes, we believe ourselves to be essentially the same type of beings as God, but in a different stage of development. No, that doesn't mean we feel superior to others (Like C. S. Lewis, we think everyone is a God in embryo, not just ourselves). I'm comfortable with the concept of our having some insecurity, based on being outsiders in the larger culture (mocked by the secular left on Broadway, while simultaneously attacked as a cult by our "allies" in the culture wars on the religious right) and the drive to succeed which that produces. And, yes, I suppose our missions, and our abstemious lifestyle in an "if it feels good do it" world does give many of us far more impulse control than the typical early 21st Century, anything-goes, American. But I think Chua is missing a fourth ingredient which is more important than the rest: the advantages of being raised in stable low-conflict homes, by our own two biological married parents, from birth to adulthood (as so many more Mormons than the general population now experience), provides us with an advantage in a world where studies have increasingly proven just how much family structure matters, and just how disruptive it is that family structures have, for the past 50 years, lost their historic stability.
Theodore Roosevelt's History of the United States compiled by Daniel Ruddy. 5 stars out of 5. Trade Paperback. Man do I have conflicted feelings about Theodore Roosevelt. Love some of his political positions and hate others. But I sure do enjoy the man and his personality: His willingness to decide what he believes and stick to his guns on those beliefs no matter the criticism of others; his intellectual capacity as both a voracious reader and a writer of serious non-fiction, combined with his physically "strenuous" life, made The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris and its first follow-up, Theodore Rex, two of my favorite books of all time. This book collects excerpts from Roosevelt's writings and letters, and sticks them under various headings in chronological order, to give us a snapshot of his views on various historical figures, from the Revolutionary era until the end of World War I. It's clear his political and historical opinions were cast in iron by his coming of age during the Civil War. Anyone who did anything to strengthen this country and its government (including the presidency and the judiciary), like Washington, Hamilton, most of all Lincoln, and of course himself: GOOD. Anyone who toyed with weakening the union, or pursuing policies such as nullification that ultimately provided the doctrinal underpinnings for secession, like Jefferson, Madison (in that Post-Philadelphia phase of his life when he followed Jefferson), Gouverneur Morris: BAD. This book will at turns shock, with Roosevelt's prescience; offend, with his politically incorrect jingoism; and cause literal laughing out loud, at his bombastic patriotism. Loved it.
MARCH
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. 4 out of 5 stars. Hardback. I enjoyed this almost as much as Outliers, which remains my favorite Malcolm Gladwell book.
When I was growing up, my father had two favorite quotes: "Every advantage has its tax" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay, Compensation; and "[w]ithin every disadvantage lays the seed of an equivalent benefit" which, though sometimes attributed to Emerson, was actually motivational writer Napoleon Hill's riff on Emerson's first statement. David and Goliath is a book-length treatise on the truth behind these two quotes.
The Gladwell formula is by now familiar: develop a counterintutive theme, and tell lots of interesting stories about it, interspersing in each chapter one such story with research findings from the relevant field, backing up the contrarian wisdom of your premise. In this volume, Gladwell has hit upon a theme which perfectly matches both his gifts and his template, as he explores the notion of "desirable difficulty." There are hardships we wouldn't wish on our own children which can actually help a person to succeed, Gladwell argues, either (a) because of the character traits (strength, grit, determination) a person gains from overcoming such difficulties, or (b) because, lacking traditional advantages, persons suffering from such desirable difficulties have to break the rules and find ways to exploit the hidden weaknesses of traditionally strong opponents (think guerilla warfare or a scrappy basketball team's willingness, borne of nothing-to-lose desperation, to employ a full court press). As should be expected from a story-teller as gifted as Gladwell, this volume has plenty of engaging, well-told tales.
Can Gladwell be trusted? Of course not. His stories are obviously simplified, and it's fairly apparent that what's being left out is any nuance that would prevent the story from fitting into his current book's theme. And each of Gladwell's books always seem to devolve into filler in the last couple of chapters, with stories that don't seem to have anything obvious to do with his treatise, but which he stretches or twists to try to make them fit some element of his pattern. Nevertheless, it's always an enjoyable ride, and there's always a few of his stories or the research findings he presents that you find wanting to discuss with your friends and family members. (As the father of two college kids, I was especially intrigued by this book's chapter on the alleged disadvantages of an Ivy League education, as an application of the big fish small pond theory). Sign me up for Gladwell's next one. I'll keep reading.
Allegiant by Veronica Roth. Two stars. Audible. I usually enjoy getting out of a sci-fi/fantasy world's established locale and learning the big reveals about the backstory truth. The chapters in the fourth Wheel of Time book, for example, when Rand passes through the temple at Rhuidean and learns the true history of the Aiel, are some of my favorites in the whole series. However, this can be overdone. It's one thing to be shown tantalizing bits of the back story, which intrigue us with the knowledge that we are reading about an interesting world with a deep and resonant geography and history. It's another thing to be jerked away from the world we've come to enjoy, and told to spend the rest of our time in backstoryland, so that we no longer find the backstory all that intriguing. Think the Star Wars prequels, or trying to slog through the Silmarillion. That's the problem I had with this book, the third and final book in the series, which focuses on the true reasons why dystopian Chicago has come to exist, and is set almost entirely outside of Chicago. That outside world, however, just didn't seem very well-thought out or convincing or interesting to me, compared to the factioned dystopian world that had been established in the first book, where there was still plenty of room for more exploration.
APRIL
Brave New World Aldous Huxley. Kindle. Five Stars. Back in the 20th century, when literary dystopias were intended as social commentary, rather than useful settings for young adult romantic angst and adventure books, three titles arose as the most significant: 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. I'm not sure why this is the only one of the three that I've never read until now. Maybe because I thought I already knew the basic idea from a cheesy TV Movie version I remember seeing in the 80s (now available on Youtube) and so I never bothered to read it. That was a mistake. It's clear that, of the three works, this was the most prescient. The one that worked least effectively as warning, and most effectively as prophecy. Marriage abolished? On our way. Children taught to enjoy sexual promiscuity at an ever earlier age, in public schools? Check. Sexual promiscuity as a norm? Check. Sex and procreation and child-rearing and marriage all treated as sundered and independent processes having nothing whatsoever to do with each other? Check An economy based on conditioning the masses to believe they stand in constant need of new stuff? Check. Pharmacological -induced emotions in lieu of dealing with life? Check. Human beings untouched by nature, unaware of literature, and concerned only with pleasures that keep their attention through sensory overload? Check, check and double check. The scariest thing about this book, to me, is how few people would read it today and understand that it's meant to be dystopian. And how many people would read it as describing the supposed Utopia they are working to achieve.
MAY
The Golem and the Jinni Helene Wecker. Kindle. Four Stars. An enjoyable historical fantasy novel set in turn-of-the-Century New York. A good solid piece of fun entertainment with no socially redeeming value whatsoever. Just what I was in the mood for.
JUNE
The Radicalism of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood. Audible. Five Stars. A fascinating exploration of the heirarchical and integrated society which existed in the American colonies under British monarchy, unchanged in many ways from the British society which had existed for centuries; the founding fathers' tenuous place as recently arrived aristocratic gentry within that society, who, like all novices, fully embraced the value system of that caste, especially the disinterested commitment to public service expected of those possessed of the right type of wealth; and how that world was completely upended and overturned by the Revolution. We will never have another group of men quite like the founders, in large part because what they wrought destroyed their class, its value system, and the world and assumptions that had produced them.
JULY
The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle. Kindle. I've always strongly believed that balance is a key to life. But this book helped me to apply that principle in an entirely different way, and provided me with some new paradigms. This is a book about virtues. The virtues, according to Aristotle, must be developed as character traits by being lived and acted out, until they become habitual and thus characteristic of a virtuous person. This is sound doctrine.
But Aristotle sees the virtues in a way which is much less manichean, much less black and white, than we tend to see them. For Aristotle, each virtue is the correct median point between an excess and a deficiency. Thus, courage and cowardice are not opposites. Rather, courage should be understood as the correct reaction to the right circumstances in which it is appropriate to act out of determination rather than fear, such that courage is the proper midpoint between two extremes:
COWARDICE COURAGE RECKLESSNESS
(deficiency) (virtue) (excess)
And so it goes for a host of other values as well: prudence, moderation, justness, liberality, generosity, civic-mindedness, etc., all of them are the proper characteristic between the deficiency and the excess. I love this idea. Have you ever known someone who just seemed to have a hard time in life? A hard time staying employed, a hard time staying married, a hard time staying active in the church? For many who struggle with such problems, there is an apathy about life that seems to be the problem. A deficiency in ambition: The individual whose every conversation and facial gesutre seem to indicate: "I just can't care that much about my job, my spouse, my marriage, my church involvement, etc." But I can also think of some individuals who live their lives in such a constant state of tightly wound overzealousness that they have driven away their spouse and their employer, or driven themselves from the church, as well.
There is also much in this line of thinking to recommend itself politically: It helps explain my own aversion to libertarianism and the anarchy leading inevitably to tyranny which it recommends, as well as my aversion to totalitarian social justice liberalism and the revolutionary anarchy which it invites, or any other overly doctrinaire and extremist political position. As a conservative, I find much common cause with libertarianism on certain points, except when I realize how quickly it would lead to a kind of anarchy that is always the predecessor to tyranny. The answer to too much government isn't no government, it's the right amount of government. The answer to bad laws isn't no laws, it's good laws. But finding that proper middle ground is too hard for our society. We're squaring off into all-or-nothing camps, the socialist totalitarians and the libertarian anarchists, ready for battle. Aristotle's treatise also discusses the politics of the ideal city-state government, and calls for a resistance to such extremes.
The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead Charles Murray. Kindle. This short book, subtitled "Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life" is full of good advice for young people. I was probably a little too old for it to do me much good though, already being stuck in my curmudgeonly ways. But I enjoyed it anyway. There's some great information here on writing. (If only someone had explained to me to "kill your darlings" 20 years ago.) The stuff on happiness, though covered in greater detail in Murray's book, Coming Apart, is essential.
OCTOBER
James Madison, A Life Reconsidered, Lynne Cheney. Hardback. 3.5 Stars, but 5 stars for the chapters on the Constitutional Convention and its aftermath. I had very strong feelings about this book, which I've written about in two separate blog entries, beginning with the blog post located here:
http://dadsbookreviews.blogspot.com/2014/10/some-thoughts-on-religious-liberty.html
NOVEMBER
Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box The Arbinger Institute. Trade Paperback. 4.5 Stars. This was an incredible book which should be read by every single person on the planet who is in any relationship at all (as a spouse, a parent, a child, a sibling, a co-worker, an employer, an employee, a church calling holder working with others, etc.). The only reason I didn't give it a full five stars is I was a little annoyed that the last chapter turned into an advertisement for additional material that could be learned by taking an Arbinger Institute Seminar. I wish I had been given this book four years ago when I was first called to a church calling that involved counseling people who were experiencing conflict in their marriages or in their relationships with children. Really incredibly useful.
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution Bernard Bailyn. Kindle. 4 Stars. As pointed out by Gordon S. Wood, in the Introduction to his book, The Idea of America (Penguin, 2011), in the first half of the Twentieth Century, progressive historians taught that early American history was primarily to be understood in economic terms, with Charles Beard's book, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, forming the lynchpin for this point of view. This progressive view, with its economic interpretation, began to be debunked in the second half of the Twentieth Century, as historians came to better understand the political ideals which motivated the revolution, and see the legitimacy and sincerity with which those views were held, for their own sake, and not merely as cover for a fight about economic self-interest. Bailyn's Ideological Origins, which studies the political pamphlets of the revolutionary era, was the major assault on the progressive historians and their economic interpretation. It is essential and fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand why the revolution mattered to those who fought it, and how they themselves understood their own political principles.
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States Gordon S. Wood. Trade Paperback. 5 Stars.
There are three kinds of books about history:
(1) Historical Surveys. Surveys cover the major events of a certain era in chronological order, and I almost always find them incredibly boring, as they necessarily lack the most important sources of engagement in any piece of writing: flesh and blood protagonists. The fact that history textbooks for public schools are written in this chronological form explains everything we need to know about most Americans' lack of historical literacy or interest. If you got out of public school with any interest or curiosity about history whatsoever, it was in spite, not because, of how the subject was handled in your textbooks. Most high school students' natural sense of curiosity did not survive.
(2) Biographies. These are the most engaging and accessible way to learn about history. A well written biography can tell a great story about an interesting character influencing and being influenced by fascinating events and personalities. It was through biography that my own interest in American history was rekindled many years after academic textbooks had almost completely killed it off.
(3) Finally, there are books of Historical Analysis, which, when done well, and when approached with sufficient background knowledge in hand, are the most rewarding of all. These are the books which try to explain the political and/or economic and/or religious and/or geographical and/or military and/or cultural basis for why things happened the way they did. Books that have a theory. Books which prove that history is NOT just one darn thing after another, let alone bunk. Books that prove history is important and help us realize that the choices we are making right now matter, and will continue to matter, for a long time to come, for good or ill.
On the subject of the early American republic, Gordon S. Wood probably writes this third type of history as well as anyone, alive or dead. (Joseph J. Ellis, who writes for a less scholarly audience, has a style which is more fun, interesting and engaging, and whose views I sympathize with more often than I do with some of Wood's, would be a close second. But Wood offers deep insights, and if you can make the effort, the payoff is worth it.) The Idea of America is a collection of some of Wood's short pieces of academic prose, presented over the course of his career as articles for scholarly journals or speeches in various academic forums, each updated for this collection, with notes after each chapter on Woods' current feelings on the issues he covers. Woods is a little more sympathetic towards Jeffersonian Republicanism, and a little more hostile towards Hamiltonian Federalism, than I am. And he appreciates the radical deism of Jefferson and Paine that I find slightly horrifying. But he doesn't hit you over the head with his sympathies, so those are minor quibbles. On subject after subject (American historiography as covered in his introduction; the influence of the Roman Republic on the founders' ideology; whether the founders were paranoid conspiracy theorists and if so whether we should care; the British origins and the political ideology of the constitution; the rise of self-interested political factions; the development of "rights" in American legal theory), Woods offers nuanced, non-ideologically driven, clear-cut insights. He has no interest in mining the founders for ideological ammunition in any modern political controversies. Rather, his interest lies in helping us to understand the Founders' long-vanished, and, to us, largely incomprehensible, world, and how that world influenced, and was influenced by, the founders' political viewpoints. This is a book that helps a reader understand the way the founders saw themselves and their struggles in their own time. If you were to only read one book on early American history in your entire lifetime, you could do much worse than selecting this volume.
The Giver Lois Lowry. Audible. 3 stars. This is a beautiful evocative story, full of religious symbolism. I would have liked it more though if the plot had been more detailed, if better explanations had been provided for how they blocked color and sunlight etc., and if the ending had been less ambiguous. I am a big fan of Tolkien's distinction between allegory and applicability. Allegory works best, in my opinion, when it's something you can find for yourself as an applicable symbolic meaning, available as one reading of a story, which story though stands on its own two feet and works on its own, even if you never feel the need to see or look for any greater meaning.
This book doesn't pass that test. The fantasy elements are never adequately explained, and the ending is obviously contrived to remain open to myriad interpretations. The author intends us to think of the book as a fable, not a novel which works as a good story in its own right. Still, for what it is, it's well done. And it's always fascinating to me how often some variation of this same story comes up in sci-fi and fantasy: the world without opposition or agency, controlled by higher powers for the protection and sheltering of its citizens, ala Satan's plan in the Pearl of Great Price, or modern day Sweden. You can see it in A Wrinkle in Time, the film version of I Robot, the first episode of Star Trek Voyager, just to name a few examples I can remember off the top of my head. Perhaps it keeps recurring because it reminds us of something.
DECEMBER
How Will You Measure Your Life Clayton M. Christensen. Kindle. 4 Stars. A wonderful little book my son Scott recommended to me. Like the Curmudgeon's Guide, by Murray, this book is written for people younger than me. But I loved it anyway, as I subscribe to the philosophy that tomorrow is always another day and we are never too old to learn. Christensen uses business case studies from his Harvard college course and applies them to personal settings: charting goals for a meaningful life, effective parenting and marital relations, integrity. A great read.
Killing Jesus, by Bill O'Relly and Martin Dugard. January 6. Kindle. Three Stars (out of five).
A simple and straightforward account, counting on the inherent drama of the events to make a compelling narrative, without adding any unnecessary flourish. Worth the price primarily as a reference, with great footnotes, and helpful background explanations, especially regarding the fascinating but disturbing Roman history which had recently preceded Christ's birth. Not for younger readers.
Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. Two Stars. Audible. I read (well, listened to) the first Divergent book late last year at the advice of my younger teenage daughter, who is a fan. I liked it and found it to be tightly plotted and well paced. A little too heavy on the female adolescent romantic angst, but I guess that's where the big Hunger Games bucks are, and I'm clearly not in the target audience. What made the first book worth reading, for me, was its exploration of one of my favorite subjects: how communities are formed and maintained, based on shared values and reinforcing rituals which give meaning to the lives of the community's members, and how such communities can lose their way. I just didn't enjoy this second book in the trilogy nearly as much. It felt like the author had rushed it to print for marketing purposes rather than taking as much time as was needed to get it right, leading to a narrative mess. The big reveal at the end was pretty good though, better than anything they came up with on Lost.
Dead Mountain, by Donnie Eichar. 3.5 stars out of 5. Kindle. A fascinating and tragic true story which reads like an episode of the X-Files. What was the "unknown compelling force" (in the words of the official investigation) which, in February 1959, caused 9 Russian hikers to flee the security of their tent, and perish from hypothermia and other causes in the subzero temperatures of the remote landscape in which they were hiking? An American author investigates. His solution to the puzzle is itself highly intriguing. But it would be more credible if someone were to conduct some follow up testing. Could the right scientific monitors, installed over the course of a full winter or two, determine whether the area's topography really does sometimes result in the weather patterns and associated phenomenon the author describes? Maybe somebody someday will find out. In the meantime, there's a tragic slice of life story here which is worth reading for it's own sake to better understand life in Kruschev's Soviet Union.
In the Garden of Beasts, by Eric Larson. 3.5 stars out of 5. Trade paperback. The true story of how FDR's unlikely choice as ambassador to Germany in the 1930s, University of Chicago history professor William Dodd, slowly recognizes just how big a threat to the world Adolf Hitler really is, but is unable to convince anyone back home to do anything about it. Meanwhile, Dodd's promiscuous daughter Martha proves that stupidity in one's private life is often related to stupidity in one's politics. The tale culminates in the "night of the long knives" when Hitler liquidated the SA, and settled a few dozen other old political scores, in a 24 hour spasm of dictatorial violence, arrests and executions. An odd and unsettling book about an odd and unsettling family living through a nightmarish time.
FEBRUARY
The God Who Weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens. 5 Stars. Kindle. There's an ethereal and esoteric quality to the writing here that is a little hard to get used to. Not your normal LDS doctrinal writing style. And certainly nothing akin to the frank and matter-of-fact plainspoken style of the best non-LDS Christian doctrinal writers, such as C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton. Nevertheless, once you get used to that style, and learn to focus on what is being conveyed, there are some real treasures here. Deserves a place on that bookshelf of items I go back to again and again, for years to come.
The Triple Package by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld. 3 Stars. Kindle. The premise of this book is that certain cultural groups (including my cultural group: Mormons) rise and achieve more in America because they possess three qualities: a belief in their superiority which is innate to their cultural or doctrinal self-perception, an inferiority complex/insecurity based on their lack of acceptance in mainstream American society, and impulse control. There's a lot to be said, pro and con, about this book, but I'm not interested enough to write a full blog entry about it. Suffice it to say that I think Mormons can be charged with having a lot of confidence, but the idea that we feel superior is a misreading of our doctrine. Yes, we believe ourselves to be essentially the same type of beings as God, but in a different stage of development. No, that doesn't mean we feel superior to others (Like C. S. Lewis, we think everyone is a God in embryo, not just ourselves). I'm comfortable with the concept of our having some insecurity, based on being outsiders in the larger culture (mocked by the secular left on Broadway, while simultaneously attacked as a cult by our "allies" in the culture wars on the religious right) and the drive to succeed which that produces. And, yes, I suppose our missions, and our abstemious lifestyle in an "if it feels good do it" world does give many of us far more impulse control than the typical early 21st Century, anything-goes, American. But I think Chua is missing a fourth ingredient which is more important than the rest: the advantages of being raised in stable low-conflict homes, by our own two biological married parents, from birth to adulthood (as so many more Mormons than the general population now experience), provides us with an advantage in a world where studies have increasingly proven just how much family structure matters, and just how disruptive it is that family structures have, for the past 50 years, lost their historic stability.
Theodore Roosevelt's History of the United States compiled by Daniel Ruddy. 5 stars out of 5. Trade Paperback. Man do I have conflicted feelings about Theodore Roosevelt. Love some of his political positions and hate others. But I sure do enjoy the man and his personality: His willingness to decide what he believes and stick to his guns on those beliefs no matter the criticism of others; his intellectual capacity as both a voracious reader and a writer of serious non-fiction, combined with his physically "strenuous" life, made The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris and its first follow-up, Theodore Rex, two of my favorite books of all time. This book collects excerpts from Roosevelt's writings and letters, and sticks them under various headings in chronological order, to give us a snapshot of his views on various historical figures, from the Revolutionary era until the end of World War I. It's clear his political and historical opinions were cast in iron by his coming of age during the Civil War. Anyone who did anything to strengthen this country and its government (including the presidency and the judiciary), like Washington, Hamilton, most of all Lincoln, and of course himself: GOOD. Anyone who toyed with weakening the union, or pursuing policies such as nullification that ultimately provided the doctrinal underpinnings for secession, like Jefferson, Madison (in that Post-Philadelphia phase of his life when he followed Jefferson), Gouverneur Morris: BAD. This book will at turns shock, with Roosevelt's prescience; offend, with his politically incorrect jingoism; and cause literal laughing out loud, at his bombastic patriotism. Loved it.
MARCH
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. 4 out of 5 stars. Hardback. I enjoyed this almost as much as Outliers, which remains my favorite Malcolm Gladwell book.
When I was growing up, my father had two favorite quotes: "Every advantage has its tax" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay, Compensation; and "[w]ithin every disadvantage lays the seed of an equivalent benefit" which, though sometimes attributed to Emerson, was actually motivational writer Napoleon Hill's riff on Emerson's first statement. David and Goliath is a book-length treatise on the truth behind these two quotes.
The Gladwell formula is by now familiar: develop a counterintutive theme, and tell lots of interesting stories about it, interspersing in each chapter one such story with research findings from the relevant field, backing up the contrarian wisdom of your premise. In this volume, Gladwell has hit upon a theme which perfectly matches both his gifts and his template, as he explores the notion of "desirable difficulty." There are hardships we wouldn't wish on our own children which can actually help a person to succeed, Gladwell argues, either (a) because of the character traits (strength, grit, determination) a person gains from overcoming such difficulties, or (b) because, lacking traditional advantages, persons suffering from such desirable difficulties have to break the rules and find ways to exploit the hidden weaknesses of traditionally strong opponents (think guerilla warfare or a scrappy basketball team's willingness, borne of nothing-to-lose desperation, to employ a full court press). As should be expected from a story-teller as gifted as Gladwell, this volume has plenty of engaging, well-told tales.
Can Gladwell be trusted? Of course not. His stories are obviously simplified, and it's fairly apparent that what's being left out is any nuance that would prevent the story from fitting into his current book's theme. And each of Gladwell's books always seem to devolve into filler in the last couple of chapters, with stories that don't seem to have anything obvious to do with his treatise, but which he stretches or twists to try to make them fit some element of his pattern. Nevertheless, it's always an enjoyable ride, and there's always a few of his stories or the research findings he presents that you find wanting to discuss with your friends and family members. (As the father of two college kids, I was especially intrigued by this book's chapter on the alleged disadvantages of an Ivy League education, as an application of the big fish small pond theory). Sign me up for Gladwell's next one. I'll keep reading.
Allegiant by Veronica Roth. Two stars. Audible. I usually enjoy getting out of a sci-fi/fantasy world's established locale and learning the big reveals about the backstory truth. The chapters in the fourth Wheel of Time book, for example, when Rand passes through the temple at Rhuidean and learns the true history of the Aiel, are some of my favorites in the whole series. However, this can be overdone. It's one thing to be shown tantalizing bits of the back story, which intrigue us with the knowledge that we are reading about an interesting world with a deep and resonant geography and history. It's another thing to be jerked away from the world we've come to enjoy, and told to spend the rest of our time in backstoryland, so that we no longer find the backstory all that intriguing. Think the Star Wars prequels, or trying to slog through the Silmarillion. That's the problem I had with this book, the third and final book in the series, which focuses on the true reasons why dystopian Chicago has come to exist, and is set almost entirely outside of Chicago. That outside world, however, just didn't seem very well-thought out or convincing or interesting to me, compared to the factioned dystopian world that had been established in the first book, where there was still plenty of room for more exploration.
APRIL
Brave New World Aldous Huxley. Kindle. Five Stars. Back in the 20th century, when literary dystopias were intended as social commentary, rather than useful settings for young adult romantic angst and adventure books, three titles arose as the most significant: 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. I'm not sure why this is the only one of the three that I've never read until now. Maybe because I thought I already knew the basic idea from a cheesy TV Movie version I remember seeing in the 80s (now available on Youtube) and so I never bothered to read it. That was a mistake. It's clear that, of the three works, this was the most prescient. The one that worked least effectively as warning, and most effectively as prophecy. Marriage abolished? On our way. Children taught to enjoy sexual promiscuity at an ever earlier age, in public schools? Check. Sexual promiscuity as a norm? Check. Sex and procreation and child-rearing and marriage all treated as sundered and independent processes having nothing whatsoever to do with each other? Check An economy based on conditioning the masses to believe they stand in constant need of new stuff? Check. Pharmacological -induced emotions in lieu of dealing with life? Check. Human beings untouched by nature, unaware of literature, and concerned only with pleasures that keep their attention through sensory overload? Check, check and double check. The scariest thing about this book, to me, is how few people would read it today and understand that it's meant to be dystopian. And how many people would read it as describing the supposed Utopia they are working to achieve.
MAY
The Golem and the Jinni Helene Wecker. Kindle. Four Stars. An enjoyable historical fantasy novel set in turn-of-the-Century New York. A good solid piece of fun entertainment with no socially redeeming value whatsoever. Just what I was in the mood for.
JUNE
The Radicalism of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood. Audible. Five Stars. A fascinating exploration of the heirarchical and integrated society which existed in the American colonies under British monarchy, unchanged in many ways from the British society which had existed for centuries; the founding fathers' tenuous place as recently arrived aristocratic gentry within that society, who, like all novices, fully embraced the value system of that caste, especially the disinterested commitment to public service expected of those possessed of the right type of wealth; and how that world was completely upended and overturned by the Revolution. We will never have another group of men quite like the founders, in large part because what they wrought destroyed their class, its value system, and the world and assumptions that had produced them.
JULY
The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle. Kindle. I've always strongly believed that balance is a key to life. But this book helped me to apply that principle in an entirely different way, and provided me with some new paradigms. This is a book about virtues. The virtues, according to Aristotle, must be developed as character traits by being lived and acted out, until they become habitual and thus characteristic of a virtuous person. This is sound doctrine.
But Aristotle sees the virtues in a way which is much less manichean, much less black and white, than we tend to see them. For Aristotle, each virtue is the correct median point between an excess and a deficiency. Thus, courage and cowardice are not opposites. Rather, courage should be understood as the correct reaction to the right circumstances in which it is appropriate to act out of determination rather than fear, such that courage is the proper midpoint between two extremes:
COWARDICE COURAGE RECKLESSNESS
(deficiency) (virtue) (excess)
And so it goes for a host of other values as well: prudence, moderation, justness, liberality, generosity, civic-mindedness, etc., all of them are the proper characteristic between the deficiency and the excess. I love this idea. Have you ever known someone who just seemed to have a hard time in life? A hard time staying employed, a hard time staying married, a hard time staying active in the church? For many who struggle with such problems, there is an apathy about life that seems to be the problem. A deficiency in ambition: The individual whose every conversation and facial gesutre seem to indicate: "I just can't care that much about my job, my spouse, my marriage, my church involvement, etc." But I can also think of some individuals who live their lives in such a constant state of tightly wound overzealousness that they have driven away their spouse and their employer, or driven themselves from the church, as well.
There is also much in this line of thinking to recommend itself politically: It helps explain my own aversion to libertarianism and the anarchy leading inevitably to tyranny which it recommends, as well as my aversion to totalitarian social justice liberalism and the revolutionary anarchy which it invites, or any other overly doctrinaire and extremist political position. As a conservative, I find much common cause with libertarianism on certain points, except when I realize how quickly it would lead to a kind of anarchy that is always the predecessor to tyranny. The answer to too much government isn't no government, it's the right amount of government. The answer to bad laws isn't no laws, it's good laws. But finding that proper middle ground is too hard for our society. We're squaring off into all-or-nothing camps, the socialist totalitarians and the libertarian anarchists, ready for battle. Aristotle's treatise also discusses the politics of the ideal city-state government, and calls for a resistance to such extremes.
The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead Charles Murray. Kindle. This short book, subtitled "Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life" is full of good advice for young people. I was probably a little too old for it to do me much good though, already being stuck in my curmudgeonly ways. But I enjoyed it anyway. There's some great information here on writing. (If only someone had explained to me to "kill your darlings" 20 years ago.) The stuff on happiness, though covered in greater detail in Murray's book, Coming Apart, is essential.
OCTOBER
James Madison, A Life Reconsidered, Lynne Cheney. Hardback. 3.5 Stars, but 5 stars for the chapters on the Constitutional Convention and its aftermath. I had very strong feelings about this book, which I've written about in two separate blog entries, beginning with the blog post located here:
http://dadsbookreviews.blogspot.com/2014/10/some-thoughts-on-religious-liberty.html
NOVEMBER
Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box The Arbinger Institute. Trade Paperback. 4.5 Stars. This was an incredible book which should be read by every single person on the planet who is in any relationship at all (as a spouse, a parent, a child, a sibling, a co-worker, an employer, an employee, a church calling holder working with others, etc.). The only reason I didn't give it a full five stars is I was a little annoyed that the last chapter turned into an advertisement for additional material that could be learned by taking an Arbinger Institute Seminar. I wish I had been given this book four years ago when I was first called to a church calling that involved counseling people who were experiencing conflict in their marriages or in their relationships with children. Really incredibly useful.
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution Bernard Bailyn. Kindle. 4 Stars. As pointed out by Gordon S. Wood, in the Introduction to his book, The Idea of America (Penguin, 2011), in the first half of the Twentieth Century, progressive historians taught that early American history was primarily to be understood in economic terms, with Charles Beard's book, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, forming the lynchpin for this point of view. This progressive view, with its economic interpretation, began to be debunked in the second half of the Twentieth Century, as historians came to better understand the political ideals which motivated the revolution, and see the legitimacy and sincerity with which those views were held, for their own sake, and not merely as cover for a fight about economic self-interest. Bailyn's Ideological Origins, which studies the political pamphlets of the revolutionary era, was the major assault on the progressive historians and their economic interpretation. It is essential and fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand why the revolution mattered to those who fought it, and how they themselves understood their own political principles.
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States Gordon S. Wood. Trade Paperback. 5 Stars.
There are three kinds of books about history:
(1) Historical Surveys. Surveys cover the major events of a certain era in chronological order, and I almost always find them incredibly boring, as they necessarily lack the most important sources of engagement in any piece of writing: flesh and blood protagonists. The fact that history textbooks for public schools are written in this chronological form explains everything we need to know about most Americans' lack of historical literacy or interest. If you got out of public school with any interest or curiosity about history whatsoever, it was in spite, not because, of how the subject was handled in your textbooks. Most high school students' natural sense of curiosity did not survive.
(2) Biographies. These are the most engaging and accessible way to learn about history. A well written biography can tell a great story about an interesting character influencing and being influenced by fascinating events and personalities. It was through biography that my own interest in American history was rekindled many years after academic textbooks had almost completely killed it off.
(3) Finally, there are books of Historical Analysis, which, when done well, and when approached with sufficient background knowledge in hand, are the most rewarding of all. These are the books which try to explain the political and/or economic and/or religious and/or geographical and/or military and/or cultural basis for why things happened the way they did. Books that have a theory. Books which prove that history is NOT just one darn thing after another, let alone bunk. Books that prove history is important and help us realize that the choices we are making right now matter, and will continue to matter, for a long time to come, for good or ill.
On the subject of the early American republic, Gordon S. Wood probably writes this third type of history as well as anyone, alive or dead. (Joseph J. Ellis, who writes for a less scholarly audience, has a style which is more fun, interesting and engaging, and whose views I sympathize with more often than I do with some of Wood's, would be a close second. But Wood offers deep insights, and if you can make the effort, the payoff is worth it.) The Idea of America is a collection of some of Wood's short pieces of academic prose, presented over the course of his career as articles for scholarly journals or speeches in various academic forums, each updated for this collection, with notes after each chapter on Woods' current feelings on the issues he covers. Woods is a little more sympathetic towards Jeffersonian Republicanism, and a little more hostile towards Hamiltonian Federalism, than I am. And he appreciates the radical deism of Jefferson and Paine that I find slightly horrifying. But he doesn't hit you over the head with his sympathies, so those are minor quibbles. On subject after subject (American historiography as covered in his introduction; the influence of the Roman Republic on the founders' ideology; whether the founders were paranoid conspiracy theorists and if so whether we should care; the British origins and the political ideology of the constitution; the rise of self-interested political factions; the development of "rights" in American legal theory), Woods offers nuanced, non-ideologically driven, clear-cut insights. He has no interest in mining the founders for ideological ammunition in any modern political controversies. Rather, his interest lies in helping us to understand the Founders' long-vanished, and, to us, largely incomprehensible, world, and how that world influenced, and was influenced by, the founders' political viewpoints. This is a book that helps a reader understand the way the founders saw themselves and their struggles in their own time. If you were to only read one book on early American history in your entire lifetime, you could do much worse than selecting this volume.
The Giver Lois Lowry. Audible. 3 stars. This is a beautiful evocative story, full of religious symbolism. I would have liked it more though if the plot had been more detailed, if better explanations had been provided for how they blocked color and sunlight etc., and if the ending had been less ambiguous. I am a big fan of Tolkien's distinction between allegory and applicability. Allegory works best, in my opinion, when it's something you can find for yourself as an applicable symbolic meaning, available as one reading of a story, which story though stands on its own two feet and works on its own, even if you never feel the need to see or look for any greater meaning.
This book doesn't pass that test. The fantasy elements are never adequately explained, and the ending is obviously contrived to remain open to myriad interpretations. The author intends us to think of the book as a fable, not a novel which works as a good story in its own right. Still, for what it is, it's well done. And it's always fascinating to me how often some variation of this same story comes up in sci-fi and fantasy: the world without opposition or agency, controlled by higher powers for the protection and sheltering of its citizens, ala Satan's plan in the Pearl of Great Price, or modern day Sweden. You can see it in A Wrinkle in Time, the film version of I Robot, the first episode of Star Trek Voyager, just to name a few examples I can remember off the top of my head. Perhaps it keeps recurring because it reminds us of something.
DECEMBER
How Will You Measure Your Life Clayton M. Christensen. Kindle. 4 Stars. A wonderful little book my son Scott recommended to me. Like the Curmudgeon's Guide, by Murray, this book is written for people younger than me. But I loved it anyway, as I subscribe to the philosophy that tomorrow is always another day and we are never too old to learn. Christensen uses business case studies from his Harvard college course and applies them to personal settings: charting goals for a meaningful life, effective parenting and marital relations, integrity. A great read.
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