By Any Other Name

Turgidson: “Strangelove? What kind of name is that. That ain’t no Kraut name is it, Stainsey?”

Staines: “He changed it when he became a citizen. It used to be Murkwurdigliebe.”

Turgidson: “Well a Kraut by any other name”

-          Dr Strangelove, 1964

Speaking in Miami yesterday, New York mayor, Democratic Party presidential candidate, and hard leftist  de Blasio used  a well-known catch phrase of communist mass murder Che Guevara in his speech. One can wonder if now the mayor, whose real surname after all is Wilhelm, will go back to New York and offer his constituents there some of the inspirational sayings of that other famous 20th Century paladin of strong, vigorous, progressive,  activist,  central government  Reinhard Heydrich. That would be appropriate for the guy in more than one way and even more amusing that the bit in Miami.

He has since backtracked, “apologized”, and said that poor uninformed  fellow that he is, he had no idea that it was Guevara’s slogan, an odd claim from a someone who spent time in Central America   and was well connected with the Sandistas. Well, as the man said, a gaffe is what occurs when a politician slips up and says what he really wants or believes.

Reparations

An important principle in political and general social life is that one should never accept undeserved guilt or blame. Power seekers know that guilty and uncertain people are easier to manipulate and control and often try  to induce feelings of  guilt in those they wish to dominate.  Their attempts should be rejected, and usually emphatically. So it is with the recent nonsense coming from leftist politicians about collecting “reparations”  from other  Americans to give to black people for slavery and Jim  Crow.

There is no one alive today who had anything to do with promoting, supporting, or participating in slavery in America.  (There are a good number of people alive today on the American left who are complicit in supporting slavery in Cuba, the Soviet Empire, Mao’s China, and other communist hellholes, but that is a different story.)  Neither is there anyone alive who suffered from it.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 abolished Jim Crow laws in the states that still had them. The voting age in 1964 was twenty one. So no one born after 1943 could have helped elect  the politicians who kept those laws on the books.  We are simply not guilty in the matter and owe nothing to anyone for it, and should not be bashful about making  that clear.  (It also would not hurt to point out that in the Civil War to end slavery, it cost about one union soldier dead  for each ten slaves liberated. Including the dead rebels, most of whom did not own slaves,  raises the cost to about one for six.)

However there might be one possible exception where an other than manifestly absurd case could be made for reparations. There is one large, wealthy, and powerful organization  still active in this country that supported and protected slavery with rebellion in the South and subversion in the North  when others were trying to end it. It is the same organization that deprived black citizens of their civil rights as soon after the  Civil War as union occupation forces left the South and enacted and maintained segregation and Jim Crow laws in the former confederate states for almost  a hundred years.  That organization is the Democratic Party.   If there is to be a tab,  they would be the bunch to pay it. I would pony up for pay TV to watch a debate among the 712 Democratic presidential candidates on that question.

European union?

“It is historical realism that has made it clear to me that the unity of Europe as a society is not an “ideal” but a very ancient daily fact, and having seen this fact one cannot but confront the probability of a general European state. As for the occasion that will suddenly bring  this process to a close, it might be almost anything: a Chinaman’s pigtail appearing behind the Urals or a shock from the great Islamic magma.”   -

       Jose Ortega y Gasset,  “Unity and Diversity of Europe”  in the Norton English translation  “History as a System and other essays toward a philosophy of history”, 1941

The Chinese no longer wear pigtails, and they are nowhere near the Urals at present,  but the rise of China as a major power is real and obvious enough, and there surely are things bubbling in the Islamic world for Europeans to notice. Though no longer as large a threat   as in the days of the Soviet empire,  Russia is still there, still armed and ambitious, and still not the other Europeans' fast or reliable friend.  Yet there is little or no apparent interest in much of Europe in making continental Europe a power capable of defending itself.  

The main  reason for this may be  that European politicians and officials  see no reason to take responsibility for their defense and security since the United States takes  on that task and picks up that burden for them. However that  could change.  America has quite a bit  to handle in its own hemisphere and the Pacific and a president who is of the opinion that prosperous Europeans  can and should take care of themselves – a notion with which many Americans who are not otherwise supporters of Trump agree.  (As one example there are many of us questioning whether, now that America can get all the oil it needs from sources at or close to home, we need to keep trying to police the Middle East at significant cost and little noticeable benefit.)

Another reason may be the unpopularity of the present European Union.  People in various  parts of Europe see the EU as inimical to their cultural and national identities, resent it as a front for a de facto German continental empire,  or just oppose it as more burden, trouble,  and annoyance than it is worth -  too much cost for too little benefit.  Then there is the hangover from the horrible wars and tyrannies of the 20^th Century.  Europeans may just be too worn out to do much at least until  the threats get worse and more obvious.

Whatever the reasons, it would be better for Europe and civilization if the Europeans would do what is needed to become able to protect themselves.  America cannot do everything, and Americans may be moving toward deciding they don’t have to try.