Hilary wants you to give up your guns, The Donald wants Hilary to give up hers, We discussed it on Long Hill in 2010

Gun control is a contentious issue.  A class of people want the nation to give up most, but not all of its guns.  the issue, though not officially researched by the institute, was treated back in 2010 on Long Hill.  Below is the column as submitted in the December, 2010 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.

The Gift of Insecurity

November saw much discussion in the media about the vast resources allocated to insure the president’s safe trip to India.  There was some disagreement about the number of naval vessels that would accompany him.  Even the lesser number than originally quoted would have been enough to destroy all but the world’s largest navies.  To insure a peaceful sleep, it sounded as if every hotel room in Mumbai was to be reserved, just in case.

The security mania did not start with the incumbent and Mumbai does have an image problem around safety after the 2008 siege.  Still, the recent foreign tour highlights what to some, namely me, might seem a problem.

An article, Lunch With George, written by the publisher and editor of this publication has been on my mind since it appeared in the August of 2008 issue.  Paul Carr wrote about an afternoon spent in the near company of George Bush the elder.   I did not think his portrayal of the ex president to be unsympathetic, but neither was it fawning.  It was a day in the life of a man who had had his day in the sun.  The 41st president was just enjoying post celebrity mode.

What I took away from Paul’s article was not about the man being out and noticed by the public.  What caught my eye were the security arrangements.  The man had been out of office over a decade and a half.  The only person known to have it in for him lethally went to the gallows.  Yet, he will be accompanied by men described in the article as “behemoths” as long as he lives.  Every president will have this protection for life.

Contrast this with the current state of travel for an American citizen.  He or she may have to go through a machine that will leave nothing about their anatomy to speculation.  If they opt out of the electronic pat down, the physical one is more demeaning.

So are we being paranoid?  Let’s do the math. It has been reported that we have passed the million mark on our national No Fly List. Breaking down the numbers, on 911 it was a team of 19 men who executed the plan. Assume that there were six liaison, handlers and other staff. That makes up a crew of 25. That means a possible 40,000 terror teams whose potential members we know about, but just won’t let fly. I may never come out from under my bed.

It seems we are going to the National Security State with us all on lockdown. A few years ago a car veered off our street. An officer responded and did a normal investigation. It was a little strange that he was wearing a SWAT uniform. At our town meeting, the department requested and was voted the police version of the M-16. There is almost never an arrest here. It is that boring aspect of the town that we love. Yet, our town dads and moms can be easily stampeded into paranoia.

Never mind that statistics show that we are pretty safe. We are still told that without a constant effort we will be at the mercy of the terrorists. With what we are paying for our Department of Homeland Security, we should not have a care in the world.

There is reason for a climate of fear. We are in danger.  It’s just not the danger being sold. When we screw our courage to the sticking point and finally get in the car to get a slurpie down at a convenience store, we have a good chance of becoming a casualty. Not from Abdul the Jihadi, but from another driver crashing into us. Go and poll undertakers in your region about how many kids they’ve buried due to a drowning in the family pool.  Ask them how many local terrorists have caused any funerals.

So we are heading toward more and more control. We need “Real Id” to make us feel better. In a scene from the movie The Hunt for Red October, Sam Neill's character is talking with Sean Connery's.  Neill talks about how he is going to travel from state to state in his recreational vehicle when he becomes an American. At one point he says, "No papers?" and Connery affirms, "No Papers." It is the difference between a free and unfree country. What will we say when we have to hear, “Your papers, please.”

I expect to be accused  of Lèse majesté for the suggestion I intend to make, but so be it.  It is time to take away the Secret Service protection of presidents and candidates and other officials and people of importance. Now, before giving vent to paroxysms of rage, think about it. A vast sum of money is spent to protect him and a fortune is spent to watch you in your own name. There is no incentive to change the system.

I have no desire to see anyone in government be the victim of any violence. Let me not mince words. I wish it to happen to my lumpen countrymen far less. We should all have the same level of protection or the same risk.

The desire to protect the president is understandable. There have been a number of assassination attempts since JFK. Like all my contemporaries, I remember my circumstances that day. The funeral was spectacle, but it was heart wrenching no less for that.

Since then we’ve had the King shooting, the attempt on Reagan’s life. The multiple bizarre attempts on Ford didn’t help. Remember Arthur Lee Bremer?  We started getting paranoid even about fringe candidates.

That all is true, but the thing about the presidency is there is never a dearth of ambitious men (and some women) who seek it. It is a pinnacle of success. It is also a position of leadership and therefore should not be without risk. Serious risk. Though not a betting man, I would be happy to wager that even without the coterie of guards we now provide, there would still be a surfeit of aspirants.

So how would this reform help anything? If the president cannot have a protecting force for himself, he may be cognizant of a shared risk. Our protection should be his protection and his should be ours. It is theory we should be willing to test.

Who knows, we could get back to a real human presidency. Harry Truman used to walk down to the drugstore by himself in the morning to get the paper. That may never happen, but if the president doesn’t want to go out without a helicopter hovering overhead, he can subscribe.

Oh well, things won’t change.  I should just seek a sinecure that leads to the need for protection. I want three security personnel and a driver on the federal dime. Would be willing to trade one of the agents for a masseuse.

The intellectuals are worried that the peasants are revolting, and they smell bad too.

In the June 2016 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine, The Long Hill Institute provided some small research in order to discern if there is a problem with anti-intellectualism in the nation.  You can read about the article below and decide whether or not it is something else you need to be worried about.

Sire, The Intellectuals are Revolting!

Last month saw a review of The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government by Mike Lofgren in these pages. It was an uneven book, but valuable in that the author exhaustively documented all the players in the body politic who wield excessive power.

One aspect of the book we, on Long Hill, thought overdone was his discussion of anti-intellectual trends in our nation. They scare Lofgren no end. The people who run the Creation Museum and the Intelligent Design folks make him nervous. This in spite of the fact that they have absolutely no hope of getting anywhere near the levers of power. Sure, both parties are happy to take their money, but then they do what they want. The fringe agenda for the most part gets short shrift. A John Hagee may want to nuke Iran, but there are not a few secularists who sing that tune.

So are we going down the tubes intellectually? We referred the question to our offical think tank, The Long Hill Institute for the Study of the Intellect in America or TLHIftSotIiA for short. After some tiring investigation that led to a well needed nap, they concluded, “Oh Please.”

Our exceptional nation has a long and stellar intellectual tradition, not. The man who wrote the book on American Democracy, called Democracy in America was a true great intellect. Alexis de Tocqueville, came over from France to observe our society. Here is what he had to say about the life of the mind in the US,

I do not know a country where there is in general less intellectual independence and less freedom of discussion than in America...In America the majority builds an impregnable wall around the process of thinking.

The inquisition was never able to prevent the circulation in Spain of books opposed to the religion of the majority. The majestic rule of the majority does better in the United States; it has removed even the thought of publishing them.

So circa 1835 we were an incurious lot. That did not mean we did not have a class of intellectuals. They resided in cloisters known as colleges. Occasionally, they were unleashed on the nation and it did not always go well.

Woodrow Wilson was as deep a thinker as you could get in this country. Before he became our president he was president of Princeton University.

What did his powers of cognition tell him to do as head of state. After some hemming and hawing about keeping us out of war, he soon found himself a crusader not long after his reelection as a peace guy. Ignoring all of human history, he made the absurd statements that we would fight in World War I to “Make the world safe for democracy” and it would be “The war to end all wars.”

Also from the same era, Herbert Croly, though dropping out of Harvard three times, is considered one of the great intellects of the day. He was co-founder of The New Republic. When Facebook's Chris Hughes purchased the magazine, He claimed to have been inspired by Croly.

So how did he stack up as a smart guy. It would seem he liked big ideas more than people. Herb supported American intervention and unlike Wilson, was never mealy mouthed about it. To quote the man, “The American nation needs the tonic of a serious moral adventure.”

Now, if one thinks about it, it is not qualitatively different from the words of Mussolini speaking of the Spanish Civil War, “The war in Spain, Il Duce said, would give the Italian middle class “a sound kick in the shins....and when that’s done, I’ll invent something else so that the character of the Italians forms itself through war.””

Neither Mr. Wilson nor Mr. Croly lost as much as a fingernail in moral struggle. Unfortunately, over 100,000 Americans would die in the glorious cause. None of Wilson's high minded agenda was accepted by the allies other than the League of Nations talking shop. Britain and France squeezed a prostrate Germany, and we all know the end result of that.

It is inconceivable that Adolph Hitler could have ever come to power without American intervention. No matter, the president is revered for his role with an institute named after him at Princeton. Croly, though he later took to mysticism, is still esteemed in the liberal pantheon.

Fast forward to our own era. There are still so many who claim to be savants that is hard to pick one as representative of the species. Still, let us choose.

Max Boot is considered a brilliant military historian. He was as hard a hawk on Iraq as any neocon. Have his views changed on that conflict? Well, he admits if we had known then what we know now we might not have invaded, but he wrote a 2013 article in Commentary titled, “No Need to Repent for Support of Iraq War.” Certainly, that is so for him as he never faced any real danger to life and limb and has failed upward. His current sinecure is as the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

So has the man learned anything? Probably not. He was all for supporting intervention in Libya, a non-success if there ever was one.

He has decided to support Hilary instead of Trump because The Donald is less for war than Clinton.

Boot writes a lot and not badly, but most of his screed is the torture of logic to advance an agenda. He should heed the motto of The Long Hill Institute, Never Overthink.

So should Mike Lofgren and other like members of the great washed fear a nation of troglodytes. Probably not. Considering the deprivations suffered by the lower orders due to all the machinations of the über* class that he shined a light on, it is the other way around.

Anyway, as de Tocqueville noted, we are not a nation of thinkers, but more a country of doers. Look around the house you live in. We have a rough environment here in New England that is seasonally harsh. Yet we have heat in the winter and cooling in the summer. Food is easily cooked, in seconds if you want it. Dishes are done at the touch of a button. Life is not bad.

No Ph.D in Political Science, Sociology or the Post Modern Novel came up with any of it.

*Not the ride sharing service.

Why the Long Hill Institute?

The Long Hill Institute is an entity mostly ignored by all but a few souls in Western Central Massachusetts.  Its research, such as it is, appears mainly in The Sturbridge Times Magazine, which is the paper of record in South West Worcester County.

It is an entity without budget, but for all that, takes its mission seriously, or at least semi-seriously.  Without resources, we are also not under pressure to produce results for donees.  Heck, we aren't under pressure to produce any results at all.

Below is the result one of our investigations.  The conclusion can only be considered a vindication of our mission.  It originally appeared in the October 2014 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.

Tanks a lot

A shocking revelation has been exposed by the venerable scandal sheet, The New York Times. You know, the publication referred to as the Grey Lady. It is also called the “Paper of Record.” Never mind that it had to be rescued by the Mexican oligarch and billionaire, Chuck Thin. *

Chuck invested hundreds of millions in the paper so that it could stay afloat. I hope none of the readers of this column think it was in any way an attempt to gain influence in the American media.

But, this is all a digression, back to the shocking revelation. American think tanks receive oodles of cash from foreign governments. The Times’ issue of September 6 told how the serious institutions within the Washington, D.C. Beltway get moolah to pursue the important research our government relies on to advance civilization. You have noticed it advancing, haven’t you?

As virtuous citizens, we all want to believe everything in our homeland is on the up and up. That is why the first case the Times presented was so shocking.

The agreement signed last year by Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

" was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a United States foreign aid program.

But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway

lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.

It was the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research

organization, or think tank, one of many such groups in Washington that

lawmakers, government officials and the news media have long relied on

to provide independent policy analysis and scholarship.”

In truth, no one should need a pacemaker upon reading this. It may be a somewhat new departure, but money sloshes around our nation’s capital in vast waves. Five million is a paltry sum.

Norway is hardly an economic basket case with all that North Sea oil. Why is she buying influence to get American aid?

We turned the question over to our official think tank, the Long Hill Institute for Foreign Aid Studies. They were insulted as the answer was so obvious, because it’s there.

It was foolish to even pose the question, but one is impressed with the alacrity of Team Long Hill. The Institute is an invaluable resource not only for the Sturbridge region, but nationally. Why is this so?

Again, we sought out the services of another one of the many sub-divisions of the Long Hill Institute, The Long Hill Institute for Study of Think Tanks.

The conclusion, The Long Hill Institute is the only think that is not in the tank.

So how do we stay independent? Simple, we refuse every monetary consideration. It’s been easier than you think because no one has ever proffered even a red cent.

Now you’re saying, how can we take this seriously, the LHI has no budget to do research. True enough, but LHI has an advantage over the big boys, and more and more, the big girls. We don’t have to footnote anything because we are not doing the heavy lifting of obfuscation required to earn the largesse of foreign states, big business or big government.

Understandably, our methodology is suspect. All we know is what we read in the papers. If it was good enough for a sage such as Will Rogers, it’s good enough for us. It’s a lot harder these days, as there are fewer and fewer that are actually papers. Okay, we do consult more contemporary media as well.

What others may look upon as a lack of professionalism, we prefer to consider as taking dilettantism to its highest level.

For all that, we are dead serious. Much of American think tank scholarship is bought and paid for hucksterism.

Citing again the Times, The Qatari government is the “single biggest foreign donor to Brookings.” The Brookings Institution is as gold plated as it gets in the think tank game. Mr. Saleem Ali, who served as one the first visiting scholars at the Brookings’ Doha Center was quoted in the article, ““There was a no-go zone when it came to criticizing the Qatari government,” said Mr. Ali, who is now a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. “It was unsettling for the academics there. But it was the price we had to pay.””

The Long Hill Institute for the Study of Ethics has come to a conclusion. Harking back to traditional wisdom we agree, He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

The governments and associated entities cited by the Times want something from the US, all too often at taxpayer expense. They know where to get some juice among the well-funded non-profits. Only here on Long Hill are we free of the easy cash that corrupts.

Of course, if there is someone out there who would like to become a Platinum Level Sustainer of the mission of the Long Hill Institute, please do not hesitate to contact us care of this magazine. Minimum donation is $15 million. We shall send instructions as to where to make the drop.

*A lose translation of the Spanish for his name, Carlos Slim.