Misinformation on the Civil War

The liberal media is blasting Nikki Haley for not mentioning slavery in her answer to a question about the cause of the Civil War. While Haley's response was not very intelligible, there was nothing wrong with her not mentioning slavery. Here is the correct response: "The Civil War was caused by Abraham Lincoln's obsession with preserving the Union. Seven Southern states were trying to peacefully secede, and Lincon refused to allow them to do so, and waged war against them for their desire to leave the union. While the secession was caused by slavery (among other reasons), the war itself was all the North's doing."

When I posted this thought on Facebook, some of my friends seemed unable to grasp the basic truth I'm trying to express here. I will put it as simply and directly asd I can: Secession was about slavery, but the Civil War was about Lincoln's obsession with preserving the union.

Abandoning my support for Israel

I have long been an ardent supporter of Israel's right to defend itself. The Palestinians could have accepted the 1948 partition, as the Jews did, and lived ever since in peace, but instead they rejected the partition and vowed to destroy the state of Israel and "drive the Jews into the sea". Hence my lack of sympathy for the Palestinians.

But what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip goes so far beyond any legitimate right of self-defense that I have to abandon my previous support. By inflicting unspeakable damage on innocent civilians it is creating more future terrorists than it is destroying. The idea that killing all Hamas supporters is the answer makes no sense. You cannot destory an ideology by killing its advocates.

Israel's claim that it is taking every precaution to avoid killing innocent civiians has been exposed as a complete joke by the fact that they killed three of the hostages that they were supposedly trying to free, killing them even though those hostages were shirtless, with their hands up and waiving a white flag of surrentder, and calling out in Hebrew.

The United States becomes increaingly isolatd in world opinion the more it supports the Israeli genocide againt the Palestinian people. Since 1954 the U.S. has vetoed 34 resolutions in the UN Security Council concerning Israel. Our arrogance in ignoring world opinion is disgusting.

President Biden's continuing support of Israel in the face of Israel's war crimes is wrongheaded and will cost him in next year's election, espoecially among young Democratic voters, many of whom will simply stay home home on election day. Biden should do more than lobby Israel in private, as he is doing now. He should announce publicly that the U.S. will no longer support the Israeli war crimes.

Trump will stress in next year's election that two wars have arisen under Biden, while there was no war during his presidency. While this is a superficial statement, it is true information. and most voters cast their vote based on superficiality (like the current gas prices). Biden botched Ukraine support in the opposite direction, denying Ukraine any weapons that might possibly be used inside Russia. In both instances Biden has been guilty of timidity. And then there is the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which many think Biden botched, and the problems at our southern border.

Trump has a solid example of his exercise of restraint. When an American was killed somewhere in Europe, the military wanted to do a strike in response. Trump asked what the civilian casualties would be, and the answer came back "about 150". With ten minutes to go before the mission was to start, Trump vetoed it, saying the response wasn't "proportionate". I haven't seen a better example of a U.S. president implementing the principle of proportionality to veto a military mission.

Those, like Trump, who are troubled by the U.S. interference in the affairs of other countries are on the right side of history. There is no reason for the U.S. to have a military presence in over 150 countries, 3/4 of all the countries of the world. There is no reason for the U.S. to have a "defense" budget as large as the next ten countries combined. When are we going to come to our senses? And when is Israel going to come to its senses? The only people benefiting from this madness are the arms manufacturers.

Should Colorado be allowed to exclude Trump from the ballot?

A recent decision by the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump cannot be on the Colorado 2024 presidential ballot, because he violated the insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment.

Most commentators think the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue on appeal. If it does, it will be fascinating to see what the so-called "conservatives" on the Court will do. The true conservative view is that the federal government should stay out of the business of telling the states what to do. But the hypocritical right-wing Supreme Court justices have consistently violated this principle when political realities come into play, as in the 2000 case of Bush v. Gore, when the so-called conservatives voted to interfere in the Florida vote counting process. If the current court repeats this disgrace, it will lose what little respect it still has left.

What the Court should do is to simply stay out of the process. By refusing to take up the case, the Court would allow each state to run its own elections, a part of which is to decide who can appear on its ballots. The issue of whether a candidate qualifies to be on the ballot is multi-faceted. A candidate younger than 35 cannot run. A candidate who is not a natural-born citizen cannot run. A candidate who has already served two terms cannot run. And a candidate who has engaged in an insurrection, having previously sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, cannot run. It is up to each state to determine whether a candidate qualifies to be that state's ballot.

If the Supreme Court does take up the case, the conservative justices will be put in an embarrassing position, because their position has long been one of "originalism", or "textualism", meaning the provisions of the Constitution, and laws in general, should be interpreted as written. Doing that, Trump clearly does not qualify for the ballot, under the clear provisions of the 14th Amendment.

Conservative philosoophy is that the court should not go into the legislative history, when the law as written is clear. But even if they do go into the legislative hisstory, there is an exchange between two Senators on record in which it is clerified that the provision does apply to the presidency, contrary to what the trial judge mistakenly found in this case.

"The Real Majority", by Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg

This 1970 book is about psephology, the study of elections. The word derives from the Greek psephos, meaning pebble. The material relied on by the authors are the election of 1968, and the ones leading up to it. They also examine the mayoral eelctions of 1969.

The authors write about the great ideological issues of the past: The gold vs. silver issue of 1896 which dominated our politics for 30 years, and then the econoomic issues of 1932, which also dominated for 30+ years.

But the authors demonstrate that in 1968 economic issues took a back seat, and social issues dominated. Crime became the number one issue, not, as most mistakenly believe, the Vietnam War. The authors rely on the numerous surveys done by the Harris and Gallup polling organizations which demonstrate that crime and racial unrest were the two main issues in 1968. Much was made of the fact that half of all women were afaid to walk alone at night. The authors predict that whoever can capture the center on these issues, as the GOP did in 1968, will win future elections. The claim that "law and order" was a code word for racism was a losing argument for the Democrats in 1968. All the middle of the road voters who were genuinely concerned about crime in the streets were being called racists, which was NOT an effective strategy for winning over those voters.

What has happened since 1968 has certainly borne out the authors' prophecy. "Family values" dominated the 1980s elections, and abortion and other social issues have dominated recent elections. What has made the switch from economic issues possible is the success of the era when economic issues dominated. The success of the union movement has paved the way for many workers to join the middle class, and many of them have become more conservative.

The issue of abortion in 2023 demonstrates the truth of the authors' conclusions. The right has taken an extreme position on abortion, out of step with the vast majoirty of U.S. voters, and it is costing the GOP at the ballot box. Every referendum on abortion to date has been won by the pro-choice crowd, even in red states like Kansas. The best chance Biden has to win next year would be to run every single ad showing Trump bragging about being responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. Any other strategy would be a loser for Biden, who at this writing has an approval rating of a pathetic 34%, the lowest yet for his presidency.