Jerusalem

 Jerusalem, 1915

We've recently run a couple of articles from 1917 that featured the city of Jerusalem.

Which turn out to be quite timely, as it were, as President Trump recently indicated that the American Embassy to Israel will be moved to Jerusalem, thereby fulfilling a campaign promise of his.

This has resulted in a lot of confusing news coverage, including the suggestion taht President Trump has unilaterally decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capitol, which is quite incorrect.

Let's take a look at this mess a little more carefully to see where we're really at, if we can figure that out.

Israel itself has regarded Jerusalem as its capitol since its modern founding.

But you can't start there. And that's the entire problem.

Jerusalem is a really ancient city. The area was inhabited at least as far back as 7,000 years ago.  It comes into importance, however, in a significant way, as the City of David, from which the significant rulers of Israel in antiquity ruled.  We're not going to go into that much, but it was obviously a holy city to ancient Israel.  It was also one of the seats of the earliest Apostolic Bishops at the time dawn of the Christian Age, with  St. James, son of Alphaeus, being the first Catholic Bishop of the city (before I get some uninformed dispute on this, research it.  There's no doubt, he was the first Bishop of the Church in the City).  So, by the 1st Century, the city was not only a political capitol of the region but also a massively important religious site, none of which is news to anyone reading this.

During the period of Roman occupation the city was destroyed, specifically in the year 70. According to the Jewish historian Josephus the city "was so thoroughly razed to the ground by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation".  If that's correct, it was sufficiently reoccupied to be destroyed at least twice more during the period of Roman occupation.  Of interest, the temple was destroyed in the 70 event which is one of the ways which the various books of the New Testament can be dated, as the event can be looked at in terms of whether it remained a prediction, or a historical event, at the time that the writing was authored.  If it remained a prediction, the writing can be assumed to predate the year 70, and therefore come within forty years of the Crucifixion.

Following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 the Romans rebuilt the city and in fact renamed it Aelia Capitolina.  They actually prohibited Jews from entering the city upon pain of death, except for a single day each year.  During the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great, who of course had converted to Catholicism, this was relaxed and Jewish Christians were allowed back into the city.  Burials from the 4th Century through the 5th show that the town was Catholic during this period.  During the 5th Century the town passed back and forth between Byzantine rule and Persian rule.

In 638 the city was conquered by Umar ibn al-Khattab who was a lieutenant of Muhammad.  The city, in fact, became a holy city to Islam as well as Muslims claim that Muhammad ascended into Heaven after a miraculous nighttime journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.  Interestingly, Muslims at first prayed facing the direction of Jerusalem. a custom almost certainly picked up from Christians and Jews, as early Christians prayed facing Jerusalem as did Jews in the diaspora.* Muslims were instructed to face Mecca some thirteen years later.  Following the initial Islamic conquest Jews were allowed back into the city for the first time since 132, thereby creating a notable historic irony that initially Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem were on good terms and the restoration of a Jewish presence in the city came about due to Islamic military success.

Following the conquering of the city by Islamic Arab armies the city began to decline in importance.  It had in this period a Christian, Jewish and Muslim population.  Indeed, the region of Palestine was heavily Christian and the Islamic kingdoms in the region made little effort to impact that in any fashion until the ascension of the Turks as a primary force of Islamic expansion.  As the Turks began to replace the Arabs in these regards, in the East, a change began to occur, in the East and the West wherein Islamic rulers became increasingly intolerant of other faiths.  In 1099 Christians were expelled from the city by the Islamic rulers of the region, an example of the conduct which gave rise to Christian military expeditions into the region which are now termed "The Crusades".  Given no such name at the time, they were originally an effort to protect Christian pilgrims in the region.  In 1099 Western Christian armies arrived and took Jerusalem, resulting in a major change in political direction and one of the great overblown myths of history.  Even though the sum total of all the dead from the Crusades does not equal a single day of heavy casualties during World War Two, the period custom of grossly over-exaggerating deaths gave rise to the famous claims of vast Crusader slaughter (blood up to the knees of horses) which are wildly exaggerated, which is not to say that loss of civilian life did not occur.

 Representation of the Crusader victory at Jerusalem in 1099.

This resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a misunderstood "Crusader Kingdom" which in fact represented the reestablishment of Christian rule to a largely Christian countryside, but with the introduction of European nobility.  As odd as that was, it largely worked and the existing Arab Catholic population worked well with the introduced Catholic nobility.

Struggle for the control of the city, and hence the kingdom, went back and forth between Christians and Muslims until 1244 when the city was conquered by the Tartars who slaughtered the Christians and drove out the Jews.  In 1247 they were in turn driven out by Islamic forces.  As of 1267, one notable figure found that the city, which had once numbered 200,000 inhabitants, was down to 2,000, of which only two families were Jewish and only 300 people were Christian.  The then minor city was mostly Muslim.

In 1517 the Ottoman Turks gained control of the city.  As I don't want to get into a long history of the Ottoman Empire, I'll only note that they ruled the city from 1517 until December 9, 1917, when the British entered it, as we noted here the other day.  During that period of time the population of the city recovered and it became one that had a majority Muslim population, but also an appreciable Jewish and Christian population. Christians were mostly represented by Catholic Arabs, which make up 20% of the Palestinian population even today, and Orthodox Christians that came in during the Ottoman period.  Armenian Christians actually started coming in during the 300s.

 Field Marshall Allenby approaching the Joffa Gate.

It was into this situation that the British stepped in 1917. Here, the British have to be admired in some ways for attempting not to play favorites.  But events would conspire against them.  With the introduction of a European power into the region, and one with a sense of fair play and equity, it was inevitably the case that the horrors of late 19th Century and early 20th Century Europe and Eurasia would begin to have an influence.  Faced with oppression everywhere, Palestine, and the United States, increasingly became the destination for immigration for Eastern European and Eurasian Jews, which the British could little anticipate or address.  Zionism, a political movement that sought to restore Palestine as a Jewish homeland, influenced the migration which was ongoing in any event.  As this occurred, the Jewish population began to rise, as it also did in Palestine in general.  A reversal of the early history of the city in which Jewish residents of Palestine were allied with Islamic Arabs occurred as the latter increasingly viewed the former as a political threat. World War Two, with its horrors, dramatically increased Jewish immigration and aspirations as the Jews themselves came to believe that they were not safe in particular in Europe, and not in general without a state.  The British, faced with irreconcilable aspirations on the part of its Jewish Palestinian charges, and its Arab Islamic ones, simply chose to leave, probably the best and only option under the circumstances.

The partition of Palestine, resulting in Israel on one hand and the Jordanian West Bank on the other, divided the city.  Israel, for its part, declared Jerusalem its capitol right from the onset, which had the practical impact of declaring a city that was in two different nations, Jordan and Israel, to be the capitol.  No nation could really acquiesce to that without playing favorites between one country, and religion, and the other, so nobody was bold enough to take sides in the matter, and no wonder.

Events would be forced in 1967 when Israel captured the city in the Six Day War.  That had the impact of unifying the city, but not happily.  For that matter, Israel occupied the entire West Bank and treated it for some time as its own.  Ultimately, however, Israel recognized the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, which incorporates that territory as part of its own, but which gives the Authority administrative control of the West Bank.  The Authority regards West Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, while stating that East Jerusalem shall be its capital.

Enter the United States Congress and the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which provides:

JERUSALEM EMBASSY ACT OF 1995

Public Law 104-45 104th Congress

An Act To provide for the relocation of the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Each sovereign nation, under international law and custom, may designate its own capital.

(2) Since 1950, the city of Jerusalem has been the capital of the State of Israel.
(3) The city of Jerusalem is the seat of Israel's President, Parliament, and Supreme Court,and the site of numerous government ministries and social and cultural institutions

(4) The city of Jerusalem is the spiritual center of Judaism, and is also considered a holy city by the members of other religious faiths.

(5) From 1948-1967, Jerusalem was a divided city and Israeli citizens of all faiths as well as Jewish citizens of all states were denied access to holy sites in the area controlled by Jordan.

(6) In 1967, the city of Jerusalem was reunited during the conflict known as the Six Day War.

(7) Since 1967, Jerusalem has been a united city administered by Israel, and persons of all religious faiths have been guaranteed full access to holy sites within the city.

(8) This year marks the 28th consecutive year that Jerusalem has been administered as a unified city in which the rights of all faiths have been respected and protected.

(9) In 1990, the Congress unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 106, which declares that the Congress ``strongly believes that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected''.

(10) In 1992, the United States Senate and House of Representatives unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 113 of the One Hundred Second Congress to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, and reaffirming congressional sentiment that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city.

(11) The September 13, 1993, Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements lays out a timetable for the resolution of ``final status'' issues, including Jerusalem.

(12) The Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area was signed May 4, 1994, beginning the five-year transitional period laid out in the Declaration of Principles.

(13) In March of 1995, 93 members of the United States Senate signed a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher encouraging ``planning to begin now'' for relocation of the United States Embassy to the city of Jerusalem.

(14) In June of 1993, 257 members of the United States House of Representatives signed a letter to the Secretary of State Warren Christopher stating that the relocation of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem ``should take place no later than . . . 1999''.

(15) The United States maintains its embassy in the functioning capital of every country except in the case of our democratic friend and strategic ally, the State of Israel.

(16) The United States conducts official meetings and other business in the city of Jerusalem in de facto recognition of its status as the capital of Israel.

(17) In 1996, the State of Israel will celebrate the 3,000th anniversary of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem since King David's entry. SEC. 3. TIMETABLE. (a) Statement of the Policy of the United States.-- (1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected; (2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and (3) the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999. (b) <> Opening Determination.--Not more than 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the Department of State for fiscal year 1999 for ``Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad'' may be obligated until the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the United States Embassy in Jerusalem has officially opened.

SEC. 4. FISCAL YEARS 1996 AND 1997 FUNDING.

(a) Fiscal Year 1996.--Of the funds authorized to be appropriated for ``Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad'' for the Department of State in fiscal year 1996, not less than $25,000,000 should be made available until expended only for construction and other costs associated with the establishment of the United States Embassy in Israel in the capital of Jerusalem.

(b) Fiscal Year 1997.--Of the funds authorized to be appropriated for ``Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad'' for the Department of State in fiscal year 1997, not less than $75,000,000 should be made available until expended only for construction and other costs associated with the establishment of the United States Embassy in Israel in the capital of Jerusalem.

SEC. 5. REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION.

Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall submit a report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate detailing the Department of State's plan to implement this Act. Such report shall include--

(1) estimated dates of completion for each phase of the establishment of the United States Embassy, including site identification, land acquisition, architectural, engineering and construction surveys, site preparation, and construction; and

(2) an estimate of the funding necessary to implement this Act, including all costs associated with establishing the United States Embassy in Israel in the capital of Jerusalem.

SEC. 6. SEMIANNUAL REPORTS. At the time of the submission of the President's fiscal year 1997 budget request, and every six months thereafter, the Secretary of State shall report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate on the progress made toward opening the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.

SEC. 7. PRESIDENTIAL WAIVER.

(a) Waiver Authority.--

(1) Beginning on October1, 1998, the President may suspend the limitation set forth in section 3(b) for a period of six months if he determines and reports to Congress in advance that such suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.

(2) The President may suspend such limitation for an additional six month period at the end of any period during which the suspension is in effect under this subsection if the President determines and reports to Congress in advance of the additional suspension that the additional suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.

(3) A report under paragraph (1) or (2) shall include--

(A) a statement of the interests affected by the limitation that the President seeks to suspend; and

(B) a discussion of the manner in which the limitation affects the interests.

(b) Applicability of Waiver to Availability of Funds.

If the President exercises the authority set forth in subsection (a) in a fiscal year, the limitation set forth in section 3(b) shall apply to funds appropriated in the following fiscal year for the purpose set forth in such section 3(b) except to the extent that the limitation is suspended in such following fiscal year by reason of the exercise of the authority in subsection (a).

SEC. 8. DEFINITION.

As used in this Act, the term ``United States Embassy'' means the offices of the United States diplomatic mission and the residence of the United States chief of mission.

[Note by the Office of the Federal Register: The foregoing Act, having been presented to the President of the United States on Thursday, October 26, 1995, and not having been returned by him to the House of Congress in which it originated within the time prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, has become law without his signature on November 8, 1995.]

This was, a bad idea.

Right now its widely believed that Donald Trump "recognized" Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel.  In reality, it was Congress that did this 1995.

And when I mean Congress, I mean Congress.  This bill passed into law with out the President's signature.  Bill Clinton was the President at the time.

This raises the question of why would Congress have done this?  And that has to do with politics.

A lot of the reason that this passed may in fact be because Bill Clinton was President.

Let us take a look at that.

It is not possible to recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel without making a lot of people mad. We are well aware of this. We commonly hear that the city is "holy to three major religions".  It is, but it's a lot more complicated than even that.  The city is obviously holy to Jews, and so identified with their history that it is not really possible to conceive of a government of Israel really wishing to share the city with any other group politically.

It is also obviously holy to Muslims in a way that they cannot be expected to simply ignore.

And the city is holy to Christians, but not to all Christians in the same fashion.  It is obviously an important city for to all Christians because of what happened there during Christ's time on Earth.  It's additionally important to all Apostolic Christians and those Protestant Christians who closely identify with the Apostolic Churches as it was an Apostolic seat and it has had a presence on the part of Apostolic Christians from the very beginning.  Indeed, they have the second longest presence in the city next to Jews.

However, it's become important to some fundamentalist American Protestants who associate restoring Israel's rule to the city with the End Times, which they seek to hasten. That is something that Apostolic Christians largely miss and which Jews find to be rather uncomfortable.

And all of this has a role in American politics.

The United States has been uniquely friendly to Israel since its founding in a way that no other nation has been. In no small part this is due to the United States being uniquely friendly to refugees and immigrants to a degree no other nation has been which has meant that it has a large Jewish population that stems from European immigration.  Indeed, the United States has received more Jewish immigration than Israel has.  Given this, the US has been uniquely supportive of Israel.  If you look at the issue of Jerusalem, for example, even Norway is opposed to Jerusalem being Israel's capitol  We're pretty unique in these regards.  Right now, only the Philippines seems slated to follow us, and given their leadership, that really can't be taken as a great sign.

Anyhow, there's no way to move an embassy from Tel Aviv without sending a message you probably don't really want to send unless that message is that you wholeheartedly take Israel's position in this.  But do we,  and should we?

FWIW, in pondering this I came up with an idea I thought was original, but it turns out not to be.  It won't happen, however.  I'd make Jerusalem a self governing city.  That's the position, as it turns out, of the Vatican and at least a few other countries.  It's also the position of at least the Armenian population of the city, it seems.

About any other result ends up favoring one culture and one religion over another. And that doesn't seem to be recipe for resolution.

____________________________________________________________________________________

*This is really entering dangerous territory but this custom was almost certainly adopted from Christians and Jews, with whom Muhammad was very familiar and had been influenced by.  To get into this in greater depth would require an exploration of the history of Islam which will have to wait for some future thread, assuming that we post on it ever.

Oh, for the want of a third party. . .

Watching the story of the election in Alabama, which will occur today (I'm dreading the flood of news tonight), I have to once again wonder; why is it that we stick to a two party system in this country?

Truly, most nations have more than just two parties. Why should the voters of Alabama have to decide between just Moore and his opponent.  This is casting the election as one, it seems, where people fear that they must vote for a candidate who is morally dubious or a party that is.  That shouldn't have to happen.

I really wonder what would occur if some serious, known, Alabaman came out on a ticket backed by a party like the American Solidarity Party, which I suspect probably reflects the views of most Alabamans more than the Democrats or Republicans do.

For that matter, with candidates slowly starting to line up for the Wyoming Gubernatorial race next year, I'm lamenting that we don't have something like that here. I'm hoping that the GOP won't model itself after Utah's GOP in this race and that somebody like our current Governor comes out. Surely that will happen, right?

Boys Town Founded, December 12, 1917

Monsignor Edward J. Flanagan

On this date in 1917, Monsignor Edward J. Flanagan founded an orphanage outside of Omaha Nebraska which was called the City of Little Men.  Later changing its name to Boys' Town, the orphanage for boys pioneered the social preparation model for orphanages.  It still exists.

Monsignor Flanagan was Irish by birth and the son of a herdsman.  He immigrated to the United States at age 18 in 1904 and received a bachelors degree just two years later, going on to receive a MA two years after that.  He then entered the seminary in New York and completed his studies in Italy and Austria, being ordained there in 1912.  He was then assigned to Nebraska as a Priest. He became a US citizen in 1919.. His views on the care and development of orphaned children were far ahead of their time.

Aviation Machine Gun School, December 12, 1917.

Roads to the Great War: 100 Years Ago: General Edmund Allenby Enters Jerus...

Roads to the Great War: 100 Years Ago: General Edmund Allenby Enters Jerus...: 100 Years ago tomorrow, Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby entered Jerusalem as its conqueror.   General Allenby was 56 years...

Field Marshall Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem. December 11, 1917.

On this date in 1917, Edmund Allenby, the victorious British commander of the recent campaign to take Jerusalem, entered it.

Allenby, who was a cavalryman by branch, approached the city on horseback in an era when all professional officers not only knew how to ride, their occupations required that they in fact ride in the service.   But, cognizant of the slight given the city by the Kaiser's mounted entry into it in 1898, he and his party dismounted and walked into the city.

Allenby and his staff enter through the Jaffa Gate on foot.

As Allenby recounted it:

...I entered the city officially at noon, 11 December, with a few of my staff, the commanders of the French and Italian detachments, the heads of the political missions, and the Military Attaches of France, Italy, and America... The procession was all afoot, and at Jaffa gate I was received by the guards representing England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, India, France and Italy. The population received me well...

The population of the city did in fact appreciate the dismounted entry.

 Allenby and his staff receive the city notables, note the camera photographing the event.

Allenby, who was quite religious himself, was careful to respect the religions in the city, sending Muslim troops under his command to guard Islamic holy sites.  He is even reputed to have even stated "only now have the crusades ended."  Use of the word "crusade" or "crusader" was in fact banned in his command in order to not associate the English and Allied cause with a religious one in the Middle East.

Reflecting the diverse nature of the city, a Franciscan Monk reads the Allied decree on the city in French and Italian.  The city hosted Arab, Jewish, Greek and other populations and had religious cites that were maintained by Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox bodies.

Of course, as pointed out the other day, the initial local goodwill would not be infinite and the League of Nations Mandate giving the British a protectorate status over Mandatory Palestine would become sufficiently unpopular by the 1930s to lead to an Arab revolt in Palestine, followed of course by the troubles that followed World War Two as the British struggled to resolve the national aspirations of the Arab and Jewish populations.

 

An argument on what you can and cannot think about stuff that people don't understand with implications you just don't expect but maybe ought to.. Fallout from Obergefell

Let's start with something here which ought to be obvious from the text, but this post isn't about same gender marriage, or same sex marriage, or homosexual marriage, or whatever you may call it.

 Working on a wedding cake.  It it art?  Expression? Free speech?  Just a cake?  And if you refuse to bake it, is that speech.  Oh, the tangled web we weave. . .

People wanting to debate that, will have to discuss it outside of this thread. . . assuming they can, because this post is about whether you can do that, and how you can do it, maybe.

No, this post is about what happens when the Supreme Court doesn't think out the results of its opinion and issues what at least some of its Justices no doubt know isn't an opinion that's well founded in the law, but rather which puts them out ahead of a social movement and allows them to claim for themselves a victory which might have, or might not have, come about otherwise, but which if it did, rightfully belonged to other people and not the Justices.

And so we start with a concluding statement in that opinion.

Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons. In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate.

Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___ (2015)
 
And now we'll find out if Justice Kennedy is made into latent prevaricator or a fool as well as having a poor attachment to jurisprudence.  And that will depend on what will be his probable swing vote in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd.  It'll certainly be a test of his legal abilities and will likely cause him to be regarded as a fool by some segment of the American public, although which one that will be has yet to be determined.  Having made something unworkable and unfair, he must now do something unworkable that will be perceived as unfair.  It didn't have to be that way.

If his swing vote holds that a person holding an "utmost, sincere [religious] conviction"* prohibiting him from attending to a same gender wedding in some fashion can be compelled to do so in spite of those beliefs, the near concluding paragraph of Obergefell will have proven to be completely false, as opponents of Obergefell feared it would be.  If he holds the other way around, Obergefell will start to descend into the unworkable or, alternatively, it'll be a big turn in direction on implied protected speech wrecking much of that body of law.  Any way the court goes, American democracy will be hurt and the legacy of Kennedy will be all the more tarnished.

The issue, in practical terms, is this. Can a person with deep religious convictions be compelled to do what is regarded in theological terms as "cooperation with evil", if the United States Supreme Court, or at least five of its members including the most aged amongst them, feel, mostly based on trying to be hip and cool, that it isn't evil, with evil in this context meaning something that the actor believes to be morally wrong.

Nearly every governmental decision of this type comes to be regarded as a horror in later more sober years, but most people will just go along with it at any one time. Some won't. Those who won't are regarded as heroes later, but at the time they're reviled if they won't back down and have to be reported to some government body, as in this case a cake baker was, so that they can be strong armed into social compliance.  The question, therefore, is strong arming people who oppose same gender marriage by refusing to lend their services to it something the Constitution cannot tolerate, particularly if it is the course of the free exercise of their religion?

Hold on a moment, some are thinking, did you say;

Nearly every governmental decision of this type comes to be regarded as a horror in later more sober years, but most people will just go along with it at any one time. Some won't. Those who won't are regarded as heroes later, but at the time they're reviled if they won't back down and have to be reported to some government body, as in this case a cake baker was, so that they can be strong armed into social compliance.

Yes, I sure did. And I'll go one step further.  Folks like the owner of Masterpiece Cakes will be regarded as heroes because they are in context, and it doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. They're heroes not because of what they believe, but because they're taking a stand in the face of massive government opposition, massive movement opposition, and the quite indifference or cowardice of everyone else.

Just like the Hollywood Ten.

 Screenwriter and Communist (and perhaps ironically here a Coloradoan) Dalton Trumbo in front of the House Committee on Un American Affairs. He really was a Communist in the 1940s.  Should he have been punished for that?  Should you be punished for refusing to bake a cake?  You can't answer yes to one and no to the other.

The Hollywood Ten?  You mean those guys accused of being Communists who wouldn't back down?  Are you rally comparing, you may be thinking, accused Communists with a Fundamentalist Christian baker?

Well, yes I am, even though, as the ten really were Communists or fellow travelers, not just accused Communists, I don't think these folks would share a common view on anything.

And here's why.

Today nearly everyone takes the position that Senator McCarthy was a horrible dude because he accused people of being Communists and they weren't. Not so.  He accused Communists of being Communists.

And that's besides the point.

We're so enamored of our heroes that we forget why they were heroes in the first place and place on them universal good qualities and place ourselves on their side.  More often than not heroes are the few people who aren't willing to just go along with everyone else and are reviled by everyone else.  And more often than not they aren't really all that universally admirable.  It's their stand, that protects us all, that makes them admirable.  When we look back at people accused of being Communist in the 1930s and 1940s, during the 1950s, chances are really good that they really were Communists. We admire their stand, not the thing they were standing for, as the thing they were standing against was so wrong.  It's un American and unjust to require people not to be Communists.  Yes, Communism is bad, but that doesn't mean that a person can be prohibited from being one, or should be so prohibited.

And that's how this thing works out as well.  Whether or not you agree with the baker, telling people who they must bake for is just flat out wrong.  So that get us back to the first question that we'll have to answer thanks to the situation we're now in, which is a completely predictable question.

The question, therefore, is strong arming people who oppose same gender marriage by refusing to lend their services to it something the Constitution cannot tolerate, particularly if it is the course of the free exercise of their religion?

The second question is did we even need to get here? The answer to that question is very clearly no, and there's very clearly a way out of this now, but the Supreme Court, ossified in decaying age, the decay of legal thought and infirm, won't go there.  More on that in a moment.

A report from Scotusblog on the argument:

Argument analysis: Conservative majority leaning toward ruling for Colorado baker (UPDATED)

Obergefell was problematic, and indeed devoid of any grounding in the law, right from the onset.  The very long history of the U.S. Constitution in relationship to marriage makes that very plain that Obergefell isn't based on the law, but on Kennedy and his fellow travelers trying to jump out ahead of what they perceived to be a social movement that was going to prevail, thereby claiming the laurels that would have otherwise been claimed by those who prevailed democratically.  It was a coup, and an ill advised one they likely thought harmless or beneficial.  It would take legislative enactment to redefine marriage in any sort of valid way, assuming that a legislative enactment on what is a pre legislative institution can be made valid.  Indeed, prior to Obergefell the courts only asserted that legislatures had the right to regulate marriage, not to completely redefine it and there can be little doubt that prior to the 20th Century they would not have conceived of themselves as having such a right.**  A judicial reworking simply smacks of the aged trying to get ahead of what they think is going to occur in history anyway.  And they botched it.

At the time it was insisted that the only result of Obergefell would be to allow same gender couples to marry, as long as that meant that many of the instances of marriage were wholly ignored. That view was extremely naive as marriage touches everything and its grounded in an incorrect philosophical and physical understanding of marriage.  It very rapidly ceased to be the case. Already the concept that a person be allowed to criticize the holding as contrary to natural law is being shouted down in the press and in some places, such as Colorado, people are now compelled to serve same gender marriages in spite of having religious objections to what was regarded as deeply unnatural only very recently.  It smacks very strongly of reeducation camps, and necessarily so.  Justice Kennedy's assertion that religion would not be impeded have proven to be false, so far. Indeed, his claim that people could even advance the opposite opinion has very quickly proven false and "it's decided" is the shout down cry of those whose legislative efforts were taken from them as they are forced to pin their hopes on the incorrect assumption that a decree by the Supreme Court actually decides things in society.   And they had to be.  To rework an ancient institution by judicial decree requires an element of force and is unlikely to work even then.  A society, in spite of Kennedy's naivete, cannot suddenly start to think in a different fashion whole-scale overnight in spite of what a bunch of old robed people declare that they should. Indeed, as Court's in democratic nations are only respected by the average person in a highly qualified fashion, such a decision is more likely to harden opposition on the side that looses.

The degree to which Obergefell is deeply anti democratic and offensive to American concepts of liberty is easily demonstrated by imagining only slightly different versions of the same scenario.  Would the law hold that a couple wanting a ham dinner for Easter, or perhaps for their wedding, be allowed to compel a Jewish deli to provide it?  Can Orthodox Jews demand that the rest of the world shut completely down on Saturdays? Can a couple getting married on Saturday demand that an Orthodox Rabbi perform it?  Can a same gender couple demand that a Priest perform a ceremony that he finds contrary to his faith. Can a person who simply feels that same gender marriage is contrary to nature without even going into the topic of religion be silenced for "hate speech" just for expressing his views?**

If Kennedy can find his way around to holding that bakers must bake cakes that are contrary to their convictions, the contempt for this decision will grown exponentially while, as the same time, it's hammer like reach will hit harder.**  The backers of Obergefell now no longer argue that they only want the same rights that others want, which in fact they already actually had. Instead, the backers will, and indeed are, demanding that everyone accept their view completely and that those who don't hold them shut up.  It's a McCarthyite approach. Are you now, or have you ever been, an opponent of same sex marriage?  Senator Joe. . .  your seat is waiting.

At the end of the day the Supreme Court will issue a limited but important decision here. Chances are, based upon the early reports, that this decision will hold that the religious views of people are protected and they cannot be compelled by the state to go against them, although exactly how it gets there is far from clear.  Liberals will howl as a result and will claim that Obergefell has been gutted and make analogies that are strained and which serve to undercut prior legitimate victories.   But it's not impossible that Kennedy, confronted with the dog's breakfast of his decision and notable already for his sensitive feelings, will go the other way, in which case the significant section of the populace that holds this decision in contempt will grow in the level to which it despises it and refuses to acknowledge it, and by extension everything the Court does.

Indeed, Kennedy's decision did more than any other single act to put us into the political situation we are now in, in which a large section of the country has no faith whatsoever in political institutions.  If he's amazed by our times, he should realize that he advanced the clock to cause them.  And if we actually end up impeaching an elected President and removing him from office for the first time in the nation's history, thereby putting the survival of the republic in real doubt, Anthony Kennedy can get the blame for getting us to that point to at least a significant degree.  Everyone who wonders how we ended up with Trump should start carrying an Anthony Kennedy card.

An awareness of at least some of this is why the court is clearly tempted not to reach a decision on free excise of religion grounds at all but, rather, on the topic of free speech.  If it does that, it will instead take a look at the question of whether or not baking a wedding cake is "speech".  Indeed, a lot of the various justice's questions were on that topic.

But that's really dangerous ground for the court to be treading on, and if goes in that direction, it will have opened up a bunch of case law that it previously regarded as settled.

It was Kennedy, after all, who authored the opinion that held burning a flag is free speech, an opinion which I agree with. But that opinion falls in with a bunch of other opinions that hold all sorts of things are speech. Art can be speech.  Dance can be speech.  Pornography, as long as it isn't obscene, is speech, as long as it contains some serious "scientific, literary or artistic merit".  If Hustler magazine is protected speech, why wouldn't a wedding cake be protected speech? Or if burning a flag, which isn't speech at all of course but an act, is protected speech, why wouldn't decorating a cake be speech?  Or maybe refusing to decorate a cake is speech?

Ironically, in the recent oral arguments, it was the liberal justices who scoffed at that idea.  And this shows what a disaster Obergefell is.  Justices who would have held that dancing flag burning pornography is speech, now scoff at the idea that decorating a cake is art and therefore speech.  But in doing that, all the rest of it goes out the window at the same time.

Oh, what tangled web we weave . . .

This all stems, of course, from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So Congress, and by later incorporation the states, cannot abridge free speech.  And if it can't do that, Colorado can't tell people when to bake a cake. Can it tell people when they can't bake a cake, or when they must bake a cake?




It all sounds rather surreal, but that's where we are on this.

Quite a few commentators believe that what the framers meant in regards to this provision is that Congress couldn't abridge political speech.  Maybe it could, therefore, prevent other types of speech.  The framers sure acted like they could as libel laws were more more restrictive at the time. For that matter, Congress had no problem with running out and abridging speech right off the back with the original sedition act, which seems pretty darned unconstitutional.

Anyhow, the Court here really focused on "art".  And that suggest that the Court was looking for the easy way out, which it often does as a matter of interpretation and which it should. The way this would work would be this.  If a cake is just a cake, and not art, well then its just food, and not speech.

If you go there, then Colorado can legally argue that a baker can't make a decision not to sell a cake based on his beliefs as a cake is just a cake.  It would be like NAPA refusing to sell auto parts to a gay couple on their way to their wedding if their car broke down, maybe.

Or maybe not.

The problem there is that if a wedding cake isn't art, then much of the other obvious baloney that court's have determined to be protected speech over the years must fall. So here too, Kennedy has set everyone up, including himself on one of his mostly dearly held opinions.  If a cake is a cake. . .well a flag might be a flag.  And then Kennedy's decision in Texas v Johnson is either out the window, or now dubious.

The sad thing there is that Texas v. Johnson is correct in my view.  But if a majority on this Court holds a cake is a cake, it looks like that case has been overruled sub silentio.  If the Court takes steps from that not being the case, it looks like they're making things up as they go. . .as they'd be making things up as they go.

Indeed, the Justices who sort of sneered at the idea that a cake is anything more than a cake already look like elitist fools, something that some people are increasingly holding regarding the Court. The Court can ill afford that as at some point people just flat out disregard it.  At that point, it become pretty ineffectual.  So the Court has to really hold, if it doesn't want to look that way, that a cake can be art. Or that refusing to bake a cake can be speech. . . or maybe refusing to bake a cake is an example of the free exercise of religion.

Whichever way it goes, it cuts a big gaping hole into the logic of something it's already held.  It has no choice with any of these options but to look pretty foolish.

Which is why a proper course of action, and one that could be done right now, would be to repeal Obergefell and return the topic of same gender marriage to the legislature where it was controversial, but not in the fashion it currently is, as embarrassing to the Court as that would be.

The basic Constitutional issue is now before the Court, if it wishes to take it up. Four out of the Five Justices opposed this.  Kennedy is now confronted by the fact that his desire to let a thousand happy marriage daisies bloom is instead a Constitution mess that cannot be handled under our system without doing violence to the law, to the Constitution, to the beliefs of millions of people and to an expanded concept of free speech.  He could bring it up and simply say that upon further reflection it is clear that the earlier decision was wrong.

People would howl, but that would take this issue back to the legislatures where it belongs.

And that, and here's where things get really sticky, would actually require people to discuss what marriage is. And few people are prepared to do that in the early 21st Century. Anthony Kennedy certainly isn't, based upon his anemic writing.  He thinks that it's about love and flowers and not being lonely.  It's about none of those things, even if all of those things are ideally an element of marriage.

Marriage is not an institution created by the state and preexisted any state of any kind, in a strictly male female relationship, as a way of handling sex and its byproducts in a conventional sexual relationship. For that reason, in spite of the focus on the minor details that make up differences from culture to culture, it's remarkably consistently the same in its basic nature in every culture.

Chances are extremely high that if the underpinning issues had been debated in the law prior to the 20th Century this would have been noted and the chances are very high that most Courts would have held that marriage could be regulated, as the U.S. Supreme Court has held, but that it can't be redefined as its a natural institution incapable of being redefined except by nature.  Kennedy, who grounded his views on the idea of Constitutionally protected love, wouldn't be capable of grasping an argument such as that.

And what that means, and here's where many in the opposing camp would grow uncomfortable, if we're going to redefine marriage, we must first define marriage, and if we do that, and find that its a natural institution, maybe we need to redraft our human institutional framework, IE., our laws, to match that.

In other words, not only does same gender marriage perhaps not make any sense at all, perhaps forcing the recognition of marital obligations on people with children so that they're not forced on society makes sense.  Maybe not allowing easy divorce, or divorce at all, for couples with children make sense.  There'd be a lot of really hard issues to be debated in a very deep way, something that hasn't been really debated in this society since the 1530s.  And debating it in the 1530s resulted in a pretty rough go of things for a really long time.  Of course, you get those debates when they arrive, and we're sort of seeing the arrival of that right now.

Maybe no state role in marriage at all makes sense.  If the proponents of same gender marriage, as Kennedy would have it (and not all of their arguments are so unsophisticated as his) are limited to it being about love, why does the government have any role in that?  That, quite frankly, makes no sense whatsoever (and very few serious proponents of same gender marriage would in fact take that as a primary foundation of their arguments as it is so very weak as one). Maybe tying it irrevocable to children and their natural parents makes sense, from the point of view of protection of the state and the protection of children.  Indeed, we might well recall that at one time the state imposed the recognition of marriage upon such couples, rather than simply conferring it upon all who wished for state validation of their relationship status.

It's deep water indeed.

But that would take a Judge who had the courage to admit he was wrong and go back on himself.  And the intellect to reconsider and thrown these deep questions out into the public venue where they'd make everyone very uncomfortable.

I don't see Anthony Kennedy as that kind of guy.  So this mess will go on, and on, and on until sooner or later, by one means or another, its back in the legislative arena, decades later, and after the worst Supreme Court Justice in recent memory is just a footnote in casebooks.

Funny how those who once acted, they claimed, to oppose oppression can work their way around to imposing it.

__________________________________________________________________________________

* An interesting aspect of this is that this issue seems to be considered only in these terms, but there are those who are deeply opposed to same gender marriage on reasons other than religion.  Indeed, during the period during which this movement has been spreading in the Western world its occasionally drawn opposition from individuals who are notable and who very clearly do not hold to conventional religious or moral views otherwise.  And in some populations, France's in particular, the forcing of the same gender marriage has been massively unpopular with huge segments of the population that are not strongly observant, even if they are not opponents of religion.  In Italy it drew the notable opposition of at least one very well known gay individual who had thought out the philosophical nature of marriage and came to the opinion that it made sense only in the heterosexual context.

Missed in all of this is that there are those who feel that same gender marriage is unsound for reasons grounded in culture, science or philosophy but who don't put the debate in the context of religion.  Those people's views are simply ignored, particularly by the political left as these same individuals tend to fit into the political left.

You'd have thought Kennedy and the Supreme Court might have noted that, but the Ivory Tower nature of the upper rooms of the court would of course preclude that, dominated by the isolated elderly as it is.  It's a shame that it has been noted as such opinions are important and should be considered.

**Indeed one prominent "civil rights" organization has caused organizations that oppose same gender marriage to be listed on its widely circulated list as "hate groups".  And in the liberal left its commonly accepted that this issue is over, and expressing any contrary opinion simply cannot be done.

What this has caused and will cause is exactly what I feared it would.  People now feel these views are being forced on them and they really detest it.  The argument may descend into corners it never had to go into, with the left maintaining anyone who agrees with it deserves to be oppressed, and the right regarding those in the opposite camp as oppressors. How bad this may become may have been revealed recently when an extremely naive homosexual Wyoming legislator went out to promote her bill to redraft all of Wyoming's laws to be gender neutral, replacing "husband and wife" with spouse, and so on. She met with a brick wall of opposing and blistering comments and then went away shocked and upset. She shouldn't.  In places where the law has been imposed, it's an imposition, and things like marriage really matter to people.  The lines now are very hard and fast.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 11

Today In Wyoming's History: December 11: 1917  Rawlins struck with disaster when its hospital burned.  Attribution, Wyoming State Historical Society.

Dean Knight Resigned as Dean of the University of Wyoming, December 11, 1917.

The minutes of that meeting:

Minutes

Knight Hall is of course named for him.

Roads to the Great War: Doughboy Basics: What Are the Lasting Contribution...

Roads to the Great War: Doughboy Basics: What Are the Lasting Contribution...: Maybe, in the broadest sense, the great contribution of the Doughboys is what all of America's warriors have given their nation over...

Roads to the Great War: Doughboy Basics: What Did the Doughboys Contribut...

Roads to the Great War: Doughboy Basics: What Did the Doughboys Contribut...: Let me form this posting around several blanket statements. 1.  America Did Not Win the War Single-Handed, but Its Entry Probably ...

Time to plan for a post Trump future. Success or Failure.

Man alive, there's a lot going on in the world of politics in the US.  It's too much to keep up with.

Or at least its numbing.

It's almost has hard as keeping up with the latest media or Hollywood figure to be caught with their pants down, after they've been down for some time, it seems.

Starting the week before last, with Gen. Flynn's acceptance of criminal guilt, we have now entered into a situation in which it is increasingly possible, possible, not probable, that President Trump will be impeached.

Note, I said possible, not probable.

I'm not alone in this view, however.  If you listen to the Democrats in Congress there are clear rumblings of this.  And one of the round table folks on Meet the Press, from the conservative side, flat out declared that if the Democrats take the house in 2018, and it looks increasingly likely that hey stand a pretty good chance, the result will be an impeachment.

That latter opinion I'll note is disturbing as it comes close to predicting what would amount to a coup.  Simply removing a President as you don't like him isn't an impeachment.  At best its a weird way around to what in a Parliament is a vote of no confidence.  In our system we dont' have that, of course.  In our system, it'd border on being a coup.

But not everyone who is edging up on an impeachment is doing it as they feel that Trump simply needs to go. Some are as there are now pretty clear rumblings that Trump's close inner circle may have been involved in criminal activity prior to his election and prior to his taking  the oath of office. Clearly Flynn was.

Indeed, it's hard not to feel like we're back in 1973 again, which leaves anyone who remembers any of that with a sick feeling in their stomach.  Rumblings and news come out in leaks that start to resemble a flood. ..  the White House denies any wrongdoing. .. .but some of the things we know about are hard to ignore.

It makes a person feel icky.

Now, I"m not venturing an opinion on illegality, and I don't think that any layman is in a position to do that at this time.

What I am saying is that something I thought totally impossible now is looking pretty possible.

So, let's say it happens.

And let's say Trump is removed.

I think we, and by that the nation . . . and more particularly the political part of the nation,  needs to prepare for that.

And not in the way, to be sure, that hardcore members of the political left currently are.

First we better revisit how a President is actually removed from office through impeachment.

How is a President Impeached?

Not very easily, that's for sure.

In order to be removed by the process, the House must vote to impeach the President.  Then it goes to the Senate where 2/3s of the Senate must vote for removal in order for that to occur.

That's never happened.

It likely would have happened with Nixon, and he knew it, which is partially why he resigned.  He also may have genuinely resigned in order to spare the country the agony of going through an impeachment.  Trump wouldn't do that.

In order for it to happen now, with the Senate nearly evenly split, all the Democrats would hvae to vote for removal.  That's can't be taken as a given, as its such a drastic thing to occur.  And then Republicans would have to join in.

I think some Republicans would join in.

Now, that's right now.

But let's keep in mind that Trump is deeply unpopular with some Republicans in the Senate (and the House).

And let's also keep in mind that there are plenty of highly savvy Republicans in the Senate who are really upset about the direction of things right now.  They don't like Trump as President and they live in fear of what a Moore victory in Alabama means for the reputation of the GOP.

If they could remove Trump, or Trump and Moore, they'd likely do it.

Or they'd like to do it.

But let's also keep in mind that the process of impeachment itself is damaging to the country every time it occurs. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson effectively rendered the remainder of his term ineffectual for everyone.  The impeachment of Bill Clinton, which was extremely political and extremely ill advised, has had negative political ripples down to the current era.  Indeed, it dumbed down American politics in a way that has just kept on keeping on.

So quite a few from the right and the left would fear to impeach the President unless they feel it absolutely necessary.

So, while the House may get there after the 2018 election, one year from now (which is a really long time in politics).  The Senate may very well never get there.  If if they took on a Bill of Impeachment and didn't impeach Trump, the remainder of his term would be insufferable in a way that we can hardly imagine, given that he acts in ways we've never seen before. For that reason alone I hope we don't get there.

But let's say we do.

How we got here

But before we imagine that, let's recall how we got a President Trump in the first place.

It's not as if there was a massive ground swell of support, ever, for Trump. Rather, the rank and file of the GOP and the old hard hat element of the Democratic Party grew flat out disgusted with both parties, and that disgust remains.

The GOP seemed, to their average rank and file, to lie about all of its goals and to never act on them. They never acted on immigration.  They didn't do anything about an increasingly statist left wing bureaucracy coming to influence daily life and social policy.  They did nothing, they felt.

And for he hard hat element of the Democratic Party, it became impossible for them to recognize their own party.  A party which was once the party of the working man had become the party of identity politics and gender confusion.

In short, you couldn't be a Republican worried about immigration, worried about social policy, or worried about an increasingly Statist American nation and take the GOP politicians seriously.  And you couldn't be a Democrat who opposed abortion, or opposed radical gun control, or who worried about his job on the factory floor, and take the Democrats seriously.

And those people came to hate  their own parties.

That's how we got here.

And they still hate their own parties.

Going forward

And that's what we need to recall.

If the radical left feels removing Trump today means a gender neutral Trotsky tomorrow, a Trump impeachment will make the situation much worse, not any better.  The political civil war would go nuclear thereafter.

If the GOP feels that removing Trump just takes the party back to the good old days of George Bush II, or I, they're not going to get it.

You can lance the boil, to be sure, but the infection that's causing it is really deep.

And that's what needs to both give us pause, and cause us to need to use that pause for some pondering and planning.

And part of that planning and pondering should lead to the conclusion that Trump came about because of a massive Democratic and Republican failure, but not the same failure.

The Democrats have become a party run by a hard left, ossified, ancient elite.  They formed their political views in the very early 1970s and they believe that politics can lead people to a bright shiny secular urban tea sipping gender neutral city on a hill.

Whatever the views are of younger people, they aren't what Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuckles Schumer think they are.  Nor are they what Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Donna Brazille think they are.  The Democrats have to dump the crazy left and relocate the center, even their own center.

And the GOP elite has to quit lying.  It's made it a long ways on promising to do increasingly unlikely things and their bluff was called in the form of Trump.  Going from just conservative during the Reagan era to far right in an increasing lock step every year, in their pronouncements if not their actions, voters finally abandoned them in favor of a candidate who would actually attempt to do the increasingly hard right things promised.  For example, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem was never a sound idea, but GOP candidates promised it, and then (wisely) backed out.  It was never a good idea, but they kept tossing it out there.  Now voters who kept hearing that promise voted in a guy who actually did it, no matter how unsound that idea was.

So, if Trump is removed, unless things are to go from extreme to even more extreme, both sides nearly need to take Trump as an example of how extreme things could get and back off a whole lot.

What would that mean?

Both sides have to dump the disgruntled crazies in their ranks for one thing.  Everyone sees them, but nobody feels that they can silence them.  University professors who think they are Marxist revolutionaries. . .judges who can't tell men from women and want to force everyone else into gender neutrality. . . individuals who have their own secret copy of a constitution which provides that the United States was to be a Protestant theocracy. . . people who hate the government because it is a government . . people who hate other people because of their race, gender, or proclivities or who hate other people as they won't acknowledge that their own race has a special place as its special, or specially oppressed, or that their proclivities are deserving of forced public accolades.  People who would write science out of science text books or history out of history text books.  

It won't be easy.

And, moreover, for the Democrats it likely means that they need to discovery actual nature and working people a bit.  Democrats sound like they really truly hate human nature and would prefer a nation of Greenwich Village dwelling castrati if at all possible.   That's not going to happen.  And they need to find a sense of philosophical values that's not based on complete nonsensical hot air.

For the GOP, it means that they have to decide which of their right wing promises they really mean and stick to them and explain them in a cogent fashion.  And they need to rediscover science and education in a major and serious way.  They need, quite frankly, to abandon the gadfly fruit loops that they let run amok in the political hinterlands suggesting that the FBI is right over the top of the hill and they need to be resisted.

Put more bluntly, the GOP needs to kick out Roy Moore and cheerleaders for the Bundys, and most of the delegation from Utah that hates public lands.  The Democrats need to loose Chuckles Schumer, anyone named Clinton, and Wasserman Schultz.

If they don't, we'll be headed to a series of presidents, right and left, which will make Trump look like a model of calm behavior and middle ground positions.  And we'll suffer greatly as a result.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. James the Less Catholic Church, Ulupalakua, Maui, Hawaii.

Churches of the West: St. James the Less Catholic Church, Ulupalakua, Maui, Hawaii.

This is St. James the Less Catholic Church in Ulupalakua, Maui, Hawaii.  It's a mission church served by Our Lady Queen of Angels, which is actually fairly close to it on the same highway.  Being used to the large distances of most rural areas of the West, to find two churches of the same faith so close together is surprising, but even in such locations as Denver Colorado that still occurs, so perhaps this should not be surprising.  This church is actually older that Our Lady Queen of Angels and the original church built in this location was constructed at least as early as 1875, with missionary activity having dated back to the 1850s.  The current structure was built in 1950 and renovated in 2002.

123d and 124th Infantry Regiment. Camp Wheeler, Macon, Georgia. December 10, 1917.

124th Infantry Regiment Camp.

123d Infantry Regiment Camp.

Best Posts of the Week of December 3, 2017.

The best posts of the week of December 3, 2017.

A week marked here by tanks, bicycles, old predictions that panned out, and rediscovering the obvious.

December 4. Predictions and Predicaments old new.

The bicycles strike back. . .

The M26 and its children

D'oh! Rediscioverying what was already obvious. " Why a leading political theorist thinks civilization is overrated A new book challenges how we think about human progress."

Jerusalem surrenders to the British, December 9, 1917

Ottoman forces had withdrawn the day prior, but the town surrendered on December 9, 1917.

The Mayor of Jerusalem with two British sergeants.  It must have been muddy, based on the appearance of everyone's shoes.

The capture of the city marked the hallmark of Gen. Allenby's first campaign in the Middle East, which had seen a lot of dramatic fighting over the past two or so months.  It wouldn't be the culmination of Allenby's efforts by any means, but it was his first indisputable major success.

 

Crowd viewing the entry of British officers near the Jaffa Gate 

It also put the British in a sensitive position which they were never really able to work out, and which in some ways has never been worked out.  Alleby was sensitive to being seen as a crusader by the Arab population of the multi cultural city and strove to avoid that.  Be that as it may, it can't be ignored that an English, Christian, army was entering a mostly Arab, Muslim, town that had been evacuated by a Turkish Muslim leader who claimed to rule a caliphate.

British rule would prove to be relatively short, a little over thirty years, but controversial.  Prior to Allenby's entry the British had already extended promises to both the Arab Muslims as well as to the Jews regarding the ultimate fate of Palestine, promises which they were not later successful in reconciling.  The British promises extended to two out of the three major religions that have holy sites in the city, and perhaps tellingly the British, a Christian people not wanting to seem to be Crusaders, but an officially Protestant nation as well, did not seek to make promises of the same type to the minority Orthodox or Catholic populations, although they did of course protect the religious sites of all the religions located there.  The city had, at the time, a Muslim majority.

And as the British did not reflect either of those cultures themselves, their rule grew to be unpopular in various quarters with both.  Prior to World War Two the British would find themselves forced to put down an Arab independence movement and following World War Two it was faced with a Jewish independence movement in its League of Nation's mandate.  That was accompanied by growing Muslim unrest as the Jewish population of the mandate increased by the influx of Jewish refugees caused by World War Two.  Ultimately they simply left, which was probably the only thing they really could do.

 British guard at the Jaffa Gate

Even now, of course, the echoes of 1917 can still be heard.  The city was split between Israel and Jordan until the Six Day War in 1968, at which time Israel occupied the entire city.   Israel proclaimed the city as its capitol as early as 1949 but most nations have not recognized that claim.  The US recognized it in 1995, by Congressional resolution, but also provided that the embassy could only be moved after certain conditions were realized.  The Palestinian National Authority claims the eastern half of the city as its capitol while recognizing the western half of the capitol as the Israeli capitol.

 Turkish prisoners of war.

Just this past week President Trump declared that the American embassy would in fact be moved, fulfilling a campaign promise made by various Presidents before him, as well as by him, but which is guaranteed to be massively unpopular and likely result in violent protests.

And it all started on this day, in 1917.

D'oh! Rediscioverying what was already obvious. " Why a leading political theorist thinks civilization is overrated A new book challenges how we think about human progress."

Goose decoys in a farmed field, Goshen County Wyoming.

Why a leading political theorist thinks civilization is overrated

A new book challenges how we think about human progress.

Did we not already know this?  I thought it was pretty obvious.

Indeed, we've known for a really long time that people in hunting cultures are pretty happy as a rule. Why wouldn't they be? That was our original state, after all.  Something that we, in our modern civilized societies, seem to be continually surprised by.  However, looking around, you'll find that the level of general discontent in civilized societies, and in particular in "advanced economies" is really high.  And no wonder. The more advanced a society, the less connection with life, as we were intended to live it, exists.

Indeed, many of the problems that we worry about in modern society are pretty much unique to "civilized" societies, and in particular modern ones.  Depression, anxiety, identity disorders, and suicide. . .these are first world modern civilized problems.

And yet this is apparently as astounding conclusion and discovery.  And apparently James Scott, a professor of political science and anthropology at Yale University, is the latest to discover, or shall we say more correctly, rediscover this.  He's just authored a book entitled Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States.  Sean Illing, for Vox, interviewed him. The interview is interesting, but  it is a bit odd to find positions that you've known of and taken for years being presented as revolutionary revelations.

Anyway, let's start off with something that I was well aware of and that I've heard others note.  Civilization involves a lot of work, and that's what we signed on board for when we went civilized. Or, rather, that's what our ancestors enrolled us for.

Even today, there is this idea that life with civilization is easier and affords more leisure, but hunters and gatherers spend only about 50 percent of their time producing or searching for what they needed to survive. The idea that hunters and gatherers and foragers were living hand to mouth and one day away from starvation is nonsense, even for those in pretty marginal areas where there is less access to natural migrations of fish and animals and the fruiting seasons of trees and so on.

No kidding. We didn't know that?

Why didn't we know that. Our own American culture encountered, directly, aboriginal people for the first few centuries, if we go back to Colonial times, of our existence.  It seems we should have known that aboriginal people were generally not starving.  Hmmmm.

The author was asked about how civilized life "improved" human existence in some ways.  His answer was as follows.

Yes, things are better now, but it’s really only in the last 200 years or so that we’ve enjoyed the health and longevity that we do today. But this initial period when we think civilization was created was, in fact, a really dark period for humanity.

Dark period may be laying it on a little thick, but by the same token the idea that we really are enjoying that much in the way of any kind of "improvement" does as well.  Some aboriginal people are known to have lived very long lives.  It's indisputable that medicine has hugely advanced, to be sure, but then some of the modern diseases we confront have come about due to our modernity.  Diseases like diabetes, for example, pretty clearly afflict us to a large degree because of our diet and living habits.  Obesity is a modern problem.  And pretty clearly a large number of modern psychological problems are ours alone.  Medicine has undoubtedly improved, but I don't think we've begun to plumb the depth of how our modern civilized life afflicts our health in all sorts of ways.

And he was asked about environment.

Well, I think we’ve gotten ourselves into a fix with our natural environment. We keep building and destroying and growing, and I worry that we might jeopardize everything if we can’t slow down and reexamine what we’re doing. Part of why I’m interested in studying these lost cultures is to understand how humans have lived for 95 percent of our existence, and to remind myself that things could be otherwise.

There's the key.

"Part of why I’m interested in studying these lost cultures is to understand how humans have lived for 95 percent of our existence, and to remind myself that things could be otherwise."

They could be otherwise.  As Chesterton noted:

If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, "You can't put the clock back."The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour.In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.

Now, to be sure, we likely can't in real terms, particularly given our numbers, say let's chuck it all and become aboriginals.  And we probably don't want to either.  Truth be known, one of the things I suspect the good professor is missing is that the line between agricultural peoples and hunting peoples isn't anywhere near as sharp as he, and many others, seem to think.  Indeed, in reality, almost every hunting culture, with few exceptions, is also a farming people unless environmental conditions simply to not allow for it.  Many of the supposed "hunter gatherer societies" out there are really also subsistence farming cultures as well, and always were.  So what is really alien to us is not farming, but rather deep urban life.  That we can start to address.

And we can do that by protecting and expanding, yes expanding, the wild and putting both agriculture, as a local individual activity, and hunting and fishing, as the core human activity, back in their proper prospective.  You have to recall that; 1) you aren't going to live forever, so quit freaking out about whether you should take up the latest weird diet beliefs; 2) plant a garden. . .seriously; and 3) buy that rifle, shotgun, bow and rod and take up some thing real.  Hunting and fishing.

Blog Mirror: A Hundred Years Ago: The Efficient Way to Wash Dishes

The Efficient Way to Wash Dishes

The Cheyenne State Leader. Disaster and bad decisions

On December 7, a date we associate with a later war, Cheyenne's residents had headline about another maritime disaster.

And they got to read about a stupid proposal., the concept of eliminating German from the high schools even though it was a popular course.

War . . .

December 7, 1917. The United States Declares War On Austria Hungary

Whereas the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America : Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a state of war is hereby declared to exist between the United States of America and the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government; and that the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 7, 1917: USS Wyoming arives in Scapa Flow.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 7:

1917  The USS Wyoming, under sail since November 25, arrives in Scapa Flow.  Four U.S. battleships arrive at Scapa Flow taking on the role of the British Grand Fleet's Sixth Battle Squadron. These include USS Delaware (BB-28), USS Florida (BB-30), New York (BB-34), and USS Wyoming

(BB-32).