James M. Redwine

Russia

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

Sticks And Stones

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Special Consul Robert Mueller testified before Congress on July 24, 2019. During his six hours of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee the major emphasis shifted from concerns about the outcome of the 2016 presidential election to attempts by foreign countries to influence all of our elections.

Mueller testified that for many years and right up to our next election cycle in 2020 several foreign entities were involving themselves in our democracy. And while Mueller specified only Russia for 2016 he made it clear that we should be aware of other actors. Iran, Israel and even our first cousins the British, among numerous others, have sought to inveigle themselves into our governmental decisions.

We have often been subtlety and sometimes not so subtlety nudged toward or away from war or toward or away from alliances with other countries. The favored techniques in days before the internet were the planting of fake newspaper stories or biased books and movies. Today spy dossiers or misleading memes and tweets over the internet are the preferred methods.

But if the aim of a foreign country is to defame or embarrass a politician it seems silly to dispense dirty secrets or even create false ones when such disclosures and prejudiced articles appear in the newspapers and on television every day. For example, if a country wanted to defame Donald Trump it should just encourage Americans to read The New York Times or watch CNN. And if a foreign entity wished to bring down Hillary Clinton it should republish stories from The National Enquirer or push FOX News. There is no need for foreign attempts to bring down a candidate for public office when we do such a thorough job of that ourselves.

What is even more perplexing is why any foreign country cares about our elections when we care so little about the outcomes ourselves. About 40% of eligible voters do not vote in presidential elections and only about 40% trouble themselves to vote in mid-term national elections. And when it comes to state, county and city elections most of the voters are those hoping to get jobs from the winners.

The bottom line may be that foreign entities are often more concerned with the outcomes of our elections than we are. Maybe we should learn from them.

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.

Amity Pool

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Amity, a lovely word meaning harmony and good feeling. The 1975 movie JAWS! was set on a New England island named Amity where the summer tourists provided lunch for a marauding great white shark. Local Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) tried to warn them but Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) overruled him. In this article, Gentle Reader, you may think of me as the police chief and Peg as the mayor. Peg’s Wal-Mart aboveground pool will serve as our beach.

Just take a look at the photograph! That dark goo in the bottom of the pool is as scary as the shark. You will note Peg is covered from head to toe with HAZMAT protection. You may wonder why she is in the middle of the crud while I am not. Well, someone had to take the photograph and I can’t do everything.

Peg’s pool brings back memories of my “quality time” with my father. Dad liked to fish but he didn’t like to tote all his equipment to the brown, stagnant Oklahoma creek which housed various critters and a few finned and slimy bass.

Before each trip Mom would warn us of the dangers of typhoid fever as she knew Dad would take my brothers and me to the creek without anything to drink. Dad would point to the brackish creek water if the 110° Oklahoma summer drove us past Mom’s cautionary admonishments. Dad and Peg have similar make-ups.

When Peg dragged me away from my Saturday morning coffee to help clean the pool I told her about the recent E. coli outbreaks in Pennsylvania, Idaho and California. She responded that the only thing I had to fear from the pool gunk was her if I didn’t get off my couch.

How quickly she has forgotten our experience when the National Judicial College sent me to Russia to teach judges there. We could not brush our teeth, drink or even bathe in much of the water. When I reminded her of this she said, “The ten pounds you lost from the bacteria in Russia was just a start on what you need.” Unkind, very unkind.

Sticks and Stones

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“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” A catchy nursery rhyme but a dangerous belief for political leaders. Language matters. Other animals may communicate but only humans have developed language to the point we can engage in international trade and send rockets into space.

One problem we have not solved is completely understanding what someone who speaks a language different from our own truly means. While it is possible someday the whole world will once again speak one language, the last time that was true was three million years ago when all the humans on Earth lived in Africa’s Olduvai Gorge. Somehow we managed to create an actual Tower of Babel (Genesis, 11:1-9) as we clawed our way all over the globe.

Almost everyone has experienced being both misunderstood and misunderstanding others. They hear one thing when we intended something else or we thought they meant something by their words that was not what they intended. If you are married you will not need any specific examples from me. The situation is exacerbated by leaders of foreign countries trying to reach a meeting of the minds while using separate languages.

When I taught other judges from Palestine, Ukraine or Russia the system we used to convey my English language thoughts to the foreign judges was: I would speak, or write, an idea then a translator fluent in both English and Arabic, Ukrainian or Russian would repeat to the foreign judges what I just said or wrote. I could often tell from the reactions of the foreign judges that even with the best-intentioned and diligent translators what I meant often was not exactly what the translator conveyed and/or the audience understood.

If we apply this principle to international relations, say between the United States and North Korea, we and they should probably proceed with extreme caution when we make statements which might unintentionally convey disrespect or challenge.

Perhaps another old childhood saying might be worth keeping in mind as countries deal with one another where either or both could easily misinterpret the other’s true intent: “Be careful what words you spew out to others as you might be eating them later.”

Right now many in our country are using language about North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un that might make any person fear we are going to attack them. Irrational responses often result when one is placed in fear and doubt about another’s intentions.

Many in our government and in the news media are sounding the war tocsin and claiming Kim Jong-un is dangerously irrational. As for our own leaders much of the media is so offended by President Trump’s criticism of the media that it is in a constant attack mode. For example, this past Sunday edition of The Reno Gazette-Journal devoted three pages to calling the President of the United States a liar. It would not be surprising if North Korea were emboldened to attempt military action due to a false conclusion that Americans are weak and divided.

I am not suggesting the media or anyone else ignore poor decisions or bad policies. Our democracy has lasted over two hundred years in large part because we need not fear to speak out against what we perceive to be ill-advised actions. However, the country chose President Trump. It is much like a spouse who denigrates his or her mate. Whose judgment is flawed?

And when our politicians and media continually describe Kim Jong-un as a dangerous fool he might be misled to believing we are about to launch an attack. Perhaps both countries and their leaders may wish to ratchet back the invective with both keeping in mind another ancient aphorism: “When one is dealing with a fool he should make sure the fool is not similarly engaged”.

With Charity For Some, With Malice For Others

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James Mattis is President-Elect Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense. According to former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Mattis is a student of history who understands the dangers of Thucydides’ Trap. Thucydides (471 – 400 B.C.) was an Athenian historian who lived through the Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 B.C.), which exhausted both the loser, Athens, and the eventual winner, Sparta. This thirty years of internecine carnage sowed the seeds of Greece’s vulnerability to Roman conquest.

Thucydides observed it was the rise of the upstart Athenians and the fear and resentment of that rise in the more powerful Spartans that led to war. Archidamus, the Spartan king, had cautioned his citizens to not be hurried into conflict out of any sense of offended honor or an attitude of superiority. However, hotter heads prevailed.

The United States is unquestionably the strongest nation on Earth militarily and economically. We may have the power to dictate terms to most other countries. We are the Sparta of our time.

On the other hand, we may wish to learn from history, not repeat it. If Russia attempted to influence our elections, we should address this serious issue with all due diligence. Due diligence is not a euphemism for dueling.

If China builds artificial islands in international waters and declares them China, we need not make a bellicose response. Maybe negotiation from strength might be better.

If the United Nations Security Council passes a unanimous resolution that calls for Israel to follow international law, due diligence does not require that Congress withhold funds from the United Nations unless Israel gets a retraction.

Now that Secretary Clinton and President-Elect Trump have ended their election cycle neither they nor their supporters should precipitate a Pyrrhic Victory for our country by continuing to attempt to delegitimize their opponents or their opponents’ positions by the technique of circular firing squads.

Perhaps it is time to once more look to the wisdom of some of those marvelous ancient Greeks and even our own President Lincoln and not let a misguided sense of offended honor or an overestimation of our own righteousness lead us to another long series of self-destructive attitudes and actions.

{This article relied heavily on an article dated May 6, 2015 by Leon Whyte that drew upon the scholarship of Harvard Professor Graham Allison and appeared in The Diplomat. Click here to go to referenced article ->}