Breaking the Sound of Silence

 

“The Sounds of Silence” is a haunting song by Paul Simon, one of America's premiere songwriters. Sadly, it has proven to be prophetic because in modern America, the sounds of silence have become deafening, with almost no coherent discussions about anything. While the causes of this widespread failure in communication are many, varied and largely unidentified, one cause can be identified, and remedied. Much of the chronic dysfunction around how we discuss corporate policy grew out of the legal doctrine of corporate personhood, which should give us hope because that doctrine can be reversed and corporate personhood ended.

In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Sean O'Brien, President of the Teamsters Union opened up about his basic strategy for dealing with hostile business owners. He said that he uses strikes to bring them down to where they will engage in an honest conversation about their business; how it depends on workers, and how the workers must have a decent life, touching on issues like wages, working conditions and benefits, such as health insurance and pensions.

The strike is a way to force the owners to have that healthy conversation, and once they do, the company emerges stronger, with higher productivity and steady profits. That kind of union action is not intended to break the company, but rather to put it on a healthier basis, which starts with a good conversation.

Along the same lines, Erin Brockovitch, she of movie and lawsuits against corporations fame, was once heard in an interview stating that she knew some corporate executives who agreed with her concern about the environment, but that in the boardroom they never voice those concerns because in that room their only role is to increase shareholder value. Another example of the sounds of silence.

The way these instances relate to corporate personhood is that, as O'Brien states, businesses will enter into productive conversations only when their profits are threatened. What's more, it would only be when the very existence of a corporation might be threatened, by revoking their charter, that the wider community issues, such as environmental harm and cultural destruction will gain a hearing in corporate boardrooms.

To understand why revoking corporate personhood could be so important, we must step back and examine why our society chose to allow incorporation to begin with. The easiest way explain it is to focus on what is known as LLC, or Limited Liability Corporations. Say, for instance, someone in 1850 wanted to build a railroad. This is a good thing for society, as it enables people and goods to move more rapidly, across greater distances and at less cost than by using horse based transportation. However, the liability that might attach to a railroad, such as if a train would derail in an urban area with great loss of both life and property, caused folks with a lot of money to balk. The kind of folks who could finance a railroad and gain those benefits for society tended to shy away from such investments because a single accident could cost them their entire fortunes.

Enter the LLC. With a Limited Liability Corporation, the investors are liable only for the amount they have invested, not for their entire personal fortunes. This makes it to where some of those rich folks will invest in the railroad, and consequently it gets built. Sure, they make a lot of money, but the entire society benefits, so some legitimate profit is not denied or resented. That is why we as a nation chose to allow incorporation.

Back before 1886, the states had some very creative ways of regulating corporations. Some states required open books, so the legislature could keep tabs on what they were doing. In some states one person was not allowed to sit on the board of more than one corporation. Corporations could not stray from their chartered purpose. Corporations could not own shares in other corporations, and in many states, corporations were not allowed to lobby the state legislature or contribute money to political causes. These and other creative regulations, along with the ever looming threat that outraging public opinion might provoke the political response of de-chartering any particular corporation, worked to reduce corporate greed and attenuate corporate abuse.

All that would be needed to go back to that healthier mode of corporate existence would be to revoke the doctrine of corporate personhood. Since it was established by a simple court based proclamation in 1886, and not something like a constitutional amendment, we could revoke corporate personhood by passing a law through congress and getting a presidential signature. Admittedly, it might be a little more complex than that, since we have entered in to so many international trade agreements, but if we decide to make this change, we can get it done relatively quickly..

Many so called conservatives will object that we can’t have the government intervening in the free market like that. Puhleez! That is the kind of incoherent babble that has brought this republic to the brink of collapse. The simple irrefutable fact is that allowing businesses to incorporate is an example of government intervening in the free market to begin with. With corporate personhood in place, the government helps to create these beings, these artificial beasts, and then just lets them loose on the landscape with virtually no state regulation, to maraud and exploit the people and the earth.

In the book, “The Gangs of America”, (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2003) Ted Nace writes,

“”Sociologists call the 1897-1903 period ‘the corporate revolution’. But we have seen the real corporate revolution took place over a longer period, roughly from 1850 -1900. During this revolution, larger corporations did not merely come to dominate the American economy. More significantly, the legal structure defining the corporation as an institution was fundamentally altered. A century earlier, the framers of the American system of government had attempted to devise a ‘containment vessel’ for corporate power: the state issued charter. Now that system was completely disassembled and replaced with another whose goals were the exact opposite- as though the steel bars that had formed a cage were melted down, recycled, and used to create a suit of protective armor instead. Rather than protect democracy from corporate power, the legal system increasingly shielded corporations from legislative power.”

By revoking corporate personhood, we would metaphorically be melting the metal from that shield down, and recycling it, to once again build an effective containment vessel for that beneficial corporate power. To go back to the previous metaphor, after the government aided in the creation of these beasts, instead of allowing them to run wild over the landscape, ending corporate personhood would ensure they would be put on a strong short leash, and the handle of that leash would be put in the control of our communities.

The political philosophy behind revoking corporate personhood is simple, valid, and hard to argue against. In the first place, incorporation is a privilege granted by the community, through the power of government, to groups or individuals because they run or propose enterprises which will benefit the community. If the people of the community come to see that the enterprise is not benefiting the community, they have every right to revoke the privilege that they granted. They can demand that the legislature either enact new regulations of that enterprise, or revoke its charter.

With the advent of corporate personhood, wrongly declared in an 1886 Supreme Court case, Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad (118 US 394), virtually all state and local regulation of corporations came to be seen as unconstitutional. This was because when corporations were declared to be persons, they came under the 14^th Amendment's provision that all persons must receive equal treatment under the law. For instance, you couldn't ban corporations from lobbying congress unless you banned all persons from lobbying congress. Other similar state regulations suddenly became unconstitutional. In short, the amendment which was ratified to ensure that recently freed slaves would receive equal legal treatment was used instead, (while mostly ignoring the plight of Black people) to ensure that corporations could operate with impunity.

In a post corporate personhood nation, corporate abuses, such as greed and profiteering, paying too low of wages and charging too high of prices, environmental and social abuse, monopolistic practices, and the like could be met with strong community responses, We could match those creative corporate policies of exploitation with creative regulatory plans of our own, and this time we wouldn’t have to play the game of “Big Brother May I“ with the federal courts to get their permission (usually denied) to do so. The creativity of the corporations could be matched and checkmated by the human creativity in our communities. This would put the relationship of corporations to communities back on a more even keel, a healthier basis.

What’s more, the power states would have to de-charter corporations that had outraged public opinion would also function in a soft power mode. Once such de-chartering had happened once or twice, both the public and the corporate owners would take notice. Decision makers in the corporations would know that there was a line that must not be crossed, but no one would know precisely where that line was drawn. The happy result would be to motivate the corporations to be much more self policing when it came to possibly abusive schemes.

To engage another analogy, consider the tables where these issues are negotiated. In our current mode, with corporate personhood protecting corporations against public influence, the table usually has just two sides, and two seats. It is management v workers, or corporation v government, or environmentalist v corporation and/ or government. In all those instances, if the conversation happens at all, it is a very narrow and limited discussion, usually centered almost entirely on money.

In a post corporate personhood nation, the table is much larger, and it is round. We come to this negotiating table not as management, or worker, or environmentalist, or parent, or consumer. Instead we come as equal, and equally concerned, citizens, and the conversation is about how we can charter some new corporation, harness some new technology or regulate an ongoing enterprise in a way that fits in with and enhances the entire community. What's more, in that mode there doesn't have to be a strike, or boycott, or lawsuit to initiate the conversation. Since any corporate charter could be revoked at the will of the community, the conversation would be never ending.

In the Tucker Carlson interview, Mr. O'Brien lamented the lack of affordable housing. Areas of Boston that previously housed union workers are now out of the financial reach of most workers. At that round table of community regulated corporations, the subject of worker housing would always be on the table, especially if it involved any corporate housing developments. In other words, at that round table, every aspect of current and future community well being would be on the table. That is the kind of thinking that we used to have, that we should have, and that we can have again.

By ending corporate personhood we can once again have those holistic, whole community focused conversations. At long last we, in our communities, could once again find our voice and the sounds of silence can be broken.

Presidential Debates

How 2 Cure Racism

 

We can heal ourselves of racism quite easily.  We have merely to agree on and start using an honest definition of the social disease known as “racism.”  Trying to solve racism by using a racist definition of racism, which we have been doing for decades, is like using an oil soaked rag to try to clean up an oil stain on the floor of a garage. It is an approach doomed to failure.

If we are to agree to a new definition of the word, and thereby start solving the problem of racism (which we must do) we first must realize that racism is a mental problem, a glitch in our thinking.  With that understanding, racism should be defined as thinking that the genetic, ethnic heritage of any participants in any action, whether as victim, perpetrator or bystander, should be taken into consideration when determining the moral worth of their actions. Granted, this new definition of racism is a little wordy and hard to understand at first, but we will get back to explore it in a few paragraphs.

First we should take a closer look at the old definition we have been using for so long, and how badly it has served us.

Today, 6-13-24, a piece from Bari Weiss in the Free Press, with an interview of Sheryl Sandberg, had a most powerful point that crystallizes the perils of using the old definition of racism. 

 

Bari Weiss- “I think polarization is a big issue.  There is a worldview that's taken hold on a large part of the left that insists that people's identity determines whether or not we judge their actions as moral.  And if a group has been decided- in this case, Palestinians- that they are victims, then everything is permissible.  And when it is decided that a group is the victimizer, nothing is permitted. And once you have that lens on the question of Gaza/Israel or Israel/Palestine, everything flows from that , and therefore Israel  can be basically guilty of everything, and the Palestinians can be guilty of nothing.”

 

Identitarian politics, which Ms. Weiss here crystallizes for all to see, and which culturally dominates Western culture today, is merely our old, wrongheaded (at best long obsolete) definition of racism, writ large and grown existentially cancerous.  Constantly dividing and categorizing people in this manner is extremely unlikely to heal racism.  Especially so since mis-definition of racism is being powerfully used as a cudgel to oppress and divide the people.  Consequently, this abuse will probably continue for a long time, or at least until the greed of the greedy rulers who are using it is totally satiated.  In other words, not real soon, if we leave things as they are.

The first time I heard the old definition of racism I heard it from Dr. Cornell West, but I am not sure it is his originally.  Regardless, I am glad that since that first encounter with Dr. West's thinking I have come to greatly appreciate some of his perspective because I  instantly and adamantly disagreed with his definition, the old definition, which is something along the lines of,

“Racism is racial or ethnic intolerance wielded over some victim people by those who have power.  Only those with power over others, legal, social, economic, and cultural power, can be racists.  All people can be prejudiced toward those of another group, but if they are not a member of the group in power they can not be racist.  Racism is the combining of prejudice with power.”

I first read this definition in the early 1990's, and was shocked to learn it carried legal weight. Still am shocked.  From the very first encounter, I foresaw all the political mischief potential in this warped definition.

While it can be conceded that this concept might have been a constructive tool back in 1955, when there was an accepted legal imbalance based on racist thinking, even then it missed the essence of the problem of racism.  More importantly, it should have been abandoned as obsolete with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when we as a nation undeniably moved away from a racially imbalanced legal matrix.

Among many other abominations generated by this definition and its descendant derivatives over the years ( In addition to the recent rationalization of rape as a war tactic spotlighted by Ms. Sandberg in the interview mentioned above) is the absurd notion that Blacks, or African Americans, or Negro Americans, can not possibly be racist.  This because the grandees of intersectional identity politics have deigned that Black people have been and still are so deprived of power that they can never be racist.

This falsehood of Black American immunity to the sin of racism ran abroad in the culture the last forty years or so while slowly combining with the world wide revulsion about the racist matrix White America imposed on Black America for more than a hundred years after the abolition of legal slavery.  When those two factors were combined, we, as a people came to the dubious conclusions that racism is the sin of all sins, the one failing that can be righteously judged and condemned.  Additionally, we as a nation came to a further conclusion, a truly dangerous and ugly one, which asserts that only White people can be racist.

That is our modern American foundation, if we will be honest about it..  Racism is the sin of all sins, and only White people can be racist. The entire intersectional pyramid of privilege, how it is to be extended, and to whom, is built on this foundation.

This obvious falsehood has long stood in the way of truly productive reconciliation in race relations in America.  It puts us all in different categories and prevents us from all answering to the same moral code.  Such continued social imbalance perpetuates the dysfunctional social dynamics of the slavery and Jim Crow eras.  When the acts of members of one group can be punished as hate crimes, while mirror image acts from members of another group are considered legitimate and legally ignored, intimate social relations between the two peoples become rare and strained.  Few people will willingly submit to patently unfair treatment.

Thus our long held mis-definition of racism has morphed into the excesses of woke-ism and from there into an awkward and illegitimate attempt at a counterfeit judgment day.  These people, mortal people who breath and poop and die just like you and me, have taken it upon themselves to adjudicate who is owed what from who from forever ago.  It is beyond dispute that the wisdom requisite for such an exalted task is far above the pay grades of any of the “expert” class, even though they have collectively anointed themselves to it. The wannabe conductors of some kind of secular judgment day.  We ought not be foolish enough to buy this line of baloney and let them try.

Instead, let us consider adopting the new definition of racism, the one which says it is racist to weigh anyone's moral actions based on their ethnic or racial heritage.  The truth of this definition is demonstrated by applying it to historic actions which we all agree were racist.  First of all, the holding of African peoples as slaves was justified because of their race.  The deprivations of rights, even to those of African heritage who gained freedom, was justified as not immoral because of the ethnic heritage of the victims.

On the other side of the ledger, many of the crimes of the slave owners  (rape, murder and theft among them) and those of the later landlords/ terrorists, was adjudicated as acceptable because of the ethnic heritage of the perpetrators.  “After all, they were White men, so it was okay what they did to the darkies.” was the honest to God thinking.

All of this thinking fits precisely within our new definition of “racism.”  In every instance, the moral content of an act was determined by considering the ethnic heritage of at least one of the people involved in the action, whether as victim or victimizer.

Now think about how this definition could be used in today's world.  If everyone who has issues accepting ethnic differences (basically all of us) would just be honest and sincerely try to stop thinking in ethnically biased ways (and that can include different faith groups), we would quickly be much better off.  We would find ourselves in much more of a positive minded meritocracy, in which each of us has every reason to perform as well and virtuously as possible.  No longer would social connections matter so much, so instead of nurturing up our wealth producing networks, we could be free to focus more on merit, nurturing up our souls, talents, and families.  And hence, our organic community.

When one stops to think about it, this definition of racism is a very granular one, focusing on small, common instances of racist thinking.  Many small moments, in traffic, at church, shopping, in a park, and many other situations; It asks the question, how do we think of the people we meet for the first time?  What is it that causes us to think less or more of someone, what about their demeanor or presence do we feel comfortable or uncomfortable with. Is it their eyes, the set of their lips. Is it their skin color? If the ethnic heritage of the stranger figures high on that decision tree, we ought, as an individual, look at oneself.  Because we all could be better off if we had a much more meritocratic society.  Merit is what we should recognize and reward, not any kind of accident of birth.  It is how to return to a virtuous, merit based society, one small, granular thought at a time.

This granular definition is also how we can see that the old definition of racism was a racist oily rag, incapable of cleaning an oil stain.  Since racism is thinking that race determines moral worth, any thinking that posits that we should establish an entire intersectional hierarchy (based on an inscrutable ordering of all ethnic and identity groups) is, in every instance, severely racist.  Small wonder we haven't made much progress toward inter racial harmony during our decades of using that constantly worsening but always false definition.

What's more, no one should object that use of this granular definition of racism is in any way intended to dodge White American responsibility for the horrors of state sanctioned racism.  On the contrary, this analysis will better enable us to accurately diagnose the spiritual disease of racism.  However, the first step in this process is for us all to admit that we are all susceptible to this disease, much like the common cold. 

This is a very important point because while racism is a disease, it is primarily a spiritual disease, which means it is highly contagious.  Because of that, many people on the receiving end of racist malice are prone to hatred and judgmental thinking, rendering them vulnerable to being attacked by those self same spirits.  And then the abuse and stupidity tends to multiply with mindless group revenge, back and forth for God only knows how long. 

So we all must first admit some fault, and then we can start looking at the problem of racism through that granular lens.  I don't know for sure what all we will see when we honestly do that work, but if my lived experience is any indication, I think we will find that White America, still today, practices a great deal more racist thinking and habits than almost any other group on Earth, with, in my opinion, the Chinese coming up a close second.  Certainly, in my experience,  African America has much less of that problem, even though there are some virulent racists in the African American community.  It is axiomatic that to be effective, this remedy to racism must be applied whenever a case appears, no matter which community it is in.  Employing the same dispassionate rigor with which we defeat any other disease.

Virulent is the exact word to describe the strain of racism that has infected America since before we were born as a nation.  America has endured the worst, the most virulent, case of racism the world has ever seen.  Our case was already severe when it was rendered the worst ever by the lies used in the South to reconcile the Declaration of Independence with chattel slavery.  They felt philosophically driven to the point of denying the very humanity of an entire group of humans.  Humans they could talk with, interact with and love.

It is as though we purposely called down a demonic principality on our head so as to empower ourselves to retain the peculiar institution.   Hopefully, a demonic principality which has been summoned is a demonic principality which can now be exorcised.

While some of the early Southern founders bear much blame for this great mistake, I recognize as an always Northerner that we went along with most of that Southern racism, and were happy enough to do so too.  So America has had a terrible case of racism, and it still does. White America most especially.

Now while we're saying this, look at all those other nations and peoples around the world, watching us, laughing and pointing, thinking they are all that.

Pathetic !!  Because this racism stuff really is a problem for the whole planet.  The only reason those other folks all over the planet think they are better than us on this issue is because they have not had to deal with all the cultural mixing that we have.  It is our destiny and our burden to E Pluribus Unum, that is to take many and make one.  The rest of the world should be hoping we work it our here, because then maybe they can too.  While it is true that America has (or at least had) probably the most virulent strain of racism in history, that should be no comfort to the others, because the planet as a whole has a very acute strain of the same disease, and the patient's condition is worsening.

The best thing we could do, as a country and as a planet, is to adopt this much more workable definition of racism, and then start honestly working it, to no longer weigh anyone's moral worth based on ethnicity or identity, both in America and in the wider world

Take Off the Masks

 

Since I was a child, many moons ago, you always knew who the bad guys in the old movies were because they were the ones who put on a mask to hide their identities.  In fact, I seem to remember a couple of those old westerns where you didn't know exactly who the bad guys were until one bunch pulled bandanna masks up over their mouths and noses to make it difficult to identify them later.  Masks were always a prelude to criminals committing crimes.

That changed in 2020 with the pandemic, and the soon following George Floyd riots.  Suddenly, we were instructed to wear masks whenever in public, even though some of us questioned their effectiveness from the very beginning.  Then, once the moral outrage at the unnecessary death of George Floyd became considered the one issue more important than fighting Covid, large gatherings of masked political protesters became more than okay.  Accepting them became mandatory.

The summer of 2020 witnessed seemingly innumerable masked protests, often accompanied by some violence, destruction, and theft.  Sadly, the organizers of these protests could not figure out how to schedule them during the middle of the day, but instead almost always chose the late afternoon or evening, which timing often bled into the (itself a kind of mask) dark of night.

Since that happy summer of love, with its multiple deaths and billions of dollars (with a B) in damages, any group who feels like it, especially those of the left, treat masks and dark hoodies as the standard uniform to wear to political demonstrations.  They seem to be asserting that the only way to be free is as part of an anonymous threatening mob.

No, no, a thousand times no.  Masks really are the historical face of crime, and we would be wise to once again make wearing masks at public gatherings against the law.  All it would take would be to legislate wearing a mask at a political gathering be a primary offense, so as to empower the police to detain anyone wearing a mask.  Additionally, mandate that such an offense carries a punishment above any other punishment which the perpetrator might receive for other infractions.  It would only take one or two mass arrests for this method to vastly reduce the numbers of those going masked to public gatherings.

Some might object “freedom,” but think about it.  Making everyone go bald faced won't stop radical speech, nor should it.  But continuing to allow masked bands of toughs in our cities and on our college campuses, which will and is happening, invites the kind of brown shirt political violence that brought the Nazis and Fascists to power in Germany and Italy.  We would be most unwise to continue allowing our underclass criminal culture to be politicized in this manner, especially since we could more clearly hear those same voices if we insist on civilized standards.

That is what I am talking about too; civilized standards, the standards upon which civilized society rests.  Free and open debate, and the ability to petition the government are two of those standards, but both of them work well only if all the participants are known and afforded equal stature.  Anonymity, especially if it is afforded or assumed by only certain groups, is not equal, and can easily lead to intimidation via implied violence, or  the modern equivalent, doxxing, 

The point is that there is no good reason to wear a mask to a public gathering, and maybe there never was.  If a person is concerned about contracting a germ by being in public, then they ought to stay home and write letters.  Likewise, if a person fears that they might have a disease, and they don't want anyone else to get it, they should keep the mask off and stay home.  Writing letters and being active online can be very effective. Our physical presence is no longer required for us to have a political impact.  So let's make it illegal (again, as we did with the Klan in the 60's) to wear a mask at a political protest.

And while we're at it, let's stop holding those rallies into the night, every night.  Especially, when there was a riot the night before.  Certainly, the state, usually in the form of the local city government, has a legitimate power to issue permits for rallies, and conversely to not allow rallies which don't have permits.  So they could, and should, not issue permits for night time rallies when a riot seems likely. 

The power to regulate the place and time of rallies becomes necessary because there are only a few public spaces large enough to accommodate large public gatherings.  Since not every group can have a rally in that limited space everyday, they have to take turns.  Keeping that process orderly is why the people give  the state the power to control the permitting of rallies. Of course, the people must be vigilant in preventing any government from abusing that power.

What's more, there really are only some few spaces where it is appropriate (civilized) to convene large public gatherings.  Public parks located close to government buildings are usually the best venues, and in a lot of cities smaller parks, in other parts of the city, with advance permitting and notice, can be civilized places to organize politically.

In front of the headquarters of some evil corporation, blocking the sidewalk, or worse, is another matter, and deserves a slight aside.  Things can get really stupid with adversarial unlawful gatherings being seen as legitimate forms of protest.  Honestly, shutting down a freeway during rush hour is an incredibly obnoxious and hurtful thing to do, even if  it does get big press and your group does have enough numbers to make it work. 

When any non lawful public gathering occurs, any offended party, such as the supposedly evil corporation, or the city, or some citizens who wish to use their local park in a normal manner, or some really angry commuters, can complain, and if it is found to be an unlawful gathering, the police can be tasked to peacefully disperse said gathering.

Now, here is the way it is supposed to go in a civilized society, since we seem to have forgotten. When the cops show up, with hopefully not too much show of force, they inform the crowd, via loud speaker, that this has been declared an unlawful gathering, and therefore will the people please peacefully disperse. 

If I just happened by the rally out of curiosity, when I hear that announcement, I start immediately leaving.  If I came down to the rally to support the cause, but did not know they didn't have a permit, I start immediately leaving.  If I came down to the rally knowing it was not permitted, and I don't plan on getting arrested, I immediately start leaving.

If I went to the rally expecting to be arrested because that was how I chose to be heard, then when the others have left,and the police officer comes up to me and once again tells me to leave, and I refuse or just ignore the officer, then they are mandated to arrest me.

Here comes the most important point about once again civilizing ourselves.  Me, and you, and all of us have a civic duty to submit to arrest.  We have, to the detriment of our civilization, forgotten this standard.  The basis for this is that in our society the laws are decided by us, we the people, and so there is a proper time and way to challenge a law. That time and place is never out in public when a duly authorized officer of the law has informed you that you are under arrest.  Every resistance to arrest is, at its heart, a form of insurrection; a challenge to the very legitimacy of the law.  No resistance to arrest should be tolerated.

This must apply to all forms of resisting arrest.  All forms of resistance, even passive forms like letting your body go limp, should carry mandatory jail time, even if it's just a couple of hours.  Actively resisting arrest, such as running away into the crowd or refusing to get into the squad car or refusing to be handcuffed, should be at least a couple of weeks.  Any assault on a police officer should be a minimum of  two years.  It has to be something people think twice about doing if we are to maintain any kind of rule of law. Maintaining that rule of law is necessary for any civilized society.

So there it is.  If we are to survive as a civilization we must regain the civic habits necessary to any free society.  Instead of falling for the anti-American Marxist lie that we have to keep living in the past, fixing all the old problems before we can move forward, we should boldly look directly to the future.  Instead of trying to fix some former version of America, we must work on cobbling together a new American nation, recognizing that the one past mistake we must remedy is to be honestly sincere about the “all” part of liberty and justice for all. 

Then we can forge together a new nation, conceived anew in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Then we can make a melding stew of all the groups, new and old: with, this time, real input from India, China, all of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, the Pacific, and all the world.  Simply put, those are the demographics of the America of the future. Even those who came here through the side window instead of the front door should eagerly join in this effort, because we all came here for the same reason, which is that this nation stumbled on to a form of liberty which offers a better life for all.  We have a chance to make this American project work again, and truly for all this time. 

One of the first things we must do to become that once and future America is to once again insist on that noble American tradition of peacefully working out our political differences.  Taking off masks at political gatherings will be a necessary and constructive step in that direction.

 

2nd Amendment Truth

 

U.S. Representatives Nadler and Massie went at it this last week (5/6-10/2024) about the Second Amendment, with Rep. Nadler neglecting to include all the words of the amendment when he presented his analysis of its' meaning. Generally, this debate comes down to a disagreement about whether the founders were trying to make sure the militias had sufficient numbers of muskets, or if the 2^nd somehow applies to individuals. Most of the time, even the conservatives miss the real point because the 2^nd Amendment has, like much of our Constitution, been twisted almost completely out of shape and meaning. It is time we go back to the beginning and get to the truth of the matter.

At the time the 2^nd Amendment was written, late in 1789, militias were an official part of our governing structure. Local militias were under the authority of the local sheriff, and could be called on to suppress crime and insurrection, and to repel invasion. Their most important function, however, was to be the ultimate check on tyrannical government. While some local sheriff and his militia could not mount much of a defense against federal tyranny on their own, it was reasoned that if the government in Washington DC did become despotic, the various counties, their sheriffs, and their militias, when united in action, could muster sufficient force to deter a tyrant. This structure, resembling a Swiss style army of the people, also ensured, because power was delegated to a multitude of counties, that some rogue sheriff or two would not get extremely out of hand.

Nonetheless, since this arrangement allowed for locally controlled military force, the question comes up of how is such military force to be regulated so that it does not become a tool of local tyranny, with the local authorities running roughshod as bullies over the local populace?

 This problem is not easily solved, since simply allowing central government authorities to regulate the militias defeats the most important purpose of the militias. It is highly doubtful that a local military force which is regulated out of DC, like our modern National Guard, will ever get orders to oppose a tyranny arising out of DC.

So the question is; How do you regulate the militias (which is necessary if we are going to continue to have a free nation) if we can't allow the central government to do the regulating? The answer was to ensure that all individuals have the right to keep and bear arms. This guarantees that the local militia, and the sheriff that leads it, do not have a monopoly on firearms, which will keep them from getting too pushy toward local residents.

Historic evidence that this plan worked comes to us from the early days after the Civil War, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan got away with their campaign of terror mostly in states where the Black former slaves were unconstitutionally prohibited from owning guns. Then unregulated local military force could and did run roughshod over the community.

Bill Russell, he of basketball fame, related a story from his family history. The Klan came calling one night at the home of his Grandfather. When he met them at the door with a rifle, and the obvious ability to use it, the Klan left and never came calling again. Proving that the best way to regulate militias is to ensure that every citizen can be armed. This also means that the 2nd Amendment was always intended to apply to the state and local governments, as much as to the federal government, because that local level is where regulation of local militias is most probably going to be needed. 

What's more, the abiding truth remains that the best way to prevent national tyranny, to secure freedom, is to have local militias.

Now, in light of this foundational thinking, let's look again at the actual words of the 2^nd amendment. Keep in mind that this interpretation uses all the words written there, it doesn't add any other words, and it does not have to change the meaning of the word “regulated” to pretend it means “supplied,” as some misinterpretations do.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Death Spiral and Social Security

 

Lots of folks seem concerned about declining birth rates in the civilized world, and well they should be. If we don't resume forming ourselves into families, our cultures will disappear. Simple as that. Many bold but ineffective solutions are being hoisted into view this week, but none of them are likely to reverse the downward trend because none of them even mentions the obvious cause of the declining birth rate in the welfare state nations.

The root cause of our declining birth rate (and incidentally, also the cause of our national moral decline) is Social Security. Not how that federal program is run, or its solvency, but rather the very existence of Social Security itself is what is causing birth rates to decline.

The logic behind this claim is simple. Before the age of Social Security (big government funded old age pensions being the product of Kaiser Wilhelm's socialist mind in the 1880's, or was it Bismark?) the normal person saw the family, and especially the children, as our old age insurance. That is why we wanted to have a lot of children, and why we put so much effort into strengthening their moral character. Our future well being was dependent on both their healthy strength and their good morals.

With the advent of Social Security, all of that changed. By making big government, and not the next generation, the central pillar of old age planning, Social Security diminished the vested interest people had in the well being, morality, and even existence of their children. While the deeper cultural effects took a few decades to get strong purchase (the Generation Gap of the 60's), the existence of Social Security in their personal future changed, or allowed the change to happen in, the way that original generation with Social Security in their future envisioned the long arc of their lives. They would have immediately sensed that the only relationship that they had to maintain for their entire lives to ensure a decent life is the relationship with that same federal government. The family, and the communities families formed, became no longer the only, or maybe even the primary, provider of last resort: The provider of last resort being the institution which must and will respond to our vital needs. Since the establishment of Social Security in 1935, being the provider of last resort has increasingly become the role of the federal government and less and less the role of natural families. Or the communities families compose..

Since its beginning, Social Security has behaved like a kind of corrosive poison, acting on the family at the molecular level, tending to separate each individual from every other individual. It doesn't force the separation, but it allows it. It is like a string. You can't push something with a string, but if the string that is holding things together is cut, then it allows that separation. By cutting the materialistic, self interested bonds of family, (as cynical as that sounds) the bonds that really hold families together, Social Security has allowed the natural forces of selfishness to drive the component familial members apart. Especially in the lower and middle classes where materialistic needs seem better served by government.

What's more, Social Security is also, obviously, the untouchable third rail of American politics so much so it is going to be well nigh impossible to terminate. The great resistance this will raise is, in itself, evidence of why we simply must terminate it. The great hysterical passion aroused by the idea of ending Social Security is due to so many people feeling that they are dependent on it to live. In fact, we as a society should start by admitting that we are totally addicted to it and we will behave like addicts if our dope supply is imperiled. Then we must realize that it is our addiction to the federal tit that is eroding our will to procreate. It is killing us as a people. Then we must, for that vital reason, snap ourselves out of this spell and terminate Social Security.

As a Boomer, now in my early 70's, I am still adamant, as I always have been, that when we move away from Social Security, we do it in phases, taking care for those who are already on it. But those changes can be accomplished compassionately without keeping the federal government in charge of our lives.

To sum all this up, we must end Social Security because it is an addictive, corrosive social poison which is surreptitiously draining us of our will to live.

It is not clear if we came to this happy pass by shear happenstance or if someone had this scenario in mind from the beginning, but that does not matter. Yes, we have been rendered, via socialism in general and Social Security in particular, into a people ripe to fall to totalitarian tyranny. Maybe it is a plot, maybe not, but honestly, that does not matter and it is not the point.

The only thing that matters, the only point to be made about Social Security is that we must acknowledge it is the single reason for declining global birth rates. With that acknowledgment we must also realize that the only way to reverse this civilizational death spiral is to end Social Security.

Should be easy. It's just a matter of life and death.

Abortion 2 States 2 End It

 

My mother convinced me of the pro life position in 1971, even though as a Colorado liberal at the time I had originally agreed with “liberalizing” abortion laws.  I have been staunchly pro-life ever since.

As such I have long reasoned that returning the power to regulate abortion to the states is a much better long term strategy against legal abortion than trying to regulate it in the federal congress.  I firmly believe that this state by state approach is not only the most  expeditious path, and by far the most clearly constitutional path, but in political reality it is probably the only path likely to win the ratification of a national Pro-Life Amendment.  Additionally, it can be shown that returning this power to the states (as compared to going the route of federal statutes)  while keeping on the front burner the goal of a national Pro-Life Amendment will result in fewer deaths of innocent pre-born humans; definitely in the long run, in the middle run, and even in the short run.

With the Dobbs decision I felt a deep rejoicing, as if a cloud of fear had been lifted from the nation.  However, since I live in Kansas, the rejoicing was short lived. A mere month and a half later I was shocked to the core when the “Value them Both” amendment went down to stinging defeat.  It became obvious that we have not won the hearts and minds of the majority to the pro life cause.

The logic behind returning these powers exclusively to the states is that by once again allowing some states to legally promote a culture with reverence for human life we will provide ourselves a way to win those hearts and minds. Once some smaller, most probably rural, states prohibit abortion, I firmly believe those states will experience a general improvement in social relations.  Returning to a culture that reverences human life will have profound long term effects on that culture, effects which will become obvious after a full generation is raised with those values enshrined in law. Having a living object lesson of the good that follows pro life legislation will be far more persuasive than all the arguments and advertising campaigns ever can be.

I also believe that in responding to that object lesson, over time (10-20 years), the people in some other states will follow the example after they see the social improvements that followed in the wake of officially being in favor of life.  As other states follow with pro life laws, the idea of a Pro-Life Amendment will start to sound very do-able.  Then, as the truth sinks in to the whole nation that a culture which has reverence for human life is a culture which will do well in establishing justice, family stability, lawfulness, prosperity, and peace in general, we will be able to get such an amendment ratified.  Thus the issue of legal abortion could finally, at long last, truly be settled. Admittedly, this is a somewhat rosy scenario (of such are all visions), but the big point is that by returning this important power of moral self government to state and local control, we will once again be using our form of government to symbiotically educate and elevate the thinking of the masses.

Contrast this rosy scenario with what is likely to happen is we go the route of using federal statutes to end abortion.  The most likely outcome is that we, as a nation, will remain divided and paralyzed on this issue, much as we have been for  the last fifty years.  I understand the arguments in favor of federal statutes, based on the 5^th  and 14^th amendments, the life, liberty and property clauses.  I don't much like it, but I don't think it's nothing.  I do see that it is legitimate to discern a right to life in that language.

A big problem, however, immediately appears. 

If a right to life can be constructed out of those clauses with enough weight to ban abortions nationwide, then I am afraid the right to liberty, which resides right there next to the right to life, could be twisted by those willing to do so to mean a right to abortion, and thus be imposed on the entire nation by congressional statute with equivalent constitutional legitimacy. 

Therefore, using the “life, liberty” language as a basis for constitutional authority, while not completely illegitimate, is both divisive and would prove to be indecisive. Both sides could use it.  The inevitable division such use will cause points out the truth that abortion is almost impossible for the American political mind to resolve, because it is the point where our two most fundamental rights, the right to life and the right to liberty, can be construed as coming into conflict with each other.  That is not a construction I favor, but many millions of my countrymen do favor it. 

That is why I don't believe the issue of abortion will ever be settled in America until we ratify a Pro-Life Amendment.

Thus, if we go the route of regulating abortion via federal statute the issue of legal abortion is likely to become (or remain?) a perennial political football, which will likely result in many deaths.  Every election, from representative to senator to president, will be federalized by this issue. One side grabs the reins, and prohibits abortion nationwide, and then the other side wins the next election, and mandates legal abortion nationwide. That thirteen week standard could easily become a double edged sword.  Our thinking on abortion will remain at this same paralyzed, hysterical moment for as long as we can imagine.  No shining examples of states revering life would be allowed when the Democrats are in power, so that object lesson won't even come into existence, at least not for long enough to get some purchase. Hearts and minds are much less likely to change.

 The issue of abortion can be counted on to perennially energize the concupiscent left, and continue the national mental paralysis, the deep division, this issue has long caused. Many innocent lives will be lost.

Here is the heart of it.  To win the cultural wars,we have to win the hearts and minds.

Those people on the other side, the concupiscent?  They are truly in darkness but they vote.  For many, the only thing they think they have left is their sexual lives, their intimate lives.  Every thing else, as they see it, is slave wage jobs, taxed and monitored.  So that is the hill they are willing to die on.

Today.

We won't win those hearts and minds by simply getting big and strong. That can easily drive the weak, demented and fearful deeper into the dark. (and rev up the black market abortion industry)  Let some time pass, with the abortion issue simmering down, some states legal, some prohibit, some partial.

As a lot of those folks get older, they will lose some of those early values, especially if no one is out there making them defend those old decisions every day.

Then, years later, as the perennial questions of  self government come up again, those would be some of the folks calling for a return to stronger morals.  Give the nation a chance to reflect and repent regarding abortion.  In that context, the thing that will most convince the masses will not be arguments, documentaries, or even education programs, no matter how well crafted or powerful.  Rather, shining examples of what an American culture which intentionally reveres life looks like will do the convincing.

Hold the federal approach in abeyance, not using it now, but keeping it in reserve. Instead, for now, let all us pro-lifers join together in insisting that it be worked out in the states.  If we join arms on this, the Democrats could not force the federal approach on us.  Then let's commit to making it work at the states, going beyond just prohibiting abortion and seeking a pro-life amendment.  Let us sincerely seek a culture of life.

If we are to encourage a culture with reverence for life, it must be one that enables young people to start families with confidence that hard work and frugal habits will be enough to raise that family successfully.  To require, especially young women, to sublimate those powerful desires for family until prosperity is reached on the terms dictated by modern corporate culture is to legitimize adultery. These desires will find expression, and that then becomes the backbone of the pro abortion movement.

All the needed changes can be made at the state, local and even just voluntary community levels. Prioritizing families in this way, with improved and ongoing education available to young fathers and mothers.  Tax policies which encourage young families, and which encourage companies to open entry level positions for young parents. Some of these moves might diminish the profits of some, but we could make these changes in traditional American ways, not involving federal socialism, and yet greatly aiding young families.  This is the way a society which reveres life must operate,and if sincerely done well, will bring about that shining example which will win hearts and minds.

In the short run, abortion will be greatly reduced in some states, and not noticeably change status in most states. Many babies will not be killed.

In the medium term, as more states limit abortion the general zeitgeist will start to feel like legal abortion is falling out of favor.  Many more babies will not be killed.  We will be winning the battle for hearts and minds.

In twenty to thirty years, going the route of the states, we could be looking at ratifying a Pro-Life Amendment.  Twenty to thirty years of going the federal statute route, and I fear we would likely still be in the divided, paralyzed, and hysterical status we are in today.  Additionally, tragically, many more innocent pre-born children will be lost going down that path.

As an ardent, nearly life long advocate for life, and as a born again Child of God, I pray and beg my fellow Pro-Lifers to consider the wisdom of this approach.  May God bless us.