The Red Hunter by William F. Buckley

William F. Buckley was about the only defender of Senator Joe McCarthy. I miss William F. Buckley, the founder of the National Review and really the Conservative movement. He died at work at his desk in 2008. President Regan said of him, "You didn’t just part the Red Sea — you rolled it back, dried it up and left exposed, for all the world to see, the naked desert that is statism,” Mr. Reagan said.

“And then, as if that weren’t enough,” the president continued, “you gave the world something different, something in its weariness it desperately needed, the sound of laughter and the sight of the rich, green uplands of freedom.” I really miss him during great political contests like the one we are embroiled in right now. It is this contest that has me interested to go back and read some of Buckley's thoughts.

It was Buckley's firm belief that socialism and communism were the great enemy of our country and I agree with that more every day. In this book, Buckley talks about McCarthy's investigations into people and organizations that were determined to be loyalty security risks. Loyalty security is still something that is tested in our country. Long questionnaires, interviews and investigations are required to participate in government work at a security level. We would not want someone who is having a secret affair, a closeted gay, someone deep in debt to serve in a position where they could be blackmailed.  In addition to that, it mattered to McCarthy and a great number of Americans as they learned the truth about Stalin and his communist regime that America also be protected against communist ideologies.
Sadly, McCarthy had his own problems. Addicted to drink and with an Iago whispering horrid advice in his ear, he fell from a high place besmirching his own name and all the work he had done.

Today, communism in our country doesn't often go by that name, but it exists in the highest offices in the land. You still can't get a security clearance and be deep in debt or ironically an alcoholic... but you can hold any office while supporting policies that are responsible for enslaving millions.

A very interesting read indeed.

Religion & Politics...

In 2004, when I went to NYC for the Riot Relief Luncheon, James Lane Buckley was the key note speaker. His brilliant speech covered the subject of rising secularism in America. Mr. Buckley's speech cited many quotations by our founding fathers with a theme of faith and concern that the people of this nation would continue to be a people who loved God and a people who would try to discover, learn and then do God's will. Our founders knew this to be a recipe for success and when that recipe has been followed, our nation has accomplished its greatest triumphs.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, a man of deep faith, called the nation to repentance in his Thanksgiving address. He said, "But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

I think it would be interesting to see what the papers would say if President Bush said something like that. Still, I feel that Lincoln's words are true today. For example, if your only opinion of America was to be gleaned from watching network television, it would be possible to assume that ours is a nation of godless reprobates.

This morning my dad sent me an article that appeared in The Boston Globe yesterday, which quoted a statement made by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in a recent interview, ""It's difficult to talk about religious faith in our political system," Blair said. "If you are in the American political system . . . you can talk about religious faith and people say, 'Yes, that's fair enough,' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter.""

I was very interested in Mr. Blair's statement because from my perspective I think it's getting difficult for American politicians to express any real religious sentiment for the same reason. Politics has been so divisive recently in America that we don't talk about political views in polite company, something I find very sad, and we mention religious faith in hushed tones so as not to be offensive to anyone. And, there is a reason that our culture is going that way. Here in Utah, several years ago there was a lawsuit, which made national headlines, to stop a local High School choir from singing religious music at Christmastime. The federal lawsuit was not successful and the U.S Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, but people don't like to get sued.

It is true that in just the most recent history of our nation, Americans seem to want their politicians to distance themselves from God, "rising secularism" as Mr. Buckley put it. But with scandal and corruption in the halls of power in the news on a daily basis, that idea is not working out for us very well.

Americans are protective of their rights and they don't want religious belief to be any thing that is thrust upon them in any way. As I have read books over the past year about the oppression of regimes like the Taliban, I can understand some of that sentiment, but we must be careful not to take that too far, and I think we have.

George Washington said, "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." If we don't look to God for our moral compass, our compass may fail us.

When I choose a candidate for public office, but especially for the highest office. I want to know that I have chosen one who is humble enough to pray. I hope our future leaders will be humble enough to be on their knees before God and ask that they might know in their hearts and in their minds the right course. Our nation needs leaders whose faith informs their actions and whose actions are a testament to their faith.

A Day in my head and life...

What did you do that was interesting yesterday? I woke up really early. I painted and got some orders shipped out and listened to a lot of news on the radio while I cleaned the master bathroom and put stuff away. I learned about how the Chinese have decided to take away tax breaks from many of the factories that make low cost/ low tech items and so those factories are closing down hundreds at a time. I wonder what that will mean for places like the dollar stores here in the states and places like Tai Pan trading. The Chinese still seem to have labor shortage so I don't think it will effect unemployment there but I don't know. That is an interesting place and culture for sure. I want to go to China someday.

I vacuumed and cleaned up the family room. While I was sanding more boxes, they were talking about the passing of William F. Buckley. What an interesting man and I think a great man. Even those who disagreed with him politically liked him when they knew him. He was fun and funny as well. I loved where in a political debate he refused to take his allotted time to speak and said, "I am satisfied to sit back and contemplate my own former eloquence."

I met his brother once and had the opportunity to listen to him speak. I won't forget it. It was very moving and just amazing. I wrote a little about that here.

My sister came over for lunch. It was fun to visit with her. She probably thinks eating over here is weird because I always just grab odd leftovers out of the fridge. I photographed and listed these boxes in the shop.

I had been up since 4 Am.. can't sleep sometimes. I wanted to watch some mindless something about Oscar gowns and Harry Winston diamonds. I just want to try on one of those pretty necklaces sometime. So I turned on Oprah. No glitter, no glam at all just some guy who was eating out of the garbage to save money and the planet. Weird. I had to run out to the store and grab the ingredients for dinner. I decided to pay for mine rather than dumpster dive.. passing on weird guys suggestions. Made dinner. Pizza. Chauffeured c to her thing. Then for a moment I was contemplating the decor. The Valentine's Day decor is truly still up. How can I take it down and put it away & then get the Easter stuff out when the Christmas wreath is still on the door? It's a conundrum. I have looked and looked (OK I looked just one place, but I looked all around there) and can't find a pretty spring wreath. I know that I need to make one, but I was trying to avoid it. The last one did not turn out as I envisioned.
Oh, I forgot to say the Jehovah's Witnesses tried to visit in the morning. I try to be kind to traveling evangelists since my own church sends missionaries out as well, but they came during jammie time which is often all morning and so I had to hide and pretend I wasn't home. It's awkward to be caught in your jammie pants and 10 AM (although I've seen people wearing jammies and slippers at the Mall.. that's a bit casual isn't it.) With me though it's less devastating to spill paint on your jammies somehow. And, I spill frequently.

I tried to read/listen to this book called Snow in August (I think that's it). The reader sounds like a computer. No emotion. No range. He stunk and so I need to make a trip to the library today.

In the evening I went to the church and helped (I am not much help at this) make a quilt for a girl in our neighborhood who is going off to college soon. My finger cracked and I bled on it a bit.. nice. I liked the colors though bright pink, green, tangerine and yellow. It was about a full size quilt and the top was made out of this really pretty sheet.

When I got home, c and I played a game of speed scrabble.. we just made this particular game up. You dump out all the tiles and try to make a huge crossword as fast as you can. It's pretty fun. I like Scrabble and Boggle and hate most other games except maybe Pictionary.

Then when the house was dark and quiet.. we spent an hour whispering about all the news of the day. C knows about everything I swear. I love a fascinating conversation right before I drop off to sleep.
So those are a few of moments in my day. What happened in your day?

Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World...

I thought about writing this post for my political blog.. but, I normally don't post book reviews there and so I'm taking a chance that this book review will interest a few. This book has been riveting to read. All of this history happened during my lifetime.. I was just too small to remember any of it. C said that the only thing that he really didn't like about President Nixon is that the Watergate hearings bumped his favorite program The Flintstones. You can see that point of view I'm sure. Anyway we were young, but are living in a time now where Nixon's opening of China has made great changes in the world we live in today. I honestly don't know that there would have been a lot of other men who would have been able to wrangle this deal other than Nixon and Kissinger. There were so many who were morally opposed to the trip.

William F. Buckley, someone I greatly admire, was invited on the trip by President Nixon and attended a banquet in China given in honor of the Americans by the Chinese. He had this to say about it, "It is unreasonable to suppose that anywhere in history have a few dozen men congregated who have been responsible for greater human mayhem that the hosts at this banquet and their spiritual colleagues, instruments all of Mao Tse-tung. The effect was as if Sir Hartley Shawcross had suddenly risen from the prosecutor's stand at Nuremberg and descended to embrace Goering and Goebbels and Doenitz and Hess, begging them to join with him in the making of a better world." An exaggeration.. Not hardly. Estimates suggest that Mao Tse-tung is responsible for the deaths either by political persecution or starvation of more than 40 Million people. There are many books that detail the brutality of Mao and his followers among them, the famous Life and Death in Shanghai extremely well written by Nien Cheng. My friend Circe also recommended a book I read several years ago called Mao's Last Dancer that chronicles the peasants struggle to avoid starvation due to the policies of Chairman Mao. At one point the author relates where as a child he realizes that his family is competing for their food sources with rats.. either they will starve or the rats will starve. It's heartbreaking.

And yet, Nixon wanted desperately to talk with the Chinese. His objective was complicated. The United States was in the middle of the Cold War with Russia; talking with the Chinese gave that government a sort of 3rd power status that created a thaw in U.S. / Russian relations and more caution on the part of Russia. Our relations with China after the Korean conflict and during Vietnam were difficult and possibly dangerous. Also, businessmen in the United States saw huge and lucrative markets and wanted in. There is no question that Sino/American trade has made untold fortunes for both countries. There were many other reasons Nixon wanted to go, but paramount among them was to ensure peace. That's a good reason I think. And, I don't know if Nixon thought of this because it wasn't mentioned in the book, but I think that it's obvious that contact with the western world has brought a measure of liberty to China.. not yet what one would hope for, but I think it's coming.

Nixon, who is remembered by most of the populace for Watergate, wanted to be remembered for this one week which he considered his greatest achievement.

If you're interested... read it and let me know what you think...