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Daily Bread for 9.14.21: ‘Foreign and Domestic’

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 78.  Sunrise is 6:34 AM and sunset 7:05 PM for 12h 30m 23s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 57.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1994, the Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.


Jamelle Bouie writes George W. Bush 2021, Meet George W. Bush 2001:

“We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within,” Bush said. “There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

From there, Bush voiced his dismay at the stark polarization and rigid partisanship of modern American politics. “A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures,” he said. “So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together.”

Bush spoke as if he were just an observer, a concerned elder statesman who fears for the future of his country. But that’s nonsense. Bush was an active participant in the politics he now bemoans.

Bouie is critical of Bush’s policies, and sees those policies as responsible for many of our current divisions. By Bouie’s reading, Bush is no bystander to our present maladies.

It is worth noting, however, that here in the rural Midwest, even acknowledging as Bush did that there are domestic threats to the constitutional order is controversial.

It should not be a controversial claim. The current form of the presidential oath of office expressly contemplates dangers to the American Republic both ‘foreign and domestic’:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

To say as much draws right-wing populist fury, as they suspect that it is about them that concerns over domestic threats often originate.

They’d draw less concern from others if they did not lie about election results, support violent insurrections against the government, or threaten the use of force in public meetings. 

But they do all of these, and so they merit the concern of others.


Bear Charges Out of Dumpster Towards Man Near Lake Tahoe:

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