Matters of Principle

We have one theory for our economics: competition. We have another theory for our politics: eliminate competition. How else to explain the mass gerrymandering of the past two or three decades that has eliminated partisan competition in Congressional districts, reduced America to a blue/red, divided nation, and produced the worst political polarization in well over a century.

Though this represents a huge shift in U.S. politics, and accounts for much of the failure of governance, it is pretty much accepted as a fact of political life in insider Washington circles. The incredibly accurate analyst Nate Silver calculates, based on massive data, that there are now no more than 35 competitive House districts (out of 435) and that the nation is divided between “landslide” Democratic and Republican districts.

Though both parties are guilty of the practice of creating “safe seats”, and purging ideological impurity in the process, the greatest impact has been in the Republican party. Creating non-competitive Congressional districts invites take-over of the candidate selection and nomination process by true believers, in the Republican case by the Tea Party, tax deniers, and the gun lobby.

As evidence, there are a lot fewer moderate Republicans than moderate Democrats. The media myth of “equivalence” is simply that. Since the age of Lyndon Johnson, the party of Carter, Clinton, and Obama has been a centrist party, much to the dismay of many New Deal liberals.

To portray the late-20th, early 21st century Democratic party as “liberal” is a product of Fox News fiction.
There is polarization, as the political media repeatedly reports, but the polarization is in the Republican ranks. Put simply: follow the radical anti-government, tax cut, pro-gun program or get a primary—one that you will lose.

So we have two nations: a centrist Democratic nation of blue districts committed to protection of past New Deal programs such as Social Security and Medicare; and a conservative-to-radical Republican nation of red districts opposed to all taxes, all government spending (though without an open list of real cuts), increased military spending, and elimination of environmental and safety regulations.

In a nutshell, this is why there can be no “grand bargain” or long-term solution to national deficits. So long as House Republicans (and many Senators) oppose any revenues, including letting the TEMPORARY Bush tax cuts laps on the wealthiest few, Democrats will not raise age eligibility or accept more conservative cost-of-living formulas for entitlements for the many.

Short of reversing gerrymandering by appointment of State non-partisan redistricting committees, and taking the process out of the hands of partisan legislatures, the only hope for serious, honest government in the national interest is the rise of thoughtful, moderate, independent citizens in the candidate selection and nomination process. So long as radical factions select candidates, so long will we have a dysfunctional government, one that merely supports the theory of those “patriots” who hate their own government.

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Gun ownership was a fact of life in early America. That fact was never challenged, and little discussed, during the founding era. The Constitution’s drafters, however, felt it necessary to recognize that fact as central to the maintenance of a “well-regulated militia.” The militia, mentioned twice elsewhere than in the Second Amendment—that is to say, before the Bill of Rights was enacted—was meant to be America’s basic line of defense against foreign intruders. On more than one occasion an American founder restated an elementary principle: the small standing army was to hold off an invader until our true line of defense, properly equipped and trained citizens, could muster and deploy.

Since the creation of the national security state and the establishment of a very large standing army following WWII, when the U.S. emerged as an international power and policeman, this Constitutional history seems anomalous. But that is only if our heritage as a republic is not understood. From ancient Athens forward, the citizen-soldier has been the principal guardian of republican liberty. Otherwise, a large standing, professional army could be too easily seized by a charismatic dictator and individual freedoms crushed.

At our founding, having a fire arm for hunting, or less likely self-protection, was assumed. The Second Amendment was enacted to satisfy the concerns of the republican anti-Federalists that a large standing army would be an instrument of foreign adventure and potential domestic political repression. Only a well-trained national militia as envisioned by George Washington, today’s National Guard, would suit this purpose.

As a long-time student of the republican ideal, this seems obvious. By adopting the role of world power and policeman we required a large professional army deployed throughout the world. And the political tendency toward empire, virtually inevitable (the best way to prevent trouble is to occupy the places where trouble is most likely to arise), came at the cost of our republican principles.

The National Guard, created in the late nineteenth century, is the historically well-established heir of the Constitutional militia. It is professionally trained and equipped, and it is composed of citizen-soldiers as the Founders intended. A number of its members maintain the early American tradition of personal gun ownership. Few if any National Guardsmen and women use those privately-owned weapons against their fellow citizens. Their military weapons are maintained in protected arsenals. We last saw them in public as the National Guard patrolled our airports and public facilities following 9.11. That is exactly their mission and purpose under the U.S. Constitution, not as follow-on forces for the standing military in foreign adventures.

Those who promote wholesale distribution of weapons–whose only purpose is assault on human targets–as necessary to protect American citizens against their own democratically-elected government are guilty of the worst kind of fear-mongering. It requires propagation of the pernicious and sinister myth that the president, the Congress, the officers and troops of our military services, all of whom have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution, the National Guard and Reserves, the state patrols and city police forces, all will suddenly decide to form a dictatorship and crush our Republic. It is preposterous beyond the fringes of fantasy.

Wishes for a world without guns are noble, and doomed. At least America’s Founders would have thought so. But instead of politicians defending a fictional “right” to bear military weapons, whether out of conviction or fear, it would be more American and humane to spend our time considering and protecting the rights of our children to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To promote the continued unregulated sale of military weapons to nervous, often frightened, and sometimes deranged individuals while advocating armed guards in every schoolhouse door is a cruel, and unconstitutional, delusion.

When grown-ups once again return to government in our nation we will limit military weapons to the military, including the 21st century militia, the National Guard, and make our first priority the long life, safety, and security of America’s children.

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If the “unlimited debate” (filibuster) rule continues to be abused in the Senate, little will be accomplished in the second Obama term. Regardless, proposed reform of this rule is not as simple as it looks from the outside. This has to do with the unique nature of the Senate.

Unlike the House of Representatives, Senators represent States not just district constituencies. The founders of the American Republic wanted a parliament of the people, but they also wanted a forum for the States that formed the federated republic. By its nature, the Senate is more than a smaller House. It is a different deliberative body.

Being smaller, however, means that comity, personal relationships and an atmosphere of respect (stuffiness, its critics sniff), is magnified in importance. The least effective Senators are those who put themselves, their careers, their egos, their ideologies, even the interest of their political party ahead of respect for their colleagues, the institution, and the long-term national interest.

Special interest caucuses have much more influence in the House than in the Senate. The Senate is too small to permit itself to fracture into fragments, or the factions the Founders dreaded. The most effective Senators are those who demonstrate, over time, statesmanship, a long-range view and a sense of history, and the ultimate best interest of the nation. Unfortunately, there are too few of these historic Senators in recent years, but there are a few and they exert a much greater influence than the careerists and partisan ideologues.

Senators, and to a degree House members as well, have a duty to educate their constituencies, including those with whom they may disagree, on the complex economic, diplomatic, and security issues the nation faces. This is particularly true of those constituencies that may have helped the Senator to be elected. There is much too little exercise of this educational role from those in elective office. Everyday Americans will respond positively if a Senator takes the time to break complex questions into understandable pieces and defeat efforts of hard-line ideologues with big media megaphones to misinform the public.

It is clear that the Founders intended our political institutions to be governed by majority rule, as the Constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar has exhaustively established. But the unique nature of the Senate, composed of representatives of States, requires respect for a different principle, at least up to a reasonable point. That principle is unlimited debate on the rare issues where popular opinion as reflected by the majority might be, as least for the moment, wrong. And in the case of specifically described measures, such as treaties, the Constitution requires two-thirds ratification by the Senate.

The dilemma caused by tension between clear majority rule and the rights of the minority can be resolved, as is currently being proposed, by limiting the measures on which unlimited debate can be exercised and by requiring actual debate and not simply the threat of a filibuster. As those who have had the honor of serving in the Senate know, however, the rules by which the Senate governs itself (originally designed by Jefferson) cannot and should not be altered casually or expediently.

The crisis our government, our Congress, now faces has been brought on by a minority contemptuously abusing those rules. That minority cannot have it both ways. It cannot demand respect for the rules of the Senate when it has abused those rules systematically, cynically, and destructively. Those who love our country more than they love their political party will find a way to preserve and protect the unique nature of the Senate, the forum of the States, even while moving our nation forward.

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Someday we may better understand why we Americans treat some threats more seriously than others. During the Cold War, more often than not we overestimated the Soviet military threat and spent vast sums in anticipation of that threat. Even when our intelligence systems couldn’t find evidence of Soviet capabilities or aggressive intentions, various administrations manufactured them.

Now we have abundant scientific evidence of serious threats from climate change and our political system seems incapable of responding. Some differences are obvious. After World War II we constructed a national security state focused totally on a perceived communist threat in the form of Soviet military power requiring a military response. We could build ships, planes, and tanks. And for hundreds of thousands, that meant jobs.

Second, doubters and skeptics were marginalized. A few questioned Soviet military capabilities and Soviet intentions to wage World War III. But the political mainstream did not take these figures seriously. Third, countering the Soviet threat didn’t make any serious demands on U.S. life styles, though military spending came at the cost of education, infrastructure, and other domestic priorities.

Except for a demonstrable rise in coastal storms, the threat of climate change is silent and invisible. It does not lend itself to a hardware solution (ships, planes, and tanks). And, most of all, reversing the increasingly dangerous accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere will require social and economic transformation in the vehicles we drive, houses and buildings we occupy, and appliances we depend on.

Climate deniers are given much more political credibility today than Soviet threat deniers were during the Cold War. There are few if any political rewards for asking citizens to conserve and reduce waste. Ask Jimmy Carter about “the moral equivalent of war.” Consumption and “sunrise in America” will beat restraint, let alone sacrifice, every time.
Until the U.S. economy regains steady growth, in his second term Barack Obama will probably have to choose one big initiative as he did with health care in his first. Already forces are lining up urging him to choose further financial reform, another round of stimulus spending, education reform, or (at least in the case of this writer) military transformation.

But none of these worthy objectives can match climate protection in terms of long-range human well-being. And as the Presidential Climate Action Project and other serious organizations have established, climate protection is a jobs-creator.

Generations yet unborn will look back on this period with dismay if sharp reduction in carbon emissions is not undertaken. But if President Obama is bold enough to insist on transformation of energy use and transition to a post-carbon economy, he will be respected and admired, possibly even revered, by those same generations yet to come.

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We search through the lives of a few Americans to solve the mystery of who we are and how we, as a nation, should live. This is more true of Abraham Lincoln than perhaps any other American who ever lived. The new movie “Lincoln” haunts your mind for hours and days afterward. That is the mark of a great movie. It is even more the mark of a great man.

The haunting quality of the movie is a tribute to its director Mr. Spielberg and the phenomenal actor Daniel Day-Lewis. But great directing and acting alone do not guarantee the lingering desire to know the subject of a movie. Only the subject of the story can do that. And Abraham Lincoln, as portrayed by Day-Lewis, will surely cause you to want to know Lincoln if you’ve ever spent time thinking about America and how and why we got to where we are.

Other nations have had their Washingtons, and a few even their Jeffersons. But I know of no other nation that has produced, or so needed, a Lincoln. Short essays are not the place to consider his complexities and complications. But he surely was one of the most phenomenal human beings, wrapped within such a humble frame, that the world has ever seen. You cannot come away from this movie within longing to have met him, listened to him, known him. Even so, during his public life he was reviled as an ignoramus and a gorilla.

And, of course, it is impossible to avoid the question of why there are no statesmen today, let alone no Lincolns. Leo Tolstoy wrote two long epilogues to War and Peace struggling with the question of whether the leader makes history or history and circumstance makes the leader. Who is to know. All we know is that Lincoln saved the Union, the United States of America. And he did so, as the movie so powerfully reveals, by insisting that the monstrous unfinished issue of our founding, slavery, be resolved once and for all by an amendment to our Constitution.

Like many great men and women, Lincoln was a private person. He used his wit, his command of language, and his stories as much to conceal his most inner feelings as to win, or avoid, an argument. This quality may hold a clue as to why there are no Lincolns today. For we live in an age which requires, demands, that our leaders reveal their most inner feelings, even in the case where authentic feelings may be lacking. It is impossible to recount the number of times a public figure is asked of even tragic events, “how did you feel about that?” It is all about feelings and emotions not truth and right.

And perhaps we have no Lincolns because we have lost the ability to employ the power of language to move history. In an age of speech writers (almost all of whom are younger than the speaker and none of whom have ever been elected to office), it is impossible to imagine anyone on the public scene who could compose one sentence of the Gettysburg Address or the Inaugural speeches. When the quiet inner compass is lost and language loses its meaning and power, leadership disappears.

Human history being what it is, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that, sooner or later, perhaps when we today are gone, a great moral confrontation will occur, where right must face wrong, where our unity as a nation will be tested, when our very character and soul as a people must be defined, the need for an Abraham Lincoln will urgently arise. Will he or she be there? Will we know that unique person when he or she slowly stands and says, [Many] “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.”

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Law students learn very quickly that the law is about what is and is not legal (and mostly about all those cases that don’t fall clearly into either neat category), but that there is another parallel system for governing society that is called equity. In some jurisdictions there are even separate court systems—chancery courts—that are concerned with cases of equity, what is fair and what is not fair.

All this has to do with the question of a slightly increased tax rate on high earners as part of a budget compromise between the White House and Congress. Two facts need to be clear. One is that the taxes in question have to do with resumption of previous statutory tax rates before the temporary Bush tax cuts. The other is that resumption of the pre-Bush tax rates would apply only to income above $250,000 annual income.

In other words, President Obama’s is insisting that temporary tax reduction continue for all income up to $250,000 annually, but that the tax rate on income above that amount be taxed at the original rate—one of the lowest in the developed world—before the temporary tax cuts. This proposal affects no one in the 99%.

There is no evidence—none—that so-called “supply side” economics works, that cutting taxes produces new investment and new jobs that create revenue to make up lost revenue from the tax cuts. None. So the supply side disciples and the anti-tax Norquistians, are now faced with unacceptable budget deficits. They are in a box and can’t escape. They either want to reduce deficits, in which case everyone agrees new revenues are required, or they want to continue to worship at the No-Tax Church and let deficits soar.

Let’s be honest about this. Those opposed to fair taxes simply resent paying for programs that they don’t like—mostly the social safety net. But pacifists don’t like paying for expensive weapons systems. This isn’t about “big government.” This is about paying for a government produced by a democratic political system.
No one argues that resumption of pre-Bush tax rates on the wealthiest 1% will solve the deficit problem. What we do argue is equity—fairness. The entire idea of progressive taxes is that those who benefit the most from our nation’s services should pay a fair share.

A sense of equity, of fairness, is central to democracy. When everyday citizens become convinced, as many today are, that the wealthy and powerful are receiving favorable treatment, the system breaks down because citizens lose confidence in government. Both Occupiers and Tea Partyers agree on this. When fairness rules were suspended in the first decade of this century, a handful of speculators made billions and the economy collapsed.

Insistence that the 1% resume a slightly higher rate on income over a quarter of a million dollars (and much of that income is protected by very favorable capital gains rates) is necessary if we are to justify, as the President has pointed out, reducing government programs for the poor, for the elderly, for students, and for working people.
Americans are often justifiably skeptical about our government favoring the powerful who have access to the political system. That skepticism becomes dangerous cynicism when their suspicions are proved right. Despite the cries of anguish from Wall Street that “Obama doesn’t like business”, the wealthy and powerful do have access in Washington that everyday Americans do not. And they use that access to their benefit.

We either restore equity to our politics, or confidence in government will continue to decline to the peril of our Republic.

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How many non-African nations have elected a man or woman of African heritage to the presidency?

Voting in a democracy is the political equivalent of saying a prayer in a church or synagogue.

Both candidates for president of the United States together have spent roughly one-tenth of the annual American budget for pet food.

More Americans would listen to a serious speech on our economic future, our role in the world, and the future of our security than all the campaign advisors—and the political media—might think.

Most, but not all, of the battlefields of the world contain the bodies of young Americans who died so that we might be able to vote. They should be honored on this day.

Everyday Americans do not vote for ideology; they vote for character, vision, imagination, a sense of purpose, and an understanding of what America truly means.

There is no conflict between democracy and capitalism, nor is there conflict between capitalism and a society that cares for those left out.

Taxes, as it has been said, are the price we pay for a civilized society. A fair system of taxes is based on ability to pay and benefits received.

Not one of us has achieved anything without the help of others, and others often happen to be citizens who pay their dues.

The people of the world hold us to the principles and standards we claim for ourselves and our nation.

Some of my best friends are Republicans, but they are not angry and they all have a sense of humor.

In the spiritual sense we do not own this land. We hold it in trust for future generations.

We are still a republic and must follow the qualities of the republic’s of history: popular sovereignty; the ideal of the commonwealth; resistance to corruption; and a sense of the common good.

Our survival as a nation is ultimately dependent on citizen duty and responsibility and the accountability of those we elect to form our government.

The “government” is not a foreign power. It is made up of those we elect and it is our duty to hold them accountable for pursuit of the public interest.

Despite our many shortcomings, failings, and disappointments, there are, as someone once said about our country, lot’s more trying to get in than trying to get out.

The history of America is dotted with administrations that demonstrate that our great nation can survive almost anything.

The day we take our national blessings for granted is the day when our decline may become irreversible.

We have survived for 224 years. We must be doing something right. But we can always do better.

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This odd question comes to mind with the passing of George McGovern. In many memorial
essays he joined the pantheon of “liberal lions” with Ted Kennedy. But, consciously or
unconsciously, the role he played was much more a role of conscience than of ideology.

It is not necessary to be a liberal to appreciate what it means to be the conscience of a nation. ~
Senator McGovern is remembered primarily for his opposition to the Vietnam War. But he is
also remembered for his life-long concern for nutrition, especially for children, in America and
around the world. He was a champion of civil rights and equal rights for women. And the list
goes on.

That these basic humanitarian instincts are so easily labeled as “liberal” and thus dismissed with
ridicule by narrow minded ranters with microphones says more about them than it does about
him. Demonize a word and you demonize those whom that word describes and their passionate
convictions as well.

George McGovern was a religious man, both in the sense of how he was raised and what impact
the Christian gospel had on his public life. In a search for others in this mold I can think of only
two: Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Bill Moyers. Of course, there are many more, perhaps not so
visible on the national scene. These are individuals whose religious upbringing and education
produced a sense of conscience. And that conscience operated at the gap between what America
claims for itself and how it actually behaves.

Like Robert Kennedy before him, George McGovern was deeply moved, even outraged, by
poverty in America. If the word poverty has been uttered once by either candidate for president
in 2012, it was done very quietly. American politics is now all about the middle class. Poverty has
disappeared as a serious political concern. But it has far from disappeared as a profound social
reality.

Mr. McGovern’s famous “come home, America” phrase was not simply about leaving Vietnam.
It was a metaphor for how far America had strayed from its principles. Across the political
spectrum there is concern for the common defense. There is less concern for the general welfare.
They are equal Constitutional mandates.

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all,” wrote Shakespeare. Interpreted differently, however,
that’s why men and women of conscience are so rare in political circles. Conscience forces
conviction and conviction requires courage. Conscience is central to ethical human behavior and
a humane society. And men and women of conscience in the public arena have no choice but to
shine a light on national shortcomings.

Henry David Thoreau was a voice of conscience, a voice that eventually reached a famous
Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s religious writings were read by a young Indian lawyer,
Mohandas Ghandi, in an East African jail. Ghandi’s writings influenced a young African-
American preacher, Martin Luther King, in the Birmingham jail. And people like Robert
Kennedy and George McGovern could not let Reverend Kmgs sermons on race and poverty die
with his assassination and converted civil disobedience into political advocacy.

There is a small possibility that we have improved on assassination as a political instrument and
instead substituted marginalization as a means of dealing with the voice of conscience. George
McGovern was marginalized by the political process after losing to Richard Nixon. But it does
not seem that this diminished the courage of his convictions.

Somewhere in this great nation, far beyond the small people with the big microphones, the
desperate grasping for wealth beyond for power, the influence peddlers, the corruption in
high places, the maniacal focus on the personality and the celebrity, there are voices yet to be
heard, voices of conscience, voices that call America home to its most noble heritage and
principles, voices of courage and conviction.

When they appear, hopefully even in the political arena, we should pray that a few of us will
listen and be moved, that we will encourage them and give them an audience, that we will open
our minds, perhaps even our hearts, to what they have to say. For their message may offer
direction to our national redemption.

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The political media has long treated politics as a sport and a contact
sport at that. All the verbs and most of the adjectives are taken from
the sports pages. And, of course, it is all about winning and losing.
From this perspective, George McGovern goes down as an epic loser: 49
States went against him and for Richard Nixon in 1972.

But what if we judged political figures and candidates by more
intelligent standards? The “winner”, Richard Nixon, abdicated the
presidency in disgrace. And the “loser”, George McGovern continued on
to become one of his generation’s greatest humanitarians.

Throughout his public and private life, Senator McGovern was at the
forefront of the struggle against hunger both in the United States and
throughout the world. Though a decorated military hero, he led the
opposition to the war in Vietnam. He has still to be recognized for his
leadership in democratizing the Democratic Party and opening up its
doors to women, minorities, and young people, thus avoiding a repeat of
the chaos at the Chicago Democratic convention in 1968 and bringing his
party into the cultural mainstream emerging from the social revolutions
of the 1960s and 70s.

Most politicians, especially those who lose and lose badly, disappear
from public view. George McGovern refused to do so. That took some
courage. His deep convictions would not permit him to disappear. If
you believe in ideals strongly enough, you are not at liberty to abandon
them simply because you did not obtain the office you sought, including
the presidency. Continuing the fight is the definition of conviction,
and of courage.

Losers are ridiculed for losing. They are lampooned with jokes and
cartoons. It takes a very strong man or woman to suffer through that.
But George McGovern did. And he continued throughout his life to pursue
his sense of justice, equality, and fairness—the very purpose of the
Party he once led. All the while, he and his family suffered
Kennedyesque personal tragedies.

Nor is the insensitive political scale of winning and losing capable of
weighing another factor of true leadership—the caliber and quality of
people the supposed loser attracts into public service. In George
McGovern’s case that includes Bill and Hillary Clinton, Senators and
Representatives, State legislators, foreign service officers, federal
judges, and many, many humanitarians.

Senator McGovern, for years after 1972, was fond of saying: “We may
have lost, but none of us went to jail.” Many of those closest to the
“winner” went to jail or simply became political hacks.

If George McGovern represents the political losers of the world, then I
for one am proud to stand with him.

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Myths play a central role as metaphor in many world religions, according to Joseph Campbell. In The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth he studied the world mythologies, found common themes in a wide variety of cultures, and reached a startling conclusion: myths, he said, come from dreams and, therefore, people around the world have common dreams. It is a profound and still controversial insight for religion, psychology, and human culture. Students in all these fields continue to consider the power of myth.

Myths in politics, however, play a much different role. “Widely held but false idea” is one dictionary definition of myth in common usage. For reasons that are still unclear, myths abound in recent American political history. Perhaps the most glaring and consequential was the myth that Iraq under Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

There are other cases in point. Barack Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya and therefore not an American citizen. These are myths, yet they are widely believed in certain circles. Poor people are poor by choice. A classic myth. A rising tide lifts all boats. Much more true when we were an industrial society and manufacturing products created jobs. Much less true when the economic tide is one of finance and money manipulation which lifts the gilded yachts but not the rowboats of the rest of us. Jobs are not created when crackpot financial schemes make hedge fund managers rich. Thus, a myth.

Myths in politics are dangerous. In an important speech at Yale University during the Cold War, John Kennedy said: “For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” He was speaking of the myths on both sides that perpetuated a Cold War in a dangerous way.

Exactly 50 years later, no assessment comes closer to describing much of our current political world. Reason and facts are sacrificed to opinion and myth. Demonstrable falsehoods are circulated and recycled as fact. Narrow minded opinion refuses to be subjected to thought and analysis. Too many now subject events to a prefabricated set of interpretations, usually provided by a biased media source. The myth is more comfortable than the often difficult search for truth.

If this strange world were the product of mere laziness it might be understandable. But today’s political myths are more perverse. They are a conscious hiding place from a changing, challenging, and often uncomfortable new world. Globalization, immigration, cultural and racial diversity are threatening and frightening to many who wish to freeze the former comfortable world in time and prevent any change.

Myths which have no basis in truth, or which do not operate as metaphors for religious truth, eventually fade away with the passing of those who perpetuate them and in the face of reality and fact. But the most dangerous myths create demons where none exist, the demons being anyone who disagrees with the myth-makers. In the meantime, however, they serve not only to delude the deniers but to frustrate our Founders belief in the progress of the human mind.

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