Category Archives: History

Racial symbols: OK or racist

2 Replies
Washington Redskins logo and symbol. Shows race or racism?

Washington Redskins lost protection of their logo and indian symbol. Symbol of race or racism?

In law, one generally strives for uniformity, as in Leviticus 24:22: “You shall have one manner of law; the same for the home-born as for the stranger,”  but there are problems with putting this into effect when dealing with racism. The law seems to allow each individual group to denigrate itself with words that outsiders are not permitted. This is seen regularly in rap songs but also in advertising.

Roughly a year ago, the US Patent office revoked the copyright protection for the Washington Redskin logo and for the team name causing large financial loss to the Redskins organization. The patent office cited this symbol as the most racist-offensive in sports. I suspect this is bad law, in part because it appears non-uniform, and in part because I’m fairly sure it isn’t the most racist-offensive name or symbol. To pick to punish this team seems (to me) an arbitrary, capricious use of power. I’ll assume there are some who are bothered by the name Redskin, but suspect there are others who take pride in the name and symbol. The image is of a strong, healthy individual, as befits a sports team. If some are offended, is his (or her) opinion enough to deprive the team of its merchandise copyright, and to deprive those who approve?

More racist, in my opinion, is the fighting Irishman of Notre Dame. He looks thick-headed, unfit, and not particularly bright: more like a Leprechaun than a human being. As for offensive, he seems to fit a racial stereotype that Irishmen get drunk and get into fights. Yet the US Patent office protects him for the organization, but not the Washington Redskin. Doesn’t the 14th amendment guarantee “equal protection of the laws;” why does Notre Dame get unequal protection?

Notre Damme Fighting Irish. Is this an offensive stereotype.

Notre Dame’s Fighting Irishman is still a protected symbol. Is he a less-offensive, racist stereotype?

Perhaps what protects the Notre Dame Irishman is that he’s a white man, and we worry more about insulting brown people than white ones. But this too seems unequal: a sort of reverse discrimination. And I’m not sure the protection of the 14th was meant to extend to feelings this way. In either case, I note there are many other indian-named sports teams, e.g. the Indians, Braves, and Chiefs, and some of their mascots seem worse: the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, “Chief Wahoo,” for example.

Chief Wahoo, symbol of the Cleveland Indians. Still protected logo --looks more racist than the Redskin to me.

Chief Wahoo, Still protected symbol of the Cleveland Indians –looks more racist than the Redskin to me.

And then there’s the problem of figuring out how racist is too racist. I’m told that Canadians find the words Indian and Eskimo offensive, and have banned these words in all official forms. I imagine some Americans find them racist too, but we have not. To me it seems that an insult-based law must include a clear standard of  how insulting the racist comment has to be. If there is no standard, there should be no law. In the US, there is a hockey team called the Escanaba (Michigan) Eskimos; their name is protected. There is also an ice-cream sandwich called Eskimo Pie — with an Eskimo on the label. Are these protected because there are relatively fewer Eskimos or because eskimos are assumed to be less-easily insulted? All this seems like an arbitrary distinction, and thus a violation of the “equal protection” clause.

And is no weight given if some people take pride in the symbol: should their pride be allowed balance the offense taken by others? Yankee, originally an insulting term for a colonial New Englander became a sign of pride in the American Revolution. Similarly, Knickerbocker was once an insulting term for a Dutch New Yorker; I don’t think there are many Dutch who are still insulted, but if a few are, can we allow the non-insulted to balance them. Then there’s “The Canucks”, an offensive term for Canadian, and the Boston Celtic, a stereotypical Irishman, but also a mark of pride of how far the Irish have come in Boston society. Tar-heel and Hoosiers are regional terms for white trash, but now accepted. There must be some standard of insult here, but I see none.

The Frito Bandito, ambassador of Frito Lays corn chips.

The Frito Bandito, ambassador of Frito Lays corn chips; still protected, but looks racist to me.

Somehow, things seem to get more acceptable, not less if the racial slur is over the top. This is the case, I guess with the Frito Bandito — as insulting a Mexican as I can imagine, actually worse than Chief Wahoo. I’d think that the law should not allow for an arbitrary distinction like this. What sort of normal person objects to the handsome Redskin Indian, but not to Wahoo or the Bandito? And where does Uncle Ben fit in? The symbol of uncle Ben’s rice appears to me as a handsome, older black man dressed as a high-end waiter. This seems respectable, but I can imagine someone seeing an “uncle tom,” or being insulted that a black man is a waiter. Is this enough offense  to upend the company? Upending a company over that would seem to offend all other waiters: is their job so disgusting that no black man can ever be depicted doing it? I’m not a lawyer or a preacher, but it seems to me that promoting the higher levels of respect and civil society is the job of preachers not of the law. I imagine it’s the job of the law to protect contracts, life, and property. As such the law should be clear, uniform and simple. I can imagine the law removing a symbol to prevent a riot, or to maintain intellectual property rights (e.g. keeping the Atlanta Brave from looking too much like the Cleveland Indian). But I’d think to give people wide berth to choose their brand expression. Still, what do I know?

Robert Buxbaum, August 26, 2015. I hold 12 patents, mostly in hydrogen, and have at least one more pending. I hope they are not revoked on the basis that someone is offended. I’ve also blogged a racist joke about Canadians, and about an Italian funeral.

Winning at Bunker Hill lost America for Britain.

4 Replies

The greatest single victory of the American Revolution in terms of British soldiers killed or wounded was the battle of Bunker Hill. It was won without global strategy, or any real sense of victory. The British captured the hill but their loss of soldiers and reputation was such that one can echo British General, George Clinton’s comment: “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.” How the British came to blunder this way is a lesson in group-think management; it lead to the destruction of an army of the finest soldiers on earth by a band of untrained, leader-less rabble.

A map of metropolitan Boston in May 1775 shows that it was already a major port with far less dry land than it has today. It consisted of a knob-hill peninsula, British-controlled Boston city, cut off from the rest of the colonies except for one narrow road, called “The Neck,” or The Roxbury Neck. The later name was used to distinguish it from a similar neck road that connected the colonies to nearby Charlestown peninsula; Bunker Hill is on Charlestown peninsula. Following the rumpus battles of Lexington and Concord, Boston’s suburbs were over-filled by 15,000, ill-clad, undisciplined colonials who ate, drank, and shot at random stuff in plain view of Boston’s 6000 trained soldiers and four Generals. The Colonials set up barriers and cannon at their end of the Neck road. These were not particularly good barriers, and the British army could leave at any time by the neck to control of the colonies, but only at a cost in men. This potential cost  kept rising as more colonials came to camp around Boston. What would you do?

The British had sea-power that they felt they could use: excellent ships and excellent admirals; the colonies had neither. The British navy could attack anywhere on the American coast, but only at a risk of further alienating the colonials. They thus used their power judicially. E.g., for the attack on Lexington, April ’75, navy ships took the 2000 soldiers from Boston, landing them at Charlestown, at the foot of Breed’s hill. The army then marched out over the Charlestown neck to Lexington and Concord, but not to a smashing success. Many soldiers lost their lives, and not much was captured.

Back in Boston, the four British generals: Gage, Burgoyne, Howe, and Clinton, decided that, to quash the revolt/revolution, they had to break out of Boston and quarter in Massachusetts proper, on some easily defended ground on the mainland, preferably high ground. They needed to establish a base with good connections to the rest of colonies, plus good access to the sea. Looking about, the obvious spot for this base was the heights of Dorchester, a set of hills that overlooked Boston Harbor from the south. Eventually the British would flee Boston because George Washington would capture and hold these heights. The reason the British didn’t capture the heights or at least defend them was the result of group-think ignorance, on the morning of June 17. The British changed their goals, and decided to attack at Charlestown (Breed’s Hill) instead of Dorchester. Capturing Charlestown left Britain with many dead and no good connection to the colonies; it was just another isolated peninsula barely attached to the mainland by an easily defended road.

Why did four, trained Generals attack this worthless spot instead of Dorchester? It was the luck of American disarray and mob-rule. Looking at the Colonials disarray, each of the four generals saw an opportunity for personal glory; the colonials were inept and would never improve. The same British group-think that reawakeneded in the Crimean war with Russia. The American defense of Charleston and Breeds Hill was done so incredibly poorly that the Americans were left as sitting ducks, waiting to be taken. A poor location was chosen for the fort and only 1200 Colonials came to defend it. We’d meant to build a fort on a better location, Bunker Hill, the tall hill overlooking Boston, and we’d meant to build a minor respite foxhole on Breeds hill, but we screwed up.

Our soldiers were digging  at night, fueled with much rum and little or no leadership. When the sun rose on June 17, we found that we’d built next to nothing on Bunker hill, and a vastly too-large, uselessly deep, square hole at Breed’s Hill: a doubtful redoubt. The square was open at back, and too large for the number of soldiers. It was also too deep for people to shoot out of easily. Looking with spyglasses from Boston, the British generals saw that we had no idea what we were doing. Gage and co., thought to show us the consequences of our incompetence. A few thousand British soldiers could easily take this redoubt and its 1200 defenders, and that thought clouded his mind and the minds of his fellows. They forgot that this was not a hill worth taking, and never imagined that we might fix our defenses. Even if Gage could win without a single lost man, he should have realized that a victory would leave him in a worse position than before. His forces would then be divided between two peninsulas both separated from the mainland, and separated from each other by neck-roads. Coordinating an attack from this position would be a logistic nightmare, and any one of the co-Generals should have alerted him to this.

The attack was supposed to work this way: a sea landing at Moulton's hill. two side actions, SA, at the fronts of the Colonial defenses, and a sweeping main attack, MA, at the edge.

The attack was supposed to work this way: a sea landing at Moulton’s hill. two side actions, SA, at the fronts of the Colonial defenses, and a sweeping main attack, MA, at the edge.

But four generals working together were stupider than Gage alone. Their glee at our incompetence made them forget why Dorchester Heights was the right military target. The prospect of personal glory made attacking Charlestown and its hills too tempting to ignore. Their superior force of trained men would land and march forward to an easy victory. They might even do it with bayonets alone, as the Continentals had too few men, no training, and no bayonets. If the Continentals were able to muster together at all (unlikely), they were unlikely to reload fast enough to shoot more than once — that took special guns and training. Under pressure, the colonials would likely miss with most of the only shot they got, and would find themselves over-run before they could reload. The British force could shoot therebels at close range, or they could hold their fire and spear them with bayonets as the rebels tried to reload, or run out of the hole they were in.

It was a perfect plan with only a minor problem, easily addressed: the Americans had a cannon brought to the hill, and a trained cannoneer could kill many with a few follies of grape-shot. Gage and co. thus decided on a complex attack that would avoid the cannon. It included a feint to the front and a side run. This “wheeling motion” was completely unnecessary: the Americans had little powder and no idea what to do with a cannon, the generals didn’t know that.  The plan was to form a single line across from the fort (hole), fake a frontal attack to draw American shots while staying out of range, and then wheel right. That is, on command, every British soldier was to turn right and march, as a column, north to the trench’s right side (the left side if you look as a Colonial). They’d avoid the cannon rifle shots, and take the redoubt from the north side, perhaps without taking a single loss. It should have been a piece of cake, but was not.

Landing the British troops and forming them up took longer than expected, as often happens, and during this time, more Colonials showed up, and some of them took pot-shots at the British officers. What’s more, the rebels began to fix the more-glaring flaws in their defenses. Potshots from Charlestown windows slowed British efforts at mustering into an appropriate line while the Continentals built up the left (north) side of their redoubt — the side the British wished to attack. The colonials added triangular sub forts (Friches) at both sides of their square trench, somewhat in front, and added a wooden fence rail from the hill to the sea somewhat behind. The British naval commander wasted yet more time with a cannon barrage from his ships. He imagined he was softening the defense, but the barrage managed to kill only one colonial, decapitated by a cannon-ball, while providing time for the colonials to build their friches and fence, and allowing for more sniper work. Col. Stark put colonials at the sense with shot markers at 100 feet in front. He then passed the now-famous instruction: don’t shoot till they passed these markers and you see the whites of their eyes.  He needed to preserve ammunition, and assumed that, at 50 to 100 feet, his colonials would not miss, and could fall back. Any British who passed the fence would be taken out by defenders shooting down from Bunker Hill, or up from the hole.

The second attack at Breeds Hill

The second attack at Breeds Hill

At first the British tried the frontal feint attack with a wheel to the north. When this attack failed to heavy losses, they tried again before realizing this attack was ill-suited to the terrain and troops. The British front line was composed of crack Hessians who marched perfectly in step, wearing bright red coats and heavy bear-skin, “Busby hats” to make them look more formidable. It might have worked on even ground, this ground was uneven and mucky, and the hats kept the Hessians from looking down at the brambles and rocks. Their stumbling motion, always aligned, was so slow that the colonials had time to fire and reload. The Hessians who survived the first shots never managed to wheel. Meanwhile, the main British attack, the one at the rail fence, failed because a colonial fired early by mistake. The British force should have ignored it, but instead, stopped and fired back. Hearing the shooting, more Colonials showed up and shot at British soldiers (more or less in range) using the fence to steady their aim. Only a few British got past the fence and these were shot by the retreating Americans and by the garrison on Bunker Hill. The attack was called back, allowing the British to re-muster while the Americans reloaded and repositioned.

Before the second British attack, more colonials wandered onto the peninsula, and built a quick platform in the redoubt so they could shoot better over the top. Some defenders of Bunker Hill — folks who’d seen little action so far — moved forward to get better shots, defending at the fence, and some Colonials wandered off, too. There was still no one in charge. Just everyone doing what seemed right to him.

meanwhile, the generals burnt Charlestown as a way of stopping the snipers, and mustered their men for a simpler attack with a simpler troop arrangement, see map above and picture below. Three ranks of soldiers were set to march straight at the fort without trying to wheel. Those with Busby hats were largely dead or wounded, so the attackers could see where they were stepping. Still, without the wheel, the result was many British dead or wounded, and this second attack was called off.

The second attack: Three ranks and no Busby hats this time, with Charlestown burning in the background. Their's not to question why, their's but to do and die.

The second attack: Three ranks and no Busby hats this time, with the dead strewn around and Charlestown burning in the background. Their’s not to question why; their’s but to do and die. Painting by Pyle.

About at this time, the British should have decided to go home and attack elsewhere (Dorchester), but they persisted, not willing to accept defeat. For the third attack, the soldiers were told to attack as two single, long columns. The generals added some 400 marines (ship-board soldiers) plus some 200 wounded who were now ordered to re-muster. The columns waled straight up to the fort. The folks in front pushed by those behind; the soldiers at the front were killed, but the attack worked, sort of. The British took the fort, but most of the defenders avoided capture. They retreated across the neck and rejoined the main mob. The British captured or killed some 400 at the expense of 1,054 men lost; 226 were killed in the immediate battle, including most of the junior officers, with the rest lost as a result of wounds. The soldiers also lost the sense of invincibility; unorganized colonials could fight, inflicting serious damage at minimal cost.

There arose a myth of the backwoods shooter, but it was largely a myth. The Colonials were able to pick off British officers because the officers dressed to be noticed. It was a mistake the British would keep making. At Bunker Hill, the British lost 1 lieutenant colonel (killed), 5 majors (3 killed), 34 captains (7 killed) 41 lieutenants (9 killed), 57 sergeants (15 killed), and 13 drummers (1 killed). A lesson we learned: don’t dress so fancy. Tactically, the British victory at Bunker hill left their forces divided between two peninsulas. The men defending these peninsulas were unavailable for any attack at Dorchester heights. Thus the British forces lost the opportunity to escape Boston and take positions that could hold the colonies. By January, 1776 Washington Controlled Dorchester heights, and the British left Boston and Charlestown by ship. They would try taking Dorchester again in 1776 and 1777, but by then the continental army was more of an army, less of a rabble with rifles. A life lesson: only fight for something that you really want, a pointless win can be a lost opportunity.

After the battle, the back-stabbing and group think continued among the British generals, while the colonials got a single commander, General Washington. Meanwhile,  a new British general arrived, Burgoyne, who blamed Generals Clinton, Howe, and Gage for the loss of men and opportunity. Burgoyne got to lead an attack from Canada, but stung by Burgoyne’s blame-game, Clinton and Howe did not come his aid at Albany in June 1777. Instead, Clinton left Burgoyne to fend for himself (and be captured) while Howe was sent to attack the continental congress at Philadelphia. Burgoyne lost his army and reputation, and Howe captured Philadelphia, restoring his reputation, sort-of.  The Continental Congress fled Philadelphia ahead of the Brits, and Burgoyne’s defeat led to the French joining in on our side. Burgoyne blamed Clinton and Howe for his defeat, but was really done in by over confidence. He could not see that the chaotic leadership of a rabble was better than a fixed command without real communication, even with the best generals and soldiers.

The colonial chaos was horrible, but workable. The fixed-command mistakes on the British side were not as bad, but disastrous, since they required a coordinated effort that could not be produced. Had there been fewer British generals and a simpler plan, the better-trained British army would have won at Charlestown, or they would have left and attacked at Dorchester and won the war. One on one, General Howe’s forces repeatedly beat Washington, meeting in New York and New Jersey in the summer and fall of 1776. These were the same soldiers who lost at Bunker Hill, but with a simple command structure: one general not four. It was only George Washington’s genius that saved some semblance of an army to keep fighting into 1777.

This is not to say that chaos is good, but that it can work, especially with Americans. We tolerate chaos and fractured leadership better than most, I think, because we are, by nature, chaotic. As Bismarck put it: “God protects children, fools, and the United States of America.”

Robert Buxbaum, August 16, 2015 (edited June, 2024). There were several other howler mistakes of the American Revolution discussed here.  British generals took useless victories while losing opportunities that mattered. Don’t fight readily; only to win something of value that can be won.

Major blunders of the American Revolution

6 Replies

As nice as it is to discuss the brilliant men and great battles that allowed the American colonials to win the American Revolution, there is another way to see things –perhaps less enjoyable, but just as legitimate: looking at the great dunderheads and mistakes that allowed the greatest military power on earth to be defeated by a small group of undisciplined rabble. Here follows brief essays on my three top dunderheads: two British, one French. No one realized they were dunces until much later.

Pride of place goes, I think, to King Louis 16th of France. He helped us to win the war, and lost his own empire in the process. King Louis had nothing to gain by funding the American cause. And he had quite a lot to lose in men and money. He lost his ships and men in Rhode Island, lost colonies in India and the Seychelles, and spent millions he’d need when the famine of 1789 came. Worse, by supporting America, Louis put the bug of Liberty in the French ear. Far better (for Louis) would have been if he had waited, non-committally for another 3-5 years as the Dutch and Spanish did. He could have continued to host and honor Franklin, could have continued to sell weapons (to both sides) and could have even encouraged hot-head volunteers like Lafayette to go over and fight. We might still have won (see below) but at a greater cost to us and a fraction of the cost to the French monarchy. Let us thank God for fools. Here are my thoughts on when to get involved in a foreign war.

The basic issue of big-scale blunders is not seeing the disaster that hides behind a small-scale victory. And that tends to be funny.

The basic of every great dunderhead is not seeing the disaster that hides behind a small-scale victory. And that tends to be funny.

British admiral George Rodney is my second, honored dunce. He had many victories, especially after the war was lost, but his major war achievement was not-relieving Cornwallis at Yorktown, and thus losing the war. In early 1781, Rodney was defending Jamaica and other British “Sugar Islands” in the Caribbean while waiting for orders to either fight the French fleet or relieve Cornwallis. As it was, he did neither but instead attacked a Dutch-held, Caribbean island, St. Eustatius. Rodney noticed that British freighters were being hijacked by pirates and that the island was a major trading port to the American colonists. By going after these pirates, he gained booty, but left the rest of the empire under-gunned. This allowed French Admiral, de Grasse Tilly to defeat Admiral Hood in the Caribbean; allowed him to take Tobago for the French. And then, while Rodney was still protecting his St Eustatius booty, de Grasse circled back to Virginia in time to bottle up Cornwallis. British Admiral Graves tried twice to dislodge de Grasse, but without Rodney he hadn’t the firepower. Cornwallis surrounded the day Graves gave up his second, failed attempt.

Rodney’s choice was one of greed, self-interest, and glory-seeking at the expense of British national interest. It isn’t unique in the Revolution or in British military history. Clinton’s move to attack Philadelphia when he was supposed to aid Burgoyne caused the loss of Burgoyne’s army and got the French in on our side, but I judge Rodney’s screw-up bigger if only because Cornwallis’s defeat ended the war and lost America.

Finally, I give the third-place dunce cap to General Banastre Tarleton, otherwise known as “Bloody Ban,” the most hated man in America. Tarleton was the son of a noted slave trader and mayor of Liverpool. He tended to win battles, but as fictionalized in the movie, The Patriot, he rarely differentiated rebel from loyalist, burning farms and churches of both. He also became known for “Tarleton’s quarter”, killing his enemies after they had surrendered. In the long run, this sort of thing turns your friends in to your enemies, and so it did here.

The view, common in Tarlton’s regiment, was that this was at least partially a religious war. If a congregation wasn’t Anglican — a church with the king as its head — it was a “sedition shop” and needed to be eliminated. He wasn’t totally wrong, but it rarely goes down well; for example the Sunni vs Shiite, Hamas vs ISIS wars. He certainly undermined Benedict Arnold’s claims that King George was serious in granting religious freedom.

A religious dissertation on why resistance to the king is obedience to God.

A religious dissertation: resistance to a tyrant is obedience to God.

When Tarleton was given the job of capturing Marion Francis, the Swamp Fox, his approach, with Major James Wemyss and Captain Christian Hock (or Hook), was to burn the farms, churches, and plantations of anyone in the area. In one of Wemyss memoranda, he writes he had “burnt and laid waste about 50 houses and Plantations, mostly belonging to People who have either broke their Paroles or Oaths of Allegiance, and are now in Arms against us.” Note the word, “mostly.” These methods did succeed in drawing out the Swamp Fox, but it also drew out most everyone else in the south, even those who’d given up on the revolution. The now-farmless farmers enlisted and produced enthusiastic counter-attacks at Gibson’s Meeting House, Hill’s Iron Works, Fishdam Ford (Wemyss capture), Williamson’s Plantation (Huck’s Defeat), Blackstock’s farm and Cowpens. By the end, the colonials had even figured out how to use Tarleton’s enthusiasm against him.The right way to deal with your enemy is with focus and mercy, as Grant treated Lee at Appomattox. Tarleton’s methods would have made the Revolution a centuries-long, religious war IMHO, if the French had not gotten involved on our side.

Robert Buxbaum. July 16, 2015. If you have other classics of stupidity, please tell me. I’d like to recommend two books by A. J. O’Shaughnessy: “An Empire Divided,” and “The men who lost America.” As a final note: after the war Tarleton retired to Parliament where he served until 1833 as a fierce advocate for British slavery. Britain ended their use of slave workers in the Caribbean and south Africa in 1833, but didn’t stop their use in Ceylon and areas of East India company until 1843. Most Slaves who came to the new world did so in British ships.

Sealand, the big Chinese copy, and WWIII

1 Reply

Perhaps the smallest country in the world is the Republic of Sealand, a man-made island in the English Channel. Originally called Roughs Tower, Sealand is only 1/4 acre, 0.0004 mi2 in area, but expands to 1.5 square miles if you include the 0.7 mile sea-claim. The country was built, in international waters, by the British during WWII, and given semi-legitimate nation status through two diplomatic accidents over the next 20 years. This nation status would be a joke except that the precedent it establishes could start WW III.

Greetings from The King and Queen of the Republic of Sealand.

The Republic of Sealand. King Roy and Queen Joan wave their greetings. Note, gun, flag, and helipad.

The British constructed Fort Roughs to serve as a bulwark against German U-Boats that were sinking supply ships. The tower-fort is topped with a deck and a helipad platform. There is one gun still working, see photo, a remnant of WWII service. Hollow concrete tubes extend to the Rough Sands sand bar; these provide storage and housing for as many as 300 troops. After the war, Rough Tower went unused and was officially abandoned in 1956. It was occupied (salvaged, conquered) in December, 1966 by radio-pirates trying to break the BBC monopoly. One of the radio-pirates, a former British Major, Paddy Roy Bates, declared the fort-island a monarchy with Roy as King and his wife Joan as Queen. Sealand, declared itself an independent nation September 2, 1967. Aristocratic titles are for sale at a price.

The first of the diplomatic accidents underlying Sealand’s semi-legitimate claim to nation status is that, when the responsible British officials were asked whether they intended to remove the radio squatters, the official response was that England abandoned ownership and responsibility. If England abandoned ownership, so the argument goes, then anyone who took over would take possession “res derelicta and terra nullius”. From a legal point of view, it constituted extra-national territory and they could declare island-nation status plus (some) sea rights. Needless to say, the British navy didn’t see it that way, and as soon as independence was declared, they attacked the island-tower-nation. Bates returned warning shots and the navy brought a case against him in Crown court, Essex. The result: The Bates’s won effective recognition as the fort sat in international waters. This claim stood until 1978 when Sealand was successfully “invaded” by German pirates. The Bates family managed to “liberate” (take back) Sealand with the help of a Bond-movie helicopter stunt pilot, capturing a German pirate in the process. The king negotiated with the German government for the pirate’s release, and thus claim de-facto German recognition. Sealand participates in some international games (ultimate frisbee, mostly), and issues passports, stamps, and currency that is not accepted anywhere. Still, the British deliver mail as if it were a country, and no nation has formally contested Sealand’s statehood since. island-reclamation-sc-sea spotlight_81412

Man made Chinese Islands in the South Pacific

Man made Chinese Islands in the South Pacific

Sealand was something of a joke until 18 months ago when China began to create a string of much-larger copies in the South China Sea. Like Sealand they are in international waters, in this case among the uninhabited, Spratly and Parasel chains of coral reefs between Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei. The Chinese built retainer walls around several of the reefs and have been filling the interior with sand and coral from the sea-bed. They’ve since added military housing, desalination plants, docks, and an airstrip.

 

If these islands are accepted as new nations, or (more likely) as extensions of China, and we accept China’s claim to 200 mile sea rights, this project would give China exclusive control over vast oil, mineral, and fishery wealth, as well as control over the South China sea shipping and air lanes, extending into existing sea rights of Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines — about 2,000,000 km2. The governments of Vietnam and The Philippines have complained, but China has ignored them and warned the US to stay out.

The new islands would seem to violate several international laws, but as the incursion doesn’t direct affect us, it seems we should avoid getting involved in a neighbor’s dispute. I’ve written previously on what makes a country, and have argued that it’s a combination of (1) having a defined land and population and (2) having enough of a government and military to maintain and defend itself as a nation. And (3) not doing anything so offensive to attract the complete disdain of other nations. So far there is no civilian population, but there is a military one, and as soon as the Chinese stop building, the islands will meet all of the above criteria, except perhaps #3.

Sealand is a recurring character in the Japanese manga, Hitalia -- dedicated to the more bizarre quirks of history, each country is represented by a character.

Sealand is a recurring character in the Japanese manga, Hitalia. Sealand is the smallest character, but has a dream of ruling the world one day.

Still, it’s in our interest to avoid WW III, and as the islands multiply, so does the chance of the sort of accident that started the Spanish-American War. All it would take is a ship taken or sunk near the islands, or a plane shot down under suspicious circumstances, and the war that started will not be a small or quick. I therefore have a modest suggestion based on Sealand: allow the islands conditional nation status, but as an aristocracy and require the sale of titles of nobility like Sealand does, or the sale of senate seats (like the Illinois Governor tried to do). With enough power in private hands a war could be averted. Peace is possible.

Robert E. Buxbaum, June 21, 2015. Sealand has actually tried selling the whole country in 2007. If you want to buy a title: lord, lady, baron, etc. Go to: sealandgov.org.

Gatling guns and the Spanish American War

3 Replies

I rather like inventions and engineering history, and I regularly go to the SME, a fair of 18th to 19th century innovation. I am generally impressed with how these machines work, but what really brings things out is when talented people use the innovation to do something radical. Case in point, the Gatling gun; invented by Richard J. Gatling in 1861 for use in the Civil war, it was never used there, or in any major war until 1898 when Lieut. John H. Parker (Gatling Gun Parker) showed how to deploy them successfully, and helped take over Cuba. Until then, they were considered another species of short-range, grape-shot cannon, and ignored.

1876_Gatling_gun_NPS_Fort_Laramie_WY_by-Matthew_Trump_2004

A Gatling gun of the late 1800s. Similar, but not identical to the ones Parker brought along.

Parker had sent his thoughts on how to deploy a Gatling gun in a letter to West Point, but they were ignored, as most new thoughts are. For the Spanish-American War, Parker got 4 of the guns, trained his small detachment to use them, and registered as a quartermaster corp in order to sneak them aboard ship to Cuba. Here follows Theodore Roosevelt’s account of their use.

“On the morning of July 1st, the dismounted cavalry, including my regiment, stormed Kettle Hill, driving the Spaniards from their trenches. After taking the crest, I made the men under me turn and begin volley-firing at the San Juan Blockhouse and entrenchment’s against which Hawkins’ and Kent’s Infantry were advancing. While thus firing, there suddenly smote on our ears a peculiar drumming sound. One or two of the men cried out, “The Spanish machine guns!” but, after listening a moment, I leaped to my feet and called, “It’s the Gatlings, men! It’s our Gatlings!” Immediately the troopers began to cheer lustily, for the sound was most inspiring. Whenever the drumming stopped, it was only to open again a little nearer the front. Our artillery, using black powder, had not been able to stand within range of the Spanish rifles, but it was perfectly evident that the Gatlings were troubled by no such consideration, for they were advancing all the while.

Roosevelt and the charge up Kettle Hill, Frederick Remington

Roosevelt, his volunteers, and the Buffalo soldiers charge up Kettle Hill, Frederick Remington.

Soon the infantry took San Juan Hill, and, after one false start, we in turn rushed the next line of block-houses and intrenchments, and then swung to the left and took the chain of hills immediately fronting Santiago. Here I found myself on the extreme front, in command of the fragments of all six regiments of the cavalry division. I received orders to halt where I was, but to hold the hill at all hazards. The Spaniards were heavily reinforced and they opened a tremendous fire upon us from their batteries and trenches. We laid down just behind the gentle crest of the hill, firing as we got the chance, but, for the most part, taking the fire without responding. As the afternoon wore on, however, the Spaniards became bolder, and made an attack upon the position. They did not push it home, but they did advance, their firing being redoubled. We at once ran forward to the crest and opened on them, and, as we did so, the unmistakable drumming of the Gatlings opened abreast of us, to our right, and the men cheered again. As soon as the attack was definitely repulsed, I strolled over to find out about the Gatlings, and there I found Lieut. Parker with two of his guns right on our left, abreast of our men, who at that time were closer to the Spaniards than any others.

From thence on, Parker’s Gatlings were our inseparable companion throughout the siege. They were right up at the front. When we dug our trenches, he took off the wheels of his guns and put them in the trenches. His men and ours slept in the same bomb-proofs and shared with one another whenever either side got a supply of beans or coffee and sugar. At no hour of the day or night was Parker anywhere but where we wished him to be, in the event of an attack. If a troop of my regiment was sent off to guard some road or some break in the lines, we were almost certain to get Parker to send a Gatling along, and, whether the change was made by day or by night, the Gatling went. Sometimes we took the initiative and started to quell the fire of the Spanish trenches; sometimes they opened upon us; but, at whatever hour of the twenty-four the fighting began, the drumming of the Gatlings was soon heard through the cracking of our own carbines.

Map of the Attack on Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in the Spanish American War.

Map of the Attack on Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, July 1, 1898 The Spanish had 760 troops n the in fortified positions defending the crests of the two hills, and 10,000 more defending Santiago. As Americans were being killed in “hells pocket” near the foot of San Juan Hill, from crossfire, Roosevelt, on the right, charged his men, the “Rough Riders” [1st volunteers] and the “Buffalo Soldiers [10th cavalry], up Kettle Hill in hopes of ending the crossfire and of helping to protect troops that would charge further up San Juan Hill. Parker’s Gatlings were about 600 yards from the Spanish and fired some 700 rounds per minute into the Spanish lines. Theyy were then repositioned on the hill to beat back the counter attack. Without the Parker’s Gatling guns, the chances of success would have been small.

I have had too little experience to make my judgment final; but certainly, if I were to command either a regiment or a brigade, whether of cavalry or infantry, I would try to get a Gatling battery–under a good man–with me. I feel sure that the greatest possible assistance would be rendered, under almost all circumstances, by such a Gatling battery, if well handled; for I believe that it could be pushed fairly to the front of the firing-line. At any rate, this is the way that Lieut. Parker used his battery when he went into action at San Juan, and when he kept it in the trenches beside the Rough Riders before Santiago.”

Here is how the Gatling gun works; it’s rather like 5 or more rotating zip guns; a pall pulls and releases the firing pins. Gravity feeds the bullets at the top and drops the shells out the bottom. Lt’ Parker’s deployment innovation was to have them hand-carried to protected positions, near-enough to the front that they could be aimed. The swivel and rapid fire of the guns allowed the shooter to aim them to correct for the drop in the bullets over fairly great distances. This provided rapid-fire accurate protection from positions that could not be readily hit. Shortly after the victory on San Juan HIll, July 1 1898, the Spanish Caribbean fleet was destroyed July 3, Santiago surrendered July 17, and all of Cuba surrendered 4 days later, July 21 (my birthday) — a remarkably short war. While TR may not have figured out how to use the Gatling guns effectively, he at least recognized that Lt. John Parker had.

A new type of machine gun, a colt browning repeating rifle, a gift from Con'l Roosevelt to John Parker's Gatling gun detachment.

Roosevelt gave two of these, more modern, Colt-Browning repeating rifles to Parker’s detachment the day after the battle. They were not particularly effective. By WWI, “Gatling Gun” Parker would be a general; by 1901 Roosevelt would be president.

The day after the battle, Col. Roosevelt gifted Parker’s group with two Colt-Browning machine guns that he and his family had bought, but had not used. According to Roosevelt, but these rifles, proved to be “more delicate than the Gatlings, and very readily got out-of-order.” The Brownings are the predecessor of the modern machine gun used in the Boxer Rebellion and for wholesale deaths in WWI and WWII.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, June 9, 2015. The Spanish-American War was a war of misunderstanding and colonialism, but its effects, by and large, were good. The cause, the sinking of the USS Maine, February 15, 1898, was likely a mistake. Spain, a decaying colonial power, was a conservative monarchy under Alfonso XIII; the loss of Cuba seems to have lead to liberalization. The US, a republic, became a colonial power. There is an inherent friction, I think between conservatism and liberal republicanism, Generally, republics have out-gunned and out-produced other countries, perhaps because they reward individual initiative.

Hamas head deposed, no peace in the middle east

2 Replies

Just about one month ago, the head of the head of Hamas in Syria was removed from his position atop Sheikh Abu Salah Taha’s shoulders. ISIS gave the Sheikh the metaphorical 72 virgins of severance, and his head was given a new post, a wooden pole. Though the fighting has died down since, as it were, we seem no closer to peace. As head of Hamas, Sheik Taha killed many, and ISIS has killed many more. And now, Hamas has pledged Jihad against ISIS, It’s likely ISIS heads will roll, as surviving Hamas members have joined Assad, their murderous enemy of just a few months previous.

Hamas head removed, Sheik Sala, presumed dead.

Hamas head deposed by ISIS. Sheik Salah presumed dead. Prediction: those who killed him will be killed. 

My sense is that bringing peace to the region will require 4 things: (1) one side must have a decisive military victory; (2) They must get the defeated leader to sign a surrender with some clear terms (3) They have to treat the defeated well enough that others will surrender too, and (4) They had to demonstrate the ability to govern. The surrender at Appomattox included all these things, as did Texas independence and the US revolution. By contrast, the history Mexican civil wars suggests that peace becomes near-impossible when you kill the losers, as ISIS has done in Syria. When Santa Ana killed the Texans who surrendered to him at the Alamo and at Goliad, he guaranteed that the Texans would fight on forever, no matter how desperate the odds.

When Santa Anna ordered the execution of all the Texans who surrendered he guaranteed that Texans would not surrender. That's not a road to peace.

When Santa Anna executed the Texans who surrendered at the Alamo and Goliad he guaranteed that Texans would not surrender. That’s not the road to peace.

Governance of any kind is a key distinction between countries and non-countries. In the Middle East, there is a tradition of governance by tyranny and partial genocide, but the rule cemented this way is tenuous at best. About 100 years ago, the Turks cemented their rule over Armenia by killing off many Armenians, and Russia did the same toward to Cossacks, but 70 years later Kasackstan seceded. Sadam Hussain, Bashar Assad, Col’nl Khadaffi, and Ayatollah Khomeini all ruled for reasonable times as murderous tyrants, but two of those ruler’s were killed and three of the kingdoms have descended into chaos. People who’ve seen war will often accept tyranny as a better alternative to chaos in the streets, but eventually they revolt. By contrast, Israel and Jordan have stayed reasonably stable by providing a degree of tolerance and justice.

In the Mid-East peace, we’ve chosen to support tyrants: Hamas and the Iranian Khomeini, even though they are murderously anti-democracy, and even though the Ayatollah has vowed to wipe us out, and even though ISIS seems to be winning. This strategy may work for us temporarily, but I suspect these leaders will fall in a few years, and leave us to deal with anger in the wake. Faced with the options available, I’d prefer to let the war take its course, and only step in when things wind down. This is what Theodore Roosevelt did with the Russo-Japanese war: he waited for it to die down, and then stepped in to make peace when asked to do so. Syria doesn’t seem ready for peace right now, but when it is, I suspect it will be better for us if we take the role of peacemaker later than if we support a losing murder now.

Robert E. Buxbaum, May 7, 2015, edited May 11. I’ve shown previously that there is no peace with zombies until there is a cure. Until then, it’s best to run. For those who don’t know it, Roosevelt was an odd dude: here he is riding a moose.

Winning the peace at Appomattox

5 Replies
George A. Custer with captured confederate prisoner. Custer was a man of action but not of cruelty.

George A. Custer with a captured confederate prisoner. Custer was a man of action, but not of cruelty.

It is often forgotten that the aim of generalship is not winning a war, but winning a stable peace. In that sense, most generals and most diplomats are failures; their victories benefit only the undertaker; their peace-treaties only provide time to reload. That was the case with the Mexican civil war but not the US civil war. The choices and surrender at Appomattox, 150 years ago lead to a genuine, stable peace. It’s worthwhile, therefore to consider the how that was done here and not in Mexico, perhaps as a lesson for the future.

I begin, near the end of the war with a much-maligned general, George A Custer on April 8, 1865; this  is the day the 13th Amendment passed, four days after Lincoln walked through a defeated, smoldering Richmond, the capital of the south. The war would end soon, but would the result be peace, or chaos. George A. Custer had graduated at the very bottom of his class at West Point, the position known as goat. As is not atypical with goats, he was not particularly suited to following orders during peacetime, but was supremely suited to war and action. Custer liked to attack first and think later, but he was also a man of peace; he become the youngest Union Brevet General in US history. On April 8, with Lee at Appomattox Court House (that’s the name of the town), Custer led a small group of men to attack a nearby town, Appomattox Station, a rail depot three miles to the southwest. There he captured, without a fight, three, rail cars full of desperately needed arms, ammunition and supplies that had been sent to Lee’s army from Lynchburg.

While leaving the station, Custer’s men ran into the artillery unit of Confederate Brig. Gen. Reuben Walker, and attacked (of course) eventually capturing 25 artillery pieces, nearly 1,000 prisoners and all of their supplies. It took several attacks to win, but the results were worth it. Custer took the cannon and his troops, and positioned them on Lee’s likely escape route, on the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road south of Appomattox Courthouse. Lee was now nearly trapped, but didn’t know it yet.

Paining in honor of the 45th regiment colored troops: Afro-American soldier stands with flag before a bust of Washington.

Painting in honor of the 45th regiment colored troops: Afro-American soldier stands, with flag, before a bust of Washington and a depiction of battle (Fair Oaks? Petersburg?)

On the same day, April 8, General Grant sent Lee a proposition to surrender. Lee responded that he was not interested in that, but would like to meet at the McLean House at 10:00 A.M. April 9 to discuss “restoration of peace.” Grant replied that he didn’t have that power but agreed to meet Lee, none the less.

In the meantime, Lee prepared his forces to clear the Stage Road so his forces could escape south-west, to Appomattox station and home. Grant, no newcomer to war, ordered two corps (XXIV and V) under the commands of Maj. Gen. John Gibbon and Bvt. Maj. Gen. Charles Griffin to march all night to the west and north. These corps included 5000 Afro-American troops, mostly in the 45th and 116th U.S. Colored Troop Brigades. On the morning of April 9, Lee attacked to the south and managed to capture the forward pickets defending the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road. But when he reached the rise of the hill, he saw his escape was blocked. His 45,000 troops were surrounded by 113,000, better-armed Union soldiers, cannon and cavalry. It was then suggested that Lee disband his troops for an extended guerrilla war, an option he refused as it would lead to murdering bands roaming the county, and would make peace nearly impossible. Instead Lee rode off to discuss surrender to Grant. 

Map of the troop arrangements April 9, 1865. Checkmate. Lee's forces, x or + are out numbered, out gunned and surrounded. The end.

Map of the troop arrangements April 9, 1865. Checkmate. Lee’s forces, x or +, are out numbered, out gunned, and surrounded.

Lee’s surrender, finalized that afternoon, was penned by Grant’s aide-de camp, Lt Col’, Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian who had an engineering degree and studied law. The kindness to Indians may have suggested similar kindness to the surrendering Confederates. Parker eventually rose to the rank of general, and then to head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The terms of surrender too, were chosen to be unusually generous. Grant did not take the confederates soldiers captive, but instead allowed them to return home, relatively unmolested. Also, he allowed the officers to keep their swords and personal weapons. Kind acts like these may have eased reconstruction. Custer had demanded unconditional surrender from General Beauregard on April 9, something he probably imagined U.S. (Unconditional Surrender) Grant would have wanted; he was over-ruled by his commanding officer, Phillip Sheridan, who probably knew Grant better. 

After the war, most of the confederates swore loyalty to the US. Lee did what he could to promote reconciliation; he supported civil rights and reconstruction, and became president of Washington and Lee College. Some confederate generals and 2500 soldiers headed south to Mexico to join the French/Austrian forces of Emperor, Maximilian I, engaged in a civil war of his own. Maximilian, only 34 years old and a highly decorated Austrian officer, had little local support. He was captured and executed, June 19, 1867. Mexico then descended into chaos: a Pyrrhic victory, and a model to avoid.

Surrender at Appomattox; with Grant are Philip H. Sheridan, Orville E. Babcock, Horace Potter, Edward O.C. Ord, Seth Williams, Theodore S. Bowers, Ely S. Parker and George A. Custer. With Lee is Charles Marshall, his military secretary.

Surrender at Appomattox; with Grant are Philip H. Sheridan, Orville E. Babcock, Horace Potter, Edward O.C. Ord, Seth Williams, Theodore S. Bowers, Ely S. Parker and George A. Custer. With Lee is Charles Marshall, his military secretary. After the signing, most of the furnishings were purchased by Union officers as souvenirs. Lee shook Parker’s hand and said, I’m glad to see a real American here.” Parker replied, “We are all Americans.”

What did Mexico do wrong? For one, in order to win a peace, they failed to get the other side to agree to the peace, with clear documentation about what it is that’s been agreed to (That’s why Parker’s role is so important). Instead of killing Maximilian, they should have had him sign some sort of document and retire him to a farm or college where he could support the peace. In order to win a peace, it’s important to leave a stable country, with stable borders and a strong military, one that can govern itself fairly and well. A stable peace generally involves recognition of your government by other nations, and that too requires not killing your defeated enemy wholesale.

Robert E. Buxbaum, April 7-12, 2015. My sense is that the conditions for building a lasting peace get far too little attention in the study of war and history. I should mention that the 45th were mostly escaped slave volunteers. The 116th were ex-slaves that the Union purchased from Kentucky slave-owners at the beginning of the war to fight for the Union cause. This was thought to be a good emollient for peace, and may have helped keep Kentucky on the Union side. I should note too, that Lee freed his slaves in 1862, near the beginning of the war, a time when Grant still owned some. I’ve noted that men who choose beards tend to show a surprising republican (or communist) generosity. As Lincoln said, “Do I not defeat my enemy when I make him a friend?” For more thoughts on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, see here.

For All Fools Day, April 1, 2015

3 Replies

On this April Fools day I’m reminded of:

Democratic Senator Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri. Before being elected to the US senate, he had been the lawyer for another Democrat, Andrew Jackson (before he was president). Like most prominent Americans of their day both men liked to settle arguments through by use of gunnery at close range. After Andrew Jackson participated in a duel with Benton’s brother, Benton himself challenged Jackson to a duel (I try to avoid this with my lawyers).

Seantor Thomas Hart Benton

Senator Thomas Hart Benton; his feud with A. Jackson, ended by common hatred of the Federal Reserve Bank

When asked about it later, Benton said, “Yes, sir, I knew him, sir; General Jackson was a very great man, sir. I shot him, sir. Afterward he was of great use to me, sir, in my battle with the United States Bank.” Ain’t that America. You can be shooting enemies one day, best of buddies the next.

In world politics and life this doesn’t happen as regularly as perhaps it should, but it happens. A few years after WWII we were allies with Germany and Italy, but enemies with the USSR. After WWI we were allies with Japan, until we weren’t; now we are again. Some day ISIS and Iran will be friends (won’t Mr A Bomb be sad).

I should also mention, and recommend the most amusing work of philosophy you are ever likely to encounter: St Erasmus of Rotterdam’s panegyric, “In Praise of Folly”. The thesis, if I may summarize: that most people like a fool and some folly; so does God. That most people don’t like long, boring lectures; neither does God. Etc. Good folly is likely to hurt you in a way you don’t mind (e.g. music, drinking, chasing women, reading long boring books if you like them); bad folly hurts others, e.g. when priest lives royally off of charity.

You might imagine that Erasmus would be executed for this but it seems he was not. It seems to me that Erasmus did something even more remarkable and made himself into a saint by claiming that God would not mind if people prayed to him for all good things. Apparently they started to, and got answered. A cheerful answer from a world of fools.

Robert E. Buxbaum, April 1, 2015.

Brass monkey cold

3 Replies

In case it should ever come up in conversation, only the picture at left shows a brass monkey. The other is a bronze statue of some sort of a primate. A brass monkey is a rack used to stack cannon balls into a face centered pyramid. A cannon crew could fire about once per minute, and an engagement could last 5 hours, so you could hope to go through a lot of cannon balls during an engagement (assuming you survived).

A brass monkey cannonball holder. The classic monkeys were 10 x 10 and made of navy brass.

Small brass monkey. The classic monkey might have 9 x 9 or 10×10 cannon balls on the lower level.

Bronze sculpture of a primate playing with balls -- but look what the balls are sitting on: it's a surreal joke.

Bronze sculpture of a primate playing with balls — but look what the balls are sitting on: it’s a dada art joke.

But brass monkeys typically show up in conversation in terms of it being cold enough to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey, and if you imagine an ornamental statue, you’d never guess how cold could that be. Well, for a cannonball holder, the answer has to do with the thermal expansion of metals. Cannon balls were made of iron and the classic brass monkey was made of brass, an alloy with a much-greater thermal expansion than iron. As the temperature drops, the brass monkey contracts more than the iron balls. When the drop is enough the balls will fall off and roll around.

The thermal expansion coefficient of brass is 18.9 x 10-6/°C while the thermal expansion coefficient of iron is 11.7 x10-6/°C. The difference is 7.2×10-6/°C; this will determine the key temperature. Now consider a large brass monkey, one with 400 x 400 holes on the lower level, 399 x 399 at the second, and so on. Though it doesn’t affect the result, we’ll consider a monkey that holds 12 lb cannon balls, a typical size of 1750 -1830. Each 12 lb ball is 4.4″ in diameter at room temperature, 20°C in those days. At 20°C, this monkey is about 1760″ wide. The balls will fall off when the monkey shrinks more than the balls by about 1/3 of a diameter, 1.5″.

We can calculate ∆T, the temperature change, °C, that is required to lower the width-difference by 1.5″ as follows:

kepler conjecture, brass monkey

-1.5″ = ∆T x 1760″ x 7.2 x10-6

We find that ∆T = -118°C. The temperature where this happens is 118 degrees cooler than 20°C, or -98°C. That’s a temperature that you could, perhaps reach on the South Pole or maybe deepest Russia. It’s not likely to be a problem, especially with a smaller brass monkey.

Robert E. Buxbaum, February 21, 2015 (modified Apr. 28, 2021). Some fun thoughts: Convince yourself that the key temperature is independent of the size of the cannon balls. That is, that I didn’t need to choose 12 pounders. A bit more advanced, what is the equation for the number of balls on any particular base-size monkey. Show that the packing density is no more efficient if the bottom lawyer were an equilateral triangle, and not a square. If you liked this, you might want to know how much wood a woodchuck chucks if a woodchuck could chuck wood, or on the relationship between mustaches and WWII diplomacy.

Detroit emerges from bankruptcy. Not quite.

1 Reply
missing homes Detroit

While Detroit’s central core comes back, surrounding, homes burn at 220+/month, leave Detroit streets looking like the teeth of an aging hillbilly.

Detroit went bankrupt last year, the largest US city to do so since New York in 1970. As with New York’s bankruptcy, Detroit’s was used to cancel old debts and rewrite ill-thought contracts. Detroit also got to jail some crooked politicians including mayor Kilpatrick, described as “a walking crime wave.” But the city and county have no easy path out of bankruptcy as both city and county are likely insolvent. That is, they spend more than they take in despite massive out-state funding, and high taxes, 10% above the state level. To make matters worse, they are losing population at the rate of 1% or so per year. It’s hard to fund a city built for 2 million on the tax revenue of 1/3 as many, especially when they are mostly unemployed. Unless a lot changes soon, another bankruptcy is almost inevitable — likely this time at the county level.

We got in this state, largely as a result of a 50 year war between the black, solidly Democrat, somewhat anarchist, political establishment of Detroit, and the white, stayed, mostly Republican out state. The white population fled following the riots of the 60s and the richer black population soon followed. The remainder stayed, trapped in slowly decaying neighborhoods as the city went broke. White flight allowed the black community to develop its own, Motown culture, but except for the music industry, it has not benefitted from this culture.

Detroit's murder rate, 45/100,000, is the highest in the US. It's coming down but not that fast.

Detroit’s murder rate is the highest in the US. It’s come down 10% in the last 2 years, but has far to go.

Detroiters have poor health, poor savings rates, high murder rates, and a fire rate of about .22% per month, 2.6% per year. The city lacks basic city services like reliable fire fighting and street plowing. Police at one point erected signs that said, “enter at your own risk.” There is a lack of small businesses and the services they would provide too: laundromats, grocery stores, and taxis (though no lack of bars and marijuana maintenance clinics). Employment in the auto-industry is down. And it’s not being replaced by home-grown small business – perhaps hampered by the low savings rate. A surprisingly large fraction of the Detroit homes are in foreclosure, see map, and with it a high abandonment rate and a high fire rate. As pheasant and dear return, non-core Detroit is beginning to look like farm country.

Detroit foreclosures near me. Blue is occupied homes, red is unoccupied, yellow unknown, and green is destroyed homes or vacant, foreclosed land.

Detroit foreclosures near me. Homes in dark blue are occupied foreclosed, red is unoccupied, and green plots are destroyed homes or vacant, foreclosed land.

It’s not clear what political leaders should do. The city council would like to return to their pre-bankruptcy ways where they could borrow as much as they felt they needed and spend on whatever they saw fit — often on fast friends, fast cars, gambling, and vacation homes outside of the city. But the out-state population has been reluctant to give them the credit card. Is this racist or is it prudent — probably both, but this can not continue. The city and county pension funds were ransacked for ill-advised investments and consulting fees to cronies and their power-lawyers. Either the money is replaced from out-state or there will be some unhappy retirees in the not-too-distant future. My guess is that the state will have to pick up the tab for this mismanagement, but that they won’t want to hand over management control afterwards.

Rand Paul, a potential GOP presidential candidate, has proposed rebuilding business and property values by a method that the city will almost certainly reject. His solution: cut services to low-population density areas and cut taxes on business and earned income. While this would likely bring in new people and new businesses, the people would likely be white, and the businesses white-owned/ white-serving. Black-Detroiters have too little savings, organization and income to directly benefit from this plan. Detroit’s Democrat politicians will claim, not without merit, that this is welfare for rich whites: a way for them to become yet-richer while doing nothing for the poor blacks of the burning neighborhoods. They are likely to demand control as the elected officials of the town: regulating business and raising the minimum wage to create “equality.” I suspect this is a bad idea.

Detroit hunger games

Detroit suffers from two populations and a divide.

To some extent we’re already seeing the return of white-owned, white-serving businesses. Classic buildings in the core of the city have been purchased by white developers – notably Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans leading to gentrification and an influx of single, white hipsters. The newcomers are viewed as half-saviors, half-carpetbaggers. They dwell in a whiter city core with hipster bars and expensive restaurants. Does a poor city with massive debt, crime, and unemployment benefit from a core filled with high-priced, gourmet coffee and fern bars?

The author, Robert Buxbaum, enjoys a day at an artificial beach in central Detroit.

The author, Robert Buxbaum, enjoys a beer at an artificial beach-cafe in central Detroit with some, few black folks, none poor. Is this good for Detroit?

The new hipsters put a squeeze on city services too — one that’s hard to deal with fairly. Detroit can not afford to plow all the streets after a snow. Should the new high-tax white folks get plowed streets, or should they suffer equally with everyone else? Detroit education is abysmal, but the high tax-bracket folks want better. Should they get it, or suffer equally? They want extra street lights and police protection. Should they get it, or suffer equally? Is this the way up?  A solution I’d proposed some while ago was to divide the core city from the now-rural outskirts so that each could be managed more sanely. It’s not a grand a solution like Rand’s plan, but less likely to be rejected. One way or another, we seem destined to have a Detroit with a rich core and abandoned neighborhoods. I suspect it might as well be managed that way.

Robert E. Buxbaum, February 10, 2015. I don’t have solutions, but write about the city’s problems, and the partial solutions I’ve heard as a way to clarify my thinking — and perhaps yours too.