-continued from previous post -
WHICH KIND OF REPUBLIC?
So how could the United States of America, the land of the
free and the home of the brave, have sunk so low as to submit
to these demagogues, to feel obligated to "save" its citizens
from an everyday item sold here regularly for the past
hundred years, and in common use for the past fifty? The
answer can be found in the most basic philosophical
underpinnings of our country.
From its establishment in 1789, the American republic
itself, as well as its promises of Life, Liberty, and the
Pursuit of Happiness, have meant different things to
different of its citizens. The most important of these
differences can be traced to two fundamentally different and
largely irreconcilable philosophical outlooks.
Two centuries ago, these differences were widely recognized
and understood, because they very nearly prevented the
Constitutional Convention from reaching any conclusion at
all. Today the differences are just as deep, and just as
pervasive, but most of us tend to see them only in regard to
specific contemporary issues, rather than as more general
matters of philosophy. The conflicts over such divisive
issues as abortion, gun control, drug prohibition,
affirmative action, environmental protection, and industrial
policy can never be settled by reasoned debate, because the
adherents to each side of these issues do not share a common
philosophy. Instead the resolution of these issues will be
dictated, unsatisfactorily to all, by the naked exercise of
political power: the tyranny of popular or Congressional
majorities inflamed by media hysteria, or the arbitrary
absolutism of the courts.
The two irreconcilable views of the nature of our republic
that underlie these issues today have been a part of the
republic since the beginning. A clear exposition of these two
views is set forth by University of Alabama professor Forrest
McDonald in his 1985 book, Novus Ordo Seclorum, The
Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. On pages 70-74 he
explains the differences between what he calls puritanical
republicanism, on the one hand, and agrarian republicanism,
on the other. First, however, he elucidates their common
ground.
He says that in a true republic, a system of "rule by the
public," the vital principle is public virtue (from virtus,
manly strength). In Professor McDonald's words, public virtue
"entailed firmness, courage, endurance, industry, frugal
living, strength, and above all, unremitting devotion to the
weal of the public's corporate self, the community of
virtuous men. It was at once individualistic and communal:
individualistic in that no member of the public could be
dependent upon any other and still be reckoned a member of
the public; communal in that every man gave himself totally
to the good of the public as a whole. If public virtue
declined, the republic declined, and if it declined too far,
the republic died.
"Philosophical historians had worked out a regular life
cycle, or more properly death cycle, of republics. Manhood
gave way to effeminacy, republican liberty to licentiousness.
Licentiousness, in turn, degenerated into anarchy, and
anarchy inevitably led to tyranny." Thus far did the two
republican philosophies agree.
"What distinguished puritanical republicanism from the
agrarian variety was that the former sought a moral solution
to the problem of the mortality of republics (make better
people), whereas the latter believed in a socioeconomic-
political solution (make better arrangements).
"Almost nothing was outside the purview of puritanical
republican government, for every matter that might in any way
contribute to strengthening or weakening the virtue of the
public was a thing of concern to the public -- a res publica
-- and it was subject to regulation by the public. [Puritan]
Republican liberty was totalitarian: one was free to to do
that, and only that, which was in the interest of the public,
the liberty of the individual being subsumed in the freedom
or independence of his political community."
This totalitarian view of a fragile and tottering republic,
one that would be undermined by the slightest private
indiscretion, one that could only be preserved by an
aggressive policing of every individual's private morality in
every minute particular, predominated in Puritan New England,
especially Massachusetts. It also found favor in the areas of
the South, especially parts of Virginia, where the
evangelical Great Awakening took hold. Most southerners,
however, adhered to the agrarian view of republicanism.
In the agrarian view, again quoting McDonald, "Virtue meant
manliness, and manliness meant independence... the
necessary independence could be had only if a man owned
enough land, unencumbered by debts or other obligations, to
provide himself and his family with all their material needs;
and this independence... was in the last analysis measured
by his ability to bear arms and use them in his own
quarrels... In sum, ownership of the land begat independence,
independence begat virtue, and virtue begat republican
liberty... In the southern scheme of things, private virtue,
in the rigorous sense in which it was defined by the Yankees,
was unnecessary to the maintenance of republican liberty. The
arch agrarian John Taylor of Caroline [1753-1824] put it
succinctly: 'The more a nation depends for its liberty on the
qualities of individuals, the less likely it is to retain it.
By expecting public good from private virtue, we expose
ourselves to public evils from private vices.'"
If Taylor were to return today, he would nod sagely at our
drug "crisis" and say, "end the prohibition and you will end
the crisis." The puritans among us (currently a majority,
especially in the mass media) would gasp with horror, and
predict the imminent demise of our republic.
McDonald continues, "Agrarian republicanism was therefore
essentially negative in the focus of its militance: it
demanded vigilance only in regard to certain kinds of men and
institutions which, as its adherents viewed history, had
proved inimical or fatal to liberty... standing armies,
priests, bishops, aristocrats, luxury, excises, speculators,
jobbers, paper shufflers, monopolists, bloodsuckers, and
monocrats..."
Agrarian republicans, in theory anyway, viewed their
republic as well-founded and durable. The puritan view of a
fragile and tottering republic baffled them. Private
morality, or a lack thereof, simply had no effect on an
agrarian republic's overall vitality. The only kind of
behavior that could endanger their republic was a calculated
self-serving attack on one of its fundamental institutions:
private property, equality before the law, free markets, the
right to keep and bear arms.
Puritan republicans, by contrast, view every sin, indeed
every temptation to sin, as dire threats to their republic.
Their response in every case is simple and direct. First ban
the sin. Then, just to be on the safe side, ban the
temptation, too.
This is not at all a left-versus-right issue. Militant
puritans dominate the extremes on both sides. Those on the
right who would ban abortion and those on the left who would
ban hand guns both aspire to a puritan police state that will
regulate the behavior of their neighbors and themselves --
although puritan leaders often exempt themselves from their
own rules.
An agrarian, by contrast, might say, "if you oppose
abortion, don't have one; if you oppose hand guns, don't own
one; if you oppose drugs, don't use them. He is willing to
live and let live, unless someone attacks him or his
republic.
PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICE
In the 1950s, America's puritan republican zeal, ever
watchful for temptation and sin, turned its basilisk gaze on
to pocketknives. The 1950s, a time of happy nostalgia for
people too young to remember the decade, saw the almost
unchallenged dominance of the puritan outlook. That was a
time when the fortunes of the agrarian viewpoint had fallen
so low that hardly a single public figure North or South
dared to espouse it.
There is a fascinating double standard in puritanism, an
unwritten rule that the enforcers of private morality are
exempt from its strictures. This applies equally to private
life (such as J. Edgar Hoover's homosexuality or John F.
Kennedy's adultery) and to public pronouncements. Today the
proponents of "assault" rifle and hand gun bans simply make
up their statistics (see my letter citing examples in the
October 1989 American Rifleman, page 18), and their
predecessors did the same thing about switchblades in the
1950s.
As early as 1953, Representative Delaney "made a 1-man
review and addressed inquiries to the police heads of some 40
of our largest and medium-sized cities. The response
established beyond doubt that switchblades are commonly
involved in crimes in smaller cities, as well as in the
metropolitan areas."
In 1957 and 1958, similar "surveys" were undertaken by
Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver for the Senate Judiciary
Committee's Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency.
These surveys asked police chiefs for hard data on
switchblades used in crimes, especially juvenile crimes.
Not quite half of the chiefs responded, furnishing the
coon-skin-capped crime buster overall crime statistics, total
juvenile arrest statistics, and enthusiastic letters of
support assuring the senator that switchblade knives were no
doubt involved in practically all of these tens of thousands
of incidents. Kefauver quoted excerpts from some of these
letters, happily oblivious to their irony.
San Francisco police chief Francis J. Ahern wrote "'... a
substantial amount of our juvenile crimes of violence involve
the use of this type of knife.' He further stated that since
the enactment of a local ordinance, the use of such knives in
crimes has diminished."
San Francisco sure was lucky to have such law-abiding
violent criminals.
Senator Kefauver may have had no sense of irony, but at
least he knew a little more knife history than his colleagues
on Capitol Hill. He remarked toward the close of his
statement, "Invented by George Schrade in 1898 [actually
1892], the pushbutton opening knife was a useful article
produced on a limited scale."
Half a page earlier in the same statement, Kefauver quoted
Boston police chief James F. Daley as having written, "...
these weapons are specifically designed as a vicious
insidious weapon of assault, and can be devoted to no
legitimate use in the everyday life of law-abiding citizens."
Having no sense of irony did not worry the crusading
senator, and neither did having no data. He stated, "The
following statistics give a general indication of the
increase in the use of weapons by juveniles. Although no
statistics are available as to the ratio of these switchblade
knives and stilettos to other weapons, it is believed to be
substantial:
"In New York City in 1956, there was an increase of 92.1
percent of those under 16 arrested for the possession of
dangerous weapons, one of the most common kind being the
switchblade knife; and also in New York 36.9 [percent] of the
felonious assaults, many involving use of switchblade knives,
were committed by those under 16. On the national level, 29.6
percent of the total arrested for carrying dangerous weapons
was attributable to young persons under the age of 18. A more
shocking and striking figure is that 43.2 percent of the
total robberies committed in the United States last year were
by persons under 21 years of age. A switchblade knife is very
often part of the perpetrator's equipment in a robbery."
If Senator Kefauver had lived longer (he died in 1963), he
might have become a writer for Saturday Night Live, or else a
co-author of the classic work, How to Lie with Statistics.
Only one police chief in the country had the professional
integrity and poor political judgement to compile actual
statistics on switchblades. This was W. E. Parker, the acting
chief of the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department. That
Lt. Col. Parker was a career policeman, rather than a
political appointee, probably accounted for his naive
indiscretion.
Parker reported that in the entire year 1956, a total of 15
switchblade knives were used in assaults and robberies in
Kansas City (just over one per month). An additional 80
switchblades were taken from suspects booked for
investigation of crimes (well under two per week).
"In addition," he wrote, "there were 10 to 12 cases in
which these knives were used by one juvenile to take money
from another [less than one per month], and during the same
period there were 6 cases of cuttings [one every two months]
as well as several cases where knives were thrown by one
juvenile at another." In a city of nearly half a million
population, these three dozen switchblade crimes,
misdemeanors, and incidents of horseplay in one year hardly
constituted a crime wave, let alone a crisis.
These lonely facts from Kansas City did not interest the
Congress. They found much more fascinating the lurid
sensationalist stories and editorials in Life magazine, the
Saturday Evening Post, many daily newspapers, and even on
radio and television "news."
These articles were timed to coincide with the
congressional switchblade hearings. They were calculated to
convince frightened credulous puritans in and out of congress
that the country was awash in blood from frenetic waves of
juvenile switchblade violence -- that the republic was
tottering. Congressman Yates said, "newspapers and magazines
are filled with descriptions of gang fights, holdups and
stabbings, committed by teenagers, and running through almost
all such stories is the switchblade knife. The gruesome
similarity in detail related by these stories is relieved
only by the horror that each one reflects individually... The
switchblade knife has become the symbol, as well as the
weapon, of the teen-age gang."
As news reporting this material was a travesty, even more
luridly overblown than firearms stories are today. As
propaganda, however, these articles passed the only important
test. They worked.
*** END ***
http://www.knife-expert.com/
