It was Feb. 3, 1943, and the U.S. Army Transport Dorchester was one of three ships in a convoy, moving across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to an American base in Greenland. A converted luxury liner, the Dorchester was crowded to capacity, carrying 902 servicemen, merchant seamen and civilian workers.
It was only 150 miles from its destination when shortly after midnight, an officer aboard the German submarine U2 spotted it. After identifying and targeting the ship, he gave orders to fire. The hit was decisive, striking the ship, far below the water line. The initial blast killed scores of men and seriously wounded many more.
Others, stunned by the explosion were groping in the darkness. Panic and chaos quickly set in! Men were screaming, others crying or franticly trying to get lifeboats off the ship.
Through the pandemonium, four men spread out among the Soldiers, calming the frightened, tending the wounded and guiding the disoriented toward safety. They were four Army chaplains,
Lt. George Fox, a Methodist;
Lt. Alexander Goode, a Jewish Rabbi;
Lt. John Washington, a Roman Catholic Priest;
and Lt. Clark Poling, a Dutch Reformed minister.
Quickly and quietly, the four chaplains worked to bring calm to the men. As soldiers began to find their way to the deck of the ship, many were still in their underwear, where they were confronted by the cold winds blowing down from the arctic.
Petty Officer John J. Mahoney, reeling from the cold, headed back towards his cabin. “Where are you going?” a voice of calm in the sea of distressed asked. “To get my gloves,” Mahoney replied. “Here, take these,” said Rabbi Goode as he handed a pair of gloves to the young officer. “I can’t take those gloves,” Mahoney replied. “Never mind,” the Rabbi responded. “I have two pairs.” It was only long after that Mahoney realized that the chaplain never intended to leave the ship.
Once topside, the chaplains opened a storage locker and began distributing life jackets. It was then that Engineer Grady Clark witnessed an astonishing sight. When there were no more lifejackets in the storage room, the chaplains simultaneously removed theirs and gave them to four frightened young men. When giving their life jackets, Rabbi Goode did not call out for a Jew; Father Washington did not call out for a Catholic; nor did Fox or Poling call out for a Protestant. They simply gave their life jackets to the next man in line. One survivor would later say, “It was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven.”
As the ship went down, survivors in nearby rafts could see the four chaplains — arms linked and braced against the slanting deck. Their voices could also be heard offering prayers and singing hymns.
Of the 902 men aboard the U.S.A.T. Dorchester, only 230 survived. Before boarding the Dorchester back in January, Chaplain Poling had asked his father to pray for him, “Not for my safe return, that wouldn’t be fair. Just pray that I shall do my duty…never be a coward…and have the strength, courage and understanding of men. Just pray that I shall be adequate.”
DOWN with rosemary and bayes,
Down with the mistleto,
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.
The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineere,
Until the dancing Easter-day,
Or Easter’s eve appeare.
Then youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.
When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kinne
To honor Whitsontide.
Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With color oken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments,
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed as former things grow o
Tintoretto, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, 1550-1555, Gallerie dell Accademi, Venice
From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869:
From a very early, indeed unknown date in the Christian history, the 2nd of February has been held as the festival of the Purification of the Virgin, and it is still a holiday of the Church of England. From the coincidence of the time with that of the Februation or purification of the people in pagan Rome, some consider this as a Christian festival engrafted upon a heathen one, in order to take advantage of the established habits of the people; but the idea is at least open to a good deal of doubt. The popular name Candlemass is derived from the ceremony which the Church of Rome dictates to be observed on this day; namely, a blessing of candles by the clergy, and a distribution of them amongst the people, by whom they are afterwards carried lighted in solemn procession. The more important observances were of course given up in England at the Reformation; but it was still, about the close of the eighteenth century, customary in some places to light up churches with candles on this day.
At Rome, the Pope every year officiates at this festival in the beautiful chapel of the Quirinal. When he has blessed the candles, he distributes them with his own hand amongst those in the church, each of whom, going singly up to him, kneels to receive it. The cardinals go first; then follow the bishops, canons, priors, abbots, priests, &c., down to the sacristans and meanest officers of the church. According to Lady Morgan, who witnessed the ceremony in 1820:
‘When the last of these has gotten his candle, the poor conservatori, the representatives of the Roman senate and people, receive theirs. This ceremony over, the candles are lighted, the Pope is mounted in his chair and carried in procession, with hymns chanting, round the ante-chapel; the throne is stripped of its splendid hangings; the Pope and cardinals take off their gold and crimson dresses, put on their usual robes, and the usual mass of the morning is sung.’
Lady Morgan mentions that similar ceremonies take place in all the parish churches of Rome on this day.
It appears that in England, in Catholic times, a meaning was attached to the size of the candles, and the manner in which they burned during the procession; that, moreover, the reserved parts of the candles were deemed to possess a strong supernatural virtue:
‘This done, each man his candle lights,
Where chiefest seemeth he,
Whose taper greatest may be seen; And fortunate to be,
Whose candle burneth clear and bright: A wondrous force and might
Both in these candles lie, which if At any time they light,
They sure believe that neither storm Nor tempest cloth abide,
Nor thunder in the skies be heard, Nor any devil’s spide,
Nor fearful sprites that walk by night,
Nor hurts of frost or hail,’ &c.
The festival, at whatever date it took its rise, has been designed to commemorate the churching or purification of Mary; and the candle-bearing is understood to refer to what Simeon said when he took the infant Jesus in his arms, and declared that he was a light to lighten the Gentiles. Thus literally to adopt and build upon metaphorical expressions, was a characteristic procedure of the middle ages. Apparently, in consequence of the celebration of Mary’s purification by candle-bearing, it became customary for women to carry candles with them, when, after recovery from child-birth, they went to be, as it was called, churched. A remarkable allusion to this custom occurs in English history. William the Conqueror, become, in his elder days, fat and unwieldy, was confined a considerable time by a sickness. ‘Methinks,’ said his enemy the King of France, ‘the King of England lies long in childbed.’ This being reported to William, he said, ‘When I am churched, there shall be a thousand lights in France !’ And he was as good as his word; for, as soon as he recovered, he made an inroad into the French territory, which he wasted wherever he went with fire and sword.
At the Reformation, the ceremonials of Candlemass day were not reduced all at once. Henry VIII proclaimed in 1539:
‘On Candlemass day it shall be declared, that the bearing of candles is done in memory of Christ, the spiritual light, whom Simeon did prophesy, as it is read in. the church that day.’
It is curious to find it noticed as a custom down to the time of Charles II, that when lights were brought in at nightfall, people would say–‘God send us the light of heaven!’ The amiable Herbert, who notices the custom, defends it as not superstitious. Some-what before this time, we find. Herrick alluding to the customs of Candlemass eve: it appears that the plants put up in houses at Christmas were now removed.
Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletoe;
Instead of holly now upraise
The greener box for show.
The holly hitherto did sway,
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter day
Or Easter’s eve appear.
The youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.
When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin’,
To honour Whitsuntide.
Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments,
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift; each thing in turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.’
The same poet elsewhere recommends very particular care in the thorough removal of the Christmas garnishings on this eve:
‘That so the superstitious find
No one least branch left there behind;
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see.’
He also alludes to the reservation of part of the candles or torches, as calculated to have the effect of protecting from mischief:
‘Kindle the Christmas brand, and then
Till sunset let it burn,
Which quenched, then lay it up again, Till Christmas next return.
Part must be kept, wherewith to tend
The Christmas log next year;
And where ‘tis safely kept, the fiend Can do no mischief there.’
Considering the importance attached to Candlemass day for so many ages, it is scarcely surprising that there is a universal superstition throughout Christendom, that good weather on this day indicates a long continuance of winter and a bad crop, and that its being foul is, on the contrary, a good omen. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, quotes a Latin distich expressive of this idea:
‘Si sol splendescat Maria purificante,
Major erit glacies post festum quam fait ante;
which maybe considered as well translated in the popular Scottish rhyme:
If Candlemass day be dry and fair,
The half o’ winter’s to come and mair;
If Candlemass day be wet and foul,
The half o’ winter’s gave at Yule.’
In Germany there are two proverbial expressions on this subject: 1. The shepherd would rather see the wolf enter his stable on Candlemass day than the sun; 2. The badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemass day, and when he finds snow, walks abroad; but if he sees the sun shining, he draws back into his hole. It is not improbable that these notions, like the festival of Candlemass itself, are derived from pagan times, and have existed since the very infancy of our race. So at least we may conjecture, from a curious passage in Martin’s Description of the Western Islands. On Candlemass day, according to this author, the Hebrideans observe the following curious custom:
The mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in women’s apparel, put it in a large basket, and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Brύd’s Bed.; and then the mistress and servants cry three times, “Brύd is come; Brύd is welcome!” This they do just before going to bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes, expecting to see the impression of Brύd’s club there; which, if they do, they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary they take as an ill omen.
——————————————————————
Groundhog Day is simply a modern commercialized adaptation of the earlier weather traditions associated with the Christian feast day.
“After another routine ban by Facebook – don’t look at me, we’re all hatemongers by this point – it’s time to resume operations. Speaking of operations – and hate – today I’m going to take a little break from the Marxism series to talk about the whole Wallstreetbets situation.
Most people I’ve talked to so far are thoroughly confused. They don’t really understand what happened, they really don’t understand how they should feel about the parts involved – and most liberty-related intellectuals are doing a lousy job at explaining it. So, to help clear things up, I’ll talk a little bit about both parties involved, their actions and their motivations.
The first thing you need to have in mind is that, in theory, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the stock market, hedge funds, or shorting stocks. The second thing you need to know is that, in practice, there’s virtually every thing wrong with hedge funds and shorting stocks. A stock market is simply a place where public companies are traded – they are a vital part of any market economy, which provide multiple types of funding, to multiple types of companies in an honest way, while limiting the risk of those doing the funding.
Hedge funds are companies that specialize in managing risk, in the context of the stock market. They analyze the yield, volatility and liquidity of all available financial operations, and craft complex investment strategies meant to maximize profit while minimizing risk. ‘Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket’ is how the saying goes – hedge funds specialize in allocating eggs in baskets. One of those financial operations is shorting, which consists of agreeing to purchase someone’s stock at a specific price, in the future.
If I short a stock you own, what we’re doing is entering an agreement. I will buy it from you for, say, 20 bucks, a month from now, and you have to sell it to me. If the stock is worth less than 20 bucks, you’ll be making money – if it’s worth more, I’ll be. It’s not a ‘bet’, as many people have been calling it, and there’s nothing sketchy or wrong about it. It’s an insurance device – I am buying your risk at a premium, and you’re buying the certainty that your investment will have a specific yield.
Well, the theory looks awesome, so what changes in practice?
Only one thing: Government intervention in the financial system.
For over 100 years now, the government has been gradually turning the stock market into a fraudulent casino. Debt-based currency has driven honest commodity money out of the market, making it impossible for people to save – their choice is to either watch their money lose value, or invest it haphazardly, creating an artificial, uneducated demand for investments. Artificially low interest rates have flooded the market with easy money, making unreasonable leveraging the norm, both for companies/funds and for individuals. Lastly, direct government intervention in the form of subsidies, regulations and, most notably, bail-outs have driven honest traders out of the market. If you act honestly towards the existing risk, you don’t profit enough to compete – if you take unreasonable risks, and bribe the right government officials, you will get bailed out when reality comes knocking.
There are no honest traders in the stock market any more. There might be people with honest motivations, such as ‘I’ll do my best in a system I know to be rotten’, or ‘I’ll try to protect my wealth as best I can, which includes trading stocks’. Every single person in the stock market now, however, can and should know that they’re engaging in an irrational system – and irrational systems pose irrational risks, such as the one we just saw.
What about the reddit people?
As with any loosely selected, decentralized group, they are far from homogeneous. From what I’ve seen, there’s a minority of people who understand what’s going on – including a few seasoned traders – and are deliberately playing against the system. They have my most sincere praise – making obscene profit while delivering an economic, political and cultural blow to a corrupt system is as moral and beautiful as it gets. The vast majority, however, seems to have a sort of ‘eat the rich’ mob mentality, which one of the worst mentalities one can have.
They do not despise hedge funds because they’re corrupt – they do so because hedge funds are successful, and they’re not. They do not care to understand what it is they’re doing – they saw a ‘loophole’, and decided to blindly exploit it. They are engaging in the very same second-handed irrationality that makes the financial system rotten in the first place, and most of those people will end up losing their money to it – just like any gambling junkie who’s won a few hands.
As for the future, you guys can expect lots of authoritarian regulation. We’re not in a metallist free-market system, and money does not belong to the individual – we’re in a chartalist state-controlled system, and ‘money’ is a government token used to allocate resources. The State will protect its assets, and maintain control over its financial system, by force. You can also expect to see an increasing number of bizarre occurrences such as this one. Whether we’re talking about a psychology, culture, politics or economics, a system close to collapse always behaves in a bizarre fashion, due to the disintegration of its tendencies.”
My father used to say: “The continent slopes, and all the fruits and nuts roll out to California.” And there, they wind up in public offices, like the school board of San Francisco which recently decided it needs to rename 44 schools on the basis of bizarre leftist grievances and animosities. Dianne Feinstein is not left-wing enough? What did Robert Louis Stevenson ever do? Was he guilty of stereotyping pirates?
The names of presidents, conquistadors, authors and even a current U.S. senator will be removed from 44 San Francisco school sites after the city’s school board Tuesday deemed the iconic figures unworthy of the honor.
The 6-1 vote followed months of controversy, with officials, parents, students and alumni at odds over whether Abraham Lincoln and George Washington high schools, Dianne Feinstein Elementary and dozens of others needed new names with no connection to slavery, oppression, racism or similar criteria.
Critics called the process slapdash, with little to no input from historians and a lack of information on the basis for each recommendation. In one instance, the committee didn’t know whether Roosevelt Middle School was named after Theodore or Franklin Delano.
“I must admit there are reasons to support this resolution, but I can’t,” said community member Jean Barish, who said the process has been flawed and based on emotion rather than expertise. “These are not decisions that should be made in haste.”
School board members, however, have insisted that the renaming is timely and important, given the country’s reckoning with a racist past. They have argued the district is capable of pursuing multiple priorities at the same time, responding to critics who say more pressing issues deserve attention.
The San Francisco school board voted to change the following school names:
Balboa High School, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa
Abraham Lincoln High School, U.S. president
Mission High School, Mission Dolores
George Washington High School, first U.S. president
Lowell High School, poet/critic James R. Lowell
James Denman Middle School, founder of first S.F. school
Everett Middle School, Edward Everett, American statesman
Herbert Hoover Middle School, U.S. president
James Lick Middle School, land baron
Presidio Middle School, S.F. military post
Roosevelt Middle School, Theodore or F.D., both U.S. presidents
Lawton K-8, U.S. Army officer Henry Ware Lawton
Claire Lilienthal (two sites), S.F. school board member
Paul Revere K-8, American Revolution patriot
Alamo Elementary, a poplar tree or the site of Texas Revolution battle
Alvarado Elementary, Pedro de Alvarado, conquistador
Bryant Elementary, author Edwin Bryant
Clarendon Elementary Second Community and Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, English politician
El Dorado Elementary, mythical City of Gold
Dianne Feinstein Elementary, U.S. senator and former S.F. mayor
Garfield Elementary, James Garfield, U.S. president
Grattan Elementary, William Henry Grattan, Irish author
Jefferson Elementary, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. president
Francis Scott Key Elementary, composer of “Star Spangled Banner”
Frank McCoppin Elementary, S.F. mayor
McKinley Elementary, William McKinley, U.S. president
Marshall Elementary, James Wilson Marshall, sawmill worker at Sutter’s Mill
Monroe Elementary, James Monroe, U.S. president
John Muir Elementary, naturalist
Jose Ortega Elementary, Spanish colonizer
Sanchez Elementary, Jose Bernardo Sanchez, Spanish missionary
Junipero Serra Elementary, Spanish priest
Sheridan Elementary, Gen. Philip Sheridan
Sherman Elementary, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Commodore Sloat Elementary, John Sloat, Navy officer
Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary, author
Sutro Elementary, Adolph Sutro, S.F. mayor
Ulloa Elementary, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish general
This Breitbart story demonstrates that the SF school board looney tunes were frequently confused or misinformed, but were sufficiently self-infatuated and intoxicated with power that they didn’t care.
George Romney, William Paley, National Portrait Gallery, London.
Davy tells in his Salmonia how the Bishop of Durham inquired of the great Dr. Paley “when one of his most important works would be finished, he said with great simplicity and good humour, ‘My Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly fishing season is over.'”
— George Parker Holden, The Idyll of the Split Bamboo.
The quality and species of firewood matters to me, because my Pennsylvania log cabin has a stone groundfloor. The two-foot-thick walls keep it nicely insulated, but also tend to make it chilly as a well in cold weather, so I pretty much have to keep a log fire going from October to April.
Softwoods, like pine, burn too fast and release too much creosote, drastically upping your likelihood of chimney fires. Insufficiently aged wood, or wood cut live, is heavy to lift and hard to get to burn. You rapidly run through your tinder, starting and re-starting the fire as the moist log smokes at you.
They used to sell wood by the cord –4′ by 8′ by 4′, but nobody really measures in cords today. We buy now by the pickup load.
Jeremy Clarke, in the British Spectator, buys wood in France by the stère, and talks hunting (Outline gets around the paywall):
The other day we ordered a stère from a woodman recommended by an expat English friend. He dumped his load at the foot of the path and climbed up to the house for payment and a drink; €70 a stère is the norm. He wanted €90 and a whisky, ice, no water. I made him a belter and passed it over along with the cash. Would he like to sit? He consented to perch on the arm of the sofa. Our elderly bitch, deeply asleep on the sofa, was woken nostril first by the combination of rare and unusual scents emanating from this thick-set man in his mid-fifties.
He managed his heavy-bottomed whisky glass with an exaggerated delicacy that looked a bit like parody. But his expectant conviviality suggested a previous acquaintance with the expat English bourgeoisie, who, for all their faults and absurdities, offer strong spirits at 10 o’clock in the morning and defer obsequiously to the opinions of a man of the woods and forests. Then Catriona came in and sat and accepted a whisky also.
The woodman had noted with approval the stuffed boar’s head wearing Ray-Bans fixed above the side door. This moved the conversation in the direction of boars and boar-hunting and it turned out that we were entertaining the president of a local boar hunt. He owns 19 hunting dogs, a small arsenal of rifles and shotguns, and only yesterday had organized an 80-gun shoot followed by a wood-cutting session and piss-up. Another whisky, young man, we said? The empty glass was smartly presented while our old dog fastened her nose to his trousers.
Catriona interrogated him about his sex life. He was currently living with a much younger woman, an obstreperous vegetarian, he said. Then, suspiciously: we weren’t ecologists, were we? (An ecologist in his book was a shorthand term of abuse for an animal rights supporter.) I put it on record that I was not an ecologist and in fact had taken part in a boar hunt in which the chef had one leg shorter than the other and three dogs were gravely injured by boars’ tusks during the course of the day. Ah, said the woodman. His dogs were fitted with Kevlar jackets. Expensive but he no longer spends half the time sewing up his injured dogs.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management regulates and controls the huge percentages of Federal-owned land Out West — 84.9% 0f Nevada, 64.9% of Utah, 61.6% of Idaho, 61.2% of Alaska, 52.9% of Oregon, 48.1% of Wyoming, 45.8% of California, 38.6% of Arizona, 35.9% of Colorado, 34.7 of New Mexico, 29% of Montana, 28.5% of Washington. Their policies and decisions, needless to say, have tremendous impact of the economies and the lives of residents of the states where they ruled unchecked over vast portions.
God forbid that those federal viceroys and satraps should be forced to live among their subjects in a picturesque city of a mere 60,000 at the Western end of Colorado. Can you even get shawarma out there?
Personally, I don’t see how there could possibly be more eloquent proof that the wrong people are in charge in that agency, and that the federal government ought to quit squatting on 30-80% of any state’s land and should get busy transferring its ownership to the people.
The Trump administration’s decision to relocate most Bureau of Land Management headquarters staffers out West — a move designed to shift power away from the nation’s capital — prompted more than 87 percent of the affected employees either to resign or retire rather than move, according to new data obtained by The Washington Post.
The exit of longtime career staffers from the agency responsible for managing more than 10 percent of the nation’s land shows the extent to which the Trump administration reshaped the federal government. The reorganization plan reestablished the bureau’s headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo., moved 328 positions out of the main D.C. office of the Department of the Interior — BLM’s parent agency — and left 60 jobs in place.
A total of 287 BLM employees either retired or found other jobs, according to Interior communications director Melissa Schwartz, while 41 people moved to the new office in [Grand Junction] Colorado. Asked for comment on how the shift affected the bureau’s operations, Schwartz declined to comment.
A metal detectorist has found the centrepiece jewel of Henry VIII’s lost crown buried under a tree 400 years after it went missing.
Kevin Duckett, 49, made the startling discovery while walking through a field near Market Harborough in Northamptonshire.
Mr Duckett said he first thought the jewel was some crumpled tin foil from the wrapping of a Mr Kipling cake.
He told The Sun: ‘It was lodged in the side of a hole just a few inches down. I carefully removed it and knew by its colour and weight that it was solid gold.’
Historians have feared the jewel was lost forever when Oliver Cromwell ordered the crown to be melted down and sold as coins after he abolished the monarchy in 1649 and beheaded Charles I.
The 344 precious stones encrusted on the crown, valued by the then Parliament at £1,100, were sold individually.
Mr Duckett, who lives in Fleckney, Leicestershire, took the lump of gold, which also appeared to have an enamel figure on it, home and cleaned it.
He became convinced that the figure was Henry VI after he saw SH inscribed on the base.
The figurine featured five fleur-de-lys – a stylised lily linked to royalty – originally had three figures of Christ, one of St George and one of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus.
But Henry VIII removed the figures of Christ and replaced them with three saint kings of England – St Edmund, Edward the Confessor and Henry VI.
And the crown was used at the coronation of Henry’s son Charles I.
When he fled from Oliver Cromwell after the Battle of Naseby in 1645 they travelled past the spot where Mr Duckett found the jewel.
Experts believe it may have fallen from the crown in Charles’s haste or that he decided to bury it.
If the British Museum verify the jewel’s authenticity Mr Duckett will be forced to sell it to them at a price set by an independent board.
Walter Donway reports in the introduction of a very scary new bill.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (DTPA) of 2021, introduced into both houses of Congress on January 19, defines “terrorism” by reference to ideas or beliefs—in particular, the ill-defined term “white supremacism,” which is less an idea than a smear. The proposed legislation is an innovation not only in the United States, but for most world bodies, too, where “terrorism” has been defined strictly in terms of violent criminal acts.
One sponsor of DTPA says the “threat that reared its ugly head on January 6th is from domestic terror groups and extremists, often racially-motivated violent individuals …”
Another says DTPA is “to combat the threat of violent white supremacists and other domestic terrorists …”
Another says: “Homegrown, violent domestic terrorism from white supremacists, and other racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, remains a serious ongoing threat that demands the full coordination and efforts of our federal law enforcement agencies.”
Another says: “White supremacy and domestic terrorist organizations have no place in America. Rhetoric from the outgoing president and right-wing political leaders have emboldened white nationalist groups to pursue violence as a means to an end.”
And: “DTPA directs DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Department of Defense to establish an interagency task force to combat white supremacist infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement.” Infiltration? Surely terrorists must be outed from the police, military, and intelligence agencies?
These statements usually couple the term “white supremacism” with “violence,” but it could hardly be more obvious that “domestic terrorism” is violence connected with white supremacist and “other racially motivated” beliefs and ideas. The act now before Congress declares a viewpoint—one capable of infinite elasticity and only subjective “proof”—to be part of the nature and definition of “terrorism.” …
As we have seen, given the elasticity of the term “white supremacism,” it is used to mean “any racially or ethnically motivated” belief. Like opposing reparations. Or attacking quotas in university admissions. Or opposing defunding the police. Or opposing riots in cities. Or opposing the government funding of abortions. Or drawing negative conclusions about the disintegrating American family structure. Or opposing prioritizing Blacks for the COVID-19 vaccine. Or opposing removal of public statues. Or opposing the growth of the welfare state. All are now seen to contribute to the “white supremacist” atmosphere that fosters terrorism’s violence.
At a very minimum, DTPA portends a new and virulent leftwing McCarthyism. Allegations will be enough to destroy careers. The search will be on for “a terrorist under every bed.” One atrocity story, January 6, will be enough to cast all republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and objectivists under a pall. Periodicals, TV networks, social media sites, publishers, employers like universities and schools will all feel patriotically justified in excluding ideas they view as politically incorrect. And with almost everyone involved with ideas and opinions now on record and easily “searched” online, it will take five minutes to identify those against whom “our whole country must unite”—as against the “radicals,” the “commies,” and their “fellow travelers” during the McCarthy era. Mostly, the “Reds” were deemed unpatriotic, not American. This time around the designation is “terrorist” and the penalty is potentially decades in prison.
As usual, the first cases will have some plausibility. On January 15, Justin Stoll, a 40-year-old man from Wilmington appeared in court … He had posted on YouTube and elsewhere videos from the Jan. 6 riot, some allegedly including himself yelling aggressive comments. A woman online responded online that she had “saved” his video. Stoll took that as a threat and responded: “… you ever in your f—— existence did something to jeopardize taking me away from my family [sic], you will absolutely meet your maker…. And I will be the one to arrange [it].”
That could be five years for “interstate communication of a threat” and another 20 years for “intimidating a witness”—the woman “saving” the video. But this, of course is pre-DTPA and the charge is not terrorism. And whether the woman threatened is Black was not “of the essence” in the charge. But, notably, Stoll was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.
I offer this as the kind of plausible case with which DTPA prosecutions might begin. There was no violence, but there was a clear threat—although it sounds like a bit of swaggering and most death threats are not made as part of YouTube threads. But if “white supremacy” was clearly involved (again, say the woman threatened was Black), I think Stoll would be facing charges of terrorism.
The legislation could well pass; co-sponsors include Republicans. The New York Times almost daily runs front-page stories about the Jan. 6 violence to keep the crisis alive until the vote on the legislation.
Michael Warren Davies contends that American politics might be less rancorous and divisive, if only our leadership class had a drink and mellowed out.
Here’s a not-so-fun fact. Did you know that, in the 21st century, all but one of the American presidents have been teetotalers? …
If any readers can still recall those halcyon days of the Obama administration, they might remember Mr. Obama’s famous “Beer Summit,” which he hosted in the Rose Garden between Cambridge police officer James Crowley and Harvard lecturer Henry Louis Gates. Sargent Crowley (who is white) had arrested Professor Gates (who is black) for breaking into his own home. At their symposium, it’s said that Mr. Obama opted for a Bud Light and Sargent Crowley a Blue Moon. Professor Gates correctly enjoyed a Boston-brewed Sam Adams Light.
This simple gesture—kindred spirits meeting over kindred spirits—resolved the worst race relations crisis of the Obama years. “I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart,” the president said afterwards. “I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.”
Here’s what I learned: politics and booze absolutely do mix. In fact, alcohol is to politics what gin is to vermouth: the only thing that makes it palatable.
What a shame then: just when we need it most, Americans are disabusing alcohol at alarming rates. Our countrymen—particularly Gen-Xers and Millennials—are becoming what scholars call “sober curious.” Their unwholesome experiments with healthy eating and regular exercise are spilling over into the realms of liquor and tobacco.
What’s really perverse is that Big Booze has begun to embrace the trend. Corporate breweries are now launching alcohol-free versions of their signature broths. Heineken has even launched “Heineken 0.0,” meaning you can now have all the joy of drinking horse urine without any of the pleasant side effects.
Alcohol inspires courage, frankness, and conviviality in the drinker—three traits sorely lacking in Washington these days. That’s why statesmen have always paired their beer or bourbon with a pipe, cigar, or cigarette. Tobacco elicits a meditative mood in the smoker. It enlivens the mind while soothing the nerves, making it a natural aid to conversation. How many unnecessary wars have been avoided, or necessary ones declared, thanks to old white men in high collars banging on ale-sodden tables and shouting through a fog of cavendish fumes? How can we hope to restore good government without first restoring the pint and the pipe?
Really, it’s no wonder that a generation of politicos that refuses to indulge in such homely vices have ushered in the most rancorous political culture since the Civil War. I don’t like this habit we’ve developed of comparing modern progressives to the Puritans. It’s an insult to our Pilgrim Fathers—who, one might add, carried more beer than water on the Mayflower.
Nevertheless, if you take a whole generation of middle-class professionals and deprive them of whiskey and cigarettes—not to mention meat and cheese and bread—it’s no wonder they should go about tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln as part of some moral crusade against “systemic racism.” The modern Left has the same bossy, superior air as the scolds and Suffragettes who gave us Prohibition.
It’s not that they insist on being unhappy. Real sorrow suits them no better than real joy. These extremes of human feeling, to which alcohol makes us quite vulnerable, both seem beyond them. They’re horribly self-possessed, self-assured—in a word, sober. What’s worse is that they expect the rest of us to be sober, too.
I long for an America that’s too happy and too sad to really take itself so seriously. That’s what we need now more than anything: to sit down for a beer in the presence of our enemies, trip over a stool, and laugh at ourselves.
It’s hard to blame Messrs. Bush, Trump, and Biden for their teetotalism. All three have pretty good excuses for abstaining. Still, I can’t help but feel that Americans deserve leaders that will set a better example.
Winston Churchill, for instance. Pol Rogers, the purveyors of Churchill’s favorite champagne, claim the man drank 42,000 bottles in his lifetime. Friends said that, like Harry Truman, he would begin each morning with a “whiskey mouthwash” before having his first glass (or three) of Pol at breakfast. FDR’s own intake was nothing short of heroic. Yet biographers recall that, after a meeting with his British counterpart, Roosevelt would have to sleep 10 hours a night for three nights in order to recuperate from “Winston Hours.”
Together, Churchill and Roosevelt whipped Adolf Hitler and saved Europe from fascism. What have our abstemious elites done lately?
