Op-Eds

Let’s Let Veterans Be Regular Americans Again

Leave a comment
Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower in his jeep in t...
Eisenhower in the American sector during the liberation of Lower Normandy in the summer of 1944. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Between 1952 and 1992, every president of the United States was a veteran of World War Two. Eisenhower commanded Allied forces in Europe. JFK, LBJ, Nixon and Ford served in the Navy in the Pacific. Jimmy Carter entered the Naval Academy in 1943, graduating too late to see combat. Ronald Reagan joined the US Army Reserve in 1937; due his fame as an actor he was kept out of combat, instead heading up War Bond drives and producing more than 400 training films. George H.W. Bush was the youngest US Navy pilot in the war.

Then the worm turned. In 1992, Bush was defeated by alleged Vietnam draft dodger Bill Clinton, who also defeated wounded World War Two vet Bob Dole in 1996. In 2000 and 2004, alleged Air National Guard deserter George W. Bush defeated Vietnam veterans Al Gore and John Kerry. In 2008, Barack Obama defeated Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war John McCain.

In the two election cycles since then, neither major party has seriously considered nominating a military veteran. Rather odd, since exaltation of the US armed forces and veterans began a resurgence from post-Vietnam lows in 1991 with Desert Storm and has been the de facto national religion since 9/11.

America has a complicated relationship with its veterans. Those of us who served in the military sport a suicide rate more than twice that of the civilian population. We’re 10% of the population and 16% of the homeless. Apparently we’re a pretty screwed up demographic.  Yet our opinions, especially on politics, enjoy a measure of nearly automatic respect. I often see news stories in which veterans are specifically identified as such to bolster their credibility when they express positions or register complaints (janitors, truck drivers and cooks rarely enjoy such  deference).

This bothers me, in part because it tempts me. Anecdotally, it seems to me that veterans are over-represented in my own political ponds, the libertarian movement and the Libertarian Party. It’s tempting to assume that that’s because, like me, many other veterans see how wasteful and deadly big government can be and perhaps want to do penance for the body counts we’ve contributed to. But then there are lots of veterans who ardently support big government as well. What gives?

The temptation to ascribe special status to the opinions of veterans is something I think we should resist. Opinions may be right or they may be wrong. That the person expressing them once wore a uniform and collected a government paycheck doesn’t, at least in cases not directly related to military matters, seem like a good indicator of which.

If you really want to honor veterans, treat us like you treat everyone else. That means requiring us to prove, rather than merely assert, our political arguments.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Bernie Sanders Won’t Drop Out. Here’s Why.

6 Comments
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bernie Sanders says he’s taking the Democratic presidential nomination contest all the way to the party’s national convention in Philadelphia at the end of July. Believe it.

With increasing intensity after each primary or caucus he loses — and for that matter after each primary or caucus he wins — party big-wigs call on him to concede the race and get out of Hillary Clinton’s way. Politico‘s informal April survey of anonymous Democratic “insiders” has nearly 90% wanting Sanders out no later than the DC primary in mid-June and only 10% urging him to hold out to the bitter end.

Why isn’t he listening to the 90%? As a Florida Democrat told Politico, “[t]here is no path, and there is no math.” Actually there are at least four paths.

Path #1: Clinton’s health fails in a very big and very public way. She’s had multiple public fainting spells since 2005, including one resulting in a broken elbow in 2009. In 2012, she suffered a concussion and was hospitalized with cerebral venous thrombosis, a life-threatening blood clot condition. Her campaign health statement acknowledges these problems and throws in hypothyroidism to boot, although characterizing the 67-year-old as enjoying “excellent” health.

Path #2:  Clinton is indicted in, or otherwise dragged down over, the “Servergate” affair, in which she appears to have illegally mishandled classified information while Secretary of State.

Path #3: Clinton comes to big legal or political grief over apparent connections between large donations to her family’s foundation on one hand and her actions as Secretary of State on the other. For example, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation and Boeing donated $900,000. Later, Secretary Clinton cleared a $29 billion arms deal involving the two parties. You can see how that kind of thing looks. There may be some “there” there.

Path #4: The texts of Clinton’s Wall Street speeches, for which she received millions of dollars in honoraria, are leaked. Clinton’s refusal to release those texts tells us that their release would be politically damaging. Everything comes to light sooner or later. If it’s sooner — that is, before July —  we may find out how just how damaging.

Any of these four scenarios might result in Hillary Clinton’s ignominious withdrawal from the presidential race and release of her delegates, followed by the party’s scramble for an alternative nominee. If Bernie Sanders doesn’t quit, he becomes the odds-on favorite for the job.

So he won’t quit. And now you know why.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Dishonoring Harriet Tubman

2 Comments
English: Harriet Tubman grave
Harriet Tubman’s grave (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When Harriet Tubman died in March of 1913, the US $20 bill bore George Washington’s portrait and the inscription “THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE HAVE BEEN DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TWENTY DOLLARS IN GOLD COIN PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND.”

Later that year, Congress passed, and US president Woodrow Wilson signed into law, the Federal Reserve Act. The following year the Federal Reserve issued a new $20 bill, adorned with the portrait of Grover Cleveland. In 1928, the first $20 bill bearing the visage of Andrew Jackson appeared. Even though the Federal Reserve had taken over the creation of “money” (loosely defined) from the US Treasury, the note still promised that it could be redeemed for gold at the US Treasury, or gold or “lawful money” at any Federal Reserve Bank.

Nearly 90 years later, as the Treasury announces that Tubman’s likeness will grace the next $20 bill, Federal Reserve Notes are just paper, no longer redeemable in gold but sustained only by the faith of buyers and sellers in a government nearly $20 trillion of its own debased dollars in actual debt and even deeper in the hole when unfunded promises of future spending are taken into account.

Due to a cumulative inflation rate of more than 2,300% since 1913, a $20 bill today will buy goods valued at 83 cents in 1913 currency.

That differential represents something that Tubman spent her whole life fighting. I wonder how one of slavery’s greatest opponents would feel about having her image appropriated for use on the symbol of its resurgence — an instrument of debt representing the promises of politicians to hold their subjects in perpetual bondage while taking the payments out of our hides?

Tubman was no stranger to financial swindles like the Fed’s disappearing gold scheme. In 1873, she fell victim to a private sector cash for gold con that ended with her knocked out, robbed, tied up and left penniless in the woods. I doubt she’d have fallen for the Federal Reserve scam.

In recent years a few scattered politicians (most notably former US Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), his son US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)) have sponsored or supported legislation demanding an audit of the Federal Reserve System. Laudable, I guess — especially in the case of Sanders, who broke with the Democratic Party to support the latest version of the bill even as he ramped up his Democratic presidential campaign — but a little short of what Harriet Tubman might have expected.

Auditing the Fed isn’t enough. Like Tubman said, “never wound a snake; kill it.” Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the 21st century’s version of the underground railroad. If the US government won’t kill the Federal Reserve, free markets will.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY