In April, there was a flurry of media attention to the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of U. S. military involvement in Vietnam. What resonated most with me during the coverage was the degree to which the military experience and the commitment to military service have been diluted in America’s leadership class. To me, military service has been the “great leveler” for American youth, primarily males, as it cut across race, class, social, and economic lines in assimilating its recruits into service to the country. The all-volunteer military isn’t the same and the post-Vietnam generation missed this experience which, for most of our history, had been a “rite of passage” for us. John McCain’s Presidential candidacy seemed to have an element of this generation’s coming to grips with this void, with some nostalgia, some guilt, and some yearning all mixed with the repeated litany of his experience as a POW. It is also, I think, part of the fascination with movies such as Saving Private Ryan and books such as Citizen Soldier and The Greatest Generation. All branches of the military are falling far short of their recruiting goals and, in spite of their increased efforts, more advertising won’t close the deficit. The major factor is the growing gap between the military and American society. As the World War II generation passes on, fewer and fewer Americans feel a direct connection with or obligation to military service. In a recent article in Duke Magazine, Kirk Kicklighter, a former Marine Corps Captain, says that the military and the civilian culture it serves are becoming estranged, and that the problem began with Vietnam, as the students who protested the war became the tenured faculty and civilian government leaders of today and are highly skeptical of the military. Duke University is participating in a study of this estrangement, which has produced some disturbing results. Military personnel are annoyed by what they see as a breakdown in virtues like honesty and sacrifice within civilian institutions, and they believe that civilians are in the midst of a moral crisis. Seventy-seven percent of military officers believe the adoption of such military values as honor, accountability, and teamwork would help civilian society reform itself. Eighty-one percent of newly commissioned officers feel the military’s values are closer than civilian values to those of the Founding Fathers. On the other hand, the research shows that most university professors, and CEO’s have never served in the military. Only about 25% of today’s members of Congress are veterans; in 1971, 75% had served. Before Vietnam, neither the powerful nor the famous were exempt. There are other factors involved in this estrangement and the decline of the warrior class. The feminization of the military is one factor, as is the pattern of deployment. Most soldiers view the nonstop missions of “peace-keeping” and humanitarianism unfulfilling and unchallenging, and the “no casualties” mentality is destructive to leadership initiative. No great republic can endure without an effective, committed warrior class, properly accountable to civilian authority with a clear vision of the society’s vital interests and the proper uses of power. With each passing anniversary of D-Day, I wonder whether it will be again possible for America to wage a major war and if there are vital interests for which we are willing to risk large numbers of casualties. In short, for what are we willing to die?

I won’t pretend to be conversant with antitrust law or precedent, nor am I technically competent enough to ferret out the intricacies of Microsoft’s alleged competitive transgressions. It occurs to me, however, that this company is one of the great success stories of all time, not just for its management and shareholders, but also for American productivity and technological leadership, and that it is being judicially pursued primarily for this success. How were consumers damaged by the vastly lower prices and higher product and service quality spawned by Microsoft? Aren’t these the primary objectives of consumers? How was competition damaged and which competitors were damaged in what magnitude? One analyst reported that Microsoft’s primary competitive accuser had a total market capitalization of $10 billion at the time of the antitrust suit, the total destruction of which would pale in comparison with the actual destruction of over $200 billion in Microsoft’s market value since the suit was filed. This represents real destruction of wealth to thousands of shareholders, not to mention the ripple effect throughout the equity markets, which I believe has had as much to do with the recent severe market correction as Federal Reserve monetary policy and other factors. I believe this case will have long term negative repercussions in attitudes about innovation and risk-taking that will far exceed any possible perceived competitive benefits. If monopoly per se is what the Justice Department is after, I agree with Walter Williams when he asks why they don’t break up the postal service and the public school monopolies, where some real damage has been done to consumers for many years in terms of higher cost and lower quality.

During the second half of 1999, my monthly political philosophy discussion group took on an exploration of the nature of man as it relates to political philosophy. Political philosophy, as our group defines it, seeks to answer the questions: “how should we order our lives together?” and “what is the best regime?” In fact, it can be safely said that every important political theory is also a theory of human nature. If we accept this premise, it follows that political philosophy presupposes consideration of basic and timeless questions about man’s nature, such as:• Is man a purposeful creation and does he differ from other animals by type or by degree?

• Is man possessed of original sin or is his nature essentially good?
• To what extent is man capable of free will?
• Does man have the innate intellectual capacity to comprehend universals, as opposed to only particular objects identified by the senses?
• Is man’s loyalty and commitment to a family unit a natural or conventional phenomenon?
• If there are inalienable human rights, what is their source?

As we discussed these and related questions, I was reminded that the American founding was based on a consensus as to the answers to these questions, so much so that they were “givens” in the thought of the Founders. One cannot imagine our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, without its invocations of divine providence, transcendental law, and the universal truths of human nature. True, the actuality of the ideal, “all men are created equal”, had to be worked out over most of our history as a nation, after Abraham Lincoln began the reconciliation by merging this ideal with the U. S. Constitution. But recent trends and anecdotes lead me to wonder whether or not we still broadly accept the founding consensus. Two recent examples: In New Jersey, the state legislature was unable to pass a bill requiring public school students to recite the “We hold these truths…..” paragraph of the Declaration each day, and the American Civil Liberties Union recently succeeded in judicial voidance of Ohio’s state motto, “With God, all things are possible”. I will have more to say in future issues about our reverence for the gods of multiculturalism and diversity, two problems of postmodernity whose currently popular definitions are deeply at odds with our cultural heritage. For now, consider this question: Could the language of the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence be adopted word for word by Congress today?

“Of the four cardinal virtues – courage, temperance, justice, and prudence – it is the last, prudence, that the ancient philosophers traditionally placed at the moral apex. They did so because they understood, quite rightly, that without that practical, seemingly rather dull virtue, none of the others could be correctly applied. You have to know when and how to be brave, or self-controlled or fair-minded, in particular situations. Prudence – or what I would prefer to call a good, hearty helping of common sense – shows the way.”

-Lady Margaret Thatcher