Addendum, Corrĭgundum, Quĭcunque

I ranted yesterday. I vented. Passion took control over intellect. Mea culpa. Not that I regret anything I said – I stand by it all, but I fear I was not as lucid as I wanted to be. Today is the perfect day for setting things straight by clarifying my thoughts. It's my mother's birthday. Or it would have been. Better, it's the 113^th anniversary of her birth. She and my father reared me in a secure home in New York, and I was totally unaware of the world war that was being waged, or of economic problems.

Safety, security, ignorance. Those were the hallmarks of my early childhood. We had a president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a father figure who was in charge of everything. The press shielded him from scrutiny and hid the facts that he was disabled and that he was having an extra-marital affair. Modern society may not concern itself with such dalliances now, but it was significant then. Now we report everything, we relish rumor and gossip, and anything “good” goes “viral.” The press then focused its reporting on what was “acceptable” news, and limited our knowledge of what might be offensive – if only to the publisher. And so we remained ignorant of much that was important. Unfortunately things haven't changed – only the limits of media acceptability have – with accuracy, pertinence, and significance deferring to political ideology and to shock value.

In any case, FDR was loved. He was adored and worshiped. He was solving our economic and military problems. We could depend on him.

At least some could. He was opposed to free entry into our country. The god of the liberals “recommended that future immigration should be limited to those who had 'blood of the right sort.' … In 1943, he told government officials in Allied-liberated North Africa that the number of local Jews in various professions 'should be definitely limited' so as to 'eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany.'” (Los Angeles Times) FDR was a “religionist.” He was anti-Semitic, proclaiming proudly, that "there is no Jewish blood in our veins." Hundreds of thousands of Jews died because of his bias. And there were no cross-country protest marches; no calls for immigration.

And he was a racist. Earlier “he warned against granting citizenship to 'non-assimilable immigrants' and opposed Japanese immigration on the grounds that 'mingling Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results.'” (Los Angeles Times) He opposed immigrants based on their country of origin, race, and religion – and we loved him. The Constitution played no part in the discussion. There was no concern then with “American values.”

Why am I spending so much time on a previous president? For several reasons. First of all, today is his birthday too. And his outlook on refugees wasn't very different from that of our present leader, however the populace and the press supported him, and they oppose our current president. It was fashionable and patriotic then to do so, just as it is fashionable now to protest whatever President Trump does or says or is rumored to think, and to find fault with our country. I neither backed Mr. Trump nor voted for him, and I am appalled by some of his proposals, but he is our president. President Roosevelt increased unsupervised presidential power, as have presidents since him. And President Trump is attempting to do so now.

There's an army out there. They're ready to make signs and noise – to protest whatever is said to be opposed to what we want. Right or wrong doesn't matter. In fact no one really thinks about it. And the demonstrators are often assembled and given marching orders over the social media, which are dominated by those with an ax to grind, and which act as a goad for the masses attached to them. That group, both those who are offended by something or other – it doesn't matter what – and by their followers, are “who we are.” They have strong opinions or follow the leadership of those who do. We see it in those who try to influence the way we think. That means the media, and the armies of the protesters against the president as well as his supporters.

But finally, there's one more reason for my focusing on FDR. And it's the most important. He, too, is “who we are.” He was bigoted and biased.

All of us are people. All of us have prejudices, but those with power are the most dangerous when they use it. FDR had power and many died because of his biases, but no one cared. Now people, with new and different orientations, like to believe they care. But they don't. Whatever the current cause of the contretemps, it's just an excuse to don their uniforms so they can show everyone who they are. Or at least who they think they are.

They don't really represent American philosophy. They'd rather rant and vent than do so.