Charlie Kirk, MLK, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act

 

The renowned conservative leader, Charlie Kirk (may he rest in peace), said a lot of things during his all too short life. Much of what he said and argued was brilliant, but sometimes he said things that were unnecessarily controversial. One of those was when he discussed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was not that his thinking was completely wrong on this subject, but the way he brought it up clouded the issue and prevented the kind of mutual understanding the Mr. Kirk so often achieved. I would address it differently and probably get to a deeper understanding than he did.

When Charlie brought up the 1964 Civil Rights Act he started by saying it was a mistake, and then justified that stance by focusing on the essential wrongness of affirmative action. I would instead start by saying the Act was long overdue, and addressed some historical errors that had to be corrected, but that some other parts of the Act were wrongheaded.

First among those historical errors was the establishment of equal justice and rights before the law for Black Americans. Most folks don't realize or remember that prior to that Act, in many states, Black people were often denied not just the right to vote, but in addition, they could not serve on juries, could not testify in court against a White person, or bring suit against a White person. Those, and other, legal injustices had to be ended, and were rendered illegal by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Charlie Kirk was, however, partially correct about the second part of that act, what is called Affirmative Action, but then he didn't even mention what, in this writer's opinion, was the worst aspect of it, which was the accommodations mandates.

Going back to the 1960's, I was a young teenager when I first learned about affirmative action being proposed. I had never been involved in politics up until then, but I will always wish that I had gotten involved on that issue. From the first, I was uncomfortable with affirmative action, which was going to give preference in hiring to Black folks in an attempt to make up for discrimination in hiring in years gone by.

While I was uncomfortable with, as I termed it, wading into the waters of the judgment day, I could see that making an exception in this case made good moral sense. Black folks had been denied opportunities which, in a truly free market, they would have had. So while starting into the process of conducting some kind of judgment day was, as I saw it, fraught with all kinds of pitfalls (which have come to pass), doing something to make up for past injustices to Black folks was too important to ignore.

So I came to the conclusion, back in '65 or so, that what we should do is to make it to where affirmative action lasted only one generation or so, just long enough to allow some Black professionals and workers to get a toe hold and a presence in many fields formerly closed to them. I figured a definite sunset on the programs, after twenty, or even thirty years would be fair, and prevent us going down the path of the judgment day.

Like I said, I wish I would have spoken up about this back then, because now we are more that sixty years into this mess, and lots more groups are involved than just Black folks. It HAS become a kind of secular judgment day, and the only group left out, the only group assigned the permanent role of scapegoat is White, heterosexual, conservative, Christian males. This dynamic promises to continue until the unfairness is undeniable, and then we will probably be fooled into another round of the same wrong headed policies. It seems we must allow the pendulum of injustice to swing to one extreme or the other, and no one has the sense to stop it in the fair middle.

The other wrongheaded aspect of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, something that Charlie Kirk, to my knowledge, never addressed, was the accommodations mandates. These mandated that restaurants, motels and other public accommodations could no longer refuse to serve anyone, Black, White, or whatever. While, once again, this was dealing with a real problem, it did so by slyly taking an important aspect of a free society from us, which was the freedom of association. Over time, this squashing of the freedom of association has led to cake makers and florists being prosecuted for not wanting to create works honoring actions they find repugnant.

While the denial of public accommodations was a real problem, the way to deal with that was not by using government, but rather by employing the free market guided by moral vision. Denying the right of free association to the American people has served to divide us, to inflame old social wounds, and has not brought about the peaceful unity we all desire. As Martin Luther King once said, “”They can't make a law forcing you to love me, but they can make a law preventing you from lynching me.”. The accommodations aspect of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was an attempt to force folks to love each other, and it DID NOT WORK.

We should have used a different method to deal with the problem. Something that has been forgotten about the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's is that the freedom riders, and other activist groups, did not operate only in the South. In the South they sat in at lunch counters and on buses as a way to change local and state Jim Crow laws. In the North there were no Jim Crow laws, but there were corporate and business policies enforcing segregation. In the North, activists sat in at lunch counters and the like, and worked successfully to change those corporate policies.

After Dr. Kings “I have a dream” speech, which started turning the hearts of White Americans toward racial justice, a national campaign to change corporate policy would have almost undoubtedly succeeded. I have long imagined some nice little motel, with picket fence and all, in 1965, with a “Whites Only” sign proudly displayed in the front of the parking lot. After some well run national campaigns calling all good hearted people to boycott one major motel chain after another, until they all, one by one, changed to accommodate Black folks, I can see in my mind that same little motel, in 1975, now run down, few customers and barely in business, going out and taking that “Whites Only” sign down.

In other words, that aspect of the Civil Rights act was deeply wrong headed, because it not only deprived we, the people, of our natural right of free association, but it prevented the cultural coming together that would, and should, have resulted from the change in heart that the Civil Rights Movement affected.

With freedom of association intact, White business owners would have been under soft but unrelenting social pressure to offer accommodations. Black folks would have been under similar pressure to be on their best behavior so as to confirm the sentiment that it was time to come together as a people. Instead, with freedom of association nullified, White business owners operated under resented legal demands, and Black folks often abused the situation, angrily threatening lawsuits anytime their eggs were not properly cooked, It might have felt like a moment of satisfying comeuppance, but it made things worse, not better.

In conclusion, I wish Charlie Kirk were still alive, so I could talk to him about this subject. Instead of starting off a conversation about the 1964 Civil Rights Act by saying it was a mistake (which he did), I would advise a different approach. Admit that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was long overdue, and that it restored some rights to Black people that had long been denied. However, parts of that Act were misconceived, and worked against the noble goals of the Act. Both the Affirmative Action, and the accommodations portions should have been rethought, and done in a better way. If we had done that, we would probably be much closer to MLK”s dream of the “beloved community” than we are today.

National Divorce Anyone ?

 

A national divorce, in some form or fashion, is once again burbling up in our national dialogue. Some talk of a blue state/ red state division, or more specifically, the coastal states and the interior states going their separate ways. Others present a breakdown by regions, with the plains, the mountains, Cascadia, Appalachia, the Great Lakes, and such divisions being proposed in some kind of national divorce.

This latest iteration of the idea, the regional divorce, caused me to remember something from years ago, which brought up this question. When considering how to divide the states, what makes people think that the individual states, once the division has taken place, will hold together as coherent political entities? They, or rather we, have not really done much governing of ourselves in our states for many decades. It is not like the world of 1787, when each state was well practiced in the art of self government.

These days, certainly since the 1960's, and more accurately going back to the 1930's (or earlier), most of the meaningful decisions about government have been made in Washington DC. Federal mandates and subsidies determine or greatly influence almost all policies. Without that guiding hand in DC, are we sure we will cohere as states?

Will the Valley in California want to be ruled by the coastal cities? The same or similar questions would come up in other states, such as Illinois, Colorado, or even such stalwarts as Kansas, Arizona, or Pennsylvania. Once we were each independent and sovereign nations, our trade, military, and foreign policies would be up for grabs, and who knows where they would end up, and who would be in charge.

We should be very careful here, because that spirit of succession, once it is loosed, can get completely out of hand, and what would there be to stop it? Even the old Confederacy was starting to break down before their defeat. Eastern Tennessee was moving to succeed from the Confederacy, as were parts of Louisiana.

No, before setting out on a course of national divorce, we should stop and think about where it might end, In fact, where it would probably end. It is unlikely to resemble the Velvet Revolution that marked the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, but rather it promises to be as bad, or worse, than the violent, war ravaged breakup of Yugoslavia.

Most importantly, some kind of national divorce is completely unnecessary. Those who call for one complain that we have become a nation that doesn't agree with itself on too many issues, especially the moral and cultural issues. We seem to exist in two (or more) different realities, red state and blue state.

The thing is, instead of divorce, the solution to these differences of opinions would be the simple and obvious move to return to our original plan of government. Return to having the level of state and local self government we previously enjoyed. In that way of doing things, going back at least to prior to the 1930's, or even all the way back to before corporations were declared to be persons in 1886, the states (and localities) had widely divergent moral and cultural styles.

That structure of government could handle all our cultural and moral differences without breaking a sweat. Accommodating and assimilating differences is exactly what it was designed to do. E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one; remember that?

Consider, as an analogy, the American flag. Those favoring a national divorce of some form or fashion imagine that they will be able to cut out a star or two from the flag, and hold on to it as their new nation. That, however, is not is what is likely to happen. If that flag starts unraveling, the unraveling will probably not stop with the stars still intact. Rather, the unraveling will likely continue until none of us has more that a single bare thread to hold onto, and that will be under constant threat from others. Or, what is also very likely, we would at some point suffer military invasion and conquest. Do you reckon that some international despot will suffer the continued healthy existence of a freedom loving people?

So before we blithely trip down the primrose path toward some kind of national divorce, we ought first to take a long hard look at where that path will lead us. That path will most likely lead us to destruction, despair, and much worse problems than we have now. What's more, if we would honestly look around, ridding ourselves of our blinding mutual hatred, we can see that a national breakup is not needed at all. The only thing we need is to revive our original way of doing things, return to the Constitution as written and amended, and we can then absorb all our cultural differences and remain a united, free and strong nation.

Are the Democrats Unfit to Govern?

 

Just prior to the '24 election, a friend asked my advice on who to vote for. I told her that the Republicans were the safer choice, because, as was shown in the Watergate scandal, they, or at least some of them, will break ranks when a vital principle is at stake. The Democrats never do that, and they wear it as a badge of honor. That is what makes them unfit to govern.

The latest kerfuffle around Jimmy Kimmel proves the point. Kimmel was suspended from his show for remarks that seemed to besmirch the memory of the recently murdered Charlie Kirk (RIP). What's more, it seemed like the Trump administration had exerted pressure to cause that suspension to happen.

Some Republican leaders, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz among them, loudly objected to that kind of censorious pressure being applied by government. That old saying from Voltaire, that, “I might not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it?” It seems some Republicans actually mean that. Mr. Kimmel was shortly reinstated to his show.

The contrast with the Democrats could not be starker. Even though it has now come to light that many of the COVID restrictions, such as social distancing, and mask wearing, were of little to no use, the Democrats can still not find the voice to say so. More importantly, during the crisis, when it really could have counted, nary a whimper of objection was heard from that quarter.

It is not just about COVID or the latest crisis either. The Democrats seem to be under the mistaken impression that moving in lock step with each other at all times is a sign of political strength. So much so that during the last state of the union speech, they could not bring themselves to applaud a young man courageously facing terminal cancer. Not going to clap for that, not if a Republican, especially not if a MAGA Trump guy, brings it up.

This lock step mentality disqualifies the Democrats from governing for two reasons. First of all, at times like these, when they are in the minority, it causes them to unthinkingly scuttle any and every thing the Republicans try to do, even if it is a good and compassionate thing that is proposed.

For instance, with the rapidly changing situation regarding tariffs, some farmers are getting caught in the squeeze. Specifically, many farmers planted soybeans, but because of the tariff battle with China, the Chinese market for soybeans has collapsed. This is going to really hurt some farmers this year. Next year, if they are still in business, they can plant some other crop, or the Chinese market for soybeans might recover. Nonetheless, this year they could use some relief.

Given all that, it is likely that the Republican run congress will propose some short term relief for the affected farmers. Any such legislation will, however, be dead on arrival because the lock step Democrats will filibuster it in the Senate in the same way they lock step filibuster everything the Republicans propose. They remain in lock step, opposed to any Republican initiative, no matter how important, timely and compassionate it may be. That is why the Republicans had to go with the one big beautiful bill, since the extraordinary path of reconciliation was the only way to get anything past the automatic lock step filibuster the Democrats are dedicated to.

Secondly, when, and if, the Democrats ever get back in control, the situation will be much worse. It has come to light, via testimony from Mark Zuckerburg, that some agents from the FBI, (deep state operatives, since Trump was nominally in charge at that moment) pressured him to have Facebook censor any information about Hunter Biden's laptop just prior to the election in 2020. This is horrendous, 1984 kind of stuff, and yet the Democrats are remarkably silent about it. As though the threat of a king or dictator is serious only if it comes from the political right.

This has to be seen as in addition to them ignoring, at the time, the possibility that COVID grew out of our own (or at least Dr. Fauci's) misbegotten research in to gain of function. Likewise, it seems to have escaped the notice of the Democrats that the so called COVID vaccine might have caused more medical problems than it solved.

In all of that, the lock step mindset of the Democrats looms, in the minds of thinking people, as a great threat. Some will respond that we were in a crisis, so some excess in the name of unity can be forgiven. But “crisis” is always the battle cry of emerging dictators. It is at the moment of crisis that clear thinking, truth guided leadership is most needed.

It is in moments of crisis that the cries to censor “disinformation” will be the loudest. It is in times of crisis that the demands grow that the populace, for their own good, must obey the dictates of government without thinking. It is in times of dire crisis that marching in lock step (which the Democrats pretend is such a strength) becomes the most likely path to tyranny and dictatorship.

That is why this current generation of Democrats, with their lock step mode of thinking, are unfit to govern. We should keep them from real power unless and until they change their thinking.

Liberate Hemp to Revive Small Farms

 

I recently had an epiphany about all the anti marijuana hysteria we are being bombarded with lately. We have all heard the arguments. The smell permeating the air in legal states, the dangerous potency of modern strains, and all that. There might be some validity to those points, but it mostly smells like phony hysteria. Try living downwind from a feed lot, or a sewer works, or a freeway, or just on a typical downtown street. Lots of objectionable smells and fumes there, and yet no one wants to hear about it, or base policies on it..

I bought my first hemp t-shirt the other day and, unexpectedly, it launched an episode of eye opening revelations. I was surprised at what a superior cloth it is compared to the cotton or polyester shirts I am used to. It just feels better. More solid, less sweaty, and all the other things it was advertised to be. So much so that I have started to consider investing in small scale hemp cloth production.

As I consider investing in hemp cloth, some real social benefits of hemp come to mind. First of all, it could produce a lot of jobs, whether in cloth production, paper production, or a myriad of other products. That is in addition to the jobs on the farms that grow it. Most of the jobs, and money, would stay in the local region, and certainly stay in the national economy.

Another benefit would be that it could be grown in small batches by small farmers. That is if hemp were not so tightly regulated (which makes it both risky to grow, and prohibitively expensive). However, with those severe regulations, and the high cost of getting a federal license to grow it, that happy dynamic of small farm cultivation is not likely to get traction. With all the federal regulation it is rendered into just another crop that will be economically viable only when grown in large plots on mono culture agri business “farms.” So the dream of a small scale hemp facility operating in close cooperation with local small farmers will remain just that; a dream, until the reefer madness hysteria around cannabis is overcome.

The big ramification of the anti cannabis hysteria is the THC content allowed in hemp plants. It has to be no more than .3%, and that has to be measured by dry weight, with the tested sample coming from the flowering top of the plant.

To put this in context, top shelf cannabis, sold out of dispensaries in states where it is legal, tests out at between 25-30%. Low end flowers and what is known as popcorn tests out at 10-15%. There is almost no market for anything less than 5%. So .3% is a ridiculously minuscule standard, far less than just one tenth the potency of anything of marketable quality.

What's more, farmers who have tried to raise a compliant hemp crop find that the THC level peaks just at the end of the season. If, just before harvest, (when it must be tested) it goes over that standard, the crop must be destroyed in an expensive process. The upshot is that few farmers will take the risk. So those who would set up hemp processing plants are likewise put under an artificially risky government regimen, with undependable supply lines, and thus are also not likely to enter into the business.

Over the years, “deep thinking” pot heads have conjectured that it was the tobacco and alcohol industries that worked so hard to keep pot illegal, to eliminate that form of competition. Other, even “deeper” thinkers speculated that it was the cotton and lumber interests who were using anti cannabis hysteria to keep hemp from competing with their products.

All of that thinking seems conspiratorial and suspect, because those concerns are run by hard headed business people. Business will, if there is profit to be made in some alternative to their product, usually put some of their eggs in that competitive basket. Tobacco and alcohol producers could, and probably do, buy marijuana farms. Lumber and cotton growers could also invest in hemp production, and would be hyper-aware of any emerging stream of profit.

Leaving those pot induced brain storms behind, there still must be some reason behind the reefer madness hysteria, and that reason does seem to be directly tied to preventing a free market for hemp. It is asserted here the reason is that the quasi prohibition of hemp is a wicked, long term attack on the small, self sufficient family farm.

For someone with a small, self sufficient, farm the traditional practice was to grow most, if not all, of the food for your own consumption, and then sell any excess. It is a feasible plan in most places, but what is needed to make the plan work is a dependable cash crop so that cash needs of the otherwise self sufficient farm can be met.

Hemp was always that dependable cash crop. It is extremely drought resistant, and when it was legal, there was always a ready market for the crop, because paper gets used up, and clothes wear out. In many ways, legal hemp was an economic pillar of the small family farm. It truly appears that ginning up this anti marijuana hysteria has always had the nefarious purpose of making small, self sufficient, sustainable family farms not economically viable.

Which contributes to making healthy rural communities not viable. Combine that with federal farm price subsidies, which drive up the cost of land by making farming less risky for corporations, and the decline of the family farm and rural communities seems inevitable, if not intentional.

All of this seems to have had the goal, long since accomplished, of literally changing the American landscape. The mass of the people have been driven into the cities, making almost everyone dependent on corporate controlled food supplies. Much of that food is artificially unhealthy, which also drives the people into dependence on the dubious blessings of the petroleum based medicines produced by the big pharmaceutical companies. All of this is very bad for the health, of both the people and the natural environment.

We need to rethink this whole system, and we should start by rethinking hemp. Stop allowing the truly hysterical voices opposing marijuana to bamboozle us into effectively prohibiting the cultivation of hemp. Liberating hemp can be a vital first step in re-invigorating the small family farms and rural communities of America.

MAGA Red Wave in '26 and Housing

 

My last post explored the possibility of, instead of just eking out a win, or more probably eking out a loss, in the 26 midterms, MAGA riding a red wave to a permanent cultural shift if we handle the illegal immigration mess with a hard headed, justice tempered with mercy, approach. Similarly, housing is another challenging issue which MAGA could convert into a culture shifting red wave if we could rid ourselves of the fear the establishment Republicans use to blind us to our own best interests.

Wall Street is basically bamboozling Main Street on this because the middle class concern about the housing market is all about preserving property values. That middle class obsession with property values is not only misplaced, but it puts many of the good people of this country on the side of wickedness.

Many of the working people, the middle class, have a large share of their wealth tied up in the value of their property. Because of that, many are scared that if truly low cost housing was allowed, via a truly free market, that the equity in their house might decline, and therefore their wealth,(their old age savings) might be lost, or diminished. So the middle class can be counted on to defend strict, value enhancing, zoning laws. This, even though such laws create homelessness by preventing low cost housing from being built. The moral blindness that drives this thinking doesn't make these middle class folks exactly wicked, but it does make them complicit in wickedness.

The thing these “good” people don't see, their blind spot, is that the real value of their house won't be diminished by allowing more low cost housing to be built. Just as in the case of a growing economy, when it is said a rising tide lifts all boats, so a lowering tide will lower all boats. What that means, in this context, is that the real wealth, not the monetary wealth, of middle class housing won't really decline if more low cost housing is built.

By way of explanation, let's be real here. Most of us will live in our house until we either die, or we move into a nursing home. If, when we die and pass that property on to our heirs, it will be worth just as much housing as it is today, even if the monetary value of all housing has declined. So the heirs will be able to use it as housing, or transfer the equity to other housing, at just about the same rates as today.

The same holds true if one must convert that wealth into x number of months in a nursing home (with the government taking over the costs when that equity is expired). The folks working in those nursing homes will be living in housing that is less expensive if the market has declined, and so the number of months (x) that old house will pay for in a nursing home will be about the same.

Ont the other hand, the real bad actors in this scenario, the investors, the developers, and the bankers might lose a great deal of real wealth if the housing market was more free and fair. Since they expect to convert their property wealth in to monetary wealth, a free and fair housing market, with declining monetary value, will probably cut into their vast wealth. Stop and consider the depth of wickedness they are engaged in here, and that they scare the middle class into supporting.

In the name of propping up property values, they move heaven and earth (and zoning boards) to prevent the building of almost all low cost housing. To do so, they enlist the previously mentioned middle class, who happily carry this wicked water. Then we have a situation more cruel and barbaric than the most barbarous cultures in history. The poorest of the poor are denied the God given right to erect the most basic structure to get out of the elements.

“Oh no,” we are pompously informed ,”we can't allow people to live like that.” Meaning, we can't let them build the most efficient housing they can with the materials nature and God provide. Instead, we force them to live in tents, or sleep on urine and feces encrusted sidewalks in the most crime ridden areas of our major cities. How terribly compassionate of us.

If any low cost housing is built, it is way overpriced, owned by the government, and rented out to only the depressed and despairing. Then it is used to micro manage their lives for as long as they will put up with the micro management.

What's more, this greed driven squelching of a free housing market has profoundly negative effects on the morality of our nation. The nearly impossible price of home ownership has driven most young people out of the market. That has resulted in a steeply declining marriage and birth rate as responsible young people put off starting a family until it is affordable. This situation is a dire long term threat to our civilization.

Even further, since young people still have the same sexual drives as previous generations, the seeming impossibility of achieving a stable family life has caused the dubious allure of various forms of sexual deviance, from heterosexual fornication on down, seem reasonable. Thus much, if not most, of the sexual deviance afflicting modern American society can be traced to the greed of property developers, and the middle class dupes that help them.

These days, a lot of well meaning people hoping for a moral revival will quote II Chronicles 7:14

“if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

While some few do take this sincerely to heart and try to refrain from some abiding sin, most are more focused on the wicked ways of the other fellow, including the aforementioned sexual deviance. Certainly, the wickedness of their own obsession with property values escapes their notice, and yet that, on closer inspection, is probably the very thing God is referring to, and wants us to turn from.

It would be relatively easy to change things (God willing), and it wouldn't take any big government subsidies. Just lighten up on some zoning laws, and maybe make some long needed modifications to how we allow land to be owned.

What I am referring to here is a concept I have long advocated, called micro incremental housing. Allow people, usually young people, to buy, not rent, micro plots of land, as small as 5' x8'. And then allow them to build, or have built, extremely small, but expandable domiciles on the plot of land.

With this concept, the house, and land could start very small, but by design be expandable in micro increments, as the probably low paid worker could afford it. That way, a person just getting out of school, even high school, could afford to get started in a house, which they would own and be secure in. In the course of just a few years of regular work and frugal living, they could own a small, two bedroom, two story house.

Any number of building technologies could be used for this, from hay bales, to used tires, to (as I read about) a guy in South America designed a system of adult sized lego style building blocks made from recycled plastic grocery bags. Human ingenuity is the only limit to what new uses of our high tech capabilities (3d printing) could be creatively used in this effort. The only real barrier to overcome is the wicked fear that prevents us from allowing the poor to be free economically.

As said, it won't take government involvement. No socialism needed. Just some good hearted land owners, or some visionary churches or civic organizations, offering the land for sale, by the square foot, for what it typically costs to buy agricultural land. And the original sellers will get that money back when the new owners buy the plots reserved for them.

Yes, in the name of sanitation and health, there will be some zoning required, and some water needed. While that might be a problem, in the face of agri-business use of that water for irrigation at the rate of thousands of gallons an hour, it is reasonable to assert that humans in houses should be a somewhat higher priority..

As in the case of solving the illegal immigration mess, I don't want this blog to sound like a dire warning about what will happen if folks don't listen to my ideas. Rather, think about how much this will benefit us if we would actually do it. Think of the benefits that might accrue to our society if we could do this good thing.

The young could plan on owning their own homes, at a young enough age that they can start families at a young age, as God intended. Marriage and child bearing (family formation) would increase, probably accompanied by a proportional decrease in sexual deviance. On a different note, since low paid workers could live, in these low cost houses, on a much lower wage, we would probably be able to attract manufacturing jobs back to these shores. Our workers could live on a wage that would be competitive on the world market.

Combined with tariff and immigration reforms, our economy might get to humming so well that we would want to attenuate it so as to not drive other nations into bankruptcy. That would be a nice problem to have.

All of which brings us full circle back to the mid term elections of 2026. If MAGA could do this, break the thrall that the establishment, country club Republicans have over the party by freeing the housing market, it would benefit us greatly at the ballot box. Sincerely working to break the logjam in low cost housing will attract young voters (MAGA's worst demographic) in droves. Doing it without resort to big government socialism will keep the economic conservatives on board. The only losers would be the ultra wealthy establishment, and who will they turn to? Communists like Mamdani?

To sum up, solving the housing crisis with freedom, like solving the immigration mess with compassion, could both be factors in a MAGA red wave in 26.

Happy (Constitutional) 4th of July

 

With the 4^th of July once again upon us, it is time to put some finishing touches to the reasons to support and revive our Constitution. Coherent thought is long overdue on this subject. In fact, much of our current social breakdown is a result of many folks gravitating toward the numerous half thought out alternatives to our constitutional republic that are being advocated these days.

First of all, many say that our Constitution should be dismissed out of hand; that it was written by a bunch of White male plutocrats to entrench themselves in power. Like all effective lies, there is some truth to this charge, but it is just a half truth. Yes, the founders were White men, and many, but not all, of them were wealthy. In fact though, many of them died penniless.

More importantly, this particular group of plutocrats were caught in a unique set of historical circumstances. This unique set of circumstances impelled them to produce a system of government which served the people far better than any previous system of government ever had. In fact it probably ended up being better for the masses, especially with the addition of the Bill of Rights, than many of the plutocrats probably wanted. Certainly, within ten years, one of the founders, John Adams, was working to defy First Amendment limitations.

In 1787 the Articles of Confederation were falling apart. That was our original constitution, our original basis of government, that had been slapped together during the crisis of war,. That system of government was failing, and we looked likely to slip into 13 different nations, or at best two or three competing nations. It looked as though the newly born nation was going to fall into disunity, and thereby be easy pickings for the powers of Europe (especially Great Britain) to swoop back in and, one by one, dominate the states,. If that happened, those “plutocrats”, our founders, knew that their lives would be shortened, and probably end swinging on a hangman's noose.

So this group of well educated men knew that their only real hope for survival lay in establishing a system of government that could hold all the states together as the United States. Their problem was further complicated because they knew that the people of this new nation were restive, skeptical of bad government, and that they were the most well read and politically astute populace in the world.

So the founders were motivated to apply all their learning and creativity about government, and put together a structure that appealed to the masses, and yet could last over time. They gave us republic, if we can keep it, which has sustained for nearly 250 years.

While our republic has sustained for a couple centuries, it isn't really thriving today. To most of us, it appears to be circling the drain, showing the classic symptoms of the last stages of a declining republic with widespread corruption, forever wars, and poisonous bread and circuses for the apathetic masses.

To fix this mess some propose a new constitutional convention, or at least an Article Five convention to fix this one. Such folks neglect to notice that this is not the same political moment the founders faced in 1787. Those involved in said convention will not have the same motivations as those men did. Sadly, the most likely outcome of some convention for enacting new amendments will probably resemble the latest Democrat or Republican conventions, loaded with corruption and producing the sly tools of entrenched oligarchs.

Most of the utopian schemes of government that are currently advocated by many folks fall to pieces when they come up against those same rocks of real world political opposition. Any scheme or plan will have to be implemented in defiance of a world wide oligarchy that seems intent on controlling everyone.

Socialism (or communism) anyone? That perennially sounds good, with the idea of “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The unsolvable problem with communism is that in the real world the bureaucracy empowered to determine who should give and receive becomes the seat of elitist power. It is then indistinguishable from fascism and folds easily into the control of that same international oligarchy.

Libertarianism sounds good, with the idea that total economic freedom will bring about socially meaningful freedom for all. However, for that to work we must have a much higher level of social consciousness than is in evidence today. Without that heightened moral thinking, a libertarian society is likely to quickly devolve into a neo-feudal corporatism, which would also, in our modern world, be indistinguishable from fascism, and be easily folded into the international oligarchy.

Anarchy, the idea that we should live without any government, has herds of fans in this era. Mostly though, we should notice that the biggest fans are the kind of strong armed thugs, and their henchmen, who would just love to not have any organized resistance to their having free rein over everyone else. Another strong constituency of anarchy seems to be elderly folks with government pensions. More on that in a bit.

Once again, a much more elevated moral thinking, on the part of the vast majority of people, would be necessary for anarchy to not fall into chaos. When it does inevitably fall into chaos it will in turn result in the masses clamoring for the international oligarchy to come in and save them.

Another approach, advocated by some very well meaning folks, is the call to a community based society. This idea actually underlies all the other ideas. It arouses strong emotion because the diminishment of community, of the spirit of community, is the leading cause and symptom of our declining republic.

Almost all of us have long yearned for a more sincere and nurturing connection with community. Unfortunately, it seems that the oligarchy knows this about us, and is constantly abusing our striving for community, monetizing it through entertainments, and weaponizing it via religious and political movements. Can you say “cult?” Jonestown and the Branch Davidians are two prominent examples of historic cults and their risks. There are thousands of others.

Even where modern informal community seems to work, where nominal anarchy is observed, it is often facilitated by elderly or disabled members who receive government funding. Without that subsidy, one wonders if such communities will sustain for long, and if they do; if they will continue to have absolutely no government. Frankly, I doubt it but wish them well, and plan on copying them to the degree they discover an approach that works.

Make no mistake, a lot of these ideas actually make some sense, and should be given a fair chance to work. But of course, no matter the idea it stands little chance of making it past our oligarchic masters. That is a truth we simply must acknowledge. Anything that might be done along any of those lines will in reality only be “allowed” by them, so participants will never be more than kept pets. Kind of museum pieces, like some of those “off limits” islands in the Indian Ocean.

If anything starts growing that might actually threaten the ruling status of the oligarchy, it will be systematically eradicated like weeds in a modern corn field. The oligarchy is into mono-cultural agribusiness, and is allergic to self sufficient small farms. Consequently, it is obviously certain that that is the mode in which they intend to farm the human race.

The upshot is that the only way any of our modern revolutionary ideas will be truly established is if we regain control of our own government first. That is the reason the only real play that we, the people, have is to first revive our original Constitution.

It is just as feasible a concept of government as any of the others currently on offer, and it has the advantage that we might actually, if courageous and creative enough, establish it over the opposition of the oligarchy. . This form of political revolution is uniquely achievable because it is based on a conservative return to our liberal Constitution. Kind of going back to the future. That happy coincidence of social forces has historically been America's bedrock advantage, and has always proven to be an unbeatable combination.

The ultimate point to consider, when talking with hopeful revolutionaries, is that when we revive a true use of our Constitution, we will have a form of government within which all the other ideas about government can be tried and proved. We could all organize ourselves, and move to communities of agreement, and freely live out the utopian vision we each believe in. We will be able to learn from our own experiences, and the experiences of other communities as we all struggle to once again take on the powers and duties of free self government.

When we are free, in our own communities, to live out our idealistic visions, we will still be enveloped by a system of checks and balances, preventing the worst of extremist thinking from becoming oppressive on the local (or state) level. As I read it, our national system is idealistically supposed to be a germination bed for LCMSG. Instead of ignoring and squandering that glorious heritage, we should embrace and improve on it. Especially so since, with a long view of our history, we can see that the original American experiment was a raging success.

Where local community was truly empowered, a republican spirit thrived in the hearts of the American people. Regrettably, that didn't really happen in some places, but the aroused citizenry that grew in many communities nationwide is the only true greatness America ever displayed. That citizenry, remaining aroused for generations, grew enterprise and innovation like mushrooms after a rainstorm, and lived out a spirit of political reform the world has never before known. Eighty years after our experiment began, we had become a nation with millions of people who were willing to fight, die, and even kill to abolish legal slavery. Quite the elevation of morality in a very short time.

LCMSG is an architecture of government that tends to produce a citizenry infused with a reform minded republican spirit, and very importantly, no other system of government does that. But let it be quickly added that the United States of America is not the only place with that form of government. A number of other countries have it. Such as Finland, Switzerland, and etc., and in some of them it is working quite well because the people are working their system as designed. Which is what we should do.

The abiding blessing of Local Community Moral Self Government (LCMSG) is that in that structure human beings tend to develop an elevating moral consciousness. Being compelled to wrestle with real decisions about how we govern ourselves tends to motivate individuals to become better people. That is because they then witness how socially harmful immoral behavior is.

Even if that experience doesn't cause folks to change religions, it will tend to impel them to initiate laws and customs designed to get their ideals functioning. Individuals will then tend to be sincere about trying to make their local system work effectively, because they will have a voice in forming that system. They will all (for the most part), that is to say, we will all, become much more morally minded, at least in the light of local moral thinking. That effect, in the long term, will tend to transform us, as a people, into a nation which can make those utopian ideals work. This is the way to evolve toward that enlightened universal mindset our spiritual instincts call us to.

That is why we should all commit to reviving the Constitution of the United States of America..

Happy 4^th of July.

Respect or Consideration

 

There was recently a well publicized case where one high school student stabbed another student to death in Frisco, TX. The stabber let it be known that the victim had “dis-respected” him, and therefore, in the stabber's mind, the victim had it coming. The sickening tragedy of this case sheds light on a much deeper problem afflicting our culture, which can be boiled down to love versus pride.

Pride is a mind set the world encourages us to have. We are told to be proud of our nation, our state, our sports teams, our community, and above all ourselves. With pride in our hearts, the next thing is to demand respect, the kind of respect that confirms our pride in ourselves. Then anyone who disrespects us must be forced to pay the price; to in some way acknowledge that our pride is justified.

Love, on the other hand, (at least the kind of love the bible defines) is something that is not focused on ourselves, but is instead focused on uplifting others. With love, at least in Christ, our own identity is grounded in God, so we can give of ourselves to others. Instead of demanding respect from others, or even just respecting those we consider deserve it, we can love even those we don't respect. In that perspective, the opposite of respect is the long neglected virtue of consideration. Actually considering the status and situation of the other person.

Jesus gave an unexpected response along these lines when the lawyer (Luke 10:29) asked him (as a way to dodge the obligation to love his neighbor) “Who is my neighbor?” It is clear the man was looking for ways to eliminate people who did not qualify to be loved, people he did not have to respect.

Jesus ignored the baiting question, and instead told the parable of the good Samaritan, which ended with him asking, “Who was a neighbor to the victim?” The obvious answer is that it was the good Samaritan, the one who showed loving consideration to the victim. With that parable Jesus flipped the script, revealing that, at least for those who claim to follow God, it is not a question of how we can rationalize our selfish pride, but do we see the wonderful opportunity we have to live out the will of our heavenly Father?

So it seems we must somehow renounce the worldly values, the two sided coin of pride and respect. If we want, that is, to grow out of the ongoing near riot and mayhem our culture is drifting into. We must instead pick up the two sided spiritual coin of love and consideration, and by wielding it effectively, we might slowly bring our culture back to sanity.

One word should be added about the long neglected virtue of consideration. Most folks will agree that we should love one another, and that consideration is part of that. But it must be emphasized that it is not just being sincere about offering loving consideration to others that is key. Consideration becomes truly alive, and a divine tool, when it is done in a thorough, deeply thoughtful and prayerful way. You know, like the deep and intense way we each consider our own needs. When we make that kind of considerate effort toward others, we are truly loving our neighbor as ourselves. Which is not just a good idea, it is the law.