Today, there was a news article on the Internet from The Christian Science Monitor. It was an article written by Mackubin Thomas Owens who is Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

In it he writes, “This week, New Jersey became the first Northern state to apologize for slavery. The resolution expresses “profound regret … for the wrongs inflicted by slavery and its aftereffects in the United States….”

The reason I am writing this is that last week I met an extraordinary man, Dr. Jefferson Wiggins. Dr Wiggins started out life as the son of share-croppers in Alabama and his first recollection of his past was when the Klan came to his house to lynch his father. They came because his father had sold a bale of cotton that the family had picked and he was told not to sell until prices rose.

The family had not eaten for four days and this was their only means of survival.

They were no longer officially slaves. Slavery had long before been abolished but they were not free by any means.

Dr. Wiggins rose from that frightening beginning to enlisting in the US Army during WWII when he was well below age.

His story is of the long struggle that racism inflicts on people and his efforts to become not just a “boy” in Alabama but to a commissioned officer in the US Army.

It is truly an amazing story and is the subject of his book that I highly recommend to every American. “Another Generation Almost Forgotten.”

Dr Wiggins is Chairman of the Wiggins Institute for Social Integrity in New Fairfield, Connecticut.

 ‘Non Compos Mentis’: Zero tolerance

Two students were suspended for ten days this week at Lee’s Summit West High School in Kansas City, Missouri, for allegedly using racial slurs. The students, one of whom is nearly an Eagle Scout, did not use the dreaded (dead and buried) “n-word,” nor did they say anything that was derogatory or racially offensive. Rather a group of students were having a conversation about what knots to use when tying drum equipment when the other “n-word” came up—“noose.” A black student overheard the conversation and told a teacher that he was offended. Clearly, these boys did nothing wrong. This ridiculous incident is yet another example of the “tolerance” of liberals’ beloved political correctness run amok. In reality—unfamiliar territory for liberals—political correctness, which is designed to undermine people’s rights to liberty and freedom of speech, is coming dangerously close to muting all conversation lest it be misconstrued as offensive. We can only imagine the next forbidden n-word.

Village Academic Curriculum: Fighting Sioux

In 2005, the University of North Dakota’s 70-year-old “Fighting Sioux” mascot landed the school on a list of those violating National Collegiate Athletic Association rules by displaying Native American names or images on team items at certain NCAA events. The NCAA claimed that “the time has come to retire Native American imagery in college sports.” Ironically, the NCAA’s headquarters are in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2006, after the NCAA rejected a subsequent appeal by the university, the school sued them and in a settlement last month, the school has three years to negotiate an agreement with two Sioux tribes. If an agreement cannot be reached by 2011, the university will be forced to find a new mascot. As for the Sioux Indians, they don’t seem prepared to smoke a peace pipe with the school over the “Fighting Sioux” mascot.

“The Patriot Post (PatriotPost.US)”.

It appears that no matter what we say or do anymore there is someone out there who will find it offensive. What is frightening is that we are no longer dealing with actual words or deeds but the interpretation by an individual of what those words or deeds might imply. A person’s career or social standing may be ruined and without any recourse for correction by someone simply claiming that “….this is what I think that you were thinking.”   

Don’t bemoan your failing memory as you age. It is to be expected and not necessarily totally as a result of age. When people are young, everything is new and interesting. Everyone has observed how small children take things apart to see what’s inside. It is the curiosity of the new experience that fixes our attention.

As we accumulate life experiences most things no longer seem to be worthy of our attention. We do not dwell upon the details of the everyday events. In short, they do not impress us. It is the depth of the ‘impression’ that registers whether the information should be stored or not. We forget things because we have not ‘remembered’ them to start with.

Along with this ‘forgetting’ is the very common problem of not remembering names. It’s similar to what I said above. We have met so many people in our lives that when we meet someone new we don’t know whether they will be of any significance to us so the name given at the introduction does not get stored in our memory banks.

It is only after some conversation that we decide whether that person should be remembered or not. At that point, we remember the face but not the name and we are usually too embarrassed after talking with someone for a half hour to ask them what their name is. To do so implies to them that we didn’t care enough who they are to remember their name. The truth is that generally they don’t remember our name either.

Actually the ‘name/face’ dilemma has some deeper roots than what I just wrote.

Names are a recent addition to the social structure of humanity. Visual recognition is much more important to survival. Every encounter with another human or animal became a matter of survival. If you did not recognize the person coming toward you, your existence could be threatened.

Like it or not, this was the basis of ‘racial profiling’. We as primitive people had to decide instantly whether the other person was of our family, village or our tribe.

That uncertainty is why we are here today. Our ancestors who didn’t spontaneously possess that fear or uncertainty would have no doubt been killed if they could not differentiate between friend or foe.

Today we recognize that the world is a violent place and so we are becoming fearful again for our survival. We look at people and associate color or ethnicity with a new fear.

It is a sad testament to social progress that took so many years to achieve that we find ourselves slipping back into a primitive survival mode.

We have heard over and over that there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’. We, as a people, are losing our ability to survive on our own. We are all expecting the governments-local, state and federal to supply us with everything to make our lives comfortable. We are becoming dependent on someone else to provide us with all the perceived necessities to make our lives comfortable. The point here is should we expect life to be ‘comfortable’ or should we be satisfied with life being ‘tolerable’? There is a wide range between the two and there is a price to be paid for being too comfortable.

The story below was sent to me over the Internet. I have no idea who the author is and have no way of knowing whether the story is true or not so consider it a parable.

“There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had a few exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Professor noticed one exchange student who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government. In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, “Do you know how to catch wild pigs?” The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. “You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up the second side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves and so they accept their captivity. The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/socialism and keeps spreading the free corn in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms- just a little at a time. If you see that all of this wonderful government “help” is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut!”

That story illustrates what can happen to not just pigs but to any society that becomes too dependent on someone other than themselves. We must eventually pay for the ‘free lunch’. We eventually lose our freedom of choice. If we expect our lives to become too comfortable and too safe the price that we will have to pay is a loss of freedom. Guard rails, fences, paved paths and smooth roads all make us safer but also diminish the excitement of living. We must make rational decisions about how much we are willing to give up for comfort and security. The “Law of Diminishing Returns” must always be considered whenever we undertake any project. How much time, and therefore money, is involved in making the shelf board smoother or leveling our lawns?

Specialization promotes efficiency. More of anything can be produced if a single person can do repetitive tasks. Assuming that all individuals are capable of all things such as hunting, felling trees, making nets, making pottery, chipping flint for knives and weapons etc we know is untrue. Even within the smallest unit, the family, the members specialize.
Consider the most primitive of family units. It would be impractical if the senior male member were to spend his time gathering wood instead of hunting if he had small children to do that work. The same applies to preparing and cooking food, tending a garden or weaving baskets. Each of these tasks is better accomplished by specialists, that is, those most suited to the task by physical strength, experience or age.
As a social group grows in numbers, specialization becomes even more specific until within a small band of families one person may become the flint chipper for the entire group. Because he is engaged in that task full-time, some other member, the hunter, must supply him with food in exchange for arrowheads.
As the group expands more elaborate shelter and protection of its assets much be established. This in turn requires sources of wood and stone that may not be available in the particularly good hunting or fishing area in which they are established. This creates the need for trade of food for raw materials from other areas.
At this point in the rudiments of civilization, agreements must be established regarding the value of the exchanged goods or services. The need arises for negotiators because an interdependence between the groups has evolved such that neither group can continue its standard of living without the other group. If one of the groups involved in this mutual dependence, either through greed or miscommunication, becomes hostile to another group, a breakdown of this harmonious trading relationship can lead to risk of survival to all groups.
The conditions leading to the failure of social groups is thoroughly explained in Jared Diamond’s excellent book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”, in which he covers the subjects of resource depletion, isolation from trading partners and weather.
Countries all over the world are in similar peril at the present time. We have grown into such large groups of highly specialized individuals that the majority of us would starve in a very short time because we no longer have the tools nor the knowledge required for survival.
Locally available wood was our primary source of energy for cooking and staying warm. Most of the world’s population live in areas where this source is no longer available. We rely on food that we are no longer capable of producing on our own individual home sites but which must be grown and transported to us.
Today we are heading for a breakdown in trade as a result of antagonistic attitudes between different countries. In primitive societies stone, wood, food and furs were the required materials for survival. Today it is energy, primarily in the form of oil.
The modern world can not exist without, at the present time, oil. (I will deal with alternative energy options in later postings). Two major oil-producing countries, Venezuela and Iran, are teaming up to restrict the US oil supply because of politics. They can damage our economy through both restricting their oil output or by raising the price of oil. At the recent meeting of OPEC they have advocated not accepting US currency for oil.
This might be compared to two tribal trading partners when one says, ” I no longer accept your flint in exchange for our food.” Perhaps the one tribe can get along for a long time without new flint but how long can the other go without food?
When the US blockaded Japanese oil shipments that Japan needed for survival, Japan attempted to destroy the source of the trouble, the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Messing around with someone’s survival is a dangerous game.