Answering the question: Why do we have political parties

Roger Carlton

Humans like organization. Bureaucracies for government, religions to explain or excuse the inexplicable and political parties to make choices in leadership.

We organize the materials that make up our biosphere into the periodic chart. We arrange everything into some measurable system like the autism spectrum. We assign value with money. Our Constitution requires a census every 10 years. During my career with Lockheed Martin, we were told that “you are what you measure.”

Political parties allow people to identify with their emotions at the ballot box. I am conservative so I am a Republican. I am liberal so I am a Democrat. I don’t want to be categorized so I am an Independent. I can’t handle the civil rights movement so I am a Dixiecrat. I hug trees so I am a Green Party member. I hate anyone but Aryans so I am a Nazi and so on and so forth throughout history.

People are tribal. We are only 10,000 years or so from living in caves.So we need political parties to let us express our desire to win at the ballot box and not with clubs. It is when the political parties forget their mission to organize and return to their tribal roots that we need to worry as a civilization. Let’s hope that people realize that in November.

The Sixty-Seventh anniversary of the end of the Korean Conflict July 27

My husband, Barry, served in Korea in the 1950s.  My friend and former writing student, Ron Hill, is our guest writer today at Writers Circle around the Table. He was present the day this war ended and tells us some history we might not know.

Pvt. Ron Hill 

We mark the 67th Anniversary of the end of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula as all parties sat down at Panmunjom to sign the formal truce documents.  I recall the day as if it were today; I was there!!

Headlines around the world were banner-sized, announcing the years of fighting. The example shown here is just one example that can be found online or any news archive.

Armistice Agreement for the Restoration of the South Korean State (1953)
The Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950, when the North Koreans invaded South Korea, officially ended on July 27, 1953. At 10 a.m., in Panmunjom, scarcely acknowledging each other, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr., senior delegate, United Nations Command Delegation; North Korean Gen. Nam Il, senior delegate, Delegation of the Korean People's Army and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed 18 official copies of the tri-language Korean Armistice Agreement.

It was the end of the longest negotiated armistice in history: 158 meetings spread over two years and 17 days. That evening at 10 p.m. the truce went into effect. The Korean Armistice Agreement is somewhat exceptional in that it is purely a military document—no nation is a signatory to the agreement.

Specifically the Armistice Agreement:

1. suspended open hostilities

2. withdrew all military forces and equipment from a 4,000-meter-wide zone, establishing the Demilitarized Zone as a buffer between the forces;

3. prevented both sides from entering the air, ground, or sea areas under control of the other;

4. arranged release and repatriation of prisoners of war and displaced persons; and

5. established the Military Armistice Commission (MAC) and other agencies to discuss any violations and to ensure adherence to the truce terms.

The armistice, while it stopped hostilities, was not a permanent peace treaty between nations.

President Eisenhower, who was keenly aware of the 1.8 million American men and women who had served in Korea and the 36,576 Americans who had died there, played a key role in bringing about a cease-fire. In announcing the agreement to the American people in a television address shortly after the signing, he said, in part,

“Soldiers, sailors and airmen of sixteen different countries have stood as partners beside us throughout these long and bitter months. In this struggle we have seen the United Nations meet the challenge of aggression—not with pathetic words of protest, but with deeds of decisive purpose. And so at long last the carnage of war is to cease and the negotiation of the conference table is to begin……We hope that all nations may come to see the wisdom of composing differences in this fashion before, rather than after, there is resort to brutal and futile battle.”

“Now as we strive to bring about that wisdom, there is, in this moment of sober satisfaction, one thought that must discipline our emotions and steady our resolution. It is this: We have won an armistice on a single battleground—not peace in the world. We may not now relax our guard nor cease our quest”

Ron Hill received his formal education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, DC. He and his wife Shirley are current members of the Chattahoochee United Methodist Church, Helen, GA. Ron enlisted in the United States Army in 1952 and is a veteran of three wars: the Korean War, Vietnam War and Desert Storm.  He retired December 31, 1973 from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations, Headquarters, Department of the United States Army, the Pentagon, Washington, DC.

Congressman John Lewis, a Servant Leader?

Stu Moring and his wife, Gay

My brother-in-law, Stu Moring, former Public Works Director for Roswell, GA, said this about Congressman John Lewis. 

“I only met him one time, when I was in Washington for legislator visits with ASCE. I was so honored to meet him, but he treated me like he was the one being honored.  He was a true Servant Leader!”

I asked Stu what he meant by Servant Leader and this is his answer: 

My use of the term servant leader comes from the book by the same name by Ken Blanchard ("The One Minute Manager") and Phil Hodge. 

The idea is to "lead like Jesus."  From Matthew 20:25-28, "Jesus called them together and said, ' You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you.  Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." 

They compare self-serving leaders with servant leaders as follows: "Self-serving leaders spend most of their time protecting their status. If you give them feedback, how do they usually respond? Negatively. They think your feedback means that you don't want their "leadership" any more.  Servant leaders, however, look at leadership as an act of service. They embrace and welcome feedback as a source of useful information on how they can provide better service."  

Jesus, of course, was the perfect model, and I believe this is an effective approach for anyone in leadership, but particularly for politicians who are intended to be serving their constituents.  Not exactly what we have in Washington right now. In short, I believe a servant leader sees his job as providing the necessary tools and resources to his "subordinates" so they can excel at the service they ultimately provide. 

With that approach, I was able to surround myself with some truly exceptional people, and they were able to accomplish extraordinary results. Think about it--I didn't have the strength or stamina to dump garbage cans all day long, or the skill to repair broken water lines and meters, but guys I worked with excelled at those tasks.  And that's what servant leadership is all about.  

Servant Leader by Ken Blanchard

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0849996597/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

Three Branches of Government

Roger Carlton

We welcome Roger Carlton back for another of his interesting posts. Roger is columnist for the Graham Star Newspaper in Robbinsville, NC

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is one of three branches of the Federal Government. Congress and the Executive Branch are the other two.

One thing is certain. The Founding Fathers had great experience with an all-powerful monarch in the form of King George III. They wanted nothing to do with repeating the tyranny of that leadership so they created a form of government with balance of powers. The Congress made the laws, the President carried them out and the Supreme Court settled disputes. Pretty close to a perfect construct at the time. Not so good today because many of our leaders have forgotten that deliberation of issues based on scientific facts and compassionate implementation is the necessary foundation of democracy.

My conservative friends rejoiced over the Senate's confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito. They rent garments and gnashed teeth over the appointments of liberal Associate Justices Steven Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. Yet, until recently, the past six presidents, of which three were D's and three were R's, did a pretty good job of bi-partisan appointments of fair and balanced people. The labels conservative and liberal don't seem to apply to all votes of the current SCOTUS.

Recent decisions by the Supreme Court have my conservative friends in a dither. They have concluded that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has sold them out. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Supreme Court has acted responsibly and defied their pundit-imposed labels in these controversial cases. Most importantly, one of the three branches needed to put on its adult britches and avoid the chaos being created by the other two.
Here are a few of the controversial cases. The first is letting our President know that he does not enjoy blanket immunity to avoid responding to subpoenas for his tax records. The Court acted responsibly by sending the debate back to lower courts so that the tax filings would not be released until after the election in November. To quote Chesterfield Smith who was President of the American Bar Association during the Watergate investigation, when the Supreme Court ordered President Nixon to release certain damaging Watergate information for which he claimed executive privilege, "No man is above the law."

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recent decision stopped the White House from ending the program which has kept 650,000 young immigrants in limbo for years. Ending the program would have sent them back to the countries from which they were taken by their parents. The Supreme Court made it clear that the Administration had not made a rational case to justify the harsh decision. The same reasoning caused the 2019 decision to remove the citizenship question from the 2020 Census.

The Louisiana abortion legislation that doctors had to have privileges in nearby hospitals "to protect the women" was overturned because the exact same law had already been overturned in Texas. The majority opinion regarding expansion of the Civil Rights Act to include employment for the LGBTQ community was written by President Trump's appointment Neil Gorsuch. The ability of employers to deny providing insurance coverage for contraceptives based on religious or moral beliefs was upheld. One other case allows states to use public funds for scholarships to attend religious schools where only private schools were allowed before. There have been decisions by the SCOTUS that make both liberals and conservatives happy and unhappy.

So, save your garments and don't wear out your teeth. Let's respect the Supreme Court as our last line of defense against the chaos we see in the other two branches.

Send us your comments about this article. Let us hear your opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States. Send email or leave a comment in the Comments section below.  

Not out of Print - find it here

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/now-might-as-well-be-then-by-glenda-council-beall/

A poem from Now Might as Well be Then

A Very Old Photograph                          by                              Glenda Council Beall  Shy with the camera, she stands in her white sailor dress one arm behind her back. Her dark eyes, so much like mine, glance right. Her lips almost smile. I wish I had known her then. We’d have been friends, going to pound suppers, singing alto in the church choir. She was loved as I was loved, sheltered by Mama, strengthened by her Papa’s expectations. How could she have imagined ageing? Certainly not at fourteen and looking so lovely. She never thought she’d grow old, lose her memory, and depend on me, her daughter, to care for her.

From Now Might As Well Be Then (Finishing Line Press, 2009) Purchase a framed print of this poem.

Let There Be Peace on Earth

Someone sent me this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITXaL2Sk2A and I think it is so beautiful I want to share it. 

The singing is fantastic, and the video message is perfect for now. Hope you enjoy it.

Political Correctness Gone Wild

This post is by Roger Carlton, columnist for the Graham Star newspaper in Robbinsville, NC

This column launches headlong into an important and controversial subject. One that is red hot now as it should be. The subject is the removal of symbols, statuary, memorials, flags, street names and many other "honoraries" to people whose principles and deeds in their time have grown to become offensive in our time. A key example is the current debate over the Confederate flag being a portion of the Mississippi state flag. That will soon come to an end just like it did in South Carolina after the mass murder which took place in an African American church five years ago last week. Good riddance to that symbol which has lost It’s meaning as a symbol of the Confederacy and has come to represent a hateful defiance of the rights of African Americans to be treated equally under the law.

Taking symbols yet another step, the Black Lives Matter demonstrations both peaceful and riotous, have brought to the fore the destruction or voluntary removal of hundreds of statues and monuments to Confederate heroes. Recognizing that the fervor on both sides of the removal issue is at a fever pitch, it is best that our elected leaders decide to remove the statues before they are destroyed. We are making a mistake to simply take these memorials out of harm's way.

There needs to be a plan to place the statues in a museum that explains to future generations how our democracy nearly broke up over the issues that these statues commemorate so that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. To obliterate history is to enhance the probability of repeating our mistakes.

The National Museum of African American History in Washington D.C. displays slave shackles and other artifacts of slavery. The museum tells the story of the horrors of slavery. It also tells the story of the many accomplishments of the descendants of the slaves. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum uses the Nazi Swastika to symbolize the horrors of the Holocaust. The displays of belongings of people who died in the gas chambers are powerful. So powerful that a warning is given to parents to prepare their children regarding what they are about to see. 

Now we move from sensitive preservation of history in a proper context to political correctness gone wild. The Board of Trustees of prestigious Ivy League Princeton University just decided to remove President Woodrow Wilson's name from its School of Public and International Affairs and a residence hall. Woodrow Wilson had been the President of Princeton, the Governor of New Jersey where it is located and the two-term 28th President of the United States. He was accused of 'racist thinking and policies" which made him an "inappropriate name sake." 

Let's acknowledge that his administration should have done a better job of controlling a racist U.S. Civil Service Commission. The agency's director should have been fired and better treatment of African Americans in government should have been a priority. Of this, there is no question. The real question is why do we go to college? To learn the good, the bad and the ugly. To be able to discern good from evil. Princeton's Board, comprised of entirely Princeton graduates, seems to have forgotten that its students should be allowed to decide what kind of leader Woodrow Wilson was.

But here is the "but." Woodrow Wilson was the President who led us through World War I. He pushed hard to establish the League of Nations which might have helped to avoid World War II if it had not been killed by the Senate. He negotiated the Treaty of Versailles which ended the war. For this he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He appointed Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court and he oversaw the creation of the Federal Reserve Act which established the U.S. Central Bank which has been the bulwark of protecting monetary policy from political interference.

In balance, his accomplishments greatly exceed his weaknesses. You can say the same for John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Kennedy and many others. They all had character flaws and none were perfect. We need to understand their mistakes and applaud their philanthropic generosity. President Wilson suffered a stroke which made it very difficult for him to function for the last two years of his term. It was a different time and he remained the titular head of government. He passed away three years after the end of his second term. To erase his name from a university he served with distinction and an institution that trains future government leaders for the entire world just goes too far. It is political correctness gone wild.

Appeasement is not progress. It is a momentary victory for the aggrieved. It allows the history police to say "we hear you," but, it does not solve problems and set new paradigms for future respectful relations between the races. My ten-year old grand-daughter Claire, wanted to read this column. She had great wisdom when she said, "I don't understand why they want to erase Wilson's name and no-one wants to take those other names away." Maybe she should be on the board of Princeton.

You Can't Unring the Bell says Roger Carlton

Roger Carlton

This wonderful phrase was first used in a 1912 Oregon Supreme Court case State v. Rader. Mr. Rader was accused and convicted of arson when he burned two of his neighbor's haystacks. At trial, the prosecution's theory was that Rader committed the crime in retaliation for the victim of the arson reporting that Rader had cut off the tail of one of the victim's cows. This testimony was allowed by the Judge which meant that the Judge did not instruct the jury to ignore the unrelated testimony. We call that a reversible error. On appeal the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that it was not an easy task to unring the bell of the inadmissible testimony. This meant that the jury was unduly influenced. So, Rader's haystacks and cow's tail removal went un-avenged. 

What does this 108 year- old case have to do with our life today? Simple. We all say things that we regret, sometimes for the rest of our lives. Politicians from the White House to the guardhouse say awful things that they may or may not regret. With today's electronic communication, racially insensitive remarks, incendiary rhetoric, self-serving blather, disrespecting women and just plain gross distortions of the truth, can be blasted out to tens of millions of eyes and ears causing great damage to government's credibility.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says Congress shall not abridge freedom of speech or the press. The Founders never dreamed of Facebook and Twitter. The press to them was a newspaper with a few reporters. It took weeks for news to travel from remote areas. Yet that press was granted the right to operate nearly without restraint. Today we can abridge free speech if it is hateful or dangerous. You can't yell "fire" in a theater just because you feel like it. The term "Clear and Present Danger" means that the gravity, evil and improbability of a statement allows free speech to be abridged to avoid danger. Neo-Nazi's marching in uniform denying the Holocaust in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood may not meet the test unless it can be proven that there is a resultant danger. Simply being repulsed is not enough.

Twitter and Facebook and virtually all responsible media are grappling with this conundrum. We don't want to limit free speech but these giant profit machines should not be the purveyors of lies and deceit to millions. To appear responsible, Twitter warns us that the content of a politician's smoke and mirrors should be verified by the reader. How many of the Tweet-junkies make the time or have the time to research the truth. Truth seekers would be the exception to the rule. So just like the nauseating and depressing drug warnings that us old folks have to endure during the evening news, Twitter's response is not very satisfying. Given all those warnings, a cautious person would never take the stuff. 

Facebook has copped out completely. When a post said "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Facebook should have recognized that such statements incite violence. They did not, even in light of numerous employees' disgust over the posts. That is why this columnist does not Facebook or Tweet. I follow Danny Trejo's line in his cult movie "Machete." He says "Machete don't Tweet."

One last word on unringing the bell. No matter how apologetic the response, no matter how many mea culpas are expressed, no matter how sincere the promise for better behavior may be, the bell cannot be unrung. For example, when a local elected official posts a well-written commentary on supporting the police that was written by an anonymous person,  good judgement would have asked, "who is anonymous?" Is the writer a union shop steward, someone who lost a loved one who was protecting the citizens or someone who doesn't want to be de-funded? Judging from the response to the first post, which ranged from hateful threats to great praise, a little research would have been in order before that bell was rung. Anonymous stuff may be worthy of publication, but it may not. Sometimes, when there is smoke, there is fire. Sometimes just a smoke machine.

One thing is certain. During the next five months, political methane gas will explosively multiply. Let's think about what we hear or see and reject anyone who espouses hate or incites violence. Frankly, I don't care what one candidate thinks about another. Don't insult my intelligence and ask me to vote for you because your opponent is a bad person. Ask me to vote for you because you are restrained enough not to need to unring the bell.