Churchill surveying bomb damage during the Blitz, Barack Obama playing golf
by Reid Fitzsimons
"There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they’re so decentralized and the numbers of votes involved (Barack Obama, Oct. 2016).”
A lot of people yearn to be viewed as serious and reasonable. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but there is a difference between being perceived or described as reasonable versus actually being so. That’s why it’s a hoot to watch some Republican politicians abandon their deepest held beliefs as they seek out ephemeral accolades of being “moderate,” or “bi-partisan,” from a media outlet. Being described as “he’s willing to cross the isle to get things done” is like a dog getting his tummy rubbed to certain Republicans, who proudly think to themselves, “I’m a reasonable person; they really like me!” Curiously, Republicans never seem to wonder why they have to do all the congressional and ideological aisle crossing.
The reason for this, however, is really quite simple: like morality, “reasonableness” is increasingly a product of relativity, and certainly since the 1960s the leftist progressive culture has been empowered to define the parameters. Hence, someone holding what had been a perfectly understandable position on a issue, say supportive of marriage and family integrity as the best foundation for children, is now a racist and/or misogynist, considering the alarming rate of black kids raised without fathers (lots of white kids as well). Feminism, an influential offspring of progressivism long ago decreed that fathers aren’t necessary, but outside of urban chic and manorial affluence with nannies, tutors, and upscale daycares, kids of single-parent families tend to do poorly where the actual world is found. Americans in general, and some Republican politicians in particular, will readily contort themselves and their moral beliefs to avoid being labeled “racist,” “phobic,” or whatever, even if the accusing person is a talentless celebrity or 19 year-old rich college kid sipping on her $5 cappuccino, smart phone always in hand.
The “serious and reasonable” label is enormously attractive to people who consider themselves educated and intellectual, especially those who are not necessarily strong of character and need extrinsic validation of their ego-identities. This makes them susceptible to exploitation by appeals to science and sophistication for example, and one of the most capable political practitioners of this was/is Barack Obama, a virtual artist in the media of pedagoguery and demagoguery. He frequently buttressed his positions and opinions by invoking a variety of experts, statistics, and the like:
Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. @BarackObama (May 2013)
“Whoever is the next president of the United States, if they come in and they suggest somehow that that global consensus — not just 99.5% of scientists and experts, but 99% of world leaders — think this is really important, I think the president of the United States is going to need to think this is really important.” (Barack Obama, Dec. 2015)
“…it’s very important for us to align ourselves with the 99.9 percent of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we’re looking for–order, peace, prosperity.” (Barack Obama, Feb 2015)
The overall lesson here is we really need to put on our thinking caps, as my elementary school teachers used to say, whenever we hear politicians, news media people, academia, and celebrities include in their proclamations words and phrases such as:
Studies show…
Economists-historians-scientists-experts are in agreement…
The consensus among serious scholars is…
This common sense legislation will…
Statistics prove…
Reasonable people…
And so on: the lexicon of seriousness and reasonableness usurped by those who are neither.
Anyway, I was struck by this theme recently as I read the 3rd and final volume in William Manchester’s epic biography of Winston Churchill (volume 1 came out in 1983, volume 2 in 1988, then a interminable 25 year wait for volume 3, completed by Paul Reid following the death of Manchester). First, a brief historical review. Adolph Hitler came to power through democratic means in the early 1930s. Eventually it became obvious that he embodied evil and planned to share his version of a socialist paradise with much of the world. Initially, however, he was discounted as a bit player on the world stage, and as his power grew along with the German economy and military, the acceptable narrative of the elite world leaders was a mix of denial and even some admiration. There was, however, one exiled voice of warning, proclaiming to the annoyance of the established leadership that this Hilter guy was serious bad news. That voice belonged to Winston Churchill, who was viewed by some of the elite with a mix of contempt and disregard.
As the 1930s wore on and Germany continued to ascend, the Western European aristocracy, who initially assumed Hitlerism was a passing fad, couldn’t quite figure out if Hitler was a buffoon or someone worthy of diplomatic engagement. Two things were obvious to them: they didn’t need to take Churchill and his admonitions to strengthen their respective militaries seriously and that their intellectualism could easily overcome any mal-intentions on Hitler’s part; Churchill was not considered an intellectual by their standards, so he was not admitted to the European Order of the Reasonable. When Hitler eventually demonstrated more overt aggression the reaction was predictable: let’s figure out what he wants and give it to him under the guise of polite diplomacy, a policy that came to be known as Appeasement and involved most famously the British Prime Minster at the time happily handing over a portion of Czechoslovakia to Hitler; “Peace for our time” the PM proudly declared in September 1938.
A year later, on September 1st, Hitler’s military attacked and overwhelmed Poland and WW2 began; the slaughter could not be ignored and the Western European leaders had to honor their agreement of military support with Poland. Things were quiet for a while, until the spring of 1940, when the invincible German military routed the ill-equipped and ill-prepared countries of Northwestern Europe and finally France. All of a sudden that wild and crazy guy Churchill was vindicated and his leadership sought. England, having the good fortune of being an island, was spared direct land assault, but the German Air Force proved quite capable of inflicting terrible death and misery on England, going up against an inadequate British Air Force, the RAF. This is what we refer to as The Battle of Britain or “the Blitz,” and is the ultimate point of this article.
Adolf Hitler made a reasonable assumption- if he reigned down enough misery and destruction on Britain they, the British, would be more than willing to reach some kind of accord, perhaps similar to the agreement with the recently vanquished France, which happily acquiesced to puppet status, with one portion of France “occupied” and another a pretend sovereign state. In fact, and this was new knowledge to me while reading the Manchester book, many of the “deep state” British elite thought this sounded perfectly reasonable. It was only due to the unwavering presence of the always eloquent but non-intellectual (and at times boorish) Churchill, who somehow earned the support of the masses in the face of daily and unrelenting horror, that the elites didn’t hand Britain over as a vassal state to Nazism. Had the Reasonable People had their way, the “antifa activists” of today might be a true resistance movement, with blood and gore and mass executions, rather than a bunch of rich brats yelling on Twitter about social justice from the comfortable booths of Starbucks.
Speaking of Churchill, a recent movie called The Darkest Hour (one of the few movies I’d like to see) apparently detailed much of the fall of Western Europe to the Nazis and the Battle of Britain. I saw that the person who portrayed Churchill is an English actor named Gary Oldman who won the Best Actor Oscar for his role. I seems that 17 years ago Gary Oldman was accused of hitting his wife with a telephone, though the incident was investigated and no charges were filed (Who knows? For what it’s worth he was awarded sole custody of the kids following a divorce). In response to his Oscar win an entertainment writer (for a show or magazine called Entertainment Weekly) named Dana Schwartz shared with the world her sentiments: “Was Gary Oldman a secret agent sent to ruin my evening, and possibly my life?” I guess one could reasonably comprehend the first part in that- if you believe Academy Awards should be based not upon acting merit but on the absence of 17 year-old domestic violence allegations, it could dampen the glitz of Oscar Night. The second part is troubling, not just because Gary Oldman’s win could possibly ruin someone’s life, but that someone so shallow and disturbed possesses such a broad platform to express her inanity. Somehow we’ve come to confuse serious people with the seriously deranged.