Compromises and their Price

Most people work at jobs that they don't really like, but find tolerable enough to sustain them. They marry individuals that they don't quite respect, but who are at least kind enough and supportive enough to get them through the day. They vote for political candidates they are deeply suspicious of, but at the same time, these are the best candidates available to vote for, from their own personal perspective.

We can't expect to change the world in one fell swoop, so we are conditioned to get along with others and work together for small improvements in our lives. Arguably, there's nothing wrong with that -- except when we turn around and see the changes wrought in the landscape of our society by all these small, seemingly innocent compromises.

I recently watched the Tim Burton movie, Big Eyes, about the artist Margaret Keane and her domineering conman of a husband, who catapulted her art into fame, before she exposed him for the fraud that he was.

In my daughter's bedroom there is a print of a  painting of a cat that looks as if it might have been painted by Margaret Keane. If it is not actually painted by her, then it must have been a conscious, intentional imitation. It looks just like her art.  I got this painting from my parents. It used to hang in their house. It is a relic from the sixties and early seventies.

When my daughter was very little, she really liked this cat painting and even identified with it deeply, thinking that if she were a cat, she would look like that. Then, later, it scared her, because of those big spooky eyes, and she took it down off the wall and hid it. Then, later still, she put it back up.

Margaret Keane's art is confusing like that. It moves us, then it scares us, and then after a while we come back to it. Or maybe we decide it is kitsch, and later still we realize that there is a history there, and no matter what base instinct within us it appeals to, it is still definitely art.

But did you know the history of the paintings? Did you know that her husband took credit for them? Or that in all probability we, the public,  would never have seen any of her paintings, if not for the false origin story he spun out of thin air, to make the emotional appeal seem to have a bigger, almost political meaning? I did not know until after I had seen the movie Big Eyes. And all this made me think of the Election of 2016, where nothing is quite as it seems. Read my LibertyBuzz article, to see how it all ties together.

http://libertybuzz.us/story/libertarians-imposters-among-us/2016/11/07/1213/

Sometimes the Good Wins Despite Being Good -- Or Maybe Because of It

It is becoming amply clear that Donald Trump cannot win. He cannot win because his backers are supposed to uphold the moral high ground, and even though many of them are hypocrites, he hasn't given them much choice but to reject his obvious moral lapses. But there are those who support him in the evangelical camp who think that the Bible has precedents for immoral men to be God's anointed. This is all so Vacuum County!

Read Vacuum County to see how this plays out!

For those favoring a purely opportunistic voting strategy, the tables have turned. If you were voting for Trump just to beat Hillary, voting for Trump can no longer achieve that goal. Under the principle of the wasted vote, a vote for Trump is no longer anything but waste, Which means that voting for Gary Johnson just might be less wasteful, given that his backers include those who just want to block Hillary but also a large and incorruptible base that is voting Libertarian. Suddenly the pragmatic choice is not the lesser of two evils, but actually something good. Who would have guessed it?


In a similar twist of fate, the international literati have chosen a poet whose poetry actually scans, despite the fact that it scans -- or is it because of it?

Ever since WWII, people in power have been trying to undermine meaningful literature and poetry that scans.  They've done such a great job of it, that many college professors and professional poets don't know anything about meter in poetry, anymore. And even naive readers have learned to object to the poetry of Kipling as doggerel on the grounds that it is too "sing-songy". Many don't even know that the effect they deride is meter, and that it sounds song-like for very technical reasons, having to do with the interface between music and lyrics,

The powers that be are now so tired of the poetry that is not "music" that they have chosen a musician's lyrics for the Nobel Prize of literature. Is it despite the fact that it scans that Bob Dylan's poetry was acknowledged by the poetry haters -- or because of it?

Sometimes the good is chosen, not despite the fact it is good, but because of it, and the only thing that makes that seem like such a radical choice is the people making it, with their long history of choosing evil over good.

Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion was something the Founding Fathers understood, but which was lost on second generation populists like Andrew Jackson. Jackson was a teenager during the revolution and even saw some action in the revolutionary war, but he did not have a good classical education like most of the founders, and so he was weak in his understanding of first amendment rights. Many Americans today also lack a classical education, and like Jackson, they think the government should push religion or require religious leaders to follow the government's agenda.

Andrew Jackson during the Revolutionary War
Brave Enough to Stand Up to the British,but Not Sure What He  Was Fighting For
Credit: Wikipedia

During the Martial Law imposed by General Jackson prior to the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson violated many of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, including freedom of religion. According to the Journal of Jean Laffite, Jackson ordered an unwilling priest, Antonio de Sedella, to instruct his congregation to pray for an American victory. I retell this story in Theodosia and the Pirates.

Excerpt from Theodosia and the Pirates

Jackson's heart was in the right place, but his mind did not grasp how violating the first amendment would destroy the freedom that he had sworn to fight for. Jean Laffite, on the other hand, understood all too well. His grandparents had suffered at the hands of the Inquisition in Spain. His grandfather was killed under torture. His grandmother survived to tell the tale.

A dedication by Jean Laffite to his grandmother
"I owe all my ingenuity to the great intuition of my Spanish Jewish grandmother, who was a witness in the time of the Inquisition"

Jean Laffite knew that de Sedella was a Spanish spy who had once been appointed as Grand Inquisitor for New Orleans when Spain still ruled over Louisiana. But Laffite understood that in order for America to come out of the war unscathed with its constitution intact, it was important to allow de Sedella and his parishioners the freedom to pray whichever way they wanted. The United States did not need forced prayers in order to win the Battle of New Orleans. It needed gunpowder and trained artillerymen, which Laffite freely supplied on his own initiative and at his own expense. He supported the United States, because he wanted to live in a country free from religious oppression. A country that would not oppress people like his grandmother.

Today, possibly because of our current public education system, very few people understand that the first amendment guarantees of religious freedom mean that we can't tell other people what to believe, what to pray for. or what ceremonies their clergy must perform. Hillary Clinton does not support freedom of religion and Donald Trump will not defend it. Among the Libertarian presidential candidates, Gary Johnson, whose heart might be in the right place, seems very confused about the first amendment right to freedom of religion.

Of all the candidates, only Austin Petersen has demonstrated the intellectual ability to articulate and stand up for the freedom of religion guaranteed in the first amendment. And that's one of the many reasons that I support his candidacy for President of the United States.