The Audacity of Truth

“L’Audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”

When I first heard these words, I had no idea of what they meant. I did not even realize they were French. All I knew is that George C. Scott uttered them in his title role as General George Patton. He was reclining on a sofa and used them to chide an officer who was reluctant to go into combat.

The quote, which comes from Napoleon, translates as “audacity, audacity, always audacity,” and was Bonaparte’s philosophy of how one should approach a military campaign. Be daring, be bold, and take the battle to the enemy! Put the other guy on the defensive by courageously taking the initiative.

This was good advice for military commanders. It is good advice for political leaders. If you want to be successful when competing with others, don’t worry so much about what they will do; give them reason to worry about what you will do.

Another way to put this is: be active, rather than reactive. Don’t be afraid to make the first move and don’t only try to ward off the blows of your adversary. Get in a few good licks of your own, even when the other guy is busy attacking you. Turn the tide and get him on the defensive.

This strategy worked pretty well for Napoleon. Yes, he overextended himself in the Russian campaign and lost at Waterloo, but even in this last encounter he did fairly well considering he had only a hundred days to prepare for it.

Aggressiveness and audacity are valuable weapons that frequently separate winners from losers. Even Barack Obama understands this. Didn’t he entitle a book: The Audacity of Hope?

So why aren’t Republicans being audacious? Indeed, why do conservatives, in general, seem to enter frays tepidly and perhaps timidly? Too often they appear more concerned with playing the part of a “gentleman,” rather than a combatant.

Yet make no mistake about it, conservatism is in mortal combat with radical liberalism. Furthermore, it must win if it is to save our nation from a new dark age. This may sound extreme, but the poverty, weakness, and lack of liberty sure to flow from an unchecked liberal agenda would be devastating.

So I say it is time to attack. To attack, and attack, and attack some more! No doubt a degree of circumspection is required. Assailing an enemy without first reconnoitering the situation or devising a suitable plan of action is not wise. But neither is imitating General George McClellan and cowering in a corner because one over-estimates the enemy.

Radical liberals are vulnerable. Among other things they are liars. Thus, Obama says he will balance the budget; he will not. He claims that ObamaCare will reduce costs and improve services; it will not. He tells us he has an “all of the above” strategy for energy; he does not.

So why not go on the offensive. Why not, for instance, accuse Obama of being a political juggler. He has, after all, been keeping so many lies flying through the air that he deserves scorn for this performance. Or why not compare him to a seal balancing a stack of platitudes on the tip of a teleprompter?

Then if he and his allies come roaring back by charging that Republicans are merely obstructionists—that all they do is say No—bear this label proudly. Insist that saying No to perilous programs is equivalent to putting one’s finger in the dike; that it amounts saving the nation from a flood of foolish and arrogant initiatives.

The key to winning a bare-knuckle brawl is not to go wobbly in the knees when the other guy gets in a few good thumps. Victory goes to the daring. It goes to those who stand their ground and look for an opening that is even more devastating. Conservatives don’t need more apologies or weak declarations of good intentions. They need muscle.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Doubling Down on Liberal Democrats

For a while there I was worried. In the wake of their November loss, too many Republicans began to sound like perpetual losers. Instead of looking toward the future, they decided to do a self-autopsy, which is a little like self-disembowelment.

Didn’t conservatives understand that the best defense is a good offense? Didn’t they realize that the more apologies they made, the more is appeared they had a lot to apologize for?

In any event, I find this defensiveness particularly galling when those on the political right protest that they are not racists or sexists. They do so because the charge that they are has become a standard feature of the liberal armamentum; wheeled out whenever leftists do something foolish.

Why? Rather than be criticized, Democrats recognize that if they can put their adversaries off balance, their foes will be so busy protecting their flanks they won’t have the time to fight back.

Yet liberals too have many glaring weaknesses. Ironically among these are often the very things for which the castigate conservatives. Hence I say it is time to double down on liberal Democrats and give them a taste of their own medicine.

What do I mean? Why I am talking about using the “Chicago way” against them. You know, they bring a knife to the fight; you bring a gun. They put one of yours in the hospital; you put one of theirs in the morgue.

The way this works is that when they call you a racist; you respond by calling them “double racists.” When they label you a sexist; you slam them as “double sexists.” When they describe you a “classist;” you denounce them as “double classists.” This may sound childish, but it has the virtue of being true.

Okay, let’s go through the numbers. Are liberals double racists? You bet they are. They are prejudiced not only against whites, but also against blacks. The white part is obvious. Liberals are forever blasting whites for being bigots who do not realize how privileged they are.

But liberals also attack blacks. No, they do not do so directly; they do it by implication. Time and again African-Americans are infantilized. They are treated as if they are too dumb and too weak to be held to the same standards as their fellow citizens. This is an insult of the first magnitude for which blacks should be up in arms.

Next we turn to gender. Are liberals biased against men? Anyone who has been paying attention knows they are. Men are routinely libeled as misogynistic villains, who enjoy nothing more than terrorizing women by threatening them with rape. In the liberal universe, heterosexual love is not possible because men are incapable of it.

But women do not get off Scott free either. They are slandered whenever they attempt to be too feminine. Whatever their personal inclinations, they must go out to conquer the world by becoming corporate CEOs. Should they have the temerity of wanting to be wives and mothers, they are vilified as traitors to their gender.

Finally, there is the charge of classism. Clearly Republicans are castigated for loving the rich so much that they oppress the poor. Nevertheless liberals are double classists in that they despise both the rich and the poor.

The rich part of the equation is easy to verify in that liberals are forever demanding that the wealthy pay their “fair share.” What they consider fair, however, tends to mean that the government will take whatever it wants until the affluent no longer are.

As for the poor, they too are crushed under the heel of uncaring liberals. How you ask? Why in the same manner as the old joke, which proclaims that God must really love the poor because he made so many of them. Given the way Democrats are undermining the economy, they too seem intent on multiplying the ranks of the impoverished.

Q.E.D.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Social Promotion: Thwn and Now

I think I was in the first grade. Anyway, I remember the commotion. My next-door neighbor’s son had been left back. He was only a year older than me, but he was “slow.” While he was a nice boy with whom I often played—once even plotting to burn my sister at the stake—he wasn’t book-smart.

At the time, I did not understand what the fuss was about. In retrospect I realize his parents were deeply distressed that their only child would be stigmatized by having to repeat a grade. They were equally worried that being surrounded by children younger would stunt his emotional growth.

These parents were not alone in their concerns. Others were equally vociferous in their conviction that demoting a child had dire consequences. What is more, the teachers agreed. They too were lobbying for what was called “social promotion.” Children were to be advanced a grade, not because they mastered the materials of the earlier one, but because they were a year older.

The theory was that acquiring social skills was even more important than attaining academic ones. Thus, to leave a child behind was to inflict an indelible scar. It marked him or her as a loser who would be ridiculed by age-mates as “dumb” and shunned by classmates as too “big” to belong.

As a consequence, school policies were changed to keep students with their age peers. In the end, all were moved along irrespective of what they knew. Ultimately, when they graduated from high school, as many did, they could neither read nor do simple arithmetic. A diploma ostensibly certified that they were educated, but anyone who knew them realized this was not true.

Today many states are about to launch on an updated version of the social promotion, only this time at the college level. (Here it is called Complete College Georgia.) Once more the experts and concerned parents are essentially urging us to move students along for their own good.

What is being proposed (and in some cases enacted) is that states fund universities in terms of their number of graduates as opposed to their number of attendees. This is supposed to make schools accountable. They are, in effect, being told to demonstrate their effectiveness before they are bankrolled.

This, at least, is the theory. But put yourself in the place of a college administrator. You need more money to underwrite your programs, but the only way to loosen state purse strings is to raise your graduation rate. So what do you do? Why, you lower the standards required to graduate.

Higher education, indeed, education in general, has witnessed an alarming grade inflation. Individuals who were once “C” students are now pocketing “A’s” as if these were jellybeans. A sense of entitlement has taken hold such that many mediocre learners fancy themselves embryonic geniuses.

So now, in the name of improved quality, we are about to see educational criteria take another nosedive. In fact, this is already happening. A colleague of mine who teaches at state university up north tells me when his students cannot read; they have the tests read to them. Not only this, but they have the questions explained to them.

This then is supposed to be progress. No doubt we will shortly be treated to hordes of college graduates who also can neither read nor do simple arithmetic. Our universities are clearly in trouble. Indeed, ordinary citizens are beginning to ask if they are worth the cost. What, they inquire, is the point when their graduates know less than fifth graders.

No wonder that my colleagues and I question the foresight of this brave new world of “rationalized” finance. We, who daily struggle to maintain the value of what we teach, shudder at finding ourselves, and our students, sold out in the shadows of a legislative night. Let us remember that even good intentions can have unintended consequences.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Turning On A Dime

As MDJ readers may know, I have been highly exercised by Barack Obama’s about-face on the subject of the national debt. Whereas four years ago, he described George W. Bush’s six trillion dollar smaller debt as unpatriotic and immoral, he now views the current obligation as unproblematic.

This turning on a dime to fit momentary political needs strikes me as both dishonest and destructive. Absolutely contrary to our collective interests, it places Obama’s desire to destroy his rivals above the interests of the rest of us—especially our children and grandchildren.

But then something else occurred me. I was reminded of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact that preceded World War II. This accord, which freed Hitler’s hands to attack the West, also included a section that allowed Germany and Russia to divide Poland between them.

Before this deal was reached, the Communists had been adamant anti-Nazis. They had castigated Hitler and his henchmen as the scum of the earth. But then, quite suddenly, Adolf was rehabilitated. Now he was obviously a statesman of the first order.

This change clearly served Stalin’s interests. He was justifiably frightened of Germany’s aggressive intentions and wished to buy time by appeasing his potential foe. According to Uncle Joe’s calculations, this would provide the breathing space needed to beef up his own forces.

Meanwhile, across the pond in the United States, Stalin’s communist allies were listening to their master’s voice. Almost immediately, their attitude toward Hitler was transformed. Leaping to stay in step with the party line, they too became more respectful of the Nazi dictator.

Which brings us to the contemporary America. When Obama did his U-turn, so did loyal Democrats. Both in and out of congress, they declared that there was no spending problem. Yes, the national debt was large, but not so large that the nation could not easily absorb it.

This, of course, was disingenuous. Democrats too could do the math. They had to realize, along with the congressional budget office, that the debt trajectory was unsustainable. Yet this realization paled in comparison with their short-term political objectives.

Whatever the long-term risks, they calculated that they could kick the can a bit further down road without precipitating an immediate crisis. They, along with their leader, reckoned that this would enable them to blame Republicans for being stingy—at least until the mid-term election delivered both houses of congress into their hands.

And so the party loyalists turned on a dime. Without fully thinking through the implications of their reversal, they fell into lock step. This, it seems to me, is just as dangerous as Obama’s inconsistency; just as dangerous as the faithfulness of communist fellow travellers to Stalin some eight decades ago.

Loyalty is a good thing, but blind loyalty can be fatal. Too many Americans reflexively close ranks with the party of their usual choice. Instead of paying attention to the issues at stake, they, like their mentors, are more concerned with defeating political enemies.

Nevertheless, I refuse to believe that moderate liberals cannot bring themselves to see the looming dangers. They too, after all, are capable of understanding the implications of the Greek and Cypriote meltdowns. These may be tiny countries, yet the lessons of partisan irresponsibility are huge.

Radical liberals, however, are another matter. They routinely dismiss the consequences of fiscal mismanagement. As moral warriors, they are like the Viking berserkers who blindly rushed into battle swinging their axes totally oblivious of the adjacent dangers.

The question is; what of the rest of us? Will we follow their lead? Will we continue to kowtow to national authority figures irrespective of what they say? Or will more of us begin thinking for ourselves.

Back in the 1930’s, Americans who bothered to notice what Hitler was doing were mortified. Will enough of us today be sufficiently alarmed by contemporary developments to stand against them? We will see.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University