Below are some of the best quotes I pulled from my brief and selective reading of Montaigne.  I’m sure I’ll be back to visit him.

From “Of Pedantry”
“We suffer ourselves to lean and rely so strongly upon the arm of another, that we destroy our own strength and vigour.”

“though we could become learned by other men’s learning, a man can never be wise but by his own wisdom.”

“these fellows, to make a parade and to get opinion, mustering the ridiculous knowledge of theirs, that floats on the superficies of the brain, are perpetually perplexing and entangling themselves in their own nonsense.”

“All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of goodness.”

From “Of the Education of Children”
“I have no other end in this writing, but only to discover myself, who, also, shall, peradventure, be another thing tomorrow, if I chance to meet any new instruction to change me.”

“the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children.”

“we may whet and sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others.”

“[the student] shall, by reading [great] books, converse with the great and heroic souls of the best ages.”

“The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine.”

From “That it is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity”
“resolutely to condemn anything for false and impossible, is arrogantly and impiously to circumscribe and limit the will of God, and the power of our mother nature, within the bounds of my own capacity. . . .”

“How many unlikely things are there testified by people worthy of faith, which, if we cannot persuade ourselves absolutely to believe, we ought at least to leave them in suspense; for, to condemn them as impossible, is by a temerarious presumption to pretend to know the utmost bounds of possibility.”

From “Of Cannibals”
“every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.”

From “That the Relish of Good and Evil Depends in a Great Measure upon the Opinion we Have of Them”
“The confidence in another man’s virtue is no light evidence of a man’s own. . . .”

“not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content;”

“A straight oar seems crooked in the water.”

From “Upon Some Verses of Virgil”
“few will quarrel with the license of my writings, who have not more to quarrel with in the license of their own thoughts. . . .”

“Every one is wary and discreet in confession, but men ought to be so in action;”

“Every one avoids seeing a man born, every one runs to see him die;”

“there are . . . people . . . who value themselves upon contempt of themselves, and purport to grow better by being worse.”

“Amongst chief deformities I reckon forced and artificial beauties. . . .”

Its comments pertain to the Tea Party movement, the Obama campaign, political shock-jocks (Sean O’Limbeck and Air AmOlbermann), party politics and legislative maneuvering, terrorism, nationalism, torture, religion, power, kindness, leadership, creativity, personal fulfillment, and a thousand other topics that occupy our 21^st Century minds, books and airwaves.

His commentary is bare and unapologetic.  He seems to have little patience for those weak-willed enough to be sucked in by a mass movement.  But he also acknowledges that some movements are good, while others are not.  He looks at only the characteristics and tactics, not the morality of the movement.  So he will use an example of the American Revolution alongside the Nazi movement to illustrate the same point.

Hoffer’s writing style is pithy and aphoristic.  Each word is precise; each paragraph is a meal to be digested.  There is no waste.  The author himself went blind at the age of seven but his sight returned at age 15.  “Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, and Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading” (the Wikipedia article on him is quite interesting).  He was a gold prospector, a homeless genius, a door-to-door orange salesman, a migrant worker, and finally a longshoreman until he retired at 65.

Below are some (a LOT) of quotes from the book.  The timelessness of the thought demonstrates the soundness of the mind that produced them.  (One small explanation: a “radical” is a left-wing fanatic, while a “reactionary” is a right-wing fanatic.)

The True Believer will change the way you think about almost everything.  And it’s not for the faint of heart, testimony, or personal conviction, because the book itself could become a holy cause to some.

Enjoy!

“[T]hough ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious.”

“Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and preserve the status quo.”

“[A] mass movement, particularly in its active revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.”

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.  When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”

“[T]o the frustrated the present is irremediably spoiled.  Comforts and pleasures cannot make it whole.  No real content of comfort can ever arise in their minds but from hope.”

“There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members.”

“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”

“Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach.”

“We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”

“Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure and frustration.”

“Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.”

“Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses.  Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.”

“The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one’s individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.”

“[Armies’] uniforms, flags, emblems, parades, music, and elaborate etiquette and ritual are designed to separate the soldier from his flesh-and-blood self and mask the overwhelming reality of life and death.”

“To lose one’s life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.”

“There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or ‘of those who are to be.’”

“[T]here is no more potent dwarfing of the present that by viewing it as a mere link between a glorious past and a glorious future.  Thus, though a mass movement at first turns its back on the past, it eventually develops a vivid awareness, often specious, of a distant glorious past.”

“The conservative doubts that the present can be bettered, and he tries to shape the future in the image of the present.  He goes to the past for reassurance about the present. . . .”

“The reactionary does not believe that man has unfathomed potentialities for good in him.  If a stable and healthy society is to be established, it must be patterned after the proven models of the past.  He sees the future as a glorious restoration rather than an unprecedented innovation.”

“[The reactionary’s] image of the past is based less on what it actually was than on what he wants the future to be.”

“If [the radical] has to employ violence in shaping the new, his view of man’s nature darkens and approaches closer to that of the reactionary.”

“What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as they decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come from the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more—and there is. By expatiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation.”

“Those who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossible.  It is a device to camouflage their shortcomings.”

“Satan did not digress to tell all he knew when he said: ‘All that a man hath will he give for his life.’  All he hath—yes.  But he sooner dies than yield aught of that which he hath not yet.”

“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”

“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”

“By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance.”

“The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. Often, indeed, it is his need for passionate attachment which turns every cause he embraces into a holy cause.”

“[The fanatic] fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.”

“[The fanatics of various hues] hate each other with the hatred of brothers.  They are as far apart and close together as Saul and Paul.  And it is easier for a fanatic communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism, or Catholicism than to become a sober liberal.”

“[The fanatic] sees in tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity and ignorance.”

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

“[L]ike an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent.”

“To qualify as a devil, a domestic enemy must be given a foreign ancestry.”

“[M]uch of our proselytizing consists perhaps in infecting others not with our brand of faith but with our particular brand of unreasonable hatred.”

“There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.”

“To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.  Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”

“There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality.”

“[W]hen we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”

“Propaganda by itself succeeds mainly with the frustrated. Their throbbing fears, hopes and passions crowd at the portals of their senses and get between them and the outside world. They cannot see but what they have already imagined, and it is the music of their own souls they hear in the impassioned words of the propagandist. Indeed, it is easier for the frustrated to detect their own imaginings and hear the echo of their own musings in impassioned double-talk and sonorous refrains than in precise words joined together with faultless logic.”

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership.  What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”

“There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.”

“When the leader in a free society becomes contemptuous of the people, he sooner or later proceeds on the false and fatal theory that all men are fools, and eventually blunders into defeat.”

Quoting Hermann Rauschning: “Marching diverts men’s thoughts.  Marching kills thought.  Marching makes an end of individuality.”

“Suspicion is given a sharp edge by associating all opposition within the ranks with the enemy threatening the movement from without.”

“It is [the chosen devil’s] voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges.”

Quoting Montaigne: “Our zeal works wonders when it seconds our propensity to hatred, cruelty, ambition, avarice, detraction, rebellion.”

“By elevating dogma above reason, the individual’s intelligence is prevented from becoming self-reliant.”

“Whenever we find a dispensation enduring beyond its span of competence, there is either an entire absence of an educated class or an intimate alliance between those in power and the men of words.”

“When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism.  We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point.”

“[The man of action (leader of a mass movement in its post-fanatical phase)] inclines, therefore, to rely mainly on drill and coercion.  He finds the assertion that all men are cowards less debatable than that all men are fools, and, in the words of Sir John Maynard, inclines to found the new order on the necks of the people rather than in their hearts.”

“[A]t the end of its vigorous span, the movement is an instrument of power for the successful and an opiate for the frustrated.”

“Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of a society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks turned into holy causes) or militarized.”

The vessel for this criticism is a story about Nekhlyudov, a child of privilege who falls to the temptations of his society. He seduces a peasant girl on his aunts’ farm and never looks back. He recognizes her years later as he sits on a jury trying her for murder. He finds out that he had left the girl pregnant, and that she has eventually become a prostitute. This shakes him so deeply that he decides to reform and do what is right. He slips a few times, but does not fall, in his resolve to do right by the girl. He eventually follows her to Siberia, intending to live at least close to her throughout her sentence. I won’t give away any more of the plot than that.

There were many great quotes from the book. Believe it or not, I did exclude some of them from the list below:

On Prisons
“Terrible were the brutalized jailers, whose occupation is to torment their brothers, and who were certain that they were fulfilling an important and useful duty.”

“[The prisoners] were deprived of the chief motives that induce weak people to live good lives—regard for public opinion, a sense of shame, and the consciousness of human dignity.”

“The only explanation of what was being done was that it aimed at the prevention of crime, at inspiring awe, at correcting offenders, and at dealing out to them ‘lawful justice’ as the books said. But in reality, nothing in the least resembling these results came to pass. Instead of vice being put to a stop, it only spread farther; instead of being frightened, the criminals were encouraged (many a tramp returned to prison of his own free will); instead of correction, every kind of vice was systematically instilled; while the desire for vengeance, far from being weakened by the measures of the government, was instilled into the people, to whom it was not natural.”

“[T]he only certain means of salvation from the terrible evil from which men are suffering is that they should always acknowledge themselves to be guilty before God, and therefore unable to punish or reform others. . . .”

“Vicious men were trying to reform other vicious men, and thought they could do it by mechanical means.”

On High Society
“[S]he thought more of him that anybody else and therefore evidently understood him. This understanding of him, that is, the recognition of his superior worth, was a proof to Nekhlyudov of her good sense and correct judgment.”

“Nekhlyudov . . . felt with his whole being a loathing for the society in which he had lived till then: that society which so carefully hides the sufferings borne by millions to assure ease and pleasure to a small minority, that the people comprising it do not and cannot see these sufferings nor the cruelty and wickedness of their own lives.”

“’But they suffer. You are a Christian and believe in the Gospel teaching and yet you are so pitiless.’
’That has nothing to do with it. The Gospels are the Gospels, but what is disgusting remains disgusting.’”

“It was clear that everything considered important and good was insignificant and repulsive, and that all this glamour and luxury hid the old well-known crimes, which not only remained unpunished but were adorned with all the splendor men can devise.”

“The law . . . is only an instrument for upholding the existing order of things to the advantage of [the ruling] class.”

On Law
“[T]hese people acknowledge as law what is not law, and do not acknowledge as law at all, the eternal, immutable law written by God in the hearts of men.”

On the Carnal Man vs. the Spiritual Man
“[A]ll this terrible change had come about because he had ceased to believe himself and had taken to believing others. This he had done because it was too difficult to live believing one’s self: believing one’s self, one had to decide every question, not in favor of one’s animal I, which is always seeking for easy gratification, but in almost every case against it. Believing others, there was nothing to decide; everything had been decided already, and always in favor of the animal I and against the spiritual. Nor was this all. Believing in his own self, he was always exposing himself to the censure of those around him; believing others, he had their approval.”

“All men live and act partly according to their own, partly according to other people’s ideas. The extent to which they do the one or the other is one of the chief things that differentiate men.”

“The tempter that had been speaking to him in the night again raised his voice, trying to lead him out of the realm of his inner life into the realm of his outer life, away from the question of what he should do, to the question of what the consequences would be and what would be practical.”

“In Nekhlyudov, as in every man, there were two beings; one the spiritual, seeking only that kind of happiness for himself which tends towards the happiness of all; the other, the animal man, seeking only his own happiness, and ready to sacrifice to it the happiness of the rest of the world.”

On Man’s Stewardship for his Fellowman
“It was simple because he was thinking now, not of what would be the results for him, but only of what he ought to do. And, strange to say, what he ought to do for himself he could not decide, but what he ought to do for others he knew indubitably.”

“The earth cannot be anyone’s property; it cannot be bought or sold anymore than water, air, or sunshine. All have an equal right to the advantages it gives to men.”

“If once we admit—be it only for an hour or in some exceptional case—that anything can be more important that a feeling of love for our fellows, then there is no crime which we may not commit with easy minds, free from feelings of guilt.”

On the Military
“Military life in general depraves men. It places them in conditions of complete idleness, that is, absence of all rational and useful work; frees them from their common human duties, which it replaces by merely conventional duties to the honor of the regiment, the uniform, the flag; and while giving them on the one hand absolute power over other men, also puts them into conditions of servile obedience to those of higher ranks than themselves.”

“[The General] had received [the Order of the White Cross], which he greatly prized, while serving in the Caucasus, because a number of Russian peasants, with cropped hair, dressed in uniforms and armed with guns and bayonets, had killed at his command more than a thousand men who were defending their liberty, their homes, and their families.”

“These regulations had inevitably to be fulfilled, and hence it was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of that fulfillment. The old General did not even allow himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think of them for fear of becoming weak in the execution of the obligations that seemed to him so very important.”

On Society Generally
“[T]he opinion of the [jury] foreman began to gain ground, chiefly because all the jurymen were getting tired, and preferred to take up the view that would bring them sooner to a decision and thus liberate them.”

“People whom fate and their sin-mistakes have placed in a certain position, however false that position may be, form a view of life in general which makes their position seem good and admissible. In order to keep up their view of life, these people instinctively keep to the circle of those who share their views of life and of their own place in it.”

“It was clear that she considered herself a heroine ready to lay down her life for the success of her cause; yet she could hardly have explained what that cause was, or in what its success consisted.”

“[A]ll sorts of violence, cruelty, and inhumanity, are not only tolerated but even sanctioned by Government when it suits its purpose.”

The Constitution is seen today as the masterpiece of a gathering of righteous genius looking to set up a great government. In some respects it was; there were many good men, many very intelligent, and they indeed were trying to better the chances for the continuity of the American nation. But there were also those looking only to improve the economic situation of their state and themselves, and most at one time or another threatened to walk out if they did not get what they wanted. Most of them certainly didn’t regard many of their fellow-delegates as geniuses.

It was interesting to learn about some of the lesser-known but very influential Framers, like James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris (yes, that’s his first name), Elbridge Gerry, David Brearly, George Mason and John Rutledge, who had much more to do with creating the Constitution than the names we normally associate with “The Framers” like Washington, Madison, and Hamilton.

Watching the delegates avoid and mishandle the elephant in the room—slavery—was excruciating, knowing where it led. The three-fifths compromise and the guarantee of the slave trade for 20 more years gave the South and slave owners much more political power than they rightfully deserved. George Mason, an ambivalent slaveholder said in regards to the slave trade, “As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this [world]. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, [P]rovidence punishes national sins by national calamities.” I found Mason, who never signed the Constitution because he thought it was too centralized, a very interesting person. I plan on learning more about him.

Abraham Lincoln seemed to concur with Mason in his second inaugural address, saying:

“If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

None of the delegates seemed to walk away from the Convention thinking they had created a divine document. Gouverneur Morris, who opposed the final document, but finally accepted it and signed it because it was what the body agreed on (and was the single hand that put it all together in the form and language we now have it) said, “I not only took it as a man does his wife, for better, for worse, but what few men do with their wives, I took it knowing all its bad qualities.”

I think that the solidarity of delegates and leaders of the time (like Morris) is what has made the Constitution stand the test of time. Our Constitution is, in the minds of Americans, a governing document rather than a set of “standard operating procedures” as other countries’ constitutions are regarded—France has had at least ten since ours was ratified. Because the people truly see the Constitution as the fiber of the nation, it retains legitimacy. The fact that it has only been changed 27 times in 220 years is a testament to this. This is where I find hope; that although we all have our selfish agendas, we still hold the ideal of the Constitution as paramount in our political life. God bless us by helping us maintain that regard for the ideals we see in our Constitution, and helping us maintain the good parts and improve on the bad.

But the treasure he uncovers for the readers is incredible. A little-known, one-term president squished between Washington and Jefferson comes to life as a giant of his time, at least equal to his presidential bookends.

He always did what he felt was right for his country, no matter the consequences to his career or reputation. He was grounded enough to see his own faults clearly, but wise enough to bridle them. He was taught in the classical tradition, meaning he had read and absorbed the words of the greatest thinkers of history.

His contribution to the birth of the United States is as great as any of the other Founders. He aided in writing and then signed the Declaration of Independence and served as the liaison between General Washington and the Continental Congress before he was sent to France to obtain loans and to work toward a peace with the British. He ventured, without permission from Congress, to The Netherlands and secured invaluable loans. He was part of the trio who negotiated the treaty with Britain, and then was sent to London as the first official American diplomat to Great Britain. Shortly after his return he was elected twice as Washington’s Vice President (which in that time meant he took second place in the presidential election) before being elected President himself.

Seven years before the Constitutional Convention, during a brief return home between assignments to Europe, he was asked to write the constitution for Massachusetts. With a lot of study and research, he came up with a bicameral legislature; a popularly elected governor; and an independent, appointed-for-life judiciary—sound familiar?

McCullough also brings to life the beautiful relationship—often long distance—between John and Abigail, a presidential woman in her own right. It was a tender, passionate, and intelligent marriage in which they endured trials and accepted what they felt were their responsibilities as capable people in a time when capable people were needed.

The wisdom of John Adams (and Abigail) is best expressed in many of the quotes cited in the book. Below are my favorites.

From Abigail Adams:
“I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power, whether vested in many or few, is ever grasping. . . . The great fish swallow up the small and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.”

On slaveholders advocating independence: “I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs.”

From John Adams:
On War
“Soldiers quartered in a populous town will always occasion two mobs where they prevent one. They are wretched conservators of the peace.”

“Men will be too economical of their blood and property to have recourse to them very frequently.”

“Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.”

“Genius in a general is oftener an instrument of divine vengeance than a guardian angel.”

“War necessarily brings with it some virtues, and great and heroic virtues, too. What horrid creatures we men are, that we cannot be virtuous without murdering one another?”

On the Revolution
Before the war: “We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune—in everything.” We can be thankful he was wrong about this, and that he is one of the principal examples of his erroneous statement.

“We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it” (paraphrased from the play Cato).

“If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves in groping for the middle way.”

“May Heaven grant us victory if we deserve it; if not, patience, humility, and persistence under defeat.”

Asked if he thought America would succeed in its pursuit of independence: “Yes, if we fear God and repent our sins.”

On Government
“There is a danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”

“My fundamental maxim of government is never to trust the lamb to the wolf.”

“[I]n every assembly, members will obtain an influence by noise not sense.”

“Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise men decline it, others will do it; if honest men refuse it, others will not.”

“How few aim at the good of the whole, without aiming too much at the prosperity of the parts!”

“Still, they shall find, as long as I am in office, candor, integrity, and, as far as there can be any confidence and safety, a pacific and friendly disposition. If the spirit of exterminating vengeance ever arises, it shall be conjured up by them, not me. In this spirit I shall pursue the negotiation.”

Upon moving into the new President’s House (a.k.a. the White House): “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall herein inhabit. May none but honest and wise me ever rule under this roof.”

At the new Capitol Building: “Here may the youth of this extensive country forever look up without disappointment, not only to the monuments and memorials of the dead, but to the examples of the living.”

“If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle.”

On Education
“The true source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think . . . . Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”

“The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved. . . .”

“Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be though extravagant.”

“[Y]ou will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.”

On Society
“[I]t’s of more importance to community that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished.”

“Daughter! Get you an honest man for a husband, and keep him honest. No matter whether his is rich, provided he be independent. Regard the honor and moral character of the man more than all other circumstances. Think of no other greatness but that of the soul, no other riches but those of the heart. An honest, sensible, humane man, above all the littleness of vanity and extravagances of imagination, laboring to do good rather than be rich, to be useful rather than make a show, living in modest simplicity clearly within his means and free from debts and obligations, is really the most respectable man in society, makes himself and all about him most happy.”

“[L]et no person say what they would or would not do, since we are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.”

“To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man compromised in a few words.”

“[A]mbition [is] the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field . . . [and] wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.”

When he wrote in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights that “all men are by nature free and equal,” he meant “not a physical but a moral equality. . . . Common sense was sufficient to determine that it could not mean that all men were equal in fact, but in right; not all equally tall, strong, wise, handsome, active, but equally men . . the work of the same Artist, children in the same cases entitled to the same justice.”

“[I] work hard, [my] conscience is neat and easy. Content to live and willing to die. . . . Hoping to do a little good.”

“Admire and adore the Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to lessen ill, and increase good, but never assume to comprehend.”

“Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.”

Grant was essentially a failure early on. Discharged from the Army for being drunk while processing payroll, he bounced from one job to another, doing anything he could to earn money to support his family (including chopping and selling firewood) until his father-in-law gave him a spot working in his leather goods shop, another job he was ill-suited for. He rejoined the Army after the beginning of the Civil War, mostly for the money and change of scenery. And he found his niche. He was a quiet, friendly and unpretentious man with an unmatched internal drive.

Sherman’s father died when he was nine, requiring that he and some of his siblings be farmed out to relatives. Oddly, his new home with his uncle and aunt was just down the street from his mother’s house where she still lived with some of his younger siblings. He ended up marrying his “foster” sister. He, like Grant, failed at most things he tried, although he settled in well as a military school superintendant in Louisiana just before the war began.

The book goes through Grant and Sherman’s time together and apart and how they relied on each other, Grant providing leadership and Sherman providing organization. Grant, with his drive and military acumen, became the most successful general of the war. Sherman, through the tutelage of Grant, developed the leadership and confidence he later needed to drive through Georgia and corner Joe Johnston’s Army.

One of the most interesting quotes from the book was describing an occurrence during the siege of Vicksburg: “One hot June day, after hours of desultory sniping, a private of the Eleventh Wisconsin said to his comrades, ‘I’m going down into the ravine and shake hands with them Rebs!’ and he did just that. More men from both sides came out, shaking hands with their enemies, until hundreds of men were milling about in the no-man’s-land of this ravine. They talked about everything: how hot it was, the kind of illnesses they had, what they thought of their generals. Union soldiers traded rations of coffee for Confederate tobacco. Farmboys swapped knives and chatted about their hometowns, and some soldiers even pulled out tintypes of their wives and sweethearts to show to men who had been shooting at them an hour before.

“A Union officer came walking into the middle of this friendly gathering and began berating the men of both sides for all this fraternization. The young men fell silent, said good-bye to one another, slowly walked back up the slopes to their respective trenches, and soon began shooting at one another again.”

This illustrates the truth of Hermann Goering’s statement: ““Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out if it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war. . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a Parliament, or a Communist dictatorship.”

Sherman and Grant both enjoyed enormous fame after the war and for the rest of their lives. Grant was elected president, yet another job he was bad at. He finished his memoirs on his deathbed to ensure his family’s financial well-being.

Sherman left some of the greatest quotes in American history: 1) “I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands and fathers. . . . It is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated (friend or foe), that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. . . .” 2) “There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.” 3) [regarding the presidency] “If nominated I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.”

There were several supersalient things about Eisenhower that I noticed. The biggest was that, politically, he was a true conservative, sometimes to a fault. He was president during the establishment of the nuclear arms race, an extremely expensive endeavor, but he did all he could to rein in spending on it. He once wondered aloud how many times over the U.S. could kill the Russians, meaning the effectiveness of “deterrence” does not increase unlimited with an unnecessary number of nuclear weapons.

One of the mantras during his two terms was that “a balanced budget is more important to our security than nuclear weapons.” Oh, how we could use that kind of leadership today! In 1957 he was faced with no fewer than five situations in which his entire cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff pressured him to use nuclear weapons against China and/or Russia. Luckily, he stood his ground. He got the U.S. out of Korea and avoided involvement in Vietnam, already becoming a problem. It seems strange that the most celebrated Army General or the 20th century would be so averse to war, but so he was because, he said, “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” He would only go into a war where the lines of right and wrong were clear and he had an overwhelming force for the job. Thus, he presided over the longest period of peace in the 20th century.

His conservatism hurt him when he assumed that the Brown v. Topeka Supreme Court decision would be implemented gradually. He didn’t see the reason for the rush to integrate, and the South saw his ambivalence as sympathy to their cause. This eventually led to situation that forced Eisenhower’s hand in sending federal troops into Little Rock.

Eisenhower set two precedents that have backfired on us today. First, he claimed executive privilege for high-ranking officials in the agencies of the Executive Branch. This was precipitated by Joe McCarthy’s haranguing Army officials about Communists in the military. Eisenhower simply wanted to shut down McCarthy. Of course, under GWB, the concept of executive privilege has become a weapon against the freedoms of the people and the Congress to investigate unethical and criminal behavior in the executive branch.

Eisenhower’s other tragic precedent was seeking unlimited power to use whatever tactics he saw as necessary against North Korea. He did this to scare North Korea into backing down against South Korea after the armistice. Unfortunately, GWB sought and got the same power against “terrorism,” a nebulous enemy at best. The difference is that Eisenhower was a capable man with knowledge of military strengths and threats, whereas GWB et al were simple ideologues with too much power and too big an appetite.

If there were a “conservative” on the national scene like Eisenhower, my party loyalties might be trending a different way. I see in him financial, military, and diplomatic conservatism, none if which is present in today’s self-proclaimed “conservatives.” Ironically, one of the planks in JFK’s platform in 1960 was lower taxes.

In all, Eisenhower was a smart, good man with human faults. It seemed he did what he felt was best for the country and its citizens as a whole, not the euphemistic “national interest.”

The book itself is a great study of the U.S. in the 20th century. It goes through WWI, the country’s international involvement between the wars, WWII, Korea, the beginnings of the Cold War, the seeds of Vietnam, etc. It gives a very interesting perspective on the transformation of the United States from a member of the community of nation-states to a world-wide superpower. It’s a really good suggested read.

The movie’s launch-pad is Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell speech in which he warns America of a military-industrial complex and draws that concept out to the current war in Iraq.

Much of the movie springs from the concept expressed in the quote, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

This military-industrial complex (along with the collaborators in Congress and in “think-tanks”), the movie alleges, has much to do with the reason why, since WWII, the U.S. has been involved in so many military conflicts throughout the world. The military, in order to stay relevant and continue to get the funding it wants, must sell to the Congress and the public theories of danger and threats and justifications for military action. This job is made easier by the fact that high-ranking military retirees often garner huge salaries at defense-contractor corporations, using their high-level connections to land contracts and convince the Brass of the need for the latest & greatest in weaponry, etc.

Since the end of WWII the U.S. military has been very active, taking action on 81 different occasions in 45 countries (including inside the U.S.). We have sent troops into 26 different countries (including the U.S.) on 37 different occasions. We have made nuclear threats on 15 occasions, as recently as 1980. Aside from the times we sent in troops, we have bombed countries on 14 different occasions. We have allowed 17 “command operations” (advisors, special forces, CIA-directed efforts, etc.).

War and other military actions on behalf of the “national interests” (read oil, power, influence, financial exploitation, etc.) stems not only from the need of the military to continue its existence, but also from the ideas of many in power that military action is simply a means to an end—and it matters not how worthy the end is, military action is always on the table. The only hurdle is to sell its necessity to the public. The attacks of September 11 made this job very easy.

Eisenhower’s speech seems to be a prophetic indictment of the Bush administration. A few quotes:

“Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us a grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.”

“In meeting [crises], whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.”

“. . . each proposal must be weighed in light of . . . the need to maintain balance . . . between the actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.”

“Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

“. . . in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

“ . . . we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.”

“Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

“Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.”

“We pray . . . that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”

The point of the movie is to contrast these principles with the current reality. These ideals are not what we have obtained through the pax Americana that we have imposed on the world in recent decades. The bellicosity of our government should be unimaginable in an ostensibly Christian nation.

It made me think about a lot of things, among them:

In a debate against all-white Oklahoma City University at an off-site location (a religious revival tent in the middle of nowhere) an OCU debater had said that segregation was not right, but the South was not yet ready for integration–it just wasn’t practical. The Wiley College debater, a girl named Samantha Booke (later a civil rights attorney) rebutted (in, if you ask me, the most powerful moment of the film) that “the time for justice is always, is ALWAYS, now!” This statement encapsulated the meaning of the film for me–too bad it was buried in the middle. Anyway, this is a huge life-lesson. Christianity’s greatest heroes did what was right and let the consequence follow. They didn’t worry about practicality, expediency, realistic expectations, etc.

On the other hand, it leaves the question somewhat unresolved. One of the debaters, Henry, calls going to the off-site debate “taking crumbs from Massa’s table” while the others agree it’s a step forward. Henry also starts to leave a car at the end of a lynching they had stumbled upon to cut down the body of the victim, but he’s restrained by the professor, to fight another day in a better way. A third scene has the school’s president, having struck with his car the pig of a poor white sharecropper (who has a gun), signing over his monthly salary check to pay for the dead pig. I found it very interesting and compelling that the question is never neatly answered.

There are several scenes of violence and oppression that all occur either in the dark or in remote, hidden places. However, when the “powers that be” (force, badges, guns, etc.) are forced to operate in public and daylight, their cruelty, injustice, and abuse of power is exposed and opposed by the outraged majority. This brings to mind the push toward secrecy that the Bush administration has effected. They use the same reasoning that the good ‘ol boy sheriff in the movie does—it keeps control, preserves the culture, protects the “interests of the community.” The national interest is equivalent to the traditional culture in 1935 Texas—it is a system set up to serve the elite and ensured by fear, force, secrecy, and ignorance.

My high school football coach used to say that a game is won in four or five plays–the problem is you don’t know which plays they will be, so you have to give 100% every play so that you’re in the right place doing the right thing when one of the few plays happens. This also is a great life lesson. These debaters did not know, going into the debate season, that they would end up making an historic appearance in the hallowed halls of Harvard, broadcast on national radio. But through good preparation and performance, they were able to contribute in a very positive way to the early civil rights movement. So should all of us prepare for the moment when our influence is needed. When the microphone is in front of us, will we have thought enough about the essence of life to give a meaningful, positive, productive answer? Will it be based in reason or conjecture, fact or rumor, goodness or worldliness?

As can be seen, the movie lived up to the old cliché of being “thought-provoking.” I would suggest it to most adults.

The movie starts by telling some stories about people without insurance, one of which had to choose whether to reattach his middle finger for $60,000 or his ring finger for $12,000, or neither. It moved on to HMOs, the rigidity of that system, and the results (including a frightening recording of Nixon ). It also tells how a child died because the hospital she was taken to didn’t accept her insurance.

Then it goes to countries with “socialized” medicine, Canada, the UK, and France, in order to dispel the image Americans have about wait times, obsolete equipment, substandard doctors, etc. He talks to Americans who live in the UK and France who love the health systems there.

He takes some 9/11 rescue workers who now suffer respiratory and PTSD problems (who can’t get medical help from the government or their HMOs) to Gitmo, having heard from the federal government that the detainees there have great health care. Needless to say, he doesn’t get them in, but they are admitted and treated in a Cuban hospital by good staff with up-to-date equipment.

Finally he asks some very hard-to-answer questions, like: What kind of society dumps people who can’t pay their hospital bills on Skid Row or at shelters? Why do we accept universal schooling and publicly-funded libraries, but not healthcare? Where are our priorities and why do we feel that some deserve help while others don’t?

It was a very thought-provoking movie. On the whole it was very worth the watch.