Showing posts with label The Cold War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Cold War. Show all posts

Friday, February 9, 2024

The worst immigration argument

Victory Farm Volunteers registering in Lane County. Oregon.  Lovina Wilson, farm labor assistant, routes the first three children, and that is what they are, to register during the Mobilization Day program at the Frances Willard School in Eugene. The enrollees in the photo are, left to right, facing table front row: Glenn Cash,13; Howard Cash, 11; and Don Mickelwait, 13.  This photo was taken in 1946, right after World War Two, demonstrating that wartime manpower shortages were ongoing.  This would be, quite frankly, more than a bit much today, as these individuals are way to young to seriously work on a farm, unless they are working on their family farm, and they were frankly way too young then.  Note the boys are wearing white t-shirts, with nothing emblazoned on them, and that girls are in the crowd as well.

There are a lot of varieties of this argument I keep seeing:

If you’re out here talking sht about immigrants but still going to the grocery store to feed yourself, that’s clown sht of the highest order. 

Stop being lazy & get your hands in the dirt or shut the fck up.

From, of course, Twitter.

This is baloney.

To distill the argument, it is that the US must dare not get control of its border with Mexico, or at least not a fair degree of control, as the US is dependent upon those illegally crossiong for food production.

That argument is first and foremost baloney, as it somehow makes the assumption that the huge number of immigrants arriving from Central and South America are in fact arriving in order to work on farms. That isn't happening.  They want to work, no doubt, but the migrant farm system is well established, and they aren't seeking to get jobs in cabbage fields this summer and then go back home.

In reality, most are economic migrants or migrants from Central and South American failed states.  The US is racing towards becoming a failed state itself right now.  Our government isn't working, and we're about to elect an imagined Caudillo who will have to turn on migrants like a health inspector turns on expired milk.  

But economically, the farm sector isn't employing them.

Lots of other things are, such as the construction industry, local small businesses, and back door employment, which explains who we got in this mess.  Democrats imagined, wrongly, that all future migrants are Democratic voters.*  Republicans imagined them all as somebody who was going to mow their lawn for cheap.  Turns out that they are none of those things.**

In reality, they take entry level manual labor jobs which, frankly, would go to Americans who need them, but for the price depression impact this has.

Which gets to the next thing.

The "agriculture depends on migrants" argument is, really, that American agriculture is habituated to cheap farm labor because the Federal Government, with apocalyptic visions of the future after World War Two, created a cheap food policy.

Frightened that Depression Era conditions would return after World War Two, and then frightened that conditions were going to go into the waste bin due to the Cold War, from 1945 on the government has done everything it can to keep foods as cheap as possible.  Americans bitch about food prices, but they spend about 9% of their budget on food, and it generally keeps going down.  The U.S. Government has tracked food prices since 1929, and it's the lowest ever, generally.  From 1929 to 1952 Americans spending on food consumed generally above 20% of a family's income.  In 1932, it was 22%.  In 2008, in contrast, it was 5.6%.

That's great, for family budgets, and it has ancillary impacts on a lot of industries.  Cheap food means that people can go to good restaurants (where you are actually a lot more likely to run into an illegal alien than in a cabbage patch) and have a really good dinner for pretty cheap, and then sit there over dinner and bitch about food prices.  This hasn't always been the case.  When Americans "ate out" well into the 1970s, they probably meant that they went to a diner for lunch.  Growing up, trips to restaurants for dinner were so rare that they only occured, normally, when it was some sort of special occasion, like a birthday or anniversary.  To take a date to a restaurant was a big deal, even when I was a college student.  You were trying to really impress a girl if you took her out for a meal, and later you assessed the damage to your finances that had ensued.

Even fast food joints to some extent expressed this.  We would often hit the burger joints on the weekends, but not daily.  By the time my son was in high school, however, high schoolers hit the nearby fast food joints every day.  Indeed, when I was in high school I ate in the cafeteria, the first time I'd eaten routinely at school.  I didn't particularly like it, but that's what there was.  When our high school cafeteria was condemned during my first year of high school, and prior to their building a new one, I briefly ate downtown, but it was too expensive, and I took up just brining a bad sandwich I'd made myself at home and sitting in the football stadium to eat it.

Glory Days indeed.

Now, fast food fare is absurdly cheap.  Quite a few people I know hit Dirty Ron's Steakhouse every morning for a couple of Egg McMuffins and a cup of Joe on the way in to work, and frankly, they're not bad (and no, that nickname aside, that establishment is not dirty at all).  And I've met working adults, including professionals, who go to Subway, or whatever, every day for lunch.  "Value Meals" and the like are incredibly cheap.  All of this because of a "cheap food" policy.  Part of that policy is related to legal farm migrants, but they are not flooding across the Rio Grande or the desert and claiming asylum.

Nor, frankly, is an ongoing "cheap food" policy a good thing.

The cheap food policy has helped make Americans increasingly fat while driving smaller agricultural entities out of business.  It's contributed to the concentration of everything, and not in a good way.  It's made food prices unrealistically low, while divorcing Americans from the reality of the actual cost of things.  It should end.

Part of that would be, quite frankly, to end the modern version of the Bracero program that has depressed the value of farm labor.  When it came in, in 1943, it made a little bit of sense, maybe, perhaps.  But eighty years later, it doesn't.  Americans will work any job, contrary to what is claimed about them, but at wages that are realistic.  Immigrant farm labor wages won't attract them, as the wages are too low.

In an era in which thousands of Americans are out on the streets without jobs, and in which there are rural areas that are basically depopulated save for the injured and left behind in smaller towns, lying between the consolidated farms, and in which we have urban areas and reservations that are hardcore reservoirs of poverty, if people were paid real wages, there's a ready-made source of labor.  Sure, they aren't the best jobs in the world in some ways, but they are jobs.  And they're also jobs for middle class younger people, who have a demonstrated interest in topics of the soil.

The numbers involved are not small. The US takes in 3,000,000 migrant farmworkers per year.  Ending a program such as this would result in a big impact to farm production, and it'd jump food prices for sure as the positions were, and they ultimately would be, filled with American residents.  It'd frankly also spur mechanization, which I'm not particularly keen on, as right now there are very expensive agricultural implements that are not employed as migrant farm labor is cheaper.

But ultimately, the principal of subsidiarity should come into play here for lots of reasons.

None of the reasons involve the thousands crossing the US Southern border, who are people facing an existential crisis that must be addressed.  They aren't the migrant farmworkers however.  That's a completely different topic.

Footnotes:

*Democrats have long assumed that Hispanic immigrants are natural Democratic voters, without learning the lessons of demographics or history.  

Immigrants tend to be Democratic voters early in their demographic's migration history.  Irish immigrants were.  Italian immigrants were.  This frankly had a lot to do with patronage.  But as they became established, this became much less the case.  To declare yourself "Irish" today doesn't mean that somebody should automatically assume you are a Democrat.

And that's true even if you have 100% Hibernian heritage, or to take the Italian example, if you can trace your lineage back to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus' third cousin, once removed.  Truth be known, in a species in which Joe Cro Magnon pretty quickly asked Lucy Neanderthal out on a date, those straight lines of lineage don't last very long.  To declare yourself "Irish" today, in the US, might merely mean that you think the Irish drink green Budweiser with corned beef sandwiches on St. Patrick's Day.

Moreover, Hispanics in the US have and retain (although they are rapidly losing it) a very distinct culture which is existentially Catholic and conservative.  This is so much the case that the radicals of the Mexican Revolution, in the form of the Constitutionalist, sought to stamp it out, much like their semi fellow travelers the Bolsheviks went after Orthodoxy in Russia after 1917.  And they had a similar success rate, which means lots of Mexican Hispanics, which is what most Hispanics in the US are often only semi observant, but culturally Catholic still.  Given that, the darling issues of the Democratic Greenwich Village set, which forms the central corps of Democratic thought, are deeply at odds with what most Hispanics believe. And this only becomes more the case when Hispanics from outside of Northern Mexican ancestry are considered.  So, not too surprisingly, they're turning Republican.

They are also due to the border crisis itself.  Hispanics along the border whose ancestors settled there two hundred years ago, or in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, or even in earlier recent migrant waves, are not really of the same culture, no matter how dimwitted Americans are about it, as those now crossing and the flood is wrecking their communities.  Americans may see Hondurans and Guatemalans, as well as Venezuelans, as being the same as people from Chihuahua, but people from Chihuahua who live in Eagle Pass do not.

**And they are people, which oddly seems forgotten, except as an argument over the crisis.  Democrats thinking they were mindless sheep who could be herded into the voting booths and Republicans thinking they were something akin to slaves is inexcusible.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Friday, Saturday 28, 1944. Warning of a Red Storm brewing.

The British telegrammed Joseph Stalin that:  

"the creation in Warsaw of another government other than that now recognized, as well as disturbances in Poland, would confront Great Britain and the United States with a problem, which would preclude agreement among the great powers."

Churchill in particular was cognizant of the danger the Soviet Union posed to the world.  Roosevelt, much less so.

Omar Bradley took command of the First Army. 

First Army's patch, one of the least inspiring in the U.S. Army.

Personally, I'm not a huge Bradley fan (and even less of a Mark Clark fan).

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—January 28, 1944: Over Anzio, the US 99th Fighter Squadron (Tuskegee Airmen) in P-40s shoots down 3 German Fw 190 fighter planes—the previous day they shot down 10 Fw 190s.

It's often forgotten that the 99th started off with P40s, as they tend to be associated with P51s.  P40s were manufactured well into 1944, which is even more surprising. 

The U-271 and U-571 were sunk west of Ireland by Allied aircraft.  All hands (51 and 52 respectively) were lost.

U-271 under attack by U.S. Navy PB4Y (B-24) Liberator.  The entire 51-man crew died in the sinking.

The Red Army captured territory south of Leningrad while Field Marshal von Luchler ordered a German withdrawal to the Luga River.

The Red Army's units linked up in Ukraine near Zvenigorodka and encircled to German corps.  Manstsein reacts by assembling armored forced to relieve them.

Susan Howard, famous for Dallas, was born. The actress is unusual in that when her acting roles declined, she became a figure in conservative politics.

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Friday, November 22, 1963. The assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 221963  President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, TX.


President Kennedy was a very popular President in a very difficult time.  A lot of my comments about his presidency here have not been terribly charitable, but he was a hero to many, and some of his calls here have unfairly not been noted.  For instance, he exercised restraint during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost resulted in a Third World War, and he likewise kept the separation of Berlin from escalating into the same, even though his comments caused that crisis to come about.

In spite of repeated speculation about it, it's clear that the assassination was carried out as a lone, bizarre act by Lee Harvey Oswald.  Indeed, the lone actor aspect of that has fueled the conspiracy theories surrounding the event, as people basically don't want to accept that a lone actor can have such a massive and unforeseen impact.

I was alive at the time, but of course I don't remember this as I was only a few months old.  In my father's effects, I'd note, was a Kennedy Mass Card that he'd kept. No doubt, Masses were said around the country for the first Catholic President.

Often unnoticed about this event, Oswald probably had made an earlier attempt on the life of former Army Gen. Edwin Walker, who ironically was a radical right wing opponent of Kennedy's.  That attempt had occured in April. And Oswald killed Texas law enforcement officer J. D. Tippit shortly after killing Kennedy.  Oswald's initial arrest was for his murder of Tippit.

It's fair to speculate on how different history might have been had Kennedy lived.  Kennedy's actions had taken the US up to the brink of war with the Soviet Union twice, but in both instances, when the crisis occured, he steered the country out of it, and indeed his thinking was often better in those instances than his advisers. Under Kennedy the US had become increasingly involved in the Vietnam War, but there's at least some reason to believe that he was approaching the point of backing off in Vietnam, and it seems unlikely that the US would have engaged in the war full scale as it did under Lyndon Johnson.  If that's correct, the corrosive effect the war had on US society, felt until this day, might have been avoided.

All of which is not to engage in the hagiography often engaged in considering Kennedy.  To the general public, the James Dean Effect seems to apply to Kennedy, as he died relatively young.  Catholics nearly worshiped him as one of their own.  In reality, Kennedy had a really icky personal life and was hardly a living saint.  His hawkishness in a time of real global strife, moreover, produced at least one tragic result, and nearly caused others.

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Friday, August 30, 1963. Hotline.

While I’m not focusing on events 60 years in the past (our links to 100, 80, and 50 are more than enough), occasionally I depart from something, particularly if it occured in the first few months of my six decades here on Earth.  Here's an interesting one:

30 August 1963

 The Department of Defense made a one-sentence announcement to the press on this occasion, that being: "The direct communication link between Washington and Moscow is now operational." 

It was not a phone link, by the way, but a teletype link.

The cassette tape was introduced by Philips at the annual Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin.

My mother had an early tape recorder which she used somehow in the context of her studies at the local community college.  I recall that it was a gift from my father, and regarded as expensive at the time.  She kept it in good condition.  I recall it had a separate microphone.

I wonder what happened to it?

Eddie Mannix died at age 72.


Mannix is families to Coen Brother's fans as the central character in Hail, Ceasar!, although the quasi comedic portrayal given there considerably cleans up his actual nature.  In the film, Mannix is portrayed as a devout Catholic family man burdened with the job of keeping Hollywood dimwits out of trouble. The portrayal is a great one.  In reality, Mannix was a fixer, and actually was Catholic, but is associated with a string of at least rumored despicable acts.  He and his second wife (his first wife died early in their marriage) never had any children.

His record of film costs has proved to be an invaluable historic resource.

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Friday, April 27, 1973. The removal of the Chagossians. Fall of Patrick Gray.

The United Kingdom concluded the forced expulsion of the Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago.


The extremely remote mid-ocean Indian Ocean islands were originally uninhabited, but came to have a population when under French administration. The original population was enslaved, and brought by the French from Madagascar and other African locations.  They were emancipated in 1840, the islands having belonged to the United Kingdom since 1814.  They were employed as workers on coconut plantations, that being the primary economy of the islands.

The British depopulation campaign was undertaken for the United States, which sought to use the islands for military purposes.  The best known of the islands is Diego Garcia, which remains a U.S. Naval installation.

L. Patrick Gray resigned as Interim Director of the FBI after it was revealed he destroyed materials removed from E. Howard Hunt's safe.  He spent the next seven years providing testimony regarding Watergate.

Gray was a 1940 Naval Academy graduate who attended law school while still in the Navy.  His naval career was distinguished, and he was discouraged from leaving the service when he did in 1960, meaning that at that time he'd had a twenty-year Naval career.

He was a recent appointee to the FBI when the Watergate scandal broke out.  Initially he was heavily involved in the investigation and pursued it vigorously. When it became clear the administration was involved, he turned the matter over to his deputy, Mark Felt, who later turned out to be the famous leaker to the press, "Deep Throat".

According to Gray, who does seem to have had no involvement with the Watergate conspiracy or its cover up, the papers he removed were told to him to be of national security significant.  Prior to destroying them, he examined them, and later stated that one set of papers were "false" secret cables indicating that the Kennedy Administration was involved with the Diem assassination and the second set papers written by Kennedy about his "peccadilloes". 

Monday, March 6, 2023

Tuesday, March 6, 1973. Oil Price Controls

Oil pump jacks, Teapot Dome, 1973.
Today In Wyoming's History: March 61973   President Richard Nixon imposed price controls on oil and gas.
This from our companion blog, although It's not entirely accurate the way it's stated.  Price controls had actually come in during 1971 in order to combat inflation.  On this day in 1973 the Cost of Living Council issued Special Rule No. 1, which imposed price controls after the "controls" had become voluntary.

Nixon era price controls would prove to be a spectacular failure, and this one in particular failed to grasp that petroleum supplies now included large scale importation, something well beyond American control.  This would prove to be the case in the upcoming fall, when OPEC would put in place an embargo on the export of oil to the United States, something that would have an enormous impact on the state's economy.

The fact that efforts at price controls went back to 1971 is telling.  It's common to assume now that rampant inflation in the early 70s began when the price of oil skyrocketed following the Yom Kippur War, but in fact they were already rising at the start of the decade.  In no small measure, this was due to the Johnson Administration's "guns and butter" economic strategy of the 60s, in which the United States attempted to pay for the Cold War military, the Vietnam War, and a massive increase in social spending without disrupting the economy.  Cynics would note that inflation, which started in the 60s, helped reduce the actual cost to the government of such programs, which it did, but whether somewhat intentional or not, the economy simply could not endure it.


1973 Spring Training commenced with games played in the majors with designated hitters, in the American League, played for the first time.

Famous author Pearl S. Buck died at age 80.  Her work is most famously associated with China, where she had lived for many years.

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Tuesday, January 12, 1943. Landings at Amchitka, Operation Iskra.


The U.S. landed troops on Amchitka.  It was an unopposed landing, as the Japanese had chosen not to occupy it.  Weather was bad and unpredictable and the USS Wordon was swept into rocks and ultimately broke up.  Fourteen of the crew died and the commanding officer was swept off the ship, but survived, while it was being abandoned.  The Japanese learned of the landing several days later when weather cleared sufficiently for a scout plane to overfly the island.

USS Worden sinking.

The island was used as an airbase by the U.S. in spite of the horrible weather it experiences, and set the stage for the US assault on Kiska.


The island is large by Aleutian standards, consisting of 116 square miles.  Not too surprisingly, given its size, it was historically occupied by the Aleuts but there has been no population on the island since 1832.  It's tectonically unstable.

Because of its uninhabited status, it was chosen by the US for underground detonation of nuclear weapons in order to test seismic detection, with nuclear weapons being inserted in bore holes in 1965, 1969 and 1971.

The parents of the Sullivan Brothers were informed for the first time that their sons, who had gone down in action in November, were missing in action.

In our last entry we noted the ship named in honor of the Sullivan brothers, the USS Sullivans.  Oddly enough, it was in the news yesterday after taking a huge haul of Iranian AKMs that were being shipped to Yemen.


Winston Churchill departed for Morocco to meet with Franklin Roosevelt, who had left the day prior.  Their departures were obviously kept secret.

The Soviets launched Operation Iskra aimed at breaking the German's siege on Leningrad.

Pierre Laval concluded a deal with Nazi Germany, allowing the Germans to administer the Departments du Nord and Pas de Calais.  France, under the arrangement, also pledged to provide 400,000 skilled workers to Germany and to essentially provide the remaining elements of its navy to Germany.  France retained the policing role in the German administered territories.

President Roosevelt addressed farmers for Farm Mobilization Day.

January 12, 1943

All over the world, food from our country's farms is helping the United Nations to win this war. From the South Pacific to the winter front in Russia, from North Africa to India, American food is giving strength to the men on the battle lines, and sometimes also to the men and women working behind the lines. Somewhere on every continent the food ships from this country are the life line of the forces that fight for freedom. This afternoon we have heard from some of the military and civilian righters who look to us for food. No words of mine can add to what they have said.

But on this Farm Mobilization Day I want to round out the picture and tell you a little more about the vital place that American farmers hold in the entire war strategy of the United Nations.

Food is a weapon in total war- fully as important in its way as guns or planes or tanks. So are other products of the farm. The long-staple cotton that goes into parachutes, for example, the oils that go into paints for the ships and planes and guns, the grains that go into alcohol to make explosives also are weapons.

Our enemies know the use of food in war. They employ it cold-bloodedly to strengthen their own fighters and workers and to weaken or exterminate the peoples of the conquered countries. We of the United Nations also are using food as a weapon to keep our fighting men fit and to maintain the health of all our civilian families. We are using food to earn the friendship of people in liberated areas and to serve as a promise and an encouragement to peoples who are not yet free. Already, in North Africa, the food we are sending the inhabitants is saving the energies and the lives of our troops there. In short we are using food, both in this country and in Allied countries, with the single aim of helping to win this war.

Already it is taking a lot of food to fight the war. It is going to take a lot more to win the final victory and win the peace that will follow. In terms of total food supply the United Nations are far stronger than our enemies. But our great food resources are scattered to the ends of the earth—from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa and the Americas- and we no longer have food to waste. Food is precious, just as oil and steel are precious. As part of our global strategy, we must produce all we can of every essential farm product; we must divide our supplies wisely and use them carefully. We cannot afford to waste any of them.

Therefore the United Nations are pooling their food resources and using them where they will do the most good. Canada is sending large shipments of cheese, meats, and other foods on the short North Atlantic run to Britain. Australia and New Zealand are providing a great deal of the food for American soldiers stationed in that part of the world. Food from Latin America is going to Britain.

Every food-producing country among the United Nations is doing its share. Our own share in food strategy, especially at this stage of the war, is large, because we have such great resources for production; and we are on direct ocean lanes to North Africa, to Britain, and to the northern ports of Russia.

American farmers must feed our own growing Army and Navy. They must feed the civilian families of this country and feed them well. They must help feed the fighting men and some of the war workers of Britain and Russia and, to a lesser degree, those of other Allied countries.

So this year, as never before, the entire Nation is looking to its farmers. Many quarters of the free world are looking to them too. American farmers are a small group with a great task. Although 60 percent of the world's population are farm people, only 2 percent of that population are American farmers. But that 2 percent have the skill and the energy to make this country the United Nations' greatest arsenal for food and fiber.

In spite of the handicaps under which American farmers worked last year, the production victory they won was among the major victories of the United Nations in 1942. Free people everywhere can be grateful to the farm families who made that victory possible.

This year the American farmer's task is greater, and the obstacles more formidable. But I know that once more our farmers will rise to their responsibility.

This farm mobilization is the first day ever dedicated by a President to the farm people of the Nation. I know that the whole country joins with me in a tribute to the work farmers already have done, in a pledge of full support in the difficult task which lies ahead for farmers, and in a prayer for good weather to make farmers' efforts more fruitful.

Our fighting men and allies, and our families here at home can rely on farmers for the food and other farm products that will help to bring victory.

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Thursday, December 7, 1972. The last to be drafted, Apollo 17.

Apollo 17 was launched.


It was the last of the Apollo missions and accordingly the last manned mission to the Moon.

This seems like something I should recall, but I don't.  I would have been in 4th Grade at the time, and moon missions were a big deal, but as noted, this was the last one and the 17th Apollo Mission. Fifty years later, I can't recall having paid too much attention to this one, although it seems to me I dimly recall it.

On the same day, the last conscription induction call in U.S. history occurred.  The call was to have been one of two to occur in 1972, but the second one was suspended due to a national day of mourning called by President Nixon in honor of Harry S. Truman, who died on December 26, 1972.  The conscription call would have occurred on December 28. 

The men who were chosen in the draft lottery on this day did not, I believe, immediately but in 1973. This was, after all, in December.  Having said that, I'm not completely certain.  49,514 men were inducted into the service via conscription in 1972.  646 were inducted in 1973, with the final induction occurring on June 30, 1973,  The height of the Vietnam War era induction occurred in 1966, when 382,010 men were inducted.

On January 27, 1973, President Nixon suspended conscription. In part this recognized the impending end of the Vietnam War, but the move was also clearly political and designed to address increasing civil unrest in spite of the obvious coming end of the war.  Conscription had been resumed in 1948 and the Cold War was far from over, but moral in the U.S. military was disintegrating to the crisis level, which provided another, albeit unstated, reason for suspending the draft.  The Army started rebuilding itself as an all volunteer force in 1973, but it would really take until the Reagan Administration for a new, effective Army to form.

Congressional authority to induct expired on June 30, 1973, although oddly lottery drawing continued until March 12, 1975.  Registration for conscription terminated on April 1, 1975, which I can recall occurring.  Registration would resume, however, a mere five years later, in 1980, and it remains a legal obligation for men.

Men drafted on this day would have found themselves in the odd situation of having to serve in the U.S. Army until late 1974, according to The New York Times, which ran a headline on November 23, 1974, that the last conscripts had been discharged.  If that is correct, they must have been let go slightly ahead of schedule, which likely would have reflected the end of the Vietnam War and a drawdown that sought to eliminate men who didn't want to be there.  Otherwise, the June 30, 1973, inductee should have served until June 1975.  The last pool applied only to men born in 1952 or later, so it applied only to men in their early 20s, for practical purposes.

The end of the draft really returned the U.S. military to its historical norm. The Army had not conscripted at all until the Civil War, and then did not do it again until World War One.  Militia service, of course, was mandatory in the US up until around the Civil War, when it started to slowly die off as a observed state requirement.  The World War One and World War Two drafts had been enormous, with the US drafting 2,294,084 in 1918 alone, and 3,323,970 in 1943.  Following 1940, there'd only been one year, 1947, in which there had been no inductions, up until 1974.

The last man inducted was Dwight Elliot Stone.  He was a married plumbers apprentice living in Sacramento who was 24 years old at the time and had two kids.  He tried to avoid to hide induction before finally turning himself in.  He served in the Army for 17 months (which would make the NYT article at least a bit inaccurate) before being discharged early for reasons he wasn't aware of, but which were probably due to the fact that by 1975 the Army didn't really want unwilling soldiers around.

Stone went to basic training at Ft. Polk, at which the press followed him around a bit.  He was trained as an electronic technician, after which he was stationed at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey.  Upon his discharged he was quoted as saying "I wouldn't have joined.  It wasn't the place to be. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone. I didn't like it. It was poorly run.''

In the early 70s, it was in fact poorly run.

Stone went back to work as a plumber/pipe fitter in Sacramento, but over time his view changed, as it did for many who had been conscripted in the same period.  He later stated that while he didn't like being in the Army, he'd had a lot of fun while in it, and he used his service benefits to attend two years of college.  His oldest son enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Monday, November 21, 2022

Musing for Conservatives from a real (well mostly, sometimes, 50/50 anyway) Conservative.


This comes, I'd note, at a time at which it's clear that much of the Wyoming GOP got to the station on the Trump Train, went into the station and had a few drinks, and re-boarded on Crazy Train, where it stumbled to the club car, and is now decrying the moral state of the country to the bar maid, who has ear buds in and is listening to Taylor Swift and hoping these guys leave a big tip, while knowing that they won't.

Witness:

Wyoming GOP Wants Investigation of Gov. Gordon’s Ties To Bill Gates, George Soros, Warren Buffett

That is, quite frankly, and the only way it can be described, "batshit crazy".   This is going to reveal nothing, and it won't happen for that matter, but the fact that the GOP Central Committee endorses it is scary.

And hence the problem. At the same time that across the country a lot of Republican conservatives voted and said "whoooeeee, what's that smell in here. . . " and then marked the ballot for Democrats, the Wyoming GOP, listening only to the right wing edge of the party, has voted itself into total isolation. Right now, the state's party is about as aware of reality as close affiliates of Kim Jong-un are.

Somehow, it just figures.

And for that reason, they're going to take the state into political isolation, spouting nonsense, while one Senator proclaims that Joe Biden personally sets the price of gas every day, another tries to figure out which GOP Presidential hopeful stands the best chance of giving her a cabinet slot, and a freshman Congressman rails against whatever Kevin McCarthy says is a good thing to rail against today.

In four years we'll have so little say in the nation's politics that our even being a state will be utterly pointless, and beyond that, the Conservative "movement", if it can still be called that, will be about as relevant to the nation as the post World War Two Sicilian movement to make that island the 49th state.

You didn't know there had been one, did you?

Hence, my point.

So, as I am a conservative, of a sort anyhow, and feel that generally my sort of conservatism is correct, some unsolicited advice and commentary for conservatives.

With the first being, what is a conservative, anyhow?

In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation . . . the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not . . . express themselves in ideas but only . . . in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.

Lionell Trilling, 1950. 

A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

William F. Buckley.

Defining Conservatism.

The blue flag of Conservatism.  Blue is the traditional color, globally, for conservatism, but for some reason in the American political imagry its been substituted for red, which is the color of socialism. Perhaps this makes sense, however, as populism is really a left wing ideology, and as the national conservative party becomes more populist, it is in fact less conservative.

Defining conservatism isn't all that easy to do, and we'd submit, it's so frequently done clouded by either a liberal tradidtiion or a reactionary impulse, that its done incorrectly.

Take, for instance.

We, as young conservatives, believe:

  • That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;
  • That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;
  • That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;
  • That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;
  • That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government; and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;
  • That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: Does it serve the just interests of the United States?
The Sharon Statement, 1960, drafted in part by M. Stanton Evans. Is it correct?

One of the real problems modern conservatives face is that they don't know what conservatism is, even if most vaguely have a grasp of it.  As a result of this, they've adopted a lot of libertarianism, which isn't conservatism by any means, and a fair amount, recently, of fascism, which actually originated in the radical left.1

Without some sort of existential understanding of what it is, conservatism isn't really anything at all. And indeed, if you look at the current GOP, it is indeed a "big tent", but that tents a real mishmash of people with widely varying ideologies, or no ideologies at all.

The irony of the recent race in Wyoming is that one of the far fight candidates campaigned on the platform of "less government, more freedom". That's not conservative, that's libertarianism.  The same candidate has billboards up opposing abortion, which is a conservative position, and one I support, which has roots in theology, philosophy, and natural law, but which doesn't really square with the "less government, more freedom" platform.  A guy who is for less government, and more freedom, ought to take the position that you can pretty much do whatever you freakin' want to, which of course he really doesn't.

You can get to being pro life and be a libertarian, I'd note, but its harder.

Shoot, why not legalize dueling?  Less government. . . more freedom.

And that defines why the current crop of conservatives make nearly no sense.

I'd propose that Conservatism is this; it's a political/philosophical view that human beings are flawed and in some serious ways, de minimis.  We're a creature of some external force, that force being nature, and for those who are believers, nature's God.  What we are and how we should behave is defined by that, and as we are imperfect, we should always be extremely careful about departing from something we have conserved, i.e,. tradition, as by and large, tradition and traditional views are highly refined from experience and probably correct. Something we come up with in our own era stands a good chance of being wrong.  Because we are imperfect, we can find out that we are wrong on things, and we do over time, but we ought to never assume we've figured it out in our own era.  Added to that, as history is conserved knowledge, the past is nearly as alive as the present, and we should consider it and its voices constantly.

Now, going from there.

All reality is governed by, well, reality.


And what we know of reality is ultimately governed by nature.  

We can know nature, and know a lot of it by observation.  But we cannot redefine it.

Modern "ology" fields, outside of the hard sciences, have tried mightily, and indeed enormously succeeded, in shoving out vast piles of crap on our natures for well over a century. Sooner or later, the last crap starts to stink up everything and be revealed as crap, but not before many lives have been destroyed in the process.  

Psychology, sociology, sexolgy, all are hugely guilty of this.

Biology, geology, orthodox theology, and physics, are not.

If things aren't grounded in nature, as revealed by the real, i.e., hard, sciences, they are probably wrong.

Now, science doesn't have an explanation for everything, but it has the explanation for a lot.  And where it does, it must be listened to. And an awful lot about us can readily and easily be explained by evolutionary biology, which should not be confused with cultural anthropology, another one of the "ology" fields that tends to be in the category of "the self-explanatory flavor of the day rationalizing my own behavior".

The lesson of the hard sciences, like orthodox Christinaity, tend to make lot of people hugely uncomfortable, in part because starting with the, yes conservative, Reagan Administration the Federal Government gutted the funding for them.  Prior to that we had enlisted the hard sciences in the war effort against the Axis and then later against the Soviet Union.  At that point we really needed to know what science, often in the form of engineering (which is applied physics) had to say about things.

By the mid 1970s "Conservatives" had regrown uncomfortable with some things science had to say, particularly in the environmental fields, which I'll address below.2 So they gutted it, and int he process they've managed to make modern Americans woefully poorly educated in the sciences.  There's no excuse for it.  Here's a good example:

Nobody remembers  this as in reality we treated viruses with a massively publicly funded health system and mandatory vaccinations.  Treating things with soup and Vitamin C is a trip to the cemetery.

But we're now so freakin' dense that this actually showed up on a recent candidates' website.

Reality, you smart mammal, is defined by nature and evolution.  You are formed existentially by external forces, and that is what you are existentially.  You, and we, don't get to change that.

Our own appetites don't define right or wrong.


But people sure seem to think that.

You would think this would be self-evident, but in this era of massive wealth, the concept of restraining your own conduct in any fashion is regarded as passé.

Among the things we are, we are broken. The standards are clear, but we don't always individually orient ourselves to them. That doesn't mean our disorientation should be given license.  

Indeed, we don't even know where to draw the line on this.  For eons human beings accepted, for example, the norm that sex should be contained within marriage, and that it was between male and female. The only real global divergence on how this worked had to do with whether polygamy was okay or not. That's about it. 

This isn't the only example, by any means, but it does show how conservatism isn't libertarianism or progressivism.  Progressives would require you to believe that the latest social "ology" items are real legally.  You may not assert, for example, that transgenderism isn't real, as that's not socially acceptable.  Libertarians don't care if you believe it or not, but they wouldn't have the structure of the state accept the scientific realities that it's far from proven, and up until it is, it's not a state matter to force, and because it's also contrary to long human experience, and frankly science, the burden of proof on it is very high.

Our own economic well-being doesn't define true or false.

Avarice, 1590.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.

1 Timothy.

Somewhere along the path of things, conservatives started believing that capitalism is the natural order of things.  And beyond that, somehow conservatism began to equate itself with a worship of mammon.

Southerners justified slavery, which was in their perceived economic self-interest, on the basis that the Bible said it was okay, which it does not.  The Germans justified invading the Soviet Union on the "ology" basis that the Germans were a master race, and they therefore were entitled to the Slavic breadbaskets of Europe.

Think this doesn't apply to this argument?

Well, right now the GOP in Wyoming, which claims to be conservative, wants the state to investigate Gov. Gordon’s Ties To Bill Gates, George Soros, and Warren Buffett. Why?  Well somebody's economic ox is being gored as these men don't have the same view of the economic future as the Central Committee does.

Indeed, among those who are involved in economics and science, it's really clear that the Republican Party in Wyoming has literally walked up to a dead mule and put it in harness on the basis that the mule made us rich in the past, and he better now.  That's not how these things work.

Things do change, and you don't have a right to insist that they do not.  Railroad crews couldn't demand that the switch from steam to diesel not be made on the basis that steam engines employed a larger crew.  Sail mariners couldn't demand that the age of sail not yield to that of coal.  But that's what a lot of people in the "conservative" moment are doing right now.

Truth be known, we can learn that our own occupations are not sacrosanct, even though the lesson is hard.  Nobody argues, for example, that "I'm a tobacco farmer, and therefore cancer is a fib" anymore, but people did at one time.  We hear economic arguments of that type made in conservative circles all the time, however.

And that is not real conservatism. That's reactionary.  A real conservatism would realize that economics isn't the same as conserving core human relationships.

Conservatism sometimes has to aim to restore or recall what was already lost.


One of the common failings of conservatives, which opens them up to criticism all the time, is that they are often working at conserving either what is right now, or what was just very recently.

A good example of this is another economic one.  Conservatives constantly claim to be preserving capitalism. That isn't conservative at all.  Capitalism itself is a government made economic liberal construct designed to promote certain type of business activities.

Capitalism can be argued to be good or bad, and in varying degrees, in its own right, but the fact of the matter is that its contrary to nature in recognizing what would otherwise be a type of partnership as a "person", giving it a huge economic advantage against real people.  If conservatives truly sought to conserve, they'd look back and realize that the corporate innovation has evolved massively and to the detriment of the natural social and economic order.  In other words, they'd restrict the use of the corporate business form, which itself would go back to an earlier era.

None of this is radical, it's purely conservative, but because it understands the nature of how this works, and looks back prior to December 31, 1600, it doesn't seem that way.

Another example is in the area of men, women, sex and marriage.  Conservatives in our current era are full of horror about the recent developments in the area of sexual attraction, and they should be. But addressing this by taking it back to the pre Dobbs status quote actually isn't all that conservative. Taking things back to when the heart balm statutes still predominated would be.

"But, didn't William F. Buckley say. . .?" 

Yeah, so what.  He was wrong here.

We're all fallen, but nobody has the right to engage in open hypocrisy.

Strom Thurmond, the Southern Democrat and "Dixiecrat" senator who opposed desegregation for most of his career but whom also fathered a child by his 16 year old black maid, that child being his oldest offspring.

Oddly enough, this story was sort of hi lighted by a development that occurred after Cynthia Lummis went up on the decks of the SS Political Fortunes, looked at the weather gauge, and determined that it had shifted, probably resulting in her vote on Dobbs.  I've dealt with that extensively here.

What does that statute really say? The Respect For Marriage Act, what it says, what it means, what it means behind what it means, and the reaction to Lummis voting for it.

There's almost no way to deal with this topic without being somewhat crude, but suffice it to say if you are on the current Super Conservative Special, you really can't be proclaiming what people who have unusual attractions are doing if you are shacked up with somebody, or bed hopping, or the like. Quite frankly, you probably can't say anything about family values if you are divorced and don't have a really good explanation or if you are married but childless and seemingly in a well paying career.  You can't say that "those people aren't acting" naturally, if you aren't either.

And yes, this harkens back to an age with children out of wedlock was regarded as conveying shame, and being a serial polygamist was frowned upon.  But hence the point.  This sort of topic is broad, not narrow, and you can't take your social programs off the shelf like cans of pinto beans, and leave the lima beans up there.  You are getting a sack of beans, and they're all in there.

"Freedom" may not be just having nothing left to lose, but it's not a defining feature of our beings either.  Nor is "liberty".

Freedom and liberty are the two most misused words in the political lexicon.

Conservatives, if they grasp it, do have a better claim on these words than liberals do, but freedom isn't an absolute and liberty doesn't equate with being a libertine.  

In Catholic social thought freedom is often noted as being a true positive but only when a true understanding of things is derived.  I.e., the framework of the Church doesn't impose shackles on my freedom so much as guardrails, so I don't fall off and lose it.  This is true of properly understood social conservatism as well.  And that's one of the things that distinguishes conservatism from libertarianism.

Looking at things from a point of view of nature, it becomes clear what things have to be provided with guard rails and which do not.  For example, recently, the Obergefell decision opened up same sex unions all over the country.  A frequent argument was that this meant you were "free" to marry whom you wanted. 

Marriage, however, is simply a natural institution for the protection of children created by male/female interactions.  It has nothing whatsoever, as a social institution, to do with "love".  The guard rails here are for the protection of kids, and then widows.  Nothing else.  They've been massively removed over the years to the detriment of society, which hasn't made people "free", but careless and miserable.

Another instance is the massive decriminalization of drugs in American society. Drugs don't make people free, they enslave people to them. The guard rails kept people free by helping them to preserve themselves against self-destructive impulses.  Frankly, Prohibition, in this context, was very much pro freedom and liberty.  Opening up the weed laws and, in Colorado's case, opening up the shrooms, is pro slavery (as well as worshiping money).

Most conservatives instinctively get this, but don't know why they do. People haven't thought out what this ultimately means. And what it means is that sometimes the expression of the people, legislative bodies, have to enact restrictions, rather than open things up.

This includes restraining some kinds of businesses, and not just those mentioned here.  Getting back to what is clearly a distributist bent, restraining some sorts of economic activities promotes freedom, including the right to make a living, but finding a conservative who realizes that isn't always an easy thing to do.

We ought to be honest, and occasionally blunt, but smart.

But at the same time, we ought to be knowledgeable.

We ought to say what we mean, but know why we mean it.

A recent populist Interim Secretary of State had, on his failed campaign platform material, that the United States Constitution was ordained by God.  He didn't say it that way, but was pretty close.  I'd have to look it back up.

That's not a conservative position, that a theocratic one, and it tends to indicate membership in one of several minority religions.  I note this, however, as I hear people relate their political views loosely to God all the time and often in a poorly thought out way.

I don't think the United States Constitution was ordained by God, and I also think that God loves Russians and Ukrainians every bit as much as Americans.  Americans may be exceptional, and right now we're not exceptional in ways that aren't universally positive, but simple unthinking citations such as this don't cut the mustard.

If your conservatism is founded in religious beliefs, fine, you ought to say so. But you probably need to go a bit further and really explain it in a thinking fashion.

Likewise, conservatives constatly spout "less government, more freedom" now days. What does that mean?  The logical conclusion to "less government" is no government, which is called anarchy of course, and which isn't very conservative.

What people who say that probably really mean is that the best government is the government that governs the least, a phrase attributed to Thoreau and to Jefferson, but which in reality nobody knows the author of. The Thoreau quote is as follows:

I heartily accept the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Thoreau, it might be noted, was in fact an anarchist, and was arguing for that.

Of course, Henry David Thoreau lived in an era in which you could wonder off in the woods and hang around there pretty much unimpeded, if you were a European American.  The prior occupants of the same territory had been forcibly removed by the government.  Those aboriginal occupants, it might be further noted, had their own form of government.

Given all of this, we can say, for instance, that stating phrases like "less government" and the like sound really nifty until you realize that a lot of them are bankrupt and always have been, if not explored more completely.  Less government?  Is that conservative, or is it simply anarchic?

Let's look again at the Sharon Statement:

  • That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;
That certainly makes sense, but it probably makes sense to liberals as well.

And being free from arbitrary force concedes that some force isn't arbitrary. That often seems quite missed.
  • That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;
That also makes sense, and is a basic tenant of conservatism, but one that's poorly implemented and understood. True economic freedom would require an economic leveling that modern conservatives seem to abhor. That is, some will do better than others, and all should be allowed to compete, but a guy wanting to start an appliance store really can't effectively do that if giant corporations, with shareholders protected from liability and personal loss, are running a mega store in the area, now can he?
  • That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;
Conservatives, truly, can agree with that.
  • That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;
American conservatives, at least, can agree with that, but  recently they don't seem to be doing universally on all of its tenants.
  • That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government; and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;
This is true, but conservatives weren't really arguing for this to be logically implemented at the time, and they still aren't.

Indeed, to some degree what conservatives seem to think is that they're fighting against "socialism". True socialism was knocked out in the fifth round and has been removed from the building. Today, conservatives are arguing against any sort of revival of The American System, but only to the degree they don't personally benefit from it.
  • That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: Does it serve the just interests of the United States?

Every nation's foreign policy should be so dictated, but with the understanding that the United States isn't its own planet.  Like it or not, advances in travel, technology and the conservative insistence on the globalization of trade now mean that actions anywhere impact people everywhere, and we're all in this together.  In other words, have bat soup one day in China and the next thing you know, people are sick and Rome and Sacramento.

There are a lot more examples of how that works, but what the drafters of the Sharon statement were really after, at the time, was the Democratic inclination to intervene in foreign wars.  Conservatives of the 1950s had never really gotten over the US entering World War Two, which they didn't fully approve of but which thanks to the Japanese Navy they had no choice but to agree to. They weren't keen on the Korean War and they weren't all keen on the Vietnam War.  There was an odd conservative sense at the time that we could let the world slide into the Red Menace but protect ourselves through B-36s and B-52, not realizing that in the modern world Harley Davidson was about to get a run for the money from Honda.

All of which gets back to this.  Yes, maximum personal liberty is a conservative principle, but not up to the point of self-destruction.  The basic ethos is that we can provide a societal and cultural structure and hope that people succeed, and try to help them when they fall.  Pretending that we're the first person on virgin soil, however, isn't reality, and it in fact it never was.

Probably another way to put this is this.  Liberty can only travel with subsidiarity.  Freedom only travels with responsibility.  Success travels with duty.  And conserving means existential conservation, not reaction.

We don't really have fellow travelers.


Politics is the art of compromise, but the right/left divide in American politics blurs the lines on the nature of movements.  The Wyoming GOP is a good example of this, although the national Republican Party is as well.

Conservatives aren't populists.  Indeed, to some degree the old charge against conservatives as being elitists, a charge made against liberals as well, is true.  So what? 

Populism works just as well for left-wing mobs as right-wing ones, and in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries the American Populist Party was a liberal party that American conservatives fought against. Thomas Jefferson, who was a conservative, feared the day when populists would arise in the US, which he felt inevitable, as it meant the end of democracy.  He may well have been correct.

Given this, why are conservatives sitting in the corner of the club car holding their tongues but watching the populists hit on the bar maid?  They shouldn't be.

They are, of course, for the same reason that right wing German political parties held their nose and went along with the Nazi Party in the early 30s. They had a place they wanted to go, and they thought the Nazis would bet them there.  They didn't.  The populists won't get the conservatives get there either, and the populists have no desire to do so. Their nearly open declaration of war in Wyoming against conservatives, and the six-year campaign that they are "RINO's" should be lesson enough on this point.

Conservatives should be guided by Kipling (a conservative) on this point and take from The Winners, although it certainly isn't true on everything.

What is the moral ? Who rides may read.

  When the night is thick and the tracks are blind,

A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed;

  But a fool to wait for the laggard behind

Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne,

He travels the fastest who travels alone.


White hands cling to the tightened rein,

  Slipping the spur from the booted heel,

Tenderest voices cry, "Turn again,"

  Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel,

High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone

He travels the fastest who travels alone.


One may fall, but he falls by himself

  Falls by himself, with himself to blame;

One may attain, and to him is the pelf,

  Loot of the city in Gold or Fame

Plunder of earth shall be all his own

Who travels the fastest, and travels alone.


Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil,

  Sing the heretical song I have made

  His be the labour, and yours be the spoil.

Win by his aid, and the aid disown

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Conservatism isn't a man and can't be reduced to worshiping a human being.


I've already mentioned a fellow here who was a conservative, Thomas Jefferson.  

He was a great man.

He also kept slaves, one of whom he was bedding, and he kept the kids born of that union enslaved. That's creepy and reprehensible.

A person we quote here frequently and whom we admire is G. W. Chesterton. He was a polymath and great thinker. A great man.

He was also anti-Semitic.

Ideas aren't people, and once the two are confused, you are in real trouble.

Some parties evolve towards cults of personality, and at that point, they're always on the verge of failure.  Once the party is defined by Il Duce's poster, it's pretty pointless.

Donald Trump is one man, and if a person strives to find what cogent philosophical positions he's held on anything, you'll be striving all day and night, for months, and fail to find them.  In truth, love him or hate hm, Trump was a mere vessel for those with certain hopes, many of whom he failed, rather than the originator of anything brilliant himself.  Trump didn't dream up the list of conservative names for the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell and the Federalist Society did.  Economically, we had good times, but how much of that was Trump, and how much of it was his staffers who came in with him as he declared himself to be a conservative.

Now, you can take this too far. No doubt there were ideas that originated with Trump, some good, and some bad, but he certainly wasn't an overarching intellectual titan that defined a movement.  No, rather, a series of movements, some very poorly defined, simply saw him as their vehicle.

That's been seemingly forgotten.

"Heroes" almost never meet their hype.  Political heroes exist, but where they do, they should be intellects that have contributed real thought. And even when they arise, they can't be the definition of a movement.

Theodore Roosevelt, a great liberal President came to define Liberal "Progressive" Republicans after he left office and a cult of personality developed around him. That lead to the Republican Party splitting and Woodrow Wilson entering office. After that, as a heroic figure, Roosevelt did the right thing.  He reentered the GOP and was pretty quiet.

By Di (they-them) - This SVG flag includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this flag:, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114863039

Footnotes

1. This is, I'd note, a debatable point.  I'd start off, however, noting that Mussolini had been a Socialist.  A Russian refugee of friend of Whitaker Chambers, as another example, who had been a Soviet general felt Communism was a species of fascism.  The Nazi Party had been a radical socialist party very early on, but once Hitler entered the picture its socialism rapidly waned.

2.  I've said "regrown" as the first real instances of conservatives becoming uncomfortable with science seems to have occured with Protestants becoming uncomfortable with the theory of evolution when it was first introduced. While evolution, as a scientific theory, is so well demonstrated it is clearly fact, some are still uncomfortable with it as this late date and occasionally there are efforts to preclude it from schools.  Apostolic Christians tend to be baffled by this, unless they've been heavily protestantized, as many in the US have been, as there really is nothing contrary to the Faith as they conceive of it in regard to evolution.  However, like going down a rabbit hole, rejecting evolution tends to end up as a rejection of all sorts of other science and, in the end, make Christianity weaker by making it look contrary to science, which it need not be.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Monday, September 21, 1942. First flight of the B-29

 YB-29s.

Today in World War II History—September 21, 1942: British and Indian troops launch assault into the Arakan Peninsula in Burma. First test flight of Boeing XB-29 Superfortress heavy bomber, Seattle, WA.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The B-29 was one of the great aircraft of the Second World War and was also, during the war, one that was downright dangerous to fly due to its frequent engine failures and fires.  It's loss rate early on in China, from which many were flown, was appalling.  Nonetheless, they were an advance that could be regarded as generational.

Forever associated with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the plane became the world's first nuclear bomber, a status it retained for a while post-war.  By the Korean War, however, they were beginning to show their vulnerabilities in the new jet and rocket age. The B-36 resulted in them being reclassified as a medium bomber, an odd thought, and the B-29 was retired in 1960, and overall long run for a bomber of that period.  A late variant, the B-29D, which was reclassified as the B-50, continued on in limited use until 1963.  Ironically, a version copied by the Soviet Union from an example that landed on their territory during the war, the TU-4, remained in active service slightly longer and also saw service with the Red Chinese, meaning that for a time the airplane equipped both sides in the Cold War.

B-50.

The aircraft was not introduced into service until 1944 and its use was limited to the CBI and Pacific Theaters. Post-war, the British were briefly equipped with a limited number, a small number of which went on to serve with Australia.  An airliner version went on to become an early post-war transoceanic airliner, one of the ones that effectively put an end to flying boats.