Meet William Addington

A Genealogy Series:  (2) William Addington (who was a lot like me...)

He was a man whose name I had never heard, but his story moved me.  He was the ancestor who helped me realize that my interest in genealogy should involve more learning about the real life experiences of the real people who lived and died and built a world for me to live in.  He was an immigrant to Virginia whose final resting place is, coincidentally and ironically, only an hour’s drive from my home.  He was my great-great-grandmother’s great-great-grandfather, and his name was William Addington.

William was born in London, England in 1750.  He was one of many children, as was typical in those times.  His parents were wealthy and intelligent, so they made sure that William was well-educated.  When he was about 20 years old, over his parents’ objections, William decided to come to America. 

Following his arrival in Norfolk, Virginia (about 1770) he traveled for a while.  In 1774 took a bride, Margaret Cromwell from Fauquier County in rural Northern Virginia.  When the War for Independence broke out, William joined the Army.  He served honorably as an officer under General George Washington, and was present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, along with his eldest child.

William continued to live a full life.  He had several children.  He took his family first to Eastern North Carolina, and then to the far frontier beyond the Blue Ridge near the Clinch River in Southwestern Virginia.  His children included daughter Elizabeth, born 1789, who would eventually move to the hills of Eastern Kentucky and live to be about 95 years old.  Before she died the world would include the telephone and electric lights, although it is doubtful that she had either in her own home.

Although his family continued to live where they had settled in Russell County, almost 400 miles to the west, William Addington’s last three years were spent in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he died in 1805.

I developed a personal attachment to William Addington that I had rarely felt for an ancestor who lived before my time.  It wasn’t just that William was my newfound great-grandfather.  It wasn’t just that he had lived and died and been buried near my home; it was more than that.  Once I learned some of the details of his life, I began to identify with William.  I began to feel as if I knew him. 

The connection I feel with William is not based on a genetic connection, although we do have that in common.  It is not based on the fact that he was responsible for the arrival of one more essential player on the Appalachian stage where my family took shape, although he was.  The connection I feel for William is based on my belief, real or imagined, that William and I have experienced some similar life experiences, and share at least one significant personality trait.  Apparently, we both feel things deeply.

Despite his fascinating and, to all appearances, meaningful life, William in 1802, at the age of 52, found his life too overwhelming to manage.  The fact that I haven’t yet mentioned is that William was buried on the grounds of Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, the nation’s first asylum.  William was a long-term patient. 

When I first learned this I was shocked.  With the exception of an occasional case of geriatric dementia (Alzheimer’s) I had never known of a single instance of mental instability in my family until I learned about William.  When I dug a little deeper, though, and learned his diagnosis, I began to understand.  William had been admitted to Eastern State for what they used to call “melancholy.”  Today we would call it depression.  Not insanity, but an emotional condition serious enough to incapacitate him. 

I wonder whether William’s depression was mainly hereditary, or whether it might have been a result of experiences. Could events of his life been responsible for his melancholy?  Separation and maybe alienation from his parents in England?  The stress that a native Londoner might have felt about raising children on the frontier?  Perhaps post-traumatic stress relating to his experiences in the war?

I have never been so seriously depressed that I have needed medical help like William did.  On the other hand, I certainly do understand how depression might be triggered by life events such as alienation, stress, or war.

When I learned the circumstances of William’s last few years, my heart went out to him.  Knowing that Eastern State is still a functioning organization, I wrote to that hospital and asked what they could tell me about him.  I was surprised and impressed that Patricia, from the Health Information Management Department, took the time to do some research.  She wrote back to tell me more about my great-grandfather.  Her response emphasized to me all the more that William Addington was a very real person, a person whose records still exist in a functioning hospital here in Virginia, a person who had done important things, who had raised and provided for a family, who in the end had some emotional distress for which he received help. 

I began to think of William as more than a long-lost ancestor.  It occurred to me that William Addington might approximate a two-centuries-earlier version of me.  I guess the one thing that proves is my own narcissism.  I accept that conclusion.  I also continue to hold to the possibility that my idea about William and myself being similar might be reasonably grounded in reality.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but this is just the sort of story I had always hoped to find while poking around in my family background.  Oh, sure, I was delighted to learn that there’s a King way back there somewhere… but I knew that all the ancestors I would find were not going to be royal, or heroes, or even completely successful in life.  (I knew that just from looking at the family members I have known in my own lifetime.)  When I went searching for my ancestors, I went searching for stories left behind by real people.  I wanted to get to know them, because they are my family and they are important.  I also did hope that in the process I might discover something about myself.  In my once-lost, now-found great-grandfather William Addington, that is exactly what I did.

I intend to drive up to Williamsburg soon, and take a look at the field where he lies.  William’s final resting place is not marked with individual headstones but with a small monument on which there are many names.  It was erected by a decent bunch of people just 20 years ago.  They wanted to show respect for the 55 individuals who died at Eastern State and were buried in that field between 1773 and 1826.  I owe them.  They honored my great-grandfather.  I wonder if many of them are descendants of patients, like me.  I wonder if any of them are cousins. 

One final comment.  A couple of paragraphs ago I stated, “I knew that all the ancestors I would find were not going to be royal, or heroes...”  That is undoubtedly true.  But William Addington, immigrant, husband and father, pioneer, military officer and veteran of the War for American Independence, was a hero.  And a bout with melancholy in his later years does nothing to change that.  I am honored to know a little something about him and, in a small way, to carry on his legacy.  Besides all that, I think my great-grandfather William would be pleased to know that more than 200 years later his family still remembers him.

Gryphem

My Search for Ancestors

A Genealogy Series:  (1) An Introduction to my Search for Ancestors

I have always been very interested in family.  I love my close family, those to whom I am joined by birth or marriage, those whom I know intimately.  I would do anything to ensure their security and prosperity.  I love my extended family, the ones whom I have known, with whom I share bonds of heredity or culture or affection.  I would step forward to help aunts or uncles, cousins or in-laws or nephews or nieces.  This isn’t unusual.  Caring about the relatives you know is normal for persons of good faith and compassion.

My interest goes farther.  Beyond those I personally know and care about are other people.  They are cousins of my cousins, brothers and sisters of my uncles and aunts, blood relatives of my step-relatives, and most of all grandparents of my grandparents.  They are the ones who came before, who shaped our lives intentionally or accidentally, who created us a family.  I care about them because they created the people I love, because they established or passed on the values we hold most important, because we share common roots.  I am fascinated with them because in ways that are sometimes subtle but very real, we are all inextricably connected.

My interest in genealogy wasn’t always so mature. 

Being from a strong, well-established, interconnected extended family, I already knew a lot about grandparents and even great-grandparents, even as a child.  When I first began to look beyond the faces I saw, I simply wanted to expand upon this.  I wanted to know who my great-great grandparents were, where they had lived, what they had done. 

My cousin Mike, always more professional about his genealogical research than I, helped me establish a foundation of essential information to build upon.  I began collecting as much objective information as possible.  I developed an affinity for names and dates.  It became a game of how many birthdates I could gather and how many family tree diagrams I could complete. 

But I was collecting statistics without much context.  It wasn’t long before I began to want more.  I began to seek out connections to people I knew something about.  Translation:  I began to search for connections to famous or influential persons.   That was fun for a while.

Once I had established some impressive connections to some very well-know celebrities who also happened to be cousins, my next challenge was to push the historical boundaries.  I began to dig deeper and deeper into the past, seeking to find the most ancient connections possible.  This enhanced my feeling of connectedness to the great stage of history.  Once I had gone more than a couple of centuries into the past, I began an attempt to combine this exploration with my earlier celebrity search.  There was a sort of a ‘Holy Grail,’ although I didn’t realize it almost until I had found it. But eventually, I did find a demonstrable connection to royalty.  It was kind of exciting to claim direct descent from a king.

At some point, though, I had to admit that the ancient connections were little more than a trivia game.  Truthfully, how much of a connection could it be when there are 20 generations between you and your distant ancestor?  When I realized that the genealogical component of my DNA that had been provided by that King was about one-millionth of my genetic heritage, I realized that even though yes, I am descended from a king, his influence, whether genetically or as a patriarch, is pretty much negligible.

That is when my genealogical interest began to mature.  I began to find myself less interested in the famous or the extremely ancient, less interested in objective information like birth certificates or wedding dates or name spellings, and more interested in the personalities, the motivations, characteristics, and experiences of my ancestors and other relatives.  I began to seek the family that was near enough to feel familiar, far enough to be enlightening when discovered.  I began to look for context to go with names and dates and places.  I began to search for the rare and wonderful stories of the people who “created” me and my family. 

Of course I still needed to search for names, dates, and places, to some extent.  The difference was that I began to pay much more attention to the world my forbearers inhabited, their interactions with it, the setting within which they lived their lives. 

As a history teacher I tell students that the most fascinating academic subject is history, because it is the stories of people who came before us, who with their lives experienced the world they lived in and shaped the world we live in.  I applied that way of thinking to my family history.  I began to seek out connections to people whom I could get to know, so to speak. My search was no more just an attempt to collect names and dates associated with my great-grandparents.  It became an attempt to understand them.  I began to collect knowledge about their historical context, the communities where they lived, what they did to make a living,  their personal characteristics, their values, what motivated them.  I looked for their personalities and whenever possible, their stories.  No longer just names on a family tree, I began to build a personal connection to these grandparents, cousins, and other relatives.

Some to whom I felt a strong connection did live quite a long time ago.  I identified strongly with a few who lived as much as four or five centuries ago, because of unique circumstances in their lives or their personalities which helped me to understand them and relate to them as individuals. 

The most significant discoveries, though, were the connections I found to those who lived just “beyond the edges” of my family’s collective memory.  These are the ones whose names we might have forgotten, but who nevertheless are a lot like us.  They are the ones who might have lived a family life similar to our own, who might have experienced or explained the world in ways that we would find familiar, with whom we might share a subtle physical resemblance.  These are the ones who might have been remembered by my great-grandparents, who forgot to pass their stories along to a later generation.  These are the ones who are just far enough removed that, even though we have lost track of them, if we ever had a magical opportunity to meet them we might still think of each other as “family.”

I hope to write a few stories about my people.  Some will be from a century or two ago.  Some will be from the family I have known personally in my lifetime.  Later, I might even write a few about myself – the kind of stories I imagine a descendant a century from now might be pleased to discover.  Stories of my people.

Feel free to share your stories of family history here on the Gryphem blog, too.

Gryphem

Partisans in the Media – Today’s Version

Gryphem readers:

I have been trying not to fly off into partisan politics.  Really, I have.  But this situation just begs to be shown for what it is.  We have to stop disinformation and fake outrage.  Sorry. 

If it helps, no matter how bad I think the political left is, I do not hate them.  We are all Americans.  I want to alert my fellow-Americans to the fact that some of us are behaving badly.

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In an attempt to put a positive spin on the failing campaign of President Obama, the illogic of the left-leaning media is on display once again.  I have found the latest example of partisan spin to be, frankly, kind of pathetic.

Immediately following Monday's second presidential debate, the reaction of the public was split.  Democrats tended to think the president had won; Republicans and conservatives tended to think Gov. Romney had won. 

The left-leaning media immediately jumped all over themselves trying to turn a mediocre performance by Obama (which was nevertheless an improvement over his terrible showing in the first debate) into a great victory.  A lot of people were going along with that at first.  But the next day, and the next, the fact-checkers did their work.  It became more and more clear that much of what Obama had said was exaggeration, or intentional misinterpretation, or simply not true.  To put it bluntly, when he wasn’t spinning the story he was spinning a yarn. 

A couple of days later moderator Candy Crowley, who had improperly injected herself into the debate to help the president, apologized and admitted that she had been wrong and Romney had been right about some statements the president had made in the wake of the recent attack in Libya.  That, I think, caused a lot of people to reexamine the debate, its coverage, and the race for president.

Today the Gallup Poll, most independent and reliable of the major polls, says Romney has moved ahead in the court of public opinion to the tune of six percentage points.  This is the first poll in a long time to show a result that is outside the margin of error... and the one clearly on top is the challenger.

The one right-leaning major media outlet, Fox News, celebrates with the headline "Romney by a Touchdown."  Fair enough.

The left-leaning media, on the other hand, just cannot seem to accept that despite their best effort and spin, their man is not ahead.  In the wake of a substantial jump in the polls by Romney, CNN asks "Did Romney undo gains with women?"  Well, CNN, apparently not, since more of them support him today than a week ago.  [Aside:  Never trust a news headline with a question mark at the end.]

CNN also features an opinion piece entitled, "How Obama aced comeback."  Really?  You're characterizing a debate in which the president was caught in falsehoods, a debate followed by a decline in the polls, as a comeback?  If this is an "ace" for Obama, it’s a pretty sad commentary on his lack of ability.  The closest CNN comes to being real about this is another opinion piece entitled, "Not the win Obama needed."  The implication - "still a win' - may be questionalbe... but the statement is yet true.

MSNBC, arguably the most left-leaning media source, seems incapable of finding a face-saving way to address the issue at all.  They feature stories on weather and a new conspiracy theory demonizing American business.  Perhaps it is a positive thing that they are staying away from presidential politics… for the most part… for the moment at least.

NPR, which seems to want to be even-handed even though they just can't manage it sometimes, also has chosen not to address presidential politics directly this morning.  Instead, they feature one story that focuses on the senate race in Maine, and another about climate change.  The sub-headline of the climate change story states that President Obama was "stymied" in his attempt to fix Earth's climate, whereas Gov. Romney "doesn't mention climate change."  No lies there, just innuendo, perhaps even subconsciously presented.

Devoid of anything of substance to criticize, left-wing extremists are trying to arouse outrage over the use of a certain phrase by Gov. Romney.  What has them raging in the streets, according to various media sources?  Gov. Romney stated that when he had been elected Governor of Massachusetts he asked his staff to find more qualified women to consider for senior positions in his administration.  He said they brought him "binders full of women," from which he was able to select several for positions of responsibility.

[Sarcasm Alert]  Don’t you see the seething prejudice in that phrase?  Well, trust us, it's there.  The villain had the audacity… doesn’t "binders full of women" conjure up visions of oppression, of sexual slavery, of masses of women in chains? Obviously, Romney hates women and thinks they should go back to their rightful roles as sex objects, housekeepers and servants.  [End Sarcasm] 

Of course, there really is nothing in this innocuous phrase that is remotely offensive.  This entire "outrage" episode is being faked by a few desperate, angry people and a left-wing media more interested in stoking the fires of hatred than in factual reporting.

Of all the (sometimes) left-leaning media, NPR had the healthiest response.  It was a small item off to the side, a link to a blog post entitled, “Out of the Binder, Into the Kitchen: Working Women and Cooking.”  All-in-all, it was a positive bit using the faux outrage to shine a light on a post that was a little bit humorous, a little bit serious about gender roles and cooking.  Leave it to NPR to find the calm around the storm.  I don’t care if they do sometimes fall off the left side of the wagon, I still like them.

As for the others…  The definition of psychosis (from the American Heritage Dictionary) is, "a severe mental disorder... characterized by deterioration of normal intellectual and social functioning and by partial or complete withdrawal from reality." 

If the shoe fits, wear it.  I, on the other hand, am going to celebrate the “touchdown,” and the hope of a massive turn away from this madness in a bit less than three weeks.

Gryphem

My Reasoned Opinion: Obama versus Romney 2012

Welcome, Gryphem Readers.  Recently two relatives, acting quite independently, motivated me to write this post.  One told me that my temporary hibernation from the Gryphem blog was poorly timed, as my observations about the current political situation should be written and posted.  Then another asked me to summarize the difference between candidates Obama and Romney.  After cringing at the thought of trying to summarize my thoughts into a blog-friendly size and format, I began.  This is the result.  I apologize for its length.  If you need the short version, you may skip straight to Part Three.  Of course, I hope you will read the whole thing. 

I also hope those of you who agree in general with my comments will share them, preferably before November 6th.  I hope that those of you who disagree with my comments will remember that we are all Americans, that political dialogue is our way and freedom of speech our right, and that you will choose to disagree without anger or hate.  Thank you for reading this very important post.
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You asked me to state, in a paragraph or two, the difference between President Obama and Governor Romney.  I read that request with the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that I felt when a professor announced an unexpected term paper, due in a few days.  I didn’t know how I could get it done.  But I have thought about this over the weekend, and I am going to give it a try.

PART ONE:  SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

In the interest of full disclosure I must point out that I, who have prided myself on being a political moderate for many years, have come down firmly on one side of this election.  That is because one of these two candidates is a moderate, and the other one is an extremist.  I will try to be fair.

The first thing I must do is disavow all the hatred and nastiness that I see going on around me.  Ironically, I see it more in media personalities, PACS, and ordinary people than in the candidates themselves.  But the hatred on both extremes, left and right, is as poisonous to our nation as any specific political issue.

I will tell you that the extremists are right about one thing.  This is an election to determine the future of America, what our nation will look like a generation from now.  It is Important.

I cannot answer your question without analyzing, at least a little bit, the motives and machinations of some of the persons and parties involved in this campaign.  I will do that first, and then follow up with the compare and contrast that you asked for.  I actively restrain myself from getting too far into these issues because they tend to be divisive in the current toxic political environment… but they have to be mentioned.  These are things that I think are serious problems, things more Americans should be noticing.  They are things that affect the way this election is being perceived by the average guy on the street who doesn’t take time to inquire and think critically about issues and personalities, as you have.  Some are being used as points of distraction - issues which make people mad, get them to side firmly with one candidate and then, having chosen sides (whether or not wisely), to shut down all further thought.

The “problems’ that follow are things that I believe it’s important for voters to understand.  I do not repeat them to condemn, but to explain.  Because these things have colored my decisions, I feel the need to discuss them in some small way.   If you are sick of people pointing out problems with “the other guy,” then you have my permission (not that you need it) to skip ‘Part Two’ completely.  I’ll understand.

PART TWO: THE PROBLEMS

You will find that all the problems I choose to highlight here are primarily from one political camp.  That does not mean that I think the other guys are perfect.  Far from it.  In fact, two years ago I intentionally resigned my membership in the Republican Party for reasons I won’t go into here.  Let’s just say that I know both sides have issues to deal with.  Yet I believe it is more important to focus on what matters most Right Now.

Problem #1:  Media Bias.  I used to deny this, but I have come reluctantly to conclude that the allegations are true.   Our news sources are biased, mostly in favor of the political left.  None are impartial.  Three major networks are biased in favor of the political left, and one (established in response to the left-leaning media outlets) is biased in favor of the right.  At least three of the largest newspapers in the nation are strongly biased in favor of the left, and only one is modestly biased in favor of the political right.

Some time ago, the media forsook their rightful role as investigators and reporters, and took upon themselves to become active participants in American politics.  They are no longer a mirror on our government; they are partisans in a war to redefine the parameters of our political debate.  They seek to be the gatekeepers of our political choices and the arbitrators of our opinions.

This election has taken journalistic partisanship to new levels, and the extreme bias is getting worse.  What that means specifically in 2012 is that the left-leaning media are propping up what would otherwise be a failed presidency.  President Obama would never have gotten away with this kind of performance 20 or 30 years ago.  This blog post from April 2011 pertains: http://gryphem.blogspot.com/2011/04/real-motives-of-media.html.

Problem #2:  Dishonesty.   Politics is full of manipulation, but never before have I seen the amount of outright lying and propaganda that is on display this year.  The last time it was like this was probably 1898.  If you want to see how effective yellow journalism can be, check out the role of W.R. Hearst in the run-up to the Spanish-American War that year.

The dishonesty is not all on one side, but my perception is that the left is being far more aggressive in its disinformation campaign.  A few examples...

Example 1:  To call Gov. Romney’s comment that 47% of the American people pay no income tax “an attack on working Americans” is jingo journalism.  The 47% statistic is a fact.  Speaking truth, without prejudice or antagonism, should not be labeled an “attack.”  The “47%” comments upset some people, but that doesn’t make it an attack, nor does that make it untrue.

Example 2:  How is it in any way logical to argue that the citizen who paid no tax last year was a victim of circumstances, while at the same time alleging that a man who paid over $2 million dollars in income tax last year is not paying his fair share?  That is exactly what President Obama has been saying.

These two examples are only “spin” – putting the worst possible interpretation on a comment or event.  The Obama campaign and its allies have done worse than spin.  Until their story fell apart, they were accusing Mitt Romney of personally causing a woman’s death by cancer because he got her fired and made her lose her health insurance.  The trouble was, that story was full of falsehoods.  When the truth began to emerge in response, the slanderous ad was discontinued.  Other similar disinformation continues.

Here’s a point of law that most Americans don’t realize.  Short of committing slander (or libel), a political ad does not have to be true.  Unlike in commerce, where truth-in-advertising laws apply, lying in political ads is not illegal.  Of course, the political camps don’t want to be so obvious that ordinary citizens start to notice that they are lying; that would be bad for the campaign.  But neither do they worry about being scrupulously honest (to put it mildly)...

Problem #3:  Incompetence.  It’s a harsh word, I know.  But it fits.  Many of the people that President Obama has placed in positions of great responsibility are not qualified to fill those positions.

Case-in-Point #1:  The Secretary of the Treasury has been under investigation for tax evasion.

Case-in-Point #2:  The Attorney General lied to Congress.  (This has yet to be proven, but it is obvious to anyone remotely acquainted with the facts of the ‘Fast and Furious’ scandal.)

Case-in-Point #3:  The Secretary of State neglected to provide proper protection to a new embassy, in a country which had just experienced a violent coup.  The result was the assassination of the American Ambassador to Libya.  Then she (and the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and the president) denied that the incident had been the result of a plot organized by terrorists despite advance intelligence warning of an impending attack.

All this doesn’t even touch the lack of qualification, improper selection criteria, and inappropriate disposition of the extreme partisans he has appointed to the Supreme Court.  One of President Obama’s nominees was eventually confirmed despite having made the blatantly racial statement that a Latina woman (such as herself), “would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male.”  Another was confirmed despite demonstrable hostility toward the U.S. military, and despite having no experience whatsoever as a judge.

Even former president Bill Clinton privately has called Obama “incompetent."

Problem #4:  The Demonization of Success and Disingenuous Attitudes about Taxes.   It seems that about half the criticisms of Romney have something to do with the fact that he is a successful businessman.  As a historian, I recognize this pattern.  The demonization of wealth preceded many of the Communist revolutions of the early 20^th century, as well as the French Revolution.  It is dangerous to incite envy and class-based antagonism.  All the more so when the targets of the anger have committed no offense other than successfully using the existing system to building wealth or power.  Despite their desperate wish to find something incriminating to use against Governor Romney, no one has made any substantiated claim that he has done anything illegal in his business career.  That in itself is a remarkable situation which has been completely overlooked (or ignored) by the media.

I have a problem with those who would blame a law-abiding citizen for actions he took in compliance with the law.  Barring blatant immorality, it is the responsibility of a citizen to comply with the law that is in place, not to comply with some other person’s after-the-fact assessment of what they think should have been in place.

Although some of our laws pertaining to business and tax might be widely perceived to be flawed, they are not perceptibly lacking in morality.  In order to allege that, it would be necessary to condemn the entire capitalist economic system.  The ‘Occupy’ movement notwithstanding, that is something very few Americans are willing to do, even today.

Regarding the recurring allegations that Governor Romney didn’t pay enough tax, I wonder how many Americans of any income level have finished their annual tax preparation and thought, “I think this amount due is too little, so I am going to add some more money to my tax payment for the year.”  That seems to be what some expect Mr. Romney should’ve done.

If business or tax law is flawed, it is the responsibility of Congress to make sure the law is workable and just.   If there are problems with our tax codes, it is not the fault of Governor Romney but of the Congress which affirmed or put those laws into effect.If you really want to compare compassion, a sense of personal responsibility for one’s fellow citizens, and a willingness to make things better, looks at the percentage of income donated by each candidate to charity.  In 2011, Romney contributed about 19% of his income to charity (over $4 million).  The Obamas contributed a comparable percentage of their income.  Vice President Biden, on the other hand, contributed less 2% of his income to charity last year.  Note in addition that Mitt Romney took no salary in ten years of church leadership roles, as President of the 2002 Winter Olympic Committee, or as Governor of Massachusetts.
Problem #5:  Avoiding Responsibility.  This administration is still trying to blame President Bush for most of their shortcomings, even though they have had the full reins of power for nearly four years.  That would be laughable except that is seems to be working with a large percentage of Americans.

Point of fact:  Even though the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress in 2009 and 2010, and continue to control the Senate, President Obama blames the lack of substantive progress on many of his political agenda issues on “obstruction” by Republicans.

I'll have more to say about this later.

Problem #6:  Ashamed of America?.  President Bush would never apologize, even when he was wrong.  In a classic case of overreaction, we elected a president who seems determined to apologize for everything America has ever done.  It was Michelle Obama rather than her husband who was politically inexperienced enough to say it out loud in 2008 when she admitted, at age 44, “…for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.”  Really?   What more can I add to that?

PART THREE: THE CHOICE

You probably have noticed that a big part of my opinion has to do with honesty, integrity, and competence.  Enough said.  Now let’s focus on some very concrete, specific matters.  Here is my super-short synopsis of our choice this November.

There are four overriding matters on which the differences between Obama and Romney are profound.  These are (1) American Values, (2) the Economy (major domestic Issue), (3) America’s Role in the World (major foreign issue), and (4) National Debt.

On the matter of American Values:

The Role of Government.  President Obama and the political left believe that government should take the lead in solving the problems of our society.  Governor Romney and the political right believe that while government is necessary, its role should be restrained and most problems would be better solved without resort to the coercive power of government.  What this means practically is that Democrats want to expand the reach of government more and more.  This expansion of the role of government in our lives necessarily diminishes the personal control individuals have over their own lives.

Equality of Opportunity.  Governor Romney and Republicans believe that our U.S. Constitution guarantees equality under the law, equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome.  President Obama and the Democrats believe that inequalities of income are ‘de facto’ unfair.    They believe it is a good thing for government to intervene in the lives of individuals to ensure “fairness” (which to them means equality of outcomes).

American Exceptionalism.  President Obama believes that America is simply one nation among many, no better or worse than any other nation.  Governor Romney believes, as have at least 41 of the other 43 presidents, that America is an exceptional nation, forged in a new mold, dedicated as no nation before to inclusion and freedom.  “All men are created equal,” whether they live in the United States or not, but that is not true of all governments.  In fact, our nation was founded by people who thought they could devise a better way to govern than any government that had existed before.  And they did exactly that.  That, in my opinion, is exceptional.  I wish more of us in the United States of America still shared their values and wisdom.

On the matter of the Economy:

Believing that it is the function of government to ensure economic equality, the political left constantly seeks to take greater control of the economy.  This they do through manipulative tax laws which tax NOT to raise money for the operation of government (which is a legitimate function of government) but to redistribute wealth.  This is already being done under the guise of “Earned Income Credit,” and the current administration wants to “redistribute” even greater amounts.

Taking from one individual and giving to another to achieve a greater degree of financial equality is socialism.  What Obama and the Democrats want to do is impose socialism.  They will not say so because ‘socialism’ has a negative connotation to most Americans, but that is what it is.

I have traveled in Europe and have seen firsthand how moderate socialism can work, and I must be completely honest.  There are worse fates.  A properly tempered socialism of the kind now in place in Britain or Germany, for example, would not be the end of our nation.  But that is not how Americans have always chosen to operate.  We have always believed in individual responsibility, in taking care of ourselves and each other.  We have never before chosen to depend on the ‘Big Brother’ of government to take care of us.

There is another important consideration.  I am of the opinion that socialism only works when the economic situation is good.  When times are bad, wealth-creators are less able to fuel the engine of prosperity.  But those on the receiving end of government redistribution are notoriously unwilling to cooperate.  An illustration from “Fiddler on the Roof”:

Nahum: Alms for the poor.  Alms for the poor.
Lazar: Here, Reb Nahum, is one kopek.
Nahum: One kopek? Last week you gave me two kopeks.
Lazar: I had a bad week.
Nahum: So if you had a bad week, why should I suffer?

Humorous, yes, but things can go far awry.  Consider those riots in Greece over the past year.

On the matter of America’s Role in the World:

I believe all Americans are weary of our overseas involvement.  Almost no one wants to go back to the Bush-era foreign policy in which we inject ourselves into the affairs of nations throughout the world.  In particular, we are weary of military action in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.  In this, I think both candidates agree.

However, the current President has begun to shrink our military force faster than our military obligations.  He has downsized the American military too fast, while failing to make corresponding reductions in our missions abroad.  Yes, we have (for the most part) left Iraq, but we have undertaken new missions in Libya, and against piracy in the Indian Ocean, and in the Pacific, and of course we are still quite active in Afghanistan.  This has led to a severely overworked military.  You won’t hear much complaining because it is not in the U.S. military culture to complain, but the forces-to-task ratio has been seriously degraded.

Going beyond military considerations, President Obama has presented our nation as embarrassingly servile at times.  Undoubtedly this is an overreaction to his predecessor, who never would have apologized for anything, even if his life had depended on it.  But this president goes out of his way to apologize, bows to Saudi princes, takes blame where none is warranted, and makes a point of telling others that America is not a special nation.  If our enemies were angry at the United States for interfering under the last administration, they despise the weakness they perceive in the current administration.

President Obama has ignored the security needs of some of our closest allies (Israel) and appears to have gone out of his way to weaken ties with others (Britain).

President Obama presents to the world an America that is embarrassed to be successful, that apologizes for itself at every turn.  A future President Romney would, without recreating the entanglements of the preceding administration, reassert an American that stands strong for freedom and in defense of her own interests and allies.

On the matter of National Debt:

If he could ever find a way adequately to communicate to the American people the crisis we are in, the issue of the national debt could be a political trump card for the Romney campaign.  If people understood just how much danger we are in because of financial irresponsibility, they would vote in droves for the fiscal conservative in this election.  Yet despite all the efforts by fiscal conservatives such as Congressman Ryan, most Americans just aren’t getting it.

Here’s the situation.  For several decades, our nation has been living beyond its means.  Even before President Obama took office, we were approaching a tipping point at which our government would be unable to sustain the services and benefits it had been providing.  This was due in part to the unfunded wars of the Bush era, in part to the raiding of Social Security coffers for decades, in part to the demographics of an aging population, and most of all to financial mismanagement by several iterations of Congress.

Of course no one in charge, of either party, in Congress or the Oval Office, has wanted to own the problem.  So they kept sweeping it under the rug.  They redirected money from one program to another.  They raised the debt limit and borrowed.  They played a shell game with the national budget.  Congress has never really able to control its deficit spending, and now the situation has become so serious that they are unable to continue with business as usual.  In order to disguise the economic situation (and their fiscal irresponsibility), for the past four years (ever since President Obama took office with his party in control) the Congress has not approved one single annual budget - even though they are constitutionally required to do so.

Mitt Romney has experience that is directly applicable to this dire situation.  He went into failing companies, increased efficiencies, cut costs, and usually enabled those companies to survive.  He took over a failing Olympics and turned it into a great public relations and financial success.  Over and over, he has turned around organizations that were failing.

The left is fond of pointing out that when Mr. Romney went into a company in trouble, his solutions were sometimes difficult to enact.  That is correct.  There is a price to pay for mismanagement, and sometimes recovery is painful.  The remedies may have been painful, but Mitt Romney enabled organizations to survive that otherwise would have failed.

The left is also fond of pointing out that he did not always succeed in saving the companies he tried to save, and that he got paid anyway.  True enough.  No one bats a thousand, and the doctor gets paid even when the operation is not a success.  But honestly, who would you trust with your finances?  The businessman who saved 80% of the troubled companies he dealt with, or the party that has been unable to get an annual budget through Congress for four years?

Our national situation is like a family which has had a decrease in income.  Perhaps as if one of two breadwinners lost his or her job.  Unwilling to modify their spending habits to align with the new income, the family begins dipping into retirement savings to maintain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.  When the savings are gone, they begin borrowing and using credit cards to support their standard of living.  It works for a while - maybe for some years if they started with a sizeable retirement account and had good credit.  But sooner or later the day will arrive when the savings are gone, the credit accounts have reached their limits, and the mortgage is due.  What then?  The answer, as we know all too well from our collective experience of the past few years, is foreclosure and bankruptcy.

The United States today is a nation staring out into the distance at the possibility of bankruptcy.  The ultimate collapse may still be a few years down the road (we hope), but the threat is real.  If we take drastic measures now, it is probably still possible to regain our financial stability, in time.  But if we do nothing different, if we continue to deny the problem, if we only think about the short term, it will probably not be possible to recover.  If we choose the primrose path, four more years of deficit spending at President Obama’s rate, we will eventually default.  When that happens we no doubt will hear loud, anguished complaints from those who lose government services and handouts because the government itself will be bankrupt.  When the government goes bankrupt, programs and entitlements will be not ‘trimmed’ or ‘reduced,’ but cancelled outright.  Or conversely, the government will print money to hand out and we will experience hyperinflation that will make those handouts worthless.  Either way, it’s not a pretty prospect.

A Final Point: Obama Owns It.

This bears repeating:  Other than demonizing Governor Romney, the best play in the Democrat reelection book still is to blame George.  Almost four years into the Obama Presidency, he and his colleagues still blame President Bush for most of their problems, including some that he had nothing to do with.

The reason for problems, they continue to say, is that they inherited such a bad situation.  This transparent and worn-out strategy should not work in an informed electorate.  And yet they still blame George.  If they cannot find a way to blame him, they blame his conservative allies in Congress, or those troublemakers in the Tea Party.

As I wrote before, the idea of a President blaming his predecessor for all the problems of the nation at the end of an entire term would be laughable - if only so many Americans weren’t believing it.

The question should not be whether President Obama inherited a bad situation.  He did.  The question should be whether he did anything to make it better – or worse.

For all his spending  on the wars, President Bush ran up the national debt over $4 trillion in eight years.  President Obama has run up the national debt over $6 trillion in only four years.  Do the math... Under the Obama administration we have been racing toward the abyss of bankruptcy at three times the rate we did under his predecessor.*  Does that seem competent, or responsible?

CONCLUSION

I've presented my decidedly-partisan point of view fairly, I hope.  I am not a right-wing radical.  I find truth where I see it.  I have been a Democrat, a Republican, a registered Libertarian, and an Independent.  My comments, while making no attempt to be “objective,” were arrived at honestly and explained sensibly, I think.  I have presented them without hate.  I hope you’ll agree with my conclusions.  If not, then I have done my best, and we still are all Americans.  I’ll remember that if you will.

Gryphem

Postscript

* Correction:  In an earlier version of this post, I made the statement that the Obama Administration has increased the national debt at a rate ten times that of his predecessor.  I had fallen prey to some disinformation, which I have now corrected with the help of FactCheck.org.  Believing in the fundamental truth that one never strengthens an argument by overstating it, I now firmly assert that the Obama Administration is increasing the debt at “only” three times the rate of his predecessor.  My underlying assertion – that this administration is spending far too much – remains unchanged.

Adelaar and Edward

Greetings, Gryphem Fans.

Progress is being made.  One of the many things Gryphem has been learning is that humor can take a rough situation and make it better.  In fact, sometimes the roughest topics make really good humor.  Like piracy.  Who would've thought Blackbeard, given a little time and perspective, could make us smile?

Here's a ditty to make you witty.  In Honor of "Speak Like a Pirate Day," go listen to the greatest Pirate Rap ever recorded.  It's Straight Outta Portsmouth, and it's here.


By the way, this is the first time EVER that Adelaar Gryphem has allowed his image to be published.  You can use the great intelligence characteristic of so many Gryphem fans to figure out which one is me.  Until next time...

Gryphem

Intolerance and Outrage: Don’t Miss the Point

Note about the Gryphem blog: 
Gryphem still is working on a new vision… But sometimes it is just too hard to keep silent in the presence of duplicity and manipulative intimidation.  

Note about the events inspiring this post: 
In case you haven't been paying attention, the president of a national fast-food chain stated to the media that he believes marriage should be between one man and one woman.  For that he has been vilified to a shocking degree.  Some have even called for the banishment of the restaurant from entire cities... all because he spoke his religiously-based political opinion.
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The outrage over comments about gay marriage by Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy is revealing some staggering hypocrisy and outright un-American discrimination.  Watching this unfold is painful for an American who believes in honesty, freedom, and respectful public dialogue. 

The shreiks of condemnation from self-appointed defenders of "approved rights" reveal that these Harpies have no real understanding of either freedom of religion or freedom of speech.  Or perhaps they understand but do not support these constituional rights.  Despite sanctimonious proclamations of patriotism, that is possible.

The self-righteous voices of damnation are not coming from the ones who are usually accused of being intolerant.  No, these voices of condemnation are coming from the ones who claim to be open-minded, who claim to be defending rights, who wrap themselves in the American flag while telling their countrymen what they must not believe, while exhorting the masses to sanction the non-compliant.

Let’s speak plainly.  All Dan Cathy did was to speak his mind about gay marriage, which he thinks is wrong.  His opinion derives from his religious beliefs, based on his interpretation of scripture.  For this he has been demonized.   He did not say he would not serve homosexuals.  He did not advocate hatred or violence.  Yet he has been called vicious, and a hatemonger.  Mr. Cathy did not violate anyone’s constitutional rights.  He has been more than willing to do business with groups that support gay rights.  He has not demanded that others conform to his point of view as a precondition to working together (in stark contrast to those who now condemn him!).  What he did was exercise his right to speak publicly in contradiction of one of the tenets of the secular dogma of political correctness. 

Gay Americans and those who support them may not like what Mr. Cathy had to say, and that is understandable and perfectly appropriate.  It is quite another matter to impugn his integrity, to malign his motives, to attempt to force an apology or at least silence him, to try to force his business out of town.  When did it become a prerequisite for doing business to have just the right political beliefs?  When did we start requiring ideological conformity as a prerequisite to participation in the American economy? 

This whole series of  events is disturbingly reminiscent of the way religious police respond to violations of their religious codes in a certain nation in Southwest Asia.  Their harsh retribution is legendary, as is their unwillingness to listen.  In this analogy, the enforcer of orthodoxy is NOT the opponent of gay marriage.

Despite what those screaming in outrage would have you believe, Mr. Cathy’s motive was not hatred, nor a desire to hurt anyone.  He was not even being mean-spirited.  He was simply stating his honestly-held belief.  For the most part, it has not been people of faith who want someone to suffer, but the politically correct crowd.  The keepers of political correctness want someone to pay for transgressing against their secular orthodoxy.  Mayors and city council members have been calling for the expulsion of Chick-Fil-A restaurants from their cities.  Left-wing politicos are trying to enforce correct thought and speech.  Civic action groups and media commenters are calling names and condemning.  It is the opponents of Mr. Cathy who are trying to do him emotional and economic harm.

Mr. Cathy, although he certainly knew his comments would not be popular, had no intention to offend.  He simply stated his views.  The gay community, on the other hand, with its plan for a “kiss-in,” will respond with an event specifically designed and intended to offend.  This is the playbook reaction of a community lacking in self-assurance, needing to provoke attention to validate its existence, a community that once again is about to do itself more harm than good.

Now that you know what I think about all the players in this little drama, let me tell you something that might surprise you.  I support gay rights.  In fact, I belong to a Christian denomination which officially affirms gay rights.  (Not all Christians fit the stereotype of intolerance so popular in the public dialogue!)  I have no wish to oppress.  Because I believe words carry impact beyond what you’ll find in the dictionary, and because marriage has meant a certain thing from time immemorial, I wish my gay friends (and I do have some) would call it something other than “marriage,”  But I am happy for same-sex couples to have all the rights of domestic partnership that my wife and I enjoy.

This isn’t about gay rights.

I don’t care if you are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or none-of-the-above.  I don’t care what you think about the role of public opinion or government in business.  I don’t care if you believe homosexuality is a sin, a choice, or a trait.  I don’t care if you are Christian, Moslem, Shinto, or atheist.  None of that is the real issue here. 

What matters is whether we still believe in freedom of religion and freedom of speech.  Does Mr. Cathy have the right to speak publicly his firmly-held religious beliefs, or doesn’t he?  If he DOES, as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states, then all the demands for his head are out of line.

There is a great danger that we will miss the point of all this entirely, if we are distracted by the screamers.  I pray that most of us, including Americans who support gay rights and still are loyal Americans, are intelligent enough to recognize hypocrisy and manipulation when we see them, and committed enough to our heritage of freedom as expressed in the Bill of Rights to do something about it. 

Do Americans have the freedom to believe and practice their religion, or don’t they?

Do Americans have the right to speak truth as they see it, or don’t they?

Those are the real questions.

- Gryphem 

Final Note:  I will return to my contemplation of a brighter future for a little while yet.  I continue to work on a new vision.