I'm Terrible with Logistics

As a young man I often heard my father speak of the Shawnee tribal leader Tecumseh.  My father is a staunch conservative, a patriot (I don't know why I felt the need to articulate both, they are synonymous) and he has always fostered this deep constitutional conviction that all people are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.  As the youngest of four he has always had this remote rebellion within him.  I suppose as time has gone on it has been tempered to a sympathy toward peoples with a legitimate cause for rebellion.


I knew Tecumseh to be a brave Native American leader, and I had heard stories of the Battle at Tippecanoe.  My father had told me many stories of men seeking just secession.  Sir William Wallace fought for freedom in Scotland, Tecumseh in the States. He greatly admired General Robert Edward Lee of the Confederate army.  He spoke of how the south was truly seeking to secede based on political and economic differences between an industrial North and an agrarian South.  The issue of slavery was superfluous for most of the beginning of the war.  General Lee's wife and her mother endeavored to return many Native Africans to Liberia.  Human equality is an innate Christian value, passivity is not.


I have occasionally thought of the actions of those who preceded us in regards to the indigenous Americans.  How much weight does our generation need bear in regards to the treatment of Native Americans by our Anglo American predecessors?


I heard a man named Aaron Huey (TED.com presentation), a photographer not a historian or politician, speak to the history of American dealings with the Native Americans.  He gave a compelling lecture on his time amid the Lakota people, a subset as I understand it of the Sioux.  I cannot lie, I was stirred with angst when I considered the history of America's dealings with the indigenous people they conquered.  Huey contests that the story of the Lakota people extends in both directions in time from the Battle of Wounded Knee.  This massacre really conveys the heart the American nation held toward these indigenous people at the time.

I'm torn as I write this, my American idealist mind longs for the actualization of the melting-pot moniker, yet my heart has deep sympathy toward the idea of a geo-political boundary of sorts, returning some land to the Native Americans.


Many Native Americans are sequestered in abject poverty on reservations.  I've looked at the statistics and it is really alarming.  I'm terrible with logistics but I wonder what it would take to return significant quantities of land to the Native Americans.  I think the Black Hills would be a great way to start.  A few other places like the Hocking Hills in Ohio would do more than assuage some American guilt, it could offer a real new beginning for a people deeply wronged.

If organized as tribal states, part of the American Union, I'm certain that much could be done to reclaim heritage, and bolster an economy.  Tourism could be a valuable asset, and many other enterprises could allow many to begin rising from the poverty in which they are currently entrenched.  I don't really have an answer for this problem, it is merely a thought.  I have no idea what would happen to the newly displaced residents, or to the elderly woman in the hills that has known only them as home for fifty or more years.  Its just a really great picture in my mind.


While the proper role of government is not massive bale-outs, socialized healthcare, or exorbitant government spending, it may be the role of government to return quantities of land, to a people deeply wronged in a nations history.

Guns Don't Kill People, Bravery Does

"For men of understanding do not say the the sword is to blame for murder, nor wine for drunkenness, nor strength for outrage, nor courage for foolhardiness, but they lay the blame on those who make and improper use of the gifts which have been bestowed upon them by God, and punish them accordingly." -John Chrysostom

There is this ongoing debate about what the Founding Fathers intended by the 2nd Amendment.  I just find it ignorant than to assume that they indented anything else other than simply this:

Americans have the right to...
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

They knew well the difference between a military and a private militia.  They have separate purposes, and anyone that calls that into question is what I like to call ignorant.  A militia is allowed to prevent treachery of government, and the right to keep and bear (which I will come back to) arms is to allow the populace to protect themselves and family in whatever way seems best to them.

On the subject of proper role of state government, they are then required to teach the constitution and ethics (which are universal and primarily, although not exclusively, Christian), as well as all other matters that pertain to a well educate populace, capable of voting well, and engaging properly in civilized society.  So then when I say a person is allowed to protect themselves and their family, it is with the assumption that the state is educating a rational, and ethically grounded populace.  Now I don't believe that the populace should be deprived their right because the government is failing it's role, but rather the government MUST re-concert its efforts in the interest of domestic tranquility.

Many studies have shown that a decrease in classical education has lead to an increase in violence.  People blame murders on guns, and increase the police force to tame actions.  An intelligent person, or, as Chrysostom says a "man of understanding" would change the content of the minds of the populace, and eliminate the call to police actions (which is not to lessen my belief in the importance of police officers, I have the utmost respect for those in Blue, I am merely stating that we could help make their lives safer).  We must capture the education system in the United States and lead the world in Academic excellence, and we must preserve our right to keep and bear arms, our future depends on these things!

The Statesman

"As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children."

-John Adams

America has all but lost its statesmen.  In fact the concept may be so foreign that my using it could debase my efforts to communicate the worth of the form.  

Men lust for power.  It is a consuming passion of so many of today's career politicians.  They portray a visage of patriotism, yet their informing desire is that of increasing the scope of their power.  

I read through many of John Adams' works this week as some of the first of my recreational readings of the summer.  "A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law" was brilliant; a blunt, yet eloquent work that gave me great insight into the thoughts of this great man.  "Thoughts on Government" was written in a casual dialogue that made me feel as though I were in the room with him, sipping tea, and looking out the window of the early capitol.  "A Defense of Constitutions" showed the aplomb he carried, and his vast collection of knowledge of the world's systems of government.  Few people in this world have been so prolific, and noteworthy in their literary endeavors.  

As I read these texts I was struck with a resounding sense of sorrow at how far we have strayed from what was to be the glory of this great nation.  Adams was forced by duty into his offices.  Never once did the thought of esteem or glory enter his mind.  He never made a decision based on the next election or how it would reflect upon him.  His choices were a positional mandate.  He made every decision based on the greatest good, and the legacy that would be left to the generations, always hoping to be able to be freed of his obligations to live the quiet life of a family man.

He lead a life of impeccable moral resolve, and commitment to God, country, and family.  A statesman, gentleman, familyman, and nobleman in every sense of the words.  

"Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases."

-John Adams

The ascension of power Adams endured purified his motives to the utmost effect.  In the end, Adams may have been the greatest American that has ever lived (albeit a federalist).  All of this reading has left me with this feeling of profound disillusionment with today's entrenched bureaucrats.  What has happened to the man that is pulled out of his position to serve out of civic duty?  Does a person with the humility necessary for office exist that does not have the ambition for personal gain?  And if such a person exists do they also posses the education to fulfill their duty competently?  

I maintain great optimism for the future of the United States.  I have rubbed shoulders with men that I believe posses all of these qualities.  Men like Mike Pence for instance.  I have the utmost respect for him, and look forward to helping on his next campaign.  It must be the resolve of the American citizen to back great men, and to help them to succeed.  

The Million Dollar Degree

I read recently that the Price of a Harvard Education was $212,467, and while this is not significantly higher than most other private schools, the average Harvard undergrad graduate has the potential to pay off that value in under three years.

It brought to mind the difference a name makes.  Schools like Harvard, Oxford, Yale, and Princeton were names that I knew by heart as a child.  They had taken seriously the role of higher education and had nearly perfected the definition.  Such prestige surrounds these places that even little children from a family with no higher education know well the legacy they enjoy.

Universities as a whole deal in the currency of degrees; they're the school's face to the world.   Most people will never attend one of these premier academic institutions, but they see the product, a graduate that has at their their disposal a mental facility that far surpasses the competition, and a piece of paper the school prints to that bears the name of the University.  The person is the product, and the degree is the currency of Harvard.  

The United States of America is the greatest nation in the world.  There is simply no other place on earth like it.  Opportunities abound in ways that no other place can fathom.  I was thinking about how significant of a tie there is between the United States, and Harvard.  Both set up a quality of life for their respective populations not approachable by most other similar entities, both strive for excellence in all endeavors, and both produce a very prestigious currency.

There is one grave difference however Harvard and the United States; Harvard would never do anything to tarnish the value of its currency.  We can trust Harvard to continue to uphold the highest standards of academic excellence for all time, to set high standards for those that are admitted (keeping open doors and pulling from all walks of life, Harvard has the best program for students from underprivileged families in the entire country), and to continue to defend the integrity of their name.

In as much as this is true of Harvard it is sadly not true of the way the country has treated our dollar.  In an effort to make sure there are more dollars to go around the U.S. has destroyed the value of the dollar.  Rather than uphold its integrity on the global stage we have sold our souls, printing money with no value.  Each dollar printed lowers the innate value of every other dollar in circulation.  As a person that lives in the lowest tax bracket I have a very healthy understanding of the value of a currency.  This country must make drastic efforts to give value back to the dollar.  We must win back the respect of the global economy.  In the end, we must make our American Dollar the "Million Dollar Degree."