The Book of Habakkuk

The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision.

Habakkuk’s First Complaint

How long, O LORD, must I cry for help

and you do not listen?

Or cry out to you, “Violence!”

and you do not intervene?

Why do you let me see iniquity?

why do you simply gaze at evil?

Destruction and violence are before me;

there is strife and discord.

This is why the law is numb

and justice never comes,

For the wicked surround the just;

this is why justice comes forth perverted.

God’s Response

Look over the nations and see!

Be utterly amazed!

For a work is being done in your days

that you would not believe, were it told.

For now I am raising up the Chaldeans,

that bitter and impulsive people,

Who march the breadth of the land

to take dwellings not their own.

They are terrifying and dreadful;

their right and their exalted position are of their own making.

Swifter than leopards are their horses,

and faster than desert wolves.

Their horses spring forward;

they come from far away;

they fly like an eagle hastening to devour.

All of them come for violence,

their combined onslaught, a stormwind

to gather up captives like sand.

They scoff at kings,

ridicule princes;

They laugh at any fortress,

heap up an earthen ramp, and conquer it.

Then they sweep through like the wind and vanish—

they make their own strength their god!

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

Are you not from of old, O LORD,

my holy God, immortal?

LORD, you have appointed them for judgment,

O Rock,^* you have set them in place to punish!

Your eyes are too pure to look upon wickedness,

and the sight of evil you cannot endure.

Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence

while the wicked devour those more just than themselves?

You have made mortals like the fish in the sea,

like creeping things without a leader.

He brings them all up with a hook,

and hauls them away with his net;

He gathers them in his fishing net,

and then rejoices and exults.

1Therefore he makes sacrifices to his net,

and burns incense to his fishing net;

For thanks to them his portion is rich,

and his meal lavish.

Shall they, then, keep on drawing his sword

to slaughter nations without mercy?

I will stand at my guard post,

and station myself upon the rampart;

I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,

and what answer he will give to my complaint.

God’s Response

Then the LORD answered me and said:

Write down the vision;

Make it plain upon tablets,

so that the one who reads it may run.

For the vision is a witness for the appointed time,

a testimony to the end; it will not disappoint.

If it delays, wait for it,

it will surely come, it will not be late.

See, the rash have no integrity;

but the just one who is righteous because of faith shall live.

Sayings Against Tyrants

Indeed wealth is treacherous;

a proud man does not succeed.

He who opens wide his throat like Sheol,

and is insatiable as death,

Who gathers to himself all the nations,

and collects for himself all the peoples—

Shall not all these take up a taunt against him

and make a riddle about him, saying:

Ah! you who store up what is not yours

—how long can it last!—

you who load yourself down with collateral.

Will your debtors not rise suddenly?

Will they not awake, those who make you tremble?

You will become their spoil!

Because you plundered many nations,

the remaining peoples shall plunder you;

Because of the shedding of human blood,

and violence done to the land,

to the city and to all who live in it.

Ah! you who pursue evil gain for your household,

setting your nest on high

to escape the reach of misfortune!

You have devised shame for your household,

cutting off many peoples, forfeiting your own life;

For the stone in the wall shall cry out,

and the beam in the frame shall answer it!

Ah! you who build a city by bloodshed,

and who establish a town with injustice!

Is this not from the LORD of hosts:

peoples toil for what the flames consume,

and nations grow weary for nothing!

But the earth shall be filled

with the knowledge of the LORD’s glory,

just as the water covers the sea.

Ah! you who give your neighbors

the cup of your wrath to drink, and make them drunk,

until their nakedness is seen!

You are filled with shame instead of glory;

drink, you too, and stagger!

The cup from the LORD’s right hand shall come around to you,

and utter shame shall cover your glory.

For the violence done to Lebanon shall cover you,

and the destruction of the animals shall terrify you;

Because of the shedding of human blood,

and violence done to the land,

to the city and to all who live in it.

Of what use is the carved image,

that its maker should carve it?

Or the molten image, the lying oracle,

that its very maker should trust in it,

and make mute idols?

Ah! you who say to wood, “Awake!”

to silent stone, “Arise!”

Can any such thing give oracles?

It is only overlaid with gold and silver,

there is no breath in it at all.

But the LORD is in his holy temple;

silence before him, all the earth!

Hymn About God’s Reign

Prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet. According to Shigyonot.

LORD, I have heard your renown,

and am in awe, O LORD, of your work.

In the course of years revive it,

in the course of years make yourself known;

in your wrath remember compassion!

God came from Teman,

the Holy One from Mount Paran.

Selah
 

His glory covered the heavens,

and his praise filled the earth;

his splendor spread like the light.

He raised his horns high,

he rejoiced on the day of his strength.

Before him went pestilence,

and plague^* followed in his steps.

He stood and shook the earth;

he looked and made the nations tremble.

Ancient mountains were shattered,

the age-old hills bowed low,

age-old orbits collapsed.

The tents of Cushan trembled,

the pavilions of the land of Midian.

Was your anger against the rivers, O LORD?

your wrath against the rivers,

your rage against the sea,

That you mounted your steeds,

your victorious chariot?

You readied your bow,

you filled your bowstring with arrows.

Selah
 

You split the earth with rivers;

at the sight of you the mountains writhed.

The clouds poured down water;

the deep roared loudly.

The sun forgot to rise,

the moon left its lofty station,

At the light of your flying arrows,

at the gleam of your flashing spear.

In wrath you marched on the earth,

in fury you trampled the nations.

You came forth to save your people,

to save your anointed one.

You crushed the back of the wicked,

you laid him bare, bottom to neck.

Selah
 

You pierced his head with your shafts;

his princes you scattered with your stormwind,

as food for the poor in unknown places.

You trampled the sea with your horses

amid the churning of the deep waters.

I hear, and my body trembles;

at the sound, my lips quiver.

Decay invades my bones,

my legs tremble beneath me.

I await the day of distress

that will come upon the people who attack us.

For though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit appears on the vine,

Though the yield of the olive fails

and the terraces produce no nourishment,

Though the flocks disappear from the fold

and there is no herd in the stalls,

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD

and exult in my saving God.

GOD, my Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet swift as those of deer

and enables me to tread upon the heights.

For the leader; with stringed instruments.

Game Two of the 1916 World Series

Game Two of the 1916 World Series, courtesy of 100 Years Ago Today Sub Reddit:

[October 8th, 1916] Boston Red Sox defeat Brooklyn Robins 2-1 In Game 2 of 1916 World Series (self.100yearsago)

submitted 21 hours ago by dozmataz_buckshank

Brooklyn 1 @ Boston 2

FULL GAME STATISTICS INCLUDING PLAY BY PLAY

Line Score - Final

                1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9  10 11 12  13 14    R  H  E
                -  -  -   -  -  -   -  -  -   -  -  -   -  -    -  -  -
Dodgers         1  0  0   0  0  0   0  0  0   0  0  0   0  0    1  6  2
Red Sox         0  0  1   0  0  0   0  0  0   0  0  0   0  1    2  7  1

Decisions

Winning Pitcher	Losing Pitcher
Babe Ruth (1-0, 0.64)	Sherry Smith (0-1, 1.35)

Tight game! Hal Javrin out at the plate, bottom of the 9th

This is the legendary fourteen inning World Series, the longest World Series game ever played, and one in which there was but a single run.  Amazing.

Babe Ruth, we should note, pitched this game. We don't think of Ruth as a pitcher, but he was early in his career, and he was a great one.

Truly a great game.

Poster Saturday: The M1 does my talking.

Blog Mirror: Epochs Field Guide to Camouflage

I'll confess, I find camouflage interesting. 

This is in part because I'm a hunter. 

When I was young, a long time ago now, if you saw camouflage in daily wear, it meant that the wearer was undoubtedly a hunter.  Indeed, when I was in junior high I had a neat winter coat that was blaze orange on one side and had the "duck hunter" (WWII) camouflage pattern on the on the other.  It was reversible, and it was a neat, down, coat.

At the same time, or thereabouts, I joined the Civil Air Patrol.  The Vietnam War hadn't been over long and the CAP actually had some tiger stripe uniforms that it issued to those small enough to wear them.  Tiger Stripe is a neat camo.  I wore those for duck hunting until I outgrew them and donated them to somebody else.  Little did I think they'd become highly collectable.  Oh well.

In recent years, however, camouflage has spread into daily wear big time.  Lots of folks who have never fired a gun and who get no closer to wild game than the pigeons in the park wear camouflage clothing all the time.  I've thought about posting about that here, but I haven't yet.  Now somebody else has, so I'm linking it in:

Epochs Field Guild to Camouflage:

Introduction

Menswear in the last few years has seen a profusion of camouflage motifs. In the past you would occasionally see camo used in a fashion collection or a subculture like punk, hip-hop or the 1990’s jungle scene. It’s really only in the last decade that it has become a staple, largely driven by heritage–minded Japanese brands and the streetwear scene. This is your field guide to the history, original use & application of camo in modern clothing

It's a neat article, but I should note.  It contains an error in a caption. That caption being:

 A usmc soldier in Frogskin camouflage near Normandy, France.

Nope, that guy is in the Army, not the Marine Corps.  No Marines served in ground combat in the European Theater of Operations (there would be shipboard Marines, of course, and the Marines did have a presence on the ground in Iceland during the war).  The frog pattern camouflage was introduced first in the Army, for snipers, but the average GI associated any camouflage patter in Europe with the Waffen SS, which made wearing it in an American sector dangerous.  So it was withdrawn from Europe.  Sources differ, but the frog pattern uniforms were either simply given to the USMC which kept up with issuing them to some thereafter, or maybe they simply adopted it independantly.  Again, I've seen both stories.

Anyhow, neat article with a neat assortment of camouflage patterns discussed.

A note to myself

The Wyoming Tribune for October 7, 1916: Boston takes game one of the world series

Note, this is the 3:30 pm edition of the Tribune.

Active at the time and in the region. Frank A. Meanea

Frank A. Meanea is one of the most famous of the late 19th and early 20th Century saddlemakers. 

Meanea started off his career by working with his uncle, the also famous (in this topic) saddlemaker E. L. Gallatin.  They located in Cheyenne in the very late 1860s, a period in which Cheyenne was in its infancy.  In 1881 Meanea had become sufficiently well known as a maker that the company began to make leather items under Meanea's name as F. A. Meanea Saddlery.  It would continue to operate under that name until 1928, Meanea's death.  It would retain its Cheyenne base that entire time, although oddly enough there was a period of time in which it had a presence in the Yukon, reflecting that Canadian Territory's pioneering days.

Meanea's is very famous for the Cheyenne style of Western stock saddle, some features of which we still see today. The Cheyenne Roll was a Meanea innovation.  His shop was also associated with a type of Mexican Loop holster and it was Meanea who introduced the Cheyenne Plug (closed bottom) to that type of very widely used Frontier Era holster.

Meanea's shop was substantial, employing over 20 people at the height of its production  He operated not only by direct sales, but by mail order, something that was fairly common at the time.

Game 1, 1916 World Series (courtesy of 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit).

[October 7th, 1916] Boston Red Sox defeat Brooklyn Robins in Game 1 of 1916 World Series (self.100yearsago)

submitted 4 hours ago by

Brooklyn 5 @ Boston 6

FULL GAME STATISTICS INCLUDING PLAY BY PLAY

Line Score - Final

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
BRO	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	9	5	10	4
BOS	0	0	1	0	1	0	3	1	x	6	8	1

Decisions

Winning Pitcher	Losing Pitcher
Ernie Shore (1-0, 3.12)	Rube Marquard (0-1, 3.86)

Video footage of Game 1

Potato Digger

One Sided. Georgia Tech v. Cumberland College, October 7, 1916.

As difficult as it is to grasp, this day is the anniversary of a 1916 football game in which Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland College in football game with a final score of 222 to 0.

Something questions the sportsmanship of something here.

Illinois Guardsmen return home to warm welcome

Illinois welcomed its Guardsmen back home, just as Wyoming had just sent its off.  Courtesy of 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit.

Bass Pro Shop swallows Cabelas. . . a Distributist Sportsman's Lament

This past week the news broke that Bass Pro Shop bought its rival, Sidney Nebraska based Cabelas.

Ah, pooh.

News, truly, I wish hadn't come.

Now, why, doggone it, as a red blooded American, am I lamenting the time honored business model of one company swallowing another?  Geez Louise man, aren't I for motherhood, apple pie, and unrestrained acquisition?

Well, I'm for motherhood and I like apple pie, but. . . . 

I'm also for subsidiarity. 

Now, before I go on to explain that, I should note that Missouri based Bass Pro Shop says it'll keep the Cabelaas flag flying, so there will be,  they say,in some form, a Cabelas and a Bass Pro.

Well, I'm skeptical.

Generally, quite frankly, that's not how these thing go long term.   Bass Pro Shop and Cabelas are competitors. While they likely do not perfectly overlap, they do to a large extent, and long term, it won't make sense for both of them to keep on. At some point, I suspect, Bass Pro Shop will figure it makes more sense to just have all of those stores be Bass Pro Shops.  

But I suspect it won't be the best for them, for the same reason. 

Which brings me to subsidiarity.

Subsidiarity, according to Wikipedia, is defined as follows:

Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.

Put another way:

It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry. Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno, pg.79

Now, there's a lot to this, but the basic gist of it is as noted above.  The concept is that needs are best met at the local level, and for that matter, the market is best met at the local level.  This isn't always true, but it tend to be.  It's best, generally, for the local employees, and its often best for the local market, or consumer.

As an example of that, I'd note, big chain sporting goods stores (and Cabelas is one, but I'm not pointing at them) often stock weird items for the local market.  We see that here on odd occasion when we'll have a big national chain that stocks something like gigantic fishing poles, or deer stands, neither of which are used here.  One Canadian based sporting goods store that has an outlet here stocks the gigantic fishing poles, and while they're interesting, I'll be they hardly ever sell one.

Which is why I favor a local sporting goods store here that is part of a chain, but just a statewide one.  It's the best store in town, in my view, and this is likely because it knows its market.

Indeed, occasionally there were rumors that Cabelas would come in here and I always hoped they wouldn't. So far they haven't.  But I'd rather have Sidney Nebraska based Cabelas around here than Missouri based Bass Pro.

Which goes to the fact that I tend to still look at Cabelas and Bass Pro as types of mail order outfits that were pioneered by Herters years ago. That is, while they have expanded to have retail outlets, it was really mail order that made them what they were and, in that sense, they occupied a different category than brick and mortar stores.  At least as to Cabelas it wasn't that they were cheaper, as they often were not, but rather that you could order stuff from them that you couldn't otherwise get locally.  So they were like a smaller singular entity in a certain fashion. When they started to have multiple outlets that sort of changed and while I certainly stopped in some of those outlets here and there, I was never really comfortable with it.

The consolidation of these companies always seem to be a market trend and its something that can only occur because of the corporate structure that all large companies adopt.  This gives them the ability to expand to giant size but that also works, at some point, to cause them to absorb their competition.  If corporate business forms didn't work the way that they do, retail operations could not expand like this.  And the absorption doesn't always go that well.  Bass Pro never impressed me that much, for example, as it seemed focused, to my mind, on a certain southern style of fishing that doesn't exist here.  Cabelas seemed more Mid Western to me. 

Well, as noted immediately above, if corporate business forms didn't work the way that they do, retail operations could not expand like this.

And perhaps its sad that they can. 

Crime in France and the United States. Rates, cause and effect.

News comes to us that Kim Khardashian was robbed at gun point in France.  Now, while I don't admire the Khardashians, who seemingly have made a living out of being famous for being famous and for wearing clothing that's basically indecent, or sometimes no clothing at all, being robbed is bad, and being robbed at gun point no doubt very traumatic.  May she recover from the trauma soon, and perhaps, in addition, take a lesson away about being famous for flashing. . . jewels or whatever.

Anyhow, this shocker, in the US, no doubt comes with the added shock for some that, surely, France being a European nation, and (while its not true) Europe being a big gun free zone (again, not true) surely there's very little robbery in France.

Hmmmm

FindTheData | Graphiq

FindTheData | Graphiq

Gee, this would suggests, um, no prove that the robbery rate in the United is declining to just about half of France's rate.

Well, lets just talk about theft in general.

Here's the burglary rate for the US:

FindTheData | Graphiq

Here it is for France:

FindTheData | Graphiq

Hmm, actually just about the same.

Not that all crimes are equal in both countries.

Here's one of the worst:

FindTheData | Graphiq

And in the US. We come out the worst here by far:

FindTheData | Graphiq

Well, what about murder:

FindTheData | Graphiq

FindTheBest | Graphiq

FindTheData | Graphiq

FindTheBest | Graphiq

The lesson?

I don't know if there is one, but the simple conclusions some like to draw about implements doesn't seem born out.

Violent Crime in the United States

Graphiq

Corporate inversion

Graphiq

Find the Company

FindTheCompany | Graphiq

The Wyoming National Guard and the Punitive Expedition

I'll confess, in making this post, that I have a soft spot for the National Guard.  In no small part that may be because I was in the Army National Guard for six years.  From 1981 to 1987, I was a member of the HHB 3d Bn 49th FA.  It is, in my view, one of the unqualified smart things I did after turning 18 years old, i.e., in my adult life.

 I've repeated this photograph of mustered Wyoming National Guardsmen from Powell several times, but its' the only such photo I have ready access to.  There are other photos of the Wyoming National Guard from this period, but not which I'm certain as to the rights to publish to.  This photo is quite interesting. The Guardsmen are dressed in the what appears to be the current pattern of Army uniform including the newly adopted M1911 campaign hat. They carry M1903 Springfield rifles which were then quite new (and in this case probably almost brand new manufacture).  They carry bed rolls rather than back packs, however, showing the retention of a Frontier Army method of carrying personal equipment.

Having been in a Guard unit, however, does make you cognizant of how unfairly they are sometimes viewed.  My unit, the 3d Bn 49th FA, was rated as combat ready the entire time I was in it and it often had the highest combat rating that the Army recognized, higher than many Regular Army units.  That it was highly rated isn't a surprise when it is considered that everyone who was in the unit wanted to be there. Moreover, in the early to mid 1980s the unit was really still in the wake of the Vietnam War and it was full of Vietnam War combat veterans.  The unit even had some Korean War combat veterans still in it, including a couple who had served with the Guard in the Korean War, and there was one remaining World War Two veteran, although he wasn't a combat vet.  Suffice it to say, the depth of knowledge in the unit was vast.  If we were, on average, older than a comparable Regular Army unit, we were also a lot more experienced as a unit as well.  Not too many Regular Army artillery units had men who wore Combat Infantry Badges nor did very many Regular Army units have NCOs who had been officers in the Marine Corps or Navy.  We did.

So, in that context its  hard not to feel a little insulted by the term "weekend warrior", although admittedly you don't hear that much anymore given that so many Guard units have served overseas in our recent wars.  Even so, its definitely the case that the Guard hasn't received its due over the years, sometimes simply by default, but sometimes because its been unfairly slighted.

Anyhow, given as we've been posting nearly daily here for awhile on the Wyoming National Guard in 1916, it  might be nice to fill that story out a bit.   What was the unit?  What was it like?  What became of it?  It's a story we haven't really told here.  And for that matter, it's a story we haven't told on our companion site on Wyoming history, This Day In Wyoming's History.  We really should.  

Indeed, we thought about posting this as a sidebar there, and we in fact will, but we will post it first here, as this blog is the one that's really been looking into 1916.

But in order to do that we need to go back a bit further, indeed, all the way back.  Prior, that is, to 1776.  If we don't, we can't really understand the story of the National Guard in any context.

For most of this nation's history the bulk of our military manpower hasn't been in the Regular Army, it's been in the militia.  And that was both by accident and design.  Few now realize it, but every American had a militia obligation prior to the 20th Century, an obligation that has been transferred over to the Federal government by statute but which many state's still retain as an uncalled upon obligation as well.  Prior to at least the Civil War, however, the obligation was very real indeed.

In the Colonial era all men of military age, which was generally men over 16 up until age 60, were members of the militia.  The militia mustered at least once a year to drill; not much training, but it was an era when not much training time was available and such training as there was often took little time.  Failure to make muster was a crime, but then generally most people somewhat looked forward to the muster as it was the occasion for a community party as a rule.  Colonial militias, early on, did a lot of fighting however, almost all of it in brutal Indian wars the nation has more or less forgotten.  Some spectacularly violent Colonial wars, such as King Philips War, were entirely fought, on the colonist side, by militias.

When the Revolution broke out it was militia that really filled the ranks of the American forces, keeping in mind that state units were little removed from militia even if purpose raised for the conflict.  This would be the pattern all the way through the Civil War.  A Continental, i.e., regular, Army was raised, but it was state units that formed the ranks everywhere.  Units raised by the individual thirteen colonies and dedicated to the conflict alongside the national army, and local militias called out for individual fights.  Indeed, the term "Continental Army" doesn't even make sense until a person stops to consider that it was drawn from, and fought for, the entire continent (ignoring the fact that the Spanish on the continent and the French, and well even 1/3d of the English colonist in the thirteen colonies didn't agree with that suggestion).  This army defeated the British army on the continent although its worth noting that the British also used a militia system, although they did not attempt to deploy mustered English militiamen beyond their shores, at least not until World War One.  They did deploy colonial militia, however, during the Revolution themselves, something that's often somewhat forgotten, and some Minute Men mustered for the Crown, not the Congress.

 American troops evacuating New York, 1783.

Following the Revolution, Congress sought to  avoid having a large Regular Army, so it didn't.  The founding fathers were well aware that standing armies were a threat to a democratic government, and indeed to any government. They all knew the example of the Praetorian Guards in Rome well.  And if, in hindsight, that example seems remote, France reminded us of how current it remained when the French Army deposed the Republic and ultimately put a new Emperor, Napoleon, on the thrown of allegedly Republican France.   The US didn't want a big standing Army.  It needed a standing Navy, but navies, being deployed or deployable at sea, rarely pose a threat to their government.  So a small army it would be.  The land forces of the United States would be principally vested in the state militias with it being acknowledged that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  In the event of war Congress would rely mostly on state troops, was the thinking, and state part time troops wouldn't pose a threat to the republic and might even form its guardian in the event of undemocratic impulses somewhere.

Only in really big wars was it necessary to go much beyond that.  It proved necessary to do so during the War of 1812, although the Federalized militias formed the bulk of the US forces then. Ironically, in Canada, it would be mustered Canadian militias that would toss the  American forces back out, proving that a force nearly entirely made up of militias, the Canadian one, was adequate to defeat a force made up mostly of militias, the American one.  The Mexican War also saw the mustering of state troops, some raised just for the war, the latter of which were nearly a species of militia.  

This latter example was the rule for the Civil War in which both sides fought with regular armies, but which also saw both sides commit the bulk of their forces in the form of state forces.  That's forgotten by some but the Union and Confederate armies were not simply national armies by quite some measure.  The Confederate regular army was actually quite small.  The Union one was bigger, but the bulk of the Union forces were state troops raised for the conflict, a type of mustered militia.  Pre war militias also fought as Federalized units during the war, and quite often non Federalized militias, in both the North and the South, were mustered when the war came to their areas. The Battle of Gettysburg, for example, provides a classic.  The Union forces included units that were Regular Army units as well as many state units, but even the militia from Gettysburg itself fought on the first day (successfully, it might be noted).

New York militia in camp, Harper's Ferry.

The Civil War was the high water mark of the old militia system. By that time war was becoming increasingly more complicated and hence required increasingly more formal training.  Pre Civil War militia varied enormously in every measurable respect, although Congress had sought to provide some uniformity, and some equipment, right from the onset. After the war the United States government sought to impose more uniformity on state militias so that they would match more closely the United States Army.  Generally, state militias were happy to cooperate and conform to Federal requirements wherever they could, with Federal assistance.  In some rare instances, however, state units would actually exceed the Army in some respect, such as the New York National Guard, which was equipped with better arms than the U.S. Army was in the late 19th Century.

 Rhode Island Zouave, Civil War.  Popular with some New England states (and there being at least even one Confederate such unit) these units were regarded as elite and patterned their dress after French North African troops.  In Union service they tended to be issued the M1863 .58 variant of what had been the M1841 .54 rifle which ad the advantage, if it was one, of taking a huge sword bayonet.

By the Spanish American War most states had a National Guard that was equipped with Federal equipment, although it was often the case that the Guard's equipment was older than the Army's.  Federalized National Guard units in the Spanish American War, for example, often had old Army uniforms rather than the current ones.  Nonetheless they were brought up to Army standards for the war and the following Philippine Insurrection.

 8th Illinois, 1899.  This was a black Illinois militia unit.  The uniforms are correct for the period but are a pattern that was being phased out of the Army at that time and wouldn't be around much longer.

The Spanish American War and the Philippine Insurrection were the last instances in which states raised forces specifically for the war, although this was done within the context of mustering the National Guard.  Wyoming, for example, sent over 1400 men to those wars which was far more than served in its very small pre war National Guard.  Indeed, while Wyoming had a National Guard dating back to territorial days, it had been minuscule and the ranks of its state units, raised just for the war, swelled during the Philippine Insurrection.

 By the Spanish American War and Philippine Insurrection war photography had begun to take on a more modern appearance.    California and Idaho troops in churchyard at San Pedro Macati, Philippines.

During the Philippine Insurrection Wyoming contributed the 1st Wyoming Infantry Battalion and the Wyoming Light Battery to the war, units that were formed principally from mustered Wyoming National Guard units.  This is complicated, however, by the fact that the Army was authorized (or more properly instructed) to raise volunteer cavalry units and these units were in fact organized on a regional basis.  In Wyoming's case Wyoming volunteers to these units went to the 2nd United States Volunteer Cavalry and the 36th United States Volunteer Infantry.  While units within the Army's establishments, these were not really Regular Army units in practice, existed only during the conflicts and were really basically an extension, or perhaps more accurately an evolution, of the Civil War state forces system.  The Wyoming Army National Guard today still uses a unit patch for some units of a cavalryman of the 2nd United States Volunteer Cavalry, showing how close the connection was.

 

August 13, 1898  Colorado and Wyoming volunteer infantry raise the US flag for the first time over Manila.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

After the Civil War a struggle broke out between backers of the National Guard and the Army over incorporating the Guard officially into the Army as its reserve.  While this is fairly clearly an aspect of what the Guard was, up until that time that last formal link had not been established and some in the Army establishment resisted it even giving thought to forming a separate Army reserve.  The reasons that can be debated but there were individuals who were quite partisan on either side of the debate  They failed in their effort, however, and the Dick Act, named after a Congressman who supported it and who served in the National Guard, became law in 1903 and the Guard was officially made the reserve of the Army, bringing the ties even closer.  By 1908 Congress authorized deploying the Guard outside of the United States although Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General would opine that to be illegal, which resulted in a Congressional act providing for simply conscripting  Guardsmen into the Army should that be necessary.

This is the Guard that existed in 1916 when Columbus New Mexico was attacked in Villa's raid.  It was officially a reserve of the Army, but its quality varied by state.  In some rare instances small units were still very much the province of a local community or even individual, who contributed funding to the unit and who sometimes even purchased non standard arms.  Some units were social units, made up of social elites, who actually spent more money being National  Guardsmen than they received back in the form of drill pay.  Others were made up of rough and tumble locals who needed the drill pay, in an era when drills tended to be weekly, on a week night.  Pay was provided, as noted, but retirement, which is now a feature of long Guard service, was not.

The Wyoming National Guard (there was no "Army" National Guard at the time, Army units were National Guard, states with Naval units had them Naval Militia) between the Spanish American War and World War One were infantry.  This often surprises people but there are real reasons for it.  People want to believe that a state like Wyoming must have had cavalry but even by the Spanish American War that was not true.

Early on, even before statehood, Wyoming had militia units that were in fact cavalry, but that was in the context of contemplating deploying them against highly mobile Indians. After statehood the expense, probably, and difficulty, of keeping mounts for cavalry would likely have made that impractical.  Infantry was much easier to keep.  Indeed, while I do not know a great deal about the early cavalry units chances are very high that the horses used by those units belonged to the individual troopers and not to the state.

The forces committed by the state to the border in the Punitive Expedition were to be eight companies of infantry. Wyoming had nine on paper.  One was to be kept home, something fairly typical for big deployments.  But that didn't mean that nine full strength companies actually existed.  They did not.  So, after the Guard was called up the state spent weeks recruiting to bring the unit up to full strength.  We've read about that in the newspaper articles that have been posted on this site.

The mustered  Guard assembled at Cheyenne but it wasn't allowed by the  Army to to use Ft. D. A. Russell as a training ground, a raw deal really that was fairly inexcusable as the post's training range was enormous.  Instead, the state formed Camp Kendrick which is where Cheyenne's Frontier Park is today.  The Guard trained there all summer long. By late summer there were constant rumors about immediate deployments, and as we have seen, when the official orders came it was at first thought the unit would be deployed to San Antonio, but it was instead sent to Deming New Mexico.

At Camp Cody outside of Deming it trained further and took up the role of patrolling and garrisoning as infantry.  By the time the Wyoming Guard was deployed other Guard units had been on duty on the border for quite some time and were rotating back home.  Principally the unit trained, however, until the Regular Army returned from Mexico and the Guard was released on January 17, 1917, to return home.  In a real sense its mere presence was its mission as it served as a ready force, along with many other units, if Villa became fully resurgent or if war broke out with Mexico.

Their return in January 1917 would be brief.  The United States would enter World War One in April of that year and the recently mustered out National Guard would be called back into service.  In 1917, prior to the call up, the strength of the active Army was 200,000 men, 80,000 of which were still serving  Guardsmen. During the Great War 40% of the combat soldiers in the U.S. Army were Guardsmen who were formed into nineteen divisions.  While the U.S. Army balked at relying heavily on the Guard at the start of the formation of the Allied Expeditionary Force in 1917 the truth of the matter is that the Army would have been incapable of deploying when it did but for the Guard.  This didn't keep the Army from looking down on Guardsmen, particularly on National Guard officers, but during the war the Guard proved its mettle and served very ably.

The Punitive Expedition service, therefore had served as a nearly year long training period for the Guard that would serve it well.  In Wyoming's case that service would not be as infantry, however, and the Guard would experience a phenomenon that's not atypical for Guard units of being re-formed into some other type of unit at the start of war.  The Wyoming National Guard was converted into heavy artillery, predicting a role that it would resume after World War Two.  That conversion is a bit surprising, really as conversion into artillery during the Great War was common for cavalry, but not really infantry.  However, the Wyoming National  Guard was not a large unit and the Army created for World War One was an enormous Army, so the conversion of a unit about 600 men in strength into artillery made some sense. The bucking horse symbol came into military use at that time, as the Wyoming National Guard painted that symbol on its artillery pieces, something that they would do again during the Korean War.

Bad photograph of World War One era Wyoming National Guard symbols on monument in Cody Wyoming.

After being re-formed following World War One; the Wyoming  Guard would in fact become cavalry during the the 1920s, and remain so until converted into Horse-Mechanized Cavalry just before World War Two, and then armored cavalry during the war, and finally to artillery after World War Two.  Various designations have come and gone, but its been the Wyoming Guard all along.  Just recently, infantry returned to the Wyoming Army National Guard in the form of a small infantry unit; the first one the state has had since the 1920s.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Further reading and partial sources:

The Wyoming Guard on the Mexican Border, 1916

Carl V. Hallberg

A grim prognosis from George F. Will.

Conservatives might be well advised to read George F. Will's most recent pessimistic column, which starts out:

Looking on the bright side, perhaps this election can teach conservatives to look on the dark side. They need a talent for pessimism, recognizing the signs that whatever remains of American exceptionalism does not immunize this nation from decay, to which all regimes are susceptible.

Will goes on to discuss his point at length, noting, I think, of interest:

Nothing lasts. If Trump wins, the GOP ends as a vehicle for conservatism. And a political idea without a political party is an orphan in an indifferent world.

Grim.

I'd note that, at least in my view, the situation for liberalism, in a true sense, isn't much better.

One Reservation, two tribes, and two courts

I've written several times recently about the breakdown over the Tribal Court at Ft. Washakie.  This past week, things seemed to move along towards where they were seemingly headed.

The BIA determined to set up a new CFR Court for the Shoshone nation. Therefore the Wind River Reservation Tribal Court will no longer have jurisdiction over members of the Shoshone nation.  The Court will retain, however, jurisdiction over Shoshone tribal members who had cases pending in the court prior to the establishment of the CFR Court, which has now been established.  Otherwise, the Tribal Court will have jurisdiction only over members of the Arapaho nation.

The Court, it should be noted, has under advisement penalties for members of the Joint Business Council, all Shoshone right now, who were recently found in contempt due to trying to dissolve the court.  A hearing was recently held and, according to the Casper Star Tribune, those individuals did not appear but lawyers for the Arapaho tribe did and they urged jail sentences for those found in contempt.

All of this, while it may be a temporary resolution, is hardly a satisfactory one.  Two tribes, one shared reservation, two courts.  This seems to be guaranteed to be problematic.

The Big Picture: St. Paul Minnesota, 1916

St. Paul Minnesota, Copyright October 6, 1916

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Chapel, Ft. Phil Kearny, Wyoming

Churches of the West: Chapel, Ft. Phil Kearny, Wyoming:

This will, undoubtedly, be an unusual entry here. Where's the church?

Well, this is where it was. This was the location of Ft. Phil Kearny's post chapel. The entire post was destroyed after the Army evacuated this post as a result of the settlement that resulted ending Red Cloud's War. The destruction of the post left the locations of fort structures, and even the dimensions of the fort, a mystery up until quite recently.

This was an Army chapel, so I don't know if we can say if it had a denomination, but the Army chaplain stationed here, who also taught at the post grade school, was a Methodist minister.

Ft. Phil Kearny was constructed in 1866.

Harley and the Davidsons

Having recently finished all the episodes of Foyles War, and seeing that this historical drama was running on the the Discovery Channel, and liking Harley Davidson motorcycles, I decided to watch it.

 The founders of Harley Davidson Motor Cycle Company, William A. Davidson, Walter Davidson, Sr., Arthur Davidson and William S. Harley

Now, let me note, I like Harley Davidson motorcycles.  I don't own one. And I don't really know all that much about the company's history or those who founded the company. So, this review is an odd one in that I'm reviewing a topic I really don't know very much about.  That's important as I understand that this television drama takes liberties with its story, but I'll miss a lot of them (other than to be suspecting that I'm seeing them).  However, the concluding snippets at the end would suggest that some things I thought were liberties were not, so again, for a review of its accuracy, a person probably can't rely on this.

 Harley Davidson motorcycle on flat track, 1919.

This drama follows the company and its founders from the creation of their very first motorcycle until the introduction of its 1934 model which more or less introduced the motorcycle we recognize today.  In other words from 1903 to 1934.  FWIW, I know enough about the company to know that the film was accurate in these regards. The first Harley was built in the shed behind one of the founder's parents home, and in 34 Harley did introduce what was then a radical new motorcycle in spite of the ongoing Great Depression.

Beyond that, I think that the drama takes a huge number of liberties.  Harley was their engineer, but the story doesn't make it clear that he graduated as an engineer from the University of Wisconsin before the company truly took off.  Harley is shown getting married, which he did, but the fact that he and his wife had several children is oddly omitted.  His wife, Anna Jachthuber (nee) is shown being critically ill for a time, and I don't know if that's correct or not.  Arthur Davidson is correctly depicted as the company's marketing genius.  That he had several children is also omitted.    Arthur Davidson and William Harley were really the two main designers of the motorcycles, so what role Walter Davidson senior or junior had I don't know, other than that they had some.

Indian Motorcycles and its business leadership is depicted as evil in the film, which doesn't reflect reality.   It was just a slightly older (two years) competitor with Harley for a long time. Apparently the makes of the film thought they needed some sort of long lasting rivalry as a plot device.

So, while there are accurate details (the relationship with a Japanese company, albeit brief, did occur) there are a lot of departures from the truth as well.

Well, on to material details.

I understand that the makes of this film studied the early motorcycles at Harley's museum and I believe they are accurately depicted.  It is neat to see these (scary) early bikes depicted in such large numbers.  Various details like that are well depicted.  Clothing is predicted accurately, although the wearing of it isn't always.  Walter Davidson, for example, is shown often wearing an open collar banded collar shirt with no starched collar attached and no tie. That just wouldn't have happened in that era.  An early female motorcycle club racer is inserted in the plot for the 1930s, which is unlikely. The frequent insertion of horses, however, is accurate and nicely done.

All in all, it's entertaining, but probably not very accurate history. 

Lessons?

Idaho, like Wyoming, went for Ted Cruz in the GOP primary.

Idaho, like Wyoming, has a lot of public land that the public likes to use.  Cruz during the primary espoused the toxic idea that the public lands should go to the states.

Well, a large Idaho ranch bought by two extremely rich Texans, at least one of whom was a Cruz supporter, just locked up access, right in front of elk season in the area, through his lands, effectively eliminating the ability of Idaho hunters who hunt there.

I feel sorry for them, truly, . . .unless they voted for Cruz, in which case they are getting exactly what they deserve.

And Wyomingites who don't challenge our candidates who make such statements are setting this exact scenario up on a massive scale.

The Best Post of the Week of September 25, 2016

The Wyoming National Guard, what was it doing and where was it going?

Poster Saturday: Enlist, you darned slacker weenie.

Sunday State Leader for October 1, 1916: Guard arrives at border and placed under command of a Regular

The news broke that the Wyoming National Guard made it to the border; Deming New Mexico to be exact.

And UW went down to defeat against the Colorado Aggies in football.

Wilson apparently warned that voting in the GOP risked war, an ironic statement, given what we knew would happen in a few short monts.

Europe, 1916

From the October 1916 edition of The Masses.

Re-imagining the Wyoming Election System. Making it fair and democratic

Right now, for state elections, Wyoming has a system that many states have.

Here's the way it works.

Republicans who want to run for office file to run in the primary against other Republicans.

Democrats who want to run for office file to run in the primary against other Democrats.

And Libertarians, which are a recognized party in Wyoming, do the same.

At the primary, people who have registered ad Republicans get to vote for the Republicans.

And people who have registered as Democrats get to vote for the Democrats.

And the same for the Libertarians.

And then the county clerks tally up the vote.

So a party election, in effect, is held on the county dime.

That, in spite of my just going off on it, generally works okay, but its not really fully democratic.  And it gives us the situation we currently have in which we have Democrats who are probably actually middle of the road Republicans running against other Republicans, and then Republicans who actually are some sort of radical Libertarian running as though they are Republicans, and whom might even think they actually are.

This is a poor system.

Here would be a better one.

Let anyone who registers to run in the primary run, irrespective of party.

Let everyone who is a registered voter vote in the primary.  Don't even take their party affiliation down, or let it be taken down (why should I have to register my party with the county?).  At the primary election the top vote getters will be determined.

Let the top two vote getters run against each other in the general election, and the winner of that election gets the office.  If, in the primary, the top five positions are within 100 votes of each other, let them all go on to the general.

If we did that, we'd have a better chance of getting an office holder who people actually supported.  Most people don't really fit into either party, and frankly the parties aren't real parties anyway as each party has a huge division within itself.  And if we're voting for the man, rather than the party, anyhow, who cares what party they are in?

This would avoid, I'd note, a situation like we have seen this year in House District 57, in which Chuck Gray was running against Ray Pacheco in order to go on to run against Audrey Cotherman (the Democrat).  Part of that race was taken up by Gray accusing Pacheco of not being a real Republican because he used to be a Democrat.  Pacheco perhaps should have accused Gray of not being a real Republican, or at least not a Wyoming Republican, but rather being a Libertarian, but he didn't.  But, as there were only three contenders anyhow, why waste all this goofball time and effort about which party any of them are in and, instead, discuss what they actually think?

For that matter, if we had a similar system for hte U.S. House I wonder what the race we now have would be?   I doubt it would be Cheney against Greene, and while I think Cheney would be in it, I don't think she's likely be the winner as chances are that one of the other popular Republicans would be.

The Two Party System is broken, stupid, and anti democratic. Would that we could ditch it. . .

rather than institutionalize it, the way we have.

It'd dumb beyond belief.

Nationally, its insanity has given us the two distasteful candidates, one of whom is going to become a massively unpopular President by default.  Locally, it's bolted a rational traditional Wyoming GOP with a radical GOP that's out of tune with Wyoming's people.  The Democratic party is the same way, with some solid middle of the road, Wyoming, candidates, and some who seem to think they're sitting a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in 1917.

It's pathetic.

And the two party system is to blame.

Time to dump this decrepit system.

Let us consider it carefully.

The essence of the two party political system is a stunning conclusion that all human opinions can be categorized into two groups.  It's the ultimate "there are two kinds of people" statement on human nature.

Well, dear reader, there are not "two kinds of people".  Not hardly.

And the fact that both parties are split into more than one group themselves is ample proof of that.

But let us move on to the categories that a two party system supposed.

We have two parties, the Grand Old Party (the Republicans) and the Democratic Party, which is supposedly the oldest standing political party in the world (true only if you accept that the same Democratic Party which was such a huge fan of slavery is the same one we have today.  . . which isn't the case).

The GOP is the "conservative" party. The Democrats are, at least sometimes, the "liberal" party, or the "progressive" party (an odd term in and of itself, as progressive means we're progressing towards something, . . . but what is that something?).

Okay, on this, we are to believe, for example, that the conservative GOP is the party that's opposed to abortion, in favor of the free market, opposed to high taxation, and for a strong defense.  It's also, we are told, opposed to gun control.  It's for law and order, we're told.  And its for a strong defense, but  not an activist foreign policy.

The Democrats are the opposite of these things. They're for abortion and euthanasia (and they truly are) as a rule.  They're supposedly opposed to using force but for engaging the world. They are big on inclusiveness and diversity.

This, of course, all on the national level. We'll get to the local level soon enough.

Now, if these statements are taken no further than what I just stated, they are in fact true.  But let's take them further.

Let's start with a really divisive issue. Abortion.  And let's not mince words and claim its about choice.  Bull.  It's about abortion.

Generally, the GOP is opposed to abortion . . .with qualifiers.  It's opposed to abortion because its members, or at least a fair number of them, are pro life or at least feel queasy about defining what lives are worth preserving and which are not.  Indeed, that's generally it, and that's a position I agree with. All human life is, in my view, valuable and indeed sacred, and I don't really care if letting that life come into existence means it wrecks your nifty career plans, is inconvenient, expensive or something (although it wouldn't, what with adoption and the like).  And I don't feel that there are any qualifiers to this.  Those who would come into the world unwanted, for any reason, or into a traumatic situation, for any reason, or sick, for any reason, have just as much of a right to live than those who come into the world under normal circumstances.  That's the GOP position, right?

Well, not really.  Generally, the GOP nationally will put qualifiers on it of some sort, but they're better at any rate than the Democrats on this issue, which always values the life of the adult or near adult, well, the fully functional adult, or maybe some sort of adult, over the infant.

And that is a conservative position, as it conserves life.

So, then, if that's our view and our goal, or rather if that's the GOP view and goal, then the GOP must likewise feel that way about every life and death issue.

Not so much.

Generally the GOP is okay with the death penalty.

Now, the death penalty is something that has widespread support, and historically it made sense.  It really doesn't in the current world, however, and given that its intellectually inconsistent with preserving life in general.  It just doesn't make sense to oppose abortion, as a political party, and support the death penalty.

Okay, so I'm saying this one position doesn't make sense within the GOP. And the reverse of it, the Democratic position, which basically never saw a baby that it didn't think was a target for death in the womb, and as its coming to develop never saw an old person who it didn't think should be wheeled into a the lethal injection chamber, but opposes the death penalty, is even odder. Truly, if the Democrats can generally think its okay to off infants in the womb and old people in the nursing home, why not prisoners in the jail?  If inconvenience and quality of life are the standards, which are the Democratic standard, well, life in jail is the pits.. . . why not kill them all?

Clearly, these positions make no sense within the parties themselves, although the GOP position makes more sense than the  Democratic one.

Taking this out, however, if preserving life is the GOP conservative position, why isn't it massively pro environment in a radical sense?  It isn't.  It would seem that a party whose first priority is life, would err on the side of caution in every way in regards to the environment, which ultimately is a life issue.  Indeed, the GOP candidate ought to make Jill Stein look like a slacker in these regards.  But, no, the GOP basically discounts many environmental concerns, weighing contemporary economic concerns higher.  That's intellectually inconsistent.  The Democrats generally support economic causes them, but that's inconsistent as well, given that their standard for everything else seems to be the mere convenience of the presently living, as long as they think like. . . well, you know. . um.  And the Democrats claim to have the interest of the working man as a paramount concern, but they conversely seem to have little concern for policies such as we're discussing here, i.e., environmental ones, even if they hurt the working man.  As pragmatic as the Democrats are life issues you'd think that they'd be equally as pragmatic on economic ones over other issues. But that's not true either.

Indeed, carrying that out yet further, if preservation of life is a prime concern in the GOP, we'd think that it'd be for a foreign policy that emphasized the prevention of war and the party would almost be pacifistic..  I'm not sure what the GOP policy really is. I know that the Democrats, in recent years, have been really willing to use drones in undeclared wars which is problematic to some degree, although I guess you can rationalize that, although traditionally they claim to be the party that's opposed to war.

My point is that whatever your own views are, it's clearly the case that you can be pro life, anti death penalty, anti euthanasia, but not otherwise be very keen on the GOP's economic and environmental views.  Conversely, you can be deeply concerned about the environment but have no place at all in the Democratic Party unless you are willing to live with blood implicitly on your hands.  Its just not the case that all these issues fit into one party or another.  I'm sure there are homosexuals who are opposed to abortion deeply, for example.  Or radical conservationist who are deeply in favor of the Second Amendment.  Or those who deeply espouse the traditional view of marriage while being deeply in favor of gun control.

Why isn't, therefore, a party that reflects the life issues the way I've set them out, as one mere example?

Well, there actually is (the American Solidarity Party) but it's hard for a party like that to get anyone on the ballot in our first past the post system, let alone a system that is so institutionalized that states actually run, free of cost, party elections for the parties.  That's what primary elections are.  Primary elections shouldn't even exist, really, as all they are is the party picking its choices, but that's somehow forgotten.

Now, least this be read as if I'm campaigning here for the ASP and that 's the purpose of my post, this is true of all sorts of things.

I have a left wing Democratic friend running for office whom I'm sure has never seen a left wing cause the candidate didn't love.  The candidate would likely be for killing infants in the delivery room if it was an option, and putting a bullet in the back of the head of anyone over 60 years of age if they caught the sniffles. They're for redefining marriage in any way imaginable irrespective of the historic norms and the reasons for them without considering them (they'd simply dismiss them), and probably would support polygamy and any other "progressive" social change you could think of, even if that position would have once been regarded as regressive (prohibition of polygamy and formality to marriages would originally have been "progressive" positions).  They are of course in favor of legalizing marijuana and probably other drugs but for banning guns.  That person deserves a different party than the Democratic Party, and indeed people like that make the Democrats here look nutty.

Conversely, we have running here locally at least three "constitutional" conservatives who apparently have a double secret copy of the constitution that requires the Federal government to give land to the states so that it can be sold to the super rich owners of football franchises in some other state, as, doggone, that's what the hallowed founders of our brave republic required.  Some of these candidates appear to downright hate the Federal government and everyone who works for it.  They deserve their own party as well, and frankly right now they're driving Wyomingites who have long been in the GOP out of it.

And all of this even assumes that everyone's world outlook is based on logic, which it clearly is not.  I can see no reason, for example, why there would not be some people who care mostly about there being no gun control but who want a Sanders send my kids to college at government expense bill. By the same token I know that there are gun owners who are fanatic about the Second Amendment and who are pacifist, and that there are businessmen who are socialist at heart but conceive of themselves as pro business otherwise.  There are no doubt radical fee marketeers who never saw a public construction project they didn't love and want to fund.  And I know that there are coal miners who really believe there's a war on coal but who care deeply about the preservation of the land and access to public lands.

All this would be easy solvable if we had more than one viable political party. But the two parties have so entrenched themselves that it's nearly impossible for a third party, or a person with no party at all, to make a run at things. That's why the biggest growing "party" in the United States are the Independents. I.e,. a pox on all of your houses.  Indeed, I'm set to join them once again (I've been an independent in the recent past, and I'm seriously thinking of going down and registering as an Independent as soon as I get the time).

The first part of addressing this is to break the parties hold on the election system itself.  Do away with the nonsensical commission on Presidential debates which keeps third party candidates from debating (the old League of Women's Voters debates let them in when they had less support than the commission does).

Wipe out primary elections as party of the system.  Let any party that can muster up at least 250 signatures for a single candidate be on the ballot on that state and if it does it once, it should be allowed to simply present its certified candidate for the next decade.  And require, if you are going to have party elections at public expense, that the parties certify that the voters are party members, not the county clerk.  If you are going to vote in a party election, you should have gone to the trouble of actually signing up with the party.

Or, better yet, if we are to have primaries, don't have party names on the ballot at all and don't have party restrictions on the ballot.  Make them real primaries in which every single person who has filed to run is on the ballot against everyone else, and in the general election the top two, or four, compete to see who gets the seat, irrespective of their party affiliation.   Why should the system favor one party against another.  If the voters narrow their choices to two people they think qualified, or perhaps four, let them square off irrespective of what party they are in, or indeed irrespective if they are in no party at all.

If we had that system, we'd not have the Presidential race we do right now.  The reason we have this weird mess is, in part, as we have a system that unnaturally groups people into one of two groups.  If you see yourself in any of the described groups above, don't get mad at me, get mad at the system, because unless you are a very unusual person, you don't have a candidate this year you really like, and this system is why that is.

And we wouldn't have local election in which what are effectively four parties are pretending to be two.

Wyoming National Guardsmen arrive at Deming New Mexico: September 30, 1916

The 1st Wyoming Infantry arrived at Camp Cody, New Mexico, just outside of Deming, where it would be stationed for the next five months.

Kentucky State Fair, September 1916

Kentucky State Fair, copyright date of September 30, 1916.

Our most signficant trading partner. . . Canada.

FindTheData | Graphiq

Yes, Canada.

Canada is by far our largest trading partner.

Why is this never noticed?

Deficits

InsideGov | Graphiq

Wow.

I hardly know what to say regarding this.