-Source-The American Dossier,By John Katz Editor-
September 8,2018
The door to door Kool-Aid Swamp campaign never seizes to find a new low. Our editorial and commentary on this is not about coming to the defense of a particular person. It is about a principle of being an American and living in a Republic. The Swampland existed long before President Trump.
This past Wednesday the New York Times stooped to a new claim in having an Anonymous Senior level source on President Trumps Staff, who claims to "have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations."
I guess Swampland has gotten bored with its Collusion campaign. Whether fact or fiction never has a sitting Presidential administration been colluded against to this extreme. It is scandal provoking and un-American and simply taboo. The New York Times has chosen to capitalize on this Anonymous source for their monetary gain.
One has to wonder if there is an anonymous source.
This anonymous individual clearly has a messiah complex as he/she goes on to say “the root of the problem is the President’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”
This whole development had me flashback to my days of debate in college as a Religion/Philosophy major. In the realm of religion and ethics exists natural law.
The principle of double effect, which is part of the natural law tradition, says that under certain conditions it's permissible to do something with a morally good intended effect and an ethically bad unintended side effect.
If indeed this anonymous source exists, are they above the rule of natural law?
One of my favorite books growing up was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court written by Mark Twain. In 1949 it was made into a movie starring Bing Crosby. It is about a mechanic in 1912 who bumps his head and finds himself in Arthurian Britain in AD 528, where he is befriended by a knight and gains power by judicious use of technology (Perhaps he would have used Twitter) and meddles in the politics of the kingdom, and trouble ensues.
In a rather bizarre way, I see President Trump, the Washington outsider as the modern day ‘mechanic’ (or as some choose to label as a maniac) who has found himself in the middle of the swamp and; as he wants to serve the country he loves. Instead of using the atypical tools of a career politician he has tried different methods… that worked for him as a successful (like or despise him) businessman for the common good and boy oh boy has trouble ensued.
I recently sat down with a friend over coffee, and as usual, our conversation led into talking about politics and how much we have evolved over the last 30 years of having to choose the greater/common good when electing our leaders. It is the old school of thought of accepting the reality that we have to fight and win the battles first before we can win a war.
Because of our Forefathers and the U.S. Constitution, we have had and always will have an elected leadership. By laws of our Republic they have been allowed to serve in full despite a majority or minority being at odds with their methodology. To date, it has not been proven that President Trump has violated his oath of office. Yet the circus continues...
To label the President as amoral is judgmental and irresponsible.
This leads back to the earlier comment about the principle of the Common good.
I recently came across an old Time Magazine article that explains this principle:
“The common good has origins in the beginnings of Christianity. An early church father, John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), once wrote: “This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good . . . for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for his neighbors.”
Of course, all our religious traditions say that we are indeed our neighbor’s keeper, but today people of every faith don’t often actually say and do the things that their faith says and stands for.
The notion of the common good has both religious and secular roots going back to Catholic social teaching, the Protestant social gospel, Judaism, Islam, and in the American Constitution itself, which says that government should promote “the general welfare.” It is our fundamental political inclination: don’t go right, don’t go left; go deeper. But we’ve lost touch with that moral compass in Washington D.C., where it has been replaced by both ideology and money.”
It then goes on to say:
“A commitment to the common good could bring us together and solve the deepest problems this country and the world now face: How do we work together? How do we treat each other, especially the poorest and most vulnerable? How do we take care of not just ourselves but also one another?”
“We have lost, but can and should find again the principle of common good. It goes back many centuries, but the need for a new dialogue about what it means and what its practice would require of us has never seemed more critical. Our media have become so polarized volatile, and our political institutions have lost the public trust.”
Media resources that choose to capitalize on chaos as The New York Times have selected to present are not serving the common good.
Or Perhaps the Connecticut Yankee got it right ….
“My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.” ― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
The Anonymous coward needs SIMPLY to come forward and either run for office or GO AND VOTE in 2020!
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