My favorite movie – Pt 1 (another late night unedited mental ramble)

I’ve been watching and rewatching some marvelous British Television series lately. Tonight I watched two more hours of “The Hour” on Amazon’s live stream for $1.99 an episode. Its a steal. Last week I finished watching the first season of “Island at War” almost as good. Last night I rewatched the sixth episode of “Call the Midwife” with my daughter who is seeing it for the first time. Like all the other episodes, both first and second time, I teared up. I also got the first season of a good American series finished the other day at about two episodes a night. Its Netflix’s American take on the British political thriller “House of Cards.” The American version stars Kevin Spacey who I saw as an extra in the Disney movie “Iron Will.”

(Will is a so-so movie but it was filmed in Duluth and Two Harbors and it will be at the Zinema some Saturday soon.)

This little post, is an introduction of sorts to a few more to follow. Its about me and my “attitude” I guess. My weepy attitude that has emerged in later maturity. (I’m sure that’s some sort of euphemism) It hit me this morning when I was listening to Pandora on a station I created called “Aaron Copeland.” Suddenly the wonder Elmer Bernstein theme from To Kill a Mockingbird came on and I teared up a little. Its the rare movie that is the equal of the book it was based on.

And just a moment ago I was perusing The Dish and came across someone’s brilliant analysis of what may be my favorite movie of all time “Groundhog Day.” I’ve always described the movie as being about redemption. The writer of this post suggests something much more. He suggests the movie makes the case that all people given the chance would aim for goodness. The historian in me has my doubts. The spiritualist in me hopes it is so.

The post includes one of the scenes of the movie which at the end of its four minutes also squeezed out some wannabe tears. They didn’t trickle down my cheek but it redoubled my intention to write a bit about my hope for the Republican Party and my still standing snow sculpture.

The single surest way to squeeze a tear out of me is to show a little human decency. I experience it when a child runs to his parent returning home from war. Or when Boo Radley shyly makes his first appearance in Mockingbird having just rescued Scout – after he had obviously been watching out for her for weeks or months or more.

America is a nation in which it costs so little to show compassion or be generous. We live with such material wealth that acts of kindness are almost cheap. This felicitous situation may have been portended when Jefferson included the pursuit of happiness in his, our Declaration of Independence in place of right of property which a more predictable revolution would have penciled in.

I imagine some Democrats or Liberals would say of this that it is a rebuke to Republicanism. I do not intend it to be. As Republicans so often point out it is easy to be generous with other people’s money. And that is what taxes are. Other people’s money.

The challenge is to find the right balance.

I can’t find fault with Democrats all that much today. This in in large part because President Obama has, like his predecessor Bill Clinton, trended to the middle of the political spectrum. How liberal he might have been or be under other cicrumstances I have no idea. Circumstance place a large role in life. Lincoln would never have freed the slaves under anything less than the dire conditions brought about by four years of bloody war.

There is some magic in the world and I do believe America has been blessed with more of it than many nations through its brief history. But I’m a little leary, s….. almost, about making too much of it for fear it will disappear. The ancient Hebrews so revered their God that although they gave him a name they would not utter it. I’m personally reluctant to tell those I love that I do for fear I will cheapen it. Many parents do not let their children see that they are bursting with pride for fear it will go to their heads. Sports figures try hard not to boast about an extended streak of success lest it evaporate Muhammed Ali being a notable exception.

Yet there is one great exception to this rule. Its nationalism. Its the sense that a nation and its people are better than their neighbors. (The book I recently read Black Sea notes this and also notes the evils carried out to make nations, once heterogeneous homogeneous. As an example from American history ask a Native American how it was that his grandparents and great grandparents came to speak English.

Americans belong to the richest most powerful nation in history – to date. As a result they are at great risk of falling into the habit of confusing their good fortune for God’s grace. No American President was more aware of this than Abraham Lincoln who wisely refused to say that God supported the North reminding a listener that Southerner’s made the same claim. His humility was rare and refreshing.

But Abraham Lincoln did not doubt his Nation’s greatness. Indeed, his entire adult life was devoted to finding a way to join the pantheon composed of our nation’s founders.

the rhetoric of the American revolution was lofty – inspired by the highest thinking of the period in Europe called the Enlightment which supposed, among other things, that humans freed from government oppression would like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day become decent and generous. This is perhaps as good an description of liberalism as I can come up with. It is found in the New Testament. It is found in the teachings of Karl Marx. How ironic that its author in the Declaration was a lifelong slave owner.

Winston Churchill famously said of Americans that they would try every other solution before doing the right thing or words to that effect. I think the Founding Father’s saw in their new nation something like this. Slavery would end and then the nation could really be true to its founding spirit. That spirit was seized by the French who proceeded to guillotine all the folks they thought were getting in the way of their national greatness.

The Revolution of the Americans also inspired the South Americans who through off the Spanish Yoke. Lincoln’s great Whig hero, Henry Clay, was a great champion of Simon Bolivar. Like Clay. Like Jefferson, Like almost everyone but the damned abolitionists, who probably didn’t give it any thought, Lincoln saw no future for black slaves in America as equals of the white population. And yet Lincoln knew his constitution and knew his history better than any of his contemporaries.

I know because I read it in a book called Lincoln at Cooper’s Union the Speech that made Abraham Lincoln President

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