It is a Matter of Trust.

I recently had an exchange with a friend where I noted our views were dependent on the trust one has in the public official making the statements.  His response was along the lines that trust is an antiquated concept.  I like these exchanges as it gives me something to think about. Indeed, is trust an antiquated concept?

As a military professional, I have a very hard time with the idea trust has gone out of fashion. During my career, the lives of the men and women I served with, and who I led lived, and occasionally died, based on the trust we had in each other, and the commanders who directed us.  The entirety of the combat arms of this nation is built on the expectation of trust. We will do the right thing, and if we don’t, we will be ostracized and removed.

In the elite forces, like the US Navy’s SEALs, the US Army’s Special Forces/Rangers, and the US Air Force’s Special Tactics the whole concept of trust is taken to the highest level, but even the average soldier, sailor, Marine, and airman build their career and their lives on trusting those to their left and right.  As a flyer, we place our trust in the maintainers who inspect and repair the aircraft prior to our flight. For us trust is absolute, without it we are nothing.

Now we turn to politics and society outside the military. Is it true in our society and within our political system that trust is an antiquated concept?

While it is true, that we’ve become polarized in our political divisions, at the end of the day the individuals of society do, in fact, place their trust in the words and deeds of the political factions they support.  If they did not our elections would have participation rates well below 50%. As it stands, we don’t do a great job turning out to vote, but our historical average remains above that threshold.

When a political party calls for civic outrage based solely on the rhetoric of the party, we still see that outrage turned into action on the streets, based on shared ideals and the belief that outrage will affect change as promised by the politicians. That alone confirms the trust of party loyalists that their political representatives know what they are doing.

Doing business in today’s world is almost always a matter of trust. We trust the food we buy to be safe to eat. The medicines we take to improve our health, and the products we buy to be delivered and work as promised.  Unfortunately, political involvement and agendas have begun to erode that trust, but without it can our system survive? I believe for most of us the majority of that trust in the “system” remains, while trust in some “experts” may be waning.

It seems to me that trust is the essential ingredient in our educational system. We send our children off to school with the trust the educators will do their best to impart the essential knowledge as they prepare them to enter society. Unfortunately, this does appear to be one area where the idea of trust has been violated and now parents are coming to grips with the agendas that are driving the school systems and the teachers to impart more than the essential skills of academics with their own social mores, rather than leave that to the parents.

What the shutdown of our society during the recent pandemic has shown many parents is the subversive nature of the professional educators as they transition from strictly the role of educator to social indoctrination. Perhaps this is a long-standing approach, but its impacts became most evident with the rise of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Now, as parents seek to regain control of what their children’s education should look like, there is an emerging battleground between professional educators and the family.  I am not involved enough to know with certainty, but as an outsider, it would seem the activists on both sides are driving this confrontation. Unfortunately, it will be the children who are most hurt by this loss of trust.

Perhaps, my friend who comes from this educational background bases his belief that trust is an antiquated concept on that conflict. If so, that is unfortunate.

But then as I consider his words, I am struck by the loss of trust we have developed in our judicial system where equality under the law and protection of society from the wolves who would feed on it is essential.  We see much in the news to drive us to outrage regardless of our political beliefs so perhaps my friend is right, especially when we talk about a nation where respect for the law is the underpinning of our entire society. 

I guess time will tell if trust is really as antiquated as my friend believes.

Thoughts on This Coming Election

“Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,   

      By the livin’ Gawd that made you,

   You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”  

Ending of Gunga Din, a poem by Rudyard Kipling

 

As happens in our country every other year, we are entering into a time of transition. We citizens are given our chance to affect the Republic and the country for which it stands. For most of my adult life this was a social obligation I took seriously, but with little concern over the future of the nation. This century, that has all changed.

We began the century with a contested election where Florida became the battleground and the state became notorious for its “hanging chads.” We moved on to 9/11 when Arab/Islamic terrorists killed or injured almost 9,000 innocent citizens who sought only to live through that day. Of course, this led to a war that took us 20 years to end in something far from victory.

We transitioned from a President who followed in his Father’s footsteps and was aided by a Washington insider, to a historic first in the election of an African-American, to a New York real estate mogul, and finally a man who can’t really be sure how he was elected.  Through those years we’ve expanded our global communication network so now everyone like me has a voice and is able to express his appreciation, or outrage. Usually, it is outrage.  We have an entire generation who seems to spend their life expressing their outrage.

Along the way, those who I thought could be bridge-builders chose not to. Those who seemed to lack the experience necessary to run the nation did so with mixed results. Finally, those who’ve spent their entire adult lives as elected officials have been both unable and unwilling to pass the jobs along to the next generation.

For the past two years one party has had control of two of the three branches of government, yet their focus seems to be on building a future few can afford, or on condemning the sins of the past. The party that claims it is inclusive and wants to protect women can’t define what a woman is. Its political elite seem to spend more time in mock protest than in actually doing the peoples work.

The loyal opposition is fractured by those who believe it’s time to be as crass as the former President, those who want to “go along to get along” and those who want to place the historical core values of the nation back on center stage. Which brings up the real question we will decide on this upcoming election.

What are the core values we as a nation really want?  

a) Do we want to keep the “rule of law?”  If so, we seem to have work to do. It is obvious our younger generation has abandoned this idea for the idea of mob rule, and politically correct thinking as the standard of behaviour.  Our law enforcement and legal institutions seem to turn a blind eye on some crimes while vilifying those who don’t conform to the desired standard. I cite as an example the Attorney General’s commitment to identify as domestic terrorists those who protest at school boards which have agendas of their own, while ignoring the protests of those who are attempting to terrorize the conservative justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Or we can look at the district attorneys in Manhattan or Los Angeles who have implemented what their opponents call a “catch and release” where violent offenders are released almost immediately back into society while those who may have defended themselves are held pending a decision on prosecution (Jose Alba, NYC bodega clerk).

We can argue the “rule of law” has never been universally or fairly applied (e.g. African-Americans) but just because we suffer from the failures of our past, is that a reason to abandon the concept that ALL are equal under the law? We should work every day to ensure equal treatment of all accused, but when politics becomes a variable for those charged with doing the work of enforcement and judgement does the foundation of our society stand?

b) Akin to the first point, I ask does the Constitution still have value? With the decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Medical Center, the SCOTUS overturned a judicial decision which had stood for fifty years.  Those who support abortion were and remain outraged over this decision, while those who would end abortion if they could, are overjoyed. If you look at the history of the U.S. Constitution we have 27 amendments, the first 10 came almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified and the first government established. The remaining 17 came in drips and drabs but usually only took a year or so to ratify. Except of course the 27^thwhich took almost 203 years.  

The Congress had fifty years to codify the decision of seven old white men in robes (to use the modern terms of condemnation), but chose not to.  The current court decided the original decision erred in its justification of the due process clause of the 14^th amendment and returned the right of determination to the political side of government. Since the rights of abortion were not inherent in the Constitution and Congress had not amended it to claim that right from the states the court returned it to the states and their citizens.

Now Congress is trying to figure out what they can do, and activist politicians are staging political theater to show their disdain for this check and balance of our government.  They are threatening to “pack the court” and the opposition is outraged over this idea.  If we were actually able to speak to each other and format compromises like we used to do, then there probably are some legitimate reasons for actually expanding the court from nine to eleven, or maybe even thirteen.  Unfortunately, in today’s world that is a non-starter.

Unrelated, except for the traditional for/against opposition, is the ideal of the Second Amendment. Both sides have their emotional talking points and neither side has any desire to listen or understand the reasoning of the opposition.  Those who think the volume of guns is the root cause would abandon the Second Amendment to restrict those guns.  Those who think the amendment is there to protect the rights of the citizen against an abusive government feel equally strongly about its protection.  Of course, the emotional demands mean we really will never explore to find an actual root cause of mass shootings, i.e. what is in the head of those who choose violence in this form and how did it get there?  By the way, it is interesting the government has never released the finding of the largest mass shooting in recent memory, the killings in Las Vegas in 2017.  I wonder why?

c) Do we want the perception of safety or the perception of freedom? As a human we will never actually be completely safe or completely free. Life is a dangerous place, and within a society we must often choose what freedoms we will sacrifice to make society function. This was one of the great debates of our founders as the wrestled with forming a government that would establish us as a nation, while maintaining the maximum number of rights and freedoms for its citizens.  Along the way we’ve increasingly imposed sanctions of individual freedoms, but we are now reaching a point where we will decide if enough is enough or do we want more?

The Democratic party seems to favor the illusion of safety over individual freedom.  They will spy on us to ensure those right-wing extremists are kept in check. While the Republican party offers the illusion of individual freedom, supposedly protecting individual freedoms, unfortunately I see little from them about actually reducing the amount of government available to spy on us, or control our lives. I believe many in my generation have come to value individual freedom from government mandated safety, but that is a very close call.  The younger generations all seem like they want more government to provide more safety as well as all the safeguards for poor life decisions.

That about sums up what I think are the big three issues I’ll be thinking about when I go into the polls this November.  I hope we make wise choices, for if we don’t at some point, we will see the end of the nation-state we call home.

 

The Day Dobbs Killed Roe

Depending upon your point of view today is a day of celebration or a day of infamy. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) today issued an opinion nullifying the previous court rulings of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA v. Casey. Regardless of your feelings, opinions, and beliefs, today is as important a day in the history of the Court as it was in 1955 when SCOTUS ruled in Brown v. Board of Education overturning their earlier opinion in Plessey v. Ferguson.  That earlier decision had allowed the states to continue to discriminate against the African-American minority by creating a “separate but equal” standard of services. In truth, there was never anything equal about those services, ranging from “whites only” fountains up to “whites only” schools.

The questions the earlier court failed to address in Roe and Casey was the grounds for those courts to decide on whose needs were protected by the Constitution, and whether or not abortion was, in fact, a constitutionally guaranteed right. Interestingly in Roe, the state of Texas argued the rights of the fetus was protected under the due process restrictions of the 14^th Amendment.  The court rejected this and refused to seriously consider the rights of the unborn.  They set a standard that assumed a fetus in the first trimester was neither viable nor alive.  They went so far as to point out some religions don’t believe life starts until birth.  That has been the standard those who support abortion have lived with for the past 50-years. 

Casey successfully sought to expand the length of pregnancy where a woman could request an abortion on demand, but without any real review of the correctness of Roe.  This court has found the arguments in both Roe and Casey are not so convincing that the judgement of the courts should be the final determination of when, and for who abortions are performed. With Dobbs they return the right of determination back to the states -- where the people as a whole can decide through their elected representatives what they want to support.

The one thing that really frustrates me is the lack of self-awareness of people who’ve been in charge of the nation since Roe v. Wade.  It’s as if they don’t understand how this government is supposed to work.  In 1864, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation it was only for the 11-states of the Confederacy.  There were four border states that still had slaves.  Slavery didn’t officially end until we ratified the 13^th Amendment on Dec 6, 1865. The people who support abortion had 50-years to take any decision out of the hands of the court by making a woman’s right absolute with an amendment. They didn’t.

Of course, for the easily outraged this is pure and simple fascism.  Returning the ability to decide what is right for the people of a state to the elected politicians of the state?  Totally unacceptable, who can trust those people to decide things? That’s why we have all those smart politicians in Washington who are routinely elected and reelected for life.  We are slowly abandoning the ideal of Federalism, to be ruled by the Jacobin mob in DC. What is so funny is this is actually what fascism would look like, but whatever?

I’ve been told some of the people who know me are so upset by this ruling they are emotionally broken, but thankfully live in states who are good with abortion.  Some are threatening to move to other countries, as if restrictions on abortion don’t exist there, and some will join in with the movement of the mobs to attack those who support the lives of the unborn. It is funny how people who think killing of children in a school is terrible, but limiting the killing of a potential life is worthy of violence.

There is a severe thunderstorm outside my window right now, and I am afraid one will grow throughout our nation as the Biden Administration and the Democrats in government condemn the actions of the court, argue for its abolishment, and look aside as domestic terrorists attack those who they disagree with.

What is Truth?

For most of us, this seems a relatively simple question.  Truth is factually correct information.  But is it?  How do we separate truth from fiction, or fact from opinion? In this age of an overabundance of data, sorting through this to find the truth is a daunting task, and one most of us can’t be bothered with. We tend to take shortcuts to find an answer we like, rather than wonder about the truth. 

A quick search of the question, (what is truth?) returns some interesting perspectives.  From a religious standpoint, we can find: “Truth is a self-expression of God.”  Psychology Today says: “Truth is a property not so much of thoughts and ideas but more properly of beliefs and assertions.” Then, of course, you have the exchange between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in the movie “A Few Good Men.”

But what happens to society when people no longer believe in the institutions we’ve developed to provide for a stable social construct? 

Does the court system deal in truth? Perhaps, but in our advocacy system, the defense is actually charged with obscuring the facts to present an alternative version of reality. So, in a sense, it is left to the jury to decide what is true and what is not.  Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don’t.

Does the entertainment industry deal in truth? I think most would agree it does not. But we seek those whose celebrity comes from that industry to tell us what is true. This leads me to a core problem with our social construct today. Is the way we receive our information from a fact-based system, or an entertainment-based one? Are any of the public “news” channels focused on truth, or do they only offer the opinions they believe will draw the greatest number of viewers?

We talk about our first amendment right to “free speech” but the constitution only places limits on what rules the government can implement, and the idea of “free speech” will mean not all speech is true. Whose job is it to decide what is true and what is not? The most recent pandemic of COVID-19 played out against this backdrop. There were politicians, activists, entertainers, and experts all weighing in on what was true. For the average person, it fell down to who could, or should, you believe?

As the virus played out in its mutating forms we saw, in real time, the struggle to control the flow of information and the increasing polarization of opinions based not on a seeking of the truth, but on the control of the population, allegedly to control the virus. Did it work?  I’m not sure how you could possibly tell that one method was superior to another since, as far as I can tell, seeking truth was never an objective.  What I do know is as of today, here in the United States, there is a statistically insignificant difference between states that exerted maximum control of the populations, and states that began to ease restrictions as soon as they could.  The top four most populous states in the nation are California, Texas, Florida, and New York.  The top four states in the nation for COVID deaths are California, Texas, Florida, and New York.

As we look towards our government and social media, do the institutions operate to provide truth, or do they operate to control and limit power?  What is the truth?

Experts are Confusing.

We live in a world of experts. All you have to do is look at any of the social media feeds.  Everyone has all the answers, sometimes without even knowing the questions. In this world of experts, it is becoming increasingly difficult to know what to do, who to do it too, and what will happen when it’s done. To illustrate this, let’s start with a big question and work our way down to a little one.

Question 1:  How was the universe created?

Answer:  Experts believe it was created by a “big bang” and it is expanding outward until someday it will stop expanding and collapse back within itself.  Other theological experts believe God created the universe with intelligent design. Depending on the theology it is working as a clock wound up or God is tinkering with it like a clocksmith.  

My confusion:  If the universe started from a single big bang, what was there before, and what caused that single big bang?  If it is expanding outward – what is it expanding into?  From a theological standpoint, if God created the universe how come it’s expanding at all?  

My theory: we are just a giant loaf of bread and right now God has us on the counter while the yeast rises.  The reason we have global warming is the yeast creates an exothermic reaction, or we are about to be put into the oven.  That solved let’s move on to the next question.

Question 2:  Why is there war?

Answer 2: War is a competition for resources, control, and wealth.  OR, it is just caused by men with small penises. 

My confusion:  How do experts know what size penis a Dictator, King, or President has?  Also, what happens when Queens start wars?  Does that mean it is a competition for wealth?  The Egyptians never seemed to need a massive empire like the Macedonians, does that mean Alexander the Great, wasn’t really that great in the manhood department?

My theory: War is caused by women, who’ve cleverly found a way to blame men, except when they are in charge and have beheaded anyone they could have blamed.

Question 3:  What is the greatest risk to U.S. National Security?

Answer 3:  The greatest risk to U.S. National Security is a) nuclear war, b) global famine caused by climate change, c) a few white supremacists, d) parents actually questioning school boards or e) insurrection.  Each of these answers has experts who will explain why these are all threats to national security because you know a single threat would be mundane.  You can never have too many threats.

My confusion:  Is it possible to prioritize threats without political agenda?  Can we agree that one threat is more likely to destroy the nation than another?

My theory:  No, it is not possible to prioritize threats without a political agenda.  The importance of a threat depends solely on your point of view and the ability to get in front of the right megaphone to yell out what you think the problem is.  With that in mind, I think the biggest threat to us as a nation is obesity, we will all gain so much weight the population of the west coast will cause the continent to flip over.

Question 4: What is the greatest threat to Public Health?

Answer 4:  This seems to change on almost a daily basis as various experts come forth to tell us what the latest health risks are. It was all pretty simple before the Chinese discovered the Wuhan Virus, now known affectionately as COVID-19. With its arrival, we shut down the world with government mandates until we could get enough personal protective equipment (i.e., masks and rubber gloves, along with social distancing) to stop the spread.  When those didn’t work, we rolled vaccines that were supposed to stop people from getting the virus, and when those didn’t work some went back to government mandates. Now that every rational being seems to be burned out with COVID we are moving on to a new set of “greatest threats.”  Of course, there is “monkeypox” but that hasn’t emerged as the vehicle of choice for the experts, so we are coming up with things like insurrection, assault weapons, and angry young men.

My Confusion:  The number one threat to public health used to be the disease or diseases that killed the most people, although automobiles had a strong lobby and never really got traction as #1.  Smoking and cancer stood out for a long time, but then we started getting the “real” scientists involved.  (By real I mean the internet scientists) and things like gender identity, bullying, and questioning the government experts raised concerns that disinformation was becoming a real threat.

My Theory: Identifying a single greatest threat would risk the other threats losing government funding and the people who like to spend other people’s money would be upset when their political donors don’t get their fair share, so they will continue to funnel money back to the politician.

Attempting to Do in Fifty Days What You’ve Not Done in Fifty Years

Or

Never Let an Emotional Issue Go to Waste.

The leaking of a draft decision in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization indicated the high court may overturn a previous court’s ruling in Roe vs. Wade, that a woman had a right to abortion, throughout the nation.  All those who see opportunity in this have risen up to defend or condemn the potential ruling.  Facts don’t really matter here.  Those who are pro-abortion are outraged, while those who are pro-life rejoice.

What does matter is how the politicians of the two sides are going to react!

We see the feigned outrage of the DNC as Senators, Representatives, Governors, and even the President (and his spokespeople), come before the nation to condemn the court, and vow action to undo the decision to return the right to decide on any limits to abortion to the states in accordance with the U.S. Constitution[1].  The Democratic members of the House and the Senate, as well as the President, believe they can craft a law that either makes abortion a national law or limits the ability of each state to decide its own standard.  I believe this is simply a politically opportunistic folly, that shows how little our politicians really know about the Constitution, and the belief they will be able to change the composition of the Supreme Court to move it to the politically liberal side to overturn whatever ruling comes out of the Dobbs case.

Now let’s be clear, in the almost 50-years since Roe v. Wade there has been little if any effort to codify a woman’s right to choose what to do with her pregnancy. In fact, since 1972 there has been only one amendment to the Constitution approved.  The 27^th Amendment, first proposed in 1791, but finally ratified in 1992, sets limits on Congress to give themselves pay raises.

So now the left thinks they can write a law that will “codify” a woman’s universal right to abortion before the fall elections.  All I’ve got to say is good luck!  Even if they wrote such a fanciful law would it stand the scrutiny of a court that defers to the Constitution as a principle?

Of course, there are those “radical” politicians who think this can all be corrected if we just pack the court with enough radical justices to make the Constitution irrelevant.  Again, good luck in achieving that before the mid-terms.

---

[1] Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791.  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. 

 

Just an Opinion on the Faith of a Progressive

         I’m told someone serving in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has taken the unprecedented step of releasing a draft opinion of the court as it is being debated and written by the justices.  Of course, it is not some mundane matter, but over abortion rights in the country.  As a disclaimer I’ve not read the draft, nor do I intend to.  There is nothing I can do about it.  To be honest, while I have my opinion on the issue, aligned to my faith, and the moral questions people who support abortion on demand will not and cannot answer the Court's opinion is what it is, and will not directly affect me. 

What I observe in the media that lives for these kinds of events is the outrage on both sides, as the issue enters the public forum.  Those who’ve sought to overturn the SCOTUS rulings in Roe vs. Wade and the subsequent cases, which expanded the limits of abortion on demand are rejoicing, but are upset with what they see as a politically driven breach of procedure.  While those who’ve advocated for unlimited abortion are now mobilizing for what they believe to be a historic fight for their freedom to kill those whose lives are inconvenient.  All the usual players have taken the stage, with all the usual rants and opinions.

What I like to observe and comment on though is how those who have no faith in a higher power, putting all their faith in the rule of man are now reacting.

Those people see the nation falling into an age of darkness because of the men and women who may vote to overturn a social ruling of the court to comply with their view of the role of government in the determination of life and individual rights.  I would simply point out that those zealots for abortion have had 50-years to codify the SCOTUS decision into the constitution, but have failed to do so because so many disagree with it and it is a polarizing issue – one they use each election to fight over rather than resolve.

I think it was Chuck Colson, of Watergate fame, who talked about God and faith and pointed out the conspirators of Watergate couldn’t hold up under the pressure of inquisition for a year, while the Church has withstood the questioning of man for over two-thousand years and still keeps the story of the Resurrection alive.

When you chose to place your faith in a politician, political party, or even a SCOTUS ruling you are indeed standing on thin ice.  All the outrage, inflamed rhetoric, or blood-flinging protests will not end the lack of substance in what you believe to be logic and reason.  How quickly you abandon science when it is proven life begins before birth and then when confronted move to outrage.  How fascinating it is to watch you move from the defense of “birthing persons” to “women’s rights” when it comes to a desire to end an inconvenient life.  

I expect we will see all the old and distasteful images of the pre-abortion era flung out as those who’ve placed their faith in man seek to condemn the judgment of man.