But less familiar are the words that immediately follow it: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
I am convinced that the current state of political upheaval we are experiencing, and the whole “Resist” movement, are the result of a government that does not have the consent of a majority of the governed.
The indisputable facts are that President Trump received only 46.1% of the popular vote; 2.86 million more people voted for Clinton than voted for Trump. Since the election, Trump’s approval has hovered around 40%. Is it any surprise therefore that when policies aimed at pleasing only about four in 10 Americans are announced, the result is widespread protest and resistance?
Jefferson was echoing the philosophy of John Locke when he wrote that a government is just only when it has the consent of the governed. A system that elects a President without regard for garnering this consent is unjust at the very least, and eventually may cling to power only by becoming tyrannical.
People will put up with an unjust government situation for only so long. A government proceeds without the consent of a majority of the governed at the risk of its legitimacy. Justice-loving people will eventually rise up as they did in Jefferson’s day.
Making sure that this never happens again is a simple matter of amending the Constitution to elect presidents by popular vote. As I have pointed out before, the perversity of the electoral college is that not all votes are equal. Where you vote matters. We would never permit such a ridiculous notion in our gubernatorial or senatorial elections. Why do we put up with it for the highest office in the country?
Where you vote should have no bearing on how your vote is counted. A vote in small-town Wyoming should count the same as a vote in Denver; a vote in Manhattan should count the same as one in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Some have argued that there is a need to “protect” low population areas from the “tyranny of the majority.” But we have a series of checks and balances in our government to do that. For example, a low population state like Vermont has the same number of Senators as its large neighbor New York. A President elected by majority vote would still need 60 votes in the Senate to get things done. And the Supreme Court enforces constitutional rights so that big city voters cannot take away the rights of rural voters.
It’s time we end the quadrennial exercise in non-democratic action by abolishing the Electoral College. A government elected by a minority is doomed to illegitimacy and resentment (as we have seen continually since January). Electing presidents by popular vote is the best way to assure that our government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.
Gray is good
March 2017
Back in 1859, in his essay On Liberty, John Stuart Mill wrote: “To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because [you] are sure that it is false, is to assume that [your] certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty.” This has always made perfect sense to me. Because no one is infallible, it is always a good idea to keep an open mind. You just might be wrong.
However, I have found that there are some people in the world who believe their certainty is absolute certainty. They come from both the right and the left side of the political spectrum. They are the people who see the world in black and white. You have probably come across them from time to time. They are the people who think that their views should naturally be everyone’s views. They do not admit the possibility of error or compromise. The ability to grasp that your certainty is not absolute certainty involves the ability to see gray.
My question is how do people get themselves to this black and white mental state? The only answer that makes sense to me is that people get there by turning off their brains. It takes intellectual effort to consider the pros and cons of any political or moral position. It’s easier just to find out what other “like-minded” people think and say “me too.” Socrates had good advice many centuries ago: “To find yourself, think for yourself.”
Recently, this epidemic of intellectual laziness has gone viral due to the ease with which liberals and conservatives can now filter their news to the blue or red channel and thereby be spared having to think to come to a well-considered opinion. (Coincidentally, NBC Radio used to have a red and blue network. The blue network became ABC.)
The type of political correctness that results in speakers not being allowed to speak on college campuses is just the sort of false certainty that Mill warned against. It takes absolute certainty in your position to ban speech of any kind just because you disagree with it. That is the antithesis of what college should be all about.
The same intolerance can be found in the extremist positions found in gun control, abortion and gay rights attitudes. Even if we accept that the founders intended the Second Amendment to create an individual right to bear arms, the absolutist positions of some on the right that do not even allow background checks before letting people have guns is an example of right-wing absolutism.
Thinking in absolute black and white terms sometimes produces bizarre results. For example, most people would oppose killing. Yet some people on the right are in favor of widespread use of the death penalty and some people on the left are in favor of legal abortion under all circumstances. But should the death penalty apply to eight-year-olds? Should women who have abortions be charged with murder? Should mass terrorists and serial killers be kept in prison for life at taxpayer expense or should they be executed? Should abortion be permitted in the ninth month? Clearly, the one-size-fits-all justice of black and white morality does not always bring just results. More nuanced positions are called for.
The law has always recognized this. The facts matter. Even in cases of murder, the law makes exceptions for self-defense and incapacity. Even murder is not black and white. This uncertainty in life seems to drive some people (who I can only conclude have turned off their brains) into fits of rage. They want a black and white world. Gray, they say, is a slippery slope to Sodom and Gomorrah.
For me, the ability to see gray is the sign of a thinking person. Coincidentally, it is also the physical sign of a mature person. While I do not believe that thinking is the exclusive province of older people, I do believe that older people have more time for it. And their age gives them the experience to view matters from a long-term perspective. This is helpful because there are very few new ideas. We just seem to rediscover the old ones every few generations.
So whenever I hear someone state an opinion (even one I agree with) in such a way as to not allow for the possibility that the other side could be right, I flinch. I think of my own fallibility. Most times there are no absolutes in life and while it is easier and more satisfying to take an absolute position, the best position is “It depends.” Embrace the gray.
A wedding from the father of the bride’s perspective
April 2017
My only daughter Jennifer got married last weekend on the day before my 64th birthday. I have to say I was totally surprised that I enjoyed every minute of it. Being father of the bride has traditionally not been viewed as very enjoyable, at least in the movies. But my experience was pure joy. Jennifer was in charge, but not bossy, organized, but not OCD. Things that are supposed to be a hassle, like finding a dress and a venue for the reception, Jennifer made look effortless. It was impressive.
Jennifer Terranella walks down the aisle with her father,
and a little while later, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Avagnano
leave the church as husband and wife
Every father has mixed feelings about his daughter’s marriage. You want your daughter to be happy (and you want grandchildren), but at the same time you want her to remain your little girl. Knowing that you are no longer the most important man in your daughter’s life, as evidenced by her exchanging your name for her husband’s, can be daunting for some. But again Jennifer made it easy. First, she chose as her husband a very good man who I have loved from the d
ay I met him. Rich is the type of guy a father wishes for his daughter. He’s someone who I know will love and protect her always, perhaps even better than me.
Jennifer also made the wedding easy by the grace she showed all day long. She was all smiles as we danced to “My Girl,” the song I had picked for the father-daughter dance. And later, she had the DJ play “When I’m 64” to mark my birthday. She even was thoughtful enough to have the DJ play Kenny Rogers’ “Through the Years” when the parents of the bride and groom danced. That was an emotional moment.
There were many emotional moments that day and night. But fortunately I never broke down sobbing. There was just a welling-up of emotion and a smile on my face all day.
Going down the aisle was the toughest part, but not due to emotion. Oh sure, there was plenty of emotion as soon as the wedding march music began. But the tough part was trying not to step on the bride’s gown, which seemed to extend out in all directions, while still being close enough for her to have my arm as we walked. In rehearsal it was fine, but since the rehearsal was not a dress rehearsal, I was somewhat surprised by how hard it was to put my feet somewhere the gown wasn’t.
The speeches by the maid of honor and the best man both had a common theme – how much the bride and groom care about others and have always “been there” for them. I was really happy to hear that. It’s nice when your kids turn out to be good people.
The wedding had about 175 guests from all over the East Coast. But there were also some special guests who came a great distance to attend. You see, Jennifer spent a semester of college studying in London and made some really good friends there. Although this was a decade ago, the friendships have endured, and three of her London friends made the trek across the Atlantic to come to the wedding. That was special. Jennifer and Rich hope to return the favor by a visit to England next year.
My grandchildren, Bryce and Caroline, participated in the wedding as ring-bearer and flower-girl, respectively. At the ages of 3 and 1, I doubt that either of them will remember the experience. But we will. I’ll especially remember Bryce dancing at the reception to “(I like to) Move It, Move It” from his favorite film, Madagascar.
Weddings are one of the few times when the entire family gets together without a dead body in the room. So they are really great opportunities to have some laughs with people you love, but you see all too infrequently. Jennifer and Rich’s wedding was like that. We had lots of laughs.
My wife and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary next year. So I think we have provided a good example for our kids. As father of the bride, my fervent hope for the newly-married couple is that Jenn and Rich have as happy a marriage as we have had, with lots of laughs and love. They’ve only just begun.
Finding old friends the new-fashioned way
May 2017
Social media gets a lot of criticism for the way it panders to people who use it to gain attention. You know these people – the ones who post every day regardless of whether they have anything interesting to say. But social media like Facebook are also powerful tools of modern communication because there are more than two billion of us (with a “b”) all using Facebook. What that means is that the odds are that everyone you’ve ever met under the age of 80 is now on Facebook.
The power of Facebook was brought home to me this week when on a whim I searched for someone I have not seen in 45 years. Back in the summer of 1972, I backpacked through Europe for five weeks with two of my cousins. It came about because my cousin Mike’s father was working in Vienna and the entire family spent the summer there in a nice apartment I assume was provided by his employer.
My cousin Bob and I were back in New Jersey working at our summer caddying jobs when our mothers told us that we could go visit Mike and his family in Vienna if we wanted. We both immediately agreed. I had just finished my first year of college and Bob had just finished his second. This was in the heyday of Student Rail passes and hostels and we aspired to see Europe on less than $10 a day. Pan Am even had student airline rates.
So off to Europe we went. We landed in Munich and after some touring took the train to Vienna. The Student Rail pass allowed us to get on any train at any time no matter where it was going. It was fantastic! When we got to Vienna, we spent some time with Mike and his family and then Mike and his sister joined Bob and me as we headed south to Italy to begin our touring in earnest. Mike’s sister went back to Vienna after a couple of days and Mike, Bob and I continued to tour Italy, Switzerland and France.
We eventually made our way back to Vienna and Mike found some information on a weekend bus trip to Budapest. This was intriguing to Mike and me because Hungary in 1972 was behind the Iron Curtain. We had to get special visas to go. Bob wanted to go to Innsbruck but was outvoted by Mike and me. So on a Saturday morning we set out from Vienna to Budapest.
By a stroke of serendipity, two Canadian girls our age were also on the tour. Linda and Rosemarie were living in Germany because their father was in the Canadian military. We hit it off right away. In fact, we had such a good time we didn’t want it to end. They invited us to come visit them on the military base where they lived near Baden, Germany.
As it turned out, Bob and I were scheduled to leave out of Munich in a week so we immediately agreed, foregoing any plans to see any more of Austria or Switzerland. We met Linda and Rosemarie in Munich and went with them back to their home base. There we met their wonderful family. Being on the Canadian military base was like being home. After a month in foreign lands, we welcomed being somewhere where everyone spoke English, even if it was with a Canadian accent. We loved being there. And they all loved hosting Americans.
The girls showed us around the world of a military base with its playgrounds, tennis courts, swimming pools and even a golf course. As is often the case when two men are out and about with two women, we paired off. Linda and Bob were one pair and Rosemarie and I were another. We had so much fun!
But after a few days, it was time for Bob and me to return to Munich for our scheduled flight home. We were depressed about leaving. We knew the odds were that we would never see Linda and Rosemarie again. I promised to write and I did throughout the next several years. But eventually we all married, and life moved on.
Fast forward to 2017. Well as I feared, I have not seen Rosemarie since 1972. But I had heard that Facebook now had about 2 billion users and I wondered whether Rosemarie could be one of them. I knew that she had married and was living in Canada, and I knew her married name from letters decades before. But was she still married? Did she still have the same name? Fortunately, her marriage was a longstanding one, she had the same name and I found her in a few minutes.
One simple friend request and in no time Rosemarie was messaging me: “Wow! How many years has it been? I just did the math. 44 years. Holy crap.” There was no doubt in my mind that I had found the right person. And now there is no reason why we cannot continue to be in touch. It’s much easier than writing letters used to be.
Through the wonders of 21st century technology, I have been able to renew a 45-year-old friendship. It seems to me that there is now no reason not to reconnect with all the people who have enriched our lives over the years. Next month will mark the 50th anniversary of my graduation from grammar school. I’ll bet I can find some of my classmates online.
Make America nice again
July 2017
I was traveling in Canada recently and saw a poster that said “Make America Canada Again.” It struck me as exactly how I feel when I hear that we as a nation are OK with the fact that tens of millions of Americans do not or will not have healthcare insurance. I have always felt that making sure that its citizens stay healthy is the primary obligation of government. It’s even more important than defense spending because the threat of death by disease is greater than the threat of death from foreign enemies. And even if it weren’t, what good is security without good health?
So when I see that our neighbors to the nort
h have seen to it that their citizens are guaranteed basic health care, I have to ask myself when my country went from caring about the least fortunate in our society to demonizing them as lazy scoundrels or schemers who just want to get something for nothing.
Have you ever wondered why Americans think Canadians are so nice? Could it be because we often aren’t? I am not saying that individual Americans are not nice, but that we elect people who are mean-spirited and that results in public policies that are not nice.
The current administration promises to make America great again. I would be happier if we could make America nice again. You know – like Canada. And if your reaction to that thought is to say “Go live in Canada,” you really don’t want to make America great. Caring about its least fortunate citizens makes a country great – and nice, too.
A reunion in Ottawa
August 2017
Last week I drove to Canada and had a reunion with a friend I have not seen in 45 years. It was a bit surreal. We both couldn’t believe it was happening. You see, I met 16-year-old Rosemarie Buckle when she was living with her family on a Canadian military base in Germany. We met on a bus trip from Vienna to Budapest in the summer of 1972 and hit it off so well she and her sister invited me and my travelling companion back to the base.
We were only together for a few days in Europe, but when I came home, I continued a correspondence with her for several years. We lost touch after we both got married. I knew she lived in Canada but could never find her.
On May 11, 2017 I read that Facebook now had 2 billion users worldwide and my immediate thought was that Rosemarie must be one of them. So I contacted her via Facebook and she responded immediately. Last week, just a few months later, we had our reunion. We met outside a Holiday Inn in Ottawa.
Tales of the Tarantula Page 19