Letter 122: Bringing Bonhoeffer back from the dead

"It was not the object of the Prophets...to close the gate of investigation [into the incorporeal, or the metaphysical]...and to prevent the mind from comprehending what is within its reach, as is imagined by simple and idle people, whom it suits better to put forth their ignorance and incapacity as wisdom...and to regard the distinction and wisdom of others as irreligion and imperfection...The whole object of...the Sages was to declare that a limit is set to human reason where it must halt...."

-- Moses Maimonides; The Guide for the Perplexed; circa 1190.

This letter represents certain comments I had in answer to an article, "Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer Delusions" published by the e-gazette, Religion and Politics Fit for Polite Company. That article basically refuted the assertions of Eric Metaxas -- author of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy -- that the great German and resolutely anti-Nazi theologian would be an evangelical conservative, were he alive today.

Digging below the politics is an interesting discussion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and, to paraphrase his nemesis, 'the use and mis-use of mystery'. There are specific comments I would like to make.

First, at Saint Mary's Episcopal in Birmingham, Alabama, I sat in during the latter half of the course based on the Metaxas book and developed by the author himself; it was not politicized, thankfully.

Second, the ethics of assassination break down in the case the von Stauffenberg conspiracy. The German nobleman should have stayed in the room and held the bomb up. The blast would have almost certainly killed Hitler, if not by direct mutilation, then by internal bleeding. But the Count's unwillingness to sacrifice himself to assassinate an evil man not only tainted the ethics of his actions but also rendered ineffective their execution.

Third, my take on 'religionless' Xianity is a pietist position, with which Bonhoeffer would have been familiar, of renewing the faith by re-living, in a modern context, those early days of the Church when there was no doctrine or institutional church to speak of; that is, when Xianity was the new humanism of its day contra-distinguished against the orthodoxy of its anterior religion, Judaism.

Fourth, politicizing a religious figure leads to illusions rather than allusions; that is, a dangerous conflation of faith and ideology that admits no compromise. That is to say: hubris hiding behind a surplice.

Fifth, perhaps the biggest illusion about Bonhoeffer is to assume that his writings from prison not only reflected the essence of his interior life but its entirety. He wrote for, perhaps, two hours each day. That leaves twelve to sixteen hours per day when Bonhoeffer was not writing. Doubtlessly, the modern saint spent much of that time in the prayer and contemplation subsequently articulated in his writings, but all fourteen hours? 

I doubt it.

His writings were likely the high point of his day -- or of those days during which he chose to write. This observation is not a criticism of a man light-years ahead of me. It is to say that Bonhoeffer likely struggled with isolation, fear and despair but managed to overcome them. It is Bonhoeffer's example of holding at bay these latter, very human struggles that gives one hope that (s)he can do the same under wretched circumstances. It is his Grace -- elected by him, made manifest by him and triumphal in his subsequent behavior -- that makes Bonhoeffer a saint. 

Sixth, Humanism -- when one looks at its tenets -- is often the very mainstreaming of values Xians hold dear. Instead of condemning its 'godlessness' (sic), one should welcome these fellow pilgrims as we all have 'trod the path of youth'. Xianity is about a message of hope and conciliation and gradual redemption through a lifetime of progressive Grace. How these values differ in their practice -- right here, right now -- from most, if not all, of the eight values articulated by Humanism is beyond me. Much as Xianity globalized Judaism so, too, does humanism mainstream Abrahamist ethics. 

In truth, the Humanist ideal of the "happy human" sounds an awful lot like the idea of living in Grace (i.e., to experience redemptive rapture). To me, Humanism may lack spiritual sizzle but it sets a high bar of ethics by which one seeks to live. In the end, one of the two will be correct: following death will be a new existence or mere extinction; that distinction has little bearing on how I act today. By the way, I avoid the term 'Secular Humanism' since that is a politicized term used by politicized Xians to denote atheism. Some of the best, most ethical people I know are atheists.

Seventh, religiously based political propositions need to be based on pacific persuasion rather than chronic coercion. That is to say: the rightness of a political principle rooted in religion should become manifestly self-evident over time. If it does not, perhaps the individual invoking those religious beliefs ought to reconsider his or her position. From a Xian view: J.C. was nothing if not open minded. The only exception? When a manifest evil is emerging that arguably will lead to brutal policies and persecution of others, whatever their beliefs, backgrounds or pacific peculiarities. That is the difficult distinction that Bonhoeffer had to make; and he did so, very bravely.

Letter 121: U.K. breaks it or Brexits; opportunities in surprise

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

--Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, 1849

"The more things change, the more they remain the same."

BLUF (bottom-line, up-front): This referendum for Britain to exit the European Union (the ‘Brexit’) may end up being much ado about nothing, much like the false alarm of Y2K that made consulting companies rich and the rest of us fret.

SUMMARY: The Brexit vote to exit the European Union (E.U.) surprised many people and precipitated the downfall of a triple-A Prime Minister, David Cameron. The Eurozone core of the E.U. basically said ‘good riddance’ calling for a quick expulsion of the United Kingdom (U.K.).

A coming after-shock may ensue of a possible re-referendum for Scot independence.  In fact, this apparent worst-case scenario of the Brexit may turn out to leave Great Britain in a superior position. Finally, it is time to embrace the message and consider a new union of developed Anglophone countries to maintain their middle classes.

SCOTLAND: As threatening as this consequence may sound, a secession of the Scots could conceivably rebound to the benefit of the U.K. since economic frictions would likely be minimized through careful negotiations between Scotland and the rest of the U.K. That is to say: the Scot economic links with England, Wales, Northern Ireland et al. would continue largely unchanged. This possibility is not new; the break-away of Cataluña and País Vasco would likely unfold much the same way. 

Yet Scotland would still be in the E.U. and would serve as a bridge between the old U.K. and the continent. In fact, the truncated U.K., with an interwoven but independent Scotland, could enjoy one foot in the E.U. and one in free-wheeling sovereignty. Thus the remaining British domains could export onto the continent through Scotland while being able to push back on Eurozone, particularly German, domination. What will be interesting to see is whether the Eurozone would accommodate this sweet-heart status for the Brits. 

The UNITED STATES: Never one to shy away from free face-time, Mr Trump, the presumptive nominee of a possibly imploding Republican Party, stated that the Brexit vote would augur a similar ‘unilateral declaration of independence’ in the United States. Both Mr Trump and Senator Sanders have long disclaimed the efficacy of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for U.S. interests and railed against the teed-up Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). 

The twenty-plus years since NAFTA became the law of the American land, U.S. manufacturing has declined while sovereignty deferred has become sovereignty denied with regulations obviated at the expense of the infrastructure and other social ills while the treaty basically subsidized corporations, not only through cheap labor zapping U.S. factory jobs, but also through diminished regulatory expenses, pushing spill-over costs onto the rest of the populace.

There is little reason to expect an improvement with the TPP. That arrangement was initially founded by smaller Pac Rim states to grant these emerging economies a collective bargaining power versus the three great powers of the Pacific Rim: China, Japan and the United States. Yet Japan and the United States managed to conflate geopolitical concerns shared among these members vis à vis an increasingly expansionist China with the initial intention of the TPP to get their great-power noses under the tent.

As initially contemplated, the TPP was meant to function similarly to those 'emerging' European economies banding together in the 1950s to overcome the devastation of world war. Back then, however, American and European statesmen (e.g., Generals Marshall and De Gaulle) segregated the economic collective from the geopolitical alliance (i.e., NATO) to contain the USSR. By conflating these themes as a ‘counterpoise’ to China, however, the Pacific Common Market has basically let two of the three six hundred pound gorillas into the mix.

Just how do such pillaging primates act in these permissive contexts? They smash the efforts of smaller countries to produce generic drugs, or other goods, manufactured by monopolies at affordable prices through, for example, compulsory licensing. Thus many poor people have to pay ridiculous sums of money for drugs or, more likely, do without and fade away. These indirect subsidies from diminished sovereignty will harm the American middle class.

Indeed, the TPP will achieve many of the same ends of NAFTA through two of the three great powers of the Pac Rim enforcing monopolistic practices and pricing. The jobs will leave the United States but the vast multi-national entreprises will simply realize higher profit margins much of the time by holding prices steady while input costs shrink. This scenario underlies the reasoned gripe of Senator Sanders. If Senator / Secretary Clinton is to win, she will have at least to hedge on the idea of the TPP. The Brexit vote may well force her into Senator Sanders’s camp.

An ANGLO-UNION: Fifteen years ago, when the U.K. opted not to participate in the €uro, I was in London popping off at dinner, during which I etched in stone the sobriquet earned among my British banking buds as the ‘Irish Trouble’. During that evening, I proposed an alternative: that the U.K. and the U.S. lead an Anglophonic economic league of the two ‘United’ countries, (now Scotland), Canada, Bermuda, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the Cayman Islands as well as, perhaps, South Africa.

A lot has occurred since 2002. Now such a league – bound by historical ties, the English language and cultures of republican individualism – could make more sense. In their collective, these members might balance each other out like a diversified portfolio of economies with asynchronous seasonalities, complementary resource bases and deep technological pools of knowledge. 

This ‘Anglophonia’ would avoid a common currency, because that would result in the U.S. exporting the inflationary policies to other member-states, much as they did in the first generation after Bretton Woods. The aim would be for the nations to exploit their comparative advantages in a manner calculated to preserve  and expand the wealth creating capacity of a labor intensive industrial base to bring the 450-500 million people (about the population of the E.U. without the U.K.) out of the second Great Depression which currently stymies so many opportunities for the millennials.

The financial position of the members could remain very strong since ‘Anglophonia’ would contain four of the six great financial centers (London, New York, Singapore and Bermuda). While current circumstances may not impress us as a second Great Depression, the socials ills seem to be as great, if difficult to recognize in a post-industrial, consumer, and service-centered economy. Thus, following the Brexit lead, these Anglophonic states could take measures to lift each other up by enforcing fair-trade policies to outsiders almost belligerently. 

There is one big concern to all of this imagination raised by a good friend: perhaps, another telling change from 2002 is that of labor jobs not being undercut by Himalayan or Mexican sweat-shops so much as they have been eliminated by robotics. Parallel to the careful negotiations between Scotland and the U.K., were complete devolution to occur, the prudent Anglophonia would have to address this potentially fatal oversight.

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON: Whatever course is taken, or not, any substantive policy change proposed by me or anybody else has to be viewed with sharp skepticism. These prescriptions are almost always little more than best-case scenarios since beneficial consequences are implicitly expected to attend the adoption of certain policies and initiatives.

Lastly, should the United States view such an Anglophone union as nothing more than an economic Anschluẞ, then the U.K., Scotland, New Zealand, Canada, Australia et al. should not proceed with such a far-flung common market. After all, my hope with such a union would be for the United States of America to reclaim their republican past and forsake their imperialist ambitions.

Letter 120: High tea in low times; national conscience and national will

"....remember that driver I shot through the mouth -- his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn't do anything to deserve to get shot."

--Clint Eastwood, 1992 (as William Munny in 'Unforgiven')

"In those five minutes of brave anguish for the country he loved forty-four years ago, Senator Kennedy addressed the growing endemic sickness engulfing the larger society: that of mindless violence.  His words surely resonate with the sadness of our own time."

-- Letter 62: a culture of violence and the second amendment, 2012 

http://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2012/08/letter-62-culture-of-violence-and.html 

I lay there in the bed. It was wet and I figured I had peed myself after another round of drinking; there was that usual wisp of puke circling in the air. Then I heard the two voices conversing in the hallway. I looked over and saw that the bedroom door was open but the talkers were hidden by it. I could hear the two voices of my friends and then a third. 

The man’s voice -- the one I did not recognize -- said something hard to understand. I could recognize Nelly’s Carolina drawl and Bertie's plain-spoken New York tone. That’s right, I remembered, I am on Eightieth and Madison, at Bert and Nellie Saint John’s. They had invited me to crash at their place for the week-end after I got to JFK since their grown children were out of town.

“A long time since I’ve seen that,” the third voice trailed away.

“So it really is….” Bert’s voice remained unmistakable though his accent was indistinguishable from a million other preppies roaming the surreal island I once called home. Then I heard a slight sob. Nellie had long known I was a sloppy drunk.

“Bertie, this is so sad. He is all alone…”

The third voice rang out, “Ma’am it is not as certain as that. Keep him filled up with liquids – it’s the dehydration….” Again the third voice trailed off.

As my eyelids lowered inexorably in a euphoria of what felt like morphine, Bert said, “Thank you for coming over here again on such short notice, Doctor Lincoln….”

Nellie chipped in by saying, “And on a Sunday, too.”

“Two floors by elevator is hardly an imposition. Look, just keep him under wraps, he may be prone to…”

***

Waking up slowly, I then sat bolt up-right. Though I could not look out the window, I could see that it was still daytime. I heard nothing. I picked up my watch from the night-table: quarter-of-four and still Sunday. Damn, I could remember nothing after Friday’s dinner. What a bender; must have been the jet-lag, too. Naked and drenched in sweat, surely from the delirium tremens, I quietly put on some clothes since I was running late.

When I heard Bert and Nellie carrying on in the kitchen, talking about my recent trip to shutter failed business number-three in Shenzhen, I slipped quietly out the door. I did not want to impose any more upon my hosts and I was embarrassed by my debauched drinking. And I was already running behind schedule to see the three men who had oddly invited me to high tea at the Stanhope Hotel on Eighty-fourth and Fifth at four.

Tea at the Stanhope at four? Hmmm. I was curious and figured they were fellow rakes out for some fun or to talk off a hang-over on another boring Sunday. I walked down all eighteen flights of stairs to avoid detection by the doorman, surely on alert, and slipped through the service entrance, still sweat-soaked; already discoloring my pressed and wilting khakis, not to mention my cotton button-down shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, clammimg against my skin.

Just in case, I told the deliveries attendant at the side-door where I was headed, should the Saint Johns in apartment 911 be looking for me. Why I hadn’t noticed the thunder before I hit the street is beyond me. It was too late to sneak back for my wind-breaker. So I got drenched in a down-pour on the way. On the up-side, at least the dripping sweat from the D.T.s would not be so obvious.

The Stanhope stood out in the opulence of the Upper East Side as a quaint old hotel that felt like one of those London row-houses turned into a city inn.  I strode into the Stanhope the way I walked into any place soaked and under-dressed: as if I belonged there. Ignoring the other people’s cocked brows and various visages of disdain, I strode into the tea-room, lined with those affected stenciled fox-hunting scenes on some pseudo-Victorian wall-paper, bright with blue and yellow flowers.

Off in the corner, a rather dark corner away from the front windows, three men waved at me. They were dressed weirdly. But a lot of people dressed strangely in Manhattan and no one else seemed to notice. Sweaty and smelly like me? Yes, everyone noticed that. But funky, faggy clothing? No one cared. Being odd was this city's peculiar conformity. As I walked over toward the table, I asked the Maître d´ to bring me some tea and, since I had that post-boozy cotton-mouth, ice water along with an extra serving of petits-fours and finger sandwiches.

Seems I had not eaten, either. I arrived at the table and introduced myself to find out if I were the fellow these three guys were looking for. Honestly, I normally would have felt uneasy meeting three obviously gay men, but it was about four in the afternoon in a public place like the Stanhope. Nobody would notice.

The men stood up. A little shrimp stuck out his hand and said, “Four o’clock. Thank you for being prompt, Sir. In any case, I am Jim and these are my friends, George and Tommy.” George was average height, perhaps a half-inch taller than I and quite corpulent. Tommy was quite tall and as thin as Jim. Whereas Jim was inquisitive, Tommy seemed aloof, contemplative. George was an outgoing mixture of the two. We all sat down as my tea and eats arrived. 

I asked curiously, “You all from the City?”

The three looked uncertain. Apparently, they weren't sure whether I was referring to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston or Baltimore. They were puzzled. And so was I. Finally, the phlegmatic George spoke up, “If you mean New York, Sir, then the answer is ‘oh heavens, no.’ We are just three farmers from Virginia. We have been bound to the ground recently and we had been hearing so much about New York. What a dazzling place!”

“I don’t think so,” Tommy quipped. “I actually see it as rather dreary, especially in the rain.” They all had a slight Southern accent, though it sounded more than faintly English to my untrained ear. 

Jimmy, the shrimp, laughed and said, “Oh, Tommy, for such an educated man, you really can be a post in the mud. Look at all these things these people have. Can’t say life is nasty, brutish and short around here…”

Tommy crossed his arms and fired back at Jim, “Indeed you’re correct, Sir James, life here looks to be nasty, brutish and long – what with it all being about money, money, money…and people working themselves to death, never reading, always gossiping, always attached to some contraption. Thank you, but no.”

George raised his fleshy hand and waved off the growing debate, “Gentlemen! Gentlemen! We have to depart shortly. We can’t squander what little time we have and never ask this fellow,” as George looked at me, “what we came all the way up here to ask him.”

These flits wore funny clothes -- something like Tux shirts from a déclassé junior prom and long coats like an undertaker -- and talked funny. Nonetheless, I felt honoured that these three obviously educated men would seek me out from among everyone else in New York. I felt discovered, finally.

George then looked at me and asked, “You are aware of what happened in that part of New Spain south of Georgia a week ago last night?”

An odd way of putting it and so I asked for confirmation. “You mean that mass shooting in Orlando, F-L-A?” This question apparently came across to these men as strange and unwelcome; yes, their interest in the LGBT massacre merely betrayed their gay ways. Their eyes glazed over slightly. So I continued, carefully avoiding the mine-field of political correctness, “The place where forty-nine people were shot to death?” 

Jim sat up, “Yeah that place. For dancing or something.”

‘Whatever,’ I thought to myself. Consequently, I played along because I did not want them to think I was homophobic, “Yeah. That was a shame, wasn’t it? ISIS and going after gay people.”

“ISIS?” George seemed confused.

That question surprised me but I answered it anyway. “Yes, ISIS. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.”

Tommy put his hand on George’s forearm to get his attention, “I think he means the Barbary Pirates.” Another oddity out of the three musketeers, Or stooges? That jury was still out.

Pouring himself a tea, the diminutive Jim, rolled his eyes and said, “Not those people again…” He then looked up at me and asked mater-of-factly, “Tell me, how did you respond to that massacre?”

I pointed at myself and asked, “Me?”

“Of course, you.” Tommy kept his posture as straight as the other two. Strange that these men rarely sat back in their chairs.

I shrugged my shoulders and answered somewhat warily, “Well, I supposed I prayed.”

“And?” All three seemed to exclaim this question simultaneously, as if on cue.

I looked quickly at each of Jim, George and Tommy. “And, what?”

George was the most outgoing of the three and seemed a bit more open with his feelings; being fat and in New York on a sticky week-end forced him to remain overly engaged lest he nod off, or so I supposed. He leaned toward me and asked bluntly, “We want to know what you did after you prayed.”

I slouched back in my seat to distance myself. This inquisition bothered me. Additionally, I could feel a headache coming on quickly, the damnable opioid apparently slipping away. Nervously, I giggled and said, with a faint and slightly enquiring smile, “Prayed some more?” The three men looked at each other. Their eyes seemed a little cold, their expressions slightly hardened. Never one to handle silence well, I spoke up, “Look, gentlemen, I believe in the value of prayer.”

George looked at me and said, “Obviously, I do, too, young man, as I am an elder of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia. Yet even I know that praying in the face of evil is like singing a pub-song on the gallows.”

Aside from the queer phrasing, I felt deeply defensive and under attack. To push back, I resorted to some timely ‘smartitude’ and snapped back at George, “Well, what else am I supposed to do, grow a pony-tail like somebody gone hippie way too long?” George stiffened at my defensive counter-punch at his locks in need of cutting.

“You tell us.” Tommy was cold, analytical in his tone. I did not much like him or his long sandy blond hair streaked with the grey of age. We locked our eye contact into a contest of wills. My head hurt a little more.

I stated plainly, “Hey, at least I have written against violent Islam—“

Tommy cut me off as he leaned slightly toward me, “Just another superstition…”

I now found the strength to argue, whether or not I looked like a homophobe, “No, it’s more than a superstition, Sir. It’s a totalitarian ideology preying on innocent people, especially other Muslims.”

George tried to calm things down by intervening gently, “I think he means Mohammedans, gentlemen.”

Jim now spoke up, also training his eyes on mine, “Call them what you like but why did that terrible man have a gun that can shoot five balls per second? I mean, when I go turkey shooting on the farm, I am lucky if I can get five balls out in a minute.”

Strange gay dude, I thought; fixated on male privates. He likes old-fashioned hunting. Maybe he enjoyed the challenge to his skills required in re-loading and shooting each round like the days of the Civil War or something. Turning away from my usual cheekiness, I obliged my hosts; after all, they had invited me. “Look, gentlemen, I have written against eliminationist jihadism persuasively – if the rush of comments following my articles is any indicator – in the American Review magazine, calling for action for some time now.”

“Oh yes, that Tory intellectual magazine we saw at the kiosk. Interesting you use the same term that fellow did about hatred toward the Jews…”

I fired back at the pretentious language, since George had just busted me for not citing Goldhagen, “Yes, George, at the corner newsstand.” The headache up-ticked another notch.

Tommy stepped in for George, “Of course, those Barbary Pirates are rascals but they are not why we wanted to speak with you. We want to ask you why such a terrible man had that kind of super-rifle, as Jim, here, points out.”

I slouched back and crossed my arms and said irritably, making it clear to these butterflies that my patience had its reasonable limits, “I guess you have never heard of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, huh?”

The three men looked at each other, flabbergasted at first and then quite annoyed with my attitude. Jim said, “Of course we have heard of the Second Amendment. We surely know it better than you.”

Likewise, I did not take kindly to being patronized by three aging quasi-cross-dressers. “Then you know how important it is for citizens to bear arms…you know, to prevent tyranny. A population disarmed is a population…“

Tommy and George looked at each other. Tommy signaled for George to go ahead by quipping, “You answer this, George. After all, I copied you.”

George looked over and smiled at his friend, perhaps partner. He leaned forward slightly to take up the challenge. I was looking forward to this part of the tea. Like so many others before them, these liberal and liberally powdered snobs would never get past the literal reading, or strict construction, of the words. He said, “That right has its limits. For one, it is intended to apply to state militias…”

That delightful tingle of intellectual sadism ‘sconced’ on my head, though my sentiments were anything but Franciscan; it was that sensation of bliss I usually felt just before I smashed petty naïveté into a thousand shards of cheap, forgettable crystal. “Sorry, my friend, that state militia is now the National Guard and works basically as an adjunct to the national military services.”

Tommy looked at me, waving me off, “Okay, your point conceded. Yet you really don’t think that, if tyrants in Washington – I’ll explain all that to you later, George – sent the army to a state to take it over...You really believe that the citizens in the National Guard would not fight back for their home state and the security of their neighbors? Au contraire, Monsieur, I think they would."

Tommy paused, rubbing his chin briskly as he was chewing the cud on some abstruse point, and then straightened his posture with a start, "Besides, Sir, you also forget -- conveniently, I should think -- that George, here, wrote that Amendment at a time when crazy George, not this one," as Tommy wagged his thumb at his friend and winked, "was licking his fingers to come after us since the republic was floundering. Ah, but forget about all of that, shall we? No one is poised to invade America these days.”

The latter part of the argument was new, therefore suspect, to me. So I finessed that red herring of sovereignty, preferring to focus on insurrection instead. I argued back, “If the Guardsmen did that, they would plainly be in rebellion . . . duh.”

Tommy slapped the table lightly in triumph, “Exactly. Rebellion. That Second Amendment is a right to revolution, not permission for just anyone to go running around with some super-weapon three hundred times more deadly than a normal gun.”

I asked, “Normal gun?”

Jim lost his patience, “A musket, genius. After all, we wouldn’t have common smiths ambling around with cannons, would we?”

The dated language eluded me completely. Why bring up muskets? Accordingly, I ignored that anachronism by retorting, “Look, the Second Amendment says nothing about revolution; it may imply it in a loose construction. Nevertheless, Sir, it spells out an absolute right to bear arms. That means any arms, like an AR-15, that are not military-grade weapons or, as you might say charmingly, militia-grade.” The headache was intense now and beginning to throb, making my sarcasm all the more biting.

George laughed aloud and looked at his confrères, clapping gaily, “Boy-oh, boy-oh, James and Thomas, did you hear that one?" He nods toward me as continues, "He thinks we meant everybody merits one of these horrid weapons. Our Amendment merely confirmed the very right of the peoples of the separate states to take up arms separately from a tyrannical far-off national government. Where did we fail to make this distinction?”

Tommy and Jim chuckled and looked directly at me. I bristled at their arrogance quickly deflating my clever riposte. George was not deterred as he looked at me and asked, “So you are saying, laddie, that there are no conditions to the right for just anybody to bear arms?”

“Absolutely.” I stuck my chin forward, almost defiantly.

Jim said, “Then, this fantastic moving image – the inter-net I think you name it – should be able to show scoundrels forcing their pleasures on little girls and boys, not to be stopped because of the First Amendment, right?”

This pettiness annoyed me, trying to trip me up on protected speech. “Absolutely not. That’s not what the founding fathers had in mind as their legislative intent—“

The three men guffawed almost rudely with that attitude of, ‘He is talking to us about the founding fathers, hah!’ Usually I harbour no ill-will toward homosexuals but I really am fed-up with the way so many get in my face with their self-righteous contempt of me for being normal, as if I were some bigot for not thinking the way they do and openly endorsing their every whim.

Tommy then turned serious as he spoke to me, “Well, if you can’t limit the Second Amendment to prevent these super killing machines, then you can not limit the First to prevent Jemmy’s grisly images.”

I was not about to be intimidated, “Sorry, Sir, the First Amendment protects specifically defined ‘protected speech’ only. Any average history student knows that.” I wheeled my eyes full circle in mock distaste to foreclose any response. That maneuver also quickly fell to dust.

George leaned forward and said, staring out with a twinge of mockery, “Well, friend, legislative intent applies to the Second Amendment as well. States need militias and they have them, though the loss of their independence from a standing army and navy disturbs those of us who know better. The intent is primarily for the citizenry to protect itself from tyranny or anarchy. It is most assurèdly not to confer an absolute license for anybody to get a super-gun whether his humours are balanced or not, whether he is evil or not. Guns, like liberty, were not made for everybody...”

Those quaintly queer words again. Then Tommy chimed in before I could get a word in edge-wise, “Besides, you have entirely over-looked one simple fact.”

My now massive head-ache was going migraine on me, making me pugnacious, “So, what is that, herr professor?”

Tommy remained calm and he answered matter-of-factly, “That, Sir, the world belongs in usufruct to the living.”

My eyes were hot now, my vision beginning to blur, with the migraine and my civility had petered out, “What the fuck does that mean?”

Jim, the mad midget, put his elbows on the table – a first for any of the gay-baits – glaring at me, seething with resentment and quite ready to deck me, “How dare you use language like that about my friend and fellow President! Have you no respect even for the office?”

“What are you talking about?” My coherency was declining as quickly as the field of my vision was bleaching out the men from the outside in.

George answered, “It means that the world is yours, now, young man. It was ours yesterday, remains yours today and will be your children's tomorrow…”

Tommy clarified his point further, “Let me put it this way: we wrote that Amendment in a day of muskets in the wilderness and not in a time of super-weapons in crowded city streets. Yes, the Amendment represents a natural right in the sense that it remains unchanging and absolute over time. In that sense, the right itself is remote, eternal, unalienable as it defines nature and man. That natural right, absolute as it is, however, manifests from one generation to the next as natural law duly filtered through the variable circumstances of the times.”

So he had gone Platonist and pedantic on me when I had a migraine squeezing me back out of reality.
The three men remained silent, waiting for my response. Then, I finally pieced it all together: the frilly shirts, the long coats, the hippie hair, the arcane language, the antique references, the quaint anachronisms in speech and thought. “You mean you are—“

“Yes, allow me to present myself formally. I am Thomas Jefferson, your third President.”

“And I am James Madison, your fourth President. But I still think I deserve to be on that great big rock out there in the western wilderness.”
“Jemmy, quiet down will ye?” The third man laughed, “And I am George Mason and I did not live long enough to be a President, not that I had much time for James’s handiwork…”

Of course, now I felt ashamed and overwhelmed as each of the three men took on a nimbus, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, that critter and Darth Vader at the end of ‘Jedi’ or something.  As the bleaching circle engulfed them in my vision, I expressed my humiliation sincerely. “My God, gentlemen, I regret my coarse language and uncouth behavior…” My head ached even harder, yet I heard them chuckling as I drew my hands into fists and placed them a couple of inches apart on the edge of the table.

“We’ve heard worse, laddie. Lend it no heed.” I could not tell who had said those conciliatory words; likely, it was George. All three of the old men laughed that kind of laugh of humility and wisdom finding contentment in the smallest lapses of everyday conventions. I leaned forward and lowered my head to table, the pain was now too much and I could no longer countenance conformity. My fists tucked into my eye sockets, snugly so I could rest a minute and restore my courage.

***

I was perspiring, still leaning on my fists in the eye sockets, for how long I can not tell you. The old trick seemed to have worked again as the pain was easing. I could hear the four voices but they were different, more familiar sounding. I could only make out fragments.

A new voice was saying, “About thirty minutes, doctor, just sitting there talking by himself about guns. It spooked some of the customers. Thankfully, he was in the corner and didn't wreck my business for the day.”

Then a man’s voice, slightly familiar seemed to be repeating, “And you say, cocking his head periodically in three distinct angles?”

I could hear what sounded like a woman gasping, perhaps in tears, speaking with a mellifluous accent, “It’s been so hard for him recently…”

A familiar voice, “So, Doctor Lincoln, is he going…”

The slightly familiar voice, “Look, Bert, sometimes you have to take away some freedom for someone to be free to live…”

I sat up and looked across the booth. It was empty, as was the circular table, except for my tea setting, an empty water pitcher plus glass and the tea-food server, minus three petits-fours and two finger sandwiches. The others did not notice me at first as Dr Lincoln assured Nellie, Bert and the Maître d´, “Don’t worry, he was well past the carrying stage when I left you a couple of hours ago…”

Nellie noticed me first and put her hand to her mouth.  The others looked over at me. The Maître d´ stepped back to tend to the tea and announced, “No reason to worry, folks. Just a wicked hang-over!” He laughed gaily and so did the other patrons. That old feeling of being ridiculed for my drinking antics upset me; I opted for the better part of valor.

The doctor and my high-school class-mate walked over to me. Bertie put his hand on my shoulder, loyal as ever. Dr Lincoln put his hand on my forehead and smiled, saying, “Ah, very good! The fever seems to have broken…”

I was confused, “I was just sitting here with three men…”

“And I have a friend named Harvey, a wascally wabbit,” chuckled Bertie.

“No, seriously, Lambert…Never had the DTs this bad before; you know, I felt like I fell into the sun…”

“Damn you, you haven’t had a drink all week-end, you boring son of a bitch.” Obviously relieved in finding me, Bertie was back to his old self.

I shook my head in disbelief and said, “But the four of us were sitting right here, talking about the Orlando shooting and--“

Dr Lincoln intervened gently, “Don’t worry, with your level of dehydration and the temperature you were running, people often get hallucinatory, almost momentarily psychotic, just when the fever peaks and breaks.”

“And it wasn’t just too much Tanqueray?”

Nellie said sweetly, “You poor thing, you somehow got cholera…”

I shrank back in guilt and fear. “Oh my God that means---“

Bert laughed and said, “Calm down we had our shots from the doc on Friday night when you collapsed and you were past the transmission stage by this morning. Glad we stayed home on Friday, even if it was Nellie’s cooking.”

Nellie slapped her husband on the shoulder. “Lambert, you can be such a damn Yankee at times.” The couple, two of my oldest friends in New York, laughed.

Dr Lincoln finished up where Bert left off, “Yes, don’t worry, no one is in danger but I want to take you over to Lenox Hill [Hospital] for some observations over the next day or two and, of course, to get you re-hydrated and find out where you've been the last week…”

Bertie added flippantly, “Don’t worry, better food than Saint Johnny’s -- guaranteed.”

There was nothing else to say, "I sure hope so, Lambert. So, I got sick. Meaning I shouldn't be punished?"

Nellie was curious, “If you don’t mind me asking, just what were you discussing with your, you know, 'friends'.”

I felt silly in admitting to the grandiose fabrication, “Well, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Mason talked me into relaxing the Second Amendment in favor of gun control.”

“You?” Nellie laughed sweetly.

“Yeah, me, dahhhlinn'. I don’t get it any more than you do, frankly. You know how I am about the Second Amendment, especially after Iraq.”

Bertie whacked me on the back of the head lightly, “Well, I do get it, dumb ass. Madison put together the Constitution. Mason was the spirit behind the American Bill of Rights and Jefferson authored Declaration of Independence. T.J.'s long shadow from Paris got Mason's rights into the Constitution. You sure know how to pick your hallucinations, bud.”

Nelly went on, "So is the President so radical anymore?"

"Oh, Hell no, Nell. In fact, he is seems to run with better company than me."

Nellie laughed again in her sunny southern way, “Maybe you should be mental more often. It enlightens you!” Bertie and I smiled.

Dr Lincoln chuckled, too, and said, “Okay, gang, the Constitution -- even President Obama -- will be around in a few days. Let's get you over to Lenox Hill, shall we?”

Letter 116-B: getting historical comparisons right on Trump & Hitler

This is an answer to a thread that spiralled out of control, following a video about Mr Donald Trump's intemperate remarks toward protestors at his rallies. Though Mr Trump reminds me more of Il Duce than the Führer, I know the Nazi history better. This essay is not intended to castigate the German people for being more prone to racialism or violent prejudice than others.

In fact, greater Germany (Germany, Austria and Northern Switzerland) arguably had the greatest civilization on earth -- in the overall package of the arts, sciences, philosophy, education and literature -- in 1900. One would be hard pressed to foretell the subsequent fifty years.

Addendum 8/6/16: my take-away has remained that, under the right circumstances and stoking timely pre-judgements, what happened in Germany from 1933-45 could happen anywhere. The cult of personality blended with the politics of blame and / or revenge can be a very ugly business.

----------

After this thread exploded, l thought long and hard about Mr Trump. His rhetoric and plain-spoken manner are seductive; I do agree with some of his points and sentiments on the state of the U.S. economy. And then I wondered what it must have been like as a middle-class, educated German (as I am now, as an American) in the 1930s who would have been frustrated with hyper-inflation followed by economic depression, both of which emphasized the national humiliation of being hood-winked by the 'Tin Jesus' at Versailles.

At first, I would have dismissed Hitler as a whacked out corporal tin-horn but, hey, the guy at least was raising points we needed to address. As the Nazis gained power in 1933, I might have thought: okay, the guy is a nut about the Jews but, hey, we need to re-build and he will be gone soon enough and that policy can't possibly stick. When the Nuremberg rally and laws came into reality in 1935, I might well have acquiesced by rationalizing: this won't last forever and maybe he knows something about Jews that I don't. 

With the Anschluẞ, I might have been alarmed but might well have swallowed my doubts by thinking: okay the guy is aggressive. But at least our Germanic kin in Vienna can prosper like we are now, thanks to his political genius breaking the stranglehold of Rome. When Kristallnacht occurred, I might have capitulated by thinking: the guy has done great things and is an odd duck but it is his mob-frenzied supporters who are the crazy ones. 

And as Hitler proceeded with his program -- evidently outlined in Mein Kampf (which I would have avoided reading because of an aversion to the personal manner of an author similar to the one of The Art of the Deal) -- l would have remained quiet because the Nazis had the guns and I had loved ones to protect. Damn shame about the Jews, to be sure. But, you know, where there is smoke, there is fire. 

Maybe powerful Jews had really sought to undermine the fatherland during the Great War. With the invasion of Poland and the depredations of the Einsatzgruppen, I would have swept everything aside and delighted in the power of the monster, keeping in mind all those lovely news-reels of him playing with children or petting his dog. I would have felt vindicated as a German when he took down the rascals of Paris who had screwed us in 1918 and smashed the godless U.S.S.R. and its mass-murdering Stalin. 

So, at what point did I become a Nazi sympathizer, if not a card-carrying member? 

In 1932, when I thought Hitler was whacked but I did nothing to argue against his rise by hanging onto some of the things he said with which I agreed (e.g., re-industrialization)? 1935? 1938? 1939? 1940? 1941? When the good guys finally won, doubtlessly I would have said, "Oh no, I was NEVER a Nazi. I thought the guy was cracked but what choice did I have for he and his thugs had the guns and I had my loved ones under my care? Besides, I thought the poor Jews were merely being located elsewhere for their own protection. That made sense after Kristallnacht because we all thought the Jews were in danger."

The difficulty is that people compare Mr Trump with the Hitler of 1941 and not with the Hitler of 1930-1932 where Mr Trump is now by analogy (if indeed it is a valid one at all); that comparison with the Hitler of 1941 is absurd but not so with the Hitler of 1931. The point is: where does the politics of revenge lead? What will the President Trump of 2020 or 2024 be like? Frankly, I do not want to find out -- way too risky for me. 

This thinking is not unique to me, admittedly a 'mugged liberal'. Governor John Kasich has been warning us for months of just such a possible progression toward depredation. He has far more the 'good faith' of a life-long conservative than do I; additionally, and to my knowledge only, he is not known for being dirty. I am proud that Presidents Bush as well as Governors Pataki, Bush and Kasich are not endorsing Mr Trump. Governor Kasich has the most to gain by doing so; I hope he stands by his beliefs.