History

The Declaration of Independence — With Explanations!

by
The Declaration of Independence -- With Explanations!

If you’re going to try to make sense of American government and politics, even in the twenty-first century, you’d do well to know and understand what the Declaration of Independence (as well as a few other documents) has to say because the beliefs behind it still influence American thinking and politics to this day and, Cthulhu willing, will continue to influence Americans until the Earth is no more.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America[1],

 

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.[2]

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes[3]; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.[4]

  1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
  2. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
  3. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
  4. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
  5. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  6. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  7. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
  8. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
  9. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  10. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
  11. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
  12. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
  13. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
  14. For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  15. For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  16. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  17. For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
  18. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  19. For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
  20. For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
  21. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
  22. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
  23. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
  24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
  25. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
  26. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
  27. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.[5]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.[6]

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren.[7] We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[1]This text is copied from the National Archives and Records Administration which maintains the document with the older English spellings that were originally penned down onto the parchment by Thomas Jefferson. So, don’t bug me about “typos” or “bad grammar” unless you’ve got a time machine and went back and changed the way they wrote and spoke in the late 1700s.

 

[2]This is the preamble and the introduction that lay out the reason for declaring independence.

 

[3]This is known as the “light and transient causes” clause which gets brought up just about any time some hothead starts talking about rebelling and/or seceding from the current government. Basically, the gist of it is that yes, we have the power and the right to revolt, overthrow the government by force of arms, and institute a new government in its place. But, we shouldn’t do this lightly or for reasons that won’t matter in a few years.

 

This clause and argument are also part of why the Second Amendment is so important to Americans — if only the government has weapons, then it becomes very hard to rebel when the government becomes unjust. The American Revolutionary War kicked off when British troops went to Lexington and Concord to take the rifles, munitions, and other weapons out of the hands of the men who lived there in order to deprive them of the tools needed to defeat the British troops and continue the rebellion.

 

[4]This whole section lays out the argument that the Americans had every right to rebel and that such rights are inborn to all people. It also explains that government’s proper role isn’t one of rulership but rather one of being ruled by the will and consent of the governed. As you can tell, if you’ve read much from that era, the Revolutionaries were very influenced by the Northern Enlightenment (think Locke instead of Rousseau).

 

[5]These are the twenty-seven grievances that the colonies had with the King and with Parliament. This section can generally be divided into four parts: the King’s abuse of his executive power, the King and Parliament conspiring together to deprive the colonists of their rights as Englishmen, the complaints about the cruel and violent method the King had for dealing with the colonies, and the fact that the King ignored the colonists many times in the past when they begged for redress.

 

[6]Yeah, the Revolutionaries were definitely not fans of King George III. And, to be fair, he and Parliament had ignored almost every one of their complaints and had insulted the representatives sent to try to argue the American case before them. Benjamin Franklin was humiliated publicly by the Solicitor-General in front of the Privy Council, for instance.

 

[7]The colonists hadn’t only reached out to the King, they’d reached out to the Parliament and to the people in Britain. No one seemed inclined to listen to the problems the American colonists had or the legitimate complaints they were making. So, the British people themselves came under censure here for failing to help their fellow Brits out and standing by while the King and Parliament acted like tyrants to one group of British subjects.

US History, Government, and Political Philosophy 101

by
US History, Government, and Political Philosophy 101

I have about a half-dozen posts in various stages of completion and they all have one thing in common: each of them has a lengthy diatribe about US history and politics. This is because many of my readers are either overseas (and thus would not have studied US history and governmental structure as thoroughly as used to be taught here) or don’t seem to have paid attention in school (not uncommon). Since about half of the things that set me off these days come down to “Cthulhu’s Tendrils, have they not read the Constitution? It’s four freaking pages!” or “…seriously, do they not bother to use Google to check out the crap they’re being fed?” I’ve decided to make a reference series that gives a good overview of American history from ancient times to the modern era with an emphasis on how our government actually works as opposed to how people wish it would work or believe it works.

 

So, let’s get started, shall we?

 

Roughly 10,000 years ago, the first immigrants arrived via a peninsula that connected Asia and Alaska in what is now the Bering Strait. These immigrants moved southward until their descendants pretty much covered most of North and South America. These people gave rise to the various American empires: the Incas, the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Sioux, the Ute, the Anasazi, the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Cree, the Seminole, the Algonquians, and the Iroquois among them. The different tribes traded and warred over territory throughout their history and just generally lived their lives with the Atlantic and Pacific keeping them from knowing anything about the interconnected continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa. Only the aborigines in Australia were more isolated than the American empires. During the early 1000s, Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, was the first European to set foot in North America. Nearly five centuries later, Christopher Columbus would land in North America during his voyage to find a shorter (and less heavily taxed) route to India, thus opening North and South America (as well as the islands in the Atlantic and Caribbean) up to European exploration and settlement.

 

Skipping ahead a bit, in time, Great Britain came to be the most predominant colonial force in North America. France and Spain, yes, had their colonies but Great Britain had much greater influence in North America. The colonists living in the original thirteen colonies considered themselves to be British subjects. Indeed, many of the colonies had governors who had been appointed by the Crown. However, these colonies also — by and large — had locally elected government officials and councils. Great Britain was at some distance and the colonists had a level of autonomy from the English Parliament and the Crown and self-rule that wasn’t found outside of the British isles. Though there had been rumblings of breaking away, for the most part, people in the British North American colonies were content with their situation. Some of our Founding Fathers, namely George Washington, proudly fought for the British during the Seven Years’ War (what we call the French and Indian War when referring to the parts that took place in North America). However, once the French and Indian War was over, relations between British North America and Great Britain took a decided turn south.

 

The Revolutionary Era in North America began in 1763 when, following the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the British government decided that the North American colonists needed to contribute more towards helping to maintain the Empire, the British government levied direct taxes on the colonies. To say that this upset many of the North American colonists is like saying that the Great Wall of China is long. It wasn’t the taxes, the items taxed, or the amount of the tax itself that bothered the colonists so much. It was the fact that the colonists had no elected representation in the English Parliament and thus, no vote on taxation and other matters that might impact their interests. It was a facet of English law and custom that those who were taxed deserved some voice in the government. So, the colonists felt that their rights as Englishmen were being trampled upon. The taxes that so vexed the colonists were the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act (1765), the Currency Act, and the Quartering Acts.

 

Benjamin Franklin spoke before Parliament (he had been sent to London to try to settle matters between the local populace and the Penn heirs over who had control of Pennsylvania) and convinced them to drop the taxes in 1766. However, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act which stated that they did have the power to make laws for the colonies in all cases.

 

The next year, 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts which taxed things like paper, tea, and glass. Again, the colonists were enraged because these taxes were levied without them having a voice in Parliament. Protests grew more common and, on March 5, 1770, the protests resulted in five colonists being killed by British forces in Boston (the Boston Massacre). Parliament withdrew the taxes in the Townshend Acts on everything except tea later in 1770 in response to the protests and to the boycotting of British goods. Benjamin Franklin continued to advocate an accommodationist stance between Britain and the colonies until the publications of letters between the governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, and Andrew Oliver, the lieutenant-governor, that called for the abridging of colonial rights and the direct pay (by Parliament) of the officials in order to free them from the local councils (who had been the ones paying the officials, thus granting the locals some measure of control over them). After being humiliated by the British Solicitor-General in front of the Privy Council, Benjamin Franklin returned to Pennsylvania in 1775 and became an effective voice for revolution.

 

The Intolerable Acts (the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, the Boston Port Act, and the Quartering Act of 1774) were passed in 1774 and revolutionary fervor hit a fever pitch. With a fell swoop, the English Parliament had restructured the Massachusetts government to take power away from the local councils and restricted town meetings. Crimes committed by British soldiers would be tried only back in London, not locally. The Boston Harbor was closed until Britain had been compensated for the losses during the Boston Tea Party. And finally, British troops could be quartered in any colonists’ homes without permission of the owner. There was also the Quebec Act of 1774 which placed Quebec’s border at the Ohio River, cutting off colonial claims to that territory but, by the time it was passed, the colonists had already begun forming their own shadow governments and training their own militias in secret. The first shots of the revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 and by July 1776, patriots (those who advocated for revolution) had control of all thirteen of the American colonies and had driven out the British governors. New state constitutions were written and the colonies united under the provisional Continental Congress as the American Revolution kicked into high gear.

 

The American Revolution could be a series in and of itself and this is a good stopping place for now. Check back tomorrow for an explanation of the Declaration of Independence — another document a lot of people haven’t bothered to read for all that it’s fairly short. The Declaration of Independence is very important in understanding both why the colonists rebelled and broke away from Britain and in understanding the philosophies and political thinking that influenced the later American government and still has deep meaning for Americans to this day over two centuries after it and the Constitution were written.

 

— G.K.

Note on References: Anything that wasn’t drawn from memory came from Wikipedia’s entry on the American Revolution. Yes, people, G.K. paid attention in school and can actually remember almost all of this.

Gay Marriage, Church and State, and the First Amendment

by
Gay Marriage, Church and State, and the First Amendment

Gay Marriage and LGBT rights have been a big thing in the news over here in the States for the past few months. I mentioned some of my thoughts in L’affaire Eich a while back and most people who know me have a general idea of what my thoughts are but I do still manage to surprise them by one thing (though, really, it shouldn’t be so surprising — it’s just my adherence to it even when it’s not to my advantage that throws people).

 

In my mind, there is no sentence more important in all of history than this one:

 

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.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

That right there, folks, is the most important sentence in all of history. It’s the most amazing sentence ever written. It’s a sentence that, in one fell swoop, severely limits the power of a new-born government and places power directly in the hands of the people. It’s the sentence that makes “consent of the governed” actually work. Yes, yes, the Second Amendment is very important and I’ll always defend it. But without the First Amendment, the Second would be pointless because there’d be nothing to protect.

 

The First Amendment protects a lot of things: freedom to assemble, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom from being religious, freedom to speak your mind, freedom to argue and debate, freedom to protest, freedom to lobby the government, freedom to advertise, freedom to advocate for the overthrow of the government.

 

Notice I said “protects” and not “promises” or “grants.” All rights in the Bill of Rights are negative rights (something I’ll touch on in detail in a later post). No one is “given” anything — the assumption is that the people already have these rights and the government is told to keep its grubby paws off them even if they think they’re meddling “for our own good” or “for the children” or whatever the catchphrase du jour is this week.

 

The First Amendment also explicitly forbids Congress from granting favor or disfavor to any particular sect or religion. There’s no official religion in the United States even though some colonies were founded as charters of a specific church or movement. When it comes to religious beliefs and practices, Congress (and via the Fourteenth Amendment, the States) cannot interfere except in a very narrow range of circumstances such as parents refusing emergency medical services for their child if a third party contacted them, human sacrifice, slavery via contract, and things of that nature (granted, I’m not a lawyer so if I’m wrong, let me know). Congress cannot pass a law that would force a religious institution to support something against its fundamental beliefs — such as forcing the Amish or Quakers to speak out in support of a war, forcing the Catholic church to fund abortions, forcing an Islamic group to speak out in favor of strip bars, or forcing a Jewish synagogue to sell its members on the health benefits of bacon.[1]

 

The flip-side of this is that no religion or sect can force its members to vote in a certain manner, to refrain from certain beliefs or behaviors by force of law, or to support certain policies or candidates in political matters. A church can beseech. It can plead. It can remark upon. But it cannot force its members to action in the political sphere. Yes, a church can refuse to perform blessings or rites upon members who violate the church’s teachings or beliefs but it can’t call up the local sheriff and have him arrest a member for being a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, Anarchist, or anything like that. It can’t take a member to court for being in favor of a tax increase, gay marriage, or voting against the Reverend’s daughter on the local school board.[2]

 

There is a legal separation of church and state that acts to protect both and this is a Good Thing. The church can, just as any other group, try to convince its members to live a certain way or to vote a certain way but it can’t force them to do so or punish them for not doing so by force of law. The state can’t tell the church that it has to perform certain rites or that it has to favor certain political policies. The church can’t baptize Caesar and Caesar can’t rule over the church. That’s a good thing because every single time we’ve mingled the two, it’s gone badly. Just look at the corruption in the Catholic Church during the era when the Pope ruled as a temporal king and claimed political dominion over all sovereigns. Look at the corruption that led to deaths in Salem, Massachusetts when all the minister had to do was point and say “witch.” Look at the way that Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, and Jews were disenfranchised in the UK and forced to pay taxes to support the Anglican church or be jailed for refusal to go against their conscience. Look at how Protestants were disenfranchised in France and Spain. Look at how Christians and Jews are treated in the Middle East (outside of Israel) today. Look at how anyone of faith is treated in China today. Letting the government enforce religious orthodoxy is a terrible idea because not a single human alive is perfect. Letting religious orthodoxy control the government is a terrible idea because religions are run by humans who aren’t perfect. Yes, yes, when Jesus returns, He’ll set up a perfect kingdom. Jesus is a special exception to the whole “terrible human” thing. As soon as you can find someone alive who is as perfect in every way as Jesus is, let me know and that person will have my vote. Until then, I’m going to function under the “power corrupts” adage and try to keep Caesar chained and unbaptized and keep religion from ascending Caesar’s seat.

 

Why? Because separation of Church and State is one of the only things that makes the whole American Experiment work. Without it, we’re just another England or France. Without it, we’re not America anymore. Which is why I favor stripping all religions and sects of the power to perform legal marriages and going with a system like the current one in France. Currently, in France, if you want to get married (and have it be legal), you go to the Mayor’s office and apply for a marriage license. You have to post banns for a certain amount of time to give anyone who knows a legitimate legal reason why the marriage shouldn’t happen a chance to raise an objection. Then, you go before the Mayor who reads off the laws concerning marriage, you sign on the dotted line, and bam. You’re married. If you’re religious, you can then go to the church/temple/synagogue of your choice and have a matrimonial ceremony in line with your faith. The minister can’t make the marriage legal to the French government and the French government can’t tell the minister who they have to marry or who they are forbidden from marrying in their faith.

 

“Oh, but then you’re trampling on our rights!” I hear some cry. “You’re forcing us to think gay marriage is okay if you make it legal. Next people will marry their brothers and sisters and dogs and cars…” Yeah, no. Every place has laws regarding consanguinity for public health reasons. People too closely related who petition for legal marriage are refused because of the likelihood of their offspring having recessive birth defects come up and tainting the entire gene pool in a region. However, these laws don’t come with fines or jail times (otherwise there are entire communities in Appalachia who would be in trouble). The government just refuses to grant a license to them. Same thing with animals or inanimate objects — if they can’t express consent in human terms that anyone who speaks the common tongue can understand, they can’t sign the certificate. And, fun fact: it’s actually not illegal to marry your pet in some places yet no one seems to do so in those areas. It’s not that it’s permissible — just not forbidden. So, refusing to ask the government to use the power of law to enforce your religious definition of marriage will not lead to the downfall of the civic order. And, there are several religions where same sex marriage is permitted as a rite and refusal to grant legal status to those couples constitutes an infringement of their First Amendment rights — so long as ministers are allowed to perform legally sanctified marriages. Remove the ministers’ power to do so and let the local government decide and you’ve removed the danger there.

 

You’ve also removed the government’s ability to come into your church and tell you what to teach if you do that. Right now, a lot of conservatives in the US are all aflutter that the government is allowing lawsuits to compel people to perform services for gay marriages when gay marriage is against their beliefs. There are rumors that the government might even force ministers to bless such unions by the threat of withdrawing their power to perform marriages at all. Many conservatives fear that soon they’ll be legally compelled to support a lifestyle they find to be sinful.[3] The first step to removing the ability for the government to have the first say in your religion is to divest ministers of the power to perform legally binding marriages. Many conservatives (my mother among them) will scoff at this and have a Wall of Text from the Bible about how this tramples her rights or some other such nonsense. It doesn’t. It actually protects her church from the government. Don’t believe me?

 

Well, it worked in France.

 

France is, compared to the US at least, a pretty liberal country. Not quite so liberal as the Netherlands but still pretty liberal. Just recently, gay marriage became legal in France and gay couples can now go before the Mayor and be married legally. That’s equality in France. However, the LGBT lobby in France wanted to compel churches (particularly the Catholic church) to bless such unions by performing the Sacrament of Matrimony and by letting gay couples partake of the Eucharist (which means that the couple would be “in communion” with the church instead of violating its teachings on sexual purity by living an unrepentant homosexual life). The case didn’t get very far at all. From what I understand (and again, I welcome correction if this is wrong), the LGBT group got into the courtroom and the judge looked at them like they’d dribbled on their shirts before informing them that the French government had no power to force a religious institution to perform any rite or support any belief beyond “you can’t murder people or take their stuff” and that if the LGBT group wanted the Roman Catholic Church to perform same-sex Matrimonial Rites, they needed to take it up with the Church because the government didn’t have the authority and didn’t want the authority to tell any religion what it had to do or teach. The case was dismissed and though I’ve heard rumblings of it going before the EU High Court, I have a feeling that even as batcrap-crazy as they can be, the EU court will rule against it on the same grounds.

 

Separation of church and state means just that: the two are separate and neither can compel, by force, the other to do a damned thing it doesn’t want to do. Even if it’s “for equality” or “for the children” or “because it’ll hurt my feelings if this doesn’t happen.” You’re not compelled to go to a specific church, believe specific things, or perform specific religious duties — you can always go find or start a religion or church that is exactly what you want it to be. Hell, L. Ron Hubbard did this and I’ve seen plenty of Protestant churches spring up over some dispute about which SEC team to support in the NFL semi-finals or because someone ate a bad piece of fish and had a revelation (I swear, it does seem to me that Protestants make things up as they go along). But, no one can force a church to do anything that church doesn’t want to do. If your feelings are hurt: go somewhere else.

 

“But I want to be Catholic/Orthodox/part of the Southern Baptist group/Muslim/Orthodox Jewish/whatever and they say I’m violating their beliefs by being gay.” Guess what? You are. Part of belonging to a religious faith means living by its teachings even when it’s not easy or convenient. I’m Eastern Orthodox. That means that if I want to keep calling myself Orthodox, I have to get up on Sundays (even when I just want to laze about in bed) and go to Liturgy. I have to refrain from having wild orgies. I can’t visit a psychic. I can’t sit around and say that God doesn’t exist. I even sometimes have to fast and spend time praying. I can’t say that the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East is stupid (well, I can, but it’s not really a good policy). I can’t demand to go up to the altar because I’m a woman and that’s a man’s place. I can’t demand to be made a priest (though I could become a monk if I wanted). I can’t have a boyfriend move in and sleep with me — I have to get married to him first.[4] Those are some of the rules of being Orthodox and I knew them when I converted. If I find them that onerous, I’m free to leave and find another faith. I’m not free to demand that an institution that’s been around for 2000+ years change its views just for me. If the place you go to worship says that you’re violating their beliefs, then you can either suck it up and try to live according to their teachings or you can leave and find some other place. If someone refuses to perform a non-vital[5] service for you because of their own religious beliefs, then you can suck it up and find someone else. You can’t force an institution or individual to change their beliefs for you any more than they can force you to change yours for them.

 

That’s separation of church and state. Don’t like it when it works out against you? Then gather an army and go conquer some territory and form your own damned nation and see how it works out for you.

 

For now, that’s enough for this entry. There will be future entries in this vein given my fanatical adherence to the First Amendment and all its ramifications but, for now, I think I’ve probably pissed everyone off enough. 🙂

 

— G.K.

[1]Yes, this also touches on the birth control debate centered around the Hobby Lobby case and Obamacare. I will go into more detail on this in a future entry because this entry is long enough and needs no more meandering.

 

[2]A religious institution can refuse to perform sacraments for people who violate its teachings but it cannot call upon the law or the courts to enforce its teachings. It can, however, call the police if it catches someone breaking the law (such as someone breaking into a church to steal money or commit vandalism) and it can sue someone who has violated a contract with it (such as suing a contractor who was supposed to fix the roof and did not do so).

 

[3]And, seeing the backlash against Eich and photographers and caterers who refuse to perform services for gay marriages, conservatives actually do have some reason to fear that their lives will be made impossible if they donate to a cause against gay marriage or if they themselves refuse non-vital services to gay couples. In America, believing that someone is doing something sinful and not wanting to support that shouldn’t ever lead to a witch hunt against that person or group. The KKK should be free to believe blacks are inferior. The Catholic church should be free to believe that abortion is murder. The Baptist church should be free to believe that homosexuality is sinful. This is one area where the LGBT groups have gone too far in trying to force everyone to wholeheartedly support them and is fodder for a future entry.

 

[4]Having a live-in boyfriend/girlfriend for a “trial before marriage” is against the Church’s teachings. However, suppose I were sick or injured and needed someone to stay with me around the clock to help take care of me. If my boyfriend were the only one who could do that (say I couldn’t afford to hire a nurse and had no family nearby who could help me in such a manner), then he could stay in my home and sleep separately from me and the church, while not being a-okay with it, wouldn’t consider it sinful as long as we resisted the temptation to engage in hanky-panky without a wedding first. Or if my boyfriend was having work done on his house that necessitated he vacate the premises for a few days (like fumigation or major construction), again, he could crash at my place but not in my bed.

 

[5]Non-vital means just that — not required to live. Having a particular photographer work your wedding isn’t a matter of life and death. Having a particular caterer work your wedding isn’t a matter of life and death. Having a particular privately-owned building or hall host your wedding or reception isn’t a matter of life or death. However, an ER doctor or an EMT/paramedic cannot refuse to perform life-saving services on someone who is gay. A surgeon who finds out mid-surgery that the patient is transsexual can’t refuse to continue treatment. A Catholic doctor who is working as an OBGYN cannot refuse to perform an abortion for an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy where the fetus implants somewhere that is not the uterus. Such pregnancies can almost never result in a live birth and can almost always kill the mother if they are allowed to proceed by rupturing the Fallopian tube and paving the way for internal bleeding) if the woman comes to him in an urgent situation (such as when the pregnancy is about to result in a rupture of the Fallopian tube which can be fatal). A Muslim nurse cannot refuse to change a Jewish patient’s bandages. A Jewish ER doctor cannot refuse to treat a skinhead who’s been in a car wreck. When it’s a matter of life and death (and not just butthurt feelings), doctors and nurses and medical personnel can be forced to save the lives of those who do things they believe are sinful. Likewise, people in official positions like judges, police, firemen, and lawyers can be forced to protect or serve people who do things or believe things they find abhorrent (but are not illegal). That is something that all people who choose to go into those professions are taught and warned about early on. Most doctors will try to find a way to practice medicine that isn’t in conflict with their faith but, if it comes down to saving someone’s life, they can be compelled to perform the service even if they believe it is sinful or if they hate the person and everything that person stands for.

Star Trek vs Doctor Who — America and Britain at Their Best

by
Star Trek vs Doctor Who -- America and Britain at Their Best

In order to understand this entry, head over to the Stratosphere Lounge and watch episode 67 starting at the 23:48 mark. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

 

Done? Good.

 

Bill mentions that Star Trek is all about the frontier and exploring. Everyone has guns because you can’t just trust that the natives will be friendly. The crew of the Enterprise (a ship named after the American strength of commerce and trade) is genial and magnanimous, open to working with anyone peacefully but ready to defend themselves or their ideals against any enemies. Also, anyone can eventually become part of the Enterprise crew. Kirk is a farm boy from Ohio. McCoy is a doctor from Mississippi. Scotty is an engineer from Scotland. They’re normal people in extraordinary circumstances.

 

He also mentions that the Doctor is an aristocrat. He’s a Time Lord from Gallifrey. He’s got the power of a god and is pretty much immortal. His TARDIS is a hidden, magical world tucked away in a perfectly ordinary police call box. It’s done that way because it’s very British. London (and most of the rest of the United Kingdom) had been settled and explored since the classical era — there is no frontier in the American sense. The Doctor takes on companions who could be anyone but no one can become the Doctor. That divide is much like the British divide between commoner and royalty — nothing can breach it.

 

Or so Bill says. I think he’s wrong. Let me explain why before you lynch me.

 

Great Britain and the Northern Enlightenment are what gave birth to the foundational ideas of the United States. The Founding Fathers were all loyal British subjects before they rebelled against a tyrannical Parliament and Crown. They were almost all educated in the traditional British aristocratic manner. George Washington was part of the aristocracy through his family and his service to the King. He was called “His Excellency.” And, only in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland could a commoner, through uncommon courage and wisdom, be raised up to the aristocracy. Hell, my own distant paternal ancestor Baird was raised up by King William of Scotland1. You didn’t see that happening much in the Mediterranean or Iberian areas of Europe (and yes, I include France and Germany in that). Embracing a commoner and disdaining pure blood and breeding in favor of action is a very Anglo-Saxon-Celtic-Gaelic thing. But the Norsemen and the Gaels recognized that uncommon valor could be found in the most common of men2. So they raised them up an example to the rest of their followers.

 

Britain’s ideals prior to the Great War are very much a part of the American DNA, if you will. Yes, we have diverged from our Islander cousins in the past few generations but we still have more in common with them (and the Canadians, the Aussies, and the Kiwis) than we have with any other country on this planet. And, the Doctor — he’s a bit of a rebel. He has the power of a god but he rarely uses it to force his will on anyone. He does have more in common with Scotty, McCoy, and Spock than he has with Kirk. After all, he has a police call box so that he can be called to help out. He carries a screwdriver to fix things instead of a gun to blast enemies. He has two hearts so he can love all the more deeply. But, at the end of the day, he is willing to fight for what is right — even using a gun or sword (NuWho: Dalek, Bad Wolf, The Parting of the Ways, The Christmas Invasion, The Family of Blood, Journey’s End, The End of Time Part II). He’s willing to lay down his life to save the life of a friend. He could have become the ruler of Gallifrey and all the Time Lords but he turned his back on that to explore time and space. No matter his incarnation, he’s filled with wonder at the cosmos and curiosity to see it all. Yes, sometimes, he’s a bit of a controlling git and manipulates those around him. But he’s a god who wants very desperately to be human. He would give up everything just to live a common life, to marry, have children, grow old, and die. As a matter of fact, he does this in Journey’s End when he convinces the meta-crisis to go off with the one woman the Doctor will always love and live out a human life with her.

 

The Doctor is not just a British superhero — he’s a very American figure. He holds himself to a standard far higher than that which everyone else uses. He refuses to use his power (with the exception of him going a bit mad during The Waters of Mars) to force anyone to do his bidding. Instead, he continually risks his life to save mortals from peril. He continually risks his hearts in taking on companions he knows will leave him for the very kind of life he envies — a life with a house, doors, carpets and things.

 

The Doctor, like the crew of the Enterprise, is the best that both Britain and America have to give to the world. Just look around today. There are only two countries continually turning out movies and TV series with heroes — the US and the UK. Are our heroes the same? No. Are our stories the same? Again, no. But we are much closer to our British cousins than we ever will be to the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese, the Chinese, or any other nation or race on this planet. We have so much in common, so many shared dreams. It is truly a shame whenever an American discounts one of the greatest British television series as being “too British” instead of embracing it as part of his own cultural heritage.

 

Only two peoples on the face of this planet have had the power to subjugate it and dominate it, enslaving the rest of the nations to their will. Those two nations are Britain — who had an empire until they discovered that imperialism took too much energy and gracefully allowed their colonies to go free (as opposed to the French who fought it tooth and nail and dragged an ally into a losing war in Vietnam) — and America, who, right now, could demand that every nation worship her as an Old Testament style god or face wrath, fire, and destruction3.

 

And yet, neither of us has done that.

 

Yes, we might bicker over our trifling differences. Yes, the British are much more socialist and collectivist than Americans — that comes from being crammed together on a tiny island for centuries. But, we are both nations that understand the frontier. We are both nations that dream the big, impossible dreams. And we are both nations that believe that there are true heroes out there. Sometimes it’s an alien Time Lord and sometimes it’s a farm boy from Ohio. But, at the end of the day, they’re both good men which circumstances have forced to become great men. The Doctor belongs to America just as much as Captain Kirk belongs to Britain. They’re both part of our cultural DNA.

 

And I hope to Cthulhu4 we always remember that. The day we turn our back completely on our cousins, our shared history, and our common heritage is the day we will lose a very precious and very vital part of who, and what, we are as Americans.

 

— G.K.

 

1 If I recall correctly, according to my elderly cousin James Beard, our family hails from Lanarkshire in Scotland. Our ancestor, Baird, was raised up by King William of Scotland for killing a boar threatening his royal party.

 

2 The Anglos and Saxons were a bit unique in that, since primacy in war was paramount to their societies (due to the Norse worship), commoners who showed uncommon valor were prized above nobles who failed to show that same valor. American culture has been shaped quite heavily by this meritocratic view.

 

3 Seriously — this is why I get pissy with people who are like “but America is Imperialistic.” No, we’re not. We saw how much trouble this was right after the Spanish-American war. We let the Philippines go without a fight. We continually ask our commonwealths (who are not states) if they want to stay, go, or become states. We have enough firepower and enough nukes that we could go to the UN tomorrow and say “Hey, ya know what? We’re sick of all the bullshit. China, you’re gonna become an open democracy or else you’ll all die. And Russia, seriously, stop with the bullshit or you’re all dead. Europe? You wanna quit that shit or die? By the way, you have three minutes to decide before the missiles are on the way.” *insert Jeopardy theme music here.* “Oh, and all you fuckers in the Middle East hating on Israel? Tell Allah we said ‘hey, shitface’ when you and your people see him in *checks watch* oh, about fifteen seconds.” We could force the rest of the world to bow to us and do whatever we want but we have absolutely no desire to do so. We just want to be left alone. Name me three other nations that have had this power and refused to use it and maybe I’ll hear you out about how imperialistic the United States is.

 

4 I said I wasn’t going to swear to real deities anymore which is why I’m always swearing to ones that don’t exist.

Sometimes…

by
Sometimes...

I really miss living in Europe.

 

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love the United States. I’m quite proud of my country and all it’s accomplished in the last century or so. I’m proud to be part of a culture that isn’t defined by blood or territory but by something entirely new on planet Earth — an ideology. An idea. A belief that all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator (whether you believe that to be a deity or random chance) by certain inalienable rights. A belief in rule of law over rule of man. A belief that it doesn’t matter what color your skin is, what kind of accent you have, what God you worship — or if you worship a God at all — how much money you have, what kind of job you hold…that you are equal before the law to everyone else. A belief that men are best left to govern themselves without some ruler standing over them dictating their lives to them. And, a belief that so long as you hold that to be true, you are American whether you speak with an accent or worship Christ or Shiva. You don’t have to be born here to be one of us. Immigrants who just recently gave their oaths to the United States and the Constitution are just as American as I am though my ancestors came over during the 1700 and 1800s.

 

Not to say that we hold perfectly to those ideals all the time — we don’t. Not to say that Americans have never done anything wrong or horrific in our short history. We have. But I am proud to have been born of mixed blood in a country where we welcome everyone who dreams of living free and working hard to our shores.

 

Still, there are times I really miss living in Europe.

 

I don’t fetishize Europe or anything. I don’t think that Europe is the future that America will “grow up” to become. America and Americans descend from people who, by and large, thought that Europe with its royalties, its monarchs, its caste system, its iniquitous rule of men over law sucked. America is the “un-Europe.” But, Europe still is a very special place to me.

 

Europe has a history, a depth, a permanence that is both alien and comforting to me, a perpetual outsider on that continent. I could have stayed in France, spoken nothing but French, converted back to Roman Catholicism, sewn the tri-color flag to my undergarments, and eaten all the cheese I could stomach and I would never have been French. My French ex-husband could pack up tomorrow, get on a plane, fly to the United States, and, after a few years, he’d be just as American as I am. Even if I were to go to the United Kingdom where most of my ancestors hailed from, even if I were to give my oath to Queen and Country, serve tea and crumpets every afternoon, pick up the local accent as best I could, and proudly flown the Union flag while burning Guy Fawkes in effigy every November 5, I wouldn’t be “British.”

 

But still…even with all of that, there are times I wish I could go back and live there again. I’d probably choose to live in the UK, though, even if my French isn’t too terrible considering I’m largely self-taught. Europe has this mystique to it. It’s old (and I like old things). It’s got this wonderfully great depth of history to it. Europe (well, Western Europe, really) doesn’t sweat the small stuff. Even if the air there felt oppressive to me on occasion, as if it were weighted down by its very history, as if it were more a museum than a living, breathing, vibrant set of nations…it still had a magic about it that I haven’t found in the United States at all.

 

Now, I do like living closer to Mini-me — especially since I know that she’ll be part of my life from here on out. I love talking to her on the phone and hearing her tell me how much she likes the things I like. Mini-me adores me (I don’t know why) and, when I go back to Mississippi to visit, she doesn’t seem to want to let me out of her sight. When I was there for Christmas and had a migraine, she wound up coming with me back to my bedroom and laying down on the bed with me while I laid a cold cloth across my forehead and waited for that last dose of Excedrin to kick in. She curled up against my back and fell asleep. Later, we watched Doctor Who and she still talks about the episodes she watched with me. The plastic people, the Nestene Consciousness, the blue girl, the flat girl, the flying grammy, the “Trabeen” (Siltheen), the piggy astronaut, “victory should be naked!” and, of course, the Targis (TARDIS). She loves her ol’ Aunt Kelly even if Aunt Kelly can’t quite figure out why. But still, all things being equal, I’d love to go back to Europe for a while.

 

I think that Mini-me would like Europe, too. I could see her visiting me there and going to see the castles and palaces, listening to all the different languages, eating at a sidewalk café in Paris. Having greasy, vinegary fish-and-chips in London. Walking along Hadrian’s wall near the Scottish border. Yes, she and I would always be étrangers, auslanders, foreigners in Europe. But I think that she would feel the same magic about that place that I do.

 

I miss the mass transit — even if it was unreliable sometimes due to strikes. I miss the flowers decorating the streets. I miss the smell of the boulangeries, seeing the meat on display at the boutcheries, the fromageries, the little shops along the rues, the grocery stores where you could get just about any kind of meat (except venison). I miss the pubs and taverns where you could see older men sitting back and having a pint or two. I miss the slower pace of life where vacations were important.

 

Yes, Europe had its bits that drove me crazy. The strikes in France. The high taxes. The elites’ tendency to condescend to the lower classes. The belief that people there knew more about my country, its history, its government, and its politics than I did (and, to this day, though I lived in France for nearly a decade, you will never hear me claim to be an expert on French government, let alone other European governments). The riots in the immigrant quarters because the immigrants know they’ll never be “European” no matter how many generations they live there and because they are treated rather poorly. The constant nagging question in my mind as to what it is that actually makes one “French” or “German” or “British” or “Italian.” The way that a lot of people looked down on me for my accented French. The way that, though I loved the place and its history, I never quite fit in.

 

Still, I’d go back tomorrow if I could. There’s something about living in an old country — even if there were days I swore I could smell death and decay from old age on the air — and living among an old people — even if I sometimes wondered why they didn’t move forward more instead of looking back — that is magic.

 

There are times I really miss living in Europe where the ancient sits cheek-by-jowl with the modern and is considered normal.

 

–G.K.

There Will Come Soft Rains…

by
There Will Come Soft Rains...

This post was written in response to hearing some stupid teenager asking about what “Armistice Day” on the calendar meant and then responding “oh. Who cares about World War I? That was like, forever ago. It’s not relevant now.”

 

There will come soft rains
And the smell of ground
And swallows circling
With their shimmering sound

 

And frogs in the pools
Singing at night
And wild plum trees
In tremulous white.

 

Robins will wear
Their feathery fire
Whistling their whims
On a low fence wire.

 

And not one will know of war
Not one will care when
At last
It is done.

 

Not one would mind
Neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished
Utterly.

 

And Spring herself
When she awoke at dawn
Would scarcely know
That we were gone.

 

— There Will Come Soft Rains, Sara Teasdale, 1920

 

I first read this poem when I read the story by Ray Bradbury “There Will Come Soft Rains.” It’s probably one of the first poems I took the trouble to memorize without it being an assignment. This poem inspired one of my earliest stories “The House of the Ancient Writ” which got published in several literary magazines in my home state back when I was in high school. It also inspired the story “A Moment Too Late” (well, it and the movie Some Kind of Wonderful. Hey, lay off. I was fifteen!) which also netted me a fair bit of attention and resulted in me going a whole week without being harassed at school, as well as being published in quite a few magazines.

 

At any rate, it’s a hauntingly beautiful poem written in the aftermath of the Great War (what we Americans call World War I).

 

Many people reading this will take a moment to think about all of the veterans of the various wars we’ve fought in today. They’ll place flags on graves. They’ll maybe take some time to give a phone call or email to any veterans in their families. Others — especially the young and thoughtless — won’t even understand the significance of Armistice Day. After all, the Great War ended almost a century ago. Surely it can’t have any bearing on life today, right?

 

Wrong. So terribly, tragically, fucking wrong.

 

The twentieth century was a time of many revolutions. It saw the blossoming of the Industrial Revolution, the Education Revolution, the Russian Revolution, Women’s Suffrage, the Sexual Revolution, the Technological (or Digital) Revolution. The Space Race. The Nuclear Age. But it was also a charnel house. It gave us the first Industrial Era war (the Great War). It gave us World War II. The Cold War. The Korean War. The Berlin War. The Berlin Airlift. Vietnam. The Doomsday Clock. The Iranian Revolution. Operation: Desert Storm. The Dissolution of the Soviet Union. The twentieth century was turbulent, filled with highs and lows. Never have we, as a species, come closer to the greatness inherent within us and never have we, as a species, come closer to annihilating ourselves, leaving nothing but dust, bones, and the skeletal remains of once-great cities to attest to our turbulent and momentary existence.

 

And the whole damned thing started with the Great War. The Great War set the tone. The Great War irrevocably and unalterably changed the balance of power on planet Earth. The Great War showed us the horrors we are capable of. It overthrew five hundred some-odd years of history and flung the oddest of oddball of nations on a trajectory for greatness.

 

So don’t ever fucking tell me that the Great War doesn’t matter. It does.

 

Europe in the early twentieth century truly was a foreign land to all of us — American or modern European. None of us born after the Great War can even begin to understand the constraints, the conceits, the concepts under which our grandparents, great grandparents and, (for some of us) great-great grandparents lived. Only those of us who have delved deeply into history can begin to wrap our minds around it. Back then, women didn’t have a voice — unless they could influence their husbands. Their “rights,” such as they were, were subsumed by the doctrine of coverture by their fathers and their husbands. Courtship consisted of men escorting their potential brides under the ever-watchful eyes of chaperones. A man who wished to woo a particular woman had first to receive the permission of her father. Yes, yes, bordellos existed. Very few men of any caste came to marriage as virgins — such visits to houses of ill-repute were considered a milestone of manhood. And men — all men who were able-bodied — were part of the army in most countries. Officers were drawn from the ranks of the upper-class and nobility. Every country thought itself better than the others. Every country knew itself, by blood and honor, to be superior. Only the United States stood apart in that regard and even she had her prejudices (and if you doubt that, look at her treatment of the Irish and of the Eastern European immigrants during this era). “For King and Country!” cried the British. “Pour la gloire de la France!” cried the Frenchmen. Europe had expended its blood and treasure building empires during the 1800s. Britain and France reigned supreme in that. Spain gave a good showing. In the 1900s, after unification, Italy and Germany made plays for rulership of the world. The United States, alone among Western nations, had found that imperialism left a bad aftertaste in the wake of the Spanish-American war and had little desire to expand itself. (Scratch an American, even today, and you’re going to find an isolationist). Alliances were formed. Vows to stand together against the Other — the ones who were ravenous and inferior — bound nation to nation against other nations. The Triple Entente. The Triple Alliance. The Central Powers. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the United States was busy praying that European troubles wouldn’t bleed over to their hemisphere. Americans couldn’t have cared less about what Europe did to themselves.

 

With these alliance systems, with these beliefs in superiority, with these hold-overs from the era of the Divine Right of Kings, Europe in the early 1900s was a powder-keg waiting for a spark. The assassination of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand was just that spark. The Alliance system kicked in. Every nation who had delusions towards being a major player (or, at least, allied with a major player) mobilized. The battle-lines were drawn. Young men — unmarried or married — were sent to the front lines by generals eager to win the last war and unwilling to go against their classical training and learn the tactics of modern warfare. And there, those men died. Human wave attacks saw thousands mowed down. Barbed wire saw thousands hang and bleed to death. Primitive chemical weapons, most famously mustard gas, saw thousands drop like screaming, writhing flies. And still, the generals ordered their men out of the trenches. Ordered them to hurl themselves at enemy embankments guarded by machine guns.

 

Europe’s fire died in the Great War. The sons that could have kept her greatness were mowed down at the Battle of Verdun. A costly combination of ignorant generals, of poorly-designed tactics, of the modern era meeting the older era head-on, shattered the heart of Europe. Whether French or British, Prussian or Russian, the men who could have kept Europe prominent died in the Great War. No, the United States did not “win” the war as many believe. The United States’ actions came too little, too late. The Great War ended in a stalemate though there was enough of a threat of bringing in fresh troops from the overseas power to cow Germany into signing the misbegotten Treaty of Versailles. The United States, influenced as ever by the Monroe Doctrine, withdrew back to its own borders, believing that the enlightened European nations could work things out on their own.

 

The Second World War was the inevitable child of the Great War. And we all know how that turned out, don’t we?

 

The Great War sucked the life and soul from Europe. Before the Great War, if Britain or France sneezed, the rest of the world — yes, even the United States — put on a sweater. America had been somewhat ascendant but her tendency towards isolationism, her desire not to become entangled in “European affairs” as counseled by George Washington, the father of the United States, was still strong within her people. Her reluctance towards empire — showcased by Mark Twain’s anger and his belief that America had betrayed her very soul by taking up imperialism at the end of the Spanish-American war — demonstrated her exceptionalism among nations. Think about it for a second. What other nation has had the ability to force others to bow to her? To force them to worship her as an Old Testament God? And has no desire to do it?

 

Scratch any one of us, and you’ll find an isolationist. It’s our default setting.

 

Europe, though, died in the Great War. It will be centuries before she recovers. No more do we talk about the British Empire and the British naval control of the trade routes. America stepped up to take that over. No more do we care about France and her leadership. France can’t even get her own naval flagship out of port without it losing a propeller. No more does anyone talk about German ascendance. No more does Europe define and decide the fate of the world. Because Europe committed suicide during the Great War.

 

Perhaps, in the centuries to come, Europe will recover. Europe will regain her place as the ruler of the world. Not under the current-European Union government — that’s a waste of ink, oxygen, and money. But, Europe ruled the world from the fall of Rome until the Great War. That’s over five hundred years. Perhaps, one day, she will rise again. But for now, we look back at her folly. At the Great War. At the sons she sent to the slaughterhouse. And we mourn them.

 

Those boys, those men, those young fathers — they were the victims. They were the innocent. They believed, Goddammit all, that their generals, born amongst silken sheets to the gentry, knew what they were doing. Those peasants, those farmers, those factory workers — they believed. They believed and they died for that belief. Their blood sanctified the soil of so many battle fields. Their sacrifices paved the way for that unholy and misbegotten Treaty of Versailles that led, inexorably, to the Second World War. Their blood, their lives, their souls laid the foundation for a shift in power across the Atlantic to Washington D.C.

 

Their lives brought us the end of the Pax Europa in the fires of the Second World War and the rise of the Pax Americana.

 

So don’t ever, ever, ever tell me that the Great War isn’t “relevant.”

 

The Great War and her poor murdered sons paved the foundation of the modern, digital age. Thus shall we remember them. Thus shall we honor them, poor misled boys that they were. Thus shall we humble ourselves knowing — especially for us Americans — that if they had not died…the world would be a much different place today.

 

So, as we draw closer to the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year, let us pause. Let us reflect. Let us remember.

 

And, dear God in Heaven…let us learn.

 

— G.K. Masterson