Sunday, June 22, 2025

#173 / The Overview Effect

  


I am pretty sure that the quote, above, is in Italian. I don't really know Italian, but it's close enough to Spanish that I think I understand what is being said. Here's my translation:

An Astronaut who spent 178 days in space revealed the "big lie" that he came to understand when he was able to see Earth [from space].

The long quotation, below, was comandeered from a Facebook posting, which was made by one of my Facebook Friends. The comment pretty much confirms my earlier comment, which quoted "Captain Kirk" of Star Trek fame. 

Not many of us will ever be able to see our "Exceptional Earth" from space. So, let's take seriously the comments made by those who have: 

Ron Garan, a former NASA astronaut, has spent 178 days in space and accumulated more than 114 million kilometers traveling in 2,842 orbits around Earth. His journey, however, hasn't been just about impressive numbers. During one of those trips, he experienced something that few humans have ever experienced: the so-called Overview Effect, a phenomenon that transforms the way we see our planet. 
The Overview Effect — or “Overview Effect” — is a reality shock common among astronauts. By observing the Earth from space, they realize, viscerally, that the planet is a unique, fragile and interconnected system. For Garan, the experience was so remarkable that he describes it as a “great awakening.” 
In an interview with the site Big Think, he revealed: "Certain things become undeniably clear when you're up there." 
From his window on the International Space Station, Garan witnessed breathtaking natural phenomena: lightning storms that resembled paparazzi flashes, the northern lights dancing like glowing curtains, and the Earth's atmosphere so thin you could "almost touch with your hands." But it was the fineness of that layer that had him on his toes. "I realized that everything that sustains life on Earth depends on a fragile layer, almost like paper," he explained. 
The atmosphere, with its few kilometers thick, is what protects all life forms from hostile conditions of space. For Garan, this view has highlighted a paradox: while the biosphere is vibrant and full of life, human systems treat the planet as a “subsidy to the global economy.” In other words, we prioritize economic growth at the expense of the natural systems that sustain us. "We're living a lie," he stated. 
The astronaut also pointed out how problems like global warming, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity are treated as isolated issues when, in fact, they are symptoms of a larger problem: human disconnection with the planet. "From space, it becomes clear that we do not see each other as part of a whole. "As long as we do not change this mentality, we will continue to be in crisis," he said. 
The solution, according to Garan, is a radical change of priorities. Instead of thinking about "economy, society, planet", we should reverse the order: "planet, society, economy." This simple exchange reflects the need to place environmental health as the basis for all other decisions. "This is the only way we will really evolve," he argued. 
Another crucial point is independence . Garan compared the Overview Effect to “a lightening lamp” — an epiphany about how every human action, however small it may seem, affects the global balance. "We will not have peace on Earth until we recognize that everything is interconnected," he affirmed. 
Since returning to Earth, Garan has dedicated himself to projects that promote sustainability and global cooperation. His message is clear: We urgently need to rethink our place in the world. Have you ever stopped to imagine what it would be like to see the Earth from this perspective? While that doesn’t happen, Garan’s vision reminds us that every choice — from energy consumption to resources usage — is a step toward preserving (or destroying) this delicate “shell” we call home" (emphasis added).

Those who "keep up" with my daily blog postings know that I have often posted pictures of "Earth From Space." They also know that I call our planet, "The World That God Created." 

It's Sunday. Good day to think about that!




Foundation of Freedom

Saturday, June 21, 2025

#172 / Was Kaczynski Right?




Ted Kaczynski, who is pictured above, was widely known as the "Unabomber." Click that link if you don't know anything about the Unabomber, or if your memory has by now grown foggy. If you are a Netflix subscriber you can find out more by tracking down the film, "Unabomber: In is Own Words."

In general, Kaczynski believed that "technology" has "led to widespread psychological suffering and has inflicted severe damage on the natural world." Furthermore, Kaczynski warned that "new technology tends to change society in such a way that it becomes difficult or impossible for an individual to function without using that technology." 

Given this analysis, Kaczynski thought that it was imperative to try to destroy technological society, which led him to dispatch bombs at what seemed to be random targets, from the late 1970's to the mid-1990's, causing both death and damage. The FBI provides a listing. His identify was unknown.

Kaczynski's social, political, and economic critique can be easily reviewed and evaluated. He published a "manifesto," which was titled, "Industrial Society and Its Future," and you don't need to get access to his FBI file to read it. You can purchase a copy from Amazon, although that will require you to shell out something like $90. Access to the text is free from The New York Times and The Washington Post, both of which newspapers published copies in response to a demand that they do so, and in exchange for Kaczynski's promise not to dispatch a new bomb. As it happened, because Kaczynski's manifesto was published so widely, Kaczynski's brother recognized his writing, and this led to his arrest.

According to a relatively recent article in The New York Times Magazine, which was titled, "The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber," Kaczynski's "dark vision" is now finding fans who are beginning to think that Kaczynski's critique of our society was actually right. 

A technology skeptic myself, I do think that some of Kaczynski's complaints have merit. 

I, however, am in favor of changing the world, instead of trying to blow it up, when we find the world to be unacceptable. Changing the world is something that I know we can do. 

We don't have to kill each other in the process of changing the world, either. In fact, killing in the name of peace, prosperity, or truth is always contraindicated and counterproductive. Even Tucker Carlsonthat exemplar of good sense (I am just kidding, there), is quoted in The Times' article as evaluating Kaczynski as a "bad person [with a] smart analysis."

Let's not lose contact with the truth that we can, in fact, change the world when it's going wrong. Whether you are Ted Kaczynski or Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing a United Health Care chief executive in either "protest," or in an attempt to stimulate "change by killing," let's remember that this Unabomber technique is not the right answer, even when the analysis is "smart," even when the analysis is truly spot on!


Friday, June 20, 2025

#171 / I Thought They Called That "Socialism"

  


You may or may not remember this story, from just a little while back. I read about this story in the June 16, 2025, edition of The New York Times. The story was headlined as follows, in the hardcopy version of The Times that I read that morning: "The Details In The Sale Of U.S. Steel." Online, the headline was different, and a bit more explanatory: "‘Golden Share’ in U.S. Steel Gives Trump Extraordinary Control."

Having first opposed a proposal by Japan's Nippon Steel to take over U.S. Steel, our current president ended up approving such a takeover, but only on one condition. The deal had to provide the United States government (in the person of our president, of course) with a so-called "Golden Share," which gives the government an "extraordinary amount of influence over a U.S. company." Here is how Wikipedia explains this term (emphasis added): 

In business and finance, a golden share is a type of share of stock that lets its owner outvote all other shareholders in certain circumstances. Golden shares often belong to the government when a government-owned company is undergoing the process of privatization and transformation into a stock-company.

We tend to think of the United States as a "capitalist" country. There are different opinions on whether or not this is a good thing, but that we live in a "capitalist" system has pretty much been accepted as how things are. Again, there are different opinions on whether "capitalism" is really the best way for a nation to organize itself. To repair to Wikipedia, one more time, here is the definition of "capitalism" that this online encylopedia provides:
 
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit (emphasis added).

For good or ill, it appears that our current president has gotten involved in what was first proposed as a private market transaction, to ensure that the "government," not private owners, will have a decisive say on how U.S. Steel is operated. Again, some might think that this is a kind of "socialism," and those who have a positive view of "socialism" might conclude that what our current president has done is a very good thing. Think about it, though!

Haven't we had some experience with "National Socialism"?

And wasn't that, really, a truly BAD experience? Just in case this is all escaping you, click the link above and you will find that the Encyclopedia Britannica discusses "National Socialism" in its article on the "Nazi Party." 


Thursday, June 19, 2025

#170 / Is The President's Judgment Final?

  


The Posse Comitatus Act, which dates from 1878, bars the use of federal troops for civilian law enforcement purposes, "except in cases and under circumstrances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress."

Suppose the president uses federal troops improperly? Can someone challenge the president's decision? Could California Governor Gavin Newsom, for instance, challenge what our current president has been doing with respect to the use of federal troops in Los Angeles?

According to a column in The Wall Street Journal, the Trump Administration is arguing that a Supreme Court decision handed down nearly two hundred years ago, Martin v. Mott (1827), makes clear that the answer is "no." Trump claims that "the president's judgment in this matter is final."

The factual situation in Martin v. Mott is completely different from what is happening today, in Los Angeles. We will just have to wait to see what the Supreme Court has to say. 

We can observe, though, that if "the president" is the only person entitled to decide whether the conditions outlined in the Constitution and federal law are being met, the president is then possessed of what amounts to a unilateral power to use the armed forces under the president's command, and the power to tell the nation's military forces that they have to do what the president wants, despite any law or Constitutional prohibition to the contrary. 

Such an interpretation, if approved by the Supreme Court, turns our elected Chief Executive into a dictator. The only opinion that would count would then be whatever the president decides. The president's "judgment" would be final

I liked what The Wall Street Journal had to say about this, in the conclusing words of the column I have referenced above:

The Supreme Court should not surrender its constitutional authority to review the deployment of U.S. forces inside the U.S.


Wednesday, June 18, 2025

#169 / Put It In Writing



 
I have already written a blog post about "pen pals," which, among other things, extolls a book titled, I Will Always Write Back. Let me provide another reference for those who might be willing to consider entering into an epistolary correspondence with some other person whom (at least at the outset) you don't even know.

Starting up a "pen pal" relationship, of course, is the epistolary equivalent of one of my basic recommendations for the "good life," and for a "good politics." I have written frequently to comment on how important "Talking To Strangers" can be. I recommend that! And "Finding Some Friends." I recommend that, too!

In terms of forging a "pen pal" relationship, a recent edition of The Stanford Magazine is providing some good ideas, very much consistent with what is described in I Will Always Write Back

Jennifer Reese, who is pictured above, and who is a writer based in Brooklyn, suggests some ways a person might get started. "Put It In Writing" is the title of the article which provides Reese's advice. The real "heroine" of Reese's article is a woman named Rachel Syme, a staff writer for The New Yorker. Among other things, Syme is the author of Syme's Letter Writer, which Amazon describes as follows:

Inspired by a famed correspondence handbook penned by a persnickety Victorian who had strong opinions on how to lick a stamp, cultural critic Rachel Syme has rewritten the staid letter-writing rules of yore for the letter writers of today. Syme insists you must stuff your envelopes with flat frivolities (and includes guides for how to press flowers and make a matchbook-mark), teaches you how to perfume a parcel, and encourages you to cultivate your own ritual around keeping up with your correspondence. Even if you have never sent a hand-written letter before, this book will make you want to begin – and will show you just how to get started. 
Immerse yourself in this epistolary bric-a-brac celebrating the intimate (whimsical! expressive!) art of written correspondence, covering every part of the process from courting and keeping a pen pal, down to buying the best nibs for your refurbished vintage fountain pen. As you read fragments of letters and journals from storied literary figures—Zelda Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Pat Parker, Vita Sackville-West, Djuna Barnes, Octavia Butler, to name a few—you can take note of how to write about the weather without being a total snooze, how to write a letter like a poet, and how to infuse your correspondence with gossip and glamorous mystique. You’ll learn about the magic of hotel stationery, the thrill of sending postcards, and the importance of choosing a signature paper that captures your essence. 
After all, the words you write on paper and send to another person, are precious, offering comfort, shared sorrow, cathartic rage, hard-earned insight, refreshing strangeness, absurd silliness, understanding, delight, commiseration, and beauty—and often all of those things all mixed up at the same time. Letter-writing is meant to be enjoyed—so pick up a fountain pen and get writing!

For the same reasons that I urge us all to "talk to strangers," I do recommend that we "pick up a fountain pen and get writing!" That is what both Syme and Reese are urging. There is, after all, a lot to talk about (and to write about), and particularly about how we are to survive in our "political world." 

In a way, I more or less consider my daily blog postings my own effort to forge a "pen pal" relationship with people I don't actually know. If you are reading this, and would like to hear from me every day, just click that next link!


 

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

#168 / Could This Guy Be Right?



 
That is Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., pictured. He writes a regular business column for The Wall Street Journal. To be completely candid, I am not a fan. Still, I do subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, and so I read Jenkins' columns, as they periodically appear. I am always trying to make sure that I "consider the alternatives," even when (and perhaps especially when) I already know what I think!

I think that global warming is a genuine and potentially world-ending crisis, and so when I saw the headline on Jenkins' column in the January 15, 2025, edition of The Journal, I was pretty sure that I was not going to agree with what I was about to read. Here is the headline I am talking about: "End of a Climate Delusion."

In fact, Jenkins does basically dismiss the reality of the global warming crisis, even in the face of the Los Angeles fires. I definitely don't agree with him in his overview perspective on global warming. Jenkins is not much concerned. I am!

Here, however, in an excerpt from Jenkins' column on what he calls the "Climate Delusion." Could this be a statement that is worth thinking about? Could this guy be right?

Green-energy subsidies do not reduce emissions. This will be news to millions of California voters. It contradicts a central tenet of state policy. It isn’t news to the actual enactors of these subsidies. A National Research Council study sponsored by congressional Democrats in 2008 concluded that such handouts were a “poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases” and called for carbon taxes instead. 
Unfortunately, the incoming Obama administration quickly discovered it favored climate taxes only when Republicans were in charge. Backers would later engage in flagrant lying to promote Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, knowingly citing bogus predictions that its trillion-dollar spending profusion would reduce emissions.
A 2019 University of Oregon study had already revealed the empirical truth: Green energy doesn’t replace fossil fuels, it enables more energy consumption overall. That same year the EPA calculated that the potential emissions savings from subsidizing electric vehicles had been offset five times over by the pickup truck and SUV boom Team Obama facilitated to assure the success of its auto bailout (emphasis added).

To the degree that Jenkins' column can be read as a statement in support of carbon taxes, I do agree with him. Carbon taxes are something we need. Further, I have to say that I think I am in agreement with the other statements that I have highlighted in the excerpt from Jenkins' column. 

It is certainly true that green-energy subsidies do not "reduce emissions." Furthermore, "green energy" does not - at least not automatically - replace fossil fuels. New sources of "green energy," since they provide a new "supply," can indeed lead to "more energy consumption overall."

An effective policy to combat global warming would require a reduction in energy supplied by fossil fuels as new energy sources, not based on fossil fuels, are made available. Otherwise, Jenkins' observation is correct, the new "green" energy sources (absent a corresponding reduction in 'non-green" energy sources) will simply mean that we're going to be using more energy. 

What do we actually need? In so many areas, as I have said before in these daily blog postings, what we need most is LESS.


Monday, June 16, 2025

#167 / Only The Lonely



 
That is Roy Orbison, pictured, as he is using that exquisite voice of his to sing "Only The Lonely." 

You can click right here for the lyrics. If you want to hear Orbison sing that song (or sing it again, I hope; I hope you have already heard him sing it - and I hope more than once) - here is the place you need to click to hear Roy Orbison sing

This blog posting was stimulated by an article in the February 25, 2025, edition of The Atlantic. The article is titled, "The Anti-Social Century." Orbison is not mentioned, but loneliness sure is: 

Americans are spending less time with other people than in any other period for which we have trustworthy data, going back to 1965. Between that year and the end of the 20th century, in-person socializing slowly declined. From 2003 to 2023, it plunged by more than 20 percent, according to the American Time Use Survey, an annual study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among unmarried men and people younger than 25, the decline was more than 35 percent. Alone time predictably spiked during the pandemic. But the trend had started long before most people had ever heard of a novel coronavirus and continued after the pandemic was declared over. According to Enghin Atalay, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Americans spent even more time alone in 2023 than they did in 2021. (He categorized a person as “alone,” as I will throughout this article, if they are “the only person in the room, even if they are on the phone” or in front of a computer.) ... 
Self-imposed solitude might just be the most important social fact of the 21st century in America. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many observers have reduced this phenomenon to the topic of loneliness. In 2023, Vivek Murthy, Joe Biden’s surgeon general, published an 81-page warning about America’s “epidemic of loneliness,” claiming that its negative health effects were on par with those of tobacco use and obesity. A growing number of public-health officials seem to regard loneliness as the developed world’s next critical public-health issue. The United Kingdom now has a minister for loneliness. So does Japan.

One way to take a step against the growing epidemic of loneliness is to "find some friends," which I have been advocating in various blog postings over the past year or so. If you do embark on an effort to increase your friendship circle (in the "real" world, not "online") you will be taking a step towards the restoration of self-government, too - the kind of government that was the primary motivation for the American Revolution, and the alternative to which is oligarchy, autocracy, and totalitarianism. 

Lonely people are powerless people. As Hannah Arendt tells us (and I have said this before, too): 

Power comes into being only if and when [people] join themselves together for the purpose of action, and it will disappear when, for whatever reason, they disperse and desert one another.

Sociologists measure and analyze the shape and permutations of society. They describe the world. That article in The Atlantic is a good example. Those engaged in the adventure of self-government, on the other hand, don't spend most of their time describing the world - what's good about it, what's bad about it, etc.

Those engaged in the adventure of self-government focus on taking action to change the world

Surely you must agree that we do have to change the world. Actually, there isn't any viable alternative. So what are we going to do?

Check that Hannah Arendt quote again (with my emphasis added): "Power comes into being only if and when [people] join themselves together for the purpose of action....  It will disappear when, for whatever reason, they disperse and desert one another."

So, if we believe Arendt, we need to "get together" to take action. But who really believes that will pay off, right?  Orbison give us some guidance, right at the end of his song.  He says we've gotta take the chance:

Maybe tomorrow
A new romance
No more sorrow
But that's the chance
You gotta take

Arendt puts it this way: Don't be a deserter!


 

Sunday, June 15, 2025

#166 / Good Advice From My Dad

 


The Blondie comic strip, shown above, was first published in 1946. Way back then, I was three years old. Chic Young, the artist who drew the strip, titled this comic, "Lazy Man's Load." If you click that link to the title, that should take you to a website where you will be able to expand the image substantially, which will let you see it better. Then you will see just how big a load Dagwood was trying to cart into the kitchen, after dinner. 

For many of us, our fathers have had a truly formative influence on the people we have become. That has certainly been true for me, as I have revealed in these blog postings before. Philips Bowerman Patton, my Dad, isn't named as one of my "Five Guys" for nothing!

Lots of little things that a father says may come back, like a reminder, many years later. Just recently, I remembered my father warning me not to try to carry a "Lazy Man's Load." 

My Dad may have learned the expression from the Blondie comic strip, for all I know. The Internet reference I checked, and linked above, indicates that the expression "dates from the turn of the twentieth century and may be dying out."

Well, it hasn't died out quite yet! Here it is, twenty-five years past the turn of the twenty-first century, and I'm still keeping that warning in mind. 

It's Father's Day. My Dad, consistently, gave me good advice. Let me pass on this advisory, on the topic of the "Lazy Man's Load." It's good advice from my Dad - and it's a nice day to pass it along!

Saturday, June 14, 2025

#165 / A Song For "No Kings" Day


 


They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king
There’s only one step down from here, baby
It’s called the land of permanent bliss
What’s a sweetheart like you doin’ in a dump like this?
Bob Dylan / Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music




Friday, June 13, 2025

#164 / The Transcendent Moral Authority Of Nature


Dr. Glenn Ellmers, pictured above, is a research fellow at The Claremont Institute, the stated mission of which is to "restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life." In the December 2024, edition of Imprimis, published by Hillsdale College, an essay by Dr. Ellmers was titled as follows: "Religious Liberty and the Genius of the American Founding." 

You can click that link to read the entirety of what Dr. Ellmers has to say. He is in favor of religious liberty, of course, just to cut to the chase. However, Ellmers does go back quite a ways to document what religious liberty is really all about, and I was particularly struck by one sentence, near the very end of Ellmers' article: 

The American Founders' invocation of the transcendent moral authority of nature is one of the most remarkable acts of statesmanship in human history (emphasis added).

It is Ellmers' contention that "religion" and "politics" used to be, essentially, the same thing. "Gods" went with the territory. Every nation, or people, had their own god, and so there was no tension, really, between divine and civil law, between "religious" demands and the demands made by the political leaders of the nation. Christianity changed all that. 

Here is how Ellmers outlines what he identifies as a major problem:

After Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 and the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, three dilemmas emerged. 
First, there was one God, but many regimes. For the first time in the history of Western Civilization, religious and civil authority were separated. To put it another way, divine and civil law were no longer the same. All of Europe belonged to one church, but it was split into many principalities. Citizens confronted the challenge of dual allegiances for the first time: they were required to obey both their king and their pope. But what if the king and the pope disagreed? This was something new. 
Second, following the split between divine and civil law, what was the source of political authority? In the ancient city, laws came directly from God. But where did, for instance, the Prince of Bavaria get his authority? The solution the Europeans came up with is the theory of the divine right of kings, which was an attempt to reconnect civil and divine authority as in the ancient world. 
In practice, however, the divine right of kings means hereditary monarchy. If the king’s ancestors received their authority directly from God—as the idea of divine right holds—then only the king’s direct descendants can exercise that authority. This causes enormous succession problems. What if the king has no legitimate heirs? What if the only heir is utterly unqualified to rule? What if a nephew or a cousin has a partial claim on the throne and is far more qualified? 
In fact, we know what happens because it did happen, over and over again, as anyone familiar with the history of England and Shakespeare’s history plays can tell you. Civil wars happened. 
The third dilemma was that the content of belief, or doctrine, became incredibly important in a way it was not in the ancient world. There was little investigation into matters of conscience prior to Christianity. It was the outward expression of piety—demonstrating loyalty to the community and its gods by obeying the divine law and participating in the public ceremonies and rituals—that mattered in the ancient world. It is only with Christianity that belief becomes paramount. And this opened the door to persecution.

So, says Ellmers, in order to establish republican self-government, the American Founders had to "figure out how to create moral and political legitimacy for the new nation, and to establish the sacredness of the law—which alone can command the citizens’ devotion and obedience—while avoiding the religious conflict and persecution that had plagued Europe." They brilliantly found a way to do that, he says, and memorialized it in the Declaration of Independence, by using the following words to provide both a religious and a purely "political" foundatiion for the laws that would guide the nation: 

"The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” 

Ellmers calls this a "revolutionary truth," combining human reason and divine revelation, and provided the basis for establishing religious liberty for the first time in human history. Here is his more extended explanation: 

By looking to the laws of nature (or laws of reason) and nature’s God as the ultimate justification for their revolution, the Founders were asserting that there was an objective moral order in the world because that world was created by a benevolent and reasonable God. Since our minds are a gift from God, and He intended us to use them, we can perceive much of this moral order through our own rational faculties.... 
This natural moral order exists outside of our will—it exists whether we like it or not. We are born into both a physical and a moral world that we do not create.... 
By contrast, the laws of nature and nature’s God are fixed and unchanging. They serve as the ground for political authority and supply conventional or everyday law with sacred and transcendent authority. In establishing this foundation for American politics, the Founders addressed ... three problems.... 
First, they solved the split between piety and citizenship by supplying a common ground for morality. Since we can understand virtue and vice through our own rational faculties, the law can enforce moral precepts that are acknowledged by both political and ecclesiastical authorities. In other words, because the morality of the Bible and the morality of reason are compatible, one can be both a pious believer and a good citizen, while avoiding the contentious sectarian disputes that tore Europe apart. 
Second, this common ground of morality makes it possible to delineate in a clear way the political and religious realms. That the separation of church and state becomes possible for the first time can be seen most clearly in Jefferson’s Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom. The Declaration’s teaching about the laws of nature and nature’s God establishes a kind of political theology, a non-sectarian ground of legitimacy that makes the laws “sacred” without getting the government involved in theological disputes about the Trinity, faith versus works, etc. According to many Protestant ministers of the Founding era, this also allowed true Christianity to flourish for the first time because Christianity could be practiced by choice rather than by coercion. 
Third, the Founders solved the problem of religious persecution. Because the government and the churches can agree on a moral code that is compatible with both reason and revelation, each can operate in its proper realm without intruding on the other. It becomes possible to institutionalize religious liberty by prohibiting religious tests for office and keeping government out of the business of punishing heresy.

Let me alert readers who may not know this that Dr. Ellmers is what I might call a "right winger," and that I have excised from the quotation above his diatribe against "leftists," whom he denounces as trying to suggest that there is anything "natural" about those persons who don't conform to his personal views of what "gender" demands. What I found interesting was not his right-wing views of politics (views shared by Hillsdale College and the Claremont Institute), but the idea that there are, really, two different "worlds," as I like to say. The world of "Nature," and then the world that we create ourselves, a "Political World." 

The way I see it, appreciating this way of understanding the world is important, and what's important is not what "religion" has to say. What is important is that our human actions and activities, our "political actions," are, on the one hand, totally "free." We can do virtually anything in the "political" world that we create, and in that world nothing is "inevitable," just because we are "free" to take actions that may never have ever been thought of before.

But... despite our political "freedom," in which we can choose to do wonderful things, or to perpetrate horrors (and the holocaust is, of course, is our go-to example of the extremes to which we can go), we are, ultimately, dependent on the "World of Nature," the "World That God Made." We are completely dependent on "Nature," which we know, firsthand, as Planet Earth, and we must love it, and live in accordance with its requirements, or we will not survive. Our "politics" is always subordinate to "the transcendent moral authority of nature. 

To the extent that Ellmers has made me see that those who created this nation, the Founders, really did understand this, though they did not articulate this truth in the way I have been doing, I am comforted that what I have decided to believe is true is true, in fact. 

I revere those who founded this nation, who could write out and then sign our "Declaration of Independence." That Declaration binds us still, and motivates us, still. 

It is, I firmly believe, our task, now - today - to live up to the demands that the Declaration of Independence makes upon us - and to dedicate ourselves, "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," to advancing the hope that it should inspire in us. 

Thursday, June 12, 2025

#163 / An Age Of Hypocrisy



Roger Berkowitz, the Founder and Academic Director of The Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, sends out a weekly bulletin. It's usually pretty good! The posting I received from Dr. Berkowitz on June 1st, was titled: "The Age of Hypocrisy." I think you can read it (no bothersome paywall to prevent you) by just clicking that link. Berkowitz claims that his latest bulletin is a "7 min read." 

Mostly, Berkowitz is pointing out that our politics no longer center on "the economy." He believes that our politics used to center on the economy, and that the phrase made famous by political operative James Carville, in 1992, "It's the economy, stupid," no longer pertains. Now, says Berkowitz, our politics is dominated by "rage against hypocrisy." 

I think Berkowitz is on to something - and something important. However, I want to comment on what I believe is a grammar-related mistske that I think Berkowitz has made, and to point out that we all need to be careful not to talk ourselves into believing things that may well not be true. Here's the first paragraph of the Berkowitz bulletin, with a highlighted sentence that causes me some concern: 

A settled truth of recent American politics has been: “It’s the economy, stupid.” But this simple maxim is no longer as powerful as it once was. Today, what animates voters is not only economic pain or prosperity — it’s the rage against hypocrisy. Corruption that once disqualified a politician is now overlooked — or even admired — so long as it is without pretense and when it is perceived to be the privilege of real and raw power. At a moment when trust in liberal institutions is collapsing, Americans are willing to accept open corruption so long as that corruption is seen to be in the service of power (emphasis added).

My discomfort comes from Berkowitz's use of the word, "Americans." There is no doubt that millions of Americans are willing to accept open corruption, as Berkowitz says. Furthermore, lots of Members of Congress seem to be among their number. But "Americans," used just like that, in the plural, implies (and is conventionally read as) ALL Americans..... 

I think "Americans," as Berkowitz is using it, needs to be qualified. "Many" Americans might be one way (if you think that is the right description). Or, "a number of" Americans could work. "Americans" by itself implies, the way I read it, that ALL Americans are "willing to accept open corruption...."

I do NOT believe that "all" Americans are willing to accept the kind of corruption that is so clearly visible in the way that our current president, his family, and his billionaire friends have been conducting themselves. Millions of Americans are holding signs on street corners, and are getting ready to demonstrate, on June 14th, how much they object to what is going on. Millions of Americans, and in a multitude of ways, are doing what they can to "Resist" the kind of politics of corruption that we see in every daily newspaper, and on every television screen, and in the posts that flood our social media. "NO KINGS" is the message that perhaps millions of Americans are going to endorse on June 14th.  

MANY people are afraid of what is happening, and expresss not only distress, but hopelessness at the kind of "corruption" that we see so clearly, everywhere. IF "all" Americans actually "accept" what is going on, that hopelessness is well justified. 

But it's not true that Berkowitz's observations apply generally, to "all" Americans. People tend to believe what they "see," and they often "see" what they are "told." We are, clearly, being told in a number of different ways that the country "accepts" what is going on. The result, for those who then "believe" this, is the promotion of despair and defeatism. 

I think we need to take care not to feed a kind of defeatism and despair that is NOT merited. When it's "game over," the fans go home. When we believe that we have lost, we stop trying to win. In our politics, it's nowhere near "game over," and I feel the need to speak out in opposition to anything that might lead people to believe that it is. 

I do not believe that "all" Americans have capitulated to corruption, in the way Berkowitz describes, and I think it's important to be careful, as we describe real issues and real problems, not to give the impression that our "idealistic" notions about genuine self-government, a government operated of, by, and for the people, is something that has, actually, been lost. 

In danger? Yes. Lost, as Americans accept the open corruption of our politics? Not yet! And never, unless we give up the fight.

 

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

#162 / The Accumulation Of All Powers

   
  

I have reproduced, at the end of this blog posting, a relatively short column from The Wall Street Journal. That column, it seems to me, provides an excellent opportunity for those reading this blog posting to become acquainted with provisions of the United States Constitution with which they may not be familiar. 

Here is a quick quiz. What do YOU know about "Bills of Attainder"? I am posting what the Constitution says right here:

ARTICLE I, SECTION 9
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

ARTICLE 1, SECTION 10
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

To see how Mr. Trump and his Administration are ignoring the Constitution, read the column I have reprinted, below. For another reading that spotlights how our current president is ignoring the Constitution - a reading from which I lifted the phrase that I have made the title of today's blog posting -click this link. If you do that, you will be able to read what Heather Cox Richardson has to say about "the accumulation of all powers." This phrase also reflects the wisdom of James Madison, and those others who drafted our Constitution.

oooOOOooo

Trump Bills of Attainder Target Law Firms
His executive orders test a constitutional limit on government’s power of punishment.

By James Huffman
March 18, 2025

President Trump’s executive orders penalizing three law firms—Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss—threaten the constitutional structure that the Framers envisioned. Though the orders deal with the executive branch—including removing employees’ security clearances, barring access to government buildings, and imposing unique limits on federal contracts—they constitute a shocking expansion of White House power.

In a remarkable opinion rendered barely 24 hours after Perkins petitioned the court, Judge Beryl A. Howell granted a temporary restraining order against parts of the executive order. She found Perkins suffered irreparable harm from the president’s order and that the law firm would likely prevail on several of its claims. The most important objection was one Judge Howell astutely raised, although Perkins hadn’t: The order constitutes a bill of attainder, which is explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. All three orders likely do.

A bill of attainder is a law that imposes punishment without trial on specific people retroactively. The order cites no law that Perkins violated but instead critiques activity that the administration alleges took place, running back to the 2016 presidential campaign. Like a bill of attainder, the order appropriates from the judiciary the constitutional power to determine guilt and impose punishment.

The framers explicitly prohibited bills of attainder because they saw that such judicial powers, if in the hands of legislators or the executive, were frequently abused. As Theodore Plucknett explained in “A Concise History of the Common Law,” bills of attainder were common from Parliament or the British king for “reasons of state and political expediency” and “mere vindictiveness.”

Though Mr. Trump’s executive order against Perkins purports to protect national security, it looks like vindictiveness, plain and simple. Judge Howell observed that the order’s language “makes clear” that it “is a means of retaliating” against the firm. Mr. Trump “targeted” Perkins because it accepted “clients who are the president’s political opponents or who the president does not like.” The government’s unwavering defense of the order, Judge Howell said, “sends little chills down my spine.”

The Trump administration argues that because the Constitution’s prohibition against bills of attainder appears in Article I, which sets forth Congress’s powers, it applies only to lawmakers and not the president, whose powers come from Article II. Judge Howell disagreed. Pointing out that the framers didn’t anticipate Washington’s present-day reliance on executive orders which have the force of law, she could conceive of no reason that the prohibition would apply only to acts of Congress. If anything, the administration’s argument implies that it is swallowing up legislative as well as judicial powers.

Perkins Coie will likely prevail on due process or free-speech grounds, but what Mr. Trump has done is worse than limiting either of those constitutional rights. A presidential bill of attainder places the powers of all three governmental branches in the hands of one man. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” (emphasis added).

Mr. Huffman is a professor and dean emeritus at Lewis & Clark Law School.

Foundation of Freedom

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

#161 / NEP




Somehow, I got on a list that delivered me an emailed newsletter from NEP. As delivered, the newsletter was accompanied by the logo above, which I did not immediately recognize. It turns out that NEP is a digital magazine, founded in 2010 by academics in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. I guess I had subscribed!

"NEP" stands for "Not Even Past," which is an appropriate name for a magazine published of, by, and for historians. It looks like you can sign up for the newsletter yourself, if you'd like to do that, by clicking right here

The person pictured below, William Faulkner, is the guy responsible for the name given to the NEP newsletter. I have always admired Faulkner, and celebrate his statement: 


You don't have to be a history major to know that Faulkner was right about that! In case you missed it, here's a link to one of my blog postings that features a sizable chunk of Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. Worth reading. Worth taking to heart!


Image Credits: