manifest destiny, a baker's dozen, or ...
is the Constitution even relevant in politics?
There are things in life I enjoy. Among them, music, food and history. Of the music variety, my palate has grown from rock to most any genre of music created; even the “big bands” I was forced to listen to in youth. Although, back then, with rock, I didn’t listen to words. Although today I do. So much, I get goosebumps when the passion of a singer, mixed with the hands of those playing the instruments melds into a symphony of chords and chorus unmatched. Example: released in 1976, I enjoyed the song “Crystal Ball” by Styx. Today, it’s the embodiment of what I feel regarding things I see taking place in the country.
Additionally, on the food front, even though I can no longer eat like I could, I love food. Trust me, my world view aside from having lived in multiple countries; the wide variety of cuisine, allowing the taste buds on my tongue to control the mechanics of the muscle they’re part of and thus slap my brains out. So, between the two sensory mediums a Bible verse presents: Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food? (Job 12:11) At least they should, no? And squeezed between those favorite sensory subjects, history, American style.
Not the discombobulation taught in school, but the imperfect reality of what actually transpired. Like an all you can eat buffet. A feeding trough of cornucopia with different stations for salad, dinner, and dessert. And like a good book, there was one I visited. They had the absolute best sweet dessert croissants. I’d start with a baker’s dozen, hit the salad bar, glide through dinner, then top off with another baker’s dozen of croissants. Heaven on earth! A smorgasbord of flavors, smells, and textures. Like American history, only in one place. And like a politician, I took from the restaurant every pound I could. So, grab a croissant and think.
Starting with the initial landing at Plymouth, or was it Jamestown, or maybe Roanoke Island. Except, no one survived Roanoke, nor does anybody know what happened, making Roanoke a failure, and Jamestown first. So, after the original Thanksgiving at Jamestown, the two colonies (Jamestown/Plymouth), by surviving, set in motion a wave of humanity that would lie, cheat, steal and over time wipe out other nations to create the greatest nation. And once Jefferson bought Louisiana from the French for pennies on the dollar, ask: How’d the French acquire it and those who were already there: Were they even asked? Better: Was the purchase even constitutional? Yes, just like modern day politics; the destructive part. But even better: With the Pilgrims, we were taught they came to escape religious persecution. Only they didn’t. They came to make money. And what’s more American than that? Except possibly the current trend of taking from to give to being the newest form of make believe in government making everyone equal.
We’ve also been a nation divided while forming a “more perfect Union.” Except, sticklers then almost created two nations under God instead of the one. First, where to build the Capital and how D.C. wound up in the swamps of the Potomac; think anti-trust. Although, before the Constitution was, opponents to it wanted to divide the country into “confederacies.” Think slavery. So, instead of resolving the issue, a line was drawn, what some call compromise, festering for another eighty plus years. Like today, politicians then kicked the can to someone else, and secession bit back with the Civil War. Right and wrong then being denial of truth, while Gettysburg almost flipped the script. Yes, that battle was almost a national game changer.
Afterwards, as the influx of immigrants continued, the nation was growing, so naturally, people headed farther west as they’d come from the east. Try to fathom the difficulty of those journeys or the grandeur of seeing the majestic landscape for the first time unmolested. And yes, even though Lewis and Clark never found a navigable water route to the Pacific, they instilled the unquenchable desire to move. Although today we have highways and can drive with ease, cutting through the beauty. But those who initially set out did not even have two track trails, they made them. Sacrificing everything, they persevered, while many died searching for their piece of utopia. To settle the land, they struck deals with those who already roamed it. With firm handshakes and fingers crossed behind their backs, our government signed treaties they’d renege on as waves of humanity flooded in.
But, and despite the government’s subterfuge, full migration was inevitable. There was no stopping it. The west was open, and once immigration began; the Indian nations did not stand a chance against the onslaught. And if it had not been east to west, a west to east, or north/south “invasion” would have happened. The outcome was inevitable. Yes, there were some great Chiefs: Red Cloud, Quanah Parker, Cochise, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, just to name a few. And yes, they’d each had decisive victories against the cavalry. But, with no offense intended, as I thoroughly admire their lifeways, evolution would keep them on the losing end as a lack of evolution was their overall demise, outside of our government having starved them onto reservations. I could go on, but question: Who’d they take it from? Anyway, by 1912, when the dust settled, Arizona was the last State forming the “lower 48.”
Well, since the nation’s framing, we’ve had five mentionable presidents. Out of forty-seven so far, that’s it. Washington, Jefferson, Enloe, Teddy, and Truman. And if one puts in perspective the issues these leaders overcame, they’d find these are truly rare men. Yes, they each had faults, but who doesn’t. America would not be if not for three of them, making two in truth, only honorable mentions. I know, I’ve never been president, nor will I ever be, but who’s Enloe? In 1899, a book was published to prove Lincoln was in fact an Enloe. Convinced me. Especially if a picture is worth a thousand words. It also shows the issues we face are not unique to our times, nor the politics.
Then, aside from our immense diversity, America was also about opportunity. And the country offered it in spades until politicians intervened. Entrepreneurs weren’t choked by government regulations, allowing genius to flourish. Take the Wright brothers for example. Two high school dropouts who brought the world controlled powered flight. With their own money, they developed the Wright Flyer, brought it to the masses, and like the automobile, revolutionized transportation. Even the way governments fought war changed with the introduction of the airplane. This single invention was an amazing feat, bar none. Imagine, in 1903, the United States did not have a highway system. Paved roads, rare. Electricity: for the very few. Airports, television, radio and other things we take for granted were words not yet coined. Common transportation was still horse and buggy. Cars were a novelty, so the train was the most modern form of travel, but it had taken about a century to get there.
Once the brothers flew, the hands of time started spinning at a rate never paralleled. Starting out slow with straight, level, deliberate turns, by the end of WW I, the airplane became the standard militaries were judged for. By 1927, the Atlantic Ocean was crossed single-handedly with a single-engine plane. The sound barrier evanesced in 1947. Then the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, that by 1969, Neil Armstrong walked the moon. Sixty-six years in total elapsed time. All of it, the genius of one people, one nation, with some German engineering guidance for the moonshot. And none of it was easy, but hard, while today, people demand easy, that things be given, not earning or sacrificing for.
In the interim, the country fought two world wars; both having started politically but fought militarily. Yet, at the end of the second one, America forever changed the world on an unfathomable destructive scale when the nation developed and instituted nuclear warfare. Trinity being the first ever time it rained liquid glass. And damn it, that’s what a big bang actually does. Although, the outcome of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, aside from 100,000 plus civilians obliterated, a completely political move not to bring an enemy nation to its knees, but to prove to an ally, America succeeded first. An extreme price paid and convoluted concept, but an amazing part to the start of the arms race: Those in power and would come to power and who knew more first. Yes, it wasn’t Truman, but Stalin. Which should question Yalta, Potsdam, and stopping Russia from invading Japan. It wasn’t the fire-bombing of Tokyo and the 100,000 civilians burned alive, but two nukes and their destructive force. Yes: War is hell!
Except, before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the test a-bomb wasn’t the only travesty committed in the New Mexico desert. Los Alamos, the town and labs, started life as a cattle ranch, then a school for boys. Oppenheimer knew of its location, wanted it, and petitioned for government confiscation from the school’s second owner. It crushed him. Two years after losing his adult life’s work, he passed away. Only, in truth, his endeavor may not have been altruistic, as things aren’t always as they appear. But he did make the school what it became and why Oppenheimer wanted the property. Even though he lost his love (the school), he left a visible mark on the landscape with Fuller Lodge, Bathtub Row, and Ashely’s Pond named after the school’s original founder. By the way, his name was A.J. Connell. But who cares. Like all of us, and some of the military’s upper echelon who would shortly follow A.J; easily expendable. Trust me, ask any down-winder today suffering the effects of nuclear fallout and how the government is responding.
Meanwhile, after the war, MacArthur saved Japan from Russia as two superpowers emerged. Then, while the nuclear arms race gained full speed, the nation politically fought and lost two wars in Korea and Vietnam, stacking war dead as a numbers game. On the Homefront, social wrongs were being righted that should have never happened, while social engineering was ushered in on a grand scale. The problem in every aspect of what’s now being taught: you can’t legislate out stupid or hate. Today, we’re witness to further division while politicians continue to stack the deck for themselves. Professing equality for all, the Constitution, the greatest form of government devised, is being slowly dismantled, and no one cares. Yet in DC, finger pointing and shouting matches are the best one can envision in a legislator, they obfuscating their intended deception of WE THE PEOPLE.
Well, Styx wanted a “Crystal Ball” to look into the future. I, on the other hand, wish for time travel and the ability to witness history firsthand! That would be a dream come true. Like the feeding trough I spent time at, magical, until I got up to leave. I was stuffed, even though I went back multiple times. Plus, to go time forward could allow the ability to hopefully stop the madness I see happening as I struggle to understand WE THE PEOPLE continuing to allow our own demise: Mind boggling. So, study history. The present becomes the past in seconds. Only, never stop devouring good music, or experiencing the flavor of food, especially when it goes right to the soul. Also, allow your ears to test words, both sung and spoken, while learning the Constitution and what’s even constitutional. It’s hard to believe a lot of things, except I love my country, but despise what the government’s become.