What we learned at the Lincoln Memorial

Me and my son at the Lincoln Memorial, January 18, 2019

Last Saturday, my teenage son and I went to participate in the 46th annual March for Life. On the way to the March we decided to get off the Metro a few stops early and take in some of the most iconic monuments on the Washington Mall. The Lincoln Memorial was our first stop.

Thirty six marble columns, representing the 36 states reunited after the civil war, guard the entry into a temple-like inner sanctum. Inside is a 175-ton marble statue of Abraham Lincoln. His left hand is clenched in a fist to symbolize his strength and determination to see the war through. His right hand is relaxed and open, symbolizing his compassionate reaching out to grieving Americans from both sides of the Civil War.

The meaning of his hands is further emphasized by his words. On the right hand wall is the Gettysburg Address. On Lincoln’s left is his Second Inaugural Address. He spoke these words on March 4, 1865, while the war was still ongoing and 41 days before his assassination.

Amid all the moving symbolism of the Memorial, these are the words that caused my voice to crack and my eyes to tear as I read them aloud. Even before the war was over in which 620,000 American fathers, sons and brothers killed each other, Lincoln’s strength and determination to make war was turning to an equal strength and determination to make peace.

It’s a brief speech that concludes, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

As we were approaching the Memorial, we heard a bullhorn and saw protesters off to our left. After our visit, we made our way through them toward the Viet Nam Wall. On the way we spotted a news crew interviewing some of their leaders. I can’t remember if one of them was Nathan Phillips.

I only remarked to my son that even though there were a half-million people only a few blocks away, this gathering of fewer than 100 would likely get more press coverage than the March for Life. Even then I couldn’t imagine what that would look like.

The first March for Life was organized in 1974 in observance of Roe v. Wade. It has been held every year since. Attendance can exceed 650,000. It has also earned the reputation among the Capitol Police with whom we spoke as the cleanest and most well-behaved March in Washington.

Not everybody is polite. One man, lugging around the biggest bullhorn I have ever seen and a ten-foot sign, wandered around in the crowd insulting the participants and generally making himself obnoxious. There was another like him farther down the route.

But considering that the crowd was roughly the size of Wyoming’s entire population, two bad eggs cannot dilute the overwhelming good nature of the participants.

Busloads of people come from all over. Many wear a distinctive hat or pullover. The 300 Lutherans wore neon-green beanies and carried pictures of people with life-affirming stories (eyesoflife.org).

Hundreds of Roman Catholic school groups can often be heard singing their distinctive school chants back and forth in friendly rivalries. That is why the article posted on Buzzfeed the following afternoon just didn’t ring true.

It linked a 60-second video clip from Twitter but told a story that didn’t match the video at all. Supposedly, a mob of Catholic teenagers surrounded a peaceful native American to taunt him. But the video showed only confused kids wondering why this man was beating a drum and staring down one of their friends.

Almost two hours of additional video shows a fuller story. A group of students were waiting for their bus when five men from the D.C. area began an hour-long barrage of racial, religious and sexual insults. 

The student’s chaperones were keeping them together and reminding them to stay calm. Then an hour and twelve minutes into the video Nathan Phillips, a professional activist, led a group of protesters directly into their ranks.

Imagine how you would react. After an hour of insults, a total stranger beating a drum walks out of his way to put his face within inches of yours. What would you do? What expression would you have on your face? Nicholas Sandmann first tried a poker-face. Then he tried to break eye-contact. Next, he tried a smile.

It was the smile that condemned him. Someone decided that it was the wrong sort of smile. His crime was not anything that he said or did, but his appearance.

There were two or three people with cameras. All of them knew the truth told by the video footage. But one of them edited the footage in a way calculated to misrepresent the event. Not only did that lie hurt Sandmann and his entire community, it was meant to.

That is “malice aforethought.” America should know the name of this liar as well as we know the name, Covington. He or she should be brought to justice. There are no laws against a forced smile while you are trying to make the best of an uncomfortable situation. But there are laws against publishing the picture and the identity of a minor with malicious intent.

It was not only the videographer who lied. So did an anonymous Twitter activist who posed as a California school teacher using the picture of a Brazilian blogger. He or she condemned Sandmann to 40,000 followers and amplified it through another 40 fake accounts. This was a professional hit.

Then the press got involved. Buzzfeed violated every standard of editorial diligence and decency by repeating a story in national press that had already been debunked. They knew what they were doing. So did the New York Times and their followers.

Nathan Phillips, activist

Sandmann neither approached Phillips, nor touched him, or spoke to him. But he found himself in scores of newspapers and had his full name and picture vilified on 300 million TV screens and cell phones across America. That is not dispassionate reporting. That is participation in a mob.

America has jumped the shark. It’s time to take a deep breath and count to ten.

Sandmann is not a MAGA hat-wearer. He is not a Catholic. He is not a pro-lifer. He is not a European. He is a human being. He is a son. If Phillips had decided to pull his stunt a few hours earlier, it could very well have been my own son. That’s a sobering thought.

Do we care? Do you care enough about a kid from Kentucky to watch the whole video and decide for yourself? Do you care enough to defend his good name when the mob might turn on you? Do you care enough about the damage done to him to cancel newspaper subscriptions and turn off news-channels that have lied to you and defamed an unsuspecting kid?

Do newspaper publishers and reporters care enough to verify facts before publishing whatever sells copy or advances their bias? Do celebrities and politicians care enough to apologize to the real person they have unjustly accused?

We need the strength and determination of Lincoln’s clinched fist to stand against this war on decency. And we need the compassion of his open hand to reach out to every fellow-citizen, not only the favored tribe du jour.

Lincoln’s words still beckon: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.”

There is much work to be done.

Miracle on the Hudson, ten years on

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the “Miracle on the Hudson.” Pilot Chesley Sullenberger (“Sully”) and co-pilot, Jeff Skiles safely landed a commercial jet on the Hudson River without the loss of a single life.

Where does one begin to tell a story like that? The natural place to begin is at the inception of the action. Exactly 80 seconds after U.S. Airways flight 1549’s wheels left the runway of LaGuardia International Airport, it ran into a flock of Canadian geese. Passengers and crew heard the birds strike the Airbus A320 and watched flames trail from both engines. Then there was silence.

Years later, the sound of that silence still haunts Sully. It announced a crisis that no pilot had ever faced: the complete loss of thrust at the very moment in the flight profile that required the greatest thrust. Less than five miles from takeoff, they had climbed only 2,818 feet before becoming the world’s largest glider.

But the story doesn’t really begin with the geese. When their flight path intersected that of the passenger jet headed for Charlotte, North Carolina, it became a convergence of many stories. More than beginning any one story, the bird strike drew together captain, crew, passengers, and people on the ground,  into a new story—one that endures to this day.

Captain Chesley Sullenberger

For his part, Sully’s story began in Denison, Texas where he was born in 1951. Interested in aviation from a very early age, he learned to fly at a local airstrip when he was 16. After graduating high school he entered the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. As a freshman in the class of 1973, he was hand-selected for the Cadet Glider Program. That was a part of his story that would be useful 40 years later.

After finishing his study at the academy, he took a graduate degree from Purdue University and earned his wings in 1975. He spent his time in the Air Force flying the F-4D Phantom, the first airframe to achieve the speed of sound in level flight. Following his retirement from military service, he became a commercial pilot in 1980 and flew for the same airline until his retirement thirty years later.


Sully with Jeffrey Skiles

Sully is adamant that the miracle was no solo performance, but a team effort. His co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, has more than 22,000 hours of experience himself and was indispensable to the successful landing. His story, too, was tailor-made to be part of a greater story.

Nor was landing the plane the only miracle of that day. As the downed aircraft was rapidly sinking in the frigid water, 14 New York Waterway ferries, together with U.S. Coastguard and NYFD boats, plucked 150 passengers and five crew members from the freezing water. Ferry captains like Manny Liba and Vincent Lombardi drew on decades of training and experience to pull off the most successful marine rescue in aviation history.

Ferries from New York Waterway

Each of these individual people has a history that uniquely contributes to his part in the “Miracle on the Hudson.” That’s how life works. Our lives and well-being are constantly affected by the lives of thousands of strangers who surround us. These people, in turn, all have histories of aptitudes, interests, training and personal choices that uniquely place them into our own story.

Every career decision, every moment spent learning, studying and training and every character enhancement or character flaw suddenly became a vital factor in whether real people lived or died. The “Miracle on the Hudson” brought this reality into focus, but it’s a reality that carries on in your life, as well.

Whatever you are doing today, good and bad, has real-world consequences for everybody around you. Sometimes your actions have immediate consequences. Other times they are deposits of knowledge, character and practice that you make toward some unknown future.

The point to notice here is that these actions do not only affect individual lives, they affect everybody else’s as well. That’s why communities rise and fall together. As each person in the community grows more competent and selfless, the community as a whole is better for it.

This is an important lesson to reclaim in a culture that values individual choice and individual satisfaction as the supreme good. They are not the supreme good! Autonomous choice divorced from care for the specific neighbors surrounding us can only tear down. It cannot build. Our choices, even private choices, are not made in isolation. Every thing we do has a direct bearing on the rest of the community.

On January 15, 2009, the entire community of Flight 1549 was lifted up by a thousand untold stories of sacrifice, training, self-denial and dedication. The skills, the character traits, the training and the fitness that saved the passengers on flight 1549 were all being put into place during months, years and decades leading up to that moment of truth.

Captain Sully reflected on this years later. “For 40 years I had been making deposits in my ability to take-off, fly and land aircraft,” he said. “On that fateful day I made a huge withdrawal. And if I hadn’t made all those deposits over all those years, I wouldn’t have been able to make that withdrawal, and save those people’s lives.”

Patrick Harten

In the seconds that passed after hitting the birds, Sully and Skiles were not idle. The captain assumed control of the aircraft so that his co-pilot could begin executing the checklist required. Twenty-two seconds later, Sully radioed air traffic controller, Patrick Harten, “This is Cactus 1539, hit birds. We’ve lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back toward LaGuardia.”

Harten immediately cleared runway 13 for landing. But Sully replied with a single word, “unable… We are gonna be in the Hudson.” They were over one of the most densely populated cities in the world—and three minutes from impact. There were 155 souls aboard and many times that on the ground below. But Sully and his co-pilot remained focused on the task at hand: to land safely.

Such occasions don’t come with a book. There is no time to “Google” the answer. Even if there were, the answer did not yet exist. The answer lay in Sully’s understanding of the physical world. Airspeed, wind direction, altitude, weight, lift and position all combined to form the canvass on which Sully would paint his masterpiece.

There was no opportunity for practice or a do-over. It’s like our life every day. Every word we speak, every move we make, is life lived out against the canvass of the real world. The outcome depends entirely upon how well we understand that world, and how skillfully we navigate it.

That’s what makes Sully’s story so uplifting. He understood. He acted on that understanding with competence and skill. In so doing, he guided 155 souls to safety.

Such a story encourages us to strive. Let us understand our world accurately. Let us discipline ourselves to shape character, mind and body. Let us pray for the grace to live our lives according to the truth. In so doing, each of us has the opportunity to be Sully in our own family, in our school, in our community.

It’s not just about us. Everyone benefits.

WTE: Jury trials testify that America is governed by natural law

Jury trials are such a common fixture of American life that few people give them a second thought. The U.S. Constitution’s requirement (Art. III, Sec. 3) that “The trial of all crimes…shall be by jury,” may seem wholly normal but it is unique to America. In other countries, jury trial is reserved only for a few special circumstances.

Most of the world’s population will never be allowed to ask twelve fellow citizens for justice. By contrast our Sixth Amendment guarantees a “public trial, by an impartial jury” in “all criminal prosecutions.” The Seventh Amendment even extends this right to most civil cases!

By definition, a jury has no legal training. There is only one thing that a random selection of jurors can bring to a criminal or a civil trial--common sense. Anyone rich and poor, high school dropout and rocket scientist, is born with a sense of right and wrong.

The very fact that jury trials are ensconced in American law testifies that all laws are intended to be nothing more and nothing less than a written expression of that law written on every person’s heart. It is called the natural law.

Natural law is not created by societies, governments, or churches. It is not created at all but discovered in the heart of humankind. The telltale sign of natural law is that both sides appeal to justice. This appeal is not defined by legislation. It, rather, judges every positive law that is the creation of lawmakers.

Societies that get this backward no longer seek to discover the universal principles of justice. Instead, they attempt to create justice by fiat. It is an efficient at handling disputes, but it imposes order by power. It does not seek peace by justice.

Trial by jury is America’s way of seeking peace, not just order. We want to be ruled by justice, not power. This means that we are asking juries to let their sense of justice be the deciding factor—even if it runs contrary to the written, positive law.

When a jury decides that a person has broken the written law, but that the written law is unjust, it has the right to nullify the written law in order to grant justice. Jurors have a duty not only to weigh the facts of the case, but also to judge whether the law is just.

Scholars agree that jurors have the constitutional power to do this. But those who reject the natural law want to limit a jury’s authority. They claim that juries should only judge the facts of the case, not the law itself.

Let legal theorists argue about the U.S. Constitution, but Wyoming’s Constitution leaves no room for doubt. Section 20 of our Declaration of Rights expressly states, “in all trials for libel, both civil and criminal, the truth, when published with good intent and [for] justifiable ends, shall be a sufficient defense, the jury having the right to determine the facts and the law, under direction of the court” (Art. I, Sec. 20).

In both civil and criminal cases, a jury—and not just a single judge—has the “right to determine the facts and the law.” Common, untrained citizens are charged by the Wyoming Constitution to decide not only if a person has violated the law, but also whether the law itself it just. That’s jury nullification.

Especially in matters of free speech, Wyoming is constituted to protect its citizens from arbitrary dictates of government power. Just because some governmental entity makes a law forbidding this or that speech does not make it just. Positive law that does not match up with natural law should not be followed.

It is as if Wyoming’s founders could foresee our cultural climate. Increasingly, statements of plain truth are subject to fines, censure and other penalties. Time after time the twisted logic of positive law trumps common sense.

But in nearly a decade of judgements from the bench and rulings from appointed commissions, not a single jury has had their say. Government officers may be adept at parsing policy statement and legalese, but they are not allowed to ask such laws are actually just.

Justice is discovered in the human heart. It is not created by lawmakers. If any law is not true to the law written on the heart, it is unjust. Juries are given a prominent place in American justice because American justice rests upon natural law, not man-made laws.

If we value a peaceful society and not just an orderly one, our judicial system must aim for justice, not merely lawfulness. This is America’s great heritage. It is also explicitly taught in Wyoming’s Constitution. Juries that judge the law serve justice and peace, not mere law and order.

Jury trials signal America’s commitment to the natural law

The Jury, (oil on canvass) by John Morgan 1861

Jury trials are such a common fixture of American life that few people give them a second thought. Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, requiring that “The trial of all crimes…shall be by jury,” seems wholly normal. But it is not.

In other countries and in other times, jury trial has been reserved only for a few special circumstances. Civil cases, where citizens take one another to court for monetary damages, and criminal cases, where the government accuses a citizen of a public crime, are most generally decided by a single judge. Most of the world’s population will never be allowed to ask twelve fellow citizens for justice.

Bench trial overseas

Contrast this to the Sixth Amendment in our Bill of Rights, which guarantees that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” The Seventh Amendment even extends this right to civil cases where the damages sought are greater than 20 dollars (about $525, adjusted for inflation).

These constitutional requirements make the American judicial system unique. We are out of step with the rest of the world, not because we are behind the times, but because even after 230 years the world has yet to catch up.

American insistence on trial by jury is the cornerstone of justice because it roots American justice in the common sense of the common citizen and stands opposed to every arbitrary and nonsensical law.

By definition, a jury has no training in legal theory and no vested interest in protecting bureaucratic powers. There is only one thing that a random selection of jurors can bring to a criminal or a civil trial. It brings its common sense. Each person, rich and poor, high school dropout and rocket scientist, is born with an internal sense of right and wrong.

The very fact that jury trials are ensconced in American law stands as a testimony that all laws are intended to be nothing more and nothing less than a written expression of that law written on every person’s heart. It is called the natural law.

Natural law is not created by societies, governments, or churches. It is not created at all, but discovered in the heart of humankind. It is the law that governs every quarrel from a toddler’s dispute over a toy to multi-billion-dollar corporate litigation.

The telltale sign of natural law is that both sides appeal to “fairness.” It has nothing to do with written laws, but with the sense of justice behind the written law. If the laws had been written in the opposite way, the sense of fairness would remain unchanged.

The opposite of natural law is positive law. Positive law posits the idea that justice is whatever the lawmakers say it is. Instead of seeking to discover the timeless principles of justice, positive law attempts to create justice by fiat.

Positive law is much more efficient at handling disputes, but it doesn’t much care about anybody’s sense of justice. When two toddlers are quarrelling over a toy, positive law is like the parent who storms into the room and takes it away from one and gives it to the other.

The decision is made. The quarrel is forcibly ended. One side is happy and the other is not. But nobody believes that the decision was either just or unjust. It was just a decision.

Positive law is the tool of tyranny. It imposes order by power. It does not seek peace by justice. Trial by jury is America’s way of seeking peace, not just order. We want to be ruled by justice, not power.

All of this means that we are asking juries to let their internal sense of justice be the deciding factor—even if it runs contrary to the written, positive law. Legal scholars call this “jury nullification.” When a jury decides that a person has broken the written law, but that the written law is unjust, it has the right to nullify the written law in order to grant justice.

Legal scholars, together with two centuries of legal precedents, all agree that jurors have the power to do this. But this is the best kept secret of our modern judicial system. Jury nullification remains a highly controversial concept and defense lawyers are prohibited from telling jurors that they have this right.

People who deny any transcendent natural law--positive law theorists—will admit that juries have this power but assert that it is a mistake in the constitution that we need to fix. They assert that juries only have the right to decide matters of fact, but that they are forbidden from judging the law.

While this argument rages among scholars of the U.S. Constitution, Wyoming’s Constitution leaves no room for argument. It plainly states that jurors have the duty to judge both the facts and the law itself. Section 20 of Wyoming’s Declaration of Rights spells this out.

It says, “in all trials for libel, both civil and criminal, the truth, when published with good intent and [for] justifiable ends, shall be a sufficient defense, the jury having the right to determine the facts and the law, under direction of the court.”

Notice those broad, sweeping qualifiers. Not only when the government charges a citizen (criminal cases) but also when citizens take each other to court (civil cases), a jury—and not just a single judge—has the “right to determine the facts and the law.” Common, untrained citizens are charged by the Wyoming Constitution to decide not only if a person has violated the law, but also whether the law itself it just. That’s jury nullification.

Especially in matters of free speech, Wyoming is constituted to protect its citizens from arbitrary dictates of government power. Just because some governmental entity makes a law forbidding this or that speech does not make it just. Positive law that does not match up with natural law should not be followed.
It is as if Wyoming’s founders could foresee our day. We live in a cultural climate where statements of common sense are increasingly subject to fines, censure and other penalties. Businesses are fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. Charity organizations are shut down. Public employees are fired.


Judge Ruth Neely

Lyle Williams

It’s not only First-Amendment rights that are being trampled, but other rights plainly recognized by the Bill of Rights as well. Time after time we see strange verdicts handed down by judges ruling from the bench and commissars appointed by partisan governors. They are only concerned with whether John Q. Citizen broke the law as written. They do not ask whether the law itself is just.

Justice is discovered, not created. If the law written in books is not true to the law written on the heart, it is unjust. Juries are given a prominent place in American justice because American justice rests upon natural law, not man-made laws.

Because we value a peaceful society and not just an orderly one, our judicial system must aim for justice and not merely lawfulness. The sooner we recognize and appreciate the power and wisdom of trial by jury, the sooner justice and peace will replace mere law and order.