James M. Redwine

President Trump

Locking Horns

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One day I met up with my friend Tim “Turtle” Smith in the parking lot of a golf course. “Hey, come look at what I found yesterday when I was out deer hunting.” I looked in the bed of Turtle’s pickup and saw two sets of deer antlers intertwined. Tim said, “I cut these off the heads of two dead stags. They must have starved to death after their battle for which one would gain the prize doe. I guess it is a metaphor for the old saying, ‘Don’t lose your head over.…’ ” Tim is kind of a colloquial philosopher. We do not know what other stag defaulted to winning the mythical doe, but surely a wiser one was lying in wait.

For some reason my encounter with Turtle came to mind after observing the Presidential Debacle last Tuesday evening. If the goal of a leader is to have his or her constituents adopt and follow a particular vision, when it comes to debating, the leader may want to concentrate on setting out elements of the vision and not fall into the quagmire of ad hominem. President Trump and Former Vice President Biden surely both have a vision for America but they both kept their visions well disguised Tuesday.

Usually in a debate someone is declared the winner. However, in the Presidential Debacle of 29 September 2020 there was no winner but there were three losers: President Trump, Former Vice President Biden and the electorate. We learned what we already knew; the candidates hate one another and the national news media loves only itself. Where was what Socrates called for over two thousand years ago when he cautioned, “The unexamined life is not worth living”? And Joseph Campbell’s only unforgiveable sin, that is “to be unaware”, was committed by both candidates and the moderator repeatedly.

If Americans are the prize and leadership is the goal, I suggest our presidential candidates each eschew both mudslinging and mud wrestling and spend their time and ours setting forth their plans for our future and explaining cogently how their plan is superior to their opponent’s. We can decide for ourselves if we like a candidate. What we need is knowledge about which aspiring leader is truly inspiring and not merely exasperating. Of course, if Donnie and Joey continue to act like scuffling school boys, perhaps we will see both of their denouements via the ballot box and a contested election. Then someone else may end up with the prize as declared by a handful of unelected judges.

Absolutes

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We begin 2020 with the death of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. President Trump ordered the drone/air strike. The President said:

“The attack was necessary because Soleimani was planning massive attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.”

America has been heavily involved in the Middle East since World War II. Our role until 1990 was mainly diplomatic with some force of arms as a threat. In 1990 we invaded Iraq and re-invaded Iraq in 2003 although we have not completely disengaged since our first incursion.

After the 911 attacks of 2001 we invaded Afghanistan in the hopes of quelling further attacks by Al-Qaeda members who were using Afghanistan to plan operations in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. In 2014 America intervened militarily and diplomatically in the Syrian Civil War.

Iranian college students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran in 1979 and held 52 American hostages until 1981. All were released. The U.S. has had a prickly relationship with Iran since but it has been almost totally a war of words and sanctions.

If we point to 1990 as the metaphorical “Firing on Fort Sumter”, we have been engaged in military actions in the Middle East for 30 years. The strike on Soleimani may expand and extend our involvement. A calculation of costs and benefits of our 30 years of war is far beyond my knowledge. How does one evaluate the lives lost when there is no accounting for them? Did we eliminate terrorists or innocents, a future dictator or someone who might find a cure for cancer? We cannot know. We surely have expended trillions of dollars of national treasure, but would we have spent it any more wisely at home?

Over the last 30 years what have we done with our lives and treasure within our own country? More particularly what have we, and I mean me too, accomplished in our system of criminal justice? If America seeks to punish foreigners for transgressions and seeks to force other countries to behave as we think best, what are we doing and how have we done on imposing justice upon and modifying the behavior of our fellow citizens whom we convict of crimes? These issues, while always at play, rise up as salient as the New Year ensues.

Instead of war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran can we think about the legal system and Chris, Danny, Jackie and Jason? Is it logical to compare the behavior of countries to the behavior of individuals? Is it relevant? Is it meaningful or just another method of hoping instead of helping?

Each of the people named were at one time considered by our legal system to be in need of rehabilitation, much as America thinks of those named Middle Eastern countries. And while I have dealt with thousands of our fellow citizens in our legal system as lawyer, prosecutor and judge, this New Year season I have been musing about these four above-named survivors of my attempts at punishment and rehabilitation. In essence these four were given the opportunity to modify their own behavior and they did. Each is now a productive citizen and of more import to me, each is now my friend. Do I deserve any credit; no. Do they; yes.

But if society had continued to demand a pound of flesh from these, and so many others who have turned their lives around, each of them might have returned our slings and arrows with ballistic behavior. Yes, society held each to account just as we must do with other countries. But giving individuals and nations an opportunity for redemption might be worth contemplating.

Of Founders and Russians

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Harvard law professor Michael Klarman was the keynote speaker at the June 2019 Indiana Graduate Judges Conference. As an attendee I received a signed copy of Klarman’s book, The Framers’Coup, The Making of the United States Constitution. Gentle Reader, to give you some perspective on the exhilarating experience of a law professor’s book, the tome’s Note and Index sections run from page 633 to 865. Of course, the substance of the book contains 632 pages of which several pages thank the law students who did the grunt work. Regardless, I do recommend the book to you as an interesting and often surprising exposition of how our Constitution survived the throes of birth. As Klarman says of our pantheon of founding heroes:

“In the book I try to tell the story of the Constitution’s origins in a way that demythifies it. The men who wrote the Constitution were extremely impressive, but they were not demigods; they had interests, prejudices, and moral blind spots. They could not foresee the future, and they made mistakes.”

This is Klarman’s raison d’etre for writing the book. His admonition is that the men, and they were all white, Anglo Saxon, Christian men, who struggled for six months in Philadelphia in 1789 to create the United States were just men, not gods. Some of them owned slaves, some did not. Some were from populous states, others were not. But they were all mere mortals with virtues and defects.

The underlying message of the book is that if those men could find a way to overcome their political and philosophical divisions, we and future Americans should also be able to. For example, in our current culture wars where President Trump alleges Ukraine helped Secretary Clinton in the 2016 election and Clinton alleges Russia helped Trump and more recently both Trump and Clinton and many others are flinging arrows in all directions alleging our leaders are “foreign assets” we should just chill. If James Madison and the Federalists and Thomas Jefferson and the anti-Federalists could reach compromises, we should be able to also.

The salient issues and the thorniest were how could our Founders apportion representation among populous and less populous states, how was slavery to be addressed (or not) and could common citizens be trusted to govern themselves.

According to Klarman, as our Framers struggled to hold the Constitutional Convention together the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, “Questioned their opponents’ motives and attacked their characters, appealed to the material interests of voters, employed dirty tricks and made backroom deals when necessary.” Sound familiar?

Okay, you probably are choosing to go sort your socks rather than to hear any more from Professor Klarman or from me. But a word of caution, Gentle Reader, if I have had to experience the joys of all the almost 900 pages of Constitutional history, you may have the same opportunity in next week’s column. We might even delve into the vicissitudes of whether the United States Supreme Court is truly independent or are its decisions as politically based as those of the other two Branches

From Olduvai To Everywhere

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The Olduvai Gorge in Africa is accepted by many as the original birthplace of all human ancestors. The gorge is found on the Serengeti Plain in northern Tanzania. Archaeologists and paleontologists have spent many years researching our greater family tree since Dr. Louis Leakey and his wife, Mary, found the fossils the Leakeys opined were evidence of our oldest known ancestor.

Competing evidence for human origins was discovered in the Afar Depression in Ethiopia on the continent of Africa by Donald Johanson, Yves Coppens and Maurice Taieb who named the humanoid bones they found “Lucy” and dated her at about three million years old. Regardless of what evidence one follows, virtually every recognized authority on human history agrees every person who has ever lived can be traced back to this area of Africa. For us to return to our roots we would have to visit our grandmother Lucy or perhaps some other related fossil nearby. I will not attempt to determine how many “greats” that is.

I do know if Lucy was anything like my mother was she probably wondered why it took a couple of million years or so before any of her fourteen billion descendants paid her any attention; why can’t those kids, grandkids, etc., ever write home?

Anyway, I got to thinking about Lucy when the media began to report on President Trump’s tweets about The Squad: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (Democrat, Massachusetts) born in Cincinnati, Ohio of African American heritage; Ilhan Omar (Democrat, Minnesota) born in Somali, Africa; Rashida Tlaib (Democrat, Michigan) born in Detroit, Michigan of Palestinian lineage; and, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat, New York) born in the Borough of Queens in New York City and of Puerto Rican parents.

President Trump tweeted out on July 14, 2019 that each Congresswoman should go back to their country of origin … “[A]nd help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.”

In an interview with CNN’s Kyung Lah on July 18, 2019 Kamala Harris (Senator from California) born in Oakland, California who is an announced candidate for President of the United States in 2020 and who has African American ancestors said of President Trump, “He needs to go back where he came from. And leave that office.” Donald Trump was born in the Borough of Queens, New York City, New York and is of German and Scottish heritage. Although I do understand how people from one of New York City’s five boroughs may consider someone born in one of the other boroughs to be foreign born or someone from California may consider a native New Yorker an alien and vice versa and that those folks in New York and California may see the rest of America as one giant undeveloped wilderness. Regardless, here we all are. Maybe a little wisdom from Rodney King, that eloquent and forgiving victim of mob and police violence, may be in order. As Mr. King asked in 1991, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Not So Bad After All

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As our country nears its 243rd birthday we Americans may feel as if all is gloom and doom. Members of Congress are calling for the impeachment of President Trump. President Trump is tweeting out claims that some Congress people are traitors. CNN accuses FOX News of being a sycophant for the White House. Rush Limbaugh proclaims CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post are not news agencies but simply “fake news” whose agendas have a single minded mission to remove the President from office.

At coffee shops and taverns throughout the United States one-time friends cannot carry on a respectful conversation. Even churches are choosing sides. In short, the last election drags into its third year and the next election is morphing into a mere continuation of the election past. Political pundits and politicians are donning sackcloth and ashes or arming themselves with skewers to assassinate the characters of those who have the temerity to disagree with them. It ain’t good, folks. Are we falling apart?

No! We are practicing the democracy bequeathed to us on July 04, 1776. A healthy lack of respect for the opinions of others is our birthright. As long as we simply “suffer the slings and arrows” and do not “take up arms to oppose them” it is all as clanging brass and hollow threats. In fact, our current political climate is about the same as it has been since John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who both signed the Declaration of Independence, saw their close friendship dissolve over policy differences. It is America. We have the right, perhaps the duty, to voice our disagreements.

What we do not want to lose sight of is policy differences are important but should not be lethal. Maybe we should step back, take a deep breath and see how another country, North Korea for example, handles allegations of treason.

We do not know the facts and should be cautious of reports from either North Korea or other countries that may wish to harm North Korea. With that said, it has been “reported” that Kim Jong Un of North Korea was upset over the failed summit between Kim and President Trump to the point he imprisoned some of his negotiators and executed several others. He allegedly declared them traitors. Even if these reports are exaggerated, the contrast between America’s hyperbole and North Korea’s drastic actions should remind us of what the Fourth of July truly means.

Rattling Sabres

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Folk singer Phil Ochs (1940-1976) wrote a ballad about old people, mainly politicians, giving young people orders on how they should behave and believe. The closing verse is:

“So keep right on a talking
And tell us what to do.
If nobody listens,
My apologies to you.
And I know that you were younger once
‘Cause you sure are older now,
So when I got something to say, Sir,
I’m going to say it now.”

Ochs applied his sarcastic insight to the United States as well. In a song he wrote about American incursions from South America to Southeast Asia he criticized our government for interfering militarily when a country elected a leader we did not like and could not control:

“We’ll find you a leader
You can elect.”

Just based on media reports of our current actions in Venezuela and Iran, among others, Ochs’ message has had little resonance for our contemporary leaders. And hearing people on all sides of the military intervention issue from President Trump to each of the twenty-one 2020 presidential hopefuls and everyday folks from Maine to Monterey, perhaps Ochs might agree with Yogi Berra (1925-2015): “It’s deja vu all over again.”

That is not to say either Ochs or Berra or anyone else should encourage America to cease vigilantly preparing for danger. As our son, Jim Redwine, learned from personal experience while fighting on the front lines of the 1990-1991 Gulf War and in 2006-2007 in the Iraq War, we must not allow ourselves to fall behind the curve of military technology. Iraq’s military technology simply could not compare to ours. America must not allow itself to be on the weak side of the military equation.

What that concern does not require though is our penchant as the world’s preeminent military power to “Keep right on telling others what to do and whom they should elect.” Our power should remain potentially dominant but our desire to dominate other countries should remain in check. Our Constitution calls for “national defense”, not aggression.

With our current yearly national debt standing at 104.1% of our total gross national product it might behoove us to look to the source of this imbalance between production and debt. It began when we decided to drive the old Soviet Union into financial collapse via its military spending. Unfortunately our own spending rapidly increased from 30.9% of debt to GNP in 1981 mainly through our own massive military spending to where we are today. That is spending a lot of money we do not have. And it is always a good idea to learn from the mistakes of others. We do not want to become a broke and crumbling version of the old Soviet Union due to our own overspending on unnecessary world-wide military incursions.

Perhaps we should do what Russia should have done fifty years ago and concentrate on our domestic needs such as infrastructure, health care, global warming and our environment while continuing to keep pace, but not be profligate, with our national defense. A reasonable first step might be a policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries as long as they return the favor.

I know we often get legitimately upset with the behaviors and cultures of other countries. But countries are made up of people and we may want to step back from the dangerous and expensive practice of telling others how to behave and believe. It is analogous to how many of us view Freedom of Speech. We will allow others to say whatever they want and behave as they see fit as long as they say and do what we agree with. As that wise Hoosier war correspondent Ernest T. Pyle (1900-1945) observed during WWII:

“When you have lived with the unnatural mass cruelty that mankind is capable of inflicting on itself, you find yourself dispossessed
of the faculty for blaming one poor man for the triviality of his faults.”

We might want to consider a similar thought for other countries and other peoples.