When I was young, there was a clear line between one's personal life and professional life. This line does not exist today. A key example of this is based on the recent popular discussion (see the article below) about the Hamilton Cast and the soon-to-be Vice President Pence. When a man walks into a theater to watch a play, he is not at work. Yet the crowd shot at him both boos and cheers. He is just a man, out-on-the-town, and not requesting a spotlight. Then, when the play is finished and the cast comes out with a written statement to be read by the lead actor of the night, "Hamilton," expressing fears and apprehension about Pence's role in the upcoming 4-years of governing at the Federal level, it is clear that there are no boundaries anymore in America.
Pence should have been left alone: by the audience and cast. He was a paying customer, not engaging in a political discussion yet living his life on his own time. Furthermore, when did people at work begin to think it was alright to force their ideas on customers who pay their salaries? The Hamilton cast is unprofessional and certainly immature in this area. They abused their power of the stage to address a captive audience, pushing their views on people who did not come to listen to political views of the cast but of historical reenactment by actors. Pence--as well as those who were simply by-standers--should be apologized to for the cast and audience's lack of decorum.
An adult looks at the election process as a declaration of the people, and no matter the outcome, an adult accepts the will of the people and holds on tight for the possibly uncomfortable first year of the new presidency. Nope, that doesn't happen anymore. The children are running America, at least running its mouthpiece, and the lax parents who never taught boundaries, patience, and peace have created verbal babies who do not know what it means to be an adult nor act like an adult.
People think--yes, THINK--they have the right to blur the line between professional and private discussions. Since there were laws enacted to prevent unwanted sexual advances on employees, we might want to consider a law to prevent unwanted political conversations on victims. A customer comes in for a product--such as the play. An employee goes to work for love of the career and money. Neither customers nor fellow employees should be subjected to childish manipulation of political discussion by presenting a political view to an employee--who is trapped at work--or a customer--who has come in for a product. Where has the decorum of class gone in America? When will the separation of professional and private be argued for as loudly as the left screams for separation of church and state?
See this article about what the 'separation of church and state' really means.
See the article below for the ironic view of the Hamilton-Pence controversy.
The Irony Everyone’s Missing in the Hamilton-Pence Controversy
Four days after Mike Pence was lectured by the cast of the hit musical Hamilton and booed by its audience, the controversy rages on. President-elect Trump sent out the expected angry tweet demanding an apology. The left melodramatically gasped, “freedom of speech,” even though no one has suggested government action against the actors. And, suddenly, the right is more offended than an SJW at an Ann Coulter lecture. Even Trump whined about the theater being a “safe space.”
The only person who doesn’t have a strong opinion on this is Mike Pence. He handled the situation with uncommon grace, shrugging off the boos from the crowd with a line for the ages: “That is what freedom sounds like.”
All of this pales in comparison to the supreme irony everyone is missing in this whole overblown controversy. Here we have the cast of a musical that holds Alexander Hamilton in an admiring light expressing deep anxiety about a president who just won a stunning upset victory after running his campaign largely based on the political ideas of – wait for it – Alexander Hamilton.
Is Trump "Literally" Hitler?
The left likes to characterize Trump as the new Hitler. And while references to the dictator are never absent from political hyperbole, one can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a bit more legitimacy to them when it comes to The Donald. Even the creator of Godwin’s law won’t dismiss the comparison out of hand.
American conservatism was always about creating an American version of the mercantilist British Empire and it really never changed.
Superficially, there is something there. Trump appeals to the same kind of nationalist worldview that inspired Hitler’s supporters. Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” isn’t substantively different from Hitler’s. Neither are his arguments for what has caused the decline: corrupt politicians who have sold out the nation, the presence of subversive or merely unwanted elements (Jews and communists for Hitler; illegal immigrants and Muslim refugees for Trump), and inept economic policy, meaning not enough, or the wrong kind, of state intervention.
Like Hitler, Trump touts himself as the only hope to save his country, a strongman-type leader who will run a command economy, rid the country of subversive elements, and restore lost international respect. His disdain for civil liberties like free speech and open support of torture are an even more chilling similarity. For Trump, government isn’t the problem, it’s the solution, as long as the right leader is running it.
But for all the similarities, there are important differences. Despite the implication of Hamilton star Brandon Victor Dixon’s comments, Trump certainly can’t be accused of sharing Hitler’s racial beliefs. Trump’s wall to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico will have a yuuuuge door in the middle to admit legal immigrants of the same ethnicity. He has repeatedly voiced his admiration and respect for the Chinese, because “you can still respect someone who’s knocking the hell out of you.”
Most striking is Trump’s foreign policy differences with the Führer. While Trump does advocate some sort of military action against ISIS, he’s strikingly noninterventionist in general. His willingness to admit the Iraq War was a mistake and his general view that America should start questioning its ongoing military posture everywhere, including NATO, are the opposite of the military aggressiveness integral to Hitler’s plan from the beginning.
Trump's High Federalism
So what do you call Trump’s brand of nationalism, if not outright fascism? If you take away the boorishness of Trump’s personality and insert more thoughtful, elegant rhetoric, you’d call it traditional American conservatism, before it was infiltrated by more libertarian ideas. American conservatism was always about creating an American version of the mercantilist British Empire and it really never changed. Its founding champion was Alexander Hamilton, who told his fellow delegates at the Constitutional Convention America should imitate Great Britain as closely as possible.
Trump’s plan has all the hallmarks of the infrastructure boondoggles that lost election after election for the Federalists and Whigs in the 19th century.
From the moment he became the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton argued for a strong central government that subsidized domestic corporations to build roads and infrastructure, levied high protectionist tariffs, and ran a central bank. This was the Federalist platform for the party’s entire existence. Once the Federalist Party died, Henry Clay and the Whigs adopted it. From the ashes of the Whigs emerged Lincoln and the Republicans, who were finally able to install Clay’s “American System” after decades of electoral failure.
The Republican Party has remained startlingly consistent in its economic principles, despite incorporating free market rhetoric in the 20th century. Republicans from Lincoln to McKinley to Coolidge to George W. Bush have been protectionists. Hoover reacted to the Depression by signing the Smoot-Hawley tariff, for all the same reasons Trump threatens tariffs now. And what was the first thing Republicans did in the 1950s, after two decades electoral exile? A huge government roads project that had Hamilton smiling in his grave.
Trump promises more of the same, justifying his stance against international nation-building by saying, “I just think we have to rebuild our country.” And despite a white paper arguing for a partially-privatized road system, Trump’s plan will require $167 billion in government funds and has all the hallmarks of the infrastructure boondoggles that lost election after election for the Federalists and Whigs in the 19th century.
Charles C.W. Cooke pointed out additional ironies when he tweeted, “For the record, Alexander Hamilton was an immigration hawk who endorsed the Alien and Sedition Acts and wanted to deport troublemakers.” That makes the hand-wringing of the cast and fans of Hamliton over Trump’s threats against immigration, and against the freedom to speak truth to power, extra rich.
Even Trump’s campaign slogan was Hamiltonian. Hamilton’s stated political goal was “national greatness.” I kid you not.
Trump isn’t Hitler. He’s Hamilton, advocating the kind of centralist government Hamilton spoke about in secret at the Constitutional Convention and attempted to achieve surreptitiously throughout the rest of his political life by eroding the same limits on federal government power he had trumpeted to sell the Constitution in the Federalist Papers. Trump wants to be Hamilton’s elected king, running a crony-capitalist, mercantilist economy just as Hamilton envisioned.
Even Trump’s campaign slogan was Hamiltonian. Hamilton’s stated political goal was “national greatness.” I kid you not.
And while Hamilton was certainly a more eloquent and well-mannered spokesman for conservatism, Trump is superior to him in at least one way: Hamilton was a military interventionist, whose ambition to conquer the colonial possessions of Spain was much more like Hitler’s desire to seize the Ukraine for Germany than anything Trump wants to do internationally.
One has to wonder: is that the real reason neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham are so anti-Trump?
Tom Mullen
Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. For more information and more of Tom's writing, visit www.tommullen.net.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
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