Category: History

James Madison

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James Madison is called the Father Of The Constitution

James Madison:

Father Of The Constitution

D. S. Mitchell

Fourth President of the United States

James Madison stood 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighed only 100 pounds, as a grown man. He had a sickly childhood. Although medically undetermined, his condition bore a resemblance to epilepsy. Due to his soft speech he was often difficult to hear and understand. Despite his physical limitations, Madison became the fourth president of the United States. During his two term tenure he led America through the War of 1812. The War of 1812 was America’s first war as an independent nation. Madison’s actions during the war established the  fledgling country as a force on the world stage.

“Father” of the Constitution

James Madison co-wrote the U.S. Constitution. So many of Madison’s ideas were incorporated into the Constitution that he is credited as being the “father” of the Constitution. He was a man of great intellect and accomplishment. His  life was characterized by hard work and humility. He was born March 16, 1751. Madison like all men was not perfect. But, it is important to remember he dedicated the entirety of  his life to the service to his country and it’s people.

Ground Breaking Political Philosophy

Madison is recognized as the Father of the Constitution

The U. S. Constitution.

To muster support for the new Constitution, Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, co-wrote 85 letters to the public. These public letters explained the political philosophy underpinning the new Constitution. The papers in effect  defended each of its provisions. These public letters are known as “The Federalist Papers”. Without the “Federalist Papers” the Constitution would never have been ratified. Today, these documents are recognized as some of the most important declarations of political philosophy ever written.

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Take A Leap, Celebrating Leap Day

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Take a Leap, Celebrate Leap Day

By D. S. Mitchell and Joe DiBartolomeo

The First Leap Year

The first leap year originated in 46 B.C. when Julius Caesar learned from the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandra that the 355 day Roman calendar was about 10 1/4 days shorter than the solar calendar. Caesar took action and introduced the 365 day year Julian calendar, and added an intercalary day-Leap Day-every four years to cover the extra 1/4 day.

In Two Hundred Years

It wouldn’t be for another 200 years that astronomers would discover the calendar system was still about 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds short. No new changes would be made until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII introduced a better method for calculating Leap Year. This method has become the system we use today, and it led to February 29th being designated as the standard Leap Day.

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NO GOOD CHOICE

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NO GOOD CHOICE

By Trevor McNeil

Lest We Forget

The idea of Veteran’s day is to remember. This only stands to reason. Though it can also, ironically, be a way to forget. To paraphrase Alan Bennett in his play, History Boys, there is no better way to forget something than commemorating it. It is not that people forget the event happened, but it can lead to a disconnect with younger generations, not sure what it has to do with them. Particularly, if enough time has passed for society to change significantly. A prime example of this is the repealing of the general military draft after the Vietnam era.

In The Shadows

Nine eleven

Remembering 9/11 terrorism attack on the World Trade Center, New York City eighteen years ago.

Despite the general sense of nothing being the same, things have changed surprisingly little since the Vietnam era and in some ways have gotten a good deal worse. Conflict remains a major factor of American life with soldiers still being deployed to Afghanistan to continue a war that started before some of them were even born. The fight against terrorism groups like ISIS, al Ouida and the Taliban goes on. There is no official draft into military service in the U.S., but there is still the Selective Service which every American-born male must register for when he turns eighteen.

War Propaganda

While not strictly the same as the draft, the Selective Service creates a list of potential draftees. Anyone on this list can technically be called up for military service at any time. A situation not a million miles away from what it was like during the two world wars and Vietnam. The only major difference is the absence of effective or at least overt war propaganda. There are no government sponsored ads, at least that I have seen, encouraging fighting age men to go kick ISIS like there was with Hitler in the 1940’s and the Kaiser two decades before that. Enlistment propaganda is always preferred over conscription.

The Thorn In Everybody’s Side

Vietnam is also a major factor in the current situation few want to acknowledge. One of the fall outs from the Vietnam fiasco was a hard drop-off in enlistment numbers after the repeal of the draft. As author Robert O’Connor wrote in his novel, Buffalo Soldiers, “Vietnam was the thorn in everyone’s side.”

Low Enlistment Levels

By the beginning of the Reagan era military enlistment had dropped to an all time low. Low enlistment shouldn’t have been a problem considering it was officially peace time, the last remnants of the Cold War the worst thing most people had to worry about. But, the military meant both money and power, particularly for a Republican administration. In lieu of the draft, several programs emerged to “encourage” enlistment. These tactics in fact, compelled people to sign up for military service.

You Call This Choice?

Among the worst of these was an initiative by which those convicted of minor non-violent criminal offenses were literally offered a choice between prison or military service. There are also some pretty questionable scholarship opportunities available only to those who join the military. It is also one of the few jobs, one can get without a high school diploma. A not unintentional play to attract people from economically depressed backgrounds, particularly African-Americans, Latinos and immigrants.

Then and Now

Don’t get me wrong, things have changed since Vietnam, but not as much as many assume. Remembrance of the past, need not be an empty exercise; alienating us from history, but instead a serious examination of what went before, to give valuable context to the present.

 

What Happened At Columbine

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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a piece I wrote about the Columbine tragedy. It turned out a bit different than I thought it was going to, but I think it works. It basically centers on the difficulty of really knowing the past with so many factors and interests involved, and ends with a counter-factual. A counter-factual is a sort of intellectual game we historians do to better understand what actually happened. We go through the facts and find a factor, usually a small one, that plausibly could have changed everything; presuming everything else stayed the same.

My factor was the fact that both of the attackers were under the legal age to buy the kind of guns they used and had to get them through an illegal “straw purchase.” In this case, meaning through a third-party, someone who got them at a gun show from unlicensed sellers. Had this not happened they would have been left with their primary bomb plot which if successful would have been the second largest domestic bomb attack after Oklahoma City. We, however, know that the large bombs completely failed and the homemade pipe-bombs were ineffective, all of the deaths coming from gunshots. No guns, no dead and what is seen as the first-mass shooting becomes an embarrassing fuck-up-T.K. McNeil

What Really Happened At Columbine

By Trevor K. McNeil

When Are Facts, Really Facts?

Recording history accurately is a tricky business at best. Particularly when there is a degree of shock and trauma involved in the events. Passion, stress and the now known unreliability of eye-witness reports make accuracy difficult if not impossible to piece together.  Furthermore, human memory can lead to things being a matter of record that turn out not to be true. The only reason we have a good idea of what happened on 9/11 is that there is video. But to this day, there are theorists who believe there were explosives inside the towers that were the real cause of the towers collapse.

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Books About Donald J. Trump and Other Literary Legacies

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BOOKS ABOUT DONALD J. TRUMP 

“A biography, is a detailed description of a person’s life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person’s experience of these life events,” Wikipedia

By Trevor K. McNeil

Write It All Down

Trump rarely reads and has been writing his memoir on his Twitter feed.

Trump rarely reads and is writing his memoir on his Twitter feed, 240 characters at a time

We live in an age of documentation. The word “biography” did not enter the English lexicon until relatively recently. We now have the ability to create personalized literature 240 characters at a time.  I’m sure a book about Donald Trump will someday be written based on his Twitter feed.  Before this age of technology however, a person had to be somewhat well-known  before anyone would think to write, or read, a book about them. One group that has almost always been in this category are U.S. presidents.

Once In The Ground

For much of American history, a president could count on being at least out of office before the ink began to fly. Some of the former leaders with the most pages dedicated to them being those who are long dead. Once in the ground, presidents become easy targets for writers and historians to delve into every aspect of their life and career from multiple angles. It’s always easier once someone is dead to dig about in their personal correspondence and investigate rumor and innuendo, and talk to people who shared time with the president.

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Sectarianism In Europe; Fear Of Foreigners

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NOT OF THE TRIBE:

FEAR OF THE FOREIGNER

By Trevor K. McNeil

The Roots of Difference

Human beings are tribal. By definition. Whether it is literally in the context of a family, or a tribal group, or a nation, there is always an “in” group.  And as the Newtonian law of opposites tells us, there is also an “out” group. There has always been a fear of foreigners. Also known as xenophobia. Such is a biologically determined certainty.

Persecution  Of “Out” Groups

What is not certain, or even particularly static, are the qualities that separate the “in” groups and the “out” groups. There are some factors common to many situations but no single indicator that determines whether a group is accepted or rejected. Not even what is called “race” or “culture.” There being cases of persecution between groups of similar if not the same, or close cultural and racial backgrounds. On going hostilities have existed for thousands of years.

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REBEL GIRLS: Women In Combat

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REBEL GIRLS: Women in Combat 

By Trevor K. McNeil

Unfair Exclusion

Women in combat comes across like a complex issue. Particularly in the United States with its military culture. As demonstrated by the fact that it had compulsory service longer than most other comparable Western democracies. Not stopping it entirely until 1973. There is still a Selective Service System that requires all male born US citizens to register for potential conscription by their 18th birthday. Which has raised questions as to whether the draft should be brought back and force women as well as men to serve. Raising and rehashing questions as to whether women are physically and mentally capable of combat.

Not An Enemy In the World

Generally speaking, bringing the draft back to America is unnecessary. America already has one of he largest military’s in the world and no viable enemies in terms of conventional warfare. Are there rogue states who could launch a nuclear weapon? Possibly but direct invasion by land, sea or air is essentially impossible. And almost always has been. The United States has not been directly attacked by an official government actor since WWII. And even that was not the mainland United States, in fact at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, Hawaii was not even a state.

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Killers, Victims and Bystanders

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Killers, Victims and Bystanders

By D. S. Mitchell

Research dog

Screaming Mad

I have spent the last couple of years figuratively and in real-time screaming my head off. I do it on Twitter, on my blog, sometimes just at the television screen, and yes, even at those I love.  I cannot accept what is going on in the Trump administration and my frustration just boils over.

Nefarious Means

I was doing a search through www.calamitypolitics.com archived blog articles when this piece from 2/25/17 came up. It just reminded me that I need to keep screaming and banging the drum of outrage. I grew up with kids from dozens of different backgrounds, of various colors, and a multitude of religious faiths and I learned so much. We as a country are so much better than the Orange George Lincoln Rockwell that has seized the White House by foul and nefarious means.

Brown Bodies

As I read it through my old post from 2/25/17 I thought it was valuable enough for us to take a look at it again. In 2017 Trump told the country that the asylum seekers were those brown “criminals” and “terrorists” from Syria. Today Trump’s rhetoric of hate is directed at the brown “criminals”  and “terrorists” at our southern border. He must be talking about those diapered and shoeless babies running from the tear gas. There is a consistency to Trump’s message. Unfortunately, it is an ugly message that offers no benefit to us as a country. It seems to me the Syrian refugees may have been the lucky ones in this story.

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Open Hearts and Closed Gates

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OPEN HEARTS AND CLOSED GATES

By Trevor K. McNeil

Every Human Heart

Humans are complex creatures. What we say, and what we want, do not always dovetail with our actions. I think that we, for the most part want to do good and are essentially empathetic. Which is why I was so crushed to see what has gone on in recent days and weeks at our southern border. Quite aside from the President of the United States apparently thinking that dignity can be bought, something he is not even honest enough to admit, which is bad enough in itself, what is going on at the border, just for a moment, made me question my faith in humanity.

Not in Our Back Yard

We are all familiar with the images by now. Makeshift tents row upon row, people just trying to get through the day, children playing in spite of it all. Pretty typical in terms of refugee camps. Long panning camera shots and concerned looking correspondents being fixtures of cable television. Still, whoever would have thought that such camps would be constructed at the border of the United States? It is a mental disconnect I don’t think most of us are able to cope with, refugee camps being something that happens “over there.”

It’s Sad….But

Exactly where “over there” is I am not sure, but certainly not here. It is a similar case with terrorism. Up until 2001, regularly occurring, high-casualty terrorist attacks while sad, were things that happened to other people who weren’t like us, in other countries very different from ours. Which explains our surprise when a team of foreign actors, operating completely under the radar managed to murder 3,000 Americans on American soil with very non-conventional weapons. Which is probably why there were people at the time who said it was the only time America had been directly attacked. Apparently forgetting about Pearl Harbor. We simply didn’t see it coming. Sort of like how the indigenous Natives of the Americas literally could not visualize the future result of those first landings by European galleons. It was a sight so far outside their experience that their brains simply could not process it.

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