2 B Honestly Constitutional

 

The mind boggling thing about our vicious national division is that people on both sides claim total devotion to our national Constitution, but that nearly unanimous (supposed) devotion has not, so far, led us to national unity. The fact that this nation of 350 million people can be split because we can't agree about what a six page document means is, indeed, mind boggling and hard to understand. In trying to understand it, we are driven to the conclusion that one side, or the other (or likely both) is not reading our founding document in an honest way.

By identifying one or two of the mistakes folks make in their reading of it, we might hope to move toward uniting America. Further, by conducting an honest examination of our misuse of our founding document, we will undoubtedly help educate ourselves, as a people, in how to properly embrace and use the Constitution we all claim to love.

One of the biggest issues we disagree with each other about is the functions and activities of the federal government. Many argue that the federal government has, over the decades, taken (usurped is the word) many of the powers and responsibilities of government from our state and local governments. Things like education, medical care, welfare, elderly care, drug laws, farm policy, and even such sacred cows as national forests and parks don't seem to have any proper constitutional basis to exist as federal agencies.

Folks on that side of the debate will point to the Tenth Amendment, with it's language that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This means that the federal government is limited to engaging in things the Constitution empowers it to engage in. Since those listed issues, and many other powers now exercised by the federal government, were never properly delegated to it (which would require a new constitutional amendment to affect), those programs are unconstitutional. It is assumed in their argument that our Constitution was always intended to give us a limited federal government.

Those on the other side of this argument will bring up what they call the “supremacy clause” which is included in Article VI in the main body of the Constitution. It reads, in the second paragraph, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land, and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

Those folks who are in favor of the federal government involving itself in anything it pleases point to this paragraph and say, “See, there it is, federal law is supreme over state law.” This is one of the misreadings that we set out to identify, so let's take a closer look at their position. Theirs is a two fold misreading of the Constitution, based on ignoring one important word. That word is “Pursuance.”

Let's introduce an analogy to explain. Pretend you are watching an automobile chase scene, cops pursuing robbers, in a movie or real life. When the criminals, hoping to elude capture, take a right turn at an intersection, and then the police cars come along and take a left turn at the same intersection, would you say the police cars are still pursuing the criminals? No, of course not.

The word “pursuance” means going in the same direction, or in the sense of a legal meaning, going in an agreeing direction, or even being in compliance with. In other words, when it is used, in Article VI, the founders intended that it limit the actions of the federal government to those things the Constitution empowered it to be involved in. They intended to found a constitutionally limited republic, which is how we should understand it. What's more, they capitalized those words which they intended to carry precise, and profound meaning, such as Law, and State. This faithful to the original quote shows that they intended “Pursuance” to carry extra weight when we interpret the document.

Those who still want the Constitution to say what it doesn't say will likely continue to gloss over that one word,(it IS slightly difficult to understand) and still argue for an unlimited federal government. They will usually then assert that since Article VI is in the main body, and the Tenth Amendment is merely an amendment, it should take precedence.

They could not be more mistaken. Here I must insert some special knowledge, gained by independent research. Years ago, while investigating the wording of the First Amendment, I was reading through the “Congressional Record” from September of 1789. (Very interesting reading in general: there are found the debates in Congress after Madison introduced the “Bill of Rights“).

I stumbled upon the first reaction to the idea of the Tenth Amendment. One of the members objected that the subject of limiting the federal government was already covered in Article VI, so why was there a need for another such limitation? Others responded that the language in Article VI was too sparse, and that some folks might later misread it, and thus we needed further clarification. That, as subsequent policies proved, was a reasonable concern.

The Tenth Amendment was ultimately adopted, so we know how that debate ended. We also know that the 10^th wasn't intended to contradict Article VI, but rather to clarify it. And the 10^th came later, which would actually give it precedence if there WAS a conflict between the two.

That approach, simply ensuring we take every word seriously, ought to settle much of the division around our Constitution, providing us a way to move froward with it together. Sadly, that is not likely to happen, because the fall back position of those who want a powerful, unlimited federal government is to then assert that the Constitution is a “living document.” By that term they mean that the Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means. So since the Supreme Court has never ruled, at least since 1937, that the Tenth Amendment limits the range of federal powers, then those limitations, although actually written in the document, no longer apply.

This issue, of who interprets the Constitution, has been around since at least the time of Thomas Jefferson. Since that power largely has to fall, in the interest of orderly government, to the Supreme Court, the question becomes how far we should let them drift from the original meaning in their reading of it.

Abraham Lincoln, who had been incensed by the Court's ruling in the Dred Scott decision, said this at his First inauguration, in front of Chief Justice Taney who had written that odious and racist decision.

”The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

With that quote in mind, let's conclude with two key points about how we, the people, should embrace our Constitution, and how that approach might lead us back to unity. While we must usually accept the constitutional interpretations of the Supreme Court, we should always remember that they can and do get it wrong on occasion.

So first and foremost, we should familiarize ourselves with the Constitution, understanding what it actually means, and then behold how far we have strayed from it (To our great peril). Getting back to an honest use of it will take a great deal of effort, but we should be grateful that somehow, miraculously, such a revival is still within the realm of possibility. With that understanding, and the conviction that we should return to a strict originalist reading as much and as soon as possible, we as a people will be able to put effective pressure on the Court to read it as honestly as possible.

Secondly, for all of us who have to take an oath to the Constitution, from enlisted military personnel, to local and state officials, to presidents, and senators: ask yourself one question. Are you taking an oath to defend the Constitution, or are you taking an oath to defend the Supreme Court? If you want to pretend that they are the same thing, then you should read some more history, from Dred Scott, to Plessey v Ferguson, to as recently as the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade. The Supreme Court has often shown itself to be imperfect. The Supreme Court of the United States, and the Constitution of the United States, are not synonymous.

So we must present ourselves with one last proposition. Since we all, as citizens, and as oath taking officials in particular, are actually the first and last line of defense of the Constitution, something almost all of us profess a reverence for; How can we, with any degree of integrity take an oath to defend it if we never even read it and certainly don't understand it. Or worse yet, if we are eager to allow it to be clownishly twisted into incoherence by the dubious doctrine that it is a “living “ document?

In other words, isn't it high time, and way past time, that we once again studied it for ourselves and thereby started overcoming the mediocre education we have been subjected to about it for decades? By doing this we can start using our sincere and mutual love of our Constitution to regain our unity and rebuild our nation. That will undoubtedly work better than what we've been doing, which is throwing it at each other as a meaningless, infuriating insult.

Spiritual Humanism- A New Philosophy

 

This essay is presenting a new philosophy, one that might provide us the means to work our way out of the mind numbing, soul sapping dysfunctional corner that our current philosophy of government has painted us into. This new philosophy is called Spiritual Humanism. It is not, as some might fear, a religious philosophy, but carries the title of “Spiritual” to distinguish it from the “Material Humanism,” that we have now. It employees the term “spiritual” in a secular, or psychological sense, as will be explained in a bit..

While this is a philosophy, for the most part the terms and language of formal philosophy are not going to be used while explaining it. That is because this concept is about the people, all the people, and especially the common people, so it is best if it is presented in language that the common people can understand.

First, we must examine how we got to where we are. The philosopher Karl Marx borrowed from the philosopher Hegel and along with Engels developed what is called the dialectical materialism. This is a way of analyzing the status of the people by looking at the material conditions within which the people exist. Here they used the idea of thesis= stating the way something is, antithesis= stating some other idea of how the thing could be, and out of the resulting conflict developing some new synthesis, some new, and hopefully better, way of doing things. That synthesis then becomes the new thesis in a never ending process of development. The thing is, the only evidence admitted into this dialectical process is material evidence, that is, evidence that can be weighed and measured in the material world. Hence the name, dialectical materialism.

The Marxist thinking that followed has largely swept the world. That mode of thinking, that dialectical materialism, has, since coming into power with the rise of secular humanism, must, for lack of a better term, accurately be called Material Humanism. That is, when thinking about what is good for humanity, what is good for the people, Marx and those adherents who came after him, all focused on the material world which surrounds the people, as individuals and groups. The later adherents include Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and actually even Hitler, Mussolini and Franklin Roosevelt. They all used that dialectical process, and confined it to material factors.

FDR is mentioned in this company because the welfare state he brought into being is focused like a laser beam on material factors. America since his time has paid empty lip service to things like freedom and religion. The real benchmark of our civilization, the thing which most of us think marks us as a superior nation, has long been our standard of living. In other words, our material well being.

With Material Humanism, governmental decisions, usually made at the federal level in America, are based almost exclusively on material factors. Following the guidelines of this philosophy, officials concentrate on ensuring the people have enough food, clean water, medical care, housing and clothing to have an adequate life, materially. While these policies do generally satisfy the requirements of Material Humanism, they are inadequate to deal with non material problems.

If any non material issues come up, such as mental illness, they are either dealt with in some material way, such as with some medications or by providing “professional” care, or they are largely ignored. This is just the way it is, because non material problems are difficult to measure, in a material way, and therefore defy the ability of Material Humanism to solve.

More disturbingly, with the officials in power guided by these standards, policies can become inadequate at dealing with real human problems, or they can become worse than inadequate. If the bureaucrats, sitting in front of their computers, and making all the decisions for everyone, think that their only obligation is to make sure everyone receives X amount of food (calories and protein), X amount of heat, clothing, water, and medical care, then the living situation could become bleak, hollow and desperate.

Issues like happiness, freedom, meaning, purpose of life, emotional and cultural well being are easily ignored. Such things can be hard to measure, and therefore, they almost never enter into the deliberations of Material Humanism. What's worse is the way Material Humanism HAS dealt with the non material aspects of culture. It usually comes to the dubious conclusion that such things are merely social constructs.

Things like, family, love of place, religion, race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and other forms of self identity are, according to Material Humanism, merely social constructs. What's more, if such social constructs are interfering with the optimal system of Material Humanism, they can and should be reconstructed, by the elite authorities, to render humanity itself more conducive to efficient management. Thus the true threat of the Marxist so called “dictatorship of the proletariat”, the long hidden real agenda of Material Humanism, becomes clear. Material Humanism allows distant officials to decide what we should feel and think, and then empowers officials to change us, leveraging their control of material resources, according to their designs. We are to be remade and controlled, according to the dictates of distant, anonymous officials, to render us more easily controllable economic units.

Most disturbingly, the flaws of Material Humanism should be considered alongside the growth of centralized government. It is easy to then foresee a central world government using this flawed philosophy to enact its policies. Then we could find ourselves under the thumbs of distant bureaucrats, self satisfied that their work complies with every stricture of Material Humanism, as they administer a system which has essentially brought about slave ship earth.

Spiritual Humanism is a philosophy of government which might enable us to get out of this trap. It was first inspired by the writings of Simone Weil 1909-1943, a French philosopher, mystic and activist. In a relatively short passage in her book, “The Need for Roots,” she explored the spiritual aspects of work, bemoaning the alienated nature of modern work. She even mentioned that Marx touched on this subject, but that that part of his thinking got ignored by those who rule in his name.

She started by looking at the system of apprenticeship French chefs had been put through in olden times, what was called the Toure de France. In that system, the young cook would go to some various restaurants in other parts of France, working at each one for a year or two. After some years, the now accomplished chef would return to their hometown, to either work in an established restaurant, or start one of their own.

The now somewhat older culinary master would know how to set the business up, how to make a menu, and all that. Also, they would know how to make arrangements with local farmers to provide the basic ingredients for the food.

Additionally, and the most pertinent part for our purpose, they would see the importance of their work. They would see themselves as a vital, needed and appreciated contributor to the local community. In other words, they came to see meaning, purpose and fulfillment in their work, and in their place in the human community. Work then became not an alienated drudgery, as it is in most of our lives today, but rather an engaging and joyful part of their holistic lives. The spiritual aspects of work were enhanced and appreciated.

On reading this passage thirty or more years ago, this writer was immediately struck by the idea that her use of “spiritual, a use that means something more akin to feeling, or sense, than it does to anything religious, could be expanded to encompass all of human existence. Thus the idea of “Spiritual Humanism” was born, and left to simmer for decades.

Spiritual Humanism is first of all another school of Humanism; therefore it will always focus, by definition, on the greatest good, for the greatest number, of humans. It shares that basis with Material Humanism, but way the two diverge with respect to the natural world reveals how great the difference is. Environmental decay is of no concern to Material Humanism, unless such decay threatens the immediate material well being of humans. Spiritual Humanism does not, however, share that contemptuous attitude toward nature. That is because having a sense, or feeling, of being connected with nature is one of the tenets of Spiritual Humanism.

In fact, our sense or feelings about almost everything (our attitude or spirit about them) is the core tenet of Spiritual Humanism. With it we can take into account all the feelings, sensibilities, attitudes and spirits of all aspects of our lives. Instead of focusing on a never ending dialectical materialism, it will always ask, “How do the people actually feel about something, do they have a good sense of it, what spirit, or attitude is in the people about it?”

It asks; do people feel connected with each other? Do they feel a sense of material well being?(this can cover everything contained within Material Humanism) Do the people feel connected with nature? Do the people have a sense of connectedness with their work? Do they see their work as worthwhile, and their lives as being full of purpose and meaning?

Most important, it would ask the questions of: Do the people have a sense of self determination, as individuals and as a community? Do the individuals feel that their ideas, dreams, aspirations and concerns are really being taken into consideration by authorities and officials? Finally, (for this moment, because the list of subjects to which Spiritual Humanism will apply is inexhaustible), it would ask; Do the individuals in the system feel a sense, a spirit, of their own autonomy, their own agency, of being in control of their own lives?

When we start putting together governmental structures to carry out this philosophy, it will necessarily change our entire structure of government. If policies are to be based on how the people, as individuals, actually feel about things, then there has to be a way to determine what those feelings are. Simply launching more government studies, which is what the bureaucrats in Washington DC will likely propose, would never generate the kind of honest and in depth knowledge Spiritual Humanism would need.

The better way to attain that kind of information, to discern what goes on inside the head and heart of millions of people, is to simply ask them. Let their voices be encouraged and heard in the deliberations of government.

This highlights the key difference between Material Humanism, and Spiritual Humanism. With Material Humanism, people are seen primarily as economic beings, with both their oppression and liberation conceived as economic in nature. Thus material, economic analysis is all that is needed. With Spiritual Humanism, people are seen primarily as communicative beings, with communication (or lack of it) being the greatest factor in their oppression, and open communication being the key to their liberation.

When we take the philosophy of Spiritual Humanism seriously, and determine that the voices of all the people must be heard in the deliberations of government, we are driven by simple logic to turn to a form of government which will place almost all those deliberations in local or community governments. It is irrefutably true that the only way to engage the hearts and minds of the people in their own governance is to have their lives lived within vibrant communities. What's more, the only way to generate the kind of community spirit that will make that system work is if the local communities have real powers of self government.

Then the little people, the citizens in their communities, can feel that vital connection to their own self governance. Then all aspects of a thoroughgoing Spiritual Humanism can be brought into play, building a society which actually delivers the greatest good, for the greatest number, of all people.

There is no immediate suggestions for how we can bring this about. This is just an initial assertion of a new philosophical perspective, and should be received as such. It is left to others, or to all of us together, to determine how best to give political embodiment to this philosophy.

Time for Revolution

 

With the election of Donald Trump to his second term, many of us conservative, Constitution loving Americans are tempted to think we have finally won the day. We have but to sit back and let Trump and his administration, and the Republican dominated legislature, fix what ails our nation. Nothing could be further from the truth, because while Trump's election has given us a reprieve, our national decline is so extreme, and been going on so long, that what we really need is a revolution.

The dictionary informs us that a revolution is a rotating or turning around some other object, such as a planet has a revolution around the sun. It can also be used in regard to a machine cycling around, such as a car's engine can run at some revolutions per minute. That same sense of the word applies to political revolutions; it merely means a turning, from one government to another. It can be a turning from the entire system of government and attaining a new one, or it can be simply exchanging one leader for another, a non violent revolution.

Even with that harmless sounding definition, the idea of having a revolution is still very frightening. That fear of revolution is easy to understand because so many times of violence and war, calling themselves revolutions, have totally failed to turn their societies in a better direction. This has happened in so many nations that they are too numerous to list here. They generally call themselves revolutions, but are in reality just one local dictator, or war lord, overthrowing and replacing an older dictator.

Some of the larger, and more well known of these kinds of revolutions were the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution under Mao, and the Islamic Revolution in Iran. What all of those revolutions have in common is that they began in a time of great crisis, and because of that chaotic birth, never developed the kind of social dynamic which marks successful revolutions. They were born in times of great social and material upheaval, and consequently when the people turned away from the existing order they had to make that change while chaos and disorder prevailed. The foundations of a new order, chosen in such conditions, proved to not be stable and enduring.

The American Revolution had a different genesis. While it undoubtedly started with a war for independence from Great Britain, the leaders who launched it were not under immediate physical threat when they did so.

Even in 1776 they could take the time to consider the best way to form together as a nation. Later, after the War of Independence was over, they could take even more time, although they did have to move with deliberate haste, to put a truly workable system of self government together.

Thus was our constitutionally limited democratic republic born, out of a time of orderly revolution. Since the Founders could take time to incorporate many lessons from history in their plan, it has proven much more durable than other revolutions.

So as we think about revolution, it is good to note that revolutions which start for ideological reasons, in times of relative peace, tend to last longer and have better effect, than revolutions that start in rushed chaos, with a need to patch something together quickly. The rule of thumb seems to be that crisis driven revolutions are bad, and ideologically driven revolutions are good.

With that in mind, we should proceed with our revolution, because we are not in a time of immediate crisis. Things aren't coming down around our ears, and if we do conduct a successful revolution, there won't be a crisis. We simply have to ensure it is the good kind of revolution, the ideological kind.

Now we can come up with a new definition for revolution, or at least a new technique with which to conduct a good revolution. Basically, it should consist of taking a long, honest look at history; Figure out what we did wrong, and quit doing it: Figure out what we did right, and do more of it, and then carry on. By carrying on is meant that these deliberations have to go from just the merely ideological to actually being implemented in the real world.

The most important thing about having a discussion to separate the good from the bad in our history is that it has to be both honest and thorough. Take, for instance, how we must address that most difficult of subjects: “racism.” If we allow a superficial opinion to dominate, we will never come to a good result. The quick, easy and wrong opinion would be to say that racism is something really bad that White people do. The solution, if we adopt that view, is to squelch and discriminate against White people.

That will never work, because it is not the truth. The truth is that racism permeates all of humanity, and has been manifested in every group in this nation. While it is true that it manifested as a worse problem among White people, it wasn't exclusively their problem, so curing that disease can't focus solely on that one group. Rather, the problem of racism should be dealt with like a contagious disease, and attacked with equal honest fervor wherever it manifests.

That then is an example of the kind of thinking our new American revolution must employee if it is to be successful. It has to be, and can be, a thorough and honest long term conversation about what kind of nation we want to be.

Some might scoff and say that if we don't have a time of a real shoot em up, violent war, it isn't a revolution. Think about it though. If we can arrive at that time of an open hearted, honest dialogue, would that not accomplish a true turning in another direction of our society, even if we got there without a lot of people dying.

On the other hand, if we did have some kind of major bloody struggle, and never actually got to that time of honest dialogue, would it really turn us in another direction? Would it not probably just install some even more corrupt regime on us, and we continue on the same down ward path. Needless to say, we would have to continue with even more death, maiming, resentment, and hate.

In a lot of ways, we should realize that this is just calling us back to being true Americans. Our revolution merely commenced with the Declaration of Independence, with its call for liberty and justice for all, and for governments to have the consent of the governed. Those were undoubtedly revolutionary sentiments, but our revolution actually got fired up later, in 1787. At that time our Founding Fathers got together to formulate our constitutional government. Admittedly, some of them were rich enough to be considered potential oligarchs, as some accuse them of, but they were oligarchs with a difference. The difference was that this particular group of oligarchs knew that their necks were on the line. If they didn't formulate a government that was strong and stable enough to endure, the British were very likely to return and gather back up their empire, one state at a time. The Founders would then have undoubtedly been hung for their troubles. What's more, this particular set of oligarchs also knew that any government they devised would have to gain the acceptance of the people. The American people at the time were the most astute and politically engaged people on Earth. So the Founders knew they had to do a good job.

Therefore, they started our Republic on a revolutionary basis, looking at the long sweep of world history, as they could see it, and incorporating what had worked well in the past, and rejecting what had not worked well. Truly revolutionary thinking.

Then, the American Revolution really got started, once the people as a whole began to wrestle with the concepts of self government. Not only did we decide to end the scourge of slavery withing our first ninety years, but we ended property requirements for voting, established schools and universities, and accomplished many other revolutionary goals. In fact, while we have lost much of that early revolutionary zeal, it is still with us, and needs merely to be infused with new life.

The next American revolution, the one we must initiate now, also promises to be a years, if not decades, long process. Let it be. It is long past time that the people, the citizens of this nation, reclaimed their revolutionary zeal, and started to engage in the revolutionary debates that this nation, indeed this whole planet, so desperately needs.

Say No to Jingoistic Herdability

 

There is a human malady, newly come to light. This one is worse than Nazism, Communism, racism, religious bigotry, wokeism, lynch mobs, or any other examples of group hysteria. This malady is a deeper problem than those because it is the one that enables all those other problems. The malady in question is our human propensity to be herd-able, our willingness, indeed eagerness, to allow ourselves to be herded around. I recently came to realize the importance of this problem during a discussion with a friend at a local coffee spot. During the same encounter it became clear how much of a role jingos play in enabling this human herding.

Before relating the incident at the coffee spot, let's take a closer look at jingos, and the jingoism that has long affected our thinking. There is nothing new or old fashioned about jingos, but the name has been changed over the years to protect the crafty. These days of the internet we call them memes, or the slightly older terms, T-shirt sayings, or bumper stickers, or sound bite logic. Political slogans of all stripes fit this description. Jingos. They are pithy little phrases which are used as a kind of shorthand, to sum up a position, to let other people know where we stand. They can be used for or against any particular cause.

In olden times jingos like “manifest destiny” or “that's progress” were a couple of favorites. “Fifty four forty or fight” was used to insist on American territorial expansion, while “free soil”, “peculiar institution” and “states rights” were used around the time of the American Civil War. Many dog whistle code words are also jingos. Of course, a thorough look at jingos would include some racist phrases, such as Sheridan's “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” or phrases more common folks used like, “I don't mind colored folks, it's N-words I can't stand.” All were jingos in older times, and all used, in their times, to keep folks in easily controlled herds. Consider how effectively folks could be kept in line by hinting that they were “N-word lovers.” That jingo usually ended any discussion and ended many germinal friendships between Black and White.

Which brings us to the discussion I had at coffee the other day. I mentioned a recent New York Times article which asserted that President Trump's ban on birthright citizenship might have a leg to stand on in court. This had surprised me, since it came from the normally left leaning (anti Trump) New York Times. I mentioned it because I favor such a ban, although I can see the case against it has merit. My conversation partner said that the proposed ban was wrong because, “it is in the Constitution.” I responded to her that it wasn't so cut and dried as all that and started going in to the particulars of the article.

She responded, not with anything substantive about the Constitution or birthright citizenship, but with a string of anti American jingos.

“Well, we didn't let Natives be citizens. We held Japanese Americans in internment camps,” and such like remarks. Courageously fighting long ago battles. All delivered with an attitude of you have to accept what I am saying or I am on the verge of losing all hope in the country, and it will be your fault if I do.

Instead of being a dialogue, I realized these jingos were being used to herd me, to silence my thinking and make me stay in line. It was the end of the discussion, as she “had” to leave, but I felt, as I often do in such cases, defrauded. I wanted to ask her if she was saying, as she was implying, that the United States of America does not have a legitimate right to exist. I see that implied in her remarks, and the jingos she used to deflect the conversation. The idea seems to be (and I hear it implied a lot) that we really shouldn't control immigration because we really shouldn't even be a nation.

There are a slew of similar negative-toward-America jingos around these days, and they are often used to keep the herd together. Jingos like “White supremacy,” or “Misogyny” or “capitalism is evil, or “stolen land.” On the other hand, there are more positive sounding jingos in use today, such as “inclusive,” or “tolerant,” which are also used to end discussions and either reject the other person, or keep those on one side in line.

On the conservative side, the jingos start with the word MAGA, Make America Great Again, with the addendum being the assertion this is “the greatest country ever” and that those who complain should just “buck up, and get jobs.” Once again, these, and similar jingos serve to cut short any real discussion, to keep the herd (or at least one side of it) in line, and to reject those on the other side.

This is all very disturbing to me personally, because I have seen, and been the victim of, the herd mentality gone bad. My first experience with it was in the second grade, playing four square, a playground game played at recess. The first time it happened, I must admit I was in the wrong, kind of.

We were playing the game, taking turns. I saw that some of the kids were cheating (popular kids it turned out) and getting away with it. I got into the game and hit it slightly out of bounds. Since I had seen others arguing their way back into the game, I tried it, firmly standing my cheating ground. Before I knew what had happened, I was surrounded by the rest of the kids pointing at me and chanting, “the majority rules you're out.” Their jingo. So I retreated to the back of the line.

However, on subsequent days, when I would enter the daily game, every time there was a close call, (I was never again in the wrong) the same group, led by the same chubby girl, would surround me and herd me out of the game with the same chant. I realize, in retrospect, that they must have felt so good in doing that. It must have felt so powerful acting as a mob, with that same chubby girl leading the way each time, that those moments became more important than the game itself. I got to where I found something else to do at recess.

I ran into the same mob mentality in the sixth grade, at a different school. In the middle of the first semester, a new kid came into the class, which was a magnet class for gifted students. His name was Doug, and I got along fine with him. One day, one of the popular kids (it is always them, isn't it?), who must have been in a conflict with Doug, was asked if he would fight him. He answered, “No, I ain't going to fight no N-word.”

This shocked me, because even though Doug was slightly dark skinned, I didn't realize until that moment he was African American. Without thinking about it, I let the popular kid know that he shouldn't have that attitude. Doug withdrew from the class just a day or two later, undoubtedly due to racist harassment. I ended up being the enemy of the cool kids for the rest of the year, who would chase me around the school yard, and ostracized me from their company. They also influenced (herded) the rest of my classmates to do the same. I then had almost no one to talk to, except for a couple of nice girls.

This essay is not, however, about me. Don't cry for me Argentina, especially over long resolved childhood trauma. Rather it is about the propensity of us humans to use half thought out ideas, communicated via catchy jingos, to allow ourselves to be herded so easily. Especially because that herd instinct can so easily morph into a mob mentality.

That is what went so wrong with the Nazis, and with Mao's Red Guards. We saw it in operation during the BLM Summer of Love, where mobs felt emboldened to harass and humiliate strangers on the basis of their race, all in the name of ending racism. The wilding and larceny gangs have to be included in this herding gone wrong problem as well. Black Lives Matter is, in fact, another jingo used in the way they all are, to herd humans, reject the other, and possibly justify violence. The same could be said, with less accuracy, about the January 6 rioters with their chants of “stop the steal.” In those, and many other instances, (lynch mobs, etc) normal people can feel a great empowerment in a mob. Especially with agreed upon jingos dancing in their heads.

I think about my friend in the recent coffee conversation. She was on fire to win the battle of the Cherokee “trail of tears,” now that it is safely in the past. But at the time, when Davey Crockett spoke out against the illegal actions of President Andrew Jackson, I wonder if she would have spoken up. The folks back in Tennessee, his constituents, voted him out of congress for his straying from the herd in that way. His last words to them were, “Y'all can go to hell, I'm going to Texas.”

Similarly, when Abraham Lincoln spoke out (with his “Spot” speech) against the Mexican American War, a war which many today see as unjust, he got voted out of congress in 1836. Not many normal people, obedient members of their herd, approved of his truth telling.

Keeping us in tightly controlled herds is not, however, the work of the elites who would rule us. Even though they probably facilitate the herding by using their media power to open the window about what is acceptable to use in our jingos. It is called the “Overton Window”, and it is a highly controlled opening in what is acceptable public dialogue. But the herding is done by us, in our little gatherings, ostracizing, ignoring, huffing the oddball off.. Making it to where only certain opinions can be viced if one is to be admitted into polite company.

This phenomenon goes across all peoples, groups, nations and times. Almost all nations can be defined by whatever consensual delusion (jingos) they agree on, and herd themselves with. Their Overton windows, and their local jingos. God save the Queen, Deutchland uber alles, Viva la France, Viva Mexico, God bless America. Our king, our land, our culture. This thinking reigns over the entire planet.

It is not that this social cohesion is all bad, but that it is easily misused to keep us in tidy, obedient herds. What we must always keep in mind is that it is all always on the verge of mob rule and riot.

The antidote is not to just hate Nazis, or racists, or Wokeism. Rather the antidote is to look to our own souls, and minds. The antidote is to make ourselves, as individuals, not herd-able. To no longer accept the soft oppression of silencing, of ostracism, of ourselves or others; to not allow the popular kids, or influential adults, to set the agenda, and subtly ensure no other point of view is voiced in our groups.

In other words, the way to avoid this malady is to become truly human. To work toward building a truly humane, reason based society,. We must nurture up, educate for and develop the strength to stand alone as individuals. To stand for the truth as we see it, and not allow any thing other than a stronger, deeper truth, arrived at through open debate and discussion, to change out stance. Certainly don't allow the social ostracism of some fools who refuse to even look at the truth, who hide behind half thinking jingoism, to in any way dissuade you from seeking it. Not in school, not at the coffee group, not at church, or work, or at a political rally. Be willing to stand alone for the truth, as you see it, regardless of the latest jingo. If you don't do that, then realize that you will probably, eventually, find yourself swept up in some new form of Nazi like mob rule.

William Seward in Black History

 

When the name William Seward is mentioned, most people remember him as the guy who bought Alaska from the Russians. If they know a little more history they also know that he was Secretary of State in the Lincoln administration. While those two achievements give him historical significance, they come far short of a full accounting of the man. With a more full understanding of his life, William Seward emerges as one of the greatest leaders this nation has ever known. What's more, it is entirely appropriate to recall his life during Black History Month, because as a national leader, he arguably accomplished more than any other leader to uplift Black people.

To start to get a feel for the man, let us hearken back to March of 1846. A free Black man, one William Freeman, recently released from five years in prison after it was learned he was wrongly convicted, went on an insane rampage, murdering an entire family in Seward's hometown of Auburn, New York. There was no doubt as to the man's guilt in this case, and the prisoner barely made it past the lynch mob to jail.

In court, no lawyer was willing to take the case, probably since the citizens of Auburn let it be known they would kill any who dared. In the courtroom, when the judge asked if any would defend him, William Seward, a practicing attorney (by then a former governor of the state, not yet elected to the senate), stepped forward to volunteer his services. At great personal and career risk and against the advice of political allies, William Seward chose to defend the obviously guilty Mr. Freeman on the basis of his insanity.

He lost the case, but in making it he gave a rousing defense of the humanity of Black people, and argued that if the defendant was White, the jury would would have found him insane and committed him to life in a mental institution. In many ways, therefore, William Seward actually lived out, in 1846, the heroic roles portrayed in the movies “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “A Time to Kill.” Such courage and compassion should never be forgotten.

Even earlier in his life, his wife and he, while not in favor of slavery, decided, in his typically open minded and congenial way, to go down South and see things for themselves. Barely into Virginia in their southbound carriage, they encountered a group of slave boys being driven to market, chained and naked. The sight so repulsed both Mr. and Mrs. Seward that they immediately turned around and never again visited the South. They were passionate abolitionists from that day forward.

When elected to the Senate, Senator Seward was the leading voice for abolition and lifting the Black, or what was called at the time, the Negro population. This earned him the undying hatred of slave owners. Once, in the heat of battle leading to the Civil War, some Southern Senator, letting the false mask of civility slip, used the N-word in a speech in the Senate. Senator Seward, in his response, let it be known that no one would ever be president who spells “Negro with two g's.” Statements like that, and he made many in favor of freedom for Negros, did not win him any friends in the South.

By 1860, with the North turning away from slavery, and the Republican Party uniting around the issue of abolition, it was assumed that the greatest advocate of emancipation, William Seward, would be the nominee. No one, however, had reckoned on the political acumen of the obscure country lawyer from Illinois, so Abraham Lincoln won the nomination for President.

Although undoubtedly disappointed, William Seward bore the loss well, and in his typical noble manner, campaigned vigorously for Lincoln, and for the cause of emancipation. After the Republicans won, Senator Seward was anticipating completing his term in the Senate and retiring to his home in Auburn. It was not to be though, because Abraham Lincoln was not only a canny politician, he was a truly wise leader.

Seward was expecting a pro forma invitation from Lincoln to join the administration, and it was expected he would, in similar pro forma fashion, turn down the offer. But Lincoln sent a second letter with the pro forma one, and its sincerity and wisdom convinced Seward to accept the appointment as Secretary of State. It was probably the best decision either man ever made, as it brought together two of the greatest minds in the country, at the very moment the nation was in its greatest need of wisdom..

Even before Lincoln's inauguration, then still Senator Seward proved his mettle by helping to thwart a Confederate plot to take over Washington just before the inauguration and thereby win the war without a shot being fired. Edwin Stanton, also later in Lincoln's cabinet, was in Buchanan's cabinet, privy to the treasonous conversations going on in the Oval office, and secretly relaying that information to Senator Seward. Seward's actions helped preserve the Union before the war even started. Once again, he acted, at great personal risk, with courage and diplomacy.

From day one of his administration, Lincoln and Seward had a close and trusting working relationship, going so far as Lincoln allowing Seward to modify the language his inaugural address. Their on going collaboration was vital in fulfilling the goal of keeping the border states in the Union.

What's more, Seward had previously traveled extensively in Europe, with his strong abolitionist stance opening many doors on the continent. He now effectively used those contacts to help prevent England and France from recognizing the Confederacy. The Europeans staying neutral in the war deprived the Confederacy of a vital source of revenue, and was one of the main reasons the Union won the war.

The night Lincoln was assassinated, another member of the team of assassins tried to kill William Seward and his son. He used a knife and stabbed the Secretary repeatedly in the face. The only reason it did not kill him was that he had recently suffered a broken jaw in a carriage accident, and had a metal brace on his jaw which deflected the knife from hitting his jugular vein. His son was even more grievously wounded but both men survived the assault.

Sadly, their families did not survive the ordeal. His beloved wife Frances, a fine woman who supported her husband in every issue, died six weeks later. Undoubtedly, her demise was a result of the strain of caring for his wounds, and the stress of the times. His daughter Fannie also died shortly thereafter.

Seward recovered and stayed on as Secretary of State under Andrew Johnson, which is how he was in a positions to arrange and conclude our purchase of Alaska. He died in 1872 at 71 years of age.

Much of the information in this essay was gleaned from reading “Team of Rivals,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin (the book can't be recommended highly enough). On the cover of that book is a posed photo of Lincoln and his cabinet, with Lincoln and Seward seated and facing toward each other. After reading the book, one is struck by the idea that arguably the greater man in that photo is William Seward. Admittedly, both men had failings, but both men were undoubtedly great leaders of a righteous cause.

The question becomes, “Why isn't he already highly remembered?” The answer is that history has a way of being written by the winners, and the survivors. In the chaos of war and reconstruction, and the national grief at President Lincoln's death, a lot of Seward's deeds have been forgotten. What's more, virtually none of his family survived the tumultuous times to keep his memory alive.

So it is time that we remember him, today. Additionally, even though he and this author are both White, it is totally fitting for his life to be remembered during Black History Month, because William Seward deserves as much or more credit for preserving the Union and ending slavery as anyone, including Abraham Lincoln. He had a huge effect on Black history. He was not only one of the greatest Americans ever born, he was one of the greatest humans. Such inspiring figures should never be lost to history.

On a related note, let me add. A lot of White folks don't much like Black History Month, with their yearly refrain being “Why don't we have White history month?”

I rather enjoy learning of Black leaders and exceptional figures from the past. I had never heard of folks like Roberts Smalls, or Harriet Tubman before Black History Month began, and I am better for learning of their heroic lives and courageous contributions. Rather than ending this yearly history lesson, maybe it can be transformed to include more truly great people, like William Seward, from all quarters of our national history. I know Native American leaders like Crazy Horse should also be remembered, as should Ceasar Chavez, and other exemplary leaders of various ethnic groups, Whites included.

Maybe instead of Black History month, or focusing any other particular group, let us transition to a never ending history minute every day that reminds us of great figures from our collective past. This will be a way of reminding us of who we are, where we came from and how we got here. Further, such remembrance might even inspire us to consider what kind of future we want to build together.

How, and Why, to Save America

 

How, and Why, to Save America

America, our once glorious Republic, seems to be circling the drain, on its' declining way to join history's other failed republics. The stakes in this moment are astronomical; either continue on this decline and end up in some form of enslaved dictatorship. Or reverse course, and we can gather the tools to actually build our own golden age.

There is a way out of this trap, but the first step is for us to think our way out of it. If we must also fight our way out of it, either culturally, politically, or militarily, none of those efforts will succeed if we have not first thought out way out of it. Moreover, if we do think our way out of this trap, we might not have to do any other real fighting. This plan offers that way to think our way out of American decline and stand a real chance at a golden future.

Before we can understand and implement the plan to save America, we must first examine the process which has brought us to this desperate moment in history, a moment where America obviously needs saving. Since the decline and near fall of the American Republic is a large, multifaceted story, it will be best to start at the beginning and look at it one step at a time. Once we have looked at what was done to us, it will be much easier to comprehend what a precious treasure we are losing, and how (and why) we can revive our dying treasure of Liberty. In overly broad strokes, (in depth analysis on each of the major subjects will be linked as appropriate) the narrative of America's decline goes like this.

The first dysfunction in our republic was when we did not wholeheartedly embrace the “all” part of liberty and justice for all. No link is needed to prove this. While this has been a debilitating and shameful problem, it did not prevent many positive aspects of Liberty from manifesting in our public life. In fact, the ongoing efforts of many people to overcome this flaw have been some of the most inspiring chapters in our national story. When we get to the section of this essay dealing with remedies, the first stipulation will be that we must sincerely commit to that “all” part this time around, or nothing else can possibly work.

The second major dysfunction (there were only two) was caused by the advent of the telegraph in 1844. This electronic communication medium became the means by which the wealthy gained effective control of the free press, a problem the founders of our nation had not anticipated. They reasoned that if the national government could not make any law prohibiting a free press then the press would, as a whole, remain free. Because of the resulting competitive marketplace of ideas, the truth would always find its way to the minds of the people.

With the coming of the telegraph, some few wealthy newspaper owners could lay telegraph lines from city to city, for instance between Washington and New York. This gave them such a competitive advantage (vital news of legislative actions days before any other newspaper) that their circulation swelled. Then they could sell more advertising, which allowed them to charge less for the daily paper. More current news, and more of it, for a penny a copy versus older news, and less of it, for ten cents a copy. The reading public made the obvious choice and the Penney Newspapers soon dominated the market.

Most of the papers that survived that market shakeout were either owned by rich people (therefore advocating for their interests) or were dependent on wire services the newspapers subscribed to, which sent to them telegraphed news reports. This resulted in very few points of view in newspapers coast to coast. Additionally, almost all the newspapers had to sell advertising to compete, so they became dependent on advertising which meant they all tended to defend the interests of the wealthy.

Consequently the press, while free of governmental controls, had ceased, by approximately 1880, being a loyal watchdog for the people's interests. Curiously, the press never bothered informing the people of this fact. This hidden dysfunction then enabled all the usurpations and abuses which followed, because the free press no longer worked to identify threats to the people's Liberty, nor to explain to the people why such threats were important.

A long train of abuses and usurpations followed, each one symbiotically contributing to a cultural decline which paved the way for the next abuse or usurpation. There were three major usurpations, with a number of minor ones, which totally changed our form of government over the course of eight decades without the people even realizing it. The first of these major usurpations was the proclamation of corporate personhood, by the Supreme Court, in 1886. (Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 US 394)

The concept of corporate personhood paved the way for the monopoly and trust era of American business, also known as the Robber Barron or Gilded Age. That was because when corporations gained the status of persons, that status was used as a pretext to give them the protections guaranteed to persons under the 14^th Amendment. Thus, almost all state level regulation of corporations became unconstitutional. In that way, the powers of economic self government were usurped from our communities. Read about this change here.  Sorry, these blog links are not live (I can't figure out how to make them live), so copy and paste to your browser, or just highlight and hit go to link, or whatever works for you.  But these links do fill in vital information.

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/corporate-personhood.html

With suddenly unbridled corporations (and heretofore unheard of interstate corporations !) running roughshod over the people, and state governments no longer having the powers to protect their citizens from corporate abuse, the people began to feel local and state governments to be incompetent, and therefore feel a need for the federal government to protect them. This is the first instance of one usurpation perverting the culture and paving the way for another series of abuses and usurpations.

The popular demand for federal intervention resulted in the Progressive Era, which gave us all sorts of minor abuses and usurpations, such as the Food and Drug Act of 1905, the Federal Reserve, the IRS, direct election of senators, and prohibition of alcohol. The only undeniably good change to come out of that era was women's suffrage.

The worst aspect of the Progressive era was the adoption of a generally elitist attitude on the part of the federal government and its bureaucracies. With the bias toward the powerful in the press, and the advent of corporate dominance, it was reasoned (by leaders like Walter Lippmann and Woodrow Wilson) that the common person was no longer capable of understanding the complexities of modern government.

In fact, they were essentially correct, but not for the reasons they thought. With the transfer of powers from the local to the federal governments, the issues, and how they were framed and decided, evolved into something the ordinary person, in the small town or local neighborhood, could not understand. Affairs of state are beyond their ken when those affairs are conducted at such a distance and on such a scale. Montesquieu, Jefferson, De Toqueville and Chesterton all warned about this problem.

It is not that the people had suddenly become brainless scarecrows, but that it is only when real issues of government are decided locally that the common person can feel competence and mastery in dealing with them. By removing the powers of government from local hands, in response to the ravages caused by corporations being seen as persons, the most basic dynamic of democracy was scuttled, the former active citizens becoming mere subjects. The resulting apathy frustrated would be reformers, like the young Walter Lippmann, which eventually caused him to despair of democracy altogether.

Therefore, the anointed ones reasoned, the decisions of government should be handed over to trained experts who would administer government and better defend the interests of the masses than the people could themselves. This view was enthusiastically embraced by leaders and the now empowered federal bureaucrats. It was equally embraced by most journalists, who now saw their mission changed, from one of informing a self governing citizenry, to one of manufacturing consent (for the people's own good) among an increasingly ignorant, supine and sheep like populace. Again, usurpations changed the culture into one more accepting of even more usurpations

With all the progressive changes in force, and corporate personhood still unnoticed and unchallenged, the whole structure came crashing down in the Great Depression of 1929-1941. Predictably, since the press was increasingly the monopolized tool of the wealthy, ending corporate personhood was never even considered as a solution to economic woes. Rather, in a series of unconstitutional and illegal moves, FDR used the economic crisis to run a fascist coup from 1933 to 1937. This second major usurpation of powers from the states and localities to the federal government took almost all the powers, and responsibilities of social self government from the people.

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/fdr-was-fascistic-traitor.html

Among those changes, Social Security, which FDR first established in a popular political move to win the 1936 election, had a much more detrimental effect on our culture than is generally recognized. Here is a link that will explain how.

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/social-security.html

With all these usurpations and abuses hidden from our minds by a treasonous free press, and those engines of cultural destruction operating at full throttle, the changes were consolidated in our minds as we endured the remainder of the Great Depression and came through World War 2. At the end of that war we emerged as a nation completely different than the one the people thought they had. Since we still had elections and the other trappings of democracy, no one noticed. What's more, since we had just triumphed in the biggest war ever waged, we assumed our system was functioning well, especially since the still trusted (but secretly corrupted) media was not telling us any different. Usurpations had mutilated the culture, laying the groundwork for even more usurpations and abuses.

Shortly after the end of World War 2, the last of the major usurpations was affected, which was the taking of the powers of moral self government from we, the people, in our communities. This was done by a Supreme Court ruling, (Everson v Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1) in 1947 wherein the Court opined at length that the 1^st Amendment was suddenly seen as contained within the 14^th Amendment, because of its' requirement that all privileges and immunities must apply to all citizens. Suddenly the idea of a separation of church and state was to be applied to the states, as was a prohibition on any kind of restriction on speech or press.

The people weren't informed about these changes until thirteen years later (that pesky corporate controlled press again) when it was suddenly sprung on us to throw prayer out of schools in the early 1960's. While this monumental change was generally accepted, with only small whimpers of objection, it amounted to yet another usurpation of power from the states and localities to the federal government. This time they took from us the powers of moral self government. This usurpation amounted to a uniquely perfect crime, because the victims of this crime consider themselves to be its beneficiaries. Read in detail how this change was affected, and why it is so destructive to American free self government.

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/how-first-amendment-was-stolen.html

Let's review what has been done to us politically, and how it has warped us culturally. In a process that stretched from 1886 to 1963, with a treasonous free press keeping it all quiet, the powers of economic, social, and moral self government were taken from we, the people, in our communities. This has greatly changed the dynamics of political power in our nation, transforming it from a locally self governing republic into something more akin to a continental size fascist oligarchy. Far worse, in making these changes, in removing actual self government from us as citizens of communities, it has almost completely killed the most important dynamic of Liberty, the one thing that made our republic work well when it did work well.  That forgotten blessing of Liberty is the fervent, morality inducing, consciousness of self government living in the hearts of a free people.

The dire philosophical consequence of these changes becomes clear when we resort to the thoughts of the esteemed Thomas Jefferson, recorded in a couple of private letters to friends.

“Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens, and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. And I do verily believe, that if the principle were to prevail, of a common law being in force in the United States…, it would become the most corrupt government on the earth…” This is from a letter to Gideon Granger, 1800.^4.

In the same vein in another letter to William T. Barry, 1822, Jefferson wrote:

“If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption.”^5.

Perhaps in echo to Jefferson, another great student of democratic republican government laid out his thoughts. In Democracy in America, Alexis DeTocqueville wrote:

“However, the strength of free peoples resides in the local community. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people’s reach, they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it. Without local institutions a nation may give itself a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty. Passing passions, momentary interest, or chance circumstances may give it the external shape of independence, but the despotic tendencies which have been driven into the interior of the body social will sooner or later break out on the surface.”^6.

DeToqueville is obliquely referring to what can be thought of as the greatest blessing of liberty, which is the kind of moralizing synergy that a system of Local Community Moral Self Government tends to generate.  As the founders noted, and warned, it requires a moral citizenry to maintain our system free self government.  The other side of that coin, the corollary, is also vitally true. Only a truly free and self governing people living in that system of LCMSG tends to realize and resonate with the reasons to be moral.

 That almost completely lost and forgotten dynamic is that when people are truly free and self governing (and that can happen only in local community) the very fact of their self governance sets in motion a positive synergy which tends to produce a moral, aroused citizenry. There will be more on this subject in the post about LCMSG. At this point it will just be noted that as we, as a nation, have lost that vital moralizing synergy, the problems of immorality have come to loom ever larger.

The cultural decline that has resulted from this long train of usurpations and abuses has brought us to this point where America is poised on a cliff of doom and ruin. We are caught in a negative, downward spiraling synergy of a declining morality leading to more authoritarian government which leads to even more moral decline which leads to even more authoritarian government. The way out of this downward spiral is to refound out republic on the same sound basis of Local Community Moral Self Government that we used the first time.

Consider the following prediction from Alexis DeTocqueville published in 1835.

DeTocqueville's Warning

“Thus, I think that the type of oppression threatening democracy will not be like anything there has been in the world before; our contemporaries would not be able to find any example of it in their memories. I, too, am having difficulty finding a word which will exactly convey the whole idea I have formed; the old words despotism and tyranny are not suitable. This is a new phenomenon which I must, therefore, attempt to define since I can find no name for it.

I wish to imagine under what new features despotism might appear in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of men, all alike and equal, turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, living apart, is almost unaware of the destiny of all the rest. His children and personal friends are for him the whole of the human race; as for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he stands alongside them but does not see them;, he touches them without feeling them; he exists only in himself and for himself; if he still retains his family circle, at any rate he may be said to have lost his country.

Above these men stands an immense and protective power which alone is responsible for looking after their enjoyments and watching over their destiny. It is absolute, meticulous, ordered, provident, and kindly disposed. It would be like a fatherly authority, if, father like, its aim were to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks only to keep them in perpetual childhood; it prefers its citizens to enjoy themselves provided they have only enjoyment in mind. It works readily for their happiness but it wishes to be the only provider and judge of it. It provides their security, anticipates and guarantees their needs, supplies their pleasures, directs their principal concerns, manages their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances. Why can it not remove from them entirely the bother of thinking and the troubles of life?

Thus, it reduces daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice; it restricts the activity of free will within a narrower range and gradually removes autonomy itself from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all this, inclining them to tolerate all these things and often even to see them as a blessing.

Thus, the ruling power, having taken each citizen one by one into its powerful grasp and having molded him to its own liking, spreads it arms over the whole of society, covering the surface of social life with a network of petty, complicated, detailed, and uniform rules through which even the most original minds and the most energetic spirits cannot reach the light in order to rise above the crowd. It does not break men’s wills but it does soften, bend, and control them; rarely does it force men to act but it constantly opposes what actions they perform; it does not destroy the start of anything but it stands in its way; it does not tyrannize but it inhibits, represses, drains, snuffs out, dulls so much effort that finally it reduces each nation to nothing more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as shepherd.”^5.

The society DeTocqueville describes seems to be the one in which we find ourselves. The assertion here is that this woeful state of affairs is the direct and inevitable outgrowth of the three major usurpations of the powers of economic, social, and moral self-determination (especially the moral) from our communities, These usurpations have resulted in an atomized, unworkable definition of liberty being imposed on us. This atomized, alienated, powerless mindset of the modern American must be contrasted with the involved, connected, and sincere citizen that used to be the norm in America, and would (it is here asserted) tend to be produced if these powers of self-government were restored to the states and localities.

Before going into the remedies to our problems, which is a feasible plan to restore our republic to its original architecture, it must be emphasized that such a refounding must start by thoroughly rejecting our first major dysfunction, which is racism. Additionally, there is a way to use the electronic media to overcome the second dysfunction , which was the corruption of the press by big business interests. We can't, however, get ahead of our narrative, so let us first consider what kind of society we can expect to live in if we restore to ourselves proper constitutional order.

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/lcmsg.html

With that picture of LCMSG firmly planted in our minds, we begin to form an answer to the question of, “Why save America?” The answer is because Liberty, on the American plan is what will transform us into the kind of people, and citizenry, who can rise above all challenges, and actually find our way to a better world. However, before we jump into the final section of this treatise, that of how to make the changes required to refound our Republic, one more detour to another linked essay is called for, this one to further motivate us about the “why” of LCMSG. We will now examine the usually ignored and unnoticed perils of elitism. This because it is elitism which is the beating dark heart of all the other forms of government, from Marxism to socialism to monarchy to aristocracy to oligarchy to plain old fashioned dictatorship. Some form of elitism is what we will be stuck with if we don't get back to Liberty. We should comprehend how inherently evil that dynamic is.

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/elitism.html

Leaving elitism behind, hopefully, please God, forever, we can now get to the best part; how we might actually put our glorious Republic back together. The first step is to commit to doing this together, as the American people. Whether your predecessors were living on this land before Europeans got here, or they came from China yesterday. If they were from Vietnam, Congo, Brazil, India, Poland, Polynesia, Nigeria, Spain, Ireland or Mongolia. If your people came over on the Mayflower or were brought in a slave ship, or even if they got here by swimming the Rio Grande. If they, and you, came seeking the blessings of freedom, then it is time we all came together, as equal Americans, and agree to put our Republic back on the sound basis of Local Community Moral Self Government.

In all that follows, where ever you came from in search of Liberty, allow the words, thoughts and principles put forth by the American Founders become your thoughts, let them take deep root in your heart. As Benjamin Franklin warned, if we don't hang together, we will most certainly hang separately.

Refounding the American Republic

The first step in re-founding our nation is restoring the First Amendment. Legally, this will be easy to accomplish if we, the people, want to. If we are convinced that America has always been a good idea, and that this re-founding is a good idea, fixing the misuse of the First Amendment will be relatively easy. Congress can fix the Court's blunder by using a long dormant check contained in the Constitution. In Article III, Section 2, the second sentence of the second paragraph of the Constitution says;

“In all other cases before mentioned the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as the congress shall make.”

What this clearly means is that Congress can make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of the Court. Once again, it will take the people united coming to the determination that change should be made and then demanding representatives and senators act on that determination (or electing new ones). The change could then take place overnight, and the states would naturally come in to fill the vacuum, picking up the scepter of moral self-government. In that way, the issues of church and state, freedom of speech and press, and freedom of assembly would rise no further than the supreme courts of the various states. Or the Supreme Court could simply reverse the wrong headed blunder they made in Everson v Board of Education and save us the trouble.

Once we actually start to refound this nation, starting with these moral issues makes sense for two reasons. First, this initial change will be fairly easy to accomplish once the political will exists. Second, once we make these changes some of the social and political aspects of a free society will start to take organic root. As these powers devolve to the states, we will rediscover that our states provide a more accessible and conciliatory arena for our political disputes. We will be able to make laws on these subjects without making questionable presumptions on our constitutions since the states have far more latitude, fewer limits, in the making of laws than does the federal government. We are likely to find more nuanced compromises on some of the burning issues and not so easily enter into the current mode of completely disregarding the concerns of those on the other side as we work to jam our values down their throats.

What's more, on a social level, returning these moral issues to the states will reinvigorate a couple of social institutions of a free society. First will be the kind of civic societies we used to have. We could expect, in a nation that had restored the powers of moral self-government to the states and localities, for these civic societies, clubs and organizations to arise and function to keep tabs on what locals and other places are doing and organize to defend folks from fanatic extremism.

Additionally, as the cultural outlines of the newly re-founded nation become clear, we will probably enter into a time of folks relocating to live in communities within which they find a better personal fit. Even though this process of moving to some better place will probably never end (it goes on today), since new generations with new desires for life continue to be born, after a while it will slow down. In the end, almost by definition, we will be in a nation with more harmony, certainly between neighbors in community and probably between communities. There will simply be much less to fight about.

Even further, by allowing stark cultural differences between communities and allowing individuals to migrate between them, we will cause the idea of “the consent of the governed,” to gain some real traction in the hearts and minds of the people. We will thereby greatly increase the legitimacy and hence stability of government. This renewed sense of the legitimacy of government will grow organically because we will all have much more of a hand in our own governance and not be stuck merely accepting what was done by those in the past. We, as individuals, will be much more able to consent (or not) to our own governance.

The next item on the agenda of re-founding our nation will be to end corporate personhood and any affiliated, peripheral, legal doctrines which have worked to take the powers of economic self-determination away from people in their communities. This will be a more problematic change than the changes around moral self-government for a number of reasons.

First of all, since the change to corporate personhood was murkier than the twisting of the First Amendment, the remedy to the problem is not so easy to identify. Assuming, once again, that the vast majority of the people desire this change to take place, there would be a number of ways we might proceed.

For one thing, we could possibly use that same check in Article III, Section 2 quoted earlier. It gives congress power to “.... make exceptions. . .and... regulations...” to the court's appellate jurisdiction, which could be a way to return the powers of corporate chartering and regulation to the states. Another way might be by some new statute, or even some new Amendment to the Constitution, which rescinds the doctrine of corporate personhood. Whatever means we would employ, we would still want to proceed with calm deliberation and patience.

Unlike the case with the powers of moral self-government, the business world might not immediately, in a healthy way, fill the vacuum created by states once again exercising the powers of corporate regulation. A thriving economy needs a stable investment environment so any major change like this, once the concept gets accepted, should affect changes in planned phases . We will not want to recklessly destroy community benefiting businesses while we are otherwise engaged in trying to clean up the mess. In other words, the economy is a living thing and should be modified with great care and compassion.

What's more, in order to empower states and communities to once again regulate corporations, we will, as a nation, probably have to withdraw from most, if not all, of the international trade agreements we have entered into. This is because most of them, and certainly the big one, GATT, have abrogated such regulation, taking those powers away from our federal congress and even the federal courts. These agreements have handed corporate regulation over to anonymous international boards set up to adjudicate disputes in secret and whose rulings cannot be appealed. Any withdrawal from these treaties will probably require at least six months advance notice.

As we start to make this change, we can expect the voices of commerce to howl mightily that the path we are following will destroy civilization. They will fight against it like cornered wild animals. Ending corporate personhood promises to be one of the monumental battles of the ages.

When we do make these changes, however, those same economic actors will calm down, find new ways to make a profit, and learn to share in the resulting cultural benefits along with the rest of us. In other words, with enough clear eyed determination, we can actually return the powers of economic self-determination to our communities and eventually even most of the rich folks will come to appreciate it.

The third area of major reforms that must be undertaken in the re-founding of our republic is the area of all those social and related programs from the time of FDR, and the socialism that came after him, and even the mistakes from earlier Progressive era. This is a huge morass of issues that have little or no relation to each other and thus defy some kind of single remedy. Most of them have little or no constitutional basis and, even the ones which were constitutionally established, such as the IRS, or direct election of senators, violate some core principles of American governmental philosophy and should be revisited.

Confronted as we are by this huge morass, this tangled ball of spaghetti, our own Gordian knot so to speak, we must first decide how to proceed. There is a saying that the best way to eat an elephant, if one must deal with that problem, is one bite at a time. Using that logic in dealing with this Gordian knot of issues, it will be wise to proceed with a continuing resolution in Congress.

Such a resolution will require an honest listing of all the functions the federal government has taken on without having proper constitutional delegation. Along with the list, the resolution will call on Congress to either devolve each of the functions of government back to the states, propose and ratify some new amendment to the Constitution to delegate that function to the federal government, or to find some such delegation of power in the existing body or amendments of the Constitution. It must also stipulate that a finding of delegation like that must rely on an originalist, plain reading of the Constitution and not be concocted out of the penumbra or supposedly hidden meaning of old words. Additionally, we must not allow the underhanded use of either the commerce clause or the general welfare clause as a way to cover everything imaginable, in other words as a rationale for totalitarian government. It is delusional to assert that the founders meant to establish that kind of government with those words.

As each new session of congress met and took up that same resolution, the huge morass of issues will get smaller. In most cases, the remedy will consist of safely and, perhaps in a phased way, returning some function of government to the states or localities. On some few issues, we might determine that it would be better to enshrine that function at the federal level via a new constitutional amendment. Over time, we would approach unto the goal of the continuing resolution, which is to get to where the activities of the federal government comply completely with the words written in the Constitution. This would be a glorious work even if we never completed it perfectly, and a tremendous gift to bestow on our descendants.

Throughout the process of restoring LCMSG, the forces and interests which have benefited so much from us losing our free and self governing republic will ferociously fight against our every move. They will object to losing their power over us. Make no mistake, their resistance will be formidable and their arguments, while false, will be difficult for people to see through.

The first argument will be ridicule, and that will be reinforced by asserting that our modern lives and conveniences, our high tech society, are dependent on maintaining both centralized government and centralized big corporations. While that seems, at first blush, to be a strong point, on further examination it collapses.

The reason is that our high tech civilization is not really the product of either big government or big corporations, but rather it is the result of the ongoing industrial revolution. While that revolution has been greatly aided by the American Patent office, that office was established and working productively long before the era of big business or big government. In fact, a strong case can be made that big government interference with the patent office (corrupt politicians making sure that some patents are extended much longer than they should be) has inhibited our technological growth. The same case can, and is, made that big business has long had a practice of buying up patents which might cause existing products to lose customers, and hiding them away from public use.

Another strong example of the idea that it is technology, not big government or big business, which has enabled our modern advantages, is that of summer fruit being sold in our groceries during winter. A local paper made the point that this benefit is possible only because of the big GATT treaty. The response is- bananas.

That's right bananas, which also come from the tropics, and have been available for decades during our long northern winters, without those trade treaties. The reason we can now purchase mangoes, starfruit, melons, kiwifruit, and other tropical or summer delights during our winters is not because of the trade treaties, but because jet travel has become inexpensive enough to make those summer fruits affordable. Bananas ripen much more slowly, and because of that have traditionally been transported by banana boats for good profit. It was the new technology, not big government or big business or big international treaties that made summer fruits available in winter. It is the ongoing technological revolution that enables our modern lifestyles, and not the dubious benefits of either big business or big government.

The Open Media

This bring us to the major obstacle we have to overcome to get our Republic founded again. That obstacle is the second malfunction, the fact that we still have a media controlled by the big money interests. While the process of putting our Republic back together makes sense, and it should be workable, the fact is that it has no chance as long as we still have no free marketplace of ideas. With their control of the media, big tech, education, publishing and virtually any other source of information, not only can we not win the debate, the truth is we can never even get the debate started. Their control of the media is virtually total, which is how we got into this mess in the first place.

The solution to this impasse is to do what was done in Ancient Athens in time of crisis, and that is to establish a public forum so these ideas can be discussed, even if the rich and powerful don't want that discussion to take place. The way we can establish this long needed free marketplace of ideas is called the Open Media Amendment, and is explained in this last linked post

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-open-media.html

So there we have it, the plan that explains how, and why, we can save America. The first thing we have to do is establish the Open Media by way of ratifying one new constitutional amendment. This will be the battle of the ages, which will require each of us to hold on to this revolutionary idea in the face of relentless bombardment from the worst, most effective brainwashing and indoctrination machine the world has ever known. We would be wise to not even consider entering this battle until and unless we are fully persuaded that we want to be free and self governing citizens again.

Especially when the alternative they will offer is to remain as essentially fat, tame, and docile house cats. That seems to be a good, easy, albeit boring and purposeless life, but it is a much easier life than the life of a free citizen. The only real drawback to that life as a dependent house cat of the fascist oligarchy is when it is recognized that the ultimate destination of that life is to become either a slave or a batch of taco meat. If that doesn't appeal to you, then consider taking on the role, powers and challenges of being a free citizen. Set your heart and mind to it and realize the battle begins by getting an Open Media Amendment ratified.

Once we establish the Open Media, empowering ourselves with a true public forum, the battle will be just getting started. The Open Media will not be just about reestablishing LCMSG. It can't be, because everyone will be able to bring up whatever subject they want. But those of us who want to be free again would be able to use it to that purpose. Then, every other reform detailed here could be carried out, one reform at a time. But we will have to vigorously insist on getting this agenda carried, every step of the way.

Then we could get the First Amendment back to its original use, enabling us to live much more moral lives, and to teach morality to the young in our schools. Then we could end corporate personhood, enabling us to put the corporate beast back on a short leash of community accountability. Then we could restore almost all the powers and responsibilities of government back to local control, and return our Constitution to actually meaning what it says.

With all those changes, we would almost undoubtedly transform ourselves from being passive sheeple and back into being active, engaged and moral citizens. In that mode, with all the people groups of the world together, for the first time, as free and self governing Americans, we will start to harvest the delightful fruit of Liberty. We will have much more social harmony, prosperity, understanding and peace, domestically and with the world in general.

Most importantly, with that structure of Local Community Moral Self Government revived and fully functioning, we will find that we really do, as a people, have an ever rising social and spiritual consciousness. When that is combined with an ongoing Open Media, we could feasibly be looking at the genesis of a Golden Age, in American, and probably in the whole planet. That would be the fruit of our quest for freedom, and it is much more attractive than the slave ship earth future offered by the non freedom alternatives.

In conclusion we, the people, can now proceed, informed about the steps necessary to restore our republic. What's more, let us be motivated to take on this glorious work because we now understand the great blessing American Liberty will be, once it is restored, to our souls, spirit, and culture. Now, let us consider how perfectly appropriate this revolutionary movement is by recalling some of the words from what is probably the most important political document ever written. Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence.

It starts, “When in the course of human events. . .”

Blah, blah blah. Skip some of it to get to the good parts.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: - that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; ...”

Skip some more to get to the really powerful and for our purposes, pertinent section

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.”

This essay has revealed the long train of abuses and usurpations we have been subjected to. What's more, it is pretty clear that they “evince a design to reduce them (us) under absolute despotism.” In other words, it shows there is a conspiracy in motion to enslave us. Yes, that is undeniably what it means, and it was signed by some truly great men.

So it says we have a right and duty to throw off such government. Happily, because this is the United States of America, the alternative government we reach for after throwing this one off doesn't have to be something new and untested. Rather, we have merely to return to, refound, the architecture and dynamics of the government we were originally founded on.

It says we have a duty to make this change. This is, of course, a duty we owe first of all to ourselves, each other, and our descendants, but it goes much further than that. Since our nation is so rich and so powerful, our duty to control our government is a duty we owe to all our fellow human beings.

What’s more, our off-the-leash government has led to an off the leash commercial empire, and a totally out of control industrial revolution. That has caused a huge amount of human suffering while rendering humanity into a virtual cancer on the face of the planet. Consequently, our duty also extends to the plants and animals, nature, the planet as a whole, and even to the Creator of all nature. We have an absolute, urgent duty to get control of our government, our corporations, and the hideous technological beast they have spawned.

We thus have a right and a duty to reverse the downfall of our republic, and we now have the knowledge of how to do that, and an understanding of why it is so important.

May our Creator grant us the requisite courage, wisdom, faith, mutual regard, understanding, respect and love to answer this challenge. May God continue to bless the United States of America and grant us to once again become a blessing to the entire planet.

E Pluribus Unum

https://lifeinafascistcountry.blogspot.com/2025/02/afterword.html

read this afterword too