Federalist Part 2: How to destroy a republic in 6 easy steps

As mentioned in my last post, I am still reading the Federalist Papers, and between the arguments regarding the Federal Government’s power to raise an army to maintain national defense, and its power to levy taxes, concurrent to the state powers, the constant danger of the usurpation of the Republic by internal or external influences continues to be a major theme.

I can't believe they wrote this is just six months.  It's taking me longer than that just to read it.

And at every turn, they pronounce Unity as the best defense of liberty in the face of dictatorship. But along the way, they point out that the structure of our government provides a helping hand. “A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." (Federalist 51) 

On one level, the Federalist Papers can be read as a historical view of an important moment in American history, perhaps THE most important in American history, in that all other moments of history have followed this one.  And if not for this one moment, no other moments of American history would be possible, or even conceivable, including the moment in history we are living right now, one of the most incredible presidential elections that most of us have ever seen.

In fact, one could make an argument that we should be celebrating September 17^th  (the date of the signing of the Constitution) instead of July 4^th as the birthday of this country.

But, on the other hand, the Federalist Papers could (though probably shouldn’t) be read at least in part as a how-to manual for dismantling a republic.  It was certainly never meant to be such a thing, but it makes an interesting exercise to see if the dangers that Madison and Hamilton and the other original framers foresaw have indeed stuck their ugly heads up out of the sand.

Now, I’m not saying outright that anyone currently running for president of the United States is definitely trying to force himself into an elected position with the aim of seizing the power of the Federal government for his own purposes, but if someone was trying to do that, this is what it might look like, according to history, which knows a few things about megalomaniacs seizing power.

1)  Choose your moment:  

You’ll need to pick the right time to seize power.  Typically, military coupes have come at times of civil unrest and violence, demanding military intervention.  More “democratic” coupes, where the future dictator is elected by the voters often follow periods of economic strife, like the Great Depression.  Exploiting some kind of internal strife requires that a) you wait for something terrible to happen, or b) convince people that a previous crisis is still going on and you can blame it on your current opponent, creating in the process "those violent and oppressive factions which embitter the blessings of liberty." (Federalist 45)  For the framers, it was the poisonous, anti-Union political atmosphere following the successful revolution that posed the greatest danger. 

But I suppose that the recovery period following a great financial crisis, coupled with racial tensions and on-going threats from terrorists groups would work just as well.


2)  Find a scapegoat:  

You’ll need to focus the anger of people who are upset about the direction of the country, now that you and your surrogates have succeeded in convincing them that the country is heading in the wrong direction (despite all evidence to the contrary).  Historically, the best scapegoats are broadly defined minority groups that are perceived as somehow “different” from the majority of the country.  Foreigners and religious minorities work well for this.  Use every opportunity to use one or two examples as proof that everyone in these subcategories are threats either to our economy (the “They’re stealing our jobs” approach) or our security (the “They’re going to kill us all” approach).   If you have trouble coming up with examples, truth is a fluid concept.  Just lie.  Say your lies loud enough and long enough, and everyone who wants to believe them will believe them.

3)  Use propaganda effectively:  

Of course, you standing there by yourself lying your butt off will only get you so far.  You need an effectively propaganda machine.  Since we conveniently have a free and open press, it shouldn’t be too hard to pull one or two of those media outlets into your camp and get them working for you.  

Careful:  This way madness lies.

This, too, goes right back to the founding of our country, with newspapers openly taking sides between the Democratic Republicans of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and the Federalists of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, to the point that Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Acts with the intent to lock up members of the press.  In more recent times, the conservative press likewise played an important role in spreading administration misinformation in the lead up to the Iraq war.  

The really great part about how we use the media today is that your propaganda machine doesn’t really have to lie very hard.  According to studies about our online reading habits, we almost never go further than sensationalistic headlines.  We see a headline that matches with our predetermined way of thinking about the world (see above re: exploiting a sometimes-imaginative crisis and blaming it on foreigners) and quickly share it.  All you need to do is recycle

However you manage it, your public image is essential.  You have to make your image work for you, to appeal to the broadest base of your supporters.  And further, you need to make sure your opponent's image appears untrustworthy, or corrupt, or criminal, or incompetent, even in the face of facts that clearly demonstrate to the contrary.  "For it is a truth which the experience of all ages had attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion." (Federalist 25)

4)  Get elected:  

Up to now, we’ve really only looked at practices that most politicians use in one form or another- appealing to special interests, blaming someone other than their supporters, distributing misinformation- but swaying a fickle public opinion and actually winning a majority of votes are two different animals.  And even then, the majority of votes isn’t what counts in this country, thanks to the electoral college, specifically designed (for better or worse) as a further safeguard from popular opinion interjecting itself above the public interest.  "This process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of the president, will seldom fall to the lot of any man, who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications." (Federalist 68)

Clearly, their not talking about you.  

In other words: you need to do something to guarantee that you win.  And that means you need to guarantee votes.  How?  Voter fraud is possible, but tricky.  Voter intimidation is way easier.  Just ask your own supporters to stay at the polling stations, ostensibly to prevent cheating.  But make sure they know that “cheating” means anyone who is not voting for you.  After all, everyone must be voting for you, since you’re so great, so anyone expressing a different opinion is obviously a liar and cheater working for the other side.  Poor logic?  Perhaps, but I assume you’ve been using poor logic all along, so it won’t be any more noticeable now.  This will help prevent anyone voting against you.  Violence should be (subtly) encouraged, as violence is a strong deterrent to voting.

5) Suppress the opposition:  

The beauty of our Constitutional system is how it provides a framework for bringing together different, often opposing ideas and allows for the possibility of compromise.  Our system of government recognizes that there is a plurality of opinions within the electorate of our country and we owe that plurality a decent hearing as we consider what course to chart.  As a result of this structure, the government will be full of people who disagree with you.  These voices must be silenced.  You like firing people, don't you?  Fire them.  Failing that, intimidate them until they are forced to resign.  Fill every opening with people who agree with everything you say.  

Your next challenge will be the fourth estate, the press, whose freedoms are designed to act as a counterbalance to any consolidation of power within the three branches of government.  Fortunately for you, the press, as we’ve already seen, is lazy and malleable.  But you can’t take the chance of some Woodward or Bernstein exposing your true intentions to the country and turning that ever-shifting public opinion against you.  Instead, you need a press that will be loyal to you at all times and always say positive things to reinforce your image.  So, if some journalist questions you too harshly, you must attack them back, criticize them and their work, punish whatever media outlet they work for by refusing to cooperate or allow them access, and whenever possible, try to solicit some surrogate to respond violently.  Soon, you’ll find journalists as easy to control as any other group of people.

6) Consolidate your power:
  
And here is the final, perhaps most difficult step.  The Constitution of the United States calls for specifically three separate but co-equal branches of government that are interrelated without the kind of crossover of power that allows easily for any one branch to become more powerful than the other two, or for any one person to gain too much influence over all three.  This was designed by founders who well understood the desire of men to seek power.  "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." (Federalist 51)  Being no angel yourself, this is the challenge you’ll need to overcome.  

As the Chief Executive, and as someone who has already purged his political enemies from the executive branch (see previous), you’ll enjoy all the power of the executive branch.  But legislative powers will continue to fall to Congress, as well as budgetary powers, and the judicial branch still has the authority to declare anything you do unconstitutional and therefore void.  These are serious threats to your newly acquired power.  

In the first place, as being President in our modern sense is fundamentally different than it was originally envisioned, at a time before political parties, you will have a solid voting block in the legislature to work for you there.  You’ll need to guard against those who choose not to follow your lead, but those can be handled with a combination of intimidation and monetary incentives.  And when the legislature fails to do as you wish, you yourself will be able to legislate from your office using executive orders.  While there are limits to the use of executive orders, just have a really good lawyer (I’ll assume you already have one) draft a memo explaining that whatever executive order you wish to make is legal under some vague language of the Constitution, and your order should go unchallenged.  If it is challenged in the courts, you’ll need to ensure that courts declare in your favor.  

For this, you’ll need to have influence over the Supreme Court, and that means appointing at least one justice (that lawyer I mentioned earlier would be a good first pick).  It is therefore advisable to time your election/rise to power such that it coincides with vacancy on the court. 

Once you have suitable influence over the courts, you will finally enjoy exactly the consolidation of power that the framers of the constitution feared and loathed.  You'll have taken their principles of republicanism and turned our nation into something far removed, and far worse, than it was ever intended to be.  And you managed to do it right under the nose of "the People." Well done!

And in the end, it won't be you that we have to blame for our predicament, but ourselves.  Because what the Federalist Papers should teach us, and what all the original founders have tried to tell us, is that there is no secret weakness in our government, some Achilles Heel hidden in the Constitution like a Dan Brown novel.

Our government's greatest weakness comes in the form of us, the People.  If we walk around blind to how special our government structure is, how great it can be in hands of dedicated public servants, working together, sometimes arguing, sometimes compromising, but always for the Public Interest, instead of their own personal interests, we won't deserve this government anymore.  Our Constitution is still there, with all its flaws and contradictions, trying to create the best nation that it can for us.

And if we give up on that, if we see exactly what you're doing as you subvert every principle of our founders, and we see it and do nothing about it, then you'll win and we will deserve everything we get.

And I think we're better than that.  I hope I'm not wrong.

Back to School: The Federalist Papers (Pt.1)

Summer is over!  Time for our first reading assignment!

This being an election year, and our government being reliant upon the voice of a well-informed electorate, I’ll be assigning the Federalist Papers.

The Federalist Papers, for everyone who fell asleep in history class (seriously you’re yawning right now, aren’t you? Please try to stay awake.  I have a point here, and it’s important), are a series of essays written in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison (when’s he getting a musical?), and John Jay in order to convince New York to ratify the new Constitution of the United States

"Seriously, no one has any idea who I am."

One of the major themes that is immediately evident running through the 85 essays that comprise the Federalist Papers is the call for Unity among the different states.  It may seem strange to us today that the union of the United States was not always a foregone conclusion.  Or, as Hamilton wrote, "It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the Union...But the fact is, that we already hear it whispered...that the Thirteen States are of too great extent for any general system, and that we must of necessity resort to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole."

But, you might be thinking, why?  Why not come together into a full Union?  After all, the states were free, they were already united under the Articles of Confederation, they’d already come together to defeat the world superpower of the time, and this nation was destined to become the new global superpower, to extend its reach all the way past the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean and extend its ideas of freedom from monarchy all over the world.  Why did they have to argue FOR uniting the states?  Weren’t they already the United States?

That's easy for us to say, after nearly 250 years of successful republican government, but no one at the time had any compelling reason to believe that this new government, founded not on principles of monarchy, nor entirely a democracy, but built on republican principles of a representative government several steps removed from the People, yet based on the sovereignty of the People, would succeed.  And they had good reason to be skeptical, in that no other republic since the days of Rome had ever succeeded for any length of time. This crazy new Constitution was doomed to failure.

Because republican democracies don’t last very long.  Absolute monarchies, despotic dictatorships, militaristic empires, those last. 

Now, I already mentioned that there’s an election coming up.  You might have noticed a lot of people on TV, or putting up signs in their front yards, declaring that they want to make America great again.  What they tend to avoid talking about is what made America “great” in the first place, when it was “great,” and what greatness actually means.

Does our greatness stem from our military dominance?  Our responsibility to act as the global police on all international matters in which some form of democracy might be at risk?  Or is American greatness the result of material innovations, technology, manufacturing, research into curing diseases?  Or, as some people seem to think, is it the racism?

I’m going to float here an actual definition for American Greatness, because this is a largely rhetorical essay, and I can do pretty much as I please.  If the greatness of a nation is to be measured by a unique military, social, or cultural yardstick, America’s is based on the simple accomplishment that it managed at its founding, that saved it when the Civil War ripped our country apart, and which we are still living with today:

Our government.

I confess, that’s not a totally original definition.

“Is not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent respect to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?” (Federalist 14, by James Madison)

"I'm a lot less boring when you realize my nickname was Jemmy."

Our country wasn’t founded out of any shared history or common culture.  The people of the different states didn’t actually much like each other, even then.  It was founded instead on ideas.  Ideas of self-government, ideas that the power to govern isn’t bestowed by God on pre-ordained rulers, but rather is derived by the consent of the governed themselves.  Ideas like equality and liberty, which are contradictory ideas, but are unified in our founding documents, particularly the Declaration of Independence.  These ideas, as much as tea and taxes, were at the heart of the revolution.

And that revolution should have failed. Realistically, we never should have won our independence, but we did. And ever after, our new government should have failed.  And it did, leading to the Constitutional Convention.  But somehow, THAT convention, with its republican ideals, intrinsic contradictions, and far-reaching compromises, that convention came up with something that managed to beat the odds, something no other violent overthrow of repressive government has managed before or since.

What did the French Revolution lead to?  Napoleon.  And what about the Roman Republic our founders wanted to emulate?  That ended with Caesar crossing the Rubicon.  Or the Florentine Republic of the sixteenth century, which ended with the infamous Medici family and with Machiavelli in exile writing “The Prince.”  Forward in history, the Russian Revolution led to Lenin and Stalin, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union promised a democratic Russia and gave us Putin.

Revolutions nearly always lead to dictators.

Except for us.  (Well, so far.)

But, why?

Put another way, is there something intrinsic in democratic governments that make them more open to the advances of a dictatorship, and is there something within our own form of government that helps to guard against such a takeover of government, and is that fundamental safeguard or safeguards, still useful today?

According to the Federalist Papers, the major internal danger to the republic was the fighting among parties and factions that could lead to disunion.  But almost as dangerous was the rise of irrational majority movements that disenfranchised the minority parties and factions and thus secured their own power, leading to a kind of tyranny of the majority.  To Hamilton and Madison, the greatest thing we had going from us was our large size and diverse population (their definition of diverse being somewhat removed from our own, but I think the basic thinking remains the same) that would check any populist movements from becoming too powerful.  Having competing factions helped guard against any one man who might decry all others who opposed him and declare that he, alone, was the answer to all of the nation’s problems.  But too many factions, fracturing the nation and competing for power at the expense of each other, without a larger unifying identity, could also be dangerous. Public opinion is easily swayed, and a particularly strong, vocal faction took take power away from other factions by claiming any number of prejudiced and misguided notions.  So the power of the people need to be removed from the people by degrees. So that by having three coequal branches of government that checked each other plus a freedom of speech and press that guaranteed a fourth check, the nation could effectively prevent the popular power from being vested too much in any one man.

However, it is an open question if those same protections still exist in our modern political landscape.  When we sure as hell still need them.

Our political culture, which is designed to be deliberative, intentionally slow and bureaucratic, so as to avoid the whims of temporary inflammations of public opinion, but instead to work for the public good, which are often two different, sometimes opposite, objects, is competing with the internet and 24/7 news cycles, where we constantly demand instant satisfaction and put every public act under several microscopes at once, each seeing it from a different angle and reaching a different conclusion which must be THE truth of the moment.  And we all have all the mouthpieces for our own opinions and prejudices that we could want.  So that a minority of opinions can be disguised as a full-blown public movement.

And in this moment, moving toward our next election, we now have a deadlocked Congress, a deadlocked Supreme Court, and most interestingly, a major party candidate courting special interests in order to give the appearance of appealing to some kind of vocal majority, inciting people with rhetoric about how our government is the problem, how immigrants are a threat, and how he alone is the answer.

"Fun Fact:  Today, I'd be considered an illegal immigrant."

Everything about this scenario would have sounded alarming to Hamilton and Madison.

In fact, in a true democracy, tied directly to the voice of the majority, to the whims of public opinion, this would be a truly existential threat to freedom.  It is still a danger, though one our country has been built to withstand.  The real threat is if public opinion is mistaken for public interest, mistrust of others is allowed to be codified as law, and a small faction is allowed to disenfranchise other factions, giving rise to self-perpetuating loops of bigotry and prejudice.  Such is the case with Voter ID laws and voter registration requirements in which specific demographics are targeted and voting made more difficult, all in the name of reducing non-existed voter fraud, but is actually based on prevailing fears of people who are different, somehow, from those currently in power. And if we constantly think of each other as different from ourselves, instead of as part of the same society, the same People, little can stand in the way of such a threat.

Our Founding Fathers were absolutely clear that our fractured groups of Americans needed more than anything else to unite behind a single union of identity.  We had to move from These United States to THE United States.  From plural to singular.  Through Unity, not of party or opinion, but a unity that embraces a diversity of, and respect for, our sometimes contradictory opinions and perspectives.  At a time when all of politics seems to consist of shouting down any contrary opinion, a fuller consideration of ideas is freedom’s most potent defense.  

Or, in the words of George Washington, "The unity of government which constitutes you one people...is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your peace; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize."

If we remember that the people who disagree with us are also citizens of this country, worthy of its freedoms, and dedicated to its founding principles, that makes the whole country stronger.

We have defied our earliest critics.  We have defied even history itself, and have created, however unlikely, an example of representative government that can withstand both blatant incompetence and deceitful corruption to serve as a voice for the sovereign people, from whom our federal government derives its power.  And by holding ourselves to the core principles of Unity and Representative Government (or, in Lincoln’s words, “of the people, by the people, and for the people”), we will continue to endure.

And that, in short, is the starting point of American Exceptionalism.  The authors of the Federalist Papers understood this.  They predicted this; that if our country could survive, to hold itself together for long enough, we could, by our mere continued existence, serve as an example that yes, this kind of government can actually work.

In other words (and somewhat ironically), we can “Make America Great Again” by being “Stronger Together.”

It's Not Your Country

Hey guys, did you know there's a presidential election coming this year?

It's true.  And judging from my Facebook feed, which, as we all know, is the best news source out there these days, a lot of people have A LOT of opinions about who we should vote for.  And they all give really good reasons, citing articles from crazydavesnews.com, and definitelynotbullshit.org, and youcantotallytrustus.com.  And Fox News.  Clearly, people have opinions, and are expressing them.

Sidebar:  Why don't I own this website, yet?

Ok, all kidding aside, I'm gonna start by stating 3 things:

1) I'm about to express an opinion about this election.  If you find you'd rather not know my opinion, I respectfully point out you may be reading the wrong blog.

2) I will not be endorsing any candidate at this time.  Now, yes, I've been courted pretty hard by both the John Kasich and Deez Nuts campaigns, but I'm not ready to commit my endorsement at this time.  My judgement tells me now is the time for unity, not further division.

3) I will not defriend, block, delete, attack, or condemn any of my friends over the nonsense you choose to post and share during this election.  I hope that you will think twice before sharing something from shockingnewsheadline.com and citing it as a reason to love one candidate or openly spew hatred at another candidate, but I'm not gonna react to it.  Now, if you start in with anti-science, anti-intellectual, "vaccines cause autism," stuff, you and I will need to part ways, but I have faith that all of you, my friends, are above at least that sort of silly nonsense.

As I listen to a whole lot of people spouting even more opinions, like how Wall Street is ruining America (it's not), or how socialism is ruining America (wrong again), or ISIS is the biggest threat our country has ever seen (not even close), or we need to secure our border (no, actually, we don't), I'm struck by how many people feel very passionately about what is best for our country, and how those very passionate and strongly held beliefs are at complete loggerheads with someone else's equally strong, passionately held beliefs.  And I wonder how we're ever going to get past this.

And I'm reminded of the famous Ronald Reagan quote, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"  And I think that is the basic question that people ask themselves when considering who, or at least what kind of person, they want in the White House.

And it's the completely wrong question.  It's a question that boils down to, "This is my country, and I'm going to vote for what is best for me."

But it's not your country.  It's not my country.  This country, in fact this entire planet, doesn't belong to us.

We're just temporary inhabitants.

You see, our country belongs to our future.

Or rather, their future.

If we want to make the right choices, we need to change the way we think about this world that we live on.  We have a political system that rarely if ever looks any farther into the future than the next election, but our choices in these elections have real and powerful consequences for the generations that will come after us.  What if we decided to vote for them?

Now, certain things we're bound to have some honest disagreement on, like how to ensure a prosperous economy for the future.  I might believe in free market capitalism within a framework of government regulation, a minimum wage that equates to a living wage and adjusts according to inflation, and free trade agreements that acknowledge our place in a wider global economy.  You, on the other hand, hypothetical reader that disagrees with me, might be wrong.  That's fair, and we should have a chance to debate, to try things out, to adjust if we're wrong.

But in other areas, we don't have to the luxury of being wrong.

From this perspective, it is immoral to vote for any presidential candidate that dismisses climate change as a hoax, a natural phenomenon, or not that important compared to something else (the economy, national security, a good haircut, etc.).

Even my eight-year-old daughter has noticed that this is the warmest winter we've ever had.  There was a hurricane in January.  A relatively isolated equatorial mosquito-borne disease has exploded into regions that have never seen it before, including several cases in the United States.  The science is clear and the reality is terrifying.  I'm somewhat heartened by the Paris Climate Change Accord that was signed back in December, but there are still people running for the highest political office in our land who dismiss this, the single greatest threat to our existence that we currently face.

And considering that even the scientists tell us that in order to mitigate (that is, not even stop, just try to keep it from not being quite so bad) catastrophic climate change, we need to be completely carbon neutral in less than fifty years.  That's (hopefully) inside my own lifetime!

But there are elected officials in our country right now who decry science.  Who think the world's scientists are running some kind of scam.

We need to understand what science is telling us, and we need to do our best to change things.  And we Americans, when we are at our best, can do some pretty amazing stuff.  We need that amazing-ness, now.

You see, we've known about climate change for a long time.  I remember learning about the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide back in the '80s.  Computer models were designed, and predictions were made.  As temperatures continued to rise, they predicted an increase in unusual weather patterns, more intense storms, and a rise in infectious disease spread by tropical insects and other similar disease vectors.  We don't need to wait for science to make predictions about what will happen over the next decade and what to see if the predictions come true.  Because they did, and they did.  We have proof the humans are causing catastrophic climate change.

We need to do something about it.

If we stay on track with the Paris Accord, we can keep the worse-case scenario at bay, and maybe try our hand at terraforming our own planet.  But if the next president pulls the US out of the Paris Accord (as some candidates have said they would), the consequences will be catastrophic.  As in actual, literal catastrophes.  I love metaphors as much as the next guy, but this isn't a metaphor.  Actually catastrophic.

Now, for your convenience, a quick synopsis of where the current field of major party candidates stand on climate change:

Trump:  Global warming was invented by the Chinese.  (He later claimed he was kidding, but still refers to climate change as a "hoax."
Cruz: Climate change doesn't exist.  There has been "no significant warming whatsoever."
Kasich: Climate change is real, is important, but not as important as the economy, so let's not do anything about it.
Clinton: Believes in climate change is a real danger to our species and our planet, supports Obama's efforts to combat climate change and the Paris Accord.
Sanders: Believes climate change is the number one threat that we are currently facing.  He supports strengthening the Obama administrations effort, and supports the Paris Accord, but adds it isn't nearly enough.

And I don't want it to sound like climate chance the only important thing we need to think about (although a direct and immediate threat to the continued existence of the entire human race is kind of a big deal).  We need to think about gun control (we need some), government corruption (we need less), healthcare (need more, and more affordable, for everyone), and immigration (needs to be easier, not harder).

But, I'll be the first to admit, on all of these other issues, there is a chance that I could be wrong.  I don't think I am, because, you know, that's fundamentally what a belief is.  But when it comes to climate change, belief doesn't enter into it.  Science shows us the objective reality of our physical world.  Climate change is real, happening, and the result of human behavior, which we have the power to change.

So please, when you consider who you are going to vote for, don't vote just to lower your taxes.  Don't vote for walls (they never work, anyway).  Don't vote out of fear (people who come from other countries and speak other languages are really very nice).  Don't vote for someone because they are successful in business (successful businessmen have traditionally made lousy presidents).

And don't vote for people who talk about how much better our country used to be.  It's not true.  Our parents and grandparents helped make things better for all of us.  This nation has never been better than it is now.  We are always at our best when our eyes are on our future.  And our children and grandchildren deserve a better country than the one we live in.

We are caretakers of this country, and of this world.  We have something called democracy, because our forefathers rejected the notion that the power of government comes exclusively from God, but rather decided that is comes from the people.  But it's not just the current people, but also all the future people.

So please, whether you live in a state that hasn't yet had their primary, or you're deciding who to vote for in November, please remember this: you're voting for those who can't yet vote for themselves.  You're voting for our kids.

And not just our kids, but everyone's kids.  And it's not just about the physical environment they'll be born into, but the social one as well.  Kids born without opportunities, kids born into poverty, kids subjected to abuse, kids confronted with racism and sexism and ethnic or religious intolerance.  All of them deserve better.  That's what we need to vote for.

Vote for someone else's better tomorrow.

Because it's not really our country, or our world, at all.

Pass it on.

2015: A Year in Homebrewing

Is it safe to come out?  Have all the “Year in Review” articles and mini-Facebook movies and all the resolutions and dieting ideas and all that final run their course?  Seems like all we see this time of year is nostalgia for the past (12 months) and unbridled optimism for the future (12ish months).

Well, I guess it’s time to do my part, but in an effort to keep it interesting, I’ll punctuate mine with beer.  Because everything’s better with homebrew.

I had really big plan about a year ago: brew a different and new and interesting beer every month for twelve months.  It seemed like a great excuse to put off writing any blog entries for a good long while, which worked out great!  It also turned out to be a distraction, sometimes welcome, often not, from a year that felt a little like a roller coaster: sometimes you were up, sometimes you were down, and you almost always had a bad feeling in your tummy.

January: I started the year with a pretty neat idea (I thought).  Knowing it was a) cold and b) coming up on my favorite night of inviting friends over to watch funny commercials and a short concert (which for some reason is called the “Super Bowl”), I decided to brew a lager, or two.  First, I brewed a big, strong dobbelbock (9% abv), and bottled 4 out of the 5 gallons.  Then, I took the last gallon, added water, and kegged it to make a 3% abv pale lager.  Eight gallons for the work of five!  And the commercial and concert party we threw went over great.  A perfect start to the year.

February: In February, the snows came.  You probably remember.  Since it was still cold, I stuck with beers that would benefit from a chilly basement, and made an altbier (which is not, as it turns out, a beer created by people on Usenet groups, much to my disappointment).  Soon after that, as we got even more snow, our dog, Joe, went out to pee in the front yard, as he had day after day for the 10 years we’d been part of our family, and never came back.  I looked for him until nearly midnight in the bitter cold.  I called his name, even though he was deaf.  I followed tiny sets of footprints all over the neighborhood.  Friends came and helped us.  Even neighbors we barely knew came out to help look.  We never found him.

To understand the devastation of that moment, you have to know how much Joe meant to us.  How the sound of him licking himself on my pillow was the lullaby I fell asleep to every night.  How we rushed him to the animal hospital when he needed his gallbladder out, despite not having any way to pay for such an operation, and waited up until after 1am to hear that the surgery had been successful.  How he greeted us at the door when we came home, day after day, for ten years.  How he jumped up on the couch and put his paws on the bassinet when Ella came home from the hospital, curious about this new member of our family.  He was terribly abused, abandoned, and starving before we adopted him.  He was a sweet, loving little old man when he left us.  I have no idea why he disappeared like that when he did, though he perhaps he knew (as we did) that wouldn't live much longer.  I don't know.  But finally, February was over.  Though somehow, the world didn't feel any less cold or gray for it.

March:  By this time, obviously, the year was off to a crappy start, and my heart wasn’t in homebrewing.  I made a beer, a honey ale, but it was contaminated and I ended up dumping most of it.

[Best if I skip a bit here…]

Summer:  Spring eventually thawed the snow, but mostly what I remember is spending an awful lot of time in doctor offices and hospitals for various reasons involving various family members.  By Summer, we’d found a new family hobby, which I highly recommend to anyone looking for spend a fun Saturday afternoon: house hunting.  Not serious, “We need to buy a house!” house hunting.  Instead, find some houses (I recommend Zillow) and set up some viewings.  You get to see some really nice places, and some total holes.  The ones with the collapsing ceilings and black mold are always fun, but my favorite was the one house with a brand-new beautifully decorate bathroom in the middle of a bare, unfinished, asbestos-filled basement.  Because that’s a selling point!

I did make a beer to honor Leo’s first birthday.  Since he was born on Bastille Day, it was a French-style saison, and I kept a few bottled with his picture on it.

We also considered a few fairly crazy new diets over the summer, all of which touted the benefit of going gluten free.  Ever game for a good experiment, I found an enzyme that could be added to beer that would more fully convert the gluten in beer into sugar that would then be consumed by the yeast.  The result was a pretty tasty pale “gluten-less” ale.  But after about a month of that, we decided that was crazy and went back to eating gluten.  FYI, fruit and vegetable smoothies aren’t that bad, if you make them right.

September: As the summer made way for Fall, and the school year started up again, my grandmother passed away at the age of 96.  I wish I could write more to sum up my feelings about this loss, but my feelings aren’t done yet, and can’t really be summed it.  Leave it at this: after her funeral, we picked up a six pack of ‘Gannsett and toasted her, and missed her.

At the end of the month, my wife and I managed to sneak away for a couple days to celebrate our 11^th wedding anniversary.  Hanging out with hippies and enjoying bike rides and, yes, good beer, it was the highlight of an otherwise somber month.

October: In October, one of our close friends got married.  My daughter was a flower girl, my wife was a bridesmaid, and I was charged with making 15 gallons of beer for the reception.  It seemed straightforward enough: 3 batches, 3 five-gallon kegs.  What could go wrong?  As soon as I filled the first keg and went to charge it, and heard the CO2 hissing out, I knew exactly what could go wrong.  Suddenly, I was all panic: Was it defective?  Would there be time to get more?  How much CO2 was I wasting?  Would there be enough to serve the beer?  What if I couldn’t fix it?  Would I have to tell our friend that I couldn‘t make the beer?  Would I be responsible for ruining their wedding?  Fortunately, I found that increasing the air pressure and adjusting the seal was enough to fix the leak, and the next two kegs were filled and sealed without problem.  The wedding was a lot of fun, and a couple people might have liked the beer.  Or not.  Didn’t matter to me; I still drank it!

In November, I turned 40.  Shut up, that’s not that old!  Just because I was born during the Ford administration doesn’t mean I’m not still spry and full of youthful—oh , who am I kidding?

In December, our family suffered another loss.  A man very close to our family, whose family had always felt like an extension of my own family, passed away.  To tease out the exact familial bonds from our extended Irish family would take some time, but cousin is the closest term, though that doesn’t do his closeness to us justice.  Uncle is somewhat closer, but Eddie was…well, he was Eddie to us, will always be Eddie to us, and that’s enough.  I brewed an Irish stout for him, because that seemed fitting.  I decided at that I point that I’d had enough funerals for one year.

The Universe, of course, doesn’t care what I think.  Just before Christmas, my father-in-law suffered a major stroke.  We made immediate plans to go to Texas, to see him, to let him see a couple of his grandkids.  We’d almost made it on the plane when the phone rang.  We missed the flight, and rebooked, not for a visit, but for a funeral.  This was the man who I called one day, 13 or so years ago, to ask for his permission to marry his daughter.  And he’d told me, “I’ll tell you what my father-in-law told me.  You can ask her, but she won’t say yes!”  This was the man who coaxed my daughter into taking her very first steps.  We flew to Texas the day after Christmas, to say our goodbyes properly.

So much for 2015. 

Do I have resolutions for 2016?  You’ve got to be kidding me.

Well, I guess that’s not entirely fair.  I’d decided near the end of last year to try my hand at fiction writing again.  I still think I’ve got a couple novels in me that need to come out.  But now, suddenly, I’ve come to think that where my writing really needs to be is sitting right in front of me, or rather, isn’t sitting right in front of me because neither of them ever seem to sit still for very long.

I have two wonderful kids, and they’d both probably get a kick out of some of the stories I could write for them.  So this year, and as many years as I can keep it up, my writing will be dedicated to them.  If you don’t see another blog entry for a while, that’s probably what I’m doing.  So if you see my kids, ask them if they like my stories.  I’m hoping they’ll say yes.

4 Reasons to Buy Girl Scout Cookies Right Now!

Hey, you!

Stop whatever you’re doing right now and go buy a box of Girl Scouts cookies.

Oh, you want to finish reading my blog?  That’s very considerate of you, but don’t worry.  I’ll wait.

Preferably from this kid.

Did you do it?

No?

Why not?

Oh, wait, let me guess:

Argument 1: But, Why?

To support Girl Scouts.  Duh.

You see every box of cookies you buy helps provide money not only to the nation-wide Girls Scouts of the USA, but part of it goes directly to that girl’s particular troop.  Your cold, hard cash is directly helping that girl who is selling you a box of cookies.  Isn’t that great?

No?  You need more?

Ok, maybe you’re not a parent.  Or you don’t have any daughters.  Is supporting Girl Scouts still important? 

Yes, of course it is!

The Girl Scouts are not just about teaching girls how to sell stuff.  These girls are learning how to be leaders, how to be good citizens and how to be good humans, how to care for their world and take care of each other, and how to be themselves with confidence and strength.  And as these girls grow up, they will use what they’ve learned to do amazing things.  Whether you personally have a daughter, or know a young girl, or not, you still have a vested interest in helping these girls, and indeed all girls, succeed.  Because our world, our future, will be in better hands if the girls who are growing up now grow up believing that they should always serve God (or whatever supreme being or greater good it is that they choose to serve), serve their country, and always help people, in addition to being honest, fair, considerate, caring, courageous, strong, etc., etc.

And these girls will grow up.  They will do amazing things.  The world will be in their hands.  So you really want them to be prepared for that.

Plus, you get to eat cookies!  That’s a win-win!

Argument 2: Cookies Are Junk Food.  Girl Scouts Are Contributing to Obesity.

First of all, are you serious?

Secondly, the Girl Scout cookie is a continuation of a long tradition, one nearly everyone reading this has engaged in at some point: the Bake Sale.

Bake sales came about through simple necessity.  Kids needed stuff.  Parents often can’t afford to give their kids EVERYTHING they need (we try, but it really is nearly impossible).  Other grown-ups don’t want to give them the money.

For example, maybe the school district can’t afford paper.  (You laugh; I remember this happening.)  Because having locally-elected politicians who are huge high school football fans is somehow the best model we have for an education system.  But I digress.  How do we get paper so the students can, you know, write stuff?

Parents bake things and sell them, and the money goes to the school to buy paper (or that new scoreboard they’ve been eyeing, because sometimes people are awful).  That’s how bake sales work.

When the Girl Scouts were first starting out, they needed money to be able to do activities, to buy supplies, to do Girl Scout stuff.  So, they started holding bake sales, and those bake sales eventually turned into door-to-door cookies sales, which now have become the well-oiled cookie machine we have today.

One of the things I spend time on with my troop during our meetings is teaching them the traditions of Girl Scouts.  These can be songs, games, old uniforms, stories from former Girl Scouts.  It’s a little awkward for me, since, you know, I really wasn’t ever a Girl Scout, but you get the point.  I try to teach them that they are here today, learning to be Girl Scouts, because of all the Girl Scouts who came before them.  And one of those traditions is cookie selling.  That cookie selling also teaches them about being responsible for money, teaches them multiplication, and teaches them how to talk to people in a courteous and professional manner is just icing on the cake, or in this case, on the cookie.

And really, they are not that bad for you.  They’re just cookies.  Pretty small ones, too.  You don’t have to eat the entire box in one sitting.  They will last for a good while (even longer if you freeze them!), so just show a little self-control.  It will be ok.  I’m here for you.

And as it happens, these cookies have nothing at all to do with obesity in this country.  Even if you consider these cookies “junk food,” a recent study of average Americans showed no correlation between junk food and weight gain, pointing out that it really is just matter of how many calories you take it, not the form those calories take.

So like I said, don’t eat the whole box.  You’ll be fine.  And remember, Thin Mints are vegan!

Really!

And if you really don't want to eat them, the Girls Scouts will be happy to donate to someone who does.

Argument 3: I Was Planning to Buy Beer, Instead.

And good for you, I say.  I can’t really relate, since I make my own, but I sort of get the concept: You’re thinking about beer.  That’s fine.  I think about beer all the time.  That’s no reason to deprive yourself of Girl Scout cookies.

In fact, the opposite is true.  You can pair your beer with Girl Scout cookies!

There are several articles out there already that follow this concept.  I agree with some, not so much with others. 

Now, it’s my turn.

Say, for instance, you, like myself, are enjoying a nice Irish stout.  

Hello Darkness, my old friend.

Well, go grab yourself a box of tagalongs.  You’ll thank me later.

Prefer thin mints?  Very popular choice.  And why not?  Their cool and crisp, with a clean and refreshing taste.  Try them with a clean-finishing lager.

Shortbread trefoils, go for a brown ale.

Samoas, invest in a good, strong Belgian ale.

Lemony savannah smiles work with witbier.

As for peanut butter do-si-does, in what will probably be my most controversial suggestion, think along the lines of a really grown-up peanut butter and jelly and pair it with a cherry kriek or raspberry framboise (both of which are styles of sour lambic, in case you didn’t know).

Now, if you’re munching on toffeetastic gluten-free cookies, you’ll probably be looking for something equally gluten-free.  I made a sparkling mead that fits the bill, but in the average beer store, you’ll probably have to stick with cider, or one of the few decent gluten-free beers (Bards is a good choice).

There!  Now, you’ve got no excuses!

Argument 4: But Why Do They Have to Be Girl Scouts?  Isn’t That Discrimination?

You’re gonna make me work for this sale, aren’t ya?

Ok, fine.  Challenge accepted.

Actually, this is a question a friend of mine posed to me a little while ago.  (To be fair to my friend, she was playing Devil’s advocate, not actually accusing the Girl Scouts of discrimination.)  She said, “What if a boy wanted to join the Girl Scouts?”

Nope, I said.  Girl Scouts needs to be there for girls.  I’m not going to argue that girls are different from boys, because I don’t ever argue that, but we have a society that constantly teaches our kids that very lesson. 

We teach our kids, through our shared societal norms, that a girl in a room full of boys is a little like a flute in an orchestra of trumpets.  And I’ve even seen my own daughter say something similar to me, about the “boys” in her class.

But I know my daughter, and I know she’s no flute.  I’m not sure yet if she’s a telecaster or a Stratocaster, but I know she’s not a flute.  And she needs an environment where she can find her instrument, and what kind of music she wants to play (I know, I’m stretching this metaphor pretty thin), without needing to constantly counter the implied gender differences of our society.

And those implied differences have real-life implications that once kept women from owning property, or voting, or working, and even today stand in the way of many careers and ensures that women are consistently underpaid compared to males doing the exact same job.  Women, in other words, have been and continue to be undervalued by society.  The way to combat that is not to pretend it doesn’t exist and teach that there are no differences between males and females, but rather to help change society from the bottom on up.  I want to teach my daughter that she can be or do anything in life, and I want to prepare her to lead a society where this is true (as opposed to the people leading our society now, where it isn’t).  That is where Girl Scouts has its place, as it teaches girls about being both citizens and leaders, and focuses on the experiences of girls, specifically, through history and all around the world.

Because yes, I know, if you look at statistics, even objective, scientifically valid statistical analysis, there are differences, on average, between girls and boys.

But that’s not important.  Because no one is completely average.  Outliers abound.

For instance, I know that my son has a statistically higher chance of winning a Nobel Prize than my daughter, based on a google a search I just did, which tells me that, in the history of Nobel Prizes, 825 men have won, versus just 49 women.

But statistics like that never tell the whole story.  They never tell the stories that I try to tell my Girl Scout troop.  To remind them of what they are all capable of.  Because I know that the first Nobel Prize awarded to a woman was awarded to Marie Curie in 1903, in the field of physics.  Then, in 1911, Curie was awarded a second Nobel Prize for chemistry.  That means that, not only was she the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she remains the first and only human being to ever receive two Nobel Prizes in two different fields.  Because there is no reason that girls can’t be that awesome.

And while Marie Curie was not a Girl Scout, Girl Scouts have done some pretty amazing things!  

And that is why we need Girl Scouts.  To teach them that they can be awesome, and that differences do not mean inferiority, and that someday, they will lead, they will be confident, be courageous, and make the world a better place.  For girls.  And for women.  And for boys and men, too, because helping one means helping the other.

That’s what your buying.  Not cookies.  A better future.

Now, enough chit-chat.  Buy some damned cookies!

Vote Smarts!

Before we get started, in the interest of full disclosure, let me say that Pluto isn’t a planet.

There are, of course, two distinct camps on this subject, and I wanted to make sure I let you know right off the bat which camp I’m in. I could go on to explain why I hold such an opinion, which involves Pluto’s size, especially relative to the other planets, the eccentricities of its orbit, and its proximity to the Kuiper Belt, but that would be a needless digression.

Because whichever side of that argument you’re on, last week was a great week for space geeks.

Yeah, I’m talking about New Horizons and its close encounter with the object that I grew up calling the ninth planet.

It’s a big deal whenever our space program does something impressive like send a probe to study another planet, but with Pluto…this is different.

Why is the New Horizons mission so amazing?

Because, Pluto was discovered less than a century ago, yet we know it has an orbit that will take 250 years to travel around the Sun once. If you stop and think about that for a second, an obvious question comes to mind: How do we even know that? How do we know its orbit if we haven’t even known of its existence long enough to observe one full orbital trip?

The answer is math, because the answer is always math.

(I’m not going to even begin to describe the math involved, because I know I’m not smart enough to do it justice. Ask your local rocket scientist. If you don’t know any rocket scientists, let me know, I’ll put you in touch with mine.)

How do we know they’re right?

How’s this for an answer: Ten years ago, some more really smart scientists figured out where Pluto would be a decade in the future, using that same math. Then, they figured out how to launch a satellite smaller than my car so it would leave Earth, path close enough to Jupiter that Jupiter’s gravity would actually serve as kind of a sling shot to make it speed up, and would arrive at just the right spot at just the right time so it would be able to take pictures of Pluto for the span of about one Earth day.

To put this in perspective, when New Horizons was launched, Pluto was still a planet. If they had gotten any of these calculations wrong, from the speed and path of Pluto, to the speed of the satellite leaving the Earth, to the speed it would pick up from Jupiter, New Horizons would have missed Pluto entirely. Or if the engineers had forgotten to solder a wire, or shield a sensitive piece of equipment, the onboard systems would have failed at some crucial moment and it would have gone dead and NASA would be seeing nothing but the Blue Screen of Death. Instead:

So, to sum up, a group of American scientists shot a camera at Pluto, knowing it would be in just the right spot a decade later, because that’s what math and science allows us to do. Meanwhile, our lawmakers are still trying to decide if Global Warming is a thing. (Spoiler Alert: It is,) Some of them want Creationism taught in high school science class, because Adam and Eve totally hung out with triceratops. And presidents have won debates (and elections) by pretending to be total idiots.

This is driving me crazy!

We seem to have this idea, in this country, that our politicians need to have qualities like, “relatable,” “in-touch with Main Street America,” “approachable,” and of course, have “family values.” (I’m not sure what that last refers to. Resale value, maybe?)

There are a few pretty famous examples in recent years. President Obama is regularly criticized as being too elitist, or of lecturing to people, or of being condescending. At one point during the last presidential election, he was referred to as “a snob” for suggesting that everyone should be able to go to college.

Here in Massachusetts, the Senate race between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren was full of the same kind of criticism, with Brown accusing Warren of having “is an elitist attitude there in the way she is communicating to us as citizens and telling us how do things, who should be taxed, who should not be taxed." He never hesitated to remind audiences that she was an academic, referring to her constantly as “Professor Warren,” and accused her of having a “way she is approaching things in terms of knowing better than others, how to do things.”

The nerve of some people! How dare she know things, or have an education!

And then there were the criticisms against John Kerry and Al Gore during their presidential runs, both of whom were criticized for not being relatable enough.

When did coming off as an Average Joe become more important for the people leading our nation than being smart and having good ideas?

There is a streak of anti-intellectualism that runs deep through our political system, which seems to favor those who either pretend to be under-educated, or are actually genuinely stupid. In some cases, both. Take, for instance, this nugget from the 2004 election.

That was in response to Kerry explaining that Bush was partial owner of a timber company for tax benefits. And yes, he did own a timber company, and he totally knew it.

Now, allow me to point out that both those guys went to Yale. One came off as intelligent, one as just a regular guy. Which one got elected?

Meanwhile, NASA’s budget is slashed and science is being openly attacked for making awesome (and occasionally depressing) discoveries, while our nation and indeed whole world is facing crises from climate change, emerging disease, and re-emerging diseases. 

And while some would have you think that this is a division between science-minded atheists and religious believers, we have the Pope speaking out about human-driven climate change, so that’s pretty clearly a false dichotomy.

No, our politicians are fighting science because they personally either don’t believe in it, which is worrisome enough, or they believe it but don’t want you to believe it, which might be worse.

So instead of intelligent, rational debate, we end up with ideologies that dictate positions without taking into account things like facts, or research, or the scientific method. Instead of politician asking us to think critically, we have morons telling how they’re going to “shoot from the hip,” “tell it like it is,” and “shoot straight with y’all.”

They are, of course, doing no such thing. And we all know that they’re lying to us. And when they prove to be totally incompetent, we complain about it, but conveniently ignore the fact that we voted them into office in the first place. But the fact that we allow them to do this, to act like morons and treat us like morons, just demonstrates our own complicity in this dance. Every day, we listen to the jabbering of complete and total idiots reciting their opinion, informed only by strict ideological guidelines (capitalism=always good, or oil drilling= always bad), and act like they are saying something worthwhile. They’re not saying anything!

I'm just gonna leave this here.

Perhaps people just don't want to believe that anyone can be smarter than them, that they have all the answers, that they are right, everyone else is wrong, and suck it! Well, I hate to break this to you, but someone out there is smarter than you. And somebody has better ideas than you, no matter how good your ideas are. And if you take the stance that you're always right, at some point, you will be wrong.
But that's not how the choice is presented to us. Partially, this is the media, playing on our need for clear narratives (Us vs. Them), and partially this is politicians, using clever short-hand to speak opinions that they know their constituents share without saying them aloud ("states rights," for example, doesn't sound racist and bigoted at all, does it?). But mostly, it's our own fault, for allowing this kind of go-nowhere, accomplish-nothing politicizing to go on in the first place! The world doesn't fall neatly into 2 categories; we are not conservative and liberal, or whatever. Rather, we are a nation uniquely built on a framework of argument. We are built on two contradictory principles: Liberty and Equality. In a nation of absolute Liberty, no one would be equal, because some people would be actively prevented from achieving, and ultimately exploited, and would have no recourse against those who basically wanted to do whatever they wanted. But in a fully equal society, liberty is taken away, and no one is allowed to achieve based on their own hard work and perseverance. The Constitution was framed to give us the means to have debates on where within the spectrum of Liberty and Equality we as a people choose to fall at a certain time, recognizing that where we choose to fall will shift over time.

Debates between two sides, as opposed to two immutably ideals; that was the intention of this country. 

Now, we have the opposite: gridlock without compromise, and leaders choosing to be ignorant of the damage they are doing to our country by their own stupidity and stubbornness.

We can do better than this. We have to do better than this! I want political leaders who are smarter than me! There, I said it. If you’re going to run my country, you damn well better be able to think for yourself and make informed decisions!

I want a candidate who (for example) believes human activity is causing massive and dangerous changes to the environment, who believes that life on this planet evolved from single-cell organisms and we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, who believes in medicine, vaccinations, the heliocentric model of the solar system, quantum mechanics (but who doesn’t misuse quantum jargon to justify pseudoscience), who is willing to try new things, based on rigorous, evidence-based research, and who is willing to try something else if new research comes along.  I don’t care if they think Pluto’s a planet. A little disagreement is a good thing.

We can all do this, we can all vote for someone smarter than us.

(Caveat: Being incredibly smart does not automatically exclude the possibility of being incredibly stupid. People are complex creatures, and we are often capable of being both at the same time.)

But I still believe that if we all do this, if we all stand up and demand better of our politicians, if we insist that they not pander to the lowest common denominator or treat us like we’re stupid, we can turn things around. Those guys that did the math to fire a rocket and pass within a few thousand kilometers of Pluto? Those are the guys I want working on our budget.

Elections are coming up. Local, state, national, presidential. For all of these, I say, vote!

But don’t vote your ideology.

Instead, Vote Smarts!

Really, we’ve got nothing to lose.

What the Hell is Corned Beef, And Why Am I Eating It?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! 

‘Tis a day to honor Ireland’s most venerated and holy saint by wearing green and drinking to excess.  ‘Cause that’s just how we roll.

Slainte!

And by “we,” I mean Irish-Americans.  Or, rather, Americans, really of any descent. Strangely, this is a tradition that doesn’t have much traction in other countries, like, say, Ireland, where they insist on honoring this saint’s day by, y’know, going to church.

Yes, St. Patrick’s Day, as we know it, is as American as apple pie.  (Maybe more.  I have no idea how American apple pie really is.)  The holiday as we know it in this country was created as a way to express pride in Irish heritage, particularly at times when Irish immigrant minorities in cities were not feeling the love from Anglo-Americans.  (You may not know this, but the Irish and British have not traditionally demonstrated much mutual respect toward each other.  To say the least.)

Today, St. Patrick’s Day has been embraced by Americans of Irish descent, or dubious Irish descent, and is accepted and even enjoyed by Americans of any ancestry.  Which is why so many people across our country, myself included, will be sitting down to a dinner of corned beef and cabbage.

So what the hell is corned beef, anyway?

Well, the first thing that corned beef is NOT is a traditional Irish food.

Ireland has traditionally produced a good amount of beef, including corned beef, which is something of a staple in British cuisine, but the cows, the land they grazed on, and the meat they produced has, until the last century, been owned largely by English land-owners, the meat being exported to Britain, and too expensive for the majority of Irish to afford.

No, corned beef entered the Irish culinary scene only after huge numbers of poor Irish fled Ireland and landed on the East Coast of the United States.

Corned beef, you see, is made from beef brisket, a fairly tough cut of beef, deemed by most as inferior and therefore cheap.  The trick with brisket is in the preparation. One method involved either brining or salting the beef, often with different spices, similar to pickling spices.  Now, “corn” is not what you think it is.  The word “corn” doesn’t refer to what we call corn (which is actually maize) but rather refers to seeds, and was often used interchangeably with the word “grain.”  Because of the seeds present in the pickling or brining of the beef, it was referred to as “corned.”  Thus, corned beef.  Preparing it in this way, followed by a long cooking time, usually boiled, because what the hell else did poor Irish immigrants have to cook it in besides water, makes the meat much more delicious than it would have been.

Corned beef is, therefore, not Irish food, but rather immigrant food.  This is likewise why it shows up in the cuisine of other immigrants who came in large numbers to American cities in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and why corned beef and its smoked cousin pastrami are staples of any good Jewish deli.  Add in potatoes and cabbage, also both cheap foods that you can make a lot out of, and you have the history of poor immigrants and their struggle for both survival and identity in a foreign land that largely hated them, all right there in one pot.  Because they usually didn’t have more than one pot.

What these early Irish immigrants did was no different than what other immigrant groups, like Italians or Mexicans, have also done, which is to take a fairly minor person or event, and conflate their importance to that of a national figure, and in doing so help create a unified cultural identity.  By making a big deal out of this one guy, they eventually got non-Irish and non-Catholics on board with legitimizing this part of their culture.  It’s kind of what Americans have always done.

It doesn’t matter that St. Patrick wasn't Irish, Columbus might not have been Italian, or Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day.  These are moments of culture unity, that help us, as a nation, remember that this nation was founded by immigrants, for immigrants.  And we need to celebrate that immigrant past even as we find a way to embrace the new cultures coming into our country every day.

So here's to the Irish!  Now sit back, relax, have some corned beef, and drink a beer.  (But please, don’t drink the green beer.)

And have a very happy Evacuation Day!