nishatalitha

One thing for which we can be thankful — to God, if there be a God, and to some exceptional statesman almost two and a half centuries ago — is the United States Constitution, as as Veronique de Rugy writes. Immigrants, they get the job done, including the job of explaining to Americans what is special about this country. May the United States of America and its experiment in republican self-government survive our appalling current president, his cronies, and the fools or worse on both sides of the political spectrum.

In an attempt to share my good fortune with some of those in need, I made a donation yesterday through the Combined Federal Campaign to several organizations which I believe to be doing good in the world; the largest donation was to the International Rescue Committee, as I was thinking in particular about the hideous situation in Sudan. Today, I made a donation to assist with the defense of Ukraine.

James Bovard has reviewed a new biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by David T. Beito, and considers it an antidote to the FDR cult, portraying Roosevelt as a scoundrel. He very much had his moral failings, and I believe that many of his policies were harmful (not quite the same thing). I am not sure that I would agree with Bovard’s and Beito’s criticisms of Roosevelt for getting us into World War Two. True, he was shifty, and true, American entry into the war cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. On the other hand, not entering the war on the Allied side could have resulted in a world dominated by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, which might have caused major long-term problems for the United States, to say the least.

I do agree, though, that the New Deal failed to end the Great Depression, did considerable harm of its own, and contributed to a cultural and political shift in favor of activist government that was generally not beneficial, and set us on the road to the current situation of huge deficits and the prospective bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare.