Christmas Cheer

Christmas is the holiday of love.  It is the time of the year when bygones are to be bygones and we are to join hands in shared amity.  But not this year!  Certainly not in the political arena—where the acrimony is greater than in decades.

Republicans are getting much of the blame for their expressed intension to roll back Obama’s immigration and health care initiatives.  Their unwillingness to be bipartisan is routinely blamed for the impasse in Washington.

My mother, however, always told me that it takes two to make a fight.  There is, in fact, a Democratic dimension to our current turmoil.  Indeed, if there is a prime aggressor, he lives in the White House.  Both before and after the election, our president has kicked his opponents where it hurts.  Now they are reproached for howling in pain.

If people are to work together, they must first listen to each other and second make adjustments.  How unwilling liberals are to do this was brought home to me during a recent trip to Florida.  Thus, many I encountered were liberals with unmistakable attitudes.

Let me make clear, I did not initiate our discussions.  More than once, while enjoying a friendly meal, I was initially thanked for not going political.  Then these others brought up issues about which they knew we disagreed.  It was they who sought to go on the record.

Nonetheless I am not shy about defending my positions.  Soon enough we reached a deadlock.  At this point, on several different occasions, I asked if there was any evidence I could adduce that would change my adversary’s viewpoint.  In each case, the answer was a clear and unambiguous: No!

What kind of discussion is it where facts have no relevance?  The answer is plain.  These typically concern moral controversies.  When people believe they are fighting for justice, they refuse to be deterred by pesky truths.  To the contrary, they insist on clinging to what are regarded as higher truths.

This then is where we are at as a nation.  We are morally polarized.  Liberals and conservatives are each convinced that they hold the high ground.  Neither is even willing to concede that the other is operating from “good will.”

Part of the reason for this antagonism is that accusations of moral turpitude have been escalating for years.  Protagonists on both sides consequently respond ever more vehemently to what they perceive as undeserved brickbats.

Do you remember when Barack Obama promised to bring us together?  Do you recall when he contended that there were no white or black, no red or blue states?  There was only the United States.

Those days are gone.  From the moment he took office, Obama has been telling Republicans their opinions do not matter.  As a result, they were not included in writing the stimulus or affordable health care acts.  Indeed, not a single conservative vote was cast for the latter.

Now Republicans are castigated for not helping make ObamaCare work.  They are similarly chastised for not concurring in a Democratic sponsored immigration law.  Apparently the only way they are allowed to compromise with liberals is by capitulating to them.

Obama’s has been the most divisive administration since the Great Depression.  He will not discuss; he will not adjust; he will not accommodate.  His much-vaunted willingness to listen to other ideas includes only those with which he already agrees.

If we are to have collegiality on the banks of the Potomac, this blame game must stop.  Too often we hear calls for bipartisanship in the abstract followed by partisanship on the particulars.  Brotherhood (and sisterhood) has to do better.

Actually I have no expectations of political comity.  The next two years promise to be exceptionally rancorous.  And so, despite my desire for an extended holiday season, I am girding my loins for spiteful conflict.  Moreover, if we cannot have civility, then I too will fight for what I believe.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw state University

Liberal Lynch Mobs

Almost one hundred years ago, Leo Frank was taken from his Milledgeville prison cell to be hanged from an oak tree in Marietta, Georgia.  Frank was almost certainly innocent of killing Mary Phegan, but that did not deter a crowd bent on exacting justice.

 Frank was a northern Jew accused of murdering a southern Christian and that was all the evidence the lynch mob needed.  Today we are witnessing a revised version of this mentality.  Today, liberals aspire to criminalizing white police officers accused of killing unarmed blacks.

When Grand Juries in Ferguson Missouri and State Island New York refused to indict those involved in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, vehement protests erupted across the nation.  These alleged injustices cried out for retribution.

It mattered not what the facts were.  These counted for as little as they did in the Frank case.  Despite testimony that Brown never held his hands up or said don’t shoot, thousands of marchers lifted theirs in emulation of a fictitious event.  Many more parroted Garner’s last words about not being able to breath, even though in speaking he demonstrated that he could breath.

These activists would not be satisfied with anything less than convictions.  Sadly, in the case of Ferguson, it is likely that had Officer Wilson returned to duty he would have been assassinated.  Despite the ballyhooed compassion of liberals, none was directed toward the police.  It was as if they were not human.

The question is why?  Why are contemporary liberals so bloodthirsty?  Why do they behave so irrationally?   And make no mistake: whatever their rhetoric, they are irrational.

History offers some clues.  Why, for instance, were southern whites so ready to believe the worst of an outsider?  And why did they feel the need for a final solution?  Why, for that matter, were my ancestors in Bialystok Poland forced to barricade themselves in their apartment lest rioting Poles hang them?

What these instances have in common was that the perpetrators were under stress.  Most were poor people who had little hope of redemption.  Moreover, their victims, i.e., their scapegoats, were perceived as perpetuating their misery.  The hope was that in punishing them, they could relieve their own distress.

The same is true of today’s liberals.  Thus, many are young people who are out of luck and out of hope.  Things are not going their way; hence they need someone to blame.  Who better to crucify than the police who purportedly represent a repressive establishment.

On a larger scale, politicians and media types are likewise experiencing distress.  Liberalism is a dying ideology.  As a result, its acolytes are dismayed.  Their cherished polices keep crashing down around their necks.  So extensive is the wreckage that denial will no longer suffice.  They must now lash out more aggressively.

ObamaCare is a failure, the stimulus did not revive the economy, scandals wrack the Democratic administration, foreign policy is a mess, and liberals lost the bi-election.  Hope and change have therefore been revealed as empty slogans.  What to do?  A diversion is needed.  Not just a diversion, but an emotionally charged one.

Ergo: blame the bad guys!  Blame the conservatives!   Better yet, blame the police for upholding the status quo.  They are clearly impeding progress and need to be shunted aside.  Only then can the liberal millennium arrive.

But notice something important. This is wholly negative project.  Liberals who have run out of ideas are now compelled to deflect attention from their disappointments.  It’s the other guy’s fault.  “We progressives are faultless paragons of virtue; we never make mistakes.  In fact—look at us—we are fighting for justice!”

Liberals are essentially manufacturing a crisis—one they do not intend to waste.  Despite causing much of the current political consternation, they invoke this as an excuse to reconstruct our social institutions along collectivist lines.  “You, the dim-witted public, may be alarmed, but we know what is best.”

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Racial Permissiveness

You’ve seen it.  Perhaps in a supermarket or on a plane a small child throws a tantrum.  Then his mother seeks to appease him by giving in to little Johnny’s every whim.  No matter what he asks, she placates him.

Maybe this mom had a difficult childhood.  Perhaps raised in poverty by an abusive parent, she is now determined to make sure that her child has every advantage.  Mindful of her present good fortune, she is resolved not to deny him what it is in her power to provide.

The problem is that permissiveness backfires.  All too often, its recipients are not grateful.  Indeed, many become selfish adults who are utterly insensitive to the needs of others.  Unfortunately, what amounts to racial permissiveness today flourishes among liberals.  Ironically, in their quest to right previous wrongs, they inadvertently create new ones.

Although racism persists, it is a spent force.  Only a few troglodytes insist that blacks be oppressed—and they usually do not have the power to enforce their will.  The rest of us stipulate that African-Americans must receive the same opportunities as everyone else.

Nonetheless, blacks are not entitled to special privileges.  The same rules that apply to others must also apply to them.  If anything, allowing them unique dispensations is like spoiling the very young.  It robs them of the controls needed to become successful.

If proof is necessary, the Ferguson debacle supplies it in abundance.  To blame the police for the death of a young thug—merely because he was black—provides an excuse for lawlessness.  It informs out-of-control young men that only others must exercise restraint.

When the president of the United States tells the nation that he “understands” why blacks are distraught, he, in effect, justifies the rioting.  Whatever else he says is canceled out by putting the focus on police behavior—where, in this case, it does not belong.  Officer Wilson did nothing wrong!

Al Sharpton, Eric Holder, and Brown’s attorneys likewise illustrate the consequences of racial permissiveness.  By essentially claiming that bad conduct is acceptable, they undermine our nation’s foundations.  Ostensibly to compensate for a non-existent crime, they would cheerfully put the rest of us in jeopardy.

Consider the attacks on the grand jury.  It was held in secret, as are all grand juries, but now its secrecy is to be stripped away.  Why?  Because the race hustlers hope to apply pressure for an outcome they desire.  It matters not that they would thereby destroy an institution designed to protect our rights.

Or what about the attacks on the district attorney?  His character was impugned, again, to coerce a desired result.  Incredibly, he has been castigated for presenting all of the evidence to the grand jury.  In other words, unless he collaborated in rigging the decision, his detractors would not be satisfied.

Or what about demands that police recruiting be nationalized.  What makes the critics believe that federal control would enhance this effort?  Is Washington that efficient?  No, the goal is once more to use the central government to impose an unlegislated result.

Or what about the rioting?  Why wasn’t sufficient force brought to bear?  In the old day they shot looters; hence there was little looting.  While it is not necessary to go that far, mass arrests and public condemnation would have done wonders.  None of this flying in from Washington to comfort the parents!

The violence that is ripping apart black neighborhoods will never subside until blacks take responsibility for controlling it.  Blaming others merely diverts attention from the unfulfilled obligations of black leaders and national politicians.

African-Americans are not children.  Nor are they mentally or morally defective.  It is time to stop treating them as if they were.  We demand civilized behavior of others; we must demand it of them!  Writing off violent tantrums as protests is absurd.  This trivializes the freedoms for which so many sacrificed their last full measure of devotion.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

A Naked Power Grab

I have been reading Dan Jones’ book about The War of the Roses and it sent chills down my spine.  The parallels between fifteenth century England and today are alarming.  In both cases, naked power grabs have the potential to tear a society apart.

England during the 1400’s had just lost the Hundred Years War.  Its powerful monarch Henry V was dead and his mentally disturbed son Henry VI had inherited the throne.  This produced a power vacuum that two sides of the royal family sought to fill.

The Lancastrians (the red roses) at first sided with Henry VI, while the Yorkists (the white roses) attempted to restore order by replacing him with a more vigorous king.  Each faction was certain that it had the nation’s welfare at heart, whereas its opponents were merely greedy.

The upshot was decades of bloody combat that despoiled towns, ravaged castles, and wrecked commerce.  Whichever party seized the temporary advantage used it as an excuse to lop off the heads of its foes.  Official sounding rationales were produced, but these were window-dressing.

Each new monarch (and there were several) rolled out a dynastic chart that proved he was the rightful sovereign.  None could point to rules of succession to which all agreed.  There was, in short, no common legal ground to which they could appeal for legitimacy.

It took centuries to evolve the concept of an official Constitution.  The document produced by our Founders was a pioneering effort that succeeded because ensuing generations venerated and protected it.  Regrettably, those days are coming to an end as radical Liberals trash it for a fleeting political advantage.

Although our divided society needs common ground more than ever, Barack Obama’s executive orders countermanding congressional legislation about immigration are the equivalent of a poleax aimed squarely at the neck of our body politic.

The merits of the president’s directives are not the issue.  In officially refusing to deport migrants he was not going to deport anyway, his ukases will not make a difference.  Even allowing illegals to obtain employment will not alter the facts on the ground.

What matters is that Obama has violated the constitution and his oath of office.  He is making new legislation no matter what he and his allies call it.  This is a gross defilement he argued against mere months ago, yet somehow now no longer troubles him.

Barack offers not sound legal arguments, but smarmy sentimentality, to defend his usurpation.  We are to get out the crying towels for people who are described as our neighbors in some quarters and fellow Americans in others.  This is nonsense.  As is their wont, Liberals alter the plain meaning of words to serve their political purposes.

Even candid Democrats acknowledge that this is a distraction.  The president does not want to be irrelevant in the face of a devastating electoral loss.  He wishes to reassert his power and undermine the Republicans.  However high blown his language, it is a smokescreen for raw ambition.

Lies are nothing new for Barack Obama.  Nor are efforts to disregard the welfare of the American people.  Indeed, it is the latter who are being shunted into the shadows.  What is most distressing is that so few on the left are disturbed by Obama’s lawlessness.

Once upon a time, Democrats were up in arms when they regarded Richard Nixon as violating the constitution.  Back then, they presented themselves as honorable defenders of the nation’s traditions.  This turned out to be a pretense.  All they actually cared about was taking the reins of power.

The curtain is now being torn from in before the Wizard of Oz—no thanks to a compliant mainstream media.  The question is will Americans be appalled by what they see?  This is not sausage making.  It is nation destroying.  It is a power grab gussied up as compassion.

Who then will rally round the flag?  Who will fight to preserve our democratic heritage?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University