Flew the Coup

Never in my wildest flights of the imagination did I dream I boarded a flight like this.   One month of Trump, though it has really been much longer, and friends and family are seriously considering leaving the country.  Leaving the country?  Yes, bailing out, seeking freedom, enlightenment, truth, and equal justice for all.  That place is not here anymore.  And my heart breaks.

Liberals and conservatives will always disagree on the programmatic implementation of their respective belief systems.  Public schools will be supported by liberals and opposed by conservatives.  Defense will always be supported, but conservatives will want to spend more.  Income tax will always be resented by conservatives and a fair and equitable taxation system will always be supported by liberals.  Viewing our population as a caste system with good guys being white males will likely always be a conservative perspective and everyone else, women, people of color, people from different areas of the world, people with different sexual orientations, and people with different points of view will always be protected by liberals.    Clear separation between religion and government will find conservative views wishing to push our nation toward a theocracy ruled by Christians while liberals stand to defend all beliefs and no beliefs at all.  Conservatives will believe that making the rich richer somehow creates more wealth and more jobs though that has never happened.  Liberals will argue that putting more money in the hands of the working class and the poor will create more wealth and more jobs.  And that belief has been sustained every time.  Every time. Liberals will support labor unions as a way for workers to negotiate with producers, but conservatives will bust them every chance they get.  There are many more, but those are the biggest sources of difference between liberals and conservatives.  We can live with that.  However, If the majority in power is free but no one else is then that is not freedom.  The fact that the nation has always prospered under enlightened leadership and always fell under conservative leadership is ignored in this debate where the conservatives see billionaires as the good guys and liberals see them as crooks seeking even more money from the rest of us. 

This debate has been waged for years.  It became the source of war in 1861.  Freedom won.   It became the source of disaster from 1929 through 1941.  The working class and the poor lost.  2008 again the working class and poor lost and the wealthy won, but the government rescued them with government spending.  FDR, Truman, JFK, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all improved the economy based on liberal ideals.  Not so much the others.  Trump, Bush, Bush II, and Reagan all left the economy in worse shape.  Eisenhower did not because he supported massive government spending to build the interstate highways system, and NASA.

Liberals see diversity as a national strength arguing one would rather live in a country people are trying to get into than one people are trying to get out of.  Hence, conservatives have ended DEI, affirmative action, etc.    

Most amusing of all is the fact that liberals will fight to the death to ensure that conservatives can believe and articulate their beliefs and it appears conservatives may fight to the death to ensure everyone thinks as they do.  Liberals believe in the tenets of democracy.  We now know conservatives do not.

Conservatives believe lies from the chief lie officers, Trump, Vance, Musk, McConnell, Fox News, Newsmax, etc.  It is important to note some of the absolute falsehoods conservatives claim to believe:

Biden stole the 2020 election from Trump.

Immigrants are felons, criminals, drug dealers.

Teaching diversity and civil liberties is not brainwashing.  Eliminating alternative views is.

The inflation rate under Biden was 9.9%.

Trump's felony convictions were witch hunts and the deep state was behind his convictions.

Trump will end inflation.

Trump will increase employment.

Tariffs benefit Americans.

A wall will keep immigrants out.

Anyone who criticizes Trump is an enemy.

Trump will leave NATO because we should not fund international peace and defense.

Trump will pull us out of the Paris Climate Accords because climate change is a hoax.

Trump will support anti-vaccination to fight pandemics.

Injecting bleach will cure COVID.

Dropping a nuclear weapon in a hurricane will end a hurricane.

Trump’s opinion is superior to the facts of math, science, and logic.

Federal employees who disagree with Trump should be fired.

Trump will make America great again by returning to a rigid white male rule, no tolerance for diverse thinking, no tolerance for criticism of Trump or his programs, ending liberal brainwashing, stopping promoting diversity, ending monitoring of big business and the stock market and consumer products, leaving kids with disabilities out of public education, ending public education funding and programs, promoting charter and private schools, and intolerance of any other point of view.

The America described above is not the America so many have fought and died for.  It does not believe that felons and sexual abusers should be able to be President.  It believes all men, (sic) are equal and should have the same rights, we are a nation of laws and no one is above the law, we are a nation free of government support religion, we believe when the votes are counted the people have spoken, we believe there should be a clear path to American citizenship, we believe we have to keep the world safe for democracy, we support the rights of sovereign nations, we will not bully friend or enemies, Russia and China and North Korea are not friends.  NATO, EU, and Pacific Accords are all friends, any nation that fights aggression and authoritarianism are friend, and any notion that promotes ending global warming is a friend. 

The ideals of America are well worth defending.  20,000 Americans left our country when Trump was first elected.  In the 2024 election, 30% of Democrats did not vote.   If one leaves now the army for truth, justice, and the American way will be greatly diminished.

We have witnessed a coup.  The beliefs and philosophy of America have been overturned by Trump.  Nixon told one lie and resigned.  Trump told over 30,000 lies in his first term and is well on his way to breaking that record.

Stand for truth.  Stand for democracy.  Stay put.  Flew the Coup will not help restore America to the nation she has always been.   That is how to make America great again.  

6th Graders

I was a public school educator in various roles for 40 years. I remain ignorant of elementary school. I have never taught there or managed there. The only elementary kids I know are my kids and my grandkids.

Secondary kids I know.  I spent years teaching high school students and years as an assistant principal at a junior high, a.k.a., middle school.  I know kids from grades 6 to 12 very well.  Each of these kids is unique, but they all share some common characteristics by age and grade level.  My reflection tonight is on 6^th graders. Those kids who have finally escaped elementary regime for a taste of secondary freedom.  They do not have to walk in a line.  They are trusted to get to their own classes on their own.  Subjects come at them discreetly rather than by block of time covering multiple disciplines.  They can make choices in the lunch room.  Their parents no longer send them to the big yellow limousines nor meet them at the curb when they are delivered back home.  6^th graders are way cool, as they know, or at least until an 8^th grader shows up.  But left to their own devices, 6^th graders are 11 or 12-year-old children now blessed with some adult decisions to make, but somehow remain free from recognizing the consequences of those decisions.  They claim adulthood, not because they have earned it, but because they are as tall as some of their teachers and parents.   There have been many an adult driven totally bonkers by a sixth grader.   Child-like adults with an enhanced vocabulary, an understanding of math and science and history are smart enough to know their time is coming even if it has yet arrived.  Nose-to-nose they will back down, but they do not want to.  Being an adult cannot be just about age, they will argue, it is about knowing and understanding everything, and now that they know and understand everything, well, except the opposite sex, they must surely be eligible to wear the badge “adult.”

Wrong.  It is a mistake to assume they are adult though any 6^th grader you love will lobby for that moniker.  So, lets take some areas of the human experience and compare 6^th graders to adults and see how that turns out.

Feelings.  Yes, 6^th graders have feelings.  Deep feelings.  They can feel outstanding and successful then dreadful and a failure in a matter of minutes.  Much of their feelings are ego-centric.  They feel, those feelings can now be articulated, so those feelings must be real. They feel, therefore they are.  But they feel without boundaries and without defenses.

As a first-year principal at a junior high I clearly remember Sue, the young lady sent to my office in tears, sobbing so hard she could hardly catch her breath.  I waited her out after making sure she was not in physical pain and that no one she knew was in physical pain or danger.  Then we sat.  15 or 20 minutes, her crying, me waiting.  Finally, Sue asked me if I knew Jane, another 6th-grade girl.  Yes, I knew Jane.  Great kid, good student, popular, funny.  That was a mistake to label Jane in a positive way before Sue who sat across the desk from me.  More tears.  What’s wrong with Jane, I asked. " Oh nothing, she is fine.  She used to be my best friend.  But when I saw her this morning she was walking Erica to class instead of me and Jane did not even say hi.  I guess we are not best friends anymore.  Boo-Hoo."  I am an idiot.  I am still waiting to hear what the problem is while I am watching a life-level crisis unfold.  Jane did not speak.  Sue was devastated.  Sue had strong feelings and Jane just smashed right through them.  Didn’t Jane know that as Sue’s best friend she had responsibilities to care for Sue’s feelings?   Nope.   Hard lesson.  Jane does not have to be your best friend for you to be a worthwhile person.  That’s 6^th grade.  Best friends are really big deals and by designation come with all sorts of baggage and responsibilities that are not listed anywhere but in the heart of the other friend. 

It did not take long for Sue to morph from heartbroken to vengeful.  She began to itemize all the little ways she could hurt Jane.  She could call her names, make fun of her, ban her from other groups, laugh at her in class, avoid her in the lunch room, on and on.  She could make sure Jane was not invited to birthday parties or days at an arcade.  Sue could be vengeful and seek retribution.  Sue did not want to hear those adults, people who have really grown up, do not do that.  It is hard, but it is those hard lessons 6^th graders have yet to have and they cannot see them coming.  For now, dishing out punishment to people who have hurt her is enough.  If they could respond appropriately to such a setting there would be no tears, no bitter recriminations, no necessity for some other person to determine their worth.  Sue is OK just as she is, though Sue doesn’t know it yet.  Years later as an adult she can look back and laugh, but not today.

Behaviors.  6^th graders are notorious for acting without thinking, or saying anything to get a laugh or attention from various audiences.  Nothing worse for a 6^th grader than to be ignored.  6^th grade boys will pull ponytails and 6th-grade girls will rip off the hanging hook on the back of nice shirts.   These same kids who fear becoming the target of ridicule will go to any lengths to ridicule others so that by putting others down they somehow elevate themselves.  “I didn’t mean to hit her with the orange I threw in the cafeteria, she just got in the way.  We were just playing.”   Or, “I didn’t mean to make him cry when I called him chrome mouth.  He wears braces and that is just a nickname.”  6^th graders cannot take either slapstick or word play humor.  The result will always be boundary forming, other blaming, retribution, or flat-out punishment.   And all the behaviors will be displayed without malice or forethought according to the kids who have yet to learn that thrown things do eventually fall to earth and word zingers do eventually pierce hearts.  6^th graders simply do not understand treating others as one wants to be treated.  That phrase is Greek to them. And when something does go wrong, when homework is forgotten or a younger sibling gets hurt or a mess is made it is always someone else’s fault.  6th graders are perfect.

Groups/Clans.  Every 6^th grader wants to belong to something bigger than himself or herself.  Exclusion, or worse, banishment is the punishment of death for without a group one does not exist.  If a 6^th grader is chosen to play on a team in PE, he or she will choose their friends to be on the same team and will not weigh their athletic talent or abilities.  Friendship counts more than the score.  Some 6^th graders will walk down the hall alone, but they will be bullied for such defiance.  Most will walk in a loosely formed covey or mobile wall.  Commiseration ranks high in the group dialog as members confirm that some teachers are just jerks, some principals are just stupid, and some moms are just cool.   Having been blessed or cursed these adults feel the accolades or the albatross but can do little about it.  It is the group that matters and the group that will trample the very rights these kids fight for with their parents that they quickly abandon with their peers.  Freedom of speech?  Parents will not grant that and the kid will merit vitriol.  The group will declare the adjectives for other groups and other students and no one in the group dare disagree for fear of group abandonment.  Stacey is hot whether any other guy in the group thinks so or not.  6th graders are not above the peer pressure, they are the masters of it. 

6^th graders have selective memory, thus remaining childlike rather than adult-like.  They know what is appropriate and what is inappropriate.  They know what is OK and what is bad.  They know what is allowed and what is not allowed.  They just have brief memory loss when there is something they want to do.  Inappropriate, bad, not allowed, duh.  What’s that.  These kids hate rules but as soon as they are left on their own, they make really tough rules.  Kids are not encouraged to jump from group to group and explore various interests, they are strongly encouraged to follow the rules and norms of their group without question.

So why have I spent so much time thinking about 6^th graders as pseudo adults, as thin-skinned, vengeful, spiteful, retributional people who prefer to ignore rules but rigidly enforce their own rules, and people who will banish anyone who does not think like the group of choice thinks?  Because we have a 6th-grade President.

If Trump was a 6^th grader, he would fire anyone who previously attacked him or belittled him.  He would promote any loyal friend regardless of talent or expertise.  He would ignore rules, both formal and informal, but figuratively behead anyone who breaks one of his rules.  He would find that group he supports and supports him in return.  And nothing will hurt more than having a bestie turn on him and criticize him for child-like behaviors even when the bestie is right and the behaviors are labeled accurately.  Gulf of America, Greenland, Canada are all ploys to stir-up non adults who cannot recognize that he is just silly.  His own group of loyalists would never say so.  And he has important friends like Musk and Putin and Jong Un so we should all go ooh and ahh.  He will support groups that are not only destroying more than just one country to become richer, they are destroying the only planet we can live on. Trump is perfect.  You will never hear him apologize and when things do not go his way it is always someone else’s fault.  Always.

And if we do not start seeing Trump as the 6^th grader he is we will continue to head down the wrong path faster and faster.  Trump is a thin-skinned child who sees himself as a genius just as every 6^th grader sees themselves.  He is not.  He speaks at the 6th-grade level and uses syntax of less than that.  He has a gift for calling people names and assigning nicknames, but that also places him clearly in the 6^th grade ranks.  And compromise, effort toward the greater good is anathema to him because he must live in a win-lose world, not an adult world.  Every highly complex human problem has a simple solution.  And it is wrong.  Walls, deportation planes, detention centers, tariffs, and purging enemies who are fellow citizens are simple solutions and they are wrong.

Doubt me?  Spend some time with a 6^th grader.

What's Afoot?

In November of this year, we will select a President/Vice President, every House Member and 1/3 of the Senate.  That kind of turnover among elected representatives is possible every 4 years, but this year, the outcome will be profound, earth-shaking, and possibly unimaginable.  Seems like I should arise from my silent stupor and address the concerns I have going into this election.  I am not concerned about the age of Trump or Biden.  I am not losing sleep regarding any one specific policy proposal promoted by either man or either party.  I am, however, deeply concerned that voters in our country will make their election decision in ignorance of the issues, and thereby run the risk of repeating a human history we must avoid.  It appears to me that we may have metaphorically cured polio only to learn there are those who want to bring it back to cull the herd, and I am horrified. 

Before our war for independence commencing in 1776, there were only two kinds of governments on this planet.  Dictators by birthright and dictators by military might.  Want to be a ruler?  Great.  Raise an army and attack the sitting government, which is also a dictatorship, or find a way to marry into a royal family and inherit the leadership gene.  Play polo or study war, enjoy pomp and circumstance or raise an army, either way could get you to the throne of leadership in almost any nation on our planet. 

But standing on the shoulders of great thinkers throughout human history a particular thinker in 1690 published a book entitled the “Second Treatise of Government”.  John Locke (1832-1704) was wonderful, and chances are you may never have heard of him, but if you have read our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution you will know his words.  He was a tremendous influence on the great thinkers who not only founded this nation but who were able to articulate what we stood for, and what democracy was really all about.

Imagine a nation where the path to the throne did not go through a military general or a royal family.  There was no such government on the planet in 1776.  We were it.  We became this great, noble, wonderful experiment wherein everything seemed possible, everyone had a chance, everyone was treated equally, and everyone got to help make the decisions via the ballot.  Wow.  We were laughed at by kings and generals around the world.  They are not laughing now.  They are worried.  Or at least those in the world who have come down the same path we cleared to enact a democracy.  We are and have been their guiding light.  Those leaders who absolutely oppose allowing the “people” to choose are prepared to leap for joy should we decide to abandon democracy.  You know who they are:  Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and this week a scattering of African, Central and South American countries. 

With so much at stake, I encourage everyone to read Locke and Jefferson and Madison and Franklin and Adams to get a gut-level understanding of the foundation of the United States.  There are deep footings that support our foundation and on which we have built this democracy.  We should know those footings as they keep our democratic foundation afloat.  As a high school government teacher, I taught hundreds of students about this great and noble experiment.  But it appears to me now we have people in leadership roles who could not pass my high school government final exam.  Some appear not to be aware of the three branches of government which is a mere drop in the democracy conceptual bucket.  That scares me.

So how in the world were these early thinkers able to wrest the organization of government away from bloodlines and battle lines?  Logic.  Footing number 1.  They began with one simple tenet:  All humans are created equal.  Not in terms of height and weight and aptitude or talent but in terms of human rights.  If we fail to give one person their inherent rights we have infringed on all humans.  Every human has certain rights.  Every person.  From there it was easy to argue that these equal people should be able to cast equal votes when it came time to select leaders.  If we are to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people then we must admit right up front that all people are equal to all other people.  There cannot be a group that gets special treatment based on the amount of pigment in their skin, or the amount of dollars in their checking accounts, or the language they speak, or the gender they claim.  All men (sic) are created equal. 

If you do not buy that notion, do not accept that notion, and are not willing to act in ways that demonstrate your belief in that notion then America is never going to make any sense to you at all.  We keep doing things like monitoring the wealthy to be sure they aren’t cheating and monitoring the military to be sure they are in line with civilian authority or monitoring each manufacturer to be sure no one company gets a competitive advantage in such a way that they can set price as though they were a monopoly or produce a harmful product.  All of that is because we believe all humans are equal and the rich and powerful should not be more equal. When Elon Musk votes it cannot mean more than when my first-generation American family next door votes.  He and other wealthy folks may wish they could override the votes of “peasants”, but not in this country they cannot.  And I assure you they want to.  They yearn for the royalty of old into which they could buy their way. 

The second footing is: no human is above the law.  When we elect these reps and senators and they draft legislation that the president signs it becomes the law.  No one is exempt from those laws.  They are to be applied equally to all. Anyone who argues there are some people we should legally punish and some people to whom we should offer exemptions does not get America.

Other footings include the separation of church and state.  Why?  Because our founding fathers arrived here from nations where the church and state were the same and people were punished or rewarded if they believed the right things and worshipped the right way.  The state, the government, is prohibited from recognizing religion because religion is such a precious belief for all who hold religious beliefs.  About 1,000 religions are being practiced today on our planet.   Each of those congregations believes they are worshipping the one true deity and that their deity stands behind them.  The state cannot say Muslims are right and Christians are wrong and atheists are really wrong.  The government must not say anything at all.  We keep fudging on this footing.  Some people want their deity recognized by the state not knowing how awful a circumstance that is for the human condition.  Like candidates for office, we each get to choose our own religion or our own lack thereof.

Another big footing is freedom of the press.  If our news source promotes lies rather than truth, we are in trouble.  You may have received your view of the world from a small portion of news media.  If so, your view is likely wrong.  We have witnessed news sources going before the audience and announcing they lied.  Why?  Because those journalists and printed news and broadcast news have the right to get at the truth and share the truth and liars were revealed.  Few things are more important in a democracy than knowing the truth, and then deciding. 

The people shall have freedom of speech, freedom from self-incrimination, freedom to peacefully assemble, freedom to petition the government to redress their grievances, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, right to a fair, speedy, and public trial with a jury of your peers.  As the government had a very small standing army, we were dependent on members of the militia to protect us.  Therefore, those in the militia shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and no soldier shall be boarded in a private house during peacetime. 

Reading these amendments implies the trials and tribulations the new citizens of America had experienced. The “Crown” and the “Church” were interwoven giving a belief system the power of enforcement of one religion over another.  The press was unreliable.  People were tortured to confess.  People were thrown in jail and never brought to trial.  When public speech conflicted with a general consensus then the speaker was often punished.  On and on and on.  None of the above was reflective of freedom or of a government of, by and for the people. It was a government solely for the powerful or the majority.  Jefferson warned us about what he called “the tyranny of the majority.”  No, we cannot vote to enshrine evangelistic beliefs as American beliefs.  That very sentence is treasonous.

We said we believed no man was above the law.  No man, woman, child, etc.  We said all humans should have equal treatment in the eyes of the law.  We said procedures ranging from investigations and indictments and trials and convictions must flow the same for the wealthy and the poor, the White and the Black, the hetero and homosexual, the Christian and atheist, and all men and all women.  No exceptions.

And hence my fear.  There are proselytizers afoot preaching that the law for the rich should be different, and the treatment should be different.  If a rich person does not want a speedy trial for political reasons that trial should postponed.  We have a candidate for office who clearly does not believe all humans are created equal as he has promised to use the military to secure his view, not the Constitutional view, promised to punish those who disagree with him, implying that some identifiable groups of humans should not have the same rights as others.  Nothing could be more un-American, more treasonous, than those beliefs.  Those positions are not held by folks who swear to protect and defend the Constitution.  Those positions are not held by those who value our freedom and our liberty.  Those anti-American positions are the footings of right think, 1984, Nazism, and any other dictatorial government with the audacity to announce what all in the land should believe and follow without due process of law.

If we excavate the footings our foundation then the US of A will be gone, and this great and noble experiment will end.  The only recourse is to vote if we are to remain a government of the people, by the people and for the people.  “The people” is everyone.  On the side of police cars it says their mission is “To protect and to serve.”  What must be made clear is that this mission applies to everyone, even the person locked in the back seat of the car. 

Please vote.  Please think.  Please choose wisely even if you agree somewhat with the extremists who would undo America.  They have the right to their opinion.  They do not have the right to attack the Constitution and dismantle the foundation of our nation, nor do they have the right to physically attack those who think otherwise and the institutions that represent our footings.  Those who propose to undo our democracy follow one man who does not understand America.  We must defeat him, then teach him.  What’s afoot?  The future of democracy in the USA. 

Of Milk and Cookies

The child grew up as most children do believing in Santa Claus.  There were clear reasons for that.  His parents told him Santa was real and surely his parents would not lie. All his friends believed Santa was real.  How could everyone he know believe a falsehood?  And there was evidence to support his belief.  The magical appearance of gifts from Santa on Christmas morning, the half-eaten cookies, the empty milk glass.  Surely Santa was real.  And the notion of keeping a list and finding out who is naughty and who is nice is very much like what they taught him in church.  No one said otherwise.  Not his parents, his friends, his church, or even all the TV commercials and Christmas movies.  They all sent the same message:  Santa is real.  The child was a believer.

Until one day at school in about the 3^rd grade another student announced that Santa was not real.  He was thunderstruck.  Devastated.  Angry.  Hurt.  That kid became hated.  How could this be?  Could there have been a conspiracy to promote the reality of Santa for some ghastly subversive reason?  Yes, he thought.  There could be.  After all, he had never actually seen Santa place gifts under the tree, eat cookies, or drink milk. He surmised those conclusions based on what he saw as evidence.  And yet, how did Santa get to every child on earth in one night?  Why did Santa give less to poor kids than to rich kids?  If there was a North Pole toy factory why hadn’t anyone found it yet?  We found black holes and they do not even emit light.  This could be, heaven forbid, a myth, a lie, a culturally accepted falsehood. Wow.

Eventually, the boy took pride in knowing a truth that many others did not.  He accepted a new Santa-less reality and swore never to be hornswoggled again.  He would know stuff and support stuff based on facts and evidence, not widely held myths.  He was sad, but he could hold his head up.  He had taken one giant step toward being an adult.  And his life went on.

Until now.  Now there was a large division between those who believed one thing and those who knew another thing.  It upset him. There was strife, there was conflict.  His nation as he knew it was at risk and if he was going to be true to his childhood revelation and the promise he made to himself, he must seek out the truth.

So what is real?  Is it real that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by one candidate from another?  The more he looked, the more he saw this was a lie.  It was a myth.  In 61 court cases across the country, every case was thrown out because those who argued the election results were tainted could provide no proof of that claim.  No one stole the election.  The winner won by 7 million votes.  An outcome too vast to be faked or falsified.  Election officials across the country of both parties stood their ground and claimed the results in their states were the real results.  The results of a democratic election in a nation where we say of the people, by the people, for the people.  No evidence to the contrary. None!  He was amazed again.  If that simple fact was true then all else that followed looks very different.  Rather than a victim of some nationwide liberal conspiracy, the loser was just a sore loser.  Worse, he was willing to violate the constitution he swore to uphold just so he could stay in power.  Oh my.  There will be people who get mad and cry when they finally know there is no Santa. 

For the first time in our history, the loser refused to congratulate the winner.  For the first time in our history, the loser plotted to maintain control of the presidency through documented phone calls to state officials asking them to create votes on his behalf.  For the first time in history, the loser tried to get electors from states that would support overturning the election.  For the first time in our history, the loser invited those who supported him the most to show up in our nation’s capital and encouraged them to march to Congress to show support for him. It became an insurrection.  Life was lost.  Property was destroyed, not just any property, but precious American, historical property.  These supporters waved flags.  They wore costumes.  They paraded through the halls of Congress despite the efforts of the police to stop them.  The loser did nothing to stop them.  As trials began to prosecute the insurrectionists the loser did all he could to keep documents from getting to the court.  He did all he could do to block testimony.  He did all he could do to keep his inner circle from telling the truth to Congress and the courts.  And yet, the decision by juries across the country was that those who attacked the capital were insurrectionists, revolting against the rule of law and the sanctity of elections. Those who infiltrated the Capital headed for prison.

And what of the loser behind the scenes?  He continues to claim the election was stolen.  He continues to claim that immigration hurts our nation and threatens our survival which is really kind of funny since everyone here is an immigrant of one generation or another.  He continues to claim that we should support Russia when it has been shown that Russia used Facebook and the NRA to launder campaign money for the loser and spread propaganda for the loser.

It got worse.  There were a large number of American Citizens who supported the loser.  It appeared they supported the loser for several reasons.  They respected a man who would say whatever he wanted to and not worry about the consequences.  They supported a man who knew all people were not created equal despite what the Bible and our Constitution said.  They supported the notion that there was a liberal conspiracy determined to ruin our country even though the only such organizations anyone could find supported the loser.  They wanted a nation of White folks, especially White men, back in charge. They opposed rights for anyone else not realizing that once one violates the rights of anyone, everyone is at risk. 

So the boy, now a man, wondered what he should do.  Should he tell these people that what they believed was a myth?  It was made up?  It was not the truth?  Should he stand, regardless of outcome or consequence, and say, “Enough!  This is wrong!”  Or should he simply lay low and hope that time would wash away this terrible belief system threatening to undo an almost 250-year experiment that claimed all were equal, all had civil rights, that this was a nation of, by, and for the people, not a nation of the wealthy for the wealthy by the powerful.  Should he stand and point out that the USA was founded and grounded in liberal beliefs by a group of agnostics and atheists?  Could he do that?

It has been a while since I have written.  I have tossed and turned and wrestled with the future of our nation.  But I can be silent no more.  We must be a land of law. We must be a land of consequences for wrongdoing.  We must be a government of, by, and for the people.  We must be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Santa is not real.  Trump lost the election.  All else is logical. I stand here to defend the truth, even if many must shed tears when they realize our future cannot be in the hands of extremists, right or left.  Be bold.  Be an American for truth and justice.  Let’s purge ourselves of those who would lie, cheat and steal their way into power.  And for goodness sake, stop putting out milk and cookies for adults who perpetrate political myths.

Extinction

 (If you prefer to listen to an audio file of this post copy the address and paste it in a new window)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TCCg0VEI0wfptpUhGmWzeIaeP4CxIRjM/preview?usp=share_link

I’ve been thinking about the universe and what matters most. I begin with the knowledge that planet earth is just a small speck in a much, much larger universe, and while scientists debate the existence of a multiverse a la Marvel comics, all we know for sure is that this universe began with a bang, we have no idea what was happening before the bang which was theoretically before there was time, but since the bang, our universe has been expanding, with galaxies accelerating away from each other. In a couple of billion years if humans are still around the night sky will be dark as the stars will be too far away for us to see. Much more locally, our sun will eventually consume all the energy it has, and become a red giant that will be so large earth will be consumed. That is probably about 5 billion years away, but even so, it is coming. Planet earth will end. The universe will not notice. If humans are still around we will become extinct like all other life on this little blue marble.

So if we know that is our eventual future what should we be doing now? IMHO, we should start doing everything we can to preserve and improve our only planet and we should be doing everything we can to find another place to live. Failure to do either will end us. There will be no other life forms who will ever discover the existence of humanity and all we mucked up and accomplished. When 7 billion or more humans drop to their knees and pray for a god to save us, nothing will happen and we will finally accept that we made gods in our own image, then we will become extinct.

If my assumptions are true, and there is no evidence that they are flawed, then as a species we must learn to cooperate, tolerate and embrace humanity. No one nation can avoid these eventualities. What we consider “good” and “evil” must be redefined. We must accept that anything that benefits me but hurts you, or hurts others, or hurts the planet is evil. We must accept that collaboration is powerful, dictatorships, my way or the highway, top-down decision-making is evil. We must embrace each other regardless of race, gender, gender identity, beliefs, and income. When the end comes no one will care who has the most money or the most toys.

Organizations that grow rich at the expense of the planet must be seen as evil. We must stop global warming or we will never have the opportunity to find another place to live. That will turn economies and our social class system upside down, but upside down is better than not around.

And at the simplest level, we must honor truth, we must honor each other, and we must not insist on having our own way. We must, we absolutely must, recognize we are one species on one planet and we are racing to extinction. We have no time for the KKK, for Oath Keepers, Putin, Xi, Trump, or their ilk. Honoring those who would seek power and wealth is evil and is condemning us even faster.

5 billion years may seem like a long time to get our act together. I think getting our act together requires action much sooner than that. We may only have 100 years or so before our planet becomes uninhabitable.

So vote.

Tories

You might remember reading or hearing that in 1776 when our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence not everyone here was happy about it.  We glorify and glamorize the Patriots, those new Americans who took up arms against England and King George.  But, there were people who remained loyal to the King.  We called them Tories.  It was not good to be called a Tory, not in those barely united states.

But Tories were more in line with the rest of the world than were the Patriots.  Before our Declaration of Independence, governments fell into one of four general types:  a government that was ruled by a noble class and to be a ruler one must have been born into that bloodline.  Kings and Queens ruled by birthright and the thought of opposing such autocracies was rare and almost suicidal.  The second type of government was also autocratic and that was the military junta type.  In such governments, a strong-armed man would gain control of the military and beat everyone else into submission.  Again, it was not wise to challenge such autocratic authority.  Think of Napoleon as an example.  The third type was the demagogues using demagoguery to convince the common people that there were things to fear and things to be angry about, most of which were not true, but these men would use anger and fear to gain control and rule as autocrats.  Hitler was a great example of this type of demagogue and the government he set up was autocratic.  And finally, the theocracy form of government wherein religious rulers ruled by reference to some sort of holy book and threatened hellfire and damnation of the common people if they did not comply.  Think Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Tories in the Americas supported autocracies ruled by bloodlines and where the common man would simply maintain his place in society, peasant, skilled craftsman, artisan, or nobility.  The American Tories did not want to see anything as bold as a democracy.

And that was the term that terrified autocracies around the world.  Democracy was to be of the people, by the people, for the people.  Democracies believed all men were created equal.  Democracies believed that all men had certain rights, given them at birth, that could not be separated from their humanity.  (I use the term “man” because it took us a while to understand that rights applied to women and minorities as well.)  Democracies believed people should vote for their leaders.  Democracies believed the government existed with the consent of the people.  Democracy was a brand new thing!  And when our forefathers penned our Declaration of Independence from the nobility of England a revolt not just in government structure but in the philosophy of government was initiated:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…

Had one studied Descartes, Hume, Espinosa, Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Bacon, and most importantly John Locke one would know this was a real revolution.  It displaced the powerful and wealthy by giving everyone the right to rule their government.  This was the opposite of an autocracy, it was a democracy.  It was the most liberal form of government ever conceived.  John Locke, the English philosopher is called the father of liberalism for his thinking.  Our Founding Fathers read every word of his and loved every word of his.  We are not a nation ruled by the nobility, nor a nation ruled by the military, nor a nation ruled by a demagogue, not a nation ruled by a specific type of religious leader.  We are a nation ruled by the people.  A liberal, secular democracy.  Wow. 

If you do not understand the above it is very difficult to understand America.

In a democracy citizens’ rights are protected, they are not dismissed.  They surely are not dismissed for religious reasons.  In a democracy, citizens are encouraged to vote.  They surely are not restricted or oppressed for voting.  In a democracy, no man is above the law.  Surely not the wealthy, not the pious, not the military, not anyone.  The law applies to all citizens.  In a democracy, truth matters, and respect for the law matters. 

It occurs to me as we approach the mid-term elections that the Republican Party has become a group of Torries.  They want their religious perspective to become law at the expense of citizens’ rights.  They only want certain people to vote.  If they do not like the outcome of an election they declare fraud.  They monger fear of immigrants and others in our society.  They foster anger along racial lines.  They seek to improve the wealth of those at the very top at the expense of everyone else.  They seek to put all the power in the hands of those at the very top of the capitalist ladder, rather than have citizens govern and restrain unbridled money-making.  Yep, Republicans are the Tories.  They are conservative.  They support a man who lost an election but falsely declared the outcomes fraudulent.  They have celebrated religious beliefs becoming the law of the land.  They do not support the civil rights of anyone other than their chosen group.  They even talk about a Constitutional Convention to rewrite our constitution so that it aligns with autocracies, not democracies.  They oppose supporting other nations fighting for freedom and democracy.  They oppose our membership in organizations that defend democracy and hold autocracies at bay.  Quite frankly, I can in no way see the signers of the Declaration of Independence supporting anything they stand for.  They are un-American.

Please vote on November 8.  Please vote for our democracy.  Be wise and careful:  Be a Patriot.  The Tories are coming and they want to take our democracy away. 

Sometimes it is Hard to Know

Sometimes it is hard to know. 

To know if you are on the right side of things.  You want to be a good person, you see yourself as a good person, but you want to be sure what you think and feel is the right way to think and feel.

Especially when there are those you love who think and feel so differently.  You love them, but you can’t be on opposite sides and both be on the right side, can you?  How would that work?  You see a movie you just love, or a song that touches your heart, or some beauty that brings tears to your eyes and peace to your soul, and you want everyone you care for to see it as you do, hear it as you do, feel it as you do.  When they laugh, frown, shrug, or scorn you are hurt.  Deeply.  How can they miss it?  How can they not see it?  You love them.  If they do not love what you love can they love you?

Sometimes it is hard to know.

This is how I know.  

Does your love include or exclude?  Is it only for some or is it for everyone?  Does it help you to hurt others, or hurt you to not help others?  Does your love promote, advance, and support all around you, or does your love insult, put down, belittle or use some around you?  Does what you love and hold dear advance all humans and all humanity, or does what you love and hold dear sort and select some humans who are worthy of what you love and deny other humans what you love? 

What I shall love, what I will know is the right side of things, will be those things I love that I use to promote all others.  I use to apply to all others.  I use to include all others.  I use to support all others. 

If those things I love are used to exclude some, hurt some, demean some, abandon some, deny some, blame some, and deprive some then I will know I am on the wrong side of things.  I am not following what my heart knows to be true.  I am living in fear and anger and selfishness and desirous of wealth at the expense of the poor and power at the expense of the powerless.  These things are not the right things.

When beauty touches the heart it does so differently for each heart.  When truth touches the heart, it does so for every heart.  Walk in truth, love your beauty and you will be on the right side of things.

Then you will know.