Hi All
From time to time, my Mom uncovers some old missives and letters that my late Grandfather wrote. I am not certain whether this belongs under this heading or not as this tends to touch on matters political and religious. Since it has to do with the Religious Right, I am placing here.He and I didn't always agree but in some matters, I trust his judgement. I suppose I might have a little bias due to my raising, however, this little tidbit, I feel is reasonable. Have look if you please.
I think we, most of us, tend to outgrow the more or less narrow view we have when young. I say most for I’ve experienced some whom I doubt have altered any significant view since grade school or perhaps high school. I suppose the content with their basic set of values, but, in my experience, aside from their trade or business life they have not thought through any ideas of either religious or political (should I say social) life in years. I am sure they would have to alter some if they looked closely for the person of public school age and the person of, say mid-life – are not the same by any means.
From the time I was fourteen, and we had moved to the water plant location in Madison, until I left home at twenty both the world and I altered considerably. I suppose the fact I was young made the time seem longer than it actually was, but the changes in my life and outlook, viewed in retrospect, were far greater than the span of years. I do think that looking back and seeing how extreme the altered circumstances and the means devised to deal with them helps to balance an old man’s view of the present fast altering world. I am saddened to think how many people today think current times are so much worse than former times and the pace of life faster than ever it has been, but that simply isn’t the case at all. The social and technical changes between only 1934 when I was fourteen and 1939 when I was nineteen were about as great and the world was surely turning upside down.
My first job was as a Government worker in 1937. The NYA, National Youth Administration I think was the moniker, paid me to manage the boys locker room during one of my two vacant periods of the school day. It was a snap sort of job but the school year job paid me enough for me to buy a ten tube radio with short wave included and my world expanded wildly. I rigged a huge outdoor antenna and late at night I could get both the West Coast and Hawaii with ease and on a good night I could hear Singapore. It was wonderful and man, the dance bands were out of this world. The family had no money to spend on music lessons or an instrument but it cost nothing for me to sing and I had young dreams of making a name for myself singing with a dance band – which shows how very little I knew about the world.
That many of those dreams were wildly ignorant of the real world is only to be expected but looking back I am shocked by such a warped view of the world. On one hand I spent much thought reasoning out what still remains my social attitude relative to government and foreign policy, not too bad for a kid in his teens, while on the other hand my view of girls and their place in both civil and military life was still all but 19th century.
Following the Spanish Civil War with such resources ad I had (nothing like the TV and radio coverage of the Vietnam war) and the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini, both of which were ignored by the Allies of the World War, soon to become the First World War, I grew more and more fearful that another great war was about to happen. The point is not that I was so smart but that the former Allies, for some reason still not clear, chose to turn a blind eye upon the obvious – it was a very deliberate action on their part and once again innocent young people and civilians had to pay for their stupid views. My point here is to try and give you a peek into the background which largely set the pattern for my current thinking and – not that they matter in the ‘real world’ at all – moral position, or I should say my ideas of morality. The notion that our society, however large they print CHRISTIAN on it, care not a whit about human life so long as it isn’t their own. There is scant morality in national affairs and none at all in international matters. I lacked the education to articulate these views in any formal sense and , indeed, I more of felt them than verbalized them.
One of the hardest, and most painful, things I was to learn in my progress to something near an adult state was that the good intentioned and very moral people were quite often the most stupid in both civil and military affairs regardless if local, national, or international concern. I confess they made nice neighbors but, as an old military man, I’d sure hate to have them out on an R and I patrol. In matters of government and the operation of a multi-raced society they are unfit, developing into either slavish kind of people to some civil movement, or, worse, ripe for a take over by any foreign power. I don’t think many can doubt the outrageous religious morality of Oliver Cromwell but no person who values freedom would care to live under such a person or their ideas.
Do you think, perhaps, that our educational system (among other faults) does not tell enough about the costs of freedom to the individual experiencing it in our free society?? Simply stated, so the average do not pick it up really, freedom isn’t free but requires constant vigilance and, even more difficult, tolerance of those we don’t like and of ideas we think bad indeed. Practical freedom in any society is difficult and requires constant effort and a lot of thought. Tolerance is easier to both spell and to say than to practice. To the righteous right wing I’d suggest they try and build a simple kind of machine requiring several moving parts and do it with something called ZERO TOLERANCE. From an old production type background I love to see any of them try just once. The idea sounds fine but the practice is impossible. (Some small good comes from a background in manufacturing after all!)
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