Over the years I have written a half dozen July 4th pieces here at The Tempest. Some of them have been humorous, like the time I described the 50,000 people I was crammed in with on a beach in South Carolina. Other times I have talked about the state of the country and my feelings about America. Reading back through them it is remarkable how consistent they all are. The first such July 4th post I wrote was from the year 2011 and featured this observation:
“Today seems different somehow and I think I know why. When I look out across the country today, I see just as many divisions as there have ever been in American political life. We are fragmented into interest groups, divided by ideology and culture. But for me there isn’t one interest group in America today, be they blacks, Latinos, gays and lesbians, unions, or Tea Partiers that I distrust as much as I distrust my own government.”
Eleven years later not much has changed about this sentiment. Losing faith in the institutions of power in America has done nothing to dampen my love of country. That might sound like a contradiction, but I don’t think it is. America can’t be defined solely by our government. Are we the people at least partially responsible for that deterioration of faith? Yes. After all, we elected these people. Many of us couldn’t be bothered to vote in that local school board election, then wake up appalled that some Maoist crackpot is suddenly writing curriculum. The abdication of civic responsibility by far too many of us has brought us to this sorry state of governance. So, given all the failure running amok in America today, why do I still love her?
Largely because this place has afforded me, a kid who came into this world with nothing, to reach for anything I wanted in this life. It gave me opportunities to improve myself. It provided me a quality public school education, that I only took partial advantage of because of youthful indifference and laziness, but still, I graduated able to read and write, do mathematics, and as a result of the tireless efforts of my devoted teachers, I understood my place in the world. When I attended college, there were plenty of jobs available in a robust private sector which allowed me to work my way through even while taking out loans. There were obstacles in my path at every turn, but I had within me the power to overcome them in no small part because of the foundation laid in my brain by loving parents and tough-minded teachers with inflexibly high standards, teachers who simply would not except anything less from me than my best.
As a grown man I am able to live in a beautiful, peaceful neighborhood filled with families from all over the country and around the world. When there is a party, a summer celebration, a Fourth of July parade, or a Labor Day picnic…they all come. We gather in a culdesac together and catch up. Pam and I watch the little kids and dogs running wild and consider ourselves among the luckiest people in the world. Do we even understand how rare this is in human history? How many societies or civilizations have been built, let alone endured, based on a country made up of people from everywhere united as one people? All of us, all Americans came here from someplace else at some point. The fact that we have survived—this idea—has survived is miraculous.
It hasn’t been easy, and it seems to be getting harder with every passing year as we subdivide ourselves, as we wall ourselves apart from each other. Instead of one nation, we seem to be drifting into tribes, an anthropological category with a troubled and violent history. But if we are to preserve our country, we will have to find a way to overcome what divides us and replace it with a concept of the common good that has always united us. Equal justice before the law, opportunity for anyone and everyone willing to work for it, and the personal freedoms guaranteed by our Bill of Rights. These are the things that hold America together. Each generation has to work to see to it that we live up to the best of our ideals. When we do there is nothing that America cannot accomplish.
So, I still love this place, the great big mess of a place we call America. I want to be among those who are willing to work to insure that she survives.
One week from now we will be on our way to Maine for six glorious weeks. The last time we were there was October 14, 2021 so its been nine long months. When a place takes up residence in your head your life starts to be defined in part by how many days are left before you go back and how long its been since you left.. But once you get to the one week to go point things start getting weird and difficult.
Its like the days of King Arthur when the valiant knight, after a lifetime of heroics can see the prize in front of him, tantalizingly close, but must endure the final gauntlet of terrors before claiming the damsel. The final week is our gauntlet. Here’s what happens…
First, there are the unending lists. There’s stuff to pack, stuff to get ready, stuff to plan, stuff to purchase, stuff to prepare. Generally speaking, Pam is the Chief Executive Officer of Stuff around here. It is her pain-staking planning work that insures a successful trip. My jobs are more in the area of manual labor, finance and logistics. I take my orders from the CEO.
Then there’s the whole issue of health. In the era of COVID, we have become rather paranoid about personal health in the week leading up to go time. We suddenly become fastidious about hand washing. We tend to avoid large crowds. We also avoid small crowds in small places. I had an opportunity to have lunch this week with the fabulously entertaining Tom Allen, but I turned him down. He had just returned from a family reunion in New Jersey, an entire brood of Allen’s all together in…New Jersey. I said, “You’re kidding, right? Although he promised he would take his weekly shower before he came, he seemed to understand my hesitance to expose myself to whatever madness might still be clinging to him after a weekend of Allen family Tomfoolery.
We will probably not attend church services this Sunday, our last large crowd exposure before Maine. No offense, fellow Hope Church folks, but we’re not taking any chances.
Don’t get the impression that we’ve locked ourselves away inside the house all week or anything. Besides, there are still a million errands to run. Just yesterday Pam had to head over to the mall for some shopping…
The news reports were difficult to believe at first, an unimaginable horror. A semi-tractor trailer abandoned on the side of the road near San Antonio, Texas with 53 human beings inside, dead from heat exhaustion, having died in the sweltering 103 degree inferno of what amounted to a cattle car. These migrants from Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua had been picked up in Laredo, Texas by a human smuggler—crammed into the back of the truck in record high temperatures without ventilation or water, then abandoned on the side of the road when the truck experienced mechanical trouble. A local railroad worker heard a feint cry for help from inside the truck, where the gruesome discovery was made. Within hours of the discovery, political accusations began flying back and forth between our distinguished public servants.
I am not an expert on immigration policy. Although I’ve read a lot about it over the years, in all that reading I have learned that the problem is profoundly complicated, a toxic mix of greed, fear, human degradation, human striving for a better life, and political grandstanding. The purpose of this post is not to cast blame, but rather to try and get inside the heads of all parties involved in the grisly graveyard that was left abandoned next to a railroad track in Texas.
What on Earth would possess a migrant from Mexico to climb into the back of that truck? Surely, they could see what they were entering, they could feel the heat, would have noticed that there was no water. Why? How desperate would they have to be? What possible hell were they fleeing that could be worse than being packed like sardines inside a trailer on the hottest day of the year? My imagination is incapable of providing any satisfactory answer to that question.
What kind of black heart would you have to have beating inside your chest to agree to be the driver of that truck? What amount of money would be necessary to assuage the guilt of this inhumanity?
Who are the people to whom this shipment was destined? What companies or farms were planning on putting these 53 to work? Any discussion about human smuggling across the border has to consider the end consumer of the cargo. Any business that would knowingly hire migrants delivered to them in the back of a tractor trailer, is every bit as complicit in this horror as every other actor along the way.
All I know is that when I looked at the pictures my heart broke for our increasingly savage, broken world.
This is the 2,639th post in the eleven year history of The Tempest and the very first one I’ve written about…abortion. Basically I would rather write about almost anything else. But when Roe v. Wade was overturned Friday by the Supreme Court, I knew that at some point I would have to write something. Here goes…
Since Friday was a very slow day at the office, the first thing I did was download the opinion so I could read through the decision along with the dissent. It was long…200 pages. The first part was mostly case law review and full of legal jargon. Then I got to the opinion which at least was written in more understandable English. Once I finished that I read the dissent which, as is usually the case, was much shorter. My initial reaction was that I agreed with the legal and constitutional reasoning of the majority decision. I thought they made a much stronger case with respect to the law than did the dissent, which I considered to be overwrought and at times hysterical. Regardless of where you come down on this case I suggest that you take the time to read the decision.
But agreeing with the Supreme Court on the legal and constitutional grounds of their decision isn’t quite the same thing as agreeing with the results of the decision. In a nation as divided as ours, what now? Are we ready to turn pregnant women seeking to terminate their pregnancies into criminals? Are we willing and ready to send them to jail? Ever since the decision was announced I have felt a great discomfort in my heart. It is very difficult to describe, let alone explain. I am now and have always been someone who would be considered Pro-Life. My feelings on the matter stem primarily from a profound respect for the life of the child. I believe sincerely that all human life is a sacred gift. Its why I am also against the death penalty and euthanasia.
But, I have never had an abortion. I can’t imagine the anguish involved in such a decision. I do know people who have had abortions. They are not murderers. They were women who when presented with an unplanned pregnancy decided that they were not ready or desirous of carrying or having a child. I can disagree with their decision and wish they had made a choice that would have preserved the innocent child’s life—like adoption. I also know people who’s mother almost decided to abort them, but made the adoption choice instead. The world has been greatly blessed by that decision! So…why all the discomfort in my heart?
Then I ran across something this morning written by someone who I have a great deal of respect for, David French. When I finished reading it I knew right away that if I spent weeks trying to articulate my thoughts about this case I would never do so as eloquently as he did. I can honestly say that every word of it rang true in my heart. It perfectly captures the source of my discomfort. It will not make many of you happy…on either side of this issue. But its the best I can do in putting into words my feelings at this hour. I ask each of you to read it and give it your active consideration.
When I left the full-time practice of law and landed at National Review, my friends and colleagues Jay Nordlinger and Jonah Goldberg both independently gave me exactly the same advice. My job, they said, was to write what I believe to be true. It’s not to please a crowd or build a coalition.
Their advice was good and true, and in the years since I’ve tried my best to live up that ideal. I’m going to try again today with the full awareness that I’m not sure anyone is going to like what I say, right or left. But here’s what’s on my mind and heart.
Two days after Roe has been overturned, I’m far more conflicted than I ever imagined I’d be. Writing in The Atlantic on Friday, I described my attitude as joy in my heart tempered by disquiet in my spirit. Since I wrote that piece, that disquiet has only grown, and I think I know why.
I’ve been a pro-life advocate and activist for more than 30 years. I started in college by trying to change my Christian college’s policies to remove any penalty for unwed parenting. Young single moms should not be suspended from school. I then moved on to Harvard Law School where I started a pro-life student group with two dear friends and endured the considerable blowback of that hostile era on campus.
As a lawyer I represented pro-life groups for decades. I helped raise tens of millions of dollars for pro-life legal advocacy (I lost count at about $40 million). Shortly after I returned home from Iraq, I led a litigation group that publicly promised to defend any pro-life student in America for free if they faced a challenge to their constitutional rights, and we kept that promise.
Through it all, I was guided by two burning convictions—that Roerepresented a grave moral and constitutional wrong and that I belonged to a national Christian community that loved its fellow citizens, believed in a holistic ethic of life, and was ready, willing, and able to rise to the challenge of creating a truly pro-life culture.
I believe only one of those things today.
My feelings about Roe are unchanged. As a constitutional matter, I agree with Justice Alito. Simply put, the Constitution cannot be fairly read to protect a right to abortion. There is quite obviously no enumerated right to abortion, and there is no historic grounds for believing that abortion should be deemed an unenumerated right. As I’ve written before, “The Court’s job is not to determine which rights we should possess but rather which rights we do possess.”
The idea that Roe was a revolutionary and destabilizing decision is not unique to the right. Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself once declared Roe“breathtaking” and warned that “Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable.” She even wondered if Roe should have been more narrowly decided. Suppose the court decided to strike down only the Texas law at issue and not “displace virtually every state law then in force” Would the country face the same level of controversy?
Moreover there was always something particularly morally noxious about Roe’s reasoning. The Supreme Court removed abortion questions almost entirely from the democratic process, created one of the most extreme abortion rights regimes in the world, and deprived an entire class of people—unborn children—of any meaningful legal status. It did all those things through the 14th Amendment, one of the Civil War amendments.
The Civil War amendments were intended to correct deep flaws in the original Constitution that permitted states to systematically deprive individuals of their most basic human rights. At long last the Supreme Court could and would begin the process of extending the blessings of liberty to every American.
Well, to everyone but the unborn. For those precious people, the court declared that one of the key Civil War amendments was the instrument of their doom. The ruling wasn’t just constitutionally unsound, it was morally perverse. It utterly contradicted not just the letter of the 14th Amendment, but its animating moral essence as well.
Now Roe is gone. Good. We should rejoice at its demise.
But that’s not the end of the story. Not by a long shot. The two sides of the great American divide are now staring at each other and asking, “Now what?” The answer from pro-life America should be clear and resounding—the commitment to life carries with it a commitment to love, to care for the most vulnerable members of society, both mother and child.
But life and love are countercultural on too many parts of the right. In a time of hate and death, too many members of pro-life America are contributing to both phenomena. Is that too much to say? Is that too strong? I don’t think so.
In deep-red America, a wave of performative and punitive legislation is sweeping the land. In the abortion context, bounty-hunting laws in Texas, Idaho, and Oklahoma turn citizens against each other, incentivizing lawsuits even by people who haven’t been harmed by abortion. The pro-life movement, once solidly against prosecuting women who obtain abortions, is now split by an “abolitionist” wing that would not only impose criminal penalties on mothers, it even calls into questions legal protections for the life of the mother when a pregnancy is physically perilous.
The culture of political engagement centers around animosity. Church and family life is being transformed, congregation by congregation, household by household, by argument and division. The Dobbs ruling has landed in the midst of a sick culture, and the pro-life right is helping make it sick.
Writing in the New York Times, Ross Douthat rightly cautioned that “the vicissitudes of politics and its own compromises have linked the anti-abortion cause to various toxic forces on the right — some libertine and hyperindividualist, others simply hostile to synthesis, conciliation and majoritarian politics.”
That’s true, but it doesn’t go far enough. The vicissitudes of politics haven’t just linked the anti-abortion cause to various toxic forces on the right, they’ve transformed parts of the anti-abortion movement, making many of its members as toxic as their “libertine and hyperindividualist” allies.
At this point I want to add a huge caveat. At the center of the grassroots pro-life movement are some of the finest people I’ve ever met in my life. Crisis pregnancy centers, for example, are staffed by people who have hearts full of love, and when the radical left firebombs those clinics, they’re firebombing the buildings and institutions that are giving an immense amount of hope to young women in distress.
But sadly those institutions often operate on shoestring budgets. So many times they lack volunteers.
In the meantime, the Republican branch of the American church is adopting the political culture of the secular right. With a few notable exceptions, it not only didn’t resist the hatred and fury of the MAGA movement, it was the MAGA movement. And this is the culture that’s going to lead the effort to heal our nation, love the marginalized, and ask young women to face an uncertain future and endure a physical ordeal for the sake of sacrificial love?
This brings me to a vital last point. It is a simple truth that when it comes to moral leadership, actions speak so much louder than words. That’s a truth that’s been instilled in me since my youth. Walk your talk.
And yet. Consider the last two years.
We are slowly but surely emerging from a deadly pandemic. It’s not that the disease has disappeared. Far from it. But the combination of mutations, vaccinations, and prior infections is making it far less deadly. Yet at every point in the pandemic, it was pro-life red America that loudly declared its bodily autonomy, disproportionately shunned even the slight inconvenience of a mask before the vaccine, and then disproportionately rejected the vaccine when it miraculously appeared mere months after the pandemic began.
Parts of pro-life red America moved from skepticism to outright defiance. “How dare you tell me what to do. This is my decision between me and mydoctor.” They trafficked in pseudo-science and bizarre conspiracy theories. The cost was staggering. It was horrifying. Look at this chart, from the Brown School of Public Health:
When I bring this up, people get furious. The conventional wisdom on the right has hardened into adamantium. If you condemn the anti-vaxx movement, then you’re an elitist. You hate anti-vaxxers. How dare you question their decisions? Everyone knows the real cultural tragedy of the pandemic was the way the terrible blue states imposed extended lockdowns and kept schools closed too long.
To criticize the anti-vaxx movement isn’t to hate or look down on its members any more than criticizing the pro-choice movement means hating or looking down on its members. Strong disagreement isn’t hatred, even when you believe the contrary position contains grave moral flaws.
I also can agree that blue state restrictions went too far, but I cannot get that staggering death toll out of my head. And that’s not a random 319,000 people, it’s 319,000 of our most vulnerable citizens. The elderly. The infirm. People with immune disorders.
In the face of that wave of death, a wave of death created by a staggering amount of Christian fear, disinformation, and defiance—millions of the same people who created that culture now loudly demand that other peoplesacrifice for life.
It’s time for another caveat. When we talk about national movements, we invariably talk about generalities. Huge movements are made up of millions of people, and many of those millions have gone above and beyond the call of duty. They’ve spent their lives sacrificing for others, in ways large and small. They resist the hatred of the times, and even though I might disagree with some of their votes, they put me to shame in their service for others.
But the sad reality remains: When American culture burned with partisan hatred, all too many institutions of the American church fueled the fire. They fuel the fire to this day. There is a cost to this combat, and that cost is born in our ability to reach out to people outside our tribe and to have people believe us when we say that we care for them, that we want to see them flourish, and that we love their families—both red and blue.
One more thing …
I’ve got two podcasts to promote today. The Dobbs decision came down on Friday morning, 50 minutes before we normally tape the Good Faith podcast. Curtis and I talked about the end of Roe and hosted the wonderful Rachel Ferguson to talk about her fascinating book, Black Liberation Through the Marketplace, a classical liberal response to racial injustice in America.
This song, from my favorite new album of 2022, is both beautiful and humbling. This one of those humbling songs, one that reminds us that we should always be aware that we’re going to be wrong, and we’re going to need grace. Thankfully that grace is real:
Ok, back in 2020 when COVID hit, I dropped my 19 year AMFAM membership. To replace my three times a week workout habit, I bought some dumbbells and started running outside instead of on a treadmill. In the two years since, the only thing I have missed about AMFAM is the sauna and steam room. I hated running on a treadmill and I hate running outside, so that’s a push.
It is probably more accurate to say that I have a love/hate relationship with running. I hate doing it but I love the way I feel afterwards. I do enjoy the challenge of completing something that is difficult for me. I like having a goal to concur. In other words, when it comes to running, I’m basically a sadist.
So, my son has taken up running over the past several years to the point where he was able to enter and complete a half marathon down in Nashville, an amazing accomplishment for a kid who has never been a workout junkie like his father. Now we have running in common. I send him the stats from my latest run and he sends his to me. It’s pretty cool. Anyway, a while ago he started hassling me to join him and sign up for a race being held in Richmond this November. Its a full marathon but you can also sign up for a half marathon or an 8K ( 5 miles ). He says, “So, I could fly up and run the half marathon and you could run the 8K and maybe we could shame Ryan and Issac into running. It would be a family thing!” Since it is a well known fact that I can never say “no” to one of my kids…I signed up. There’s only one problem—I’ve never run in a race before, and the longest continuous running distance I have ever completed in my life is a five mile run from six years ago. So, I’ve had some work to do. Which brings me to the point of this post. Yesterday was a first for me…
The first part is that I made it 7 miles. Yes, I did not run all 7 miles. I alternated between running and walking each mile. When I started I had no idea in my head that I was going this far, it was just something that happened. The 4 miles I did run were all decent times, especially mile 7 which I almost completed in under 9 minutes. I was very proud of myself. Of course, this morning I am paying for yesterday’s heroics. Hips, knees and ankles..all sore. When I made it home, Pam had left the house on an adventure with a friend of hers so I had nobody to brag to. Lucy was unimpressed with the story and quite disgusted with my sweat-soaked and smelly self. Here’s the route, in case you’re interested:
Sadly, despite all the sweat and calorie burning effort, I stepped on the bathroom scales this morning and had gained two pounds.
For the second morning in a row I have woken up during the 4 o’clock hour. Both times I had been having one of those frustration loop dreams where you are on the cusp of a breakthrough at something then something strange happens to prevent you from accomplishing whatever it is. Yesterday morning, I had somehow snagged an interview with some hot shot book publisher in New York City and I was pitching my latest novel idea to him. He was nodding enthusiastically. But when I reached for the manuscript to hand to him a wind comes in through the window and blows it everywhere. I spent the rest of the dream trying to put the pages back in order, all the while the big shot book publisher is getting more and more annoyed. It was horrible! This morning was worse…I was in a line of cars at a toll booth and everyone in front of me was paying with pennies, getting out of their car, taking their sweet time while having lunch etc. Meanwhile, all the other lanes were EasyPASS lanes and Pam kept telling me that we should get in the EasyPASS lane but I couldn’t get over to save my life.
I need a vacation.
Luckily for me, I have a friend who is also usually awake in the wee hours. Pam from Buena Vista, cancer survivor and fellow advisor, also is plagued by occasional insomnia, so I usually send her a text and she answers right away. This morning it went like this:
Me: as bad as waking up at 4 in the morning is, you know what the best part is?
Pam: It’s Friday?
Me: Nope.
Pam: Almost Maine?
Me: Nope.
Pam: Futures are up?
Me: Nope
Pam: We are alive??
Me: Nope.
Pam: What then???
Me: No matter when I wake up in the morning, I’m still handsome.
Pam: Good Grief!! You’re such a punk.
Then I started thinking about Mom. She’s been gone ten years now and I still think about her at the oddest times. I wonder what she would think of me now if she were still here. Lots has changed since she passed away, not the least of which is Pam and I are members of a Presbyterian church! She probably would ask me the same thing that Pam did one day when we were pulling out of the church parking lot—“Do these people even know who Lottie Moon is??” (Baptist Humor).
By this time its 6 o’clock and I find a couple of decent dad jokes:
* Apple is bringing out a new device that tells a Dad Joke every time you press a button. They are calling it the iRoll.
* My neighbor’s little girl came over the other day and asked me where poo comes from. So, I gave her a basic scientific description of the biological process that produces poo. She looked terrified and I thought she was going to burst into tears. Then she asked, “…but what about Tigger?”
So, this is what happens between the hours of 4 and 6 in the morning. Are there more productive ways for me to have spent this time? Absolutely. But clearly, I don’t do my best thinking this early.
Sometimes you stumble across a photograph that stuns you. You’ve seen it before, you knew it existed, but you had forgotten until suddenly it appears. There’s nothing particularly artistic about it, in fact its old enough to have been taken before the digital age. It has started to yellow and the details aren’t crystal clear, and yet when you look at the thing it takes your breath away. It’s an unremarkable snapshot of an uneventful morning. There’s a cup of coffee in my hand. It appears to be morning and it already looks hot outside. We are at the beach, sitting on the back deck of a rented beach house. I am squinting at the photographer, seemingly unimpressed with the moment, possibly wondering why our picture is being taken in the first place. But whoever did take this photograph did me an eternal favor. It’s the only one of its kind that exists in the universe that I am aware of. It is invaluable. It was taken in the summer of 1993…
My Dad was 69 years old, one year shy of his retirement. He had 20 more years to live. Back then he was still strong as an ox, more talkative and energetic than he became later. He loved nothing quite so much as when one of his many grandchildren would sit on his lap.
Patrick had just turned 4 years old that summer and he was a ball of fire, more energy and curiosity that any ten other kids. His favorite beach pajamas were always an oversized t-shirt.
I was a 35 year old man, father of two children under the age of 7, not even married 10 years yet. My career had just gotten off the ground that year. We were finally living some way other than hand to mouth. There was finally money in the bank.
There’s not a gray hair on the three of us. We all have almost the exact same expression on our faces. We favor each other in this picture. We look like three generations of men should look like, I think.
When I look at this I feel two equally strong emotions. I’m very proud…and just a bit sad. I’m not even sure why. I have no desire to go back in time. But this photograph stirs in me a strange longing for something that once was but can never be again.
