Ben's Picks

I was gonna call it Ben's Books because that alliterates and sounds punchy.  But it is wrong because they are not MY books, they are merely my book recommendations.

And I just thought of it today as I finished reading a very good book.

So what do I mean by "a very good book"?  The subject is interesting and you will feel nourished by learning stuff that is not a waste of your time, stuff that is good for you (protein and not sugar or other worthless carbs).  And the author is so engaging that his book is hard to put down.  VERY important!

So, the book that I just finished reading today is David McCullough's The Wright Brothers.  I have read other books by McCullough, and he can be very good; but he can also be not so good.  It was an effort to read his 1776 even though I am primed for books of our Revolutionary period, especially "popular" books.  Nevertheless, ...  Also, his immediately previous book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, young American artists in Paris in the middle of the 19th century, a subject in which I have little or no interest, was an absolute delight to read and revel in.

Of all the authors who write mostly about the American Revolutionary period, I am an especially big fan of John Ferling, who is always engaging and always hard to put down, despite (because of?) all the facts he puts before your eyes.  Let me particularly recommend Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry that Forged a Nation.

Trump

Sometimes politics as a spectator sport is FUN!  Please note that I write very little about "politics"; I prefer issues to personalities, and politics is all personalities.  So few discuss issues independent of the passions associated with a personality; that is my niche.

Democracy

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence

The two most ringing phrases in all of American history are indisputably “We the People of the United States …” from the Preamble to the U S Constitution and “… all men are created equal …” from the Declaration of Independence.  And they both seem to argue for democracy – rule of, by, and for the people.  But every once in a while, a stray Republican, one not running for President, reminds us that democracy is not called for or even mentioned by the U S Constitution, or any other founding document for that matter.  He is right.  By all rights, we are a republic, a nation ruled by laws; but not by Constitutional mandate a democracy.  In addition, none of our Founding Fathers (excepting Thomas Paine himself) desired universal suffrage (suffrage is the form of a democracy, it is the right or privilege of a citizen to vote or otherwise participate in the processes of governing).  Indeed, to a man, they all feared democracy.  They feared the voice of the demos, the herd, the common people.  Consider that all of our Founding Fathers were highly educated and highly successful men.  Their version of “We the People” meant “we and our social peers,” a natural aristocracy even if not an inherited one (as in the old country).  A “real democracy” (in today’s usage) implies universal suffrage, suffrage of the common man.  But no democracy for these demigods.

The War of Northern Aggression

That is what a speaker in the South Carolina House of Representatives called the Civil War: “the War of Northern Aggression.”  I don’t know how ironic he was being, but there it was, one more name for the Civil War, a name that still resonates for some.

Some names for the great conflict include The War Between the States and The Brothers’ War.  There are a dozen or more names that combatants and others have used, some in an attempt to remain “objective,” others in an attempt to assign blame.  And to re-ignite still burning embers.

http://www.examiner.com/article/rick-perry-s-gop-and-the-new-war-of-northern-aggression

The optimal causes, the immediate causes of the war, were two-fold: firing on Fort Sumter was a clear act of war and the Union did not blink.  Secession was the other immediate cause.  Was secession a possible act under the doctrine of states’ rights?  As long as this was being debated, it was an exercise in free speech.  But the Confederate states’ official acts of secession were immediate causes of the war.

Slavery and states’ rights were enduring arguments from the first moments the terms of the Constitution were being argued, nearly 75 years before the outbreak of the Civil War.  So in themselves neither slavery nor states’ rights were operative causes of the War.  But firing on a government fort and the political acts of secession were optimal causes of the war.  Still, slavery was the underlying reason for the argument in the first place, the underlying cause of the war.  The South fired the first shot, the South split apart the Union, the South precipitated the Brothers' War.

But what does “The War of Northern Aggression” tell us?  It tells us what we have long suspected, that the Civil War, and its underlying arguments (slavery, and even states’ rights), are not settled issues among all Americans.  Gridlock in Washington, DC and the partisan passions across America are proof that as a nation we are not one people, one more argument that democracy cannot work in today’s fractured political environment.  <sigh>

The Iran Nuclear Deal

No doubt you are expecting some words of wisdom from me about a critical issue of war and peace, the Iran Nuclear Deal.  Sorry.  No can do.

I am ill-equipped to offer an informed opinion on the question “to sign or not to sign,” as my emphasis in political thought and deed is always domestic, not foreign, policy.