Greg Proffit Writing

Tag: politics

  • To Form A More Perfect Union

    Artist’s rendering of the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia 1787

    In the mid-1700s, Colonial America consisted of thirteen colonies. Each of these had received a charter. Each was autonomous. Each had a governor. Most had some form of (state) legislative bodies. Facing the occupation of a British army in the northern colonies and the patrol of the ports and shipping lanes up and down the Atlantic seaboard by the world’s greatest naval power, the Colonies faced dire prospects in their struggle for just treatment and representation.

    The British parliament and King had little regard for the political sensibilities of their colonial subjects. The colonies were more like business interests; resources to be mined, profits to be made.

    As conditions worsened, resistance to British rule gained momentum. In 1774, two years before the Declaration of Independence, a special gathering was assembled. Known as the Continental Congress, it was the first group of representatives composed of delegates from each colony joined for the purpose of communicating and coordinating resistance measures among the thirteen autonomous colonies. 

    We must remember that there was no federal government, no seat of power, no Washington, DC. There was no Department of Defense, no Internal Revenue Service, no Treasury, no National Bank. 

    This fledgling idea of American Federal political power was born of the necessity of thirteen colonies with no central direction to unite in coordinated resistance to a common foe. That same need; the ability to coordinate resistance to a common enemy, is still one of the strongest necessities of a Federal government, having the requisite authority to do so. 

    The mandate of the Continental Congress was to coordinate an effort to resist the British. But doing so in the pre-Revolutionary Colonial period was a daunting task. It was a time of disjointed, competitive, non-cooperation between thirteen Colonial governors, desperate to hold power for themselves. It was more like an NCAA athletic conference, composed of individual member universities competing for the best athletes and honors, than anything we know today. 

    The colonies even made trade and treaty agreements with foreign States individually. There was no oversight of inter-colonial commerce, no regulation of weights and measures, no single currency. There was no existing Judicial body to hear disputes between colonies other than the British Parliament and the Crown. There was no national taxation. There was no nation.

    These realities are lost to us who have lived our entire lives as citizens of the United States of America. We have grown up in the shadow of a powerful Federal government operating from Washington, DC. The Revolutionary period is a collection of stories from our early civics classes in school. July 4th is a reason to shoot off fireworks and drink beer in the summer. We know the names of men like Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson. We have vague notions of them doing some heroic things. But we live as if our government and our country just grew this way; as if it has always been here; as if it will always be here.

    But at the time of the framing, there was no Washington, DC. There were no Senators. There was no House of Representatives. There were thirteen autonomous colonies that were forced by history, geography, and circumstance to unite themselves or face annihilation and dissolution at the hands of Great Britain.

    Despite these obstacles, the desire to resist British tyranny was so great, that the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It somehow succeeded in the effort to field a Revolutionary army, adopt a code of conduct, pay the soldiers, authorize officers, including the appointment of George Washington, and raise funds for the materiel necessary to the war effort. This was a Herculean task.

    At the end of the war, there were large war debts to pay, there was a standing army to disband, and there were new treaties to be established with foreign nations, some of which involved the assimilation of new lands won by virtue of the Revolution’s military victory. 

    Faced with these post-war challenges, the Continental Congress first sought to strengthen the existing Articles of Confederation, largely under the efforts of South Carolinian, Charles Pinckney. But a stubborn resistance to consolidated political power persisted after the Revolution was won on the battlefield. There was not even a way to compel attendance at the meetings of the Continental Congress. 

    In 1787, efforts turned away from the too flimsy Articles of Confederation. A Constitutional Convention was convened in Philadelphia to the create a new, more robust government suited for the temperament of the newly liberated Colonies and able to meet the challenges at hand. A more perfect Union wasn’t just poetic language, it was a very practical necessity.

    The need for a more perfect Union presupposes a distribution of political power between State governments and the newly established Federal government. None of the delegates from the several colonies were going to completely give up Colonial (State) power. The framers also were genius in that they cooked in checks and balances even at the Federal level so distrustful were they of consolidated, concentrated, centralized power. They had just spent fifteen long, hard, perilous years fighting a tyranny. They weren’t about to establish a new one. 

    These historical truths and historical forces have always been in competition, seeking a balance of power and influence. The need for preservation of states rights; the requirement of a limited, yet potent federal authority; the creation of a strong executive, but one with clear boundaries and checks all were on the minds of the framers. 

    Having lived through the Revolutionary War, after cobbling together an army to resist a British invasion, the framers experienced firsthand the inefficiencies and limits posed by unilateral, disjointed actions undertaken by individual states. And they foresaw the possibility of other national, existential difficulties. They envisioned and created a national federal authority with enough clout to coalesce, and coordinate, and legislate resistance to a common foe. 

    Federal power was birthed in resistance to a common enemy. A more perfect Union is still needed in the face of a common enemy. These truth have not faded away with the passage of time. We are living them to this day.

  • The Purpose of Government as Defined by the US Constitution

    The framers of the US Constitution, meeting in Philadelphia in 1787 were tasked with codifying the framework of government that the newly independent, loosely confederated American colonies might adopt as its charter, founding document, it’s raison d’être, to borrow a wonderful French term, its ”reason for being”,… its purpose.

    The framers don’t leave the reader in suspense very long. In the opening words, the famous Preamble, they lay out the ends they seek, the purpose for which their labors to craft a document for consideration has been undertaken. 

    I quote directly, the elegantly stated opening of the wikipedia page on the Preamble:

    ”The Preamble to the United States Constitution, beginning with the words We the People, is a brief introductory statement of the Constitution’s fundamental purposes and guiding principles. Courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of the Founding Fathers’ intentions regarding the Constitution’s meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve.”

    And the Preamble itself:

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    There are six, integrated, delineated co-equal ”reasons” listed in sequence in the Preamble, that the Constitution and the Government it establishes is designed to achieve. Or six problems that the Constitution and resultant Government, taken as a whole, must solve. 

    They are:

    1. to form a more perfect Union
    2. establish Justice
    3. insure domestic Tranquility
    4. provide for the common defence [sic]
    5. promote the general Welfare
    6. secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

    This will be basic for some readers. Others, many of my acquaintance, ascribe to themselves knowledge of the purpose of the Constitution, and yet are ignorant, having never really read and internalized these six, foundational reasons for the existence of the government of the United States of America as framed by the Constitution. 

    This ignorance allows for one to be led astray and taken captive by charisma and falsehood towards a version of America the framers never envisioned.

    Any politician or political party that does not fully embrace and tirelessly commit to ALL six of these reasons as the ends they seek to achieve by their rhetoric and their policies, has abandoned the foundational principles of the American experiment. Likewise, such an entity makes themselves an enemy of the State. These should serve as the guiding beacon to all citizens when considering candidates for political office. These should serve as the standard to which all elected officials are held in their official capacities, statements, and efforts.

    Though, I am the least qualified person to do an exhaustive study of the questions involved, nevertheless, I will make an attempt, in language that is my own, to look at these six stated reasons, believing, as I do, that the only hope of the America we know and love surviving the recent turmoil and attacks against Her, requires that those of us who love Her, do our utmost to guide ourselves and each other back to the founding principles.

  • Contempt

    Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader from the floor after Saturday’s vote to acquit.

    Yesterday was another sad day in the history of the Republic. It may go down in history as the saddest. At the end of the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, in which he was again acquitted in a shamelessly partisan process, the now minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, gave a twenty minute speech. If you haven’t heard it, you may wish to find it somewhere online, either in video, or transcribed print form. 

    Here is one: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/13/politics/mcconnell-remarks-trump-acquittal/index.html

    McConnell blasts Trump for his complicity and guilt, squarely laying the blame for the January 6th, 2020 attack of the Capital at Trump’s feet. To quote him directly, 

    ”They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.”

    “The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President.

    “And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”

    In summary, he goes on to say the attack was the inevitable result of perpetrating those lies and wild conspiracy theories to his base. He says that this isn’t the fault of 74 million Americans who voted for him, but that it is the fault of one man.

    At the end he all but invites criminal prosecution of Trump, now a private citizen for his role in the insurrection and attempted coup, saying that former elected officials are not immune from the criminal justice system and, 

    ”Trump didn’t get away with anything…yet.”

    Less than an hour before his speech, McConnell had voted along with 42 other GOP senators to find Trump not-guilty of the very same factual charges for which he now excoriated him from the Senate rostrum. He voted not-guilty, he explained, because his reading and interpretation of the Constitution did not align with Impeachment and Conviction of a non-sitting President or other elected public official. He argued that the Constitution simply gave no jurisdictional authority to the Senate to convict the former President, now that Trump is a ”private citizen”.

    I admit, McConnell gives a compelling argument for this Constitutional interpretation. He believes the text of the relevant Articles simply did not provide for the remedy sought. He cites former Justice Story, and his views about the narrow usage of Impeachment as an ”inter-governmental” remedy to protect the state from law-breaking office holders, but that impeachment conviction is not an option if the remedy of ”removal” from office is no longer an option. This interpretation could be the correct one. 

    Of course, McConnell never mentions the fact that he himself had sent the Senate into recess after the House had voted to impeach then-President Trump, making it impossible for the Senate to hold an Impeachment Trial prior to the January 20th Inauguration Day. 

    The problem with all of this, and with McConnell’s speech, is that the Senate had voted on the Constitutional/Jurisdictional question on Tuesday, at the very beginning of the Impeachment trial. By a narrow vote of 56-44, the Senate voted (and thus declared of itself) that it did, in fact, have jurisdiction. By so voting, the Senate made its Jurisdiction explicitly part of the record of this particular trial, and part of the record of precedent for all future Senates facing similar circumstances. 

    This 56-44 vote is a part of the Congressional record, and carried the weight of law. It is the resultant basis of this vote that allowed the trial to proceed to the next step, the ”fact-finding” phase of the arguments for and against the specific allegations brought by the Article of Impeachment the House of Representatives had leveled against Donald J. Trump. 

    Had that Tuesday vote failed, the trial would have ended then and there. But it did not fail. The Senate voted of itself by a bi-partisan majority, including six GOP senators, that it did have Constitutional authority and jurisdiction to try the impeachment case. That issue was settled. It was established.

    McConnell’s speech, after the fact, becomes one of the most elaborate, literally contemptible displays of political rhetoric ever foisted upon the body politic in American history. He bases his entire rationale for not voting to convict Trump on the facts, (which was the purpose of yesterday’s vote following the closing arguments by both sides) facts his speech makes all too plain he agrees with, on the basis that the Senate did not have Constitutionally authorized jurisdiction (which had been decided, voted on, and ruled at the very beginning of the proceedings on Tuesday). 

    In simple terms. His speech is an admission of contempt against the Tuesday vote of the Senate, affirming legal jurisdiction, because McConnell did not agree with it. 

    This is the exact rationale that Trump and his minions used to concoct the BIG LIE about election fraud in the first place. They just did not agree with majority of Americans, nor with the electoral college, nor with the courts! How McConnell could stand there and blast Trump for his guilt related to January 6th while hiding behind his contempt for the very Senate in which he is the current Minority Leader is astonishing!

    I would have respected the GOP senators for walking out of the proceedings on Tuesday after 44 of them voted that they did not have jurisdiction. That would have been consistent with their interpretational views. If they had done so, they would have acted consistently, and maintained their political cover to their constituents back home. 

    The trial would have proceeded. It would have been presented to the 56 remaining Senators who were faithful to their sworn oaths to be impartial jurors. The conviction would easily have carried a two-thirds majority ”of those present”. In fact, it would have been unanimous.

    These 44 cowards, including McConnell, instead put themselves squarely in contempt of the very body to which they are elected members, the United States Senate, by continuing to act as if that body did not have jurisdiction, even though it had voted by a majority affirming that it in fact, did have jurisdiction!

    If a citizen in any authorized court in this country acted as if a ruling of that court was invalid once the court itself had established its validity, on the basis that the citizen did not agree with court’s decision, the citizen would immediately be found in contempt of the court!  The opinion of a citizen is irrelevant once a court or legal body has ruled. 

    This ploy and rationalization by the now minority party is nothing but it’s own contemptuous dereliction of duty and illegal contempt of the Senate of the United States. 

    If a politician or political party can set aside the clear majority vote ruling made by a legal governmental body, in this case the very Senate in which they are elected to ”serve”, simply because they disagree with the result, where do we go from here? In such a case, there is no recourse, the Constitutional Republic is dead.

  • 20 Questions

    Bonus 21st – Should anyone be above the law?
    The Battle for the Capital

    On the Tuesday marking the beginning of what will be an unprecedented event in American history, here are 20 questions for you to consider. Please answer them honestly to yourself. No need to comment unless you feel so led.

    1) Are there any Trump supporters who still believe the election was stolen from him?

    2) If yes, where did you get the information to come to believe that?

    3) Do you believe that the January 6th attack on the Capital was appropriate?

    4) If no, who do you believe is responsible?

    5) Should the responsible parties be held accountable for whatever role they played?

    6) Why do you think that crowd showed up on January 6th? 

    7) Do you believe they were invited and by whom?

    8) What was the purpose of the invitation, especially the last phrase, ”Will be wild”? 

    9) Who told them to march to the Capital? 

    10) If it was a peaceful protest, why did so many people remove barricades and fight with Capital Hill Police? 

    11) Was it ok to beat a cop to death?

    11) Do you think these people entered the Capital hoping to stop the electoral count?

    12) What do you believe they hoped to achieve? 

    13) What was the purpose of the destruction and defilement of Capital property?

    14) Do you wish the violence would have succeeded in overturning the election?

    15) If no, and Trump is not found guilty, is a coup attempt less likely, or more likely, to happen again?

    16) Should senators in this trial vote according to the evidence and their conscience, or should they support their party?

    17) Is that violent mob of January 6th representative of the America you believe in?

    18) Do you feel a personal connection and identity with the mob?

    19) Is that the kind of American you want to be?

    20) Were they doing it for you?

  • Is Socialism Really All That Radical?

    There is nothing inherently holy about Capitalism. There is no mention of it in the Bible. Nor is it mentioned in the Constitution, by the way. 

    There is nothing that codifies it as the economic system that should be adhered to at all times, at all costs, in every arena of economic policy.

    This is a good thing, because it would be difficult to find a wealthy enough financier, a Capitalist, to finance and own and maintain the nation’s Army, for instance. 

    And even if we could find someone that wealthy, would it be wise and good to see if the same individual, say Jeff Bezos, or Warren Buffett, would like to own the Navy, too? The Air Force? Maybe we could farm that out to a corporation, like Apple, say. All the planes would look pretty cool with that iconic piece of bitten fruit on the wings.

    And who gets to own the nation’s Police forces? Mark Zuckerburg? Facebook S.W.A.T. units, nice. (They already know everything there is to know about the suspects).

    Who should own the US Postal Service? Maybe switch Bezos to this. Amazon’s good at delivery.

    Who wants to own the Firefighting services? Elon Musk? All-electric, self-driving fire trucks. I can see it.

    EMTs?

    Should all First Responders be owned by the same corporation, or individual?

    I’m being purposely sarcastic, ironic, and satirical.

    Think. About. It.

    The military (all branches), and the first responders (all types, except volunteers) are purely socialist entities. Yes, I said it. Our military framework is socialist. It is government owned and taxpayer funded.

    The Government, the State, owns the ”means of production”. It owns the forts, naval bases, and air fields. It owns the tanks, bombers, aircraft carriers, tomahawk cruise missiles, F-22’s. The State pays the wages of all the service members, too, via taxation of citizens. It’s about as purely Socialist as the socialist model will allow.

    We wouldn’t want it: Any. Other. Way.

    There are many instances that are similar. Care to look?

    If your neighbor’s house catches fire, the roaring flames threatening your house, do you want the firemen to show up, and a salesman jump out with a contract to negotiate to see how much money they can squeeze out of him before they uncoil the hoses and hook up to the fire hydrant?

    And while you’re thinking that over…who owns that fire hydrant and all the underground piping all the way back to the water tower or reservoir? Who owns the tower? I’ll be damned, I believe the State does, in the form of local government, public utilities departments.

    There’s radical socialism all around us! Who knew???

  • Make America Great Again?

    Make America Great Again

    The political slogan above, shortened to MAGA, which adorns red hats and flags, is a rallying cry for a large segment of the American population.

    It is both a declarative, and more importantly, a comparative statement.

    It is comparing America of today, to some bygone era deemed to be ”Great”. And it urges a glorious return. 

    But a return to which one, exactly? And from whose perspective shall we determine “greatness”?

    Ask a Native American which Great America they yearn for. Which era makes them all warm and fuzzy?

    Ask the descendant of slaves. I would love to hear which Great America they consider worthy of a sequel.

    And if we could go back in history, we could ask the child-laborers and underpaid workers who ground out 80 hour work weeks to enrich monopolistic Robber Barons if they would advise a return to their time of Greatness.

    Skipping ahead, the Word War II generation is deservedly referred to as the Greatest Generation, but I don’t know any of them who feel they’d want to live through WWII again. 

    If you think about it, it’s difficult to know just where the Make America Great time machine should pull into the station.

    Maybe we pull up to the curb at the Great America of the 50’s…Ugggh…height of the Cold War with the existential threat of Nuclear Armageddon. Pass…

    The 60’s?…cool music, but an assassinated president, Vietnam, Kent State, segregation, race riots, murder of Dr. King? Let’s keep looking…

    The 70’s?…Watergate, Iran hostage crisis, Oil embargoes…

    The 80’s?…not that far to backtrack, nothing particularly glaring, but nothing particularly great either, unless we all keep watching replays of the Miracle On Ice…

    The 90’s?…same as the 80’s to me, but nothing worth a return trip.

    You head to the 2000’s and get housing crashes, corporate bail-outs, a multi-decades long war on terror, and the loss of more privacy and individual liberty than in the history of the nation. MAGA must have some other America in mind.

    My view is that the Civil War was America’s greatest era. It was the time when we struggled with what kind of a nation we would be. A time when we struggled to the death to put actions to our founding document’s inspirational, but un-manifest words. But I sure don’t want us to go back there. And I don’t think that’s what the MAGA crowd envisions either. I’m just not sure what they have in mind.

    You may read this and think I don’t love America. You can think what you want. I’m not afraid to love something that’s flawed. 

    Many people believe this country has never been great. I am in a camp that believes it has had some wonderful flashes of Greatness. But I’m not afraid to say America has NEVER been all it CAN BE. And I’m not afraid to love it enough, and believe in it enough, to reject anything less as unworthy of her. If we can pull together and Make America Great Once…then, sometime in the way-off future those red hats might actually mean something.

  • Requiem For An Invisible Government

    As I write this, there are only 22 hours left of the Trump administration. Joe Biden will be sworn in as the forty-sixth President of the United States, and the country will immediately return to tranquility. If only…

    In reality, Biden will be sworn in under circumstances eerily similar to those facing Lincoln at his 1861 Inauguration. A country divided, armed insurgents on the prowl to make good threats on his life, forced to sneak into Washington in disguise under cover of darkness. Threats of violence and secession in the news. A nation on edge.

    The present turmoil also brings to mind the degree to which politics and political matters intruded into the public consciousness both during the four years of the Civil War, and for the antebellum years immediately preceding it. Aside from that period, even during World Wars I and II, with the possible brief exception of the combined Vietnam and Civil Rights era, the past four year’s awareness, nay, obsession, with every tweet, speech, debate, vote, appointment, nomination, and pardon by politicians isn’t the norm. 

    As a rule, the rank and file citizens of America are not the most politically astute. We haven’t had to be. 

    Americans in general, and white Americans in particular, have historically been blessed with relative stability. This has been achieved both by notoriously slow-moving political machinery (thanks to the genius of the Founders), and a near universal ethos of public pride in our national identity. That combination has made the world of politics nearly invisible to the average American. During campaign season we might take notice, usually to complain about the proliferation of ads that interrupt our entertainment, but mid-term elections usually motivate such little fanfare and such a small turnout that they aren’t the cause of vida interruptus to the typical citizen. 

    The bygone general antipathy to politics means that a lot of Americans are not too well-versed even in our own system. (Evidence the fact that Alabama just elected a Senator who didn’t know the three branches of the federal government). Lest you think I’m guilty of overstating the political ignorance of the typical American, a 2018 article in US News, cites a survey showing 2 out of 3 Americans could not pass a US Citizenship test!

    https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-10-12/2-of-3-americans-wouldnt-pass-us-citizenship-test

    Up to 2020 this ignorance hasn’t necessarily been a bad thing. Americans have remained ignorant both of our history and our politics because we could afford to be ignorant. It hasn’t really hurt us. Ignorant or not, the government chugged along. The institutions worked. The politicians and bureaucrats did their jobs well enough to fly under the radar. Our government, with very rare exceptions, has operated invisibly. One can make a strong argument that it ought to be that way.

    Government by representation should be able to function without demanding the overweening attention of its citizenry. If we were a pure Democracy that would be different. The need for attention to every detail of government and familiarity with every policy debate would be expected. But we elect representatives so we can go about our daily lives leaving those details in what we hope are the capable hands of representatives.

    But the days of invisible government are over. 

    2020 marked the indelible tearing of the curtain. 400,000 dead Americans revealed a government that could not be safely ignored. We must assign blame where it is due. Hundreds of thousands of our countrymen needlessly perished from what turns out to be the unbelievable incompetence of our elected leaders. They were either too vapid or too uncaring to muster the strategic wisdom and perseverance to face a National Public Health Emergency brought on by a pandemic that was no one’s fault. But the failed response certainly is the fault of the administration which largely ignored the severity of it, and focused instead on changing the ”messaging” for fear of the political fallout.

    If that wasn’t enough, we faced a crisis of racial tension as once again we try to confront the ugly ghosts of our white supremacist, empirical past that we’ve drug with us into the present. 

    And those things combined seemed to bring out the worst in us as a people. I am old enough to have grown used to a crisis bringing out the best in Americans. Times when we would unite around our commonality, not splinter into hate-filled tribes waving the flags of our divisions. But that wasn’t the case in 2020 and right up to Inauguration day of 2021.

    When we needed to be the best possible Americans, united in common purpose, we devolved into a seething cauldron of grievance and mistrust. Mostly born of plain and simple ignorance. This climate became the perfect Petri dish for mixing in bald-faced lies about a ”stolen election” fed to us by the very representatives sworn to defend a document dedicated to uniting us more perfectly. I don’t know if there ever will be a vaccine for that.

    And on the day the electoral votes were to be counted and certified we witnessed the worst kind of anti-Democratic, murderous, occult-mixed-with-pseudo-Christian mob this country has ever amassed. And that radicalized mob despoiled the sanctity of our national Capital and sought to disenfranchise millions of fellow citizens to keep a lying autocrat in power.

    Good-bye forever to the relative stability we Americans have so long enjoyed. Good-bye forever to the blissful ignorance of the politically naive and unlearned. 2020 revealed just what happens when we put persons in positions of power who are only interested in the power, not in the ends for which the power is granted. We, the People are responsible for what has happened. We the People, are the only ones who can affect a positive change. 

    We have endured a year of unprecedented division, loss of life, distrust, and near insurrection made worse by the abject incompetence and servile vanity of our national elected leaders on both sides of the aisle. They proved themselves more interested in attacking each other than attacking the multi-headed crises we average citizens have faced. 

    I will forever long for the days when our government was functional enough to be invisible. But that invisible government is dead. 

    I’m afraid Wednesday’s oaths and Bibles and handshakes aren’t going to heal our country or our government anytime soon. But I’m certain that the path to healing is based on truth, on justice, and on our collective knowledge and attention to what our elected leaders are doing in our names. 

  • The Problem With Anger — It Will Not Achieve The Result You Want

    Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

    ~ James 1:19,20

    # 19 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Anger will not achieve the result you want. If you’re angry, keep your mouth shut.

    I beg those of my readers who don’t consider themselves to be adherents to the Christian traditions, or see themselves as convinced by an appeal to scripture, just bear with me. Follow my thoughts with an open mind to the end, and with an eye towards your own past experiences.

    I can attest to the truth of the above verses in my own life. I’ve had more dramatic scenes of anger, wrath, and righteous indignation than I care to count. Times when I could not hear. I could not see. I could not think straight. A few instances in particular stand out. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say, no one involved had any doubt about my emotional state.

    Anger has never achieved my desired result

    But NOT ONE TIME have I lashed out in anger and achieved the result I really wanted. In my entire life. Not…one…time.

    Search your own memory banks. Remember the last time you were so angry you couldn’t see straight? You struck out in the throes of that feeling, so certain of your righteousness that no argument could convince you otherwise. How did that situation turn out? Did it go the way you wanted?

    Your mileage may vary. I can only testify to my own experience. 

    When I feel angry now, I am immediately certain that if I speak or act, I will be wrong. When I am angry now, it is an indicator that I am far from the kind of person who can be a vessel of the righteousness of God.

    I’m writing this because our nation is torn apart. We treat each other, Americans, even ones who grew up together, as if we’re sworn enemies. We’ve been co-opted into believing that anyone with a different political view is a villain. We’re told that the “others” aren’t American, and they aren’t putting “America First”. That they are “taking your country”! We’ve lost our collective minds!

    I challenge you to watch the events of January 6th with James in mind. Listen to the run-up. Listen to the speeches playing upon fear, prejudice, paranoia, just stoking up the anger to a boiling venomous cauldron. Are these people quick to hear the other side? Slow to speak about them or to them?

    I’m not sure what those who marched on the Capital thought they were doing. They were acting like they believed their anger would produce the righteousness of God.

    The words of Scripture above reveal that deception for exactly what it is.

    I just want to ask you…my brother…my sister…are you angry?

    “Well, You say you want a Revolution, you better change your mind instead.”

    ~ The Beatles: Revolution

  • Un-Social Media

    Be careful how you Brand

    This past Tuesday, Twitter banned me for a week. I was scrolling along when I came across a tweet expressing outrage over Lauren Boebert. The freshman Congressperson from CO set off an alarm when passing through the newly installed magnetometer on her way to the House Chamber. She then refused to allow Capital Police to search her bag. I read about her refusal, thought about the context of the January 6th attack at the Capital, became ”righteously indignant” and I tweeted a reply, ”Throw her skank ass out!”

    Within minutes, an information screen appeared notifying me that I had broken Twitter’s rules against ”harassment”. I chuckled inwardly that my 5 words had somehow triggered a response from Twitter’s harassment algorithm. I’d seen much worse. But sure enough, my account was to be limited to read-only or Direct Messaging my followers (which I do not do on any social media platform). I was in the penalty box. 

    I’d like to say I rationalized my sophomoric tweet because I had knowledge of Boebert’s past criminal record. I knew of her boast that she would carry her Glock around the Capital. And in her first week in Congress, she had live-tweeted Nancy Pelosi’s movements during the siege of the Capital. Knowing these things prompted my off-the-cuff tweet. I was justified, right? But we humans confabulate rationalizations for everything we say or do. The fact that I had reasons, doesn’t make what I tweeted acceptable. The scary thing is, it was purely spontaneous. I didn’t think. I typed. My words appeared on the screen. I didn’t give a moment’s hesitation to consider the implications of my tweet. It was snarky. It was pithy. I waited for the likes and retweets to roll in….

    I become a different person when using social media than I am in face-to-face or telephone conversations in real life. My hypothesis is that I am not alone in that behavior, but that doesn’t excuse mine. I would never have said those words to Ms. Boebert in person, no matter how disgusted I feel about her politics and actions. That’s not how I speak to people in the real world. And in RL, I don’t feel compelled to ”like”, reply to, comment on, or repeat everything I hear. 

    Imagine a gathering at your kid’s __________(football game, school play, music recital). You park your car, climb out, and make your way to the venue, other parents and students streaming in the same direction. You are aware of faint snippets of unintelligible conversation floating to you in the air. There’s laughter, there’s a murmuring hum of voices below the threshold of comprehension. As the crowd begins to congregate, compressing and concentrating nearer the ticket booth, the conversations become clearer. You feel a compulsion to join in. You want to be recognized. You have a voice, and you’re determined to speak up and comment. A stranger nearby says to her companion, ”Hey, let’s go to Chili’s after this.” You lean in and crow, ”Ooh…I really like that place, don’t you love their margaritas?” Then, pleased with yourself, you turn around and begin to yell to those behind you, ”They’re going to Chili’s after the game! THIS!” pointing and gesturing at them for all to see. You are so happy to be participating. You can feel the rush of dopamine. But within seconds, several others overhear and begin to shout you down, ”Chili’s? Oh hell no! It sucks!”, ”What kind of a loser eats at Chili’s?” Soon, a heated argument breaks out. Tempers flare. Harsh words are exchanged. You feel deflated, confused, ashamed. Crazy, right?

    That level of interaction in the real world is NOT social. It’s not normal. It’s not desirable. It is intrusive, distracting, unproductive, and weird! It is socially destructive. That scene would violate every social norm hardcoded into a human from birth. But, tell me that fictional scene doesn’t play out on twitter and facebook every day. 

    Social media apps and platforms make us different. Anonymity allows you to be as crass and contemptuous, as ugly, mean-spirited, and vile as you can summon the nerve and the wit to produce. Dish it out and take it. Be quick though…someone else is going to beat you with the perfect zinger!

    With the ban on my account implemented, I still had access to scroll though the feed of tweets, but I could neither like them, reply to them, nor retweet them. No interaction. No following of new clever people. No liking their *Chef’ Kiss* rebuttals in 280 characters or less. I instantly and irrationally felt ISOLATED. I felt invisible (and not in a good way). I was going to fall so far behind that in a week’s time there would be no possibility of ever…catching…up. I inwardly chuckled at my pathetic predicament, realizing how absurd it was to feel that way over tweeting snarkitudes with complete strangers, for God’s sake. I have a measly 250 Twitter followers. So…none…in the Twitterverse. 

    Only a small handful of my followers know me in real life, and when we get together, we don’t gather with pocketfuls of heart stickers to plaster all over each other.

    Like I said, I’m different in real life than I am on social media. You probably are too.

    BUT NOT EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT…

    Many use social media to ”brand” themselves. They want to be popular; to be ”influencers”. They carefully integrate their digital, virtual selves with their real life selves (which makes one wonder just how ”real” they are). This behavior is one thing if you’re selling a product, or a reality tv show, but what if you’re an elected official? What if you’re a politician using the power of social media to make incivility and outright hostility your brand? The United States is living through the consequence of that sad result right now.

    We can observe what happens when politicians of either persuasion carefully curate their statements to stay ”On Brand”. This enables them to build a tribe of fiercely loyal supporters and followers; ones who will share a near vicarious identification. But a politician who builds loyalty by being an attack dog against the other party can never be conciliatory or compromising without risking the loss of those same followers who will only support the attack dog. And a politician who creates a following based upon the least common denominators of race, creed, or religion can never be a success as a statesmen able to unite disparate portions of the electorate around the greatest common denominators of humanity, dignity, citizenship, and a shared planet.

    This is an unintended, serious consequence of the ubiquity of social media, and its adoption as the preferred means of communication by political figures. Politicians feel pressure to align their real life demeanor with their social media persona in a way that a normal citizen like me, doesn’t. 

    A hardline, anti-otherside social media presence will not jive with a patient, openminded, tolerant, conciliatory RL personality. If my hunch is true, it goes a long way towards explaining the very recent deterioration of political discourse in our era. Politicians are too often protecting and projecting the social media version of themselves, which may be the worst version of themselves. Every public figure knows they are one tweet, video upload, or facebook post away from having their RL self plastered all over the SocialMediaVerse. If they are known for being mean to the other side on Twitter, heaven forbid they should fist-bump with them in the real world.

    It’s one thing for a non-public, non-elected person to be a jerk on social media. It’s quite another to have to live up to that expected ”jerk-ness” on the floor of the House, or in a debate, or during an interview. To be sure, many members of both parties are doing a fine job being consistently uncivil in RL as they are on social media platforms. I’m saying that’s not a good thing. And the possibility always exists for 280 character tweets, or out of context facebook posts, or instagram stories to become embedded with more ”meaning” to the audience of indoctrinated followers than the politician intended. Those tweets may just radicalize. The hate-soaked, loaded words may flip a switch in the hearer that creates responses and behaviors that is not exactly civilized. This is just another way in which social media may actually be making us all less ”social”. 

    So, these concerns and my twitter jail time have me thinking about some bigger questions…

    Healthy social interaction requires healthy boundaries with healthy restraints. The threshold from individual to social is the moment another person enters the picture. Most people exercise the degree of self-censure and self-restraint deemed appropriate by social customs and norms, given the context. Less restraint out with friends drinking beer at a hockey game than when gathered with family around the Thanksgiving table. Absent mental illness or gross neglect, most people grow up acquiring basic social norms that have been passed from generation to generation. These norms allow society to achieve cooperation; thereby handing off the baton of education, culture, behavior, identity, innovation, and government to one another and to each successive generation.

    When an individual breaks the norms, the group responds to censure that individual, either rehabilitating him, ostracizing him, or punishing him with expulsion in one form or another.

    Behaviors that are bad for the group are bad by definition. 

    Ethical behavior cannot exist in any meaningful way if there are not at least two people present. If it takes two to tango, it takes two to…Ethics? Ethic? An individual alone on the earth cannot practice ethical behavior. He certainly cannot sin against his neighbor. Certainly, the concept of Morality introduces a discussion of how one conducts himself towards God, but even the Bible teaches, ”how can you love God whom you have not seen when you don’t love your brother whom you have seen.” 

    An aside: I find it interesting to recall the Genesis story, that Adam, having been created before Eve, spends an indeterminate amount of time alone before succumbing to the operation that brought the second human being forth. As head gardener, he takes care of the flora. As Zoologist in residence, he names all the animals. As the Priest, the Congregant, and the Worshipper, he walks with God in the cool of the day. But there is no record of him having sinned. And this, despite the recorded declaration that both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge were present in the garden. One might derive from this cautionary tale that it takes at least two to sin against God. In fact, the NT concept of ‘faith’ is a transliteration of Hebrew and Greek words that combined connote much more the idea of ”total dependence upon”, than merely ”mental acquiescence in”. 

    Until Eve appeared, Adam was completely dependent upon God for communion and companionship and all the fruits derived therefrom. It was God who said, ”It is not good for man to be alone.” and thus initiated a search for a help meet for Adam that culminated with Adam naming the animals (thus beating Aristotle in forming the system of classification of EVERYTHING that defines Western thought), and finally, when no suitable help was found, to Eve herself being formed from Adam and presented to him. 

    Adam’s percentage of dependence upon God and attention to God lowered from one hundred per cent to some lesser unknowable percentage. We may surmise that it was this opportunity for co-dependence that created the context for temptation to act against the will of God and his command not to eat of the tree of knowledge, or in other words to become ‘self-reliant’, believing themselves capable of acting independently of God and that such action would produce a better outcome for themselves than continued dependence would produce.

    The NT has a simple, terrible, concentrated warning. ”Whatever is not of faith is sin”. The essence of sin is to act as if there is no God. To act independently of God. Alone in the world, Adam was keenly aware of his dependence. He was no less dependent once Eve arrived, he was just less aware of it.

    Without a doubt, individual expedience and utility are essential to survival. A solitary figure, alone in the world, doesn’t have the ability to sin against anyone and he doesn’t have to consult anyone’s interests but his own. He can howl at the moon, He can urinate outdoors, and not wash his hands. He can hunt and kill for the shear bloodlust and sport and adrenaline rush of it. Hell, he can go so far as to refrain from wearing a mask (since there’s no one else he might infect). But throw another person into the mix and that unrestrained individuality becomes destructive to the group, whether that group is a marriage, a family, a tribe, a company, or a state. 

    As an individual matures, one hopes he learns to cooperate. He learns to harness his individuality for the communal, collective good. If he doesn’t so mature, he is free to be a recluse. But he isn’t free to interfere in the freedoms of all other persons.

    It is the presence of another human that is the contextual genesis of morality and ethics. Ethical behavior is that which tends to the increase in overall good to the group in very general terms. It being obvious that in a group of two, one being a selfish millionaire, the other being a broke and destitute homeless person, if the millionaire becomes a billionaire while the homeless person remains broke, the aggregate ”wealth” of the group has grown, while the aggregate ”goodness” has not increased, and has even diminished.

    A primary role of society is to sort out for itself what is ”good”, and to promote that ”goodness” to all members. The means, adoption, cultivation, and enjoyment of that goodness is what we call civilization. The format and means for advancing civilization is what we call politics. It is just here that philosophers have historically played their most important role. By thinking through and sharing their ideas of ethics, aesthetics, and politics, they serve to civilize us. The basic tenet of social and therefore civil intelligence is to project oneself beyond oneself appropriately at every occasion of interaction and social intercourse. This takes a strength of will and of character far greater than succumbing to the baser tendencies of Nietzsche’s übermensch, or superman, whom Nietzsche lauded as the epitome of human-ness, a being who would be ethically impelled to exert as much dominance as his strengths, gifts, and resources allowed. I reject the ”super-man”.

    It takes no special strength of will, no special insight, and no special skill to consult my own happiness at all times and act as selfishly as my might allows. But to restrain those impulses in the pursuit of lifting up another, of relieving another’s suffering, of elevating the shared corporate ”goodness”, those are skills to be practiced for a lifetime. To cultivate a wider perspective, to walk in another’s shoes, to see with their eyes, to put oneself in their place: in short, to love thy neighbor as thyself; that is a purpose worthy of a human being.

    It is no accident that the first word of the United States Constitution is the word, ”We”. 

    I’m glad for my Twitter ban. Having my hand slapped and being told to behave like a good boy is the perfect opportunity to step back, think about who I really am, and realize that I’m a different person, projecting a different persona on Twitter. Who have I been doing that for? For ME…not for We. It made me feel better about myself to exercise what I considered clever snarkiness on Twitter. And realizing that now…mid ban…makes me reject that Un-Social self.

    That’s not who I am, nor is it who I want to be. Thanks to Twitter, I have the chance to pause and consider. I have the chance to exercise restraint and contribute only that which is positive to the conversation. I have the chance to be social.

  • We

    The framers of the United States Constitution faced a daunting task. In 1787, fresh from the heady, yet costly victory of the nine-year Revolutionary War, they met in Philadelphia to formulate the charter documents. After months of debate, sometimes heated, sometimes personal, they penned the preamble to the foundational document of the burgeoning nation, with these words, “We the People…”. 

    Taking an even more granular view, it is evident that the first of these most cherished words is the simple word, pregnant with profound meaning, “We.”

    If enough of us would stop and consider this simple fact, if WE would think of the implications of the use of that word, WE would instantly begin the process that, if followed, would achieve the re-uniting and healing of the Country.