As we enter this new year, I thought I’d spend a few moments considering the issues of the day. Things political, social, natural, and religious. As always these are my thoughts and are open for debate, rejection, or perhaps even acceptance on the part of the reader. I know this last sentence seems to fly in the face of modern society where things are black or white with few shades of gray permitted.
George (Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás) Santayana, a Spanish born, American Philosopher is famously remembered for his aphorism, “"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” While it has grown into a cliché, nothing reflects its truth more than the youth of today. Three generations were trained, not to think critically, but to accept the dictates of those they believe in. We have generations who follow beliefs and chant support for causes they don’t fully comprehend, but are pushed by the activists who give them 30-second sound bites. It is much easier to live in the echo chamber of your click than to question the values you say you believe in.
Life:
In 1972 a socially activist court rendered a decision that divided the country for 50 years. Politicians on either side of the issue did little to actually shore up or destroy that opinion, preferring to use it as a political football. From the very beginning legal scholars questioned how the Burger court could justify its overreach of the Constitution. Of course, those who supported the decision found no issue in how the court could reject the protections of the 14th Amendment. Activists, on the other hand, went back to the court time and time again to challenge, defend, or expand the rights of that decision. Finally, in 2022, a conservative court was asked to rule on the issue when Jackson Woman’s Health challenged a Mississippi law that set a limit of 15 weeks for an abortion. In its 6-3 ruling the Roberts’ court effectively overturned Roe v Wade, saying the Constitution was mute on the issue and it was therefore a right for the states to decide. Of course, both sides went crazy. One side with complete and often irrational outrage, the other with the joy of seeing their efforts rewarded.
What our elected officials did next did nothing to move the nation forward. One side blamed the court, while the other side, which had worked to elect state legislatures, began passing increasingly restrictive laws. The idea of working for a democratic solution on this was thrown out the window almost 50 years earlier when the court decided they knew best what the law should be. What most fail to understand is when the Supreme Court has done this in the past it invariably will come back to be redecided. For example, in Plessey v Ferguson, the court decided as long as Negros had “equal facilities” they didn’t have to be allowed into places occupied by whites. It took until the mid-1950s for the court to correct that overreach. For the record, that ruling lasted for about 60 years, not so different than Roe.
The tough question is deciding on the value of life versus the avarice of mankind. Those who seek an end to abortion cite the sanctity of life and the innocence of the unborn. Those who support abortion see the abuses of children and hope that they will be spared from the dangers of life, by not allowing their birth in the first place. Once a child is born, for true political activists those positions change, and in some cases almost completely. We see from the left demands that we must stop killing children with guns, while the right (at least here in the USA) defends the right to bear arms, even with the risks of violence associated with that choice. We argue incessantly about the protections of the 2nd Amendment, but in today’s black-and-white world, no one is willing to change those protections, preferring to nibble away on the edges with challenges they hope the “right” court will implement.
Of course, corporate profits have nothing to do with the decisions of those politicians who seek to justify one side or the other, but all campaign donations are gratefully accepted.
War:
War has been with us since at least the invention of the written word. Some 7,000 years of history have taught us men like to kill other men. Our evolution over that time has not changed that simple fact. The illusions of Hollywood aside, it seems unlikely we will suddenly turn into a society where reason outweighs emotion.
Thanks to our evolving industrial capability we have dramatically changed the nature of war from that of our ancestors. Back in history men would take up arms when necessary and set out on a battlefield to fight other men with ever-increasing lethality. From clubs to swords, lances, bows, and arrows, to trebuchets. With the Chinese discovery of black powder, we changed to guns, cannons, and rockets. The invention of internal combustion engines and flight gave us tanks and aircraft. Today with have moved to remote control devices, and soon artificial intelligence will give us the ability to kill without having to get our hands dirty at all.
In the last truly global war, we invented the ability to destroy all mankind. Fortunately, at the time we were governed by reasonably rational men and women who realized the nuclear weapon was an end game. For a very brief instant, some thought this weapon would mean an end to war since its use would signal the end of our current civilizations. Sadly, that was not the case. Now we seem to be moving beyond that rationale where lesser men, with lesser concern for humanity, have access to those weapons and the potential for their use appears to be increasing.
Today, thanks to the fractured nature of the US government we no longer seem to be a leader of nations, with the ability to control and limit conflict. Our politicians and military leaders no longer understand the basic principles of diplomacy and the use of force as an instrument of national power. We are willing to sustain indefinite conflict, as long as the personal political cost isn’t too great.
The great international organization we established and once led has become something of a joke when it comes to negotiating peaceful resolutions between opposing nations. For example, the UN once fielded an army to stop Communist aggression of Northern Korea against Southern Korea. That war continues to this day, although both sides have agreed to a truce, now coming up on 80 years. The one time a US President actually set foot into North Korea the Democratic party yelled so loudly about his being a traitor, that it was heard in Peking, whoops I mean Beijing.
We fought a war in Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years without ever achieving a desired end state. In fact, I’m not sure we ever actually decided what the best interest of the United States was in that conflict. We called it a global war on terror after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but now 23 years later terrorism is going stronger than ever, as evidenced by the Islamic attacks on the Jewish state of Israel. In response, Israel has begun a campaign to wipe Hamas off the map. Anyone who thinks rationally about their approach will realize its futility, but after 77 years of existence what approach should Israel take with the religious zealots (there is some irony with that term) of Islam who wish to destroy the nation and take possession “from the river to the sea.” In its counter-violence, Israel is creating tomorrow's terrorists.
The one thing this war has shown, here and in Europe, is the degree antisemitism exists, both among the educated liberals and the average white supremacists. They have finally found something to agree on. What I find somewhat amusing is so many modern Jews identify as educated liberals totally buying into their ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion while facing discrimination based on religion by those organizations they praise.
For those paying attention to the ongoing Russia versus Ukraine/NATO conflict you are seeing a gradual evolution in the West where a negotiated settlement is now recognized as the probable best-case outcome. Sure, there is some “gaslighting” on this issue since the original position of the West was, that we would bankrupt and destroy Putin and his stooges, preserve Ukraine and perhaps even return those parts annexed by Russia during the Obama administration. Now some three years into the war that potential seems less and less likely. SECSTATE Blinken is now saying negotiation has always been a goal. Like our border security, this administration seems to have a strange way of doing what it says it’s doing.
Meanwhile, what’s going on in the rest of the world? As far as I can tell by modern reporting the rest of the world doesn’t really exist, except as it comes to payments of the Trump and Biden families.
Politics in the USA:
Here we are, entering the campaign year to elect our next President and his/her trusty sidekick. The media is swamping us with poll after poll showing how weak Biden is and how strong Trump is, while also telling us how evil Trump is and how our Democracy will die if he is reelected. Of course, the media has proven objective reporting is a thing of the past and now opinion polls are where we find truth. What they don’t say is how eager they are for the ratings Trump will bring to their networks as they praise or condemn him. He is the modern version of P.T. Barnum. There is no such thing as bad publicity. As long as his face is in the news 24/7/365 life is good.
The DNC has spent the last 8-years vilifying Trump, with impeachments and show trials in their effort to make him disappear. We should remember all this started with what has now been proven to be a campaign “dirty trick” from the Hillary Clinton camp. In all their efforts he has been able to portray himself as the defender of all that is holy and good, while those nasty guys on the other side are trying to burn him at the stake, just like they did with Joan of Arc. A line from the original Star Wars film comes immediately to mind, “If you destroy me, I will come back more powerful than you can imagine.”
If it turns out to be a Biden vs Trump campaign, I think one thing is safe to say. Election integrity will be a central issue, and the media has so heavily invested in the “Election Denier” mantra that whoever loses and questions the results will be put into stocks and pilloried in the public square unless, of course, it’s a Democrat.
Justice, Social, Equal, and otherwise.
It has long been a central point in our society and among our politicians that we are a nation of laws and those laws must be fairly and evenly applied to all citizens. If this century has proven anything it has proven how absolutely false that belief was. No one, and I really mean no one, wants equal treatment under the law. Every identifiable group: Blacks, Latinos, Greeks, Irish, Muslims, Palestinians, Environmentalists, Animalists, Atheists, Christians, City Dwellers, East Europeans, Women, Gays/Transsexuals, and even English, Germans, and French all want preferential treatment by the courts and by the public. As we’ve moved to the extremes in appointing our judges and our prosecutors it appears our judicial system is moving to provide those treatments for the oppressed person of the day.
If, heaven forbid, some group feels they haven’t received that fair and demanded treatment they will call attention to this by taking to the streets and disrupting the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. My favorite cause of the day is the anti-petroleum protestors who’ve taken to gluing themselves to the streets. It appears most of them are using a petroleum-based adhesive to display their outrage. It appears that most authorities are caught in the horns of a dilemma on how to handle these poor, outraged, victims of modern society and are leaving them to their protests. If I were king for a day, I would carefully remove the pavement they’ve attached themselves to, move them, and the pavement to the nearest landfill, and let their protest continue there. Then I would add guards to ensure they are not disturbed by anyone who might want to interfere with their protest/hunger strike.
Science and Academics, Natural and Otherwise.
In the name of science, we have a large group of people who believe the end of human life approaches if we don’t abandon all use of fossil fuels. Those who would disagree with them are called science deniers, for in their studied opinions the “science is settled.” As Forrest Gump once said, “I’m not a smart man.” That holds true for me as well, but back when educators were trying to fill my brain with useless facts for the upcoming invention of Trivia Pursuit, I do remember them saying Science was the pursuit of knowledge and it was always possible some new bit of knowledge would change the beliefs of the scientific community. For example, we once thought an atom was the smallest piece of matter, now we know atoms are really pretty massive and made up of much smaller particles and bits of energy. This theory holds no water with the climate scientists who call anyone who disagrees with them science deniers.
These are, by the way, the very same people who believe gender is a matter of personal choice and that any 10-year-old, who was allowed to be born, should be able to make itself whatever it wants. We all know how informed the average 10-year-old is, so what could possibly go wrong?
Somebody watched one too many Steven Spielberg movies and we now have Artificial Intelligence emerging to save mankind. Today, it is in its infancy but people are already using it to write their school assignments. It is also useful if you wish to call a renegade Ph.D. or three to task by checking their work for plagiarism. We’ve all been told plagiarism is a mortal sin for the academic world. For those who are not Catholic, you can find its definition “on the internet.” What the latest trials by fire have proven is even the most entitled and elitist of the Academic elite are not that concerned with actual plagiarism unless it’s a student’s paper they are grading and they can appear to be an academic god.
Speaking of God.
One final thought. God certainly has a sense of humor. He creates mankind, then confuses everyone with the creation of womankind, and then gives them “free will” to make choices. Along the way, we developed beer and then pickup trucks and now everyone is trying to outdo each other with stupid stuff. We have three worldwide religions who all claim to worship the same God and most of the time we are arguing about who has the right version of what God wants done and how he would like us to deal with each other. As if that isn’t confusing enough; we have people who think they know more than God and reject him as a concept. Unfortunately, those who believe in God get upset with those who don’t but those who don’t are one of those social justice groups that demand everyone agrees with them.
The End.
