Communityness is the aggregate of relationships and bonds among individuals who share things in common. The sharing might be the DNA of extended families (or race or ethnic identity), geography (neighborhood, town, or polity), experiences and history, beliefs (religion, ideology, or worldview), and interests (both material and non-material). The bonds may range from very strong to very weak and may fluctuate over time. As I discussed in my book American Ways, strong communities make strong individuals, who in turn make strong communities. Nobody makes it through life all alone all the time. We need and benefit from shared resources and support. Empathy is an important value.
In communities, the people pursue common interests, such as defense from outside enemies and internal civic law, justice, and order -- the physical safety and predictability that allow everyone to go about their day-to-day business. It also means public education as well as public health and sanitation. In times of great distress it might also include general economic as well as public physical health. Sickly, poor, homeless, and hungry individuals may pose a threat to the wellbeing of all other individuals in the community.
In the eyes of extreme libertarians, all forms of communityness look like socialism. They see the world through the lenses of fear -- fear that a strong community, especially government, will take away individual freedoms, even the freedoms that extend to greed and selfishness. They fear dictators and domination by sub-communities of rival ideas and interests. They fear losing their property and money. They reject environmental regulations, measures to address global climate change, and common health insurance as forms of public health and sanitation. They advocate lower community resources and spending and fewer government regulations that infringe upon short-term profits, however gained. They completely reject the idea that the community may need to save free enterprise from itself by reacting to bad community behavior.
Individuals do not have to surrender their personal liberties to achieve strong communities; they only have to cooperate with other individuals. As in team work, each individual is important working together toward a group goal. Individuals need to take a broader and longer-term perspective to their own private wellbeing. Sometimes personal gratifications have to be delayed. All communities require a give-and-take among its members. The key is fairness, defined as consistent processes to control problems, complaints, conflicts, and frustrations.. The members of a community need to agree to common processes and then abide by their rules. This also means that members alike in standing within the community are treated alike.
Copyright 2019 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)
Monday, September 23, 2019
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Undercutting the New Deal
Building upon the ideals of fellow-Republican Abraham Lincoln two score years before, President Theodore Roosevelt believed that the Constitution of the Union was the same Constitution of individual liberties facing a new threat. In the early years of the 20th century, the threat to personal liberties was not secession but the domination of Big Business in the form of large corporations and industry trusts. In 1901, TR informed Congress that "great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with those institutions." He asserted that the Federal government is a public institution (in the words of Lincoln, "of the people, by the people, for the people") and therefore had the responsibility to protect everybody by regulating business practices, ending corporate abuses of consumers, and preventing business trusts and monopolies that restrained free trade and fixed higher prices.
Three decades later, TR's concept of the Federal government as the public institution of the people to protect themselves was furthered by another Roosevelt, this time a Democrat. Franklin D. Roosevelt reflected a widely held view that the Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression were caused by the greedy Wall Street crowd, abusive banks, and short-sighted manufacturers. FDR argued that it was the role of the Federal government to manage an "economic constitutional order" that protected individuals from unethical and greedy business interests and maintained a balance between legitimate business interests and the right of each American to make a comfortable living. The power of the Federal government extended beyond just commercial regulation at the national level to include the redistribution of wealth concentration through taxes and public programs that put money directly into the pockets of individual consumers, even the chronically unemployed and poor.
Ever since FDR defeated President Herbert Hoover in 1932, conservative Republicans have condemned the concepts of both President Roosevelts. They have sought to curtail if not terminate government regulations of businesses and the lingering "big spending"programs of the New Deal, such as Social Security, food stamps, and other aid programs in the spirit of the New Deal, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.
To advance their cause, conservatives have waged a vigorous and persistent ideological war to undercut the conceptual foundation of the New Deal. They have reverted to the arguments of the anti-Federalists of the 1780s. They have asserted with increasing anger that Big Government is not the friend or protector of the people but rather its enemy. The Federal government endangers free enterprise, the freedom to work hard, make money, and enjoy the full benefits of property, so they claim. Their point of view gained much support following the Great Recession of 2007-2009, which was blamed on Big Government rather than Big Business. A popular belief was spread by radio talk shows, 24/7 cable TV news, and tabloids that Washington curtailed economic growth by over-regulation, excessive environmental controls, high taxes, and bad foreign trade agreements. It was also accepted that "give-away" programs to undeserving people discouraged individual initiative, hard work, and full employment.
The U.S. Supreme Court in numerous cases has upheld the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and impose taxes. The core questions are matters of policy: Congress should regulate what businesses, how, where, and when? And such questions turn on complex interactions among partisan politics, personalities, and vested interests as well as ideals. An even more fundamental question centers on who benefits most from the existence or absence of Federal government regulations?
(C) 2019 Stephen M. Millett (all rights reserved)
Three decades later, TR's concept of the Federal government as the public institution of the people to protect themselves was furthered by another Roosevelt, this time a Democrat. Franklin D. Roosevelt reflected a widely held view that the Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression were caused by the greedy Wall Street crowd, abusive banks, and short-sighted manufacturers. FDR argued that it was the role of the Federal government to manage an "economic constitutional order" that protected individuals from unethical and greedy business interests and maintained a balance between legitimate business interests and the right of each American to make a comfortable living. The power of the Federal government extended beyond just commercial regulation at the national level to include the redistribution of wealth concentration through taxes and public programs that put money directly into the pockets of individual consumers, even the chronically unemployed and poor.
Ever since FDR defeated President Herbert Hoover in 1932, conservative Republicans have condemned the concepts of both President Roosevelts. They have sought to curtail if not terminate government regulations of businesses and the lingering "big spending"programs of the New Deal, such as Social Security, food stamps, and other aid programs in the spirit of the New Deal, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.
To advance their cause, conservatives have waged a vigorous and persistent ideological war to undercut the conceptual foundation of the New Deal. They have reverted to the arguments of the anti-Federalists of the 1780s. They have asserted with increasing anger that Big Government is not the friend or protector of the people but rather its enemy. The Federal government endangers free enterprise, the freedom to work hard, make money, and enjoy the full benefits of property, so they claim. Their point of view gained much support following the Great Recession of 2007-2009, which was blamed on Big Government rather than Big Business. A popular belief was spread by radio talk shows, 24/7 cable TV news, and tabloids that Washington curtailed economic growth by over-regulation, excessive environmental controls, high taxes, and bad foreign trade agreements. It was also accepted that "give-away" programs to undeserving people discouraged individual initiative, hard work, and full employment.
The U.S. Supreme Court in numerous cases has upheld the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and impose taxes. The core questions are matters of policy: Congress should regulate what businesses, how, where, and when? And such questions turn on complex interactions among partisan politics, personalities, and vested interests as well as ideals. An even more fundamental question centers on who benefits most from the existence or absence of Federal government regulations?
(C) 2019 Stephen M. Millett (all rights reserved)
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
D. C. Stephenson: An American Tyrant
Americans typically think of tyrants in the context of ancient Greece and Rome, royal France, or 20th century Latin America, but tyrants could never occur in the U.S. Yet, we have seen our own kind of tyrants in the sense of political machine bosses and corrupt city and state autocrats. They have acted like tyrants by insisting upon unconditional personal loyalty and obedience. They are highly egotistical, mean spirited, and even cruel. They manipulate patronage for family and friends and exploit public projects for personal gain. They insist that all public affairs rotate around them as indispensable personalities. They would put Louis XIV to shame as absolute rulers by divine right. Paradoxically, American tyrants are most likely to emerge at the city, county, and state levels even though we believe that the best governments are local and closest to the people. We have yet to see a tyrant at the national level.
Examples of American tyrants include Boss William Tweed of Tammany Hall and the Tweed Ring in New York City and state in the 1860s, Tom Pendergast of Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri from 1925 to 1939, and "The Kingfish" Huey Long, the governor of and U.S. Senator from Louisiana, 1928-1935.
Another, equally evil but not so famous American tyrant was D. C. Stephenson, the Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana during the 1920s. By 1923, Stephenson, known as "Steve" or "the Old Man" at the age of 31, was recruiting an average of 2,000 new members at $10 each per week. It is estimated that the Indiana Klan may have had as many as 262,000 hooded members, or one-third of all native-born white Hoosier men. Stephenson packaged the Klan as a secret fraternal society. A master salesman, Stephenson peddled 100% Americanism, law and order, honest government, Protestant beliefs, traditional family values (with men as heads of households), and Prohibition. He denounced corruption, Catholics, the Pope, and immigrants, especially low-life Irish. Stephenson made a fortune off of the Klan and converted large amounts of cash into political power.The Grand Dragon captured the Republican Party in Indiana and set his eyes on the national party. In the elections of 1924 Stephenson-backed candidates won the state's governor's office as well as a majority of the state legislature. Plenty of county officials, too. By 1925, Stephenson boasted, "I am the law in Indiana."
Then the Grand Dragon fell even more dramatically than he rose. In the spring of 1925 he was implicated in the death of a young woman who was a state employee. He was arrested, indicted, and tried for the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer. The defense argued that she died of self-administered poison. The prosecution, however, showed that she died from a staph infection caused by human bites to her body. Stephenson professed his innocence and exuded confidence that no jury in Indiana would ever find him guilty, but it did. He was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He further asserted that he would get a pardon from his lackey, the governor. He didn't. In revenge Stephenson exposed Klan-inspired corruption by state officials. The Indianapolis Times subsequently won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Stephenson, the governor retired from politics, but the Grand Dragon remained in prison. Meanwhile, the Indiana Klan collapsed as respectable men despite their agreement with Klan tenets rejected an organization associated with such a monster as D. C. Stephenson.
I have published a fictionalized history of the Indiana Klan in my recent novel, The Listener, which is available both as an e-book and paper copy at Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Listener-Novel-Stephen-M-Millett/dp/1731227310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546985622&sr=8-1&keywords=the+listener+stephen+millett
(c) 2019 by Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)
Examples of American tyrants include Boss William Tweed of Tammany Hall and the Tweed Ring in New York City and state in the 1860s, Tom Pendergast of Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri from 1925 to 1939, and "The Kingfish" Huey Long, the governor of and U.S. Senator from Louisiana, 1928-1935.
Another, equally evil but not so famous American tyrant was D. C. Stephenson, the Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana during the 1920s. By 1923, Stephenson, known as "Steve" or "the Old Man" at the age of 31, was recruiting an average of 2,000 new members at $10 each per week. It is estimated that the Indiana Klan may have had as many as 262,000 hooded members, or one-third of all native-born white Hoosier men. Stephenson packaged the Klan as a secret fraternal society. A master salesman, Stephenson peddled 100% Americanism, law and order, honest government, Protestant beliefs, traditional family values (with men as heads of households), and Prohibition. He denounced corruption, Catholics, the Pope, and immigrants, especially low-life Irish. Stephenson made a fortune off of the Klan and converted large amounts of cash into political power.The Grand Dragon captured the Republican Party in Indiana and set his eyes on the national party. In the elections of 1924 Stephenson-backed candidates won the state's governor's office as well as a majority of the state legislature. Plenty of county officials, too. By 1925, Stephenson boasted, "I am the law in Indiana."
Then the Grand Dragon fell even more dramatically than he rose. In the spring of 1925 he was implicated in the death of a young woman who was a state employee. He was arrested, indicted, and tried for the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer. The defense argued that she died of self-administered poison. The prosecution, however, showed that she died from a staph infection caused by human bites to her body. Stephenson professed his innocence and exuded confidence that no jury in Indiana would ever find him guilty, but it did. He was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He further asserted that he would get a pardon from his lackey, the governor. He didn't. In revenge Stephenson exposed Klan-inspired corruption by state officials. The Indianapolis Times subsequently won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Stephenson, the governor retired from politics, but the Grand Dragon remained in prison. Meanwhile, the Indiana Klan collapsed as respectable men despite their agreement with Klan tenets rejected an organization associated with such a monster as D. C. Stephenson.
I have published a fictionalized history of the Indiana Klan in my recent novel, The Listener, which is available both as an e-book and paper copy at Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Listener-Novel-Stephen-M-Millett/dp/1731227310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546985622&sr=8-1&keywords=the+listener+stephen+millett
(c) 2019 by Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)
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