Breaking the Sound of Silence

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resist Tyranny: abolish Fed Ed

 

The Federal Department of Education is deeply un-American and must be abolished. Federal control of education is inherently tyrannical because any central government has a vested interest in keeping the populace ignorant. We know this deep in our bones, which is why the semi regular triumph of conservative politicians is always accompanied by a solemn promise to abolish the Department of Education. With equal regularity, just like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football, the first policy of the incoming administration is that actually abolishing it was never really going to happen.

Not this time. 2024 is not going to be like 2016, or 1980, or any of the other times Republicans promised to end federal education and didn't. This is the perfect issue, and it has come, this time, at the perfect time. This time around, due to the Covid experience, the nation is much more wary of encroaching tyranny and preventing tyranny is why abolishing the Department of Education is such a timely idea.

Education is clearly, after the military, the most important lever a wanna be tyrant has to control. Central government having control of education is the one essential ingredient needed to maintain a long term tyranny. They must be able to teach the young their lies. That's why it is so disturbing that Republicans have been curiously unfaithful about this one promise, and the party as a whole has, once again curiously, not called them to account for this unfaithfulness.

Whether it is Democrats or Republicans, it seems that all federal officials continue to stubbornly insist that this one ingredient, the one ingredient essential to the erection of any potential federal tyranny, remains available in the federal pantry. This certainly does not prove that some kind of tyrannical structure is already in place but it leaves that possibility open. It does seem rather foolish to just hang around in this particular political situation, flirting with despotism. What are we doing, just waiting for the right “One” to come along, pick up that tool of tyranny and use it ?

This is just Civics 101 people. Of course the central government, especially if it is corrupt, has a vested interest in dumbing down the people. Don't let the feds control education! If they do, the people are easily oppressed. The Founders would, literally, get sick to their stomachs if they learned we have allowed a federal department of education to even exist ! They tried to ensure the distant, unaccountable central government would never get its' filthy hands on any part of public education. All the feds are supposed to do is encourage education from afar.

Our system of government is very complex, so we citizens must be educated to know how to run it well. Since around the time of the creation of the Department of Education in 1979, civics education has declined to near zero, while civil engagement and general civility have faded from the public square. Our educational standing in comparison with the rest of the world has steadily gone down in this time period. It seems as though we have been getting dumbed down, maybe on purpose, ever since the federal government started having some control over K-12 public education..

Our educational system has been crumbling around us while we are spending two to three times as much, per pupil, as other developed nations. The federal economic assistance to education comes to about a tenth of most local education budgets. Losing that tenth would leave most places still spending more per pupil than other nations who get better results. Without those attached federal mandates, innovation would undoubtedly blossom while outcomes and results improve.

Let's get real here. In this time of quantum and exponential growth in information technology, how can education, which is essentially just the imparting of information, be such a big, expensive problem?

Looking at it objectively, it appears the high cost of big education, with all the attendant specialized supervisory staff, is due to the fact that it costs a lot more to indoctrinate children than it does to educate them. Especially, as might be true in some cases, when you are indoctrinating them against the values of their parents, while they are still living in their parent's homes. That caliber of indoctrination probably does take a lot of funding.

Much of the resistance to devolving the powers of education back to the states resembles the alarmist warnings against home schooling decades ago. “Without government control, parents will mis-educate their own children,” we were warned.

Those fears proved to be baseless and overblown. We will find that returning control of education to local communities and the families who compose them will likewise not be the horror show the big education types are warning of. In fact, we can realistically expect our educational outcomes to improve from day one after making this change.

We should probably investigate some of the indoctrination that has gone on, it have been criminal. However, before going too far down that path, we should first obviate any such potentially tyrannical agenda by simply abolishing the Federal Department of Education. That is the one proven, historical way to ensure that no tyrant can gain control over the education of the children.

What's more, Civics 101 again, that local level, with parents in charge of education, is the one level of government that has a long term vested interest in teaching the children to be strong, self governing citizens. Imagine what we could do these days, even in localities with limited resources, if we creatively used high tech to teach those traditional American values to our children.

Finally, abolishing the Department of Education is the perfect issue at this time because it can lead the way for a whole raft of other issues which are ripe for federal devolvement. Successfully navigating the devolving of education back to local control will demonstrate that a more general devolving of powers from the federal government, back to states and locals, is both feasible and attainable in a regular, orderly manner.

We can confidently anticipate that once local communities gain control of education, results will improve and costs will go down. It is just in the nature of the technology once set loose from artificial restraints.

With the success of localizing education, the cultural diversity of our nation will likely assert itself, and with that rise in local identity a vibrant consciousness of self government might arise, encouraging even closer compliance with constitutional strictures and then even more awareness of the duties and powers of citizenship. Wash, rinse, repeat. A positive upward spiral of synergy, of liberty, might consequently be re-ignited.

So we call on our conservative leaders, especially President-Elect Donald Trump. It is time to keep this long denied promise.

Abolish the Department of Education.

Confirm RFK Jr. to HHS

The nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr to the office of Secretary of Health and Human Services could help move this nation in a very good direction when it comes to health, not to mention it proves we were well advised to elect Donald Trump President. Keeping his word on MAHA is a very big deal.

Robert Kennedy Jr. simply seems to be the most informed and seemingly well intention-ed advocate for the vigorous health of the America people on the current national stage. Some try to slur him about vaccines, but their accusations ring hollow. When you listen to his expansive erudition on the subject you realize that slur, even if slightly true, is at worst a tiny wavelet compared to the veritable tsunami of knowledge and dare we say it, wisdom, he brings to the discussion about our national crisis of chronic disease. With his proven record as an activist lawyer, we can expect him to be as good as his word, and sincerely work to improve our national health.

While Big Pharma, Big Money, and just about Big everything will surely resist him, and be aided (after his confirmation) in their resistance by the most sluggish, sly, corrupt and disobedient bureaucracy in the history of failing empires, it won't really matter. Once in office Secretary Kennedy will probably prevail, since he will, at long last, have the weapons at hand with which to slay some real dragons, and he seems to have a good idea of how to go about it.

When Secretary Kennedy announces some obviously beneficial policies (as I think, hope and expect he will) more than the 51% of the people who voted for MAGA, (it will become more like 75%) will begin to clamor for rapid implementation of the new rules. Many, especially those who are already clients, will appreciate and know how to make use of the Secretary's latest edicts.  All of which is to say that even though once in office Secretary Kennedy will still face fierce and formidable bureaucratic opposition, it could realistically be overcome because the bureaucracy will face pressure from both above and below.

Probably the central malfunction in our system of government for the last seven or so decades is that we have gotten trapped between two permanently competing but completely moribund political coalitions. Our vaunted two party national divide. Some coordinated political moves by Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. combined to break that trap by reintroducing true coalition politics to our electoral process. This new/old way of doing politics will tend to give more power to smaller voices, and put a premium on debate and persuasion. So Kennedy's 2024 campaign has already resulted in an improved American political dynamic.

Even before he joined with the Trump campaign, many people on both sides regarded Kennedy as a good, but impossible to elect, second choice. Almost every one who listened to him thought he should be named to head HHS. In a lot of ways, we should think of it as though Robert Kennedy Jr. is still running, only this time for President of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Anyone who thinks he would make a good president of that department has one more chance to vote for him, and that is by writing a letter to each of your senators telling them your opinion. All it will really take, if we are being honest about our partisan paralysis, is for a lot of well meaning, health minded progressives to drop their unthinking resistance to every aspect of the incoming administration. Especially if you are dyed deep in the wool blue living in a sky blue state. Any word from you in favor of Mr. Kennedy's confirmation will carry tremendous weight.

I know for a fact that there are many health minded people in the progressive movement because I used to be among your number. Now I'm a health minded conservative. If we can get all of us health minded Americans, from all sides, supporting the Kennedy nomination, the overwhelming influence of Big Pharma might actually be overcome. We all know, and have known for decades, that Big Pharma must somehow be taken down a peg or two.

These senators are under heavy pressure from their Big Pharma and Big Food donors to reject his nomination. The only way to overcome that pressure from above is even greater pressure coming from below. Everyone, and that means every ding dang one of us, has to contact their senators.

So it has come to this, our true moment of revolution.

At this time, we the people must make our voices heard in the halls of congress. Anyone who is already convinced by having heard Mr. Kennedy speak regarding health, nutrition, and chronic disease, it is time for you, for once in your life, to send an actual letter to your senator. Both of them in fact, because all senators will vote for or against his confirmation.

For those of you who have never heard him speak to the issues, by all means find some of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s speeches online. I am confident most of you will come to agree with almost everything he says. When you do find yourself in agreement with him, then you also, for once in your life, should make your voice heard in the halls of congress. Write a senator or two.

Finally, let me further emphasize this point. Actually writing a letter (call, text, FB, email, X whatever, Make contact !!), at this time, on this one issue, is probably more important than any vote you have ever cast or will ever cast. There are some terrible and powerful forces arrayed against Mr. Kennedy, undoubtedly among the most evil forces in history, well known to the Kennedy family. This is a real chance to defeat them, possibly the first and last chance we will ever have. If what Mr. Kennedy espouses is true, and it sounds logical and feels true to me, then we absolutely must reverse the chronic decline of our nation's health if we are to survive. Happily, Robert Kennedy Jr. is just the person to get that reversal accomplished.

Getting him confirmed gives us the first real hope we have ever had that we might get out from under the thumb of Big Pharma. Kennedy's only real protection against the onslaught of evil he faces, and thus his only real prospect of confirmation, is us; our prayerful, collective, vigilant, intentional and active participation as citizens of this blessed nation.

Write a letter. Confirm RFK Jr to HHS.

How 2 Undivide U.S.

 

I woke up with a sudden realization about our dire, and worsening, national problem of division. Considering we are supposed to be the United States of America, this problem of becoming ever more divided is a serious threat to our national existence. We will fall if we can't get past our great divisions and reunite as a people.

This flash of insight came, as such flashes often do, as a result not of bad pizza, but rather from a couple of things I watched last night before going to sleep, and which fermented in my mind all night.

Today is October 17, 2024, and last night I watched Brett Baier interview Kamala Harris on Fox News. She brought up the problem of divisiveness, and rhetorically laid it all at the feet of the ugly, insulting words spoken by Donald Trump. While former President Trump does say some things that deeply offend some folks, I remember divisive words uttered by Democrat presidents and leaders long before that. For instance, in 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama describing (in what was supposed to be a private meeting) conservative mid-westerners as “bitterly clinging to their guns and bibles.” That was divisive and insulting speech long before Trump entered politics.

After watching and digesting the interview, I slipped a DVD in to watch a movie, as is my habit many nights. Last night I watched “God's Not Dead 4, We the People.” Good movie.

One of the points this pro-home-schooling movie made was that one of the major reasons many Christian parents choose to home school is because the public schools insist that the children be taught moral relativism. That is the notion that there is not really any objective right or wrong.

I laid down with these ideas swirling around in my sleepy brain, and snapped awake this morning with a certain understanding that I had discerned the cause of our growing national division. It is not some politician hurling some vile insults. We have always had those, and never let them so divide us before. No, our great division has obviously grown out of the moral relativism which our children have been indoctrinated with lo these many years; at least thirty years by my reckoning, maybe more like fifty. This mindset divides us at the molecular level of society, causing each individual to be in it for themselves, answerable only to whatever rationalizations they concoct to justify their actions. This individualistic divisive mindset prevents almost any unifying sentiments from ever gaining traction.

This is a great crime we have allowed to be perpetrated on our young. In ancient Israel, in the various episodes when things were falling apart, one of the signs of total social collapse was that “men did that which was right in their own eyes.” In other words, they embraced moral relativism, and radical individualism, as both a cause and effect of national decline.

Our case is worse, because at least those ancient Israelis started out with objective moral standards, which they then rebelled against. Our young people seem to not even be aware there is such a thing as objective morality, (or think the concept is laughable) and are thus rendered almost incapable of the cultural unity necessary for self government. It is kind of like trying to make rice crispy squares, leaving out the marshmallow needed to hold the treat together, and wondering why, no matter how hard you press them, the individual grains won't stick together.

The one concept the young are taught as universally applicable is tolerance, amended by self esteem thinking, but that is not a glue to hold things together, rather it works as a sedative to allow us to feel okay about living in an increasingly crumbling society. If the next generations are going to sustain as a self governing republic they will have to do the hard work of finding some objective moral standard around which to adhere. They need to add some warmed marshmallows to the recipe to make the rice crispy squares edible.

While daunting, the task is not impossible because previous generations have dealt with the same problem, and came up with (more like inherited) a solution agreeable to all. We used to call it the “Golden Rule,” and it was taught in all our public schools. Simply stated, it goes like this. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

While at first blush this seems similar to the tolerance and self esteem taught these days, the difference between the two mindsets is profound. Tolerance and self esteem boils down to, at best, treat other people the way they treat you. So if folks are nice, be nice back. But if they are mean, it is okay to be even meaner back so as to stop them from being mean to you next time. With that philosophy guiding them, the gang and revenge violence so common today makes sense. Social life is put on a downward sliding spiral. One can often hear the young, in person and on the internet, justifying some random act of violence with the idea that the victim should not have said that, or been there, or should have known better. Thus our social matrix comes to resemble the world of Nietzsche's will to power. Whoever prevails must be the one in the right.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” boils down to “treat other people the way that you would want to be treated if you were them.” With this philosophy as a guide, the status of the other person, not my own desire for self indulgence, becomes the guiding thought. Social life is thereby put on an upward trending spiral. The individual tries to treat people better than they were treated. Consideration, not just tolerance, (sincere consideration of others necessarily includes tolerance) becomes foundational, and then we have a built in basis to stand up for the weak and defenseless. With this basic attitude, this social glue, instilled in the young from their earliest days, it becomes possible to freely come together in unity.

So the young have some work to do, if they want to remain a free nation going into the future. Those of us who are older need to do some changing too. I remember, more than twenty years ago now when I was painting custom T-shirts. I made one that said, “Love your neighbor as yourself: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.”

I thought it was kind of clever, riffing on an old public service announcement about the speed limit. I happily wore it around the streets of Denver. A neighbor, a nice lady, a boomer like me, objected one day, asking “whose law?” Even though she was of an older generation, and had been educated with the Golden Rule, she had come to embrace moral relativism.

My response was that it is God's law, or stating it in a secular way, it is a natural law of the universe, much like the law of gravity. It can not be repealed, and is foolish to ignore. Which is why it has been taught, in various forms, in every culture on earth until these recent generations. Only in the last few decades has any culture moved away from this teaching, and now in our culture, as we reap the divisive whirlwind we have sown, we pretend to not understand how we have become so divided as a people.

The beginning to finding a remedy to our great cultural divisions is to reject the seemingly benign but actually slyly wicked idea of moral relativism, and once again embrace the basic moral foundation all great societies have always taught. Let us determine to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. It really is as simple as that, but that then brings up one last point.

I grew up with the idea that we should always vote and work for a better society, and that one way of voting is to realize we vote every time we spend a dollar. In our day we must also realize that we cast a vote for the kind of society we want every time we share something on the internet.

I am so disappointed in my fellow Americans about this, because, hard as it is to believe, no one ever shares any of my brilliant writings. Some like my stuff, and tell me so, but still no sharing. Why not?

I figure it is because those who like my stuff are not sure others will like it, so they keep it to themselves. It is like someone at a public meeting and the speaker calls for a show of hands of those who agree. Some courageous hands might shoot up, but many others are looking around to see what their friends are doing first. They will stand for the truth, but only if they think others will stand with them. They are not sure enough of their own ability to know the truth to bravely stand alone.

So if you think it would be a good idea for us to reject the teaching of moral relativism to the young, and instead we should once again teach them the Golden Rule, simply share this blog. If not, quit pretending to care about our great national divisions.

Obama right on this

 

Former President Barack Obama held forth in his typically inspiring way a while back at the Democrat National Convention. He recalled to our hearts the truth that we are a nation founded on political ideals, not on ethnicity. This IS our heritage, and this IS what makes us the exceptional nation.

When he went further however, and asserted that this heritage is why we all must come together, right now, and give power to the central (possibly global) government to solve our problems, he went too far. This is all overtly implied by his support of the Harris/Walz agenda and it is all way off the rails of historic American political thought. Rather than allowing some self anointed set of experts to concoct “solutions” which they then impose on the public, the American alternative is for us to return to the form of government, what I term Local Community Moral Self Government, with which we previously governed ourselves. Not only would this plan enable us to preserve our political ideals, but it is probably the only way we will be able to accommodate and digest the unprecedented cultural diversity we are facing (as President Obama also mentioned) and yet do it while maintaining those precious political ideals,

The Constitution frames and empowers a system of government which gives some very few, narrowly defined powers to the federal government, and then reserves all other powers to the states, or people generally. Much of the time that resulted in most powers of government being executed at the county and or local levels. The concept is that since any government exercises some powers, the closest, and hence most accountable level of government is the safest place to invest most of those powers.

By re-establishing these powers, the powers of Local Community Moral Self government, we would return to ourselves, in our communities, the powers to regulate corporations. We would also be returning to local communities the powers and responsibilities to deal with all the infrastructure, social, and medical issues that communities might face. This alone will restore much civic mindedness.

The most pertinent, to this discussion, reason for restoring LCMSG to modern America is that this kind of community self determination, with the limits set in the Constitution, is by far the most likely way for us to absorb, digest, and assimilate all the demographic changes we face. Our system was always designed to handle this kind of thing, we just never included everyone before. It worked great for the White people who were included the first time. And it will work for us all again, if we work the system the way it was designed to be worked.

When we get it up and running, all the animosities from the old world might still smolder, but instead of violent attacks, which the federal government is rightly empowered to prevent, the competitions between every ethnicity, religion, and culture will mostly boil down to a contest to see which cultural style produces the happiest, most prosperous, and contented people. That is a competition we should all want to join in, and when we do, and as a result learn much from each other, we will find we have developed a system that can actually solve some of our perennial issues. Which the Democrat party only (perennially) promises to deal with.

The Democrats remind me (and this is a generous analogy) of a big old Buick stuck in the snow on the side of a wintry road. The driver is pressing down on the accelerator while the tires squeal up a stinking smoke, spinning an ever deeper hole in the ice. The driver shouts out that they urgently have to get over to the other side of the valley, miles away, so no time to argue about how to do it, they continue to spin their wheels and get nowhere. .

The Democrats remind me of that Buick because even though their big government programs have never succeeded in solving the problems of poverty, family breakdown, homelessness, addiction, crime and violence, they continue to double down, proposing ever more of the same failed ideas. Are prices too high, impose price, and wage, and rent controls. Build more public housing crime centers. Continue to dumb down public education while increasing federal control of education.

Just like the driver of the stuck Buick, the only way they can imagine to make up for their past misuse of power is to misuse even more power. Obviously, the sound way to get the car unstuck is to first of all stop spinning the wheels. Maybe even turn it off, get out, and look the situation over. Then calmly back up out of the rut, and turn in a slightly different direction to go forward. Easy peasy.

In the political realm, the analogy would be to stop incessantly concocting new federal powers and programs to make up for previous failed federal policies. Instead, let us imagine how we can devolve the powers of government that were usurped by the federal government, and invest them (one sensible step at a time) back in the states, if not in the county and local governments.

Recovering Local Community Moral Self Government (LCMSG) will almost certainly move us toward unity, since every individual will be able to live their freest best life in the community they choose, be ensured a fair voice in that community, and also have the right to travel to other communities. That social environment is guaranteed to get the old “Melting Pot” of mutual cultural assimilation going again.

As we get our system of LCMSG going again, we will find that we have given ourselves the real power. Then we can see how we can actually achieve some of those goals, like health care for all, or a decent economic life for anyone willing to work for it. All of that and more can easily be achieved if we restore our republic, thereby restoring real power to local communities. If we can get back to that original system, and work the system the way it was designed, adding modern modifications as we decide to, we will find that we have put our government back on a short leash which we, the people, control.

Then, once the power to charter corporations is again in local community hands, we can put business, the corporate world, back on that same short leash of community accountability. Then we will find that many more of our healthy economic dreams can be realized.

Finally, with big business once again domesticated and serving the public, we can go a lot further in getting science and the entire industrial revolution on a shorter leash, ensuring that the advance of technology empowers the people generally, and is not miss-used to establish tyranny.

So then, having started with a word from Barack Obama, we come full circle to the coming election.

In this election, Americans are faced a with choice. Do we want to become just another district in a global governing coalition which is not elected, and which can exercise minute, unaccountable powers over individuals. Because that is where it honestly seems the Democrats (whoever is actually in the driver's seat over there?!) are taking us. While this over-seeing progressive force is usually benign, verging on benevolent, sometimes it can become hostile and draconian. If the system the Democrats are selling us in 2024, with its' un-elected candidate; open censorship; possible show trial atrocities in J6 hearings; coordinated, politically motivated lawfare against the prime challenger; selective enforcement of the laws; and the usual cover-ups of traditional family corruption were to accidentally become tyrannical, people would have no recourse short of armed rebellion.

The Republicans, in feeble response, are selling us a half assed rendition of old America, a hollow flag so to speak, because they are terrified of saying or doing anything which might offend the corporate sponsors. So nothing about corporate personhood, or a whole lot of other issues, is allowed for discussion. Which means that the version of America they are presenting is one which is still under corporate control. Corporatism, which I understand even Mussolini admitted is just another word for Fascism.

No THANK YOU VERY MUCH.!!?!

The republican message should be, but it isn't, that we should stop for a moment, consider how we are governing ourselves today, realize we are not using our system of government the way it was designed to be used, and realize that is what has gone so wrong. The obvious solution is the organic battle cry of all true republicans, “Restore the Republic.” Anyone who will not take up that battle cry is not, properly speaking, a republican, even though they might belong to a so called Republican party.

The reason this revival can work is that all the divergent groups that have been and are coming to America do so largely for one reason. They want to live in a nation dedicated to establishing liberty and justice for all. Sure, there are a few who come here for the wrong reasons, but the vast majority come here for the freedom.

Furthermore, and what is more, it is time for us to wake up and stop fighting the last war. In this case I am referring to the cultural wars, and warning that we must frame our ideals to appeal to the demographic of this nation at it is becoming, and not as it once was. If we want to revive our republic (I do, which makes me a republican) we are forced to do it with a much more diverse populace than we had the first time around.

The wonderful hope of this American moment is that such a re-founding of our political foundation is possible in this country precisely because, as Barack Obama says, our nation was not founded on any particular ethnic or racial basis. All can gather equally around that torch of liberty.

Another reason for sober hope is the fact that almost all of the newcomers, whether legal or illegal, really did come here looking to find freedom, often having little idea about the Constitution that liberty is built on. As folks learn for the first time, re-learn for the first time and seriously think about what Liberty entails, it is not unreasonable to expect that leaders will quickly arise in all the various American communities, old and new, who will recognize and be eager to seize the historic opportunity we all have, together, to get our system of government functioning properly again. This would greatly benefit all Americans and every community.

We can, if we are brave enough to see our way to it, be the new founders of a second American revolution. This still open window of opportunity is likely to close if Kamala Harris is elected, and especially so if the Democrats were to gain control of both the House and the Senate.

In that worst case scenario, the Democrat agenda of packing the court and eliminating the filibuster is back on the table. Combine that with the Progressive embrace of censorship, deep state politicizing of federal agencies, open borders and open voting, using government funded lawfare against political opponents, selective enforcement of laws against political violence, embracing international agreements which cede national sovereignty to an un-elected world government body, and many more depredations, and their complete control of the courts will give them control of all three branches of government. By using the powers just mentioned, whether legally or not, a potential tyrant could cling to power for decades if not centuries.

Not saying Kamala Harris is planning anything of the sort. I am saying a vote for Harris/Walz is a step toward a world where that scenario becomes more possible.

Deep 6- J-state

 

In all the fuss and confusion of the last decade of American political life, some important issues seem to be slipping through cracks in our awareness. Two of those issues, which time has ripened into clarity, are the existence (and threat) of the Deep State, and just exactly how much of an insurrection January 6 actually was.

The existence of the Deep State is easily demonstrated, to any open minded investigator, by taking a closer look at the Hunter Biden laptop fiasco.

It is generally understood that the computer shop owner, upon opening the hard drive, realized what a hot potato he had, and after making some judicious copies of the hard drive, handed it off to the FBI. This was around December, 2019.

The FBI did nothing with it, even though the hard drive contained evidence of multiple federal crimes. Not absolute proof, but evidence well worth investigating.

Then later, as the election of 2020 neared, it is reported that FBI agents intimidated social media companies like Facebook into reducing the exposure and distribution that the Hunter Biden laptop story got on social media.

While I can understand (but still condemn) how the Biden administration might put a thumb on the scales of DOJ justice to protect the first son once Biden was in office, in both of those aforementioned instances Donald Trump was still president. The issue that brings up, the question we should all want answered, is: Who were those agents, who was giving them their orders, why were they following them, and under what authority were these actions taken?

Other questions come up from even earlier in the fiasco; who decided to do nothing for a year with Hunter Biden's incriminating laptop? Was it just incompetent stupidity, or run of the mill bribery, or was this the result of intelligent planning by some hidden cabal, illegally operating with government resources to control the thinking of the American people by preventing us from learning the truth? I believe that when we identify the agents and scrutinize their reasoning, we will start to see a dim outline of the Deep State.

The mere existence of such a thing, a Deep State, in our ostensibly democratic republic, is a clear threat to that republic no matter how small it is. The mere existence of such an entity must motivate us to find out how big it really is. Is it nothing more than some rogue agents playing games, or is it big enough to have already engaged in domestic political mischief? How far has this bureaucratic coup gone? For that matter, how long has it been going on?

Let's stop pretending that the Deep State doesn't exist, admit that at least some few bad actors are giving and following unauthorized orders and then let's resolve to work together to find out how big it really is so as to eliminate that cancer for good.

The other issue that could use some clarification is the charge of “insurrection” that has been hurled indiscriminately at seemingly anyone who even walked by the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. According to Webster's unabridged dictionary (1983), “insurrection” is a rising up of individuals to prevent the execution of the law, by force of arms.

One presumes that such an accusation could be applied to some few individuals on January 6, but very few. Most were there (foolishly trespassing) to voice their objections to what they saw as a fraudulent election. Preventing the execution of any law was not on the minds of most of the people there that day.

What's more, by noon of the next day, January 7, 2021, it was clear that there was no ongoing effort to prevent the enforcement of any laws, or to somehow overthrow the American government. Yet many American citizens are still being held, without constitutional due process, because of that word “insurrection” being used to invoke the Patriot Act, with its' deprivation of constitutional rights.

The truly crazy making aspect to all this is that there had been many instances of far more clearly insurrectionist activity all over the nation much of the preceding year. At almost every one of the nightly riots in the summer of 2020, individuals were rising up to prevent the enforcement of the law, routinely using some kind of arms.. Every time some Antifa black block group moved in to prevent the police from arresting some rioter, they were committing insurrection. Every time a group of protesters moved past a police barricade to occupy some space or building, they were breaking the law and preventing it from being enforced.

In fact, the most clear instance of insurrection in that whole time period, far worse than J6, was the self named CHAZ enclave in Seattle. This, if you will remember, was the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, where the legal authority of the city, state, and national governments was denied, and police were not allowed to enter to enforce laws. It was openly, defiantly and proudly an insurrection, and was intended to get ever bigger, only things didn't work out that way.

The difference between CHAZ and J6 is obviously political.

Those on the left, and the Deep State is likely a part of that, are happy to call for and aid in the downfall of the American republic whenever it suits their purpose, and they are also more than willing to portray themselves as lovers of our democracy, the last true patriots, who have been forever scarred by the horrible carnage of J6.

So wave the flag on Monday, and burn it on Tuesday. It makes no difference. It is the progressive way. Whatever advances the cause of international socialism. By any means necessary.

Woke Az Nazis

 

I must beg forgiveness for what follows, because I know this is the most over used analogy in the world, but it suddenly dawned on me that the whole woke agenda is very much like what the Nazis intended to do.  Let me explain.

Most folks don't remember, but the Nazis were way worse than just vicious racists.  They had a whole plan worked out, and every human being on earth was to be put in their place based on that plan, that agenda, that hierarchy of values.

Most of this can be seen by a close examination of the Nazi name.  It is an acronym in the German language which stands for National Socialist Party.  Nationality Socialist Party would probably be a more accurate translation, because the Nazi program called for everyone, every human being, to be divided up along ethnic and nationality lines.  The Nazis were in favor of socialism, even international socialism, but they insisted that different racial and ethnic groups were properly suited to carryout specialized roles within that socialist system.  They advanced a socialism based on nationality and race.

Thus they asserted that the Aryans should be the executives and directors.  Slightly inferior stock, such as the French, were to hold managerial positions.  Even more inferior nationalities were to be manual workers and mechanics, with the darker skinned peoples relegated to chopping wood and hauling water.  The Jews, who Nazis considered abominations, were to be eliminated.

In the same way, the modern Woke intersectional pyramid has an anointed elite with a plan (always secret and always being changed) to draw lines around people, and assign them their place in society based on those intersectional lines.  Most of this amounts to nothing more than someone's opinion about who is the most pitiful and marginalized. 

Even more disturbingly, among some of the more extreme elements of the Woke intelligentsia, with their demands for the elimination of “Whiteness”, is clearly heard murmurings of genocide.

So that's it.  That's all I want to say here.  I just had this flash of insight that there is a strong resemblance between our modern Woke ideology and some of the deeper, more loathsome Nazi thinking.  I thought it would be a good thing to point out.

Presidential Debates

How 2 Cure Racism

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take Off the Masks

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2nd Amendment Truth

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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