Democracy, Death by a Thousand Cuts

Democracies rarely die quickly. Sometimes the decline occurs so slowly, the change is not detected until someone asks, when did that happen? There is a Chinese form of torture called lingchi, or “death by a thousand cuts.” In that process, the condemned was tied to a wooden frame, in a public place, and flesh was cut from the body in a slow tortuous process.

The same term is used in psychology to describe a major negative change that happens slowly in many unnoticed increments where it is not perceived as objectionable. I’m sure there would have been some Chinese folks who would have taken umbrage with the “not perceived as objectionable” part of that comparison, had they survived.

The term might also be applied to modern politics. In the slow demise of a democracy, it would be the process where a small freedom is taken away, then a larger one, then another, and another, and eventually you are living in an authoritarian autocracy. Then, whatever freedoms you might enjoy, would be defined by whomever is in power. It would be doubtful in an autocracy that freedoms would be enjoyed equally by all.

The removal of freedoms may sometimes be explained with some casual justification. Banning books is excused as your freedom from information that might remind you of an unpleasant history. Then there is the “new freedom” to not be bothered by the likes of those in the LGBTQ community. A new move to secrecy surrounding the use of government funds and donations that involve the movements of a governor in the name of protecting that governor’s freedom and safety. The information will be kept secret even after it would no longer present any threat to the governor.

During the peak of the covid pandemic, there was the new freedom to not have to wear a mask even if it meant others might get sick and die. Then there is the “freedom” that allows women to suffer and die carrying an unviable fetus to term. This “exchange” of freedoms is sold to us as if our freedoms are fungible assets. Freedoms are the new bitcoin of the radical right. They will trade them as they see fit even if we are left with a worthless portfolio. Constitutional protections would be but a distant memory.

One thing that can’t be tolerated in an authoritarian regime is any election that does not assure the success of the party in power. Control the vote with gerrymandering, voter intimidation, limited voting times or locations, and make sure you control of the entire process with “your people.” Influence the vote with fear-mongering and false or misleading information. Maintain your control of the election process and you can continue the erosion of freedoms until you have your autocracy.

Power can be an addictive narcotic. A simple taste is enough to develop a craving that cannot be satisfied until it is absolute. We have seen such cravings throughout history. In post-WW1 Germany, Hitler’s rise to power provides such an example. Today we see Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Netanyahu in Israel, Donald Trump in America, and DeSantis in Florida, all craving more and more power. Trump has promised that, if re-elected, he will expand the executive power of his office so he may limit independent agencies. Democracy is but an inconvenient obstacle.

In many instances, the path to power has a simple roadmap. The authoritarian playbook suggests manipulation of the unwitting by pandering to their fears and fanaticism. It can be xenophobia, white nationalism, white supremacy, or an appeal to the desires of evangelical Christians. It is this fear-mongering that creates the foundation for a coalescing of strange bedfellows in an amorphous cult of personality. Truly, a rough 40% of the Republican party could be described with many of these terms.

When Donald Trump attempted to invoke his flawed theory of an independent state legislature to override the will of the citizens of the states to overturn his lost election, that action was thankfully thwarted to prevent his authoritarian takeover of our democracy. Even his heavily conservative Supreme Court, in Moore v. Harper, has recently ruled that theory to be without merit. That decision involved an attempt by North Carolina politicians to wrest any balance of power away from the state courts claiming that their political will should be the final say without any court oversight. This would be like what Netanyahu is trying to do (update, has done) in Israel in removing the only check on his power by limiting the power of the court.

Even down to the state level of government, we see that Florida’s governor DeSantis has used and abused his power with his Republican rubber-stamp legislature. He has not only expanded the power of the governor’s office, but he is also forming his own personal military to enforce his will. This will be a militarized police force with arrest authority over civilians that will answer directly to him and will operate outside federal jurisdiction. His new “state guard” was initially sold as a civilian disaster relief force. This is just a cover for a personal combat-ready militia.

The DeSantis army’s original budget provided $10M and 400 recruits. It has now turned into a $107M operation with 1,500 personnel. The original disaster-type training has morphed, and its new mission is now wholly militaristic with camouflage uniforms and military boot camp-level instruction. This personal army is reminiscent of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (SA) or brownshirts who played a key role in his rise to power. Hitler’s SA was initially formed from the Freikorps made up of ex-soldiers. DeSantis is drawing from former military and police personnel as well, many of who are now resigning as they were “misinformed” as to the mission and function of the unit.

Donald Trump has already announced that, when he wins the presidency and takes back the White House in 2025, he will order the expansion of his powers. He wants an all-powerful executive branch. He must envy his friend Vladimir Putin who has been the effective president of Russia for all this century. Rivals are jailed or poisoned. Russian elections are predetermined with but a single possible outcome.

Power, especially that of the unchecked authoritarian variety, is addicting at a neurochemical level. It may manifest itself in many ways but of most concern is a lack of inhibition, poor judgment, extreme narcissism, cruelty, and perverted behavior. While we would all like to think politicians are as altruistic as Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) in the 1939 movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the reality is quite different. Think more along the lines of Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, and Putin.

In Britain, members of Parliament are recruited using a review panel that will screen candidates with a combination of job-specific competency questions. Looking across the pond from the US we might observe that this process doesn’t always work, but at least they make the effort. Had the Republican Party bothered to even glimpse into the background of George Santos, perhaps they wouldn’t have suffered the embarrassment they now face having to deal with this miscreant power seeker.

To achieve the transformation to authoritarianism in the existence of an ongoing democratic society, you need a distraction. The practitioners of this effort are masters of misdirection. Look, immigrants. Look, people of color are replacing white people. Look, drag queens are trying to groom your children. Look, they are coming for your guns. So, in their quest for power, politicians will see the easiest path forward is one that uses fear and distraction.

A taste of power begets a thirst that is unquenchable. The desire to control others releases dopamine and may affect the brain’s pleasure centers. If that person happens to also be a narcissist, the addiction is even more powerful. What narcissist do you know where this might be true? It is this insatiable lust that is the bane of democracy. We live in dangerous times.

Student Debt

I recently responded to a friend who had posted his displeasure with the Biden student debt relief program. I have to admit that my initial response was similar to his, I paid for mine why can't these people pay for theirs. Upon reflection, I mellowed. This was my comment on my friend's post....

Education is already supported in K-12 at taxpayers' expense. In the U.S., the average cost of tuition and fees is $43,775 at private colleges, $28,238 for out-of-state students at public schools, and $11,631 for state residents at public colleges. Adjusted for inflation, these costs are 140% higher than when I went to college in the 60s.

Yes, education is a choice. For the wealthy, the cost is not a consideration. For the poor, it is often an insurmountable barrier. The wealth gap widens with hard-working Americans often denied the tools necessary for advancement. The rich can afford an advanced education for their children even if they are not as smart as many poor people who are denied that tool for advancement. If the poor roll the dice and take out a student loan to get that education, they are often burdened with crushing debt that will keep them from ever breaking that cycle of poverty.

Our advanced education system has been broken for years. Do I like that we are just now considering a retroactive fix in the form of debt relief? No. It shouldn't have been necessary if, like many things, we hadn't ignored the problem for so long. The proposed student loan debt relief is not a solution. It is a bandaid on an ugly wound.

Perhaps we should join the likes of many European nations who have decided that the entire country benefits when their citizenry is educated. In Norway, Iceland, Germany, Austria, France, Poland, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic, college educations are free or nearly free.

I would wholly support a system that provided a choice for high school seniors where they could go to either a college or trade school for free with but one caveat. They would be obligated to provide a payback in the form of community service. This could be fulfilled in the military or through some civilian public works force that would take on jobs to restore our infrastructure or some other public service. Perhaps this would be on a one-for-one basis with 4 years of college equalling 4 years of public service. Doctors and nurses for nursing homes. Tradespeople rebuilding roads and bridges, installing Internet in rural areas, and water management projects.

They figured this out long ago in Iran. While I disagree with most things this country stands for, they at least figured out how to benefit from an educated citizenry. In Iran, the most prestigious universities are called governmental universities which offer free education for students who pass a very competitive entrance exam with high scores. Graduates from these universities are obliged to serve the country for as many years as they studied for their degree, in order to get their diploma.

No, student debt relief is not a solution. It is only a remedy for a past mistake. There are solutions out there if only politicians could get their heads out of that smelly place looking for what they ate last.

Crisis in Faith [Lawrence O'Donnell]

If you have the resources to listen to the Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC broadcast of Wednesday, July 6, 2023. I highly recommend it. It was titled A Crisis in Faith. In his presentation, he likened his faith in the Supreme Court to his religious faith. His father was a lawyer and he watched, as an 11-year-old, his father argue and win a case in the Supreme Court. He points out that, this SCOTUS is not of the same caliber or morality of the courts of his experience.

I transcribed the first 20 minutes of this broadcast that included an interview with Jamelle Antoine Bouie, a columnist for the NY Times. Mr. Bouie's comments are paragraphed with a [JB] header. All other content is from Lawrence O'Donnell.

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A Crisis in Faith

Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC, Wednesday, 7/5/23

[note, the following was done using voice recognition and some errors in transcription may be present]

It was in a classroom at a Catholic High School in Boston, where I first heard the phrase, crisis of faith. It was during religion class that the priest told us about a crisis of faith that he had some years earlier. For priests, the crisis of faith is losing the belief in God. It is so common for priests to have a crisis of faith. They have a term for it. And they have a process to deal with. Priests leave their priestly duties temporarily until the crisis of faith passes, or permanently if it doesn't. Experiencing a crisis of faith for the last year or so or so and have. Not knowing quite what to say about it or who to talk to about it. There are priests who specialize in counseling Catholic priests who are experiencing a crisis of faith.

But I'm not sure who to turn to for my crisis of faith. It is a crisis of faith. In what has been a God-like presence in my life? When I was baptized into the Catholic faith at birth, my father was a Boston police officer by the time I was in high school learning. About a Catholic priest having a crisis of faith. My father was a lawyer who had already argued and won the case in the United States Supreme Court. I was there in the Supreme Court that day when my father made his case to the justices. I was 11 years old. I had been in many churches and cathedrals by the time I was 11 and had seen monsignors of Cardinals on the altar but had never experienced more majesty in our world than sitting there, looking up at the Warren Court.

There was the Republican-appointed Chief Justice for Warren, flanked by legends on both sides of him, including the most liberal member of the court, William O Douglas, appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This was the court. But ordered the desegregation of public schools in America in 1954. This was the court that found state laws banning interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. Earl Warren had been the Chief Justice of the United States every day of my life.

Thurgood Marshall would join the Warren Court in its last years and personally represent as the first African American member of the Supreme Court the steady march of social progress that the Warren Court guided this country through using, we then thought, something as sacred as the 10 Commandments, the Constitution of the United States. We did not think that Chief Justice Warren and Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall and other legends of the Warren Court were delivering this progress, we thought the Constitution was delivering that process. We thought that the Warren Court was employing the most refined level of legal scholarship possible to reach its constitutional pronouncements, and no other result was possible.

My father lived in awe of the Supreme Court, and so did his children. It was a religious-like law. We never talked about who appointed the justices after they were appointed because it didn't seem particularly relevant. We thought Richard Nixon was a truly terrible, indeed criminal president. But his appointments to the Supreme Court were not bad. The court survived the Nixon years without any questions about its legitimacy, the Court, led by a Chief Justice appointed by Richard Nixon in a unanimous opinion, ordered Richard Nixon to hand over audio tapes that destroyed the Nixon presidency and forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency.

In 1973, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court delivered the opinion on Roe versus Wade that allowed every pregnant woman in America to decide whether to carry that pregnancy. And so my faith in the Supreme Court remains strong no matter who was president.

Then came Senator Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump, who delegitimized the Supreme Court in a way that had been unthinkable until 2016, when Mitch McConnell refused to allow even a confirmation hearing for President Obama's last appointee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. By forcing that Supreme Court seat to remain open for a year, Donald Trump was able to name Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. And so, whenever you see the name Gorsuch on a Supreme Court opinion, you should be seeing the name Garland. The word Gorsuch is an illegitimate presence in the Supreme Court's opinions. And takes its place in those opinions only through the corruption of the Supreme Court confirmation process brought by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and completed by the most corrupt president in history, Donald Trump.

Neil Gorsuch does not evidence a whiff of embarrassment about his illegitimate placement on the Supreme Court. The, pardon the expression, affirmative action it took by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump to get him on the Supreme Court. This last year is the year in which the United States Supreme Court has entered the most publicly corrupt phase of its entire history.

It is entirely possible that 200 years ago there were forms of corruption involving Supreme Court justices that never became public and historians never found. That's possible. But based exclusively on the public record, it is undeniable that the current court, this Republican-dominated Roberts court, is the most corrupt in history. And they are corrupt on two fronts. One, extreme financial improprieties and obvious financial conflicts of interest with billionaire litigants whose cases appear before the Supreme Court.

But the much graver corruption in the Supreme Court, the corruption that affects the daily lives of all of us is the corruption of Supreme Court scholarship. Is legal scholarship, scholarship if you can just make up stuff? That is the question. I've been privately asking myself for over a year now. And that is the essence of my crisis of faith. Where I once faithfully believed that the Warren Court followed by the Burger Court were using the most refined techniques of legal scholarship to deliver to us the true meaning of the Constitution, I now believe the Republican justices on the Supreme Court are just making it up. And they are doing that in a way that scholars cannot possibly do in other areas of scholarship, like mathematics or chemistry or biology. And so we have a Supreme Court whose final decision of the year was based on a person who was made-up. A person who does not exist.

The Republicans on the Supreme Court decided, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor says in her dissent, that quote, “a particular kind of business, though open to the public, has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. The Court does so for the first time in its history by issuing this new license to discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to deny same-sex couples before the equal enjoyment of its services, the immediate symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second class status. In this way, the decision itself inflicts a kind of stigmatic harm on top of any harm caused by denials of service. The opinion of the court is quite finally a notice that reads Some services may be denied to same-sex couples.”

It was just the day before, the Supreme Court issued that opinion, thanks to Melissa Grant reporting in The New Republic, that the same-sex couple named in the lawsuit that reached the United States Supreme Court was proven not to exist. That same-sex couple did not even exist. The lawsuit falsely claimed that a same-sex couple named Stuart and Mike wanted to have a website made for their upcoming wedding. The lawsuit included a phone number for the couple, which Melissa Grant called to discover that Stewart has been married to a woman for many years and has a daughter and had no idea that his first name and phone number appeared in a case before the United States Supreme Court and was used to deny other people their rights. But because the opinion had already been sent to the printer, there was nothing that the Roberts Court was going to do about the fraud perpetrated on the Supreme Court.

And if the court is just making stuff up? They obviously don't care about details like the people who are activating the case in front of them actually existing. That same Supreme Court ruled against what it incorrectly believes is Harvard College’s admissions policy. Republicans on the Supreme Court showed an unrelenting ignorance about the 387-year history of Harvard admissions policy by insisting that Harvard must stop the practice of admitting any student solely because of the color of the student's skin. Harvard has never admitted anyone solely for that reason, and so the Republican-controlled Supreme Court was making a ruling based on a myth that will have next to no effect on Harvard's actual admissions policy.

Many wise observers of the court have been publicly sharing in my crisis of faith without using that phrase. Norm Ornstein was for most of the decades of his exemplary professional work in Washington as a congressional scholar known and trusted for a complete absence of partisanship in his scholarship. The Trump years have left Norm Ornstein standing very clearly on one side of our partisan divide, but still, as always, speaking the truth about Washington institutions, including the Supreme Court. Norm Ornstein says quote, “it is not just rulings the Roberts Court is making they created out of whole cloth of bogus major questions doctrine. They made a mockery of standing. They rewrite laws to fit their radical ideological preferences that have unilaterally blown up the legitimacy of the court.”

When the Roberts court ruled last week on President Biden's student debt relief plan, Chief Justice John Roberts leaned on something he called the major questions doctrine, which, as Supreme Court reporter Ludwick points out is not really a doctrine at all. That opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts provoked the dissent by Justice Elena Kagan, which seems to reveal a crisis of faith much more severe than mine.

An actual member of the Supreme Court now seems to have lost faith in the Supreme Court. In her dissent to the Chief Justice 's opinion on student loan relief. Justice Kagan wrote, “from the first page to the last, today's opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint. At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent. That is a major problem not just for governance, but for democracy too. Congress is, of course, a democratic institution. It responds, even if imperfectly, to the preferences of American voters. And agency officials though not themselves elected, serve a president with the broadest of all political constituencies but this court, it is, by design, as detached as possible from the body politic. That is why the court is supposed to stick to its business, to decide only cases and controversies, and to stay away from making this nation's policy about subjects like. Student one release and that means the court, on deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.”

Justice Kagan is 63 years old. She will, if the country is lucky, serve another 10 to 20 years on the Supreme Court. She will do so knowing she is not serving on the Supreme Court she grew up admiring, on the Supreme Court she no doubt dreamed of serving on when she was a law student. She is serving on the Supreme Court that she believes Violates the Constitution. That is as grave a crisis of faith as has ever been publicly voiced by a Supreme Court Justice.

Leading off our discussion about this is Jamelle Bouie (JB). He is a columnist for the New York Times and co-host of the podcast Unclear and Present Danger. Jamelle, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I have been wondering with whom I can share my crisis of faith here and you are my number one choice for this because I know you share many of the things that have led me to it. And it was you who first pointed out to me that my faith in a Supreme Court was literally in the one that existed during my lifetime. And that has actually turned out to be a relatively brief, let's call it 50 or so year kind of highpoint of the court as a facilitator of progress in the way we live, and in fact, it's not really the full history of the court at all.

JB: That's right, that the period of the court that I think a lot of people off familiar with and have affection for is the Warren Court. And the Warren Court didn't last for all that long 15 years, 16, 17 years, in a relatively short period in the history of the court. You can go back and get a little earlier to the Vinson court and look at some rulings there that lead up to key Warren court rulings like the Brown v. Board.

JB: By and large about 1/4 century tops of time that you can consider maybe even the high point of the Supreme Court when people understand that this defender of the rights of Americans this partner in trying to expand the rights of Americans to treacherous train to the worst parts at the time of our Constitutional status quo of things happening in our society.

JB: If you look back before that. Right into this earlier in the 20th century, it's early in the 19th century. What you see is a court that is consistently, consistently, consistently on the side of big business of corporations. Of uh, you know what I call local bullies, right? Segregationist people who are operating to try to restrain the freedoms of Americans. That court is either indifferent to that or actively abetting it. And that goes back into the 19th century. And so when you're looking at the court. In the present, in the last 25 or 30 years, I think what we're seeing is a court, especially right now, that is hearkening back to what the court has generally been, which is on the side of received power, of received influence, and of wealth.

So we have Senator Chris Murphy saying this Supreme Court six right-wing politicians masquerading as judges, gleefully imposing their politics on the country by fiat and unremorsefully living lives of leisure subsidized by billionaires with interest before the court an outrageous scam. And that's not something Chris Murphy was thinking 10 years ago, five years ago. This is a whole new level and I have to say on the corruption of the scholarship.

When the Alito opinion leaked overturning Roe versus Wade, I found in there two citations from 2 English lawyers and judges. From the Dark Ages, who were prosecutors of witches and who strongly advocated the death penalty for witches in England, which they helped effectuate and helped get witches put to death. And when I highlighted those pieces of the leaked opinion, I actually thought, well, that'll be deleted in the final opinion. Alito’s not gonna put out, and his clerks, they're not gonna put out the final opinion quoting the witch lawyers of England in their opinions about anything. They will be embarrassed by just the ridiculousness of that scholarship. But no, it's in there, both of those old English witch lawyers are in Alito's opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

JB: We've seen this, I mean you mentioned that as well. We've seen this in this term, in the previous term, the court using reasoning, using scholarship that just doesn't hold muster. They're very clearly and simply working backward from a conclusion. That conclusion being what the conservatives on the court wanted to do. And I think it's time to recognize that that's sort of where we're going to be. That we're not necessarily going to see the strongest reasoning from this majority.

JB: We're not going to see rulings that are necessarily consistent with even that court's own reasoning in prior cases. We're going to see effectively a kind of will to power. I think it's gonna require opponents of this court to try to affect something similar in the places where they had confined influence as well.

Political Reality

As we depart from the swell of national pride inspired by our recent July 4th birthday celebration, it is time now to deal with the political reality of the present. Our founding fathers were visionaries but not flawless prognosticators. They relied on their then historical perspective where they were subjects of a monarchy and, in pursuit of independence, decided they wanted something else. They knew they didn’t want a king or any one individual who would be the ultimate decision-maker. Hence our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other founding principles.

Today’s reality is one of personal greed wrapped in a cloak of Christian morality being used to create a period of gross inequality. Wealth equals political power in a way that was never intended. Our founding documents, much like the teachings of the Bible, are being twisted to conform to desired outcomes. Our laws and the interpretation of those laws no longer represent the will of the majority so much as it fulfills the needs of a few.

Let’s take gun violence, the right to bear arms, and the will of the majority of the people. The writers of the 2nd amendment never envisioned a time when the mentally ill would be able to purchase a firearm like an AR15, body armor, unlimited clips of ammunition, and walk into a school, synagogue, church, or crowd of July 4th celebrants and begin shooting at random for no apparent reason.

Whatever your thoughts on the rights of our citizens to bear arms, no right-thinking American would promote such a concept. In fact, virtually every poll taken in recent memory finds that the majority of Americans want some limits to be placed on gun accessibility.

If most Americans want limits and a better set of guidelines for gun access, why are our politicians tripping over themselves to pass legislation contrary to popular thoughts on the matter? Just ask Mitt Romney of Utah this question. I’m sure his answer would not be influenced by the fact that the National Rifle Association sent $13.6M in his direction.

The same could be said of the Senate’s “Dirty Dozen,” recipients of NRA cash donations who have collectively received almost $50M. Joining Romney in this auspicious group are Richard Burr (NC), Roy Blunt (MO), Thom Tillis (NC), Marco Rubio (FL), Joni Ernst (IA), Rob Portman (OH), Todd Young (IN), Bill Cassidy (LA), Tom Cotton (AR), Pat Toomey (PA), and capital track star Josh Hawley (MO). Gun manufacturing and its related industries are a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut that is more than willing to spend money to buy politicians to help promote that industry.

This brings us to abortion. Again, whatever your position on this controversial topic, it is highly doubtful that anyone would condone a law that forces a woman to suffer and perhaps die carrying a dead or non-viable infant to term. Other examples of such cruelty would be child victims of rape or incest, patients undergoing miscarriage compelled to bleed for days and risk sepsis because doctors can’t act, and ectopic pregnancies. Some in the anti-abortion camp perhaps see instances as just described as merely collateral damage in a religious war. They feel justified in their beliefs and want to enforce their will over the will of the majority.

Current polling holds that 61% of Americans want abortion legal in all or most cases. Only 37% say they want it illegal in all or most cases. Similar numbers have existed in all polls taken since 1995. White Protestant, Black Protestant, Catholic, and Unaffiliated polling overwhelmingly support abortion being allowed in all or most cases. The only exception to this would be evangelical White Protestants where 74% want it illegal. This last category represents only 14% of Americans.

So, the next question would be, why are Republicans falling on this religious sword when it would appear that it will hurt them in upcoming elections. I think this is an example of the dog finally catching the car. The relatively small group of evangelicals in the anti-abortion Christian conservative movement would reliably vote Republican while Roe v. Wade made the point moot for the rest of their constituents. Now, after Dobbs, and the haste with which the “Moral Minority” (falsely calling themselves the moral majority for years), advanced draconian legislation without thought or reflection, the backlash is upon them.

The 2024 elections will be a watershed for the Republican cause. It remains to be seen if this will damage them politically. Can they stuff the abortion genie back in the bottle or find enough other distractions to maintain their current majority? Time will tell.

The political reality of today is that any movement forward will be at a glacial pace. Speaking of glaciers, the Earth’s hottest day ever recorded was July 3, 2023. The average global temperature reached 62.62 degrees Fahrenheit. We’ve been recording such things with accuracy since the 1850s. If you have stepped outside in the last two months, you know it is hot. This morning I went out to get the morning paper and I saw a bird yanking a worm out of the ground with an oven mitt.

I won’t go further on climate change beyond saying that we need to make some changes but that won’t happen. If politicians couldn’t be moved to do anything about our gun laws after Sandy Hook beyond their tired “thoughts and prayers,” more complex problems like climate change will have to wait until they install a fan in the debt ceiling.

July 4, 2023

As we begin our traditional celebration of our nation’s birth, perhaps it would be a good time to reflect on why this day should always be one of proud celebration. It is more than hot dogs, hamburgers, watermelons, and fireworks. It is a time to remember the reasons why we celebrate our freedoms and independence. These freedoms were hard fought and require vigilance if they are to be protected.

We all are consumed by the politics of the day. To listen to the various sides of the argument you would think that the end was near and that this current adversity was of such significance that we could never survive. While I hold that the times are critical and our democracy is threatened, we have been here before. Imagine the fractures within our citizenry of the eighteenth century. There was a longing for the security of the motherland but also the temptations of independence.

This country has seen the founding period and the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, World War I, the New Deal, World War II, the Civil Rights Era, the Cold War, the Reagan Revolution, and whatever we end up calling this current debacle.

We have seen a recent erosion of our freedoms in the name of a religious resurgence tainted by obscene greed. Hopefully, we will again find a way through where our freedoms are protected, but not in some backhanded way. We should emerge better for having waged the fight by making a course correction that doesn’t sink the ship.

I, for one, have faith in our democracy. We need to find once again our shared national identity. As Americans, we are all brothers and sisters in a proud but dysfunctional family. Every person within our borders had ancestors who came from somewhere else. Even the indigenous peoples crossed a Landbridge to get here.

We are all but visitors living on a common landmass with a human need to not only survive but survive well. For those of you who believe in the Bible, perhaps it is time to reread that good book to find its true meaning and message once again. That would hold true for other religions as well. For those with no commitment to religion, you are hopefully guided by the human trait of compassion for others.

So, on this our nation’s birthday, perhaps it is time to reflect on our history, find common ground to salvage our democracy and understand that we are all Americans. All other labels are of lesser importance if they warrant any validity at all. The graphic accompanying this article shows a tattered flag. It would be disrespectful to fly such a flag. It should be taken down to make proper repairs. Our country and its founding democracy deserve the same treatment.

Benjamin Franklin: "Where liberty dwells, there is my country."