[Editor’s Note: This week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the NFL has “moved on” from Colin Kaepernick, the great QB who dared to speak out about violence against African-Americans. At Audere, some of us feel that the blacklisting of Colin Kaepernick is a tragedy and an outrage, and many others agree. In the Atlantic, Jemele Hill wrote, “The league’s clumsy treatment of Kaepernick only showed what the quarterback’s supporters have been saying all along: The NFL is unwilling to tolerate black athletes’ outrage, outspokenness, and desire to exercise their power — even though all three are entirely justified.” The late Alan N. Levy, the novelist, who wrote columns for Audere and The Times of Israel, would not have agreed. As it happens, he wrote his very last column on the subject of Colin Kaepernic, just days before his death. We didn’t publish this at the time. But given the newsworthiness of the subject this week, and our personal respect for Alan, we are publishing it now. This column doesn’t reflect the opinion of Audere Magazine or Chickadee Prince Books. As much as we may disagree with his ideas here, he deserves to make his view known.]
Alan N. Levy: If we’re going to put one of these sort-of-look-alike gentlemen on a pedestal, please let it be the guy on the left [see above]. Ironically, this nation is great, and not because of the likes of Abraham Lincoln.
Surely he was a great president, and yes he had a way with words … any doubts, any newbies? Read the Gettysburg Address, one of the most profoundly written and moving speeches in the history of mankind. And, oh, by the way, the guy on the right carried the Union to a victory over the Confederacy in a bloody civil war that left more than 620,000 dead. Colin, now THAT was a Super Bowl.
No, Colin, this nation is great because of you. Not because of your position on things, and certainly not because you choose to show complete disrespect for this nation by kneeling while our national anthem is being played. And certainly not because of your questionable skill set or your mediocre gridiron accomplishments. This nation is great because we tolerate you, we listen to you, we allow you the right to free speech that more than 400,000 marked graves at Arlington National Cemetery have assured you. We tolerate you, and we tolerate anarchists. We tolerate the American Nazi Party moronic zealots and the Socialists, who, at least in my view, represent the North and South poles in a polarized nation.
So you don’t like the Betsy Ross flag. And you don’t like this and you don’t like that. Then work to change things. Become a force to be reckoned with, within whichever political party you may choose. We each have the power to exercise influence, we each have the ability to share our passion with others and transform thought processes and lives. Be more than a protestor; that’s all I ask.
Many years ago, I was a Service Director at a dealership in Atlanta. A customer pulled onto the service lane, and one of our porters greeted him before a Service Consultant could do so. The porter walked up to the customer, said something, and then shook his hand. When the customer walked inside, he very politely asked the Service Consultant if he might first have a word with me. The man was ushered into my office, and he closed the door.
I suggested he take a seat, and he replied that he preferred to stand. It was then that I noticed the anger seething within him, preparing to boil over.
He said, “Sir, I come from an impoverished childhood. But I realized at a very early age that the only salvation I had, the only thing that might pull me out of the ghetto, was an education. My Master’s Degree is from Georgia Tech, I have a loving family, and I am blessed to be able to assist my mother now, in return for all those years we struggled so mightily. I am a vice-president of a company here in Atlanta, and your porter, that poorly-trained young man, and I blame you for all this, sir, had the audacity to greet me outside with his version of a ghetto handshake and some sophomoric quip that he assumes has created a bond between us.”
As he turned to leave my office, he added, ”And please don’t insult me by assuming I’m just another average customer who’s complaining in order to get a free service here or a token discount. I intend to pay my bill, in full, but I shall never return.”
Embarrassment completely engulfed me. I’m a Jew, I comprehend prejudice and social injustice. I seethe at bigotry and the arrogant assumption that a people decides another group is inferior. In German, the word associated with that concept is “niedermenschen,” one of the most disparaging terms in that language. I contemplated joining that outraged man in the customer lounge, in order to explain that I grew up in a one-room apartment and that my parents’ bed dropped down from a wall. Of course, I didn’t do that, because the chasm between us would have widened. My personal contact with prejudice is primarily historical in nature, with few, although highly unpleasant, direct personal encounters. The black man in our society and his experience with prejudice is not only direct, but is normally a daily occurrence.
Can a white man like me possibly comprehend what moves Colin Kaepernick? Not completely, because the two of us grew up in different sides of this nation. But did I catch a glimpse of that, in the intensity of the man before me in my office that morning? Yes, I did.
Colin, you may think it a victory to convince Nike to cease sale of sneakers with a circle of stars on their label, but it was not. That’s not the way to change the world or to eliminate bigotry and prejudice in this nation.
Do better than to merely protest, Colin. One man can do great things.
Just look to Lincoln as the man you should aspire to be.
And if you ponder how to begin your journey within the law, of course, your battle cry is already there.
Just do it.
^^^
Alan N. Levy, who died in 2019, was a political columnist at Audere and blogger at The Times of Israel, and the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, published in September from Chickadee Prince Books. The book is available right now in paperback at your local bookstore, from Amazon and B&N, and also on Kindle.
Our friend and colleague, Alan N. Levy, has died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 76, on July 14, while returning home from an Alaska vacation with his wife, Helene. Alan was a skilled, ingenious and incorrigibly opinionated political columnist and author of an upcoming geo-political thriller, The Tenth Plague.
Early life
Alan was born in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1961 and received a Master’s Degree from the University of Illinois in 1967. As a young man, he was active in the Boy Scouts and developed an unending love of the outdoors and fishing. Alan was an athlete and especially enjoyed playing basketball, among other sports. Alan began his career in computers, as an engineer. He had a long career in the automotive industry, and then in healthcare.
Late career as a novelist
In the last year of his life, Alan’s novel was acquired by Chickadee Prince Books, the small press located in Brooklyn, New York. The Tenth Plague is scheduled for publication on September 15.
The novel, which addresses the dangers of a nuclear Iran, was praised by Kirkus Reviews, which called the novel, a “political thriller that imagines a world brought to the brink of nuclear war by an Iranian plot to attack Israel and the United States…. Debut author Levy sets the story in 2028, a world that’s seen a brutal reprisal of the 9/11 attacks on America, ceaseless turmoil in the Middle East, and a bellicose Russia, still led by a ruthless Vladimir Putin. The prose is clear and crisp, and the action is relentless, fueled by a combination of brooding cynicism and the imminent prospect of catastrophe. Overall, this is a bombastic and cinematic thriller … Fleet and dramatic.”
Amos Lassen, an online blogger, and former member of the Israeli military, wrote, of The Tenth Plague, “Even though we know that what we are reading is fiction, the author is that good that he can create a sense of unease. Sentence after sentence possessed the wow factor, and I surprised myself by my reaction. Not all thrillers will be as good as this. As one who logged many years in the Israel Defense Forces, nothing is implausible.”
A recent endeavor: political columnist
Alan had also begun in recent months to write “An American’s Perspective,” a blog for The Times of Israel, where he focused on Iran, among other topics, and relentlessly pushed his view that Iran wished not only to obtain nuclear weapons, but to use them. At the end of June, Alan wrote, in a column that was shared 72 times, “If Iran is allowed to purchase or develop nuclear weapons, I remain convinced they will use them. And they do not need to be blustery about their capabilities. While the Russian bear pounds its chest and China’s drummers deafeningly beat two thousand drums, it will be tragic if the United States fails to see that wide receiver calmly awaiting his moment of glory.” And in the pages of Audere just recently, Alan remarked, “Israelis have only one choice: attack in defense of their nation. To wait until Iran unleashes nuclear weapons is absurd, and that’s the core of the decisions indicated in my novel.”
Alan also sparred in the pages of Audere with a liberal columnist who writes under the name Alon Preiss. Upon hearing the news of Alan’s death this week, Alon Preiss said, “He was really a genuinely great writer, and in any just world, he would already be recognized as one of our most skilled purveyors of thrillers. I loved his book, which is really exciting and suspenseful, and I agreed with him about the threat that Iran represents to the world, even though I disagreed with him about almost every other thing he ever wrote or said. Still, it was fun to argue with him. I thought that in coming months and years, we would debate all the issues of the day in Audere. I imagined us becoming something like those left/right columnists in the New York Times. It would have been fun. I’m really going to miss him.”
Hurricane Michael
A resident of Panama Beach, Florida, Alan fled the city to escape Hurricane Michael. Reflecting on the experience later, he wrote, “It will not take weeks for this little city to recover; it will take years. There is an incredible flow of law enforcement and military personnel into this area, together with thousands of workmen, and they are attempting a herculean task in their efforts to assist our community. It is true that when Americans put their differences aside and work together toward a common goal, greatness prevails. And I see that every day here.”
He is survived by two daughters, Susie Richter (Scott) and Samantha Hefner (Nathan) and 4 grandchildren, Ross, Alec, Mallory, and Everly, and by wife of 32 years, Helene Levy and her children, Leigh Whatley (Bill), Amy Obermeyer (Roger), Chuck Antignane, Chris Antignane, John Antignane and 4 step-grandchildren, Jeremy (Lizzie), Ryan, Laney and Carter, and one step-great-granddaughter, Emerson.
This article was written by Steven S. Drachman, with contributions from Levy’s wife, Helene Levy.
Alan N. Levy was a political columnist at Audere and blogger at The Times of Israel, and the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, coming in September from Chickadee Prince Books. The book is available right now for pre-order in paperback at your local bookstore, from Amazon and B&N, and also on Kindle.
The Tenth Plague, by Alan N. Levy, will be published by Chickadee Prince Books on September 15, 2019 in trade paperback and Kindle.
AUDERE MAGAZINE: You have begun writing novels at a late age — how did you come to novel-writing now? Did it interest you as a younger man?
LEVY: I attended the University of Illinois and obtained my Master’s in Statistics in 1966. In order to help pay for college, I had federal loans which were paid, in full, in the ten years following my graduation. Sometimes, those payments were a real challenge to mail, but I paid the loans in full and on time. Later, in perhaps 1977, I read an article that reported only about three percent of those loans were being paid back, and I was so outraged that I wrote a scathing letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune. It was published, and every once in a while over the next several years, I’d submit something to the Tribune. I realized that writing something, even if it’s not published, was a superb way to get things off my chest, and in 1990 I began writing my first novel. Frankly, it was disjointed, but I’ve come a long way since then. A hobby has gradually become my passion. I still write to get things off my chest, and it’s a much better practice than taking meds.
Your columns indicate a really strong view about Iran – why did you decide to write about this in a novel?
A column may help people and address a subject fleetingly, while a novel takes them into the very soul of the issues at hand. If your heart rate quickens when you’re immersed in the plot, if you flinch when an explosion occurs on paper, you’re living through the experience the author is portraying. In the case of our dealings with Iran, I don’t believe we comprehend the depth of their conviction, and my novel displays their relentless determination to attack Israel and the United States. It’s designed to be a wakeup call, in more ways than one.
Your book is speculative fiction about a future that includes a nuclear-armed Iran. Is this how you see the world’s future?
When we entered into the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” with Iran, that nation was essentially instructed to “chill” in terms of nuclear technological development for a period of ten years, and we released billions of dollars in return for that promise. Even though President Trump pulled us back out of that agreement, we cannot ask Iran to return the previously-seized assets. So the current administration’s position seems clearly too little, too late. It’s simply very easy now for Iran to move into the nuclear arena, and they don’t necessarily have to do it by purchasing thousands of centrifuges. They can work a deal with North Korea … dollars for food in return for nuclear expertise, or they can wait ten years and then develop nuclear weapons on their own. My novel anticipates they have done so, and they are preparing to launch against Iran’s mortal enemies. We truly believe we can negotiate with anyone, including Jihadists and those who strap explosives to their children. All those discussions will fail, because we fail to appreciate the determination of those in Tehran.
Your column puts you squarely in the iconoclastic conservative column – is there anything you like about the Democrats, as a party? And as people (do you break bread with any liberals)?
Yes, I’m conservative in many ways, and all my relatives in Chicago are liberal Democrats. We do break bread together once in a while, and the experience doesn’t seem to do harm to any of us. I have a few far more liberal views, when it comes to social welfare and education programs, and health care. I’m also opposed to spending billions of dollars on less than one-fifth of a wall at the border with Mexico. If the Mongols could figure out it was easier to invade China by studying The Great Wall and marched around it, the average Mexican will intuitively know to head for gaps in ours. I believe one should take a liberal or conservative stance, or one of neutrality, based solely on the particular issue at hand. People at either end on the spectrum, who rubber-stamp everything in a consistent and unflinching way, worry me.
What should Israel’s role be in the struggle against Iran?
Israelis have only one choice … attack in defense of their nation. To wait until Iran unleashes nuclear weapons is absurd, and that’s the core of the decisions indicated in my novel.
Some of your columns leave the impression that you would not be heartbroken to see NATO dismantled. Do you really think this would make America stronger?
I’m not particularly in favor of dismantling NATO, but I do believe we must reconsider whether we are prepared, for a third time, to come to the aid of Western European nations. In World War II, between May and June of 1940 alone, 1.8 million French soldiers surrendered to the Nazis rather than fight to defend their nation. We seriously must decide if it is worth more American lives to come, once again, to the aid of France and fight, side by side, with Germany against the Russians, if that’s the next explosive situation on that continent. I say we should not, and yes, it clearly makes America stronger to not expend lives and billions of dollars in another European land war.
What are you writing these days?
I write from an acorn, a single thought or issue from which a plot emanates. My most recent thought now has roots, and I’m watching it grow into what will be my next novel. Five pages of text to date, and a plot blossoming in my head.
Alan N. Levy, a political columnist at Audere and blogger at The Times of Israel, is also the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, coming in September from Chickadee Prince Books. The book is available right now for pre-order in paperback at your local bookstore, from Amazon and B&N, and also on Kindle.
“Obamacare” is the less than respectful term attributed to our current healthcare program, and the program is, as suggested by its detractors, fundamentally flawed.
Designed to assist low-income families and to provide them credible medical insurance, this is the reality of that program. Let’s say a family of four has an annual income of perhaps twenty-two thousand dollars and they call the Marketplace to inquire about medical insurance. Great news, they are told. There is (hypothetically) a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, or a plan by another provider, available for those residing in their zip code, and the premium for that family of four is normally $1,050.00 per month. Clearly unaffordable, but, and here’s the big part, the family qualifies for a premium tax credit in the amount of $1,025.00 per month.
So the federal government pays Blue Cross that $1,025.00 each month, and the newly-insured family pays the balance, or $25.00 per month. So far, this sounds pretty good. And a family with a modest income now has major medical insurance, thanks to a federally-funded assistance program, the Affordable Care Act. But the question, the most vital question, is this. Does this hard-working, relatively low-income family now actually have credible major medical insurance?
Yes and no are the complex answers to that question. On paper, the family has insurance, and Blue Cross has furnished the family members little ID cards. So, in theory and in actuality, we can attest to the fact that this family has medical insurance. But from a practical point of view, they do not, because they will only use that insurance sparingly, if at all. Policies such as this one carry a staggeringly high out-of-pocket maximum annual expense, usually in the range of $7,000.00, and that’s the amount this family must first expend, before Blue Cross, in this example, begins to pay medical bills at the rate of 100% coverage.
An immense $7,000.00 per year in additional expenses faces this particular family with an income structure (before taxes) of $22,000.00 per year, and the net result is this. The members of this family technically have insurance, but they cannot possibly afford to utilize their medical care plan.
And that’s why the Affordable Care Act is a poorly designed program, and it needs to be completely overhauled.
Medicare for all? Socialized medicine as those programs now exist in Great Britain and in Canada? Perhaps that’s the cure. Certainly, the ill-constructed alternative that the Republicans attempted to pass is not a viable alternative, in my opinion. I might easily support a form of socialized medicine or less-expensive Medicare-For-All in this nation, and I agree that a prosperous nation of our stature should be able to create a healthcare system for its citizens that is a plan to which other nations aspire.
The worst is yet to come.
But this article is about the pendulum of government, as it dangerously swings, in our case, from the right to the left. I sense a movement in this nation. Allow the pendulum to move a bit to the left, and we achieve a system of socialized medicine and benefits for all, assuming we can work out the bugs. The smart thing would be to hire some Canadians and Brits as consultants, but we’re far too pig-headed to do something logical in ego-maniacal Washington, D.C.
And in the dangerous waters to the more left of center as the pendulum continues its course, we have universal socialism as a new form of government in this nation. That’s what Bernie Sanders advocates, and according to an article published within the past few days in the Daily Signal and written by Lee Edwards,
“A new Gallup poll confirms what other surveys have reported: A disturbingly high percentage of Americans, about 4 in 10, now look favorably on socialism. Forty-seven percent of Americans even say they would vote for a socialist candidate for president.”
Our nation is a Republic conceived by men whose thought processes are not ancient, nor is the wisdom of their creation to be carelessly discarded. “Everyone is equal” and “everyone is to be treated equally” are the rallying cries of mediocrity. And those words are the foundation of socialism. At first, to take offense at those statements will turn heads. “How can you believe it is unacceptable to support ‘everyone is equal’ or ‘everyone is to be treated equally?’” is the challenge before us. There’s such a subtle difference here, and it’s easy to miss.
The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”
What is equality?
From those great words has evolved a radical misconception. Self-evident truths, among them that “all men are created equal,” in particular. Abraham Lincoln clearly understood what Jefferson meant, when he wrote those everlasting words. Lincoln correctly decided slavery was an abomination, and in the bloody conflict that followed, Jeffersonian doctrine prevailed.
Those words are about the right to have opportunities. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, at its core, means the right to live, the right to grow, the right to learn, the right to work, the right to achieve, the right to excel, the right to pray or not to do so, the right to prosper, the right to provide for your family, and the right to keep that which you have earned. “All men are created equal” in this great nation means that we each have the right to begin that path, as your personal journey toward greatness, as I’ve just outlined. And as an entrenched conservative and patriot, I am honor-bound to protect your right to take that path. It is my duty to fight and give my life, should that be necessary, to protect your right to walk with me in that belief or to think otherwise and to disagree with anything I state or believe in this or any article I’ve written.
Socialism purportedly treats everyone equally, but it requires that the government take control in a stifling system that encourages mediocrity. And that was not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they made statements about equality.
Imagine a huge welfare state, where all your personal and familial needs are provided for, by the government. What does your nature become? Do you remain driven to excel and to succeed? Do you strive to keep your creative juices alive? Do you have any reason to look at a situation or an object and mold it into something better, or to proclaim a thing outdated by virtue of that which you have invented? Do you maintain your sense of humanity, or do you become robotic and immune to all sensory input? Can you still value things, achievements, education, if you and others in our society are given everything as equals by a government monolith? That is the glimpse into the future, as suggested by the Gallup poll described in this article.
What America will be like, under Socialism.
As a tiny glimpse into a socialistic state, attend a little league post-season party or a swim meet where everyone is merely given a “participant” medal or trophy. The kid who lapped the field in the 100 meter butterfly is given the same level of recognition as the kid who finally just climbed out of the water, and the kid who was 0 for 70 at the plate with 68 dismal strike-outs is given the same award as the kid who went 70 for 82 with 182 RBIs. I get giving kids something that signifies their determination, their stubbornness to be there and to compete, b
\ut don’t cross the line and rob the great ones of their achievements. And the silliest image I can muster is at the Olympic Games, in which a socialistic world gives all the participants in each event the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.
When I read that nearly half our citizens might easily vote for a socialist candidate for president of this nation, I felt compelled to write something. In a socialist state, the only true equality is that citizens have no rights at all, and in that lone regard, we are equals. Dissension is frowned upon, either politely or impolitely, and in the latter form of governmental concern with a particular citizen, there are imprisonments and executions. Your right to work and grow within our current form of government, a Republic, is something that is sacred. Do not allow the pendulum of power to swing too far to the left, for one day, in the quiet of your kitchen, you might whisper to someone you love, “How did this all occur?”
And whispering will be necessary.
Alon Preiss:
You may or may not know that I contributed a blurb to Alan N. Levy’s terrific new novel, The Tenth Plague. He is a great writer, indeed, and you should certainly read his book, a terse, tense, fast-paced, paranoid thriller. I hope he sells it to the movies, and that he becomes a millionaire many times over.
But Levy, who also writes a lively blog over at The Times of Israel, has chosen to devote his latest column to dire warnings about the rising popularity in America of “socialism.” And regrettably, he mischaracterizes today’s moment.
“Socialism” means many things to many people.
In Communist parlance, it is the stage before full Communism, and does indeed advocate state ownership of all the means of production.
In the parlance of the American conservative, it is anything that the conservative wants to prevent, an all-purpose insult. So, for example, the conservative promises to protect Social Security and Medicare, which are broadly popular.
Is Warren Buffett a Soviet-style socialist?
The conservative hears about Warren Buffett’s call for the rich to stop paying a lower tax rate than the poor, on the other hand, and calls Buffett, one of America’s most successful capitalists, a “socialist.”
When a CEO of a privately owned company chooses to increase everyone’s pay, American conservative Rush Limbaugh calls that “socialism,” as though a CEO in America should not have a perfect right to pay his employees whatever he wants Obama is a “socialist,” because he is a member of the Democratic Party.
To conservatives, socialism has become a broad brush to tar anyone who advocated economic fairness. Because economic fairness, while good for America overall, and especially the American economy, is not particularly beneficial to America’s ruling class.
America’s young, so battered by America’s winner-take-all society, hears the “socialism” label that conservatives use to fight any effort to narrow the economic divide in America, and they think, Socialism doesn’t sound so bad. Toss the word “Democratic” in front of the word “Socialism” and it sounds even better.
To the young, Socialism just means some kind of social safety net set atop our Darwinian capitalist system.
When Bernie Sanders talks about democratic socialism — and, really, everyone who talks about socialism in America today means the democratic kind — his action plan includes proposals to improve health care, the tax system and education, things that have worked well elsewhere, things that young people in America want.
Indeed, nowhere in the entire column does Levy find fault with any actual policy advocated by Sanders or favored by America’s youth. Instead, he seems to object to the word “socialist,” and attributes various horribles to the word.
He is alarmed that this word, so recklessly bandied about for so many years by Fox News propagandists, has lost its ability to terrorize Americans, and he has imagined, out of thin air, some kind of awful future that will now inevitably result, an argument that is as ridiculous as it is fact-free.
Levy would have done well to investigate why socialism is popular, and what the young people calling for socialism actually want.
Because what they want is not at all bad.
But instead, Levy conjures some kind of horrible science fiction horror movie, in which Democratic Socialism turns everyone into robots, which bears no resemblance to any sort of reality. He then spends an entire column knocking down a straw man that exists only in his own mind.
Ironically, Levy begins his column by acknowledging that “I might easily support a form of socialized medicine or less-expensive Medicare-For-All in this nation, and I agree that a prosperous nation of our stature should be able to create a healthcare system for its citizens that is a plan to which other nations aspire,” which is, after all, what our young socialists are asking for today. “Medicare for all?” he muses. “Socialized medicine as those programs now exist in Great Britain and in Canada? Perhaps that’s the cure.”
After all, he is, like me, an oldish man, and for Alan and me, what’s not to like about socialized medicine? Presumably, he also likes “Social” Security.
But then he adds, “[I]n the dangerous waters to the more left of center as the pendulum continues its course, we have universal socialism as a new form of government in this nation. That’s what Bernie Sanders advocates[.]”
Let’s begin by stating, again, that Bernie Sanders wants Democratic Socialism, and that only his opponents on the right talk about “universal socialism,” something they made up to hurt him. And this idea of a “new form of government in this nation” is also not something that Sanders advocates. Sanders and the new young American socialists are quite happy with the Constitution.
But let’s discuss this on Levy’s own terms: what is this “universal socialism” that he says Bernie Sanders advocates, and that he believes a majority of Americans now want to vote for?
“ ‘Everyone is equal’ and ‘everyone is to be treated equally’ are the rallying cries of mediocrity,” Levy tells us. “And those words are the foundation of socialism.”
While he puts those words in quotes, and attributes them to socialism, he doesn’t actually name any socialists who have said those words. And then, well, um, er, actually, as he admits in the next breath, those words are the foundation of American democracy. (No less a conservative figure than Paul Ryan, after all, said, in his speech to the 2016 Republican convention that nominated Donald Trump, “Everyone is equal, everyone has a place.”)
So Levy has to spend a few paragraphs explaining that, while those words are actually the foundation of American democracy, Thomas Jefferson, who said them, didn’t really mean them, and the socialists, who didn’t say them, do mean them.
And, clearly, Levy is just wrong: social democrats do not want to treat everyone equally regardless of need or ability.
If my friend Alan Levy needs arthritis medication, but he cannot afford it, a socialist would say that the government ensure that he gets it. If Levy has a granddaughter who does not have arthritis, the government would not give her arthritis medication.
Equality, to a socialist, means equal rights and equal access, according to need, regardless of race or economic means.
“Imagine a huge welfare state,” Levy then grouses, “where all your personal and familial needs are provided for, by the government. What does your nature become? Do you remain driven to excel and to succeed? Do you strive to keep your creative juices alive? Do you have any reason to look at a situation or an object and mold it into something better, or to proclaim a thing outdated by virtue of that which you have invented? Do you maintain your sense of humanity, or do you become robotic and immune to all sensory input? Can you still value things, achievements, education, if you and others in our society are given everything as equals by a government monolith? That is the glimpse into the future, as suggested by the Gallup poll described in this article.”
Really? It’s self-evident to Levy that government help discourages innovation and ambition (and worse, makes everyone into a robot who is [WOW!] “immune to all sensory input”), when in fact the opposite is true.
Socialist robots?
Alan, my friend, that “huge welfare state” that you think would turn us into robots, is a nation in which citizens do not need to worry about how to pay for health care or education, in which its citizens can seek to excel and to succeed.
Worrying about health insurance has never encouraged anyone to achieve excellence.
Now imagine a huge capitalist society, run by gigantic corporations, in which the children of the poor know that, no matter how hard they work, they will never be able to afford the good college that the rich see as their birthright; do the children of the poor remain driven to excel and to succeed?
Imagine a world in which you, Alan, need a job to maintain health coverage for you and your family.
It’s not so hard to imagine, is it? It is today’s America. Would you have any incentive to leave that job to start your own business? If you knew that if you were to start your business, and it failed, there would be no government support to help you get yourself back on your feet. Would you take the risk?
Imagine a child who could be a great cellist. Should she pursue a career in music, or would she instead take a job at an insurance company, for the regular paycheck, the health benefits?
In that huge welfare state that Levy fears, in which the cost of education and health care are provided for by the state, the best cellists would be cellists.
But still, Levy wants a universal capitalism of gigantic corporations that are too big to fail, in which access to education and health care is only for the wealthy, because it would discourage mediocrity, somehow.
This is the conservative’s idea of “freedom,” and a conservative’s “freedom” is the true rallying cry of mediocrity. Isn’t the America of Donald Trump Jr. a nation in which the mediocre rule?
Alan? Is up down? Is down up?
Levy then argues that “a socialistic state,” like that imagined by Sanders and the young of America, is like “a little league post-season party or a swim meet where everyone is merely given a ‘participant’ medal or trophy.”
When socialist nations hold trials to qualify athletes for the Olympic games, he complains, “all the participants in each event [receive] the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.”
This is just not true.
Look, I think Levy and I will agree that the Soviet Union was no one’s idea of a worker’s paradise.
But Levy sees the USSR as a nation that failed to yield successful Olympic athletes, a claim that is simply factually untrue.
Levy is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
In fact, the USSR was a highly unsuccessful nation overall that nevertheless achieved massive success at the Olympics, as did many nations in the Communist bloc.
The USSR did have glimmers of success from which the capitalist nations or mixed-economy nations can learn, and one of them was its ability to find the best athletes across a vast nation.
When the USSR granted access to its athletics programs based solely on ability and excellence, it achieved greatness.
And this is an important point: a nation that grants access to the best universities based on ability, rather than ability to pay, is a nation that cherishes personal excellence, not a nation that encourages mediocrity.
Many politicians around the world happily call themselves Socialists, and they are, in fact, often very reasonable people.
Nevertheless, Levy argues, in his final paragraph, if we follow today’s young Americans down the road to what they are not afraid to call “socialism,” a world of affordable education and healthcare, of progressive taxation and a livable working wage — if we pursue the policies of self-described “Socialists” like former British prime minister Tony Blair — we will find ourselves, like the English did when they lived under Blair’s rule, in a world in which “the only true equality is that citizens have no rights at all, and in that lone regard, we are equals. Dissension is frowned upon, either politely or impolitely, and in the latter form of governmental concern with a particular citizen, there are imprisonments and executions … [O]ne day, in the quiet of your kitchen, you might whisper to someone you love, ‘How did this all occur?’ And whispering will be necessary.”
What specific policy does he think will lead us there? He doesn’t say. I can only dream of an America in which one could engage in a reasonable debate with our fellow citizens. It would be a better America.
Alan N. Levy:
In my recent article that expressed concern about the United States becoming a Socialist state, I seem to have awakened more than a few sleeping giants. In particular, a deftly penned rebuttal by Alon Preiss, my friend and colleague at Audere, attempts to disembowel every aspect of my article.
Bravo, Alon. This is the kind of stuff that makes our nation great. You think, you write. I think, I write, and only in a remarkably free society are we granted the power to publicly disagree. We both cherish that right, I often refer to the U.S. Constitution as the sacred document that it is, and I write to protect it and the foundations of this Republic.
John Stossel on Swedish Taxation
Let me address your commentary by first quoting an article written by John Stossel on January 1st, 2019. I hope we can get by the fact that Mr. Stossel is a contributor to Fox News, primarily since he immediately begins to quote a reputable Swedish historian.
For years, I’ve heard American leftists say Sweden is proof that socialism works, that it doesn’t have to turn out as badly as the Soviet Union or Cuba or Venezuela did.
But that’s not what Swedish historian Johan Norberg says in a new documentary and TV video. ‘Sweden is not socialist—because the government doesn’t own the means of production. To see that, you have to go to Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea,’ says Norberg.
We did have a period in the 1970s and 1980s when we had something that resembled socialism: a big government that taxed and spent heavily. And that’s the period in Swedish history when our economy was going south. Per capita GDP fell. Sweden’s growth fell behind other countries. Inflation increased. Even socialistic Swedes complained about the high taxes.
Astrid Lindgren, author of the popular Pippi Longstocking children’s books, discovered that she was losing money by being popular. She had to pay a tax of 102 percent on any new book she sold.
She wrote this angry essay about a witch who was mean and vicious—but not as vicious as the Swedish tax authorities, says Norberg.
Yet even those high taxes did not bring in enough money to fund Sweden’s big welfare state.
’People couldn’t get the pension that they thought they depended on for the future,’ recounts Norberg. ‘At that point the Swedish population just said, enough, we can’t do this.’
Sweden then reduced government’s role.
They cut public spending, privatized the national rail network, abolished certain government monopolies, eliminated inheritance taxes, and sold state-owned businesses like the maker of Absolut vodka.
’They also reduced pension promises ‘so that it wasn’t as unsustainable,’ adds Norberg. ’Today our taxes pay for pensions—you (in the U.S.) call it Social Security—for 18-month paid parental leave, government-paid childcare for working families.’
But Sweden’s government doesn’t run all those programs. ‘Having the government manage all of these things didn’t work well.’
So they privatized. ‘We realized in Sweden that with these government monopolies, we don’t get the innovation that we get when we have competition,’ says Norberg.
Sweden also partially privatized its retirement system. In America, the Cato Institute proposed something similar. President George W. Bush supported the idea but didn’t explain it well. He dropped the idea when politicians complained that privatizing Social Security scared voters.
Swedes were frightened by the idea at first, too, says Norberg, ‘But when they realized that the alternative was that the whole pension system would collapse, they thought that this was much better than doing nothing.’
So Sweden supports its welfare state with private pensions, school choice, and fewer regulations, and in international economic-freedom comparisons, Sweden often earns a higher ranking than the U.S.
Next time you hear democratic socialists talk about how socialist Sweden is, remind them that the big welfare state is funded by Swedes’ free market practices, not their socialist ones.
So if Sweden is an improper example of a true Socialist state, by definition, then which nations are successful and prosperous Socialist nations?
Countries Where Socialism Has Failed
Let’s skip the Communist nations, and per Wikipedia, here is a current list of non-Marxist-Leninist Socialist States.
The People’s Republic of Bangladesh
The Co-operative Republic of Guyana
The Republic of India
North Korea
The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
The Republic of Nigeria
The Portuguese Republic
The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
The United Republic of Tanzania.
Of these Socialist nations, all are “multi-party semi-presidential republics,” with the exception of just one of these nations.
The Preamble to the constitution of that nation states, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the socialist motherland of Juche, which has applied the idea and leadership of Kim Il-sung,” and that nation declares itself a “Unitary One-Party Republic.”
North Korea.
Can North Korea Happen Here?
Am I suggesting that if we evolve into a one-party nation with a Socialist mentality, we may mirror the horrific form of government entrenched in North Korea? No, I am certainly not convinced we may be headed down that path. On the other hand, to ignore the parallels is infantile.
While Alon and I are debating the merits of a Socialist society or allowing ourselves to overindulge at the Socialist buffet … “I’ll have a little Health Care with lemon-butter sauce, and a chunk of Tax Reform marinara,” the real concern, admittedly not addressed in my article, is a clearly defined plot to reshape elections of the future by virtue of granting the right to vote to an additional body of new voters.
Alon, you wrote, ”Equality, to a socialist, means equal rights and equal access, according to need, regardless of race or economic means.”
I wrote, ““the only true equality is that citizens have no rights at all, and in that lone regard, we are equals. Dissension is frowned upon, either politely or impolitely, and in the latter form of governmental concern with a particular citizen, there are imprisonments and executions … One day, in the quiet of your kitchen, you might whisper to someone you love, ‘How did this all occur?’ And whispering will be necessary.”
You wrote, “Of course, none of this is true.”
Isn’t it ironic that if (a) the Democrats have a formula to seize power in this nation by giving the right to vote to millions of illegal aliens, and (b) absolute power corrupts as Lord Acton so correctly observed, then there is only one nation which we can study to observe the aftermath of the events I fear may take place in this nation.
And that nation, as I’ve mentioned, is North Korea.
The German Example
It’s easy to dismiss my concerns about where this nation may be headed. You can wave a hand of dismissal at me and walk away, shaking your head in disbelief.
But let me remind you that’s what millions of Jews did as they were loaded into cattle cars and embarked on their journeys to Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
And by the way, you misquoted me.
You claimed I said, “When socialist nations hold trials to qualify athletes for the Olympic Games, he complains, ‘all the participants in each event [receive] the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.’”
Of course, the Soviet Union achieved greatness and won medals. Not at all what I said or meant, and I might add that their lack of ethics in competing were hardly admirable.
I actually stated, “And the silliest image I can muster is at the Olympic Games, in which a socialistic world gives all the participants in each event the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.” That was my way of taking issue with treating all participants as equals and having the concept of competition be meaningless.
A Final Thought
In summary, debate between us is very healthy. You are entitled to pick at sentences and disagree with me. But the message I’m attempting to convey is this. Give someone or a coterie the scepter of power, and anything can happen. The remainder of the quote by Lord Acton concerning absolute power is this.
“Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
We are in dangerous waters here, and the first murky step will be to elect a Socialist President of the United States.
Alon Preiss:
Alan, you are a really cool writer, but you spend too much time in front of Fox News.
What do young socialists think “socialism” is?
Here is my point: for years, every time some earnest Democrat would propose some reasonable legislation that might actually help poor people, conservative propagandists would label him a “socialist.” So, as I noted in my rebuttal, a CEO who raised the salaries of his workers was a socialist; Warren Buffett, of all people, was a socialist, because he thought his secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than he paid. (In the feverish conservative mind, taxing the poor is “capitalism”; taxing the rich is “socialism.”) Obamacare, a thoughtful attempt to use capitalism to provide health care to all Americans, was labeled “socialism.” Free college? Socialism! Clean energy? Socialism.
What has happened, perhaps inevitably, is that the young have listened to your political party. Suddenly, they believe that everything they want is in fact socialism.
The result? That poll, which has frightened you so much, showing that the slur has lost its teeth.
I ask you again: tell me what, if anything, is objectionable about the New Socialism.
It’s a simple request. Engage with our ideas, without hysteria.
Don’t talk about North Korea. Don’t scream about Nazis.
Look at our plan for the American economy and let me know what you think about our actual proposals.
What do the new socialists want?
Listen to Bernie Sanders.
“The right to quality health care,” he says, in today’s New York Times. “The right to as much education as one needs to succeed in our society, the right to a good job that pays a living wage, the right to affordable housing, the right to a secure retirement, and the right to live in a clean environment. That is what I mean by democratic socialism.”
Now, is that really “democratic socialism”?
Arguably, it’s not.
Sanders, and the young American Socialists, don’t even believe in nationalizing industry. This is the inevitable result of the conservative campaign to vilify sensible progressive policies. The word “socialist” has lost its bite.
The Koreans and the Mexicans are Coming to Get Us!
In my rebuttal to your column, I asked you to consider Sanders’ policies specifically, and let me know what you disagreed with. I pleaded with you to engage with me in a sensible debate about America’s new socialism, about the policies favored by America’s new socialists.
Instead, you’ve responded with … um, the exact opposite.
First, a list of what you consider frightening countries, something you say you pulled from Wikipedia. You know, good work mastering the internet, I guess.
North Korea, you pant. The Republic of Nigeria.
Then a story from propagandist John Stossel about something or other than went on in Sweden, which has precisely nothing to do with anything.
Finally … Nazis.
And finally, you throw this in my face:
“You can wave a hand of dismissal at me and walk away, shaking your head in disbelief. But let me remind you that’s what millions of Jews did as they were loaded into cattle cars and embarked on their journeys to Auschwitz and Buchenwald.”
Is that what Hitler was all about? Free education, decent healthcare and clean air?
Yes, I want decent air for my grandkids, good education for the poor.
I think decent education, regardless of ability to pay, would be good for America.
One Final Plea for Sanity
Alan, you are a smart guy.
You wrote one of the best books of 2019.
You have been a brave voice against Iranian appeasement.
You want socialized medicine.
You believe in free education.
I am not sure, but I think you probably even like clean air, and as a resident of Florida, you probably would prefer that the ocean stop rising.
Step out of the Fox News opium haze and into the light. I know that you’ll be happy here.
Alan N. Levy, a political columnist at Audere, is also the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, coming in September from Chickadee Prince Books. He’s now also a blogger at The Times of Israel, addressing the various terrible threats facing America, Israel and the world. Take a look at all of Levy’s opinionated opinions at the TOI.
Alan N. Levy, a political columnist at Audere, is also the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, coming in September from Chickadee Prince Books. He’s now also a blogger at The Times of Israel, addressing the various terrible threats facing America, Israel and the world.
Jennifer, yes, it’s true that we have to call it quits. Sorry about that crushingly honest statement, and knowing that your local grocer will soon run out of Kleenex as you mourn the end of our relationship, I must nonetheless remain steadfast in this decision.
My first love will remain my wife. But after her, I am now overwhelmingly committed to the daring and caustic Ms. Ann Coulter, even though when she speaks, it’s as though she’s just eaten a handful of Sweet Tarts. Her words, however, are brilliant.
Yesterday, Ms. Coulter was quoted as saying, “the only national emergency is that our president is an idiot.” How can you not immediately love her? So, Jennifer, stick with Adam Sandler. He’s your guy, and I believe he’s up to the task of consoling you.
According to an article posted by ABC St. Louis on January 2nd, 2019, a five billion dollar border wall, installed primarily in the area of the Rio Grande Valley near Laredo, Texas, will span roughly 215 miles, at a cost of twenty-three million dollars per mile.
Our common border with Mexico is 1,954 miles.
Forgive me, I’m a math guy. Forget the five billion or even an eight billion dollar proposal. Let’s wave the proverbial Washington magic wand and talk twenty billion dollars. We all know there’s massive waste at the federal level, a really good hammer at Home Depot may cost twenty bucks, but in a military bid that same hammer may be easily three or four hundred dollars. If you aren’t aware of that claim, go to the defense website and browse around. The opening comment on that page states that every day at 5:00 pm, at least seven million dollars in contracts are awarded, and I still remember that in the late 1970’s, a million dollars was awarded to someone to study the German cockroach. I noticed that bid just after the contract had been awarded, and it was too late to put in writing that I would have done the study for a mere $850,000. The German cockroach, by the way, is apparently immune to massive doses of radiation, and the U.S. Army wanted to know why. I studied German in college, so that and a greatly slashed bid could have won me the award, and eight hundred grand in 1977 dollars was a great deal of money. I would have suggested after careful analysis, of course, that each of our soldiers be issued a cockroach. Navy Seals would each get two, just because. Happy army. Happy me.
Back to a twenty million dollar wall. Our soldiers don’t need bullets, and we could easily slash social security benefits by at least half to generate the cash. But let’s keep the 160 golf courses at U. S. military bases worldwide open, instead of closing them and giving our military personnel preferred tee times at public courses across the nation. Old people can eat dog food. Perhaps I’ll write a cook book, entitled, “It’s Really Not So Bad if You Just Add Garlic.”
Yup, a twenty million dollar wall is the way to go. So if a five million dollar wall will span 215 miles, then my conceptualized wall would span four times that distance, or 860 miles. Perfect.
And that would only leave 1,094 miles of border without new fencing. To be fair, there currently exists about 650 miles of fencing, much of which can be climbed with a makeshift grappling hook attached to a knotted rope. So with a twenty billion dollar wall, at least 400 miles of border will be unprotected. And with the currently proposed five or eight billion dollar wall, roughly one thousand miles of border will remain wall-less. This discussion reminds me of the Maginot Line, built by France in the early 1930’s to deter attacks against that nation from the east. It spanned 943 miles and seemed a solid deterrent as originally conceived. It had underground air conditioned facilities for bivouacked French troops, a railroad support system, and was largely considered a work of genius. Wehrmacht Generals attacked by simply going around the Maginot Line and encircling allied troops in the process. The catastrophe at Dunkirk resulted in the capture of roughly eighty thousand British and French troops, and the famous Maginot Line, in retrospect, was idiotic and ill-conceived.
There is an extraordinary parallel between German forces easily bypassing a fixed defensive line that spanned 943 miles and the Mongols bypassing the Great Wall of China in the year 1279, thereby defeating the Song Dynasty. The German Generals and Kublai Khan seem to have said the same thing, “Nice wall, but we’re going to march around it and attack you.”
If history teaches us anything, it’s repetition. The Great Wall of China, the impregnable Maginot Line in France, and the Great and Clearly Incomplete Wall of America. Is there seriously anyone in this nation who believes that a wall or walls at the Mexican border spanning a thousand miles, thereby leaving an additional thousand miles open and unprotected, will deter a steady flow of undocumented immigrants into this nation? Perhaps we might structure some sort of entry IQ test. For those who struggle up and over our newly completed walls, we capture and deport you immediately. You’re stupid, and we want nothing to do with you. For those who walk around our walls and cross easily onto our soil, we offer you free health insurance, you’re paid in cash and you don’t have to pay taxes, you may also be given the right to vote, provided you always punch the Democrat ticket entries on a ballot, and you’ll be given an immediate job framing houses or trimming lawns. Your children will immediately become U.S. citizens if born on our soil, and you’ll fill a necessary gap in our society. You’ll work hard, a trait which is admirable, and you’ll fill jobs ordinary citizens don’t care to do. And you’ll help fulfill the dreams of liberal Democrats, to take control of this nation by adding to and controlling the votes of the masses.
Yes, I completely agree with Ann Coulter. Our arrogant, prideful, vain excuse for a president, who runs the Oval Office Show as though it’s a long-running episode of, “The Apprentice,” has overstepped the boundaries that should contain any logical executive. It’s not declaring the need for half-a-wall that makes him an idiot, for that decision is merely reckless. What makes him an idiot is not comprehending or caring that the precedent he’s about to create, if upheld, will be an open checkbook for Executive Branch abuse of power in future generations.
Read about the stupidity of the finite Maginot Line, a fixed position wall-like engineering feat that Germany simple drove her tanks around during their attack. And then read about the concept of half-a-wall and the quickly fading promise that Washington would have Mexico pay for it. And think about how our legal system works. Twenty years from now, let’s imagine that we elect a president who is a closet racist. He declares a national emergency, and because of the court decision in 2019 that upheld Donald Trump’s right to use his executive powers to build the Great Half-Wall, our president in 2039 has his right to declare a national emergency, upheld by the courts. Government lawyers successfully argue on the basis of legal precedent having been set, and the National Guard is mobilized. In 2039, children of undocumented immigrants are gathered and slaughtered in a maniacal program to control their numbers. Or perhaps the national emergency is to be about Jews, or citizens of Russian descent.
This is why Ann Coulter is correct, and the unpredictable toddler in the Oval Office does not deserve the scepter of power he now wields.
Alan N. Levy is the author of the geo-political thriller, The Tenth Plague, which Kirkus Reviews calls, “a bombastic and cinematic thriller … A fleet and dramatic … tale of global conflict.” The novel is available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and your local bookstore.
First of all, I’m vehemently opposed to ethnic profiling.
The practice is a national embarrassment and disgrace to any nation engaging in the practice, and in Germany in the late 1930’s and 1940’s, we see how glaringly dangerous and outrageous became the results of mindlessly deciding a group is ill-fitted for inclusion in a society. Profiling leads to hatred, or perhaps hatred leads to profiling … not sure about that chicken and egg discussion at the moment, but under Nazi rule, the next logical step was a string of death camps. May we never forget the lessons of Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen.
Two code words in being Jewish are, “Never Again.” Never here, never there, never anywhere. That philosophy, that NEED, became the bedrock on which the State of Israel was created, and there was an immediate understanding that in order for Israel to survive while surrounded by so many nations hostile to her existence, she had to be stronger than her adversaries. Only the strongest shall survive is a fundamental law of nature and that is how species evolve and flourish. And Israel has sprouted wings. Her deserts bloom, and her military establishment and rank and file men and women know that they are the thin line preventing slaughter of their families. You probably have read that the sworn goal of Jihadist Iran is to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child in Israel and when that is what’s at stake, one tends to fight more determinedly to avert catastrophe and another holocaust. Necessarily, the IDF has become a force with which to be reckoned. Ultra-modern conventional weapons, an air force second to none, and a formidable array of nuclear weapons give Israel a significant combative edge while still being vastly outnumbered in the region.
Would Tel Aviv be concerned if Iran or Egypt purchased five hundred T-14 Armata battle tanks from Russia? Of course, but that purchase would not tip the scales of power in the Middle East. Israeli jets might use neutron weapons to instantly exterminate hostile tank crews, and IDF paratroopers could then capture the unmanned and silent tanks in the field. In warfare, technology is power, and the State of Israel has the power to control her own destiny.
Well, HAD the power to control her own destiny, at any rate.
On March 3rd, 2015 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress, and his plea fell on deaf ears. He strongly urged the United States not to move forward with an agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in which we and other key nations allowed billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets to be released. And in return, Iran agreed not to have more than 5,060 centrifuges at their nuclear facility at Natanz for a period of ten years.
The State of Israel has every intention to exist for more than just the next ten years. Benjamin Netanyahu would not have flown to Washington to express concern over a conventional weapons sale between Russia and an Islamic nation, especially when Israel’s military has the technology and expertise to neutralize any threat those weapons might pose. In fact, the IDF might actually welcome the deployment of five hundred sophisticated Russian-built battle tanks, because they would become Israeli tanks in a battle lasting at most two hours. But Iran being allowed to build nuclear weapons with a mere decade moratorium is a horse of an entirely different color.
So I wrote a novel, entitled, The Tenth Plague. The acorn from which it grows is the Iran nuclear deal, and in it, that nation has perfected nuclear weapons by the year 2028. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s greatest fears have become reality, and with the knowledge that if only one missile pierces through Israel’s nuclear umbrella, Tel Aviv would instantly become a sheet of glass for the next thousand years, Mossad and Washington ponder what to do about this very real threat.
That brings me to the tip of the spear, the sharp point of this article.
In an article written by Jordan Arizmendi and published on January 29, 2017 on the online site, “Medium”, the author states, “Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) did a study about the education levels of certain ethnic groups in America. The study found that more than one in four Iranians hold a Master’s degree or a doctorate. This statistic makes Iranians the most highly educated group in America. President Trump has authorized executive actions banning Iranians from our country.”
And according to the site PAAIA, Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, “According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey, 470,341 (+/- 21,201) individuals reported their first or second generation ancestry as Iranian. However, it is widely believed that this figure is an undercount of the Iranian American community. This can be attributed to a lack of participation in the census surveys, as well as the methods used by the Census Bureau to obtain such information. Estimates of the size of the Iranian American community range from 500,000 to one million.”
So this is a puzzle, and here’s yet another piece … an article written by Laura Bridgestock entitled, “Top Tech Schools: MIT or Cal Tech?” and published on June 11, 2018. From her article, “MIT’s 11,466-strong student body makes it roughly five times the size of Caltech’s 2,238. Both institutions have a greater number of postgraduates than undergraduates, reflecting their research-intensive focus. Well-established among the world’s top tech schools, both attract applications from talented students all around the world, leading to highly diverse student bodies. International students account for around 29 percent of enrollments at both MIT and Caltech. At Caltech, the proportion of international students is much higher among graduate students, with 45 percent coming from outside the US, whereas only eight percent of undergraduates are international.”
Back to the lead in to this article … racial profiling. If we have more than 500,000 people of Iranian descent living in the United States, and revered institutions such as Caltech and MIT have at least a few hundred international graduate students (I selected that number modestly) studying physics and electrical engineering, let’s be generous and say there is just one such student who will, with his newly acquired talents and expertise, return to Tehran and participate in that nation’s nuclear weapons program. Just one. Brilliant, driven, doctorate in hand, and he returns to Natanz to supervise centrifuge installations.
So what do we do about all this? Put Iranian Americans in internment camps or solve this dilemma Nazi-style? Nope. Never again. Not to Jews, and certainly not to Iranian Americans who breathe the same free air as you and I do. Or can we refuse to educate ALL foreign students, for a young and seemingly innocent man with a British passport may possibly be an ardent Jihadist, and he could end up working at Natanz, as well. Or do we refuse to educate Iranian Americans at all, for fear some of them will return to Tehran? That’s as ridiculous as refusing to educate a kid from Germany, because just maybe his great-grandfather fought in World War II. And while I’m on that subject, President Trump traces his ancestry to the village of Kallstadt in Germany, and we elected him president. No, no, no. The focus on citizens here or those who seek education is incorrect and is fluttering with stupidity.
We cannot and should not cause our own precious citizens to suffer, nor should we diminish our commitment to educate those with the will and desire to learn, because the government of the nation of their ethnic heritage has embarked on a perilous course. If the statistic cited here is accurate, I applaud Iranian Americans for their commitment to education and the number of higher degrees they hold. And perhaps some of these people have complaints about our loose and decadent society, concerns I readily share with them. We’re all entitled to our opinions.
We are a nation of free thoughts and spirit. We are a nation of discord and rampant disagreements, and from those processes stems our greatness. We must remain tolerant within, but impatient with those who seek to harm us. There has always been a line in the sand, and while it’s easy to wipe it away, it nonetheless remains. Just as the State of Israel cannot tolerate an authoritarian state embarking on a project to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, neither can this nation allow that eventuality.
The issue at hand has nothing to do with education or the lack thereof. It has nothing to do with how many people of what flavor or ethnicity reside where or do what. It has nothing to do with religion or race. Rather, it has everything to do with a serious threat from a bully, and we must recognize and fend off that threat with whatever measures are necessary to eliminate it.
There is no such thing as theoretical power. If you have it and you use it, then you have it. If you have it and you don’t use it, but others fear you might, then you still have it. But if you have it and you don’t use it, and others believe you will not use it, then you are a Eunuch.
Tragically, there are nations who believe we are powerless. First and foremost, we must show those in Tehran the error of that thought process. We should not have entered into the nuclear deal with Iran, obscurely labeled the, “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.” Just think about that moniker for a moment. If anything, it’s a plan of IN-action, in that we’re going to allow Iran free reign to develop nuclear technology and devices after a decade of purported peace and tranquility. A better name might have been, “The Ostrich Agenda”, wherein the free world’s formerly powerful nations stick their collective heads in the sand and hope for the best.
The approach used by this nation to a dedicated and unwavering enemy state is similar to the failed international concepts utilized by Washington a few decades ago, a thought process still embraced today. Stop the spread of Communism. We don’t need a plan, we simply need to arm the opposition in dozens of nations, prop up dictators like the Shah of Iran simply because they warm to us rather than to Moscow, and everything will be just fine. We have never understood that a reactionary international foreign policy will never defeat a consistent, driven, and focused enemy, whether that enemy is Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran. To react, by definition, implies that an event has first occurred to which a response is suggested or required. And often the response is too little, too late. Or insignificant and powerless. Pointless.
When we sided with and armed the Shah of Iran, we chose to support a brutal totalitarian regime. And when his regime was overturned by the masses, the pendulum in Iran swung swiftly in the opposite direction. By virtue of our shortsightedness, the United States created the menace that is now the Islamic Republic of Iran, a dedicated and focused adversary that possesses the will and the means to do us harm. We can sign papers of agreement and compromise and afterward sip twenty-one year old Balvenie in celebration of our successes, but those actions show a deep and foreboding misinterpretation of the men with whom we are toying. Iran poses a significant terroristic threat to the security of this and other nations. We must deal with that threat while it is still feasible to do so, before that adversary becomes one of an entirely different magnitude. In April of 1951, General Douglas MacArthur openly advocated expanding the Korean Conflict and attacking China with the observation that China, “has now taken on the character of a united nationalism of increasingly dominant, aggressive tendencies.” President Eisenhower recalled MacArthur and rebuked him for openly advocating that position. But History repeats herself, and we are once again at a pivotal moment on a treacherous slope.
Assuming there remain historians in the year 2050, what will they write about America’s decision-making prowess in 2013, 2018, and beyond? We have history against us here. We entered World War I because our allies were attacked. We entered World War II because of Pearl Harbor. Again, we were attacked (well, maybe FDR wanted that to happen, in order to move us into the war, or perhaps that statement is a monumental example of why we’re not supposed to believe everything on the Internet). But, regardless of manipulation and structure, we were attacked. And that’s our modus operandi. America reacts. In the scenario I’ve described, zeroing in on individual citizens is an affront to humanity, and it is also part of a shell game that makes us appear to be taking steps to curtail something or other. In the meantime, the true jaguar in the jungle is lurking and gaining strength. Do we wait until Tehran pounces mightily and devastatingly? Do we react forcefully or with bleak words of opposition if and when Tel Aviv ceases to be the beating heart of a free nation? Or do we become truly angered when Washington, New York City, or Baltimore erupt as fireballs engulf those cities?
Waiting and reacting are no longer options, not when an attack will be with nuclear weapons by an enemy that believes it is glorious to die in the name of Jihad. To predict our immediate future and the serious nature of a threat from Iran, we cannot hold dear to the concept of MAD being a reasonable deterrent, for we are dealing with an unreasonable enemy. Jihadists look forward to death, and if we value our existence, we must recognize with whom we are dealing.
When we structured and moved forward with the “deal” with Iran a few years ago, and I place the word “deal” in quotation marks because normally, both sides gain something in a “deal”, it was entirely one-sided. Iran was given billions of dollars in withheld funds in return for a promise. I envision their representatives reaching out and shaking our hands, with their other hands behind their backs, fingers crossed. A promise not to develop nuclear technology, i.e., weapons, for ten years. Seriously? We call that a “deal”? To President Trump’s credit, he has consistently stated what I’ve claimed here. This was not a deal, or at least it was an atrocious one, for we gained nothing in the scheme of things. Now, we’ve renewed sanctions, but that decision will merely harden the resolve of those in Iran. With billions at their disposal and strong ties to North Korea and Russia, it doesn’t take much imagination to structure a new deal between Tehran and Pyongyang … a flow of desperately needed dollars to North Korea in return for assistance in the development of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. By imposing sanctions once again after the original deal was put in place is akin to closing the barn doors after all the livestock has escaped … too little, and much too late.
In our dealings with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we have been doing this for quite some time, we are reaching out to pet a rabid dog and feeling everything is going to be just fine.
He hasn’t bitten us. Yet. If this nation waits to react to what Iran intends to do with newly perfectly nuclear technology and weaponry, we are on a collision course with monumental disaster. Their path is clear. Ours awaits the courage to act.
Alan N. Levy is the author of the thriller, The Tenth Plague, published by Chickadee Prince Books in 2019.
Design by Steven S. Drachman, from an image by RonnieK/PixaBay
Alan N. Levy: If we’re going to put one of these sort-of-look-alike gentlemen on a pedestal, please let it be the guy on the left [see above]. Ironically, this nation is great, and not because of the likes of Abraham Lincoln.
In the last year of his life, Alan’s novel was acquired by 
A resident of Panama Beach, Florida, Alan fled the city to escape Hurricane Michael. Reflecting on the experience later, 
insured family pays the balance, or $25.00 per month. So far, this sounds pretty good. And a family with a modest income now has major medical insurance, thanks to a federally-funded assistance program, the Affordable Care Act. But the question, the most vital question, is this. Does this hard-working, relatively low-income family now actually have credible major medical insurance?
You may or may not know that I contributed a blurb to Alan N. Levy’s terrific new novel, The Tenth Plague. He is a great writer, indeed, and you should certainly read his book, a terse, tense, fast-paced, paranoid thriller. I hope he sells it to the movies, and that he becomes a millionaire many times over.
This is my farewell letter to Jennifer Anniston.