Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

The military charges that back in 2002, a certain Mohammed Jawad tried to kill two of our soldiers in Afghanistan by throwing a grenade at them. Mohammed, 16 years old, was captured and flown to the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed has been locked up in solitary confinement since that time, not yet charged with any crime. (Nor has he been provided, until recently, access to counsel or any recourse to challenge his detention.)

No doubt, the gallant administrators and soldiers at Guantanamo (once our executive branch suspended habeas corpus and article three of the Geneva Conventions for the detainees) found it amusing to engage in alternative interrogation tactics while attempting to garner intel from this terrorist kingpin.

Did Mohammed Jawad throw that grenade? Probably. It is a war over there, after all. The salient point is that he was only a kid and if he was attacking us, we should have shot him then. Or, at least, captured him, interrogated him and then tried him for murder. Holding him without end should not have been an option. Is there any actionable intelligence that can be gathered from a teenage combatant who has already spent many years alone in prison?

Let me be clear, unlike the ACLU, I do not bristle at these words from the president, “As a matter of policy the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely, and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.” It is obvious that there are some very bad people who wish the US much harm. Because of that, I do not argue that there is never a case for the use of less-humane treatment to extract vital, timely intelligence. However an acknowledgment that such situations might conceivably exist is not the same as a wholesale torture permission slip. Those incidents ought to be the of the extremely rare, ticking-bomb variety.

Enter Maj. J. R. David Frakt, Jawad’s newly military-appointed attorney. Frakt’s closing argument (June 19th, 2008) in favor of dismissal of Mohammad Jawad’s case contains some well crafted arguments. Here is an excerpt:

America is a nation founded on a reverence for the rule of law. We should never forget that when we take an oath to enlist or be commissioned as an officer in the United States Armed Forces, we do not swear to defend the United States, we swear “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The Oath of Office for the President contains similar words: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Tragically, under the undeniably heavy pressure to defend Americans from terrorist attack, some of our military and civilian leaders lost sight of their obligation to defend the Constitution as well.

Under the Constitution all men are created equal, and all are entitled to be treated with dignity. No one is “undeserving” of humane treatment. It is an unmistakable lesson of history that when one group of people starts to see another group of people as “other” or as “different,” as “undeserving” as “inferior,” ill-treatment inevitably follows. In the Global War on Terror generally and in the detention camps of Guantanamo especially, the detainees were seen as “terrorists,” as “the worst of the worst” something less than human, and were treated accordingly. After six and a half years, we now know the truth about the detainees at Guantanamo: some of them are terrorists, some of them are foot soldiers, and some of them were just innocent people, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the detainees at Guantanamo have one thing in common — with each other, and with us — they are all human beings, and they are all worthy of humane treatment. We should also never forget that no one in Guantanamo has been convicted of a single crime and that even in these deeply flawed military commissions, they are entitled to a presumption of innocence…

February 7, 2002. America lost a little of its greatness that day. We lost our position as the world’s leading defender of human rights, as the champion of justice and fairness and the rule of law. But it is a testament to the continuing greatness of this nation, that I, a lowly Air Force Reserve Major, can stand here before you today, with the world watching, without fear of retribution, retaliation or reprisal, and speak truth to power. I can call a spade a spade, and I can call torture, torture.

Today, Your Honor, you have an opportunity to restore a bit of America’s lost luster, to bring back some small measure of the greatness that was lost on Feb 7, 2002, to set us back on a path that leads to an America which once again stands at the forefront of the community of nations in the arena of human rights.

Sadly, this military commission has no power to do anything to the enablers of torture … All you can do is to try to send a message, a clear and unmistakable message that the U.S. really doesn’t torture, and when we do, we own up to it, and we try to make it right.

I have provided you with legal authority for the proposition that you have the power to dismiss these charges. I can’t stand before you and say that you are legally required to do so. But I can say that that it is a moral imperative to do so, and I ask that you do so.

Please know that I don’t wish to cast aspersions on our patriotic festivities– to the contrary– I’m convinced that this great country is what she is today, in part, because of a persistent willingness to face and resolve the issues which confront her. It is through candid, honest and intelligent dialog that change can be effected. Far from a liberal cynic, I am very proud to be American.

Click for the full text of Major David Frakt’s closing arguments.

Unanimous among the Founding Fathers was the belief that all are endowed with fundamental, basic human rights. Primary among those is the Freedom of Speech^*. Truly, the liberty of expression of opinions and ideas is a sacrosanct cornerstone of our constitutional identity.

In order to protect the rights of minorities, it is illegal to discriminate based on gender, race or sexual orientation. Because of this, promoters of alternate lifestyles routinely classify anti-gay speech as hate speech in an effort to control critics, suppress opposition and advance a political agenda. It has therefore become difficult to express a dissenting voice to their views.

As an illustration, in 2004, a sophomore at a California High School wore a tee-shirt with the words “Homosexuality is shameful, ‘Romans 1:27′” during a “Day of Silence” observance sponsored by the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. He was summarily suspended for violating a school policy against “hate behavior including derogatory connotations directed against sexual orientation.”

Where words cannot be misconstrued as hate speech, character attacks are a common second line of offense. Wildly inaccurate name calling is frequently used to intimidate proponents of traditional values. If you don’t agree with an aggressive, liberal, feministic viewpoint (if, for example, you happen to think that there are distinct differences between men and women or if you think that an unborn child ought to have rights) you’re called a misogynist. If you believe that the most stable model for society is marriage based between a man and a woman, if you don’t think that sexual deviancies like homosexuality should be celebrated, then you’re a labeled a homophobe. If you’re crazy enough to believe in God, then you’re a dangerous, right-wing nut-case.

What an ironic circle we’ve come! The same people who historically have complained of suppression have now become fully employed in the work of censoring the voice of others.

“Monsieur l’abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.”
– Voltaire, letter to M. le Riche

“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”
– Voltaire, Essay on Tolerance

* Of course, you don’t have the freedom to say whatever you want: you cannot (without consequence), for example, threaten the President of the United States, “create an imminent lawless action”, speak supportively of terrorist groups, share top secret government information, scream “fire” in a crowded theater^**, be publicly obscene and lewd, or spray paint the N-word on someone’s lawn.^***

** This comes from Schenck vs. United States in 1919: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) Actually overturned by Brandenburg vs. Ohio in 1969

*** Virginia v Black 2003 where cross-burning was found to be a “particularly virulent form of intimidation” and Wisconsin v. Mitchell 1993 which imposed stiffer sentences for racially-motivated assaults

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the “Slavery question” was more frequently discussed in terms of State’s Rights. A state, it was claimed, had “the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” In fact, in December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union (upset over laws prohibiting slavery in new states) stating as a reason, “the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States.”

In a distinct parallel, today, some people avoid the word abortion, and prefer instead to talk about “a woman’s right to choose,” “women’s reproductive rights” and “the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.”

Both of these clever word-plays, though separated by time, illustrate a similar fundamental moral misconstruction and an deliberate repression of another’s rights.

The Southern States deprived the black man of his freedom. James Henry Thornwell in his “A Southern Christian View of Slavery” said,

“Now, when it is said that slavery is inconsistent with human rights, we crave to understand what point in this line is the slave conceived to occupy. There are, no doubt, many rights which belong to other men — to Englishmen, to Frenchmen, to his masters, for example — which are denied to him. But is he fit to possess them? Has God qualified him to meet the responsibilities which their possession necessarily implies? His place in the scale is determined by his competency to fulfill its duties.” (emphasis mine)

Thornwell, in the subversive circumlocution popular then and now, suggests that it was perfectly legitimate for black people to be denied fundamental human rights because they lacked the capacity of human self governance; because they were something less than human. It was that popular Southern view which gave birth to the great constitutional compromise which counted black people as 3/5^ths of a person for representation in the House of Representatives. Indeed “negros” were viewed as mere property or chattel in the South (ref: Dred Scott.)

Is that so far removed from the modern liberal viewpoint which completely discounts the rights of the unborn child, calling the fetus “a potential life only“, a thing that is “not comparable to the life of a person of any age or ability?”

The last presidential election showed that the United States is idealogical separated into two camps. One half, like the Southern States Right’ers of the 1800s, strip basic freedoms from a group of people. Perhaps we, like the Northerners of the 1860s, should be more vigorous in our opposition to those who would so brazenly deny rights to others? Perhaps we, too, will be judged by our posterity based on the manner in which we respond to this moral imperative?

It was a time when this nation was also divided that Abraham Lincoln addressed his Gettysburg remarks. He said, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” I believe that Lincoln’s words have direct application today. I think it is impossible for a rational, moral person to be both anti-slavery and pro-abortion, as the two are rightly dichotomous. You can choose one or the other, but not both.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
– George Santayana (Spanish born American Philosopher, 1863-1952)

Way back in October, I promised I’d talk about MLMs. True to my word, I’ve blogged about the devil’s vomitus: Quixtar and Utah’s pride and joy: TeamBuilders. I even managed to offend some of Lennon Ledbetter’s swinish multitude. Since those fun times, I’ve come across a number of individuals (one) who insist that MLMs are legitimate enterprises. Those people (Roberto) are dreadfully wrong of course, and I’ll tell you why.

But before I launch into a carefully crafted exposition, I should note that my last blog entry generated 15 comments as of this posting. That’s a record. Given the belligerent (bellicose?) tone of some of the recent comments, a lesser man might be tempted to avoid controversial topics and blog on banal news events. Not I! Particularly not in the face of an estimated semi-regular blog readership of upwards of three people! I can’t let them all down. I will stay the course!

Ok, where was I? MLMs. Let me define an MLM for the uninitiated. MLMs involve hard-selling a consumable (exotic, foul tasting beverages, cheap lotions, Brazilian dark chocolate, etc.) through a network of your “friends.” Those people become your downline. They’ll need not only to drink, lather and eat the product, but they’ll need to be “connectors” themselves; gathering their own friends. Those friends of your friends also are part of your downline. Downlines are important because you get a percentage of what they buy. The higher up the pyramid you are, the greater downline you have and the more money you get off other people’s consumption. The goal of all MLMers is to get such a massive downline that they no longer have to work for themselves. It’s a classic get-rich-quick scheme and it’s guaranteed to take your money while losing your friends. Sign me up!

The problems with MLM are numerous. First of all — it doesn’t scale (nor is it meant to, though it is advertised that way.) Let me explain. MLMers will tell you how rich everyone is becoming, but that’s not at all true. Your only chance of becoming rich is to amass a huge downline (lots of “legs”, etc, etc.) And, in case you didn’t know, not everyone can have a huge downline (because people have to be in that downline!) Most of the research I’ve come across, for example, reports the average Quixtar monthly earnings at about $100. That would be great were the monthly Quixtar membership fees not also $100. That means an awful lot of people are wasting a lot of time, buying crappy products, all the while netting *nothing*. MLMs, like other scams, only really work if they are constantly growing. I’m reminded of a old scam wherein you send in $300 dollars for a “membership” and in three weeks you get $600 back. The idea is that if people are constantly joining up, and there is a three week delay in getting money, you can use new memberships to pay the previous people. What a great idea!

The second problem is the highly touted MLM promise of not having to do any work. “Join Quixtar/Teambuilders/Noni/Xango and in three to five years you won’t have to work ever again!” What a great idea! No work! No work! lah, lah, lah, lah, laaaah, lah! Let’s all go to France. No one works there! Look how happy and productive the French are!

Sarcasm aside, I think it highly toxic (both to the society and to the individual) to promote an entitlement complex such as “I deserve to be rich” and “I shouldn’t have to work.” In case you’ve forgotten, we need teachers, laborers, and mechanics in order for society to function. People need to work.

To be sure, MLMs reap great benefits for the “early adopters.” Utah Teambuilder’s captain, Lennon Ledbetter, bought a 7 million dollar house in cash not long ago. That’s a lot of money. However, Lennon is profiting without adding anything back to society. A fundamental tenet of capitalism is to add value and Teambuilders does not add value. MLMs rake in benefits for the elite top few all the while ravishing the underlings.

Don’t be part of MLMs! Save your friends and years of your life! Decide now to JUST SAY NO!

One of the persistent problems in advertising is how to get your ads to people who are interested in your products (how to persuade them to buy once they’ve seen your advertisement is another problem altogether!) If you sell something that men are interested in, remote controlled airplanes for example, you might run a TV spot on the History channel, who claims to have a 70% male viewership. The trend in marketing and advertising is rapidly transitioning from widely aimed “shotgun” approaches, to very narrow and targeted campaigns. With increasing access to data mines of customer demographic information, comes a clear reward– a higher return on advertising investments.

One company who seems to have obtained this holy grail of customer segmentation and associated marketing is Google. Google, with their suite of products covering an ever widening gamut, has infiltrated nearly every Internet user’s life. With that ubiquity however, comes important questions about customer data privacy. How Google answers those interrogatives might well decide the fate of their company, or conversely, the fate of consumer privacy.

Since their inception over eight years ago, Google has maintained a great public image; they have amassed millions of supporters worldwide, all the while drawing surprisingly few detractors. It’s not without cause; Google’s apps are cleverly and intuitively designed, they’re fast, and easy to use. And for the most part, they are offered at no cost to the end user. Google is killing competitors faster than the Once-ler could chop down Truffula trees (when Google’s not acquiring those competitors first.) To be sure, it’s hard to compete with free. It’s even more difficult to compete with free and really good.

All these giveaways are not indicative of financially ineptness. To the contrary, Google is amazingly profitable. Google makes money in a variety of ways, primary among them through advertising. They sell ads (Adwords) which are displayed in a growing number of locations, including to the top and the side of your search results, in your Gmail email account and on their affiliate websites (Adsense).

In order to present a better value for their advertisers, Google attempts to closely match customers with ads. Acquiring an accurate understanding of who the customer is and what they are doing, helps in this effort.

To that end, Google products glean valuable information about you as you use their products. Through google.com and personalized google.com, they have access to your Google search history. With the Google Toolbar, Google desktop and Google analytics, they have access to your web browsing history. All your private blog posts through Google’s Blogger service are available to Google. All your Gtalk instant message conversations are stored on Google’s servers. Google freely admits to searching through your email messages in Gmail in order to present you with context-relevant ads. The contents of your computer’s hard drive and all shared network drives are scanned once you install Google desktop. With Orkut, their social networking site, they know who your friends are. With Froogle and Google checkout, Google knows what you’re buying online. As a Microsoft Office killer, Google Docs & Spreadsheets will now helpfully keep track of each spreadsheet or memo or letter you write. Still further, there is a rumored Google OS in the works which would at last give Google complete vision into what you do and who you are.

Whether Google is currently doing anything unethical with this growing body of data is arguable. That they are gathering it and that they *could* act immorally is unequivocal.

Some shrug off the privacy concerns and counter that only criminals have activities to hide. I would propose that it’s not just illegal but legal indiscretions too which are laid bare. As well, with your complete search history sitting in a Google database, information concerning any medical or family problems you might have is readily searchable. Furthermore, trade secrets could be uncovered, embarrassments made public and so forth.

In summary, my concerns are not to be misconstrued as predictions from a crazed apocalyptic doomsayer. I believe them to be possible and probable misuses of power. The problem is that Google just has too many popular services and many of those services collect personal information. With rapid expansion comes a potential departure from their famous, informal motto: “Don’t be evil.” And, if not evil already, they have amazing potential to become so. Google is an indomitable force, but a force that needs to be internally and externally regulated. For example, Google has colluded (willingly and unwillingly) with the government in the past by providing search data and Google might well share more personal data with other entities in the future.

Sooner or later, I believe Google is obligated to address issues of collection, access and control of the mountains of collected private data. Failure to do so could result in a consumer backlash, or sadly, perhaps a shift in the level of expected privacy.

Yesterday my friend Aaron emailed me to see how I was doing. (I’m fine, thanks.) Aaron is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University. He will finish his natural resource economics doctorate sometime next year. He’ll probably want me to call him “doctor” at that point. I think he’s setting himself up for disappointment.

Aaron’s pursuit of his eminent, imminent degree is not collinear with recent national trends (like most things in his life, Aaron is an outlier). Yesterday the Salt Lake Tribune reported that “fewer people [in the US] are earning [college] degrees.” Earlier this month the Trib said that “increasing tuition rates and meager amounts of money available for student aid - combine to reduce access to higher education for many Utahns”, even if they wanted higher education and I’m think that a growing number of Americans are deciding against college, for a variety of reasons.

Why do I think fewer people are getting bachelor’s degrees? It’s a symptom of the crumbling paradigm of working 30 years at the same company, making 45k before retiring at age 65 to live on a meager pension while sipping tea and rocking on a porch swing. After watching MTV Cribs and seeing all the bling-bling, a 1300 square foot, cookie-cutter house in the suburbs seems horribly pedestrian by comparison. People are rejecting the status quo.

So, what does a bachelor’s degree get you? For many the answer seems to be a lot of useless classes, four years of no-salary, and a bucket load of student-loan debt at the end. I have a bachelors degree, and some of these widely held beliefs are correct. As an illustration, accreditation boards, for all the good they do, sometimes force unnecessary garbage into education. In the BYU engineering curriculum, for example, we had to learn about outdated technology in our networking communications class because that’s what the accreditation board required. Our professor freely admitted it was a waste of our time, but nothing could be done.

Others question the utility of, say, math classes for kindergarten teachers, or art history classes for computer programmers. You might believe such general education is good in theory, but a quick survey among your elementary educators will likely validate the assertion that pre-calculus and stats are never used in their job. ever.

So, if you’re fresh out of high school and are faced with a choice, which decision would you make: to be broke for four years with debt at the end, or to start making money now?

For many, this cost benefit analysis results in high education losing out. And though this is likely the better decision for the individual, at least in the short term, I think that having a college educated society is good for the masses as a whole. Societies function better with a higher educated populace. Some might say that college helps one become a good cog. Society, like any machine, needs cogs in order to function. The problem might be that people are starting to chafe at the prospect of becoming just another part in the machinery.

Even here in Utah, where the market is full of cheap labor, a high school educated computer nerd can earn 30-50 dollars an hour (or more) creating websites and web applications. I personally have four friends who do not have college degrees who make 6 figures, give or take, doing web programming.

So, what’s a college degree worth now-a-days^* in the business world?

Particularly among startup companies, experience is starting to be valued more than formal education (unless you happen to be Google. They like hiring PhDs). In fact, among many I know, formal education is out-right denigrated as “a lot of theory and no practical application”. Companies whose lifetimes are measures in months, see little incentive in training college grads to fill positions. They need people who can “hit the ground running” so to speak, and get the work done immediately.

And some argue that with the ubiquity and depth of the Internet, colleges are becoming a thing of the past. If you want to know something, you Google it. Why waste your time in a classroom if a university of learning is right at your fingertips? In partial response, I would argue that there are some things that I think are best taught in a college setting: communication skills, methodologies, theories and and critical thinking, to name a few. These are the integral yet less-sexy aptitudes that are often skipped by self/world educated people.

So, what do you think?

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* Some degrees make clear fiscal sense. For example, an MD and the residency might take a decade, but surgeons can make 350K+ a year, so, for many the payoff, though delayed, is worth it.

I’m a couple of days late for my exposé into MLMs, and I apologize for that. This is the first part of at least two sections.

No discussion of MLMs would be complete without mention of Amway. Several years ago, in 2001, Quixtar replaced the North American business of Amway, likely in response to mounting bad press surrounding the Amway name.

Basic premise of Quixtar: you buy products (toilet paper, energy drinks, shampoo, etc.) from Quixtar’s website. You are given a percentage (3%) of everything you buy back. Additionally, for every person you sign up to Quixtar, you get a percentage from whatever they buy as well. Obviously, the more people you sign up, the better it is for you (and for everyone else up the chain.)

In order for MLMs like Quixtar to work effectively, they have to maintain momentum and excitement and most essential of all, they must constantly bring in new recruits. They proselyte in three main ways — large conferences, small home meetings and weekly pep rallies.

I’ve been a couple of these weekly MLM pep rallies. Though the details may differ slightly, they are all variations on a main theme. Here’s a prototypical event:

A fair number of people assemble in a rented hotel conference room. At the stage in the front, stands an affable young man, smiling, sharply dressed and speaking about how much his life has changed since he became “free”, that is, independently wealthy. He speaks of extra leisure time and the luxuries of life he and his family now enjoy. He is able to play a lot of golf and doesn’t wake up until late in the day. He compares himself to famous mainstream business figures and shares stories from their roads to success.

He emotionally chokes up a bit as he declares that because of his new and growing wealth, his children will not know the sufferings and cruelty of poverty. He is a dynamic speaker who engages the audience.

On a white board he scrawls a few circles and some interconnecting lines and talks in vague pseudo-economic principles littered with over-generalizations and false conclusions. He denigrates formal higher education, saying that “the education I learned from my mentors [in this MLM] is far more valuable than anything I learned during college.” Throughout his comedic monologue, allied cohorts in the audience (who are coached to be well dressed and hyper), hoot affirmations, whistle and clap loudly.

“My wife and I just moved into a million dollar house in Alpine”, he says. “Woo-hoo! Yeah! Right on!”, the crowd responds. “Are you living the life you deserve?”, he questions. “Are you able to stay home with your wife and kids?”, he inquires. “Are you just working for other people’s compensation plans?”, he asks, “would you like to? Can anything stop you from obtaining your dreams?!? If I can do it, so can you! Let’s do it!” At this point the frenzied crowd leaps to their feet in a roar of applause and cheering.

In Utah, the scam artists increase their levels of deception. There is a wrapper company that “trains people to be a part of Quixtar.” That company is called “Teambuilders” and is run by Alpine resident Lennon Ledbetter (and family) and his Pacific Islander crony Manase Fotu. Teambuilders, of course, charges hefty monthly fees for the privilege of being “trained” to use Quixtar.

So a friend of mine^* was at this party the other night, when this beautiful and engaging woman walks up and starts talking to him. Naturally, he was immediately interested in what she had to say. After the normal pleasantries were exchanged, she announced that she had recently joined a multilevel marketing (MLM) company and that she was excited about the inevitable large stream of income she’d shortly have.

I’m a MBA student at the U and the son of a psychologist, so consequently I’m interested in both money and the psychology of money. There’s an awful lot I’d like to say about MLMs, Xango (I’ve blogged about the Evil Noni Empire before), manipulation, the Utah culture of bug boys and bankruptcy. As well, I’d like to address the minute possibility, if it exists at all, of an honest MLM. The problem is, I just got home from evening classes, and I’m tired. Still, I was encouraged with the 6 comments yesterday’s blog generated, so perhaps you’all can discuss these things among yourselves for a day.

Here are some of the topics I’ll address tomorrow:
Quickstar/Quixtar, MLMs, “PHD”, general to specific logical fallacy, buying a 7 million dollar house in cash, the problem of getting $ without working, 21 “legs”, 3% commission, monthly membership fees, exotic places the superstars go, weekly “pump up” meetings, bags under the eyes of this guy named Nate, spending several thousand dollars on roses, former physicians who don’t practice anymore, ’cause they have so much money now, the mythology, the complexity, the confusing diagrams, “it’s not for everyone, it’s ‘an exclusive club’”, and my experience with Amway.

Some links you should read before our conversation:

• Merchants of Deception
• Why Do Work
• Corporate Narc
• Quixtar.com
• Wikipedia Quixtar page
• Quixtar Wiki
• Amquix
• The Truth About Quixtar
• Amway
• Skepdic
• MLM Survivor, Quixtar info
• MLM Survivor
• IBO Facts

* this may or may not have been me, which therefore might or might not mean I am speaking of myself in third person

Podcast

Five years ago today, our nation was rocked with an awful tragedy the likes and scope of which had not been seen since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor some sixty years before. Like that other day living in infamy, September 11, 2001 saw the loss of nearly 3,000 lives.

The details still remain vividly clear to me. I was at work that morning. My Mom called me minutes after the first tower was hit. My brother living in Manhattan had phoned home moments before to report the catastrophic news. My coworkers, Rob and Nathan, and I, flipped on the radio and then clicked over to the online news services to follow the story. The standard news websites were overloaded and were sluggish and unresponsive. Eventually I gave up on US news and surfed over to a European television website, http://www.france3.fr/, where I watched the events unfold in a surreal fashion. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I recall the chill that shot up and down my spine when I saw footage of the first plane slamming into the tower, and the resultant smoke pouring out of that structure. I felt that same electric pulse again when Rob rushed into my cubical with news of the second tower being hit.

Later I would see video of people jumping from windows to escape the conflagration. Simply unbelievable. A New York doctor friend said they called all the physicians and residents to the hospital to be ready for the predicted waves of injured people. The hospital was on full alert and every available corner was converted into makeshift treatment areas. But no one came. He later recounted the eerie feeling as the hours passed slowly and no ambulances arrived. Those who were in the buildings as those towers collapsed, died. There were only precious few who survived.

The news continued to pour in. The Pentagon was attacked. All civilian planes were grounded. F-16 fighter planes swooped over Washington, D.C.. Then came the airport security camera pictures of the Islamic terrorists. Twenty of them. Can you imagine? Less than two dozen young men had managed to shake the most powerful nation in the world and impact the lives of millions.

United Flight 93. Forever my heroes. Upon learning of the fate of the other planes, a few passengers on that ill-fated aircraft held a brief meeting and then, with the cry of “let’s roll”, rushed the cockpit, fought and overwhelmed the terrorists and downed the plane, giving their own lives to save others from whatever else was planned. I can only hope I would have been as brave.

Six days later comedian David Letterman, in an uncharacteristically somber mood, opined in his monologue about 9/11. He began his show, the first since the incident, by echoing many of our feelings of disbelief and sorrow. He said,

“The reason we were attacked, the reason these people are dead, these people are missing and dead, and they weren’t doing anything wrong, they were living their lives, they were going to work, they were traveling, they were doing what they normally do. As I understand it (and my understanding of this is vague at best), another smaller group of people stole some airplanes and crashed them into buildings. And we’re told that they were zealots, fueled by religious fervor… religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense to you? Will that make any [expletive] sense?”

No sense at all. And then there were more heroes. Who can forget Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s calm and powerful leadership, and his encouragement that served to stabilize our emotions and mobilize us to action? His courage under fire inspired everyone with the determination to pick up and return to normalcy. He became an icon of the American ideal of perseverance and dogged steadfastness.

A year later, I visited the hulking pit that was Ground Zero and I walked along the fence with the flowers and pictures sent from all over the world. I can still see those heart wrenching, hand-drawn notes, some scrawled in children’s handwriting, “In Memory of the Best Father, Love forever, Anne.” and “We Will Never Forget 9/11/01. Dad, My Hero.”, and “I miss you daddy. I love you. You are always in our hearts“.

And yet, country music artist Randy Travis was right when he wrote, “America Will Always Stand”. Five years later we’re still here, despite those wishing otherwise. Somehow, I think we’ll be here for a while to come.

To all those who lost loved ones, may God bless you, particularly on this day. We Will Never Forget 9/11/01.

Podcast

With talks of globalization and the disintegration of national borders, the concept of patriotism can seem out of place, perhaps outmoded or anachronistic or even jingoistic. After all, what difference is there between an American and a citizen of any other country?

Yet, without a doubt, the United States of America is unique. How is it that in a few short years, a backwoods collection of states, largely unimportant, became a world power, whose very name conjures thoughts of freedom, prosperity and happiness? What is it about America that makes it the center of attention for the entire globe?

First, it was the circumstances surrounding the founding of America that sets her apart from others.

Among Charles Darwin’s ideas, was the notion that progression, or evolution was propelled by random mutations. History uses a different mechanism. Premeditated, concerted disobedience (civil and not) effects change and advancement among nations. It follows that the birth of many countries, America included, was founded in conflict and uprising.

Many countries have had revolutions. In France, for example, in 1789, oppressed peasants, calling themselves “Jacques”, showed just what violent, unchecked butchery the common man was capable. History records that, as the word “revolution” implies a complete rotation, so too, the French Jacques became the very unethical tyrants of the regime they had overthrown. After the storming of the Bastille, the rebels began beheading with complete abandon, executing upwards of 40,000 people. Brilliant scholars and scientists, such as Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, were slain in the frenzied, savage rampage. That botched revolution plunged France into a seventy-five year quagmire of failed governments and lawlessness.

The American Revolution stands in stark juxtaposition to that of the French. In the new world, no bloodlust ran unfettered. No brutal barbarisms were committed. No privileged ruling class emerged. In the end, checks and limitations were self-imposed both personally and collectively. The virtuous restraint displayed by those Founding Fathers laid the firm framework for this country.

Washington, in particular, epitomized these values. As a commander and chief of the colonial armies, George Washington enjoyed unprecedented popularity among, and influence over, his troops and the citizenry. It was Lord Acton who stated, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Many might have concluded that General Washington, in his advantageous situation, would profit from it. At the end of the war, however, General George Washington relinquished his command back to the Continental Congress. England’s George III, after hearing rumors that Washington would do this, commented, “If he does, he will be the greatest man in the world.” Surely the Founding Fathers were some of the greatest men to have ever lived.

Those brave men and women created an America that embodies a distinct amalgam of characteristics and traits; a rare confluence of ideals and principles — freedom, individuality, family, charity, opportunity, hard work, responsibility, merit, fairness and equality. Uniquely in America, one’s character and capabilities are more important than one’s ancestry.

It was because of what America stands for, that 100,000 of her soldiers bravely fought, suffering 26,000 casualties, on the small island of Iwo Jima during the Pacific Campaign of World War II. A record 27 marines were later decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration, for valor during that battle.

It was because of America that hundreds of New York City Firefighters willingly risked, and lost, their lives rushing up the smoke-choked stairwells of the twin towers in an effort to save those trapped above.

It was because of America that upon learning the other hijacked planes had been used as missiles to terrorize America, a group of passengers on Flight 93 stood up, and with the cry of “let’s roll”, overwhelmed their abductors and downed the plane.

And though they seem to have forgotten, it is because of America that much of the world enjoys freedom today.

Secondly, great, moral citizens alone do not make a country glorious. There remains another half of the equation– He to whom those men and women are moral.

Above the Great Seal of the United States are the Latin words Annuit Coeptis, meaning “He (God) has favored our undertakings.” Indeed He has. No other nation has grown to prominence so quickly in all of recorded history. America is the world’s superpower in nearly all arenas: economically, technologically, and scientifically. This has not gone without notice abroad. Since her birth over two hundred years ago, immigrants have flooded her ports seeking entrance.

Francis Scott Key was the grandson of one such immigrant. He witnessed the bombarding of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. That bombardment became a turning point of the War as American forces repelled a heavy unified land and sea attack by the British. For three days and nights, three thousand American solders held off five thousand British troops. Because of their valiant stand, less than 90 days passed before the British ceased hostilities and signed The Treaty of Ghent, ending the war altogether. Key’s poem, “The Defense of Fort McHenry”, in 1931 become the national anthem “The Star Spangled Banner”.

The first verse of the anthem has become a mainstay at baseball games throughout the country, but in the unsung third verse one finds an important declaration, “And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’” Therein lies America’s power — that this republic was born and upheld on divine footing, and America does not owe allegiance to a king, a committee, or a dynasty. It is at once a humility and an endowment that allows Americans to accomplish great feats in the face of terrible opposition, with the assurance that, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”. With such a blessed foundation, citizens are bound by moral standards and given virtues as goals. The symbiotic mutualism that exists between her good people and Providence has empowered America’s monumental success.

So, perhaps it is jingoism, perhaps its mention unpopular, but I’m still proud to be an American today. America, because of her foundation in God and through the works of great men, is not, nor has she been, like every other country. America is different. America is great.