Showing posts with label Blog Mirror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Mirror. Show all posts

Saturday, March 16, 2024

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 6. Politics

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with th...

A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 6. Politics

James Monroe.  

And, yes, we're still not on to the Agrarian finale in this series.  That's because we have one more important topic to consider first.

Politics.

If you read distributists' social media, and you probably don't, you'll see that some people have the namby pamby idea that if we all just act locally everything will fall in line.  While people should act locally, that's a bunch of crap.

What these people don't realize is that politically, we're a corporate capitalist society, and we are where we are right now, in large part due to that.  Corporations are a creature of the state, not of nature, and exists as a legal fiction because the state says they do.  This is deemed, in our imaginations, to be necessarily because, . . . well it is.

Or rather, it's deemed to be necessary as we believe we need every more consolidation and economies of scale.  

We really don't, and in the end, it serves just itself.  We do need some large entities, particularly in manufacturing, which would actually bring us back to the original allowance for corporate structure, which was quite limited.  Early in US history, most corporations were banned from being created.

Legally, they would not need to be banned now, but simply not allowed to form except for actual needs.  And when very large, the Theodore Roosevelt proposal that they be treated like public utilities, or alternatively some percentage of their stock or membership would vest in their employees, would result in remedying much of the ills that they've created.

Likewise, eliminating the absurd idea that they can use their money for influence in politics could and should be addressed.

Which would require changes in the law.

And that takes us back to politics.

Nearly every living American, and Canadian for that matter, would agree that a major portion of the problems their nations face today are ones manufactured by politics.  The current economic order, as noted, is politically vested.

The United States has slid into a political decline of epic proportions, and its noteworthy that this came about after Ronald Reagan attacked and destroyed the post 1932 economic order which provided for an amplified type of American System in which there was, in fact, a great deal of involvement in the economy and the affairs of corporations, as well as a hefty income tax on the wealth following the country's entry into World War Two.  It's never been the case, of course, that there was a trouble free political era although interestingly, there was a political era which is recalled as The Era of Good Feelings due to its lack of political strife.  

That era lasted a mere decade, from 1815 to 1825, but it's instructive.

The Era of Good Feelings came about after the War of 1812, which was a war that not only caused internal strife, but which risked the dissolution of the nation.  Following the war the Federalist Party collapsed thereby ending the bitter disputes that had characterized its fights with the more dominant Democratic-Republican Party.. . . . huh. . . 

Anyhow, President James Monroe downplayed partisan affiliation in his nominations, with the ultimate goal of affecting national unity and eliminating political parties altogether.

Borrowing a line from the Those Were the Days theme song of All In the Family, "Mister we could use a man like James Monroe again".

Political parties have had a long and honorable history in politics. They've also had a long and destructive one.  Much of their role depends upon the era.  In our era, for a variety of reasons, they are now at the hyper destructive level.

They are, we would note, uniquely subject to the influence of money, and the fringe, which itself is savvy to the influence of money.  And money, now matter where it originates from, tends to concentrate uphill if allowed to, and it ultimately tends to disregard the local.

"All politics is local" is the phrase that's famously attached to U.S. politics, but as early as 1968, according to Andrew Gelman, that's declined, and I agree with his observation.  Nowhere is that more evident than Wyoming.

In Wyoming both the Republican and the Democratic Party used to be focused on matters that were very local, which is why both parties embraced in varying degrees, The Land Ethic, and both parties, in varying degrees, embraced agriculture.  It explains why in the politics of the 70s and 80s the major economic driver of the state, the oil and gas industry, actually had much less influence than it does now.

Things were definitely changing by the 1980s, with money, the love of which is the root of all evil, being a primary driver.  Beyond that, however, technology played a role.  The consolidation of industry meant that employers once headquartered in Casper, for instance, moved first to Denver, then to Houston, or were even located in Norway. As the love of money is the root of all evil, and the fear of being poor a major personal motivator, concern for much that was local was increasingly lost.

The increasing broad scope of the economy, moreover, meant that there were economic relocations of people who had very little connection with the land and their state.  Today's local Freedom Caucus in the legislature, heavily represented by those whose formative years were out of state, is a primary example in the state.  Malevolent politics out of the south and the Rust Belt entered the state and are battled out in our legislature even though they have little to do with local culture, lands or ethics.

Moreover, since 1968 the Democratic Party has gone increasingly leftward, driven at first by the impacts of the 1960s and then by its left leaning elements.  It in turn became anti-democratic, relying on the Supreme Court to force upon the nation unwanted social change, until it suddenly couldn't rely on the Court anymore, at which time it rediscovered democracy.  At the same time Southern and Rust Belt Populists, brought into the Republican Party by Ronald Reagan, eventually took it over and are now fanatically devoted to anti-democratic mogul, Donald Trump, whose real values, other than the love of money and a certain sort of female appearance, is unknown, none of which maters to his fanatic base as they apply the Führerprinzip to his imagined wishes and he responds.

We know, accordingly, have a Congress that's completely incapable of doing anything other than banning TikTok.

Distributism by design, and Agrarianism by social reference, both apply Catholic Social Teaching, one intentionally and one essentially as it was already doing that before Catholic Social Teaching was defined.  As we've discussed elsewhere, Catholic Social Teaching applies the doctrines of Human Dignity, Solidarity and Subsidiarity.  Solidarity, as Pope John Paul II describe it In Sollicitudo rei socialis, is not “a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of others. It is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good”.  Subsidiarity provides that that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.

We are a long ways from all of that, right now.

Politically, we're in a national political era that is violently opposed to solidarity and subsidiarity.  Supposed national issues and imagined remote conspiracies, dreamt up by political parties, swamp real local issues.  Global issues, in contract, which require a competent national authority, or even international authority, to deal with, cannot get attention as the masses are distracted by buffoons acting like Howler Monkeys.

Destroying the parties would serve all of this.  And that's a lot easier to do than might be supposed.

And more difficult.

Money makes it quite difficult, in fact.  But it can be done.

The easiest way to attack this problem is to remove political parties as quasi official state agencies, which right now the GOP and Democratic Party are.  Both parties have secured, in many states, state funded elections which masquerade as "primary elections" but which are actually party elections.  There's utterly no reason whatsoever that the State of Wyoming, for example, should fund an internal Republican election, or a Democratic one.

Primary elections are quite useful, but not in the fashion that most state's have them.  A useful example is Alaska's, whose system was recently proposed for Wyoming, but which was not accepted (no surprise).  Interestingly, given as the state's two actual political parties right now are the Trumpites and the Republican remnants, this a particularly good, and perhaps uniquely opportune, time to go to this system.  And that system disregard party affiliations.

Basically, in that type of election, the top two vote getters in the primary go on to the general election irrespective of party.  There doesn't need to be any voter party affiliation. The public just weeds the number of candidates down.

That is in fact how the system works here already, and in many places for local elections. But it should be adopted for all elections.  If it was, the system would be much different.

For example, in the last House Race, Harriet Hageman defeated Lynette Grey Bull, taking 132,206 votes to Gray Bull's 47,250.  Given the nature of the race, FWIW, Gray Bull did much better than people like to imagine, taking 25% of the vote in an overwhelmingly Republican state.  Incumbent Lynn Cheney was knocked out of the race in the primary, being punished for telling the truth about Дональд "The Insurrectionist" Trump.  But an interesting thing happens if you look at the GOP primary.

In that race, Harriet Hageman took 113,079 votes, for 66% of the vote, and Cheney took 49,339, for 29%.  Some hard right candidates took the minor balance. Grey Bull won in the primary with just 4,500 votes, however.

I'd also note here that Distributism in and of itself would have an impact on elections, as it would have a levelling effect on the money aspect of politics.  Consider this article by former Speaker of the House Tom Lubnau:

Tom Lubnau: Analyzing The Anonymous Mailers Attacking Chuck Gray


A person could ask, I suppose, of how this is an example, but it is.

Back to the Gray v. Nethercott race, Ms. Nethercott is a lawyer in a regional law firm. That's not distributist as I'd have it, as I'd provide that firms really ought to be local, as I discussed in yesterday's riveting installment.   But it is a regional law firm and depending upon its business model, she's likely responsible for what she brings in individually.  Indeed, the claim made during the race that she wanted the job of Secretary of State for a raise income was likely absurd.

But the thing here is that Nethercott, as explained by Lubnau, raised a total of $369,933, of which $304,503 were from individual donations.  That's a lot to spend for that office, but it was mostly donated by her supporters.

In contrast, Jan Charles Gray, Chuck Gray's father donated a total of $700,000 to Chuck Gray’s campaign, Chuck Gray donated $10,000 to his own campaign and others donated $25,994.

$700,000 is a shocking amount for that office, but beyond that, what it shows is that Nethercott's supporters vastly out contributed Gray's, except for Gray's father.  In a distributist society, it certainly wouldn't be impossible to amass $700,000 in surplus cash for such an endeavor, but it would frankly be much more difficult.

To conclude, no political system is going to convert people into saints.  But it's hard to whip people into a frenzy who are your friends and neighbors than it does people who are remote.  And its harder to serve the interest of money if the money is more widely distributed. Put another way, it's harder to tell 50 small business owners that that Bobo down in Colorado knows what she's talking about, than 50 people who depend on somebody else for a livelihood a myth.

Last prior:

Friday, March 15, 2024

Wednesday, March 15, 1944. US Ninth Air Force in England begins pre-invasion tactical missions for Operation Overlord.

Today in World War II History—March 15, 1944: 80 Years Ago—Mar. 15, 1944: Countdown to D-day: US Ninth Air Force in England begins pre-invasion tactical missions for Operation Overlord (D-day).
From Sarah Sundin's blog.

I don't usually do two "on this day" posts for the same year, in one day, but that was a significant omission on my part.

Last prior:

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 5a. What would that look like, and why would it fix anything, other than limiting my choices and lightening my wallet? The Distributist Impact. The Professions.

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with th...:   
.

 


We'll look at that a bit later.  Let's turn towards the agrarian element next.

So we said last time and now, well now we're not doing that.

The reason is that I didn't really dwell on this topic, and it matters.

In the era in which I was a kid, up through my kid's early years, if I needed to go to a physician or dentist, they were local, usually with individual practices.

With physicians, that's now radically changed.  My physician is the same one I had twenty years ago, but his practice is part of a larger practice that covers two cities.  They had to do that in order to continue to really keep operating, and there were other consolidations prior to that.

The local hospital was owned by the county. There's been complaints about it since I was a boy, but not like there are now. The County Commissioners sold it to a national company.* 

Thirty years ago, when I was first practicing law, all of the law firms were Wyoming firms, something that was reinforced by the fact that we had a state specific bar exam.  The Supreme Court sold us down the river on that, with there being a persistent rumor that this was to aid a struggling UW law school.  The admission was made "transportable" in that a person passing the Un-informed Bar Exam in another state could simply pay their toll and practice here.  That transported much of the work to Colorado.  Over time, that, and technology, have destroyed small town practice to the extent that many small towns and cities in the state no longer have lawyers in many significant areas of practice.  One major I80 city in Wyoming will soon lack any lawyers doing civil litigation or serious general civil work.  When I started, and I'll note at that time that city was in extreme economic distress, it had two major law firms doing that work within it.

So this is an aspect of Distributism that would change things as well, and which could very easily be implemented simply be restoring a state specific bar exam.  Better yet, residency requirements of some sort should be implemented. Beyond that, the corporate packing up of the professions, like the corporate packing up of retail, could and should be eliminated.

That would restore local professions.

And that restoration would be that professionals in this area would quite frankly make less, but have more stable practices, which would benefit their clients/patients for the good of all.

Last prior:

A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 5. What would that look like, and why would it fix anything, other than limiting my choices and lightening my wallet? The Distributist Impact

Footnotes.

*The dissatisfaction is epic, and the County ought to file suit to get it back.  It won't, but it should.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 5. What would that look like, and why would it fix anything, other than limiting my choices and lightening my wallet? The Distributist Impact.

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with th...:


So, having published this screed over a period of days, and then dropping the topic, we resume with the question.

Why, exactly, do you think this would do a darn thing?

Well, here's why.

A daily example.

When I started this entry on Monday, March 4, I got up, fixed coffee and took the medication I'm now required to as I'm 60 years old, and the decades have caught up with me. The pills are from a locally owned pharmacy, I'd note, not from a national chain, so I did a distributist thing there.  It's only one block away, and I like them. Distributism.

I toasted a bagel, as in my old age the genetic "No" for adults consuming milk has caught up with me.  I got that at Albertson's and I don't know where the bagels are made.  Albertson's is a national chain that's in the process of trying to merge with another national chain. Corporate Capitalism.

The coffee was Boyers, a Colorado outfit. Quasi distributist there.

I put cream cheese on the bagel.  It was the Philadelphia brand. Definitely corporate capitalist there.

I'd already shaved (corporate capitalist, but subsidiarity makes that make sense).

I got dressed and headed to work.  My car was one I bought used, but its make is one that used to be sold by a locally owned car dealer.  No more. The manufacturers really prefer regional dealers, and that's what we have.  All the cars we have come from the dealer when it was locally owned.

I don't have that option anymore.  Corporate Capitalism.

In hitting the highway, I looked up the highway towards property owned by a major real estate developer/landlord.  A type of corporate capitalism.

I drove past some churches and the community college on the way in. Subsidiarity.

I drove past one of the surviving fraternal clubs.  Solidarity.

I drove past the major downtown churches.  Solidarity.

I drove past a collection of small stores, and locally owned restaurants adn bars, and went in the buildings.  Distributism.

I worked the day, occasionally dealing with the invading Colorado or other out of state firms.  Corporate Capitalism.

I reversed my route, and came home.

So, in this fairly average day, in a Western midsized city, I actually encountered a fair number of things that would be absolutely the same in a Distributist society.  But I encountered some that definitely ran very much counter to it.

Broadening this out.

A significant thing was just in how I ate.  And I eat a lot more agrarian than most people do.

The meat in our freezer was either taken by me in the field, or a cow of our own that was culled.  Most people cannot say that. But all the other food was store bought, and it was all bought from a gigantic national chain.  In 1924 Casper had 72 grocers, and it was less than a quarter of its present size.  In 1925, just one year later, it had 99 grocery stores.  The number fell back down to 70 in 1928.

August 1923 list of grocers in Casper that sold Butternut Coffee, which was probably every grocer.

When I was a kid, the greater Casper area had Safeway, Albertson's, Buttreys and an IGA by my recollection, in the national chains.  Locally, however, it had six local grocery stores, including one in the neighboring town of Mills.  One located right downtown, Brattis' was quite large, as was another one located in North Casper.

Now the entire area has one local grocery store and it's a specialty store.

Examples like this abound.  We have a statewide sporting goods store and a local one, but we also have a national one.  The locals are holding their own.  When I was young there was a locally owned store that had actually been bought out from a regional chain, and a national hardware store that sold sporting goods.  So this hasn't changed a lot.

And if we go to sporting goods stores that sell athletic equipment, it hasn't either. We have one locally owned one and used to have two. We have one national chain, and used to have none.

In gas stations, we have a locally owned set of gas stations and the regional chains.  At one time, we only had local stores, which were franchises. The local storefronts might be storefronts, in the case of the national chains, as well.

When I was a kid, the only restaurants that were national were the fast food franchises, which had competition from local outfits that had the same sort of fare and setting.  The locals burger joints are largely gone, save for one I've never been to and which is a "sit down" restaurant, and we have national and regional restaurant chains.  We retain local ones as well.  

We don't have any chain bars, which I understand are a thing, and local brewing, killed off by Prohibition, has come roaring back.

We used to have a local meat processing plant that was in fact a regional one, taking in cattle from the area, and packing it and distributing it back out, including locally.  There are no commercial packing plants in Wyoming now.  The closest one, I think, is in Greeley Colorado, and the packing industry is highly concentrated now.

We don't have a local creamery, either.  We had one of those at least into the 1940s, and probably well beyond that.  The milk for that establishment was supplied by a dairy that was on the south side of town.  It's no longer that and hasn't been for my entire life.

We've been invaded by the super huge law firms that are not local.

Our hospital is part of a private chain now, and there's massive discontent. That discontent took one of the county commissioners that was involved in the transfer of that entity out of county hands down in the last election.  But that hasn't arrested the trend.  My doctor, who I really like is part of a regional practice, not his own local one, anymore.  This trend is really strong.

And then there's Walmart, the destroyer of locally owned stores of every variety.

So would distribution make anything different?

The question is asked by a variant of Wendell Berry's "what are people for", but in the form of "what is an economy for?".

It's to serve people, and to serve them in their daily lives, as people.

It's not to make things as cheap as possible.

On all of the retail things I've mentioned, every single one could be served by local retail stores.  If we didn't have Albertson's, Riddleys and Smith's, we'd have a lot of John Albertson & Son's, Bill Riddley & Family, and Emiliano Smith's stores, owned by their families.  If Walmart didn't exist, and moreover couldn't exist, it would be replaced locally, probably by a half dozen family owned retailers. . . or more.

Prices would in fact be higher, although there would be competition, but the higher prices would serve families who operated them, and by extension the entire community.  And this is just one example.  

Much of the old infrastructure in fact remains.  As discussed above, numerous small businesses remain, and according to economic statistics, small business remains the number one employer in the US.  But the fact is that giant chain corporations have made a devastating impact on the country, making all local business imperiled and some practically impossible to conduct.

Reversing that would totally reorient the local economy.  Almost everyone would work for themselves, or for a locally owned business, owned by somebody they knew personally, and who knew them personally.

And with that reorientation, would come a reorientation of society.

We'll look at that a bit later.  Let's turn towards the agrarian element next.

Last Prior:

What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 4. A Well Educated Society.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Friday, March 7, 1924. End of a Revolution and a Mutiny.

De la Huerta.

The Delahueristas surrendered with President Álvaro Obregón offering them an amnesty which they largely accepted and de la Huerta entered into the US, going to Los Angeles.  Mexican army officers who had been part of the revolution who held a rank higher than major were ordered to be executed.

De la Huerta's revolution came after Obregón endorsed Plutarco Calles as his successor and was favored by Catholics, conservatives and a considerable portion of the army officers.  Obregón was supported by the U.S. government, agrarians, workers and it resulted in the establishment of the Mexican Air Force.

An Irish Army demobilization, resulting in reduced numbers, met the opposition of the Irish Republican Army Organization (IRAO) which delivered an ultimatum to President Cosgrave from Major-General Liam Tobin and Colonel Charles Dalton, demanding it cease.  Defense Minister Richard Mulcahy ordered the arrest of both officers on charges of mutiny.

President Coolidge held a press conference:

Press Conference, March 7, 1924

Date: March 7, 1924

Location: Washington, D.C.


Here is an inquiry about the appointment of Commissioners for the District of Columbia, and wanting to know whether I propose to wait for information from the various citizens organizations in the District. I think I am already pretty well advised by their opinions. I have here endorsements of Mr. Rudolph and Mr. Oyster by the Dairy Farm Citizens Association, Congress Heights Citizens Association, the Southwest Civic Association, Dupont Circle Citizens Association, West End Citizens Association, Garfield Citizens Association, South Washington Citizens Association, and the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, the Washington Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade, Federated Citizens Association, and the Thomas Circle Citizens Association. I think there is also an endorsement by the Republican Organization of the District, and I am not certain about the Democratic organization.

Mr. President, are you approaching a decision on that matter?

I think so, very soon. There are several other names suggested, but these men have practically a unanimous endorsement. The different associations and political organizations, quite naturally I would refer to for an opinion.

Will they probably be reappointed, Mr. President?

I wouldn’t assume too much about appointments until they are made. I got caught once or twice by thinking I had an appointment all settled when I was Mayor or Governor, and announced it, and then found out there were reasons why it couldn’t be done. It is embarrassing.

When do you think you will make them, Mr. President? I think very soon. I think their term of office runs out sometime next week. I think early in the week I shall submit their names. Here is an inquiry about the duty on wheat. I don’t know just what can be done about that. I have submitted the report to the Treasury Dept. to draw up a proper proclamation, if one is warranted by the report, in order that it may be done by the experts of the Treasury Department under whose jurisdiction, of course, the collection of revenue comes. I don’t know just what they will find or just when they will find it. I think though that that ought to be returned to me within two or three days. Here is another inquiry about the Mexican Claims Commission. 1 think that the Convention has been ratified and sent up here, but the proclamation so far as I recall has not come to me. That would be the next step necessary; to make the proclamation; and after that is made then I could make the appointments.

Here is an inquiry about a joint resolution for a reduction of 25% in the tax on 1923 incomes as a separate measure. I have seen that referred to in the news dispatches. I don t think I could be said to be advocating it, nor on the other hand am I opposing it. I do feel it would be very desirable if we could get that resolution adopted before the 15th of March, in order that it might apply to the first payment as well as the others. That would be my general reaction about it, but there may be some reasons why that wouldn’t make any difference, although that is the particular point about it that occurs to me. I think the first tax payments are due the 15th of March, and if this 25% were to be deducted from them, it would result in an easing up of the necessary amounts of credits that have to be transferred. I haven’t decided on a successor to Secretary Denby. I should think that if I should decide I could send the name to the Senate any time before his resignation becomes effective, which is next week sometime.

Did the newspaper men make any suggestions, Mr. President, or give you any aid?

Well, 1 think some of them have been suggestive. I haven’t got quite as many as I expected. Perhaps it isn’t so easy as it may have appeared to pick out the right kind of a man.

Here is a statement about an international conference on Europe’s economic situation, and suggesting that it might follow the report of the Dawes’ Committee on reparations, and inquiring whether I care to say whether the U. S. would participate in such a conference, should it take place.

That is a very hypothetical question, and I don’t believe I could give a hypothetical answer to it. All I can say is that we have repeatedly refused to participate in a conference of that kind. I don’t know of any reason up to the present time for a change in our attitude in that direction.

Here is another inquiry that wants to know when the Dept. of Justice will begin presentation of evidence relating to charges disclosed by the Chicago Grand Jury. Of course I have no information about that, nor have I any information about the nature of the charges, other than what is in the paper. I do not even know whether the Department of Justice feels that it has sufficient evidence to warrant a presentation of that evidence to the Grand Jury. All I can say is if they have evidence, or if their investigation discloses to them evidence, I assume they will make a presentation right away. I have suggested to the Department that they proceed expeditiously for the purpose of securing action. Here is this rumor that some members of Congress were involved, which was very distressing to the House, if they are entitled to have the matter cleared up at once. If the Department had evidence that could be presented to the Grand Jury, and if there was sufficient to warrant an indictment, it would be reported and everyone would know who was involved. If it wasn’t sufficient to secure an indictment, why that fact should be made known and everybody would be cleared. Whatever evidence they had as a result of the Chicago investigation, I assumed that they would proceed with it at once. What that is, I don’t know. My only suggestion was that they be as expeditious as possible about it.

Here is an inquiry about the evidence of Ira Bennett. I think I have seen him here once or twice. I can’t give any recollection about his conversation with me, or mine with him. It is in my mind that he came in to say how-do-you-do. I don’t recall any conference with him since this matter became acute. But it may be that he came in during a conference and stopped after the conference to say now-do-you-do.to me. I don’t recall very much about it.

Will you say anything about the telegram that you sent with reference to a Mr. Prescott, to Mr. McLean?

I noticed the statement given out yesterday, but it isn’t quite clear.

So, that was an inquiry that I made. I sent it to Mr. McLean because it ‘as sent, as you perhaps notice from the date of it, at 9.30 or so in the evening. If I had been over here and my office force were here, I could have found out if Mr. Slemp left. But I didn’t know just what time Mr. Slemp was going and I didn’t have his address. I knew that Mr. McLean was a resident there each winter and well known, and so I made the inquiry of him, and also for the purpose of shortening up the telegram. I remembered that Mr. McLean had said to me one time that if you ever want to know anything about District matters, Mr. Prescott would be a good men to talk with. That was the occasion of that telegram.

That had reference to the expiration of the terms of the two District Commissioners, didn’t it?

No, not that especially. Just district matters. I wasn’t very much acquainted with the men in the District who knew of District matters, and as he was out of town I inquired who I could ask about District matters. I recollected that he said Mr. Prescott was Republican City Chairman here. I tried to get Mr. Prescott one time, but he was out of town. So I made that inquiry of Mr. McLean. Does that make the matter plain?


Last prior:

Thursday, March 6, 1924. The US Olympic Equestrian Team.

The Agrarian's Lament: What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 4. A Well Educated Society.

The Agrarian's Lament: What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). ...

What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 4. A Well Educated Society.

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

Thomas Sowell

Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

Will and Ariel Durant

A democratic society, let alone a just, functioning society, can't survive or function without its citizens being solidly educated.  And that means learning things you (or your parents), don't want you to, and some will fall behind, and drop out.

In envisioning how a more just society, in every fashion, and one that comports with reality, might be constructed, we have to concede that it can't be if people operate in a state of ignorance.

Unfortunately, we live in a manifestly ignorant age.  This year's national political contest is ample evidence of that.  On one side we have a body that's contemptuous of human nature and thinks it can be existentially and individually remade.  On the other, we have a group that effectively assumes that everything that came after 1958 is existentially wrong, including every real advance in science or knowledge.

We let one generation somehow proceed into barbarity, and it's running the show right now.  As part of that, one of its pet projects is to create a system where younger generations can be prevented from being educated in anything that suggest that it's really not 1958.

Getting back on track won't be easy, but it needs to be accomplished immediately.

Now first of all, we have to admit that this is not universal by any means. Contrary to what people like to assert, and often the poorly educated, there's no one educational system in the US and therefore there are school districts that are excellent. Wyoming has long been blessed by those, but even in Wyoming, modern inroads of limited education are advancing.

All of this may seem bold when we consider that high school graduation rates and university education is much more common than it used to be.  The national high school graduation rate is 87%, which is massively high. The Wyoming rate is 82%.  Consider this chart, for a moment (which will be hotlinked to its source).

Table 110.High school graduates, by sex and control of school: Selected years, 1869-70 through 2019-20
School yearHigh school graduatesAveraged freshman graduation rate for public schools3Population 17 years old4Graduates as a ratio of 17-year-old population
Total1SexControl
MalesFemalesPublic2Private
TotalMalesFemalesTotal
1234567891011
1869-7016,0007,0648,936 815,0002.0
1879-8023,63410,60513,029 946,0262.5
1889-9043,73118,54925,18221,88221,8495 1,259,1773.5
1899-190094,88338,07556,80861,73733,1465 1,489,1466.4
1909-10156,42963,67692,753111,36345,0665 1,786,2408.8
            
1919-20311,266123,684187,582230,90280,3645 1,855,17316.8
1929-30666,904300,376366,528591,71975,1855 2,295,82229.0
1939-401,221,475578,718642,7571,143,246538,273604,97378,2295 2,403,07450.8
1949-501,199,700570,700629,0001,063,444505,394558,050136,2565 2,034,45059.0
1959-601,858,023895,000963,0001,627,050791,426835,624230,973 2,672,00069.5
            
1969-702,888,6391,430,0001,459,0002,588,6391,285,8951,302,744300,0005 78.73,757,00076.9
1970-712,937,6421,454,0001,484,0002,637,6421,309,3191,328,323300,0005 78.03,872,00075.9
1971-723,001,5531,487,0001,515,0002,699,5531,342,2751,357,278302,0005 77.43,973,00075.5
1972-733,034,8221,500,0001,535,0002,728,8221,352,4161,376,406306,0005 76.84,049,00075.0
1973-743,073,3141,512,0001,561,0002,763,3141,362,5651,400,749310,0005 75.44,132,00074.4
            
1974-753,132,5021,542,0001,591,0002,822,5021,391,5191,430,983310,0005 74.94,256,00073.6
1975-763,142,1201,552,0001,590,0002,837,1291,401,0641,436,065304,991 74.94,272,00073.6
1976-773,139,5361,551,0001,589,0002,837,340302,196 74.44,272,00073.5
1977-783,128,8241,546,0001,583,0002,824,636304,188 73.24,286,00073.0
1978-793,101,1521,532,0001,569,0002,801,152300,0005 71.94,327,00071.7
            
1979-803,042,2141,503,0001,539,0002,747,678294,536 71.54,262,00071.4
1980-813,020,2851,492,0001,528,0002,725,285295,0005 72.24,212,00071.7
1981-822,994,7581,479,0001,515,0002,704,758290,0005 72.94,134,00072.4
1982-832,887,6041,426,0001,461,0002,597,604290,0005 73.83,962,00072.9
1983-842,766,7972,494,797272,0005 74.53,784,00073.1
            
1984-852,676,9172,413,917263,0005 74.23,699,00072.4
1985-862,642,6162,382,616260,0005 74.33,670,00072.0
1986-872,693,8032,428,803265,0005 74.33,754,00071.8
1987-882,773,0202,500,020273,0005 74.23,849,00072.0
1988-892,743,7432,458,800284,943 73.43,842,00071.4
            
1989-902,574,1622,320,337253,8256 73.63,505,00073.4
1990-912,492,9882,234,893258,095 73.73,417,91372.9
1991-922,480,3992,226,016254,3836 74.23,398,88473.0
1992-932,480,5192,233,241247,278 73.83,449,14371.9
1993-942,463,8492,220,849243,0005 73.13,442,52171.6
            
1994-952,519,0842,273,541245,543 71.83,635,80369.3
1995-962,518,1092,273,109245,0005 71.03,640,13269.2
1996-972,611,9882,358,403253,585 71.33,792,20768.9
1997-982,704,0502,439,0501,187,6471,251,403265,0005 71.34,008,41667.5
1998-992,758,6552,485,6301,212,9241,272,706273,025 71.13,917,88570.4
            
1999-20002,832,8442,553,8441,241,6311,312,213279,0005 71.74,056,63969.8
2000-012,847,9732,569,2001,251,9311,317,269278,773 71.74,023,68670.8
2001-022,906,5342,621,5341,275,8131,345,721285,0005 72.64,023,96872.2
2002-033,015,7352,719,9471,330,9731,388,974295,788 73.94,125,08773.1
2003-047 3,054,4382,753,4381,347,8001,405,638301,0005 74.34,113,07474.3
            
2004-053,106,4992,799,2501,369,7491,429,501307,249 74.74,120,07375.4
2005-063,122,5442,815,5441,376,4581,439,086307,0005 73.44,200,55474.3
2006-073,198,9562,892,3511,413,7381,478,613306,605 73.94,297,23974.4
2007-083,313,8182,999,5081,466,3031,533,205314,3105 74.74,436,95574.7
2008-098 3,318,7703,004,570314,200 74.74,336,95076.5
            
2009-108 3,306,2202,991,310314,910 75.64,311,83176.7
2010-118 3,251,7202,937,170314,550 
2011-128 3,221,9902,905,990316,000 
2012-138 3,200,1302,890,740309,390 
2013-148 3,176,3002,868,100308,200 
            
2014-158 3,170,5602,872,470298,090 
2015-168 3,201,0602,906,330294,730 
2016-178 3,223,0002,933,220289,780 
2017-188 3,273,6902,988,630285,060 
2018-198 3,265,0202,984,530280,490 
2019-208 3,245,9002,953,060292,840 
—Not available.

That's great, right?

Well, maybe.

But maybe not.

People have to know how to read statistics and what's behind them.  A really well-educated friend of mine who is in obviously very poor physical shape is an example of this.  HE takes his age, and likes to cite the "at my age, X% of men make it to age 90".

Well, that's because you kill off a certain percentage of men every year, meaning that your odds of making it to 90 are poorer every year.  At age 90 100% of men make it to age 90, if they've lived that long.  It's a diminishing number every year.

With education, the fact that 87% of people graduate from high school means, quite frankly, that extraordinary steps have been taken to make that occur. Some of the steps are good, some of them are bad, some of them are mixed. The rate itself, 87%, is pretty good proof that we run people through high school who really don't have the capacity to graduate a rigorous educational system.

As noted above, Wyoming's schools are very good.  I was stunned, for example, when my daughter was in high school, and she came home and prepared for a test of Weimar Germany that was unbelievably advanced.  This speaks well of our system.  Also speaking well of it is that it offers advanced certificates for high school degrees, something it did not do when I graduated there in 1981.

And frankly, our community college system is excellent as well.  We have only one university (which is another topic) but its good as well.

Still, I think it can be maintained that compared to the mid 20th Century, certain things have dropped off as mandatory subjects.  I have around here somewhere a German novel that was my father's, from high school, and a Latin primer that was one of my uncle's (from a much different school system).  There was a time when learning languages was mandatory in high school , and learning a language broadens out the welatanshung considerably, n'est pas?

One thing that had very much occured is the rise of homeschooling.  People have done this for a long time, but it was almost freakishly uncommon in most areas and often due to remoteness.  Starting in the 90s, however, it really grew for a variety of reasons.

One is that in some areas people lived in bad school districts where there was little opportunity for a good primary education.  But another one is that, particularly amongst Protestant Evangelicals, and then spreading to Catholic Trads, who ironically sometimes hold very Protestant Evangelical societal views, that the education system was educating the young in vice and perversity.  Most recently this has seen its expression by inroads onto school boards by populists who use names like "Mom's For Liberty" for their organizations.

What often characterizes these organizations is a desire to prevent education in something.  It started off as early in the 1960s with an effort to prevent education on matters sexual.  Interestingly, when I was in high school, in spite of living in the least religious state in the US, and one that has always had a rough and transient population, community standards remained so high that what there was in the way of sex ed was pretty minimal.  I can recall that when I was in grade school we were supposed to watch films in 5th and 6th Grade, just as we were hitting our early teens. We watched one of them, but it conveyed so little information that it was truly harmless in the extreme, much less harmful than the information that was later distributed on the playground about what the next installment, which we never saw, was supposed to contain (which was, I'd note, biologically inaccurate).  The next time this came up was in junior high, and then again in high school biology class, in which we were required to tell our parents they could opt us out.  Nobody did.  I think we received a day of education, or not more than two, on the topic, which was biological and accurate.

Of course, I grew up in the 70s for the most part, and most of the kids in school with me were locals.  That might have made a big difference, as even the poor kids were from pretty stable families.  Divorce was incredibly rare.  A significant minority were from ranching families who were well aware of how biological processes worked (that Agrarian thing again) and therefore the knowledge wasn't shocking.  As for the impact, I can recall five girls that I knew to some extent getting pregnant in high school, and one of them was married.  One of the other ones was from a family where that ran through it like wildfire.  The graduating class was 500 or so students, so that's not a huge number.

It's not just sex ed that caused the boom in alternative learning, however.  By the 1970s evolution was an established scientific fact, even if still termed a theory, and it was taught in our schools outright.  The resistance to it being taught, at that time, didn't seem to exist, but it rebounded strongly later on in much of the country.  Overall, moreover, a decline in science teaching set in the U.S. during the 1980s thanks to Ronald Reagan, whose administration didn't support it.

Indeed, the Reagan administration was big on local control of things, and that has an impact here. As a Distributist, it might seem that this is one of the areas where we'd be big backers of that sort of thing, but in reality, the principal of subsidiarity advocates doing a thing at its most local effective, efficient, and just level.  As knowledge is literally global, it calls for large scale.  Physics and science are the same in Brooklyn as they are in Botswana.

A person might also note that our sometimes romantic attachment to Agrarianism recalls a day when less than 50% of males graduated from high school. That's quite true, but they also lived in an age in which many of them had been already well armed by their educations for the lives they would lead, so it was not accurate to suggest they were uneducated.  One of my grandfathers left school (a Christian Brothers school) at age 13, and yet ran a business successfully and could do calculus.  A major office building in this city is named after a man who was sent here in his early teens to open a branch of his father's pipeyard business and who went on to become a multimillionaire.

Additionally, if we go way back, we'll find that yeomanry, while they could be completely uneducated, could also be relatively well educated as well. Some were educated in basic matters through local churches, but often they were educated through community funded or subscribed schools.  John Adams, who started off life as a yeoman, was educated in that fashion, and his wife ran such a school (integrated, we might note) later on.

While on it, we might as well additionally note that the American South, at least since sometime prior to the Civil War, has been a real backwater of education, something that used to horrify northerners.  Little noticed, however, is that there's been a mini Great Migration of white Southerners out of their native region and into the rest of the country, where they've brought their views, including about education, with them.

And part of this is the byproduct of the 1960s.  Up until the 60s, while education was massively uneven in a country that has no central education system, there was a general consensus on what a person needed to learn in order to graduate from high school.  That can't really be claimed from region to region anymore.

So here, applying the principal of subsidiarity, the national government really needs to take a hand and set some basic standards, including learning the truth on scientific and historic matters.  And it needs to be rigorous.  If that depresses the graduation rate, so be it.

And there's really not a moment to lose.