Daresay

It was in the free states of New England that William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator, abolitionist, found "contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen than among slaveholders themselves." Among his own, he was considered a disturber of the peace. This did not deter him: "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen--but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat in a single inch--and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and hasten the resurrection of the dead. It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question my influence--humble as it is--is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years--not perniciously, but beneficially--not as a curse, but as a blessing. And posterity will bear testimony that I was right."

In retrospect, how clear it seems that he was right--a fact then obscured, even in the most progressive section of the United States, by a fog of fears and falsehoods. History has vindicated his ideas when most of his contemporaries wouldn't--openly.

It is a delusion to expect what is right to be pervasive and popular--to expect that expressing or doing what is right will bring immediate recognition or riches. It was never thus. What is right will not enlist the already and many enslaved. Their chains will move them to speak and act to their own subjection. To reverse the networked economic and social enforcement of pernicious political correctness, to avert the slavery of former abolitionists, we should expect to earn some ignominy in the short-term. But while we can, we should speak and act--in spite of economic and social penalties--in favor of truth and freedom--content to bear the contempt of the decadent, the dissolute, and the daunted--to await the consolation of a future vindication.

Truth as a Superlative

Have you noticed that when Americans use the word truth, they often preface it with an adjective like perfectly or absolutely or definitely or very--as if what is true needs embellishment--as if what is true needs an exclamation point? This author was caught doing that yesterday and reminded by his wife that what is true just is. God bless her. In other words, it doesn't need embellishments.

I believe this reveals something about Americans: we consider truth relative--as if stubborn facts were subject to private interpretation. Like good, better, and best, to us, truth has degrees--verity has a hierarchy in America. We think some things are true, some truer, and some truest. So, what makes something that is true a superlative? Is a thing truer when we feel strongly about it or when it strokes our ego or when we know nothing about the facts but it concerns our friends? If truest is truly true, does what is mere "truth" verge on falsehood? And, will what is truest always be what is loudest or prettiest or most popular? Perhaps Winston Churchill, English statesman and historian depicted us well when he said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing (ie. tell the truth) - after they've tried everything else"?

The Unwritten, Evolving, But Enforceable Law

The Dodd-Frank Bill, a sweeping revision of dozens of laws regulating finance and credit--the lifeblood of the American economy--passed in 2010, outsourced much of Congress' discretion to regulators. Four years later, many of the hundreds of rules proposed by the bill have yet to be written by regulators in the Obama Administration. As critics predicted, the regulatory system has been in chaos for years as a result of Dodd-Frank. One critic of the legislation, law professor David Skeel, observed in the bill a "government partnership with the largest Wall Street banks and financial institutions" and "a system of ad hoc interventions by regulators that are divorced from basic rule-of-law constraints". That the rules remain unwritten burdens the economy with uncertainty. This law may explain why banks are hoarding, instead of lending, unprecedented amounts of money as the international economy contracts. Also, the unwritten nature of the law may enable ex post facto and arbitrary regulatory enforcement. In other words, Americans (ie. those in finance), may be culpable for non-compliance with an as-yet unwritten regulations. Note: ex post facto laws were expressly prohibited by the Constitution.  A couple of years ago, the argument was made that Congress must pass an unpopular law before we would know what is in it; in contrast, Dodd-Frank was passed before it was really written.

Responsibilities Without Rights

When Hillary Clinton alluded recently to a "basic bargain" for Americans who "work hard and play by the rules", she echoed Barack Obama's 2013 State of Union Address in which he said "It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country -- the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead." I am not sure where this basic bargain was discovered. It isn't in the United States Constitution. The rights enumerated therein are not conditioned on one's work ethic or even on one's adherence to responsibilities. In fact, even eccentrics have rights in America. The Constitution circumscribes the government--and not the rights of individuals. To accept the idea of the "basic bargain" is to accept the idea that our rights are conditional--that they are conditioned upon our exertions and/or our obedience (ie. ideological obedience). To assess the quantity of one's work--and thus to determine if "hard work" has been done--is to assess the quality and directionality of one's work: who dictates whether one's work is done, must determine what one's work is and whether it is done satisfactorily. And who dictates whether one has met his responsibilities, must delineate the responsibilities of those he superintends. In effect, he who has responsibilities without rights is as pliant as a puppet, but does not need actuation. Under the "basic bargain", will the hard work, contained in this blog, qualify this author for rights in America (ie. the right to get ahead)?

The Individuality of Integrity; The Collapse of Common Consent

Social science asserts that social preferences cannot be made intelligible in a democracy--that democracy must be either arbitrary or impossible. Proofs are provided by the Condorcet Paradox and the Arrow Impossibility Theorem. Stated differently, political science insists it is futile to expect to translate the popular will into coherent social policy in a democracy--that what is expressed by a close election must be either arbitrary or manipulated. This is, obviously, a very cynical concept.

But it is one that is held by many governing elites in America. It explains some of the cynicism toward the governed and the distrust of the governing in America: there is a belief among our foremost democrats that democracy is impossible. But they won't broadcast this belief: to do so, would be to controvert their own legitimacy; to do so, would be to confess their cynical manipulation of a political system they contest. When these "democrats" envision a "more perfect union" than our constitutional democratic republic, what is it that they envision? What form would their perfect union take--a form far more efficient than democracy--the form of a tyranny? Before modern social science had sway, Winston Churchill, the English statesman and historian, asserted that "democracy is the worst form of government except all of the others that have been tried".



Without the aid of modern science, our forefathers understood the perils of plurality: in arguing for the Constitution, James Madison observed that "democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." To check this tendency of democracies, the founders implemented a republic--a representative democracy. The will of the people would be expressed by representative legislators and electors focused on governance. A republican form of government would mitigate many of the deficiencies of a pure democracy. For example, a republican form of government would address asymmetric access to information: electors and dedicated legislators would be drawn from the elites--from persons with better access to education and information--elected directly by the people. Dedicated and consequently better-informed representatives would express the preferences of a less informed and sometimes misinformed mass of voters in public policy debates. If this characterization of the masses (ie. as misinformed) rankles readers, consider the characterization that the "democrats" described above entertain: they consider the masses completely incapable of self-governance.



The founders recognized that a republican form of government would not mitigate all the deficiencies of pluralism. For example, it would be less efficient about decisions and resource-allocations than would be a dictatorship. It would probably be less constant but longer lived than a kingship. But administered faithfully, it would best protect persons from oppressions and private property from confiscations.



From the axioms of social science, it follows, (and reason confirms) that common consent lacks the integrity of individual conscience. Without unanimous solidarity in leadership, institutions (ie. parties) are incapable of real integrity and real honesty. Their course will be circuitous. An individual, only, is capable of a straight and narrow course--by the grace of God. But only if the individual refuses changing, inchoate collective wisdom. Integrity is an attribute of individuals; it is not an attribute of institutions based on common consent. And it defies leaders who chase mass consent--leaders who are lead by polls and collectives--and not by their conscience.

On In-dependency

What accounts for the disparity between predictions by national polls about the midterm elections and what the actual outcome of the election was? Post-election media revisionism might suggest otherwise, but pollsters predicted a near-draw in the U.S. Senate. Instead, before the election, Democrats held 53 of 100 seats and, after the election, Republicans held 54 of 100 Senate seats. Were the polls, as reported by the national media, a means to influence the outcome of the election--a means to nudge voters toward a preferred party and platform? Were the polled Americans lying to the pollsters before the election--lying because they were fearful about expressing their true opinions except within the closed curtains of a voting booth? Or, did they abruptly reverse their opinions after they were polled but before they voted? In any case, this disparity does not bode well for independence. Independence is for those who are capable of independent inquiry and honest, firm, and independent opinions.

On Prosperity in America

Prosperity was promised to Israel by God: "ye shall eat your bread to the full.....I will give you peace in the land.....none shall make you afraid.....ye shall chase your enemies.....(I will) make you fruitful....." (Leviticus 26)--if they would love their God and neighbors.  If they would not, He warned: "ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.....your strength shall be spent in vain....."

Prosperity involved the possession of a land in God-given security.  Without secure habitation, there would be no prosperity for Israel.

This promise of prosperity was a collective promise.  The judges were enjoined to "do no unrighteousness in judgment" and the people were enjoined to make provision for the poor (Leviticus 19:10-18) who would be "always with" (Matthew 26:11) them because the grave threat to prosperity (and peace and freedom) was internal injustice--or, in other words, enforced inequality.

Of course, Israel's fall was about idols--about things of antiquity--only about anachronisms that are anything but modern?!? But what is idol worship if it is not contrived inequality? Worshipping idols, men lifted up something other than love of God and man--offering it as a substitute for God's judgment. What men lifted up was self-exalting; it abased others--especially those who could not forge or promote an image of their own. In other words, idol worship subjected men to the whimsical judgments of idols and idolaters and not to the egalitarian, loving judgment of God. By lifting idols and idolaters up, idol worship invited inequality. By prohibiting idol-worship, God prohibited injustice.

Prosperity itself can be a pernicious idol. It is a model for false judgment. Presumptuously, wealth is attributed to the attitudes or merits or exertions of its possessors (ie. Americans). Presumptuously, the poor (ie. poorer nations) are faulted as cause for their own poverty. When prosperity is idolized, respect for truth and law gives way to respect for persons and possessions: the rich are received as righteous oracles; the poor are shunned as sinners. This idolatry makes men insecure, possessive, unstable, vain, foolish, proud, and misanthropic. It is adverse to speech, law, truth, faith, justice, and humanity.

To advance the self-made person thesis and the self-made nation thesis, a huge body of folk wisdom--a redoubt for a religion of materialism--is grown up here in America. You've heard variants of this theme: "to be rich is to be righteous". Its corollary: to be poor (ie. a relatively poor nation) is to be perverse. According to this theme, wealth is goodness--however gotten. A prosperous end will justify any means; a poor end will nullify the ideals of the impoverished--however honorable. This Social Darwinism masquerades as a priest among us: blessing the bounteous and cursing the impecunious and their ideals. He offers communion to those who prey in the name of efficiency, productivity, and the holy planned economy. He brings to ignominy ideals that are insubstantial: and freedom and faith and truth and morality are insubstantial (they really can't be quantified) ideals. His pragmatism is pernicious to thought. In this way, the American intellect is made a reserve for the contemplation of how to get the green produce of a paper press--which press has "multiplied wealth" four-fold in almost as many years. In this way, the values that survive and ascend among us are the values that enrich us materially. And because we think riches evince righteousness, there is no principle that would cause us to part from mammon. But at some point, in an era of ever more frenetic and frenzied profiteering, the values that enrich are the very values that defraud. Then, to thrive is to deprive. For example, at some point, the torque is too great to stay atop a twisted treadmill--as the failures at Sunbeam, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom, Countrywide and government sponsored enterprises will attest. Each of these failures represents a heavy human cost. But how many among us would have left stock options at any of these--in the heyday, before the crash, out of principle? Recognize that in the hands of crafty monetary administrators, our philosophic optimism and pragmatism may be nothing but a nose ring. But so long as we consider the nose ring an ornament, we will go, skipping to the sound of our self-assuring voices, in chains, to where the planners of our economy lead us. And for the sake of substance gotten, the rich will keep us skipping in tow. Perhaps Jesus preferred the poor because they are less compromising as to truth and principle--because they compromise out of necessity and not for the sake of abundance? In any case, the self-made thesis is nonsense as a stand alone: it denies God. Rarely, will the prosperous (ie. Americans) observe, more rarely, will they acknowledge that the causes of their prosperity were outside of themselves and outside of their control--that their prosperity is simply the stuff of God's generosity--of inheritance, of windfall, of vicinity. Without God-given gifts like a rich land and a constitutional rule of law and its attendant freedom and peace, the best attitudes and merits and exertions would have been as prosperous, even in America, as a lunar miner without air. In the easy air of America, the prosperous found their lodes and made their fortunes. But they clung to and counted their lodes. And forgot the Giver. And neglected the air of freedom. Some seem to think that their stash will save them without a supply of air. For their kin--now gasping--will they save the air? Which came first, the stash or the air supply? Of what use is the lode without the air? Will this idol, prosperity, save a suffocating world? Did idols save Israel?

History reveals Israel chose idolatry and injustice--that Israel put substance ahead of the spirit of God's love. Will America? Israel's institutionalized inequality caused dangerous divisions. It compromised peace. Ultimately, it dispossessed all Israel of its promised land.

Without prospective justice, there is no peace and there is no prosperity. Who can blame the oppressed of Israel for not gifting their allegiance to oppressors--for not rendering fidelity when it would yield servility--for vagrant, bewildering allegiances when their hope was vagrant--for not cherishing the prosperity that they could not partake of--for treachery against a increasingly treacherous, platitude-wielding legalism--for eventually, without prospect of equity, allying with the enemy of their enemy who would captivate their captors and overthrow the land of their oppression? When there is no prospect for progress in terms of justice (ie. when deceit displaces honesty), when there is no hope for amelioration, the oppressed, however magnanimous, will naturally thwart the peace and prosperity of their own people.

Wide and Deep

During the Civil War, in a great act by one of America's greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln set apart a day for national prayer proclaiming "it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.....And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!....It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."

The Civil War continued. Many of its bloodiest battles followed. Years passed. Still, Lincoln prayed, acknowledging God's justice in the startling duration and the depths of the nation's suffering: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Thankfully, it did not require slash for lash to exorcise American slavery.  The extent and intensity of the nation's suffering was not matched to the nature and severity of its sins--because God is merciful.

As our leaders and people have strayed from the true and righteous judgment of God--preferring vanity, false hope, oppressive peace, and deceit--what will it take to exorcise the spirit of perverse judgment that condemns what is true and righteous and consigns it to the corners of our society and speech?

They're Coming To America

Is it time for Americans to consider EFL classes (English as a Former Language or, in other words, Spanish classes)? The President has announced his intention to naturalize tens of millions of illegal immigrants with or without Congressional approval--to naturalize persons who value our constitutional republic so much that they came here and come here without invitation and without the rights of a citizen.

It is altogether fitting and proper that a God-fearing, freedom-loving, ingenuous, merciful, family-oriented, hard-working, and contrite people should possess America. Such a people will remember to thank God for the inheritance He gives them here--to rejoice in the boon that He has given them and not to undervalue or undermine it: they will cherish the Constitution that made America (ie. more than money)--conserve faith and freedom--establish a just peace--and not put gain and self above love for God and others. From God's perspective, this better state might be best accomplished by importation--by bringing people that already have those qualities into America. From His perspective, perhaps it is easier, at the present, to import these human qualities than it is to inculcate them? Already, God has tried gentle inculcation in America. Perhaps if they are less secure in themselves, perhaps if alien role models are introduced, some of the "natives" (former imports) will amend their ways? Perhaps abjectivity will bring objectivity?

Inadvertently, perhaps those who seek political gain through illegal immigration are fulfilling God's will for the repopulation of America and their own eventual displacement? Perhaps what the President "heard" from the two-thirds of American voters who did not vote in the mid-term election was not apathy or disdain for politics--as if politics don't matter a bit--but God's will for the repopulation of America or their wish for new, imported neighbors?

It is altogether just that this repopulation should arise from the corruption of the current inhabitants--that it should issue from breaches of laws by a lawless but legalistic people. God is just. But He prefers to show mercy to the merciful and penitent.

It is altogether just that a flawed public welfare system that has captivated so many minorities will probably be broken by this influx. This will reveal the bankruptcy of keeping brothers from any economic failure and all economic success for the sake of their votes. We will then realize--if we don't now--that when the law is not executed faithfully and justly, returns on labor and investment become uncertain; which destroys incentive; which burdens welfare rolls; which ultimately imperils all social contracts including promises to welfare recipients.

To many Americans--whose jobs may go to someone with like skills but less demands, whose schools may exceed capacity, whose checks from Social Security may cease--this development seems ominous.  But we will not fear if we are true to our national motto (in God we trust): we are assured that "all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28).

In the short-term, some stand to gain by depressing wages and bankrupting government. But they are not the poor and the immigrants--in spite of all the demagoguery.

The political impasse over immigration seems so God-ordained. If He spoke to us now, perhaps He would say: "If you don't love your neighbor (as I do), find a new neighborhood; if you want stark change (not the constitutional republic that is America), you can be removed; if your resources are too scarce to be shared, I will give them to people who consider them plenteous--people who will be generous; if you prefer lawless license, let's try anarchy." Also, it is as if God has written a letter of emancipation to our brothers and sisters elsewhere--an offer to possess the land that they covet--a letter like the one that follows:


To My Dear Children of Developing Countries--of Central and South America Especially:

Give the United States your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to the United States:
I lift my lamp to them through my son, Barack Hussein Obama, beside the golden door.

With Love,


Your Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost

The 1980s Are Now Calling to Ask for Their Foreign Policy Back

Russia recently built a banned cruise missile--in violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.  Then, Vladimir Putin announced his intent to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea.  Deployment to Crimea will place Russian tactical nuclear weapons on soil it just seized within 300 miles of Istanbul and Ankara.  But the U.S. Administration doesn't seem concerned.  In fact, the US appears to be dismantling its NATO nuclear deterrent in Europe and outsourcing NATO policy to Germany.  Is this, Russia's nuclear saber-rattling in Crimea and support of wannabe nuclear Iran, just a regional threat or the stuff of a NATO split?  Will our NATO ally, Turkey, finally join the U.S. fight against ISIS? Vladimir Putin just met with Turkey's Erdogan: a pipeline that would have conveyed its gas to Europe will be rerouted to Turkey; trade (ie. the services necessary to construct a nuclear power plant in Turkey) between Moscow and Turkey is growing while the rest of NATO sanctions Russia.

Will the 1940s be calling to ask for their foreign policy back? Will the 1910s? Will the 1860s?

Inevitable Apprehension

God bless Julia Ward Howe, author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic:

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on."

Ms. Howe looked beyond the bloody Civil War and saw the coming of Christ as promised by the Bible--with "fateful lightning".  She saw His triumph--His reign characterized by justice and peace.  She recognized that there is no such thing as holiness without the freedom to choose it--a freedom He expects us to uphold and defend for ourselves and others.

When compared to this Shepherd, Jesus Christ, all other shepherds seem contemptible--mere man pleasers and demagogic self-promoters. As anciently, those who love unjust authority will deny Him or seek to disgrace Him or displace Him or delay Him--they will consider His coming to be disruptive to their dominion over others. His coming will be characterized by apprehension: some will see--apprehend--His glory and truth and purpose; and some will experience terror and horror. When He comes, He will exalt the poor and the meek and the afflicted: they will inherit the earth.  Those who await Him--those who trust Him--are His people.  He has promised "they shall not be ashamed that wait for me" (Isaiah 49:23).

A Free Country?

Perhaps you have encountered a similar problem.  I was unable to access videos on the Fox News website on the night before the midterm election.  Should I look to a free country for my news?

The Criminalization of Political Expression

"personal life is being de-moralized" while "political life is being hyper-moralized", asserts David Brooks of the New York Times.  Policy prescriptions of opposing ideologues are already so irreconcilable, according to article commentator MFW, that they are dismissed as "akin to trying to paint a room in a house that is burning down".  Political-moral certitude has contributed to a "criminalization of politics" according to George Will:  conservative expression has been suppressed--examples of this appear in paramilitary raids on conservatives in Wisconsin and in abuses against conservatives by the IRS.

The hyper-moralization of politics, the criminalization of political expression in America is evident in and is traceable to its fount in the case of Catherine Engelbrecht.  In 2010, Catherine Engelbrecht sought IRS tax-exempt status for the organization True the Vote, a non-profit election integrity organization.  Soon thereafter, the Federal Bureau of Investigations Domestic Terrorism Unit visited the to-be non-profit.  The FBI informed Engelbrecht it was investigating a person who had attended the to-be non-profit's meetings.  It was only after six similar and intimidating visits that the FBI relented.  Next, the Engelbrechts were subjected by the IRS to an audit of business tax returns followed by an audit of their personal tax returns.  Then, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) abruptly audited their business.  And they were subjected to an examination by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).  The BATF and OSHA found no violations.  But their visits resulted in fines of about $20,000.   Meanwhile, the IRS inquired into Catherine Engelbrecht's personal correspondence and beliefs, public communications, and the whereabouts of her activities and assets.

In the context of the IRS scandal, this story has been heard by Congress.  In the context of the IRS scandal, it has been reported in conservative media.  But it is a story with implications much broader than even the IRS scandal.  It deserves its own scandal headline and investigation.  This is a story of tyranny--of criminal collusion across federal agencies to stifle speech and assembly--by the executive branch of the federal government and complicit Democratic legislators.

The public servants at the IRS have yet to serve the public the truth about the IRS scandal (never mind the colluding public servants at the FBI / Justice Department, the BATF, and OSHA).  Instead, they have been complicit accessories in a criminal cover-up--putting their politics and livelihoods ahead of our freedom and ultimately theirs.

Because justice has been subverted, pathetic travesties proceed in our courts.  The House of Representatives, Catherine Engelbrecht, and others seek civil redress for criminal and unconstitutional acts--acts that caused damages that cannot be quantified and may include the mis-election of a President.  The supreme justice authorities and tax authorities in the United States were directly involved in critically stifling speech and assembly.

Under this license to criminalize political expression, how many obscure and undetected abuses have arisen?   For example, are banks which were nationalized by the bank bailout extending and refusing credit and prosecuting creditors based on political expression?  Parenthetically, on the day of the mid-term election, I received a summons from Zions Bank related to an unsecured line of credit.  Perhaps Zions doesn't know my assets were dissipated by an unconstitutional eminent domain taking?  Also, for example, are public schools preying on children whose parents express conservative political opinions?  Parenthetically, the Miller family just got three D grades at Ogden schools:  one for a second grader; one for a Middle School student--in a class her academic counselor transferred her out of at the beginning of the term, and one for a 10th grader in mathematics--a subject that he has always excelled in (ie. at a charter school).  Parenthetically, the public high school that awarded him this grade is ranked at the bottom of the state.  These are not children disadvantaged because they come from single parent households or children disadvantaged by their lack of familiarity with the English language, are they disadvantaged by their household beliefs?

Recognizing Terrorists' Territorial Claims--But Not Terrorists' Ideology

Many have adopted the acronym ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) to identify the army that is terrorizing the world from territory it holds on and between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.  And that is why it is so curious that this Administration insists on using the acronym ISIL.  Doesn't use of this moniker, ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), stupidly or tacitly recognize the territorial claims of the subject terrorists?!  And stupidly or tacitly menace the Levant--the geography that contains Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon?!  The persistent use of this moniker, by the once leader of the free world, simultaneously a) promotes the claims of avowed enemies and b) menaces our allies.  Use of the acronym ISIL is, in effect, treasonous.  If this Administration can recognize the territorial claims of ISIS, why can't they recognize the influence of Islam in the formation of the "Islamic" State?  ISIS is simply Islam in theocratic practice:  American leaders have stupidly or tacitly recognized terrorists' territorial claims, why don't they recognize their ideology?  At least, they might desist from using this treasonous acronym.

Animus as Impetus

It is likely that the issue of national gay marriage will turn on the definition of a single word.  The word is animus.  It means strong dislike or hostility or enmity or animosity or hatred.  As you can see, the word has a whole spectrum of meaning.  Its primary hue is red.  It denotes seething.  Some use it as legalese for 'hater'.  It is a good word for revolting teens:  "Dad, you are showing animus toward my friends and lifestyle."  Who feuds wielding this word, comes off sounding very sensible--as he or she expresses what is really only an opinion.  Animus is about heat and opinion; it is not a word for facts or reason.  It doesn't express something that can be measured rationally; for example, the advocates of its usage in same-sex arguments can't credibly say:  "the animus scale clearly reveals that this author falls somewhere between a hostile and a hater."  Animus has yet to be measured in individuals with any standardized method--let alone to be measured in a populace.  When it is, it will be measured using subjective standards.

In court, the animus assertion sounds like this:  the states "have given us no reason to think they have a 'reasonable basis' for forbidding same sex-marriage.....this suggests animus against same-sex marriage."  The courts have preferred to indict the masses for animus rather than acknowledge that our basis for moral judgment under the Constitution, including the notion of non-discrimination, is Judeo-Christian (ie. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you")--a basis which must finally yield up its place and authority in order to accommodate gay marriage for the 1%?

Isn't it curious that this highly variable, exceptionally sentimental word is expected to overturn laws that majorities made in many States--in our highest court?  By basing their judgment on this one wobbly word, will the Justices discover or devise some objective scale for weighing animus (ie. toward equal protection under law for same-sex couples) or will they reveal their animi (animuses) toward the People, their legislatures, the Constitution, the First Amendment, States rights, Judeo-Christian morality, and republican democracy?  These things would be rather a lot to cast on the ash heap for such a wobbly word--especially when the word might be best applied to the condemnation of a majoritarian sentiment.  Will the Supreme Court deem the People 'haters'?

Abraham Lincoln, Conspiracy Theorist (Continued)

Today, in an article entitled "At Supreme Court, Kicking the Tires on a Same-Sex Marriage Case Fit for History", the New York Times observed "The lawyers challenging the same-sex marriage bans (in many states) are confident they will win in the Supreme Court, which is why they have all urged the justices to hear their cases even though they had won in the lower (appeals) courts."  This is how the Times explained the inexplicable and generally unheard-of acts of appealing--en mass--verdicts deemed victories: it is simple glory-hounding by persons prescient about how the Supreme Court will rule!?!  Observe that these lawyers stand to gain--not just the notoriety of a historic verdict, as noted by the New York Times--but the standing of nobility in America for themselves and others of their ilk.  Imagine the importance of argumentation and presentation--their specialties--when laws become completely arbitrary and amoral.  This is precisely what national gay marriage would do: it would redefine law away from morality as we know it.  However moralizing the tenor of the arguments by its advocates, national gay marriage would make laws amoral and judgment immoral.  This would serve ambitious litigators:  when charisma is the only criterion in court, nothing will be outside the grasp of a good, licensed attorney.

I pity their gay clients.  Not because they found matrimonial bliss in spite of populist state laws.  But because they are being made to hazard their it anew for a runaway cause.  Their issue is no longer the concern of a mere 1-2%.

Their issue has become the foil of every gentile thrusting against God's objective moral code and against America's Judeo-Christian Constitution and legal system.  With this, they thrust viciously at the eyes and ears and mouth of legitimate justice.  Some human eyes are already dull; some ears are already missing; some mouths are already silenced.  Unchecked, these wicked strokes could blind the body politic, mute expression, and dumb truth; and thus, would foil freedom, faith, and hope--for everyone--eventually including those stabbing and slashing at the only real basis for law and justice.  Resist this national self-mutilation while you can still see and speak.  Eventually, if we let them "succeed", the only equality will be an equality of misery.  Unless they desist, they will discover that they brought their sword to a duel with God--that they brought their sword to a cataclysm.

God bless us with better sense than that of a swarm of fruit flies:  may we sense while we are still aloft (and not afloat) that vinegar, however presented, is not, after all, a fruit.

The Security of a Vain Imagination

Americans are afflicted with a certain malady common to hegemonies. The ancient Romans caught it. In fact, it was the seed of their demise. It appears in much of our self-help literature--a self-affirming, self-congratulatory, self-buoyancy that damns the torpedos of fate that can only afflict less enlightened peoples. This self-sufficient self-satisfaction is never rash nor abashed. Our assumptions are laced with it--assumptions about how to, what's important, and who's who. Some suggest that this is a strength of ours. I believe, if anything, it has reached the dimensions of a delusion. And daily, it is more delusional. We ask ourselves, "aren't we":

"Buoyant"—who have never really been fated to sink?
"Optimistic"--who have rarely hoped in vain?
"Settled" who have not been removed by conquest?
"Sensible" who haven't really experienced the senselessness of human barbarism?
"Pragmatic"--who haven’t known the exasperation of predator nor the desperation of prey?
"Resourceful"—whose resources have almost always sufficed and been sustainable?
"Enterprising"--whose returns have usually been predictable? 
"Enlightened"--who haven’t endured a long night of totalitarianism?

Of course, I hope that America can remain buoyant and never sink. But we see wilder waves now. And it may not be the fate that God Almighty grants us.

Perhaps as we war with words, mutiny, face existential threats of our own making, and scrap God, we might yet buoy and keep ourselves up with the ballast of our indomitable attitudes? Perhaps our concentrated, happy thoughts will mount a vigorous defense--while our military is dismantled and while the world burns around us? Perhaps if we were more monomaniacal about channeling the American Dream--if we believed more, doubted less, worked longer, spent less, saved more, strove harder for the secular, conformed our every conviction to it, and censored ourselves in favor of the Dream (isn't there yet a dearth of online advice about how we might do these things?)--our federal liabilities, totaling about $530,000 per household, would never come due and would be indefinitely deferred?

I do not hold with those who would afflict America for her hubris--those who would have her or make her abject. Nor do I sympathize with those who believe she was never exceptional--those who pejoratively call her "Merka" even as they are carried by her. These are blind guides and blind observers. They are blind to the protection, prosperity, and preservation of the Almighty.

But even as the bankruptcy of our choices and policy appears, as a nation, as individuals, we are in denial about how we got here. It isn't because we didn't rely on ourselves; it is because we didn't rely on God. It isn't because we lack outward certitude--that which makes for good "optics"; it is because we lack the inward fortitude of faith. It isn't because we didn't fault others for our failures; it is because we didn't find them in ourselves--and amend our ways. It isn't because we didn't have credible reasons to act or to omit actions; it is because we didn't love the truth. It isn't because we have lacked means; it is because we have valued possessions and power more than God, truth, right, and others. It isn't because we didn't have grievances; it is because we didn't seek to be reconciled to God and others. As we remain in denial that we are in demise, how can it be averted?

A group of fishermen once found themselves tossed by a tempest. As the gale shrieked, they knew their seamanship would not suffice--it could not save them. Wisely, they turned to the Master of Sea and Earth and Skies, Jesus Christ. We might do the same. Or not--and perish from the earth as a people.

A Schism Between Progressives

Reviewing recent literature about the shortfalls of elite education in America, in an article entitled "Becoming a Real Person", David Brooks of the New York Times observed "people in authority no longer feel compelled to define how they think moral, emotional and spiritual growth (progress) happens, beyond a few pablum words that no one could disagree with and a few vague references to community service. The reason they don’t is simple. They don’t think it’s their place, or.....they don’t think they know."  Education is lacking and especially in the moral sphere, according to Mr. Brooks.

So if "people in authority" don't think it is their place to define morality or don't think they know what is moral anymore, what does this say about their fitness to set alternative moral standards for society as Sam Harris, a New York Times best-selling author, prominent atheist, and neuroscientist, and others have argued they should?  To Mr. Harris, per his TED speech "Science can answer moral questions", it is "patently obvious, that we can no more respect and tolerate vast differences in the notions of human well being than we can respect or tolerate vast differences in the notions about how disease spreads or in the safety standards of buildings and airplanes.  We simply must converge on the answers that we give to the most important questions of human life.  And to do that, we have to admit that these questions have answers"--answers that science can now supply, according to Mr. Harris.  But why would Mr. Harris suggest we need to stamp out individual variability in our own species when it is the very basis of evolutionary biology?  To me, this is not the morality that one would infer from science.

There is a schism in modern progressivism.  But you wouldn't know it from watching mass media.  It is the chief impediment to their "progress".  Progressives have discovered that to destroy is not to create.  It is one thing to displace God.  But it is quite another to replace Him.  To replace His morality, to muster the authority He once wielded in society, to exercise power over life and death and freedom, to concentrate their control over scarce resources, progressives must make themselves gods.  In other words, if progressives would implement controls over what is existential to others (ie. health, the economy, the environment, births), they must make themselves god-like experts.  This requires certitude--certitude, not in an objective divine but in one's human self--fanatical certitude.  But what sort of gods will they be?  This question is the source of their schism.

Will they be stern gods--like the one many deride, the Old Testament God of Israel, who had His people drive and kill those who differed?  At least, that God is not a human and is, many allege, omniscient:  He is not the god of self, by self, and for self.  Perhaps it was the idolatry of human omniscience that made the people of the ancient Levant irreconcilable to God's people?  In America, how can we be reconciled if progressives will not tolerate active faith expressed by majorities in public policy?  Are they advocating extermination?  Is theirs a secular variant of radical Islam?  Do they consider Judeo-Christians to be infidels?  Thankfully, there is a schism between these progressives and other progressives.

Note that, for more than two millennia, our nation, under God, was not indifferent to moral questions nor intolerant of broad divergences.  Laws were generally executed with the moral certainty of Judeo-Christianity.  And the Constitution has not dictated convergence.  If anything, it has enabled the very opinions (ie. a new progressive theocracy) that now threaten its existence.

As they seek to be the source of existential allocations, if not stern gods, will progressives choose to be gods of reason--gods who will educate and lift others until all mankind embraces their enlightened views?  Of course, this assumes that everyone will eventually see their views as enlightened.  Even Israel's God has had difficulty there.  It also assumes that progressives can be patient--as patient as Israel's God who has over centuries mentored man--only to be ousted in modernity.  But their human mortality is a problem:  how does one inculcate a new conscience in a generation or two?  If it took miracles and millennia to form the old conscience, how can human reason inculcate a new one?  And if reason and reflection will not suffice, what sort of force and fanaticism must one resort to so as to inculcate a new human conscience?  Perhaps science has some promising drugs or medicine some promising therapies?  Oh, but we're back to the stern gods.

Thankfully, there are still progressives with less certitude than what is germane to a god--persons too human to determine what is dispensed to others--persons pansophical enough to see that the burnings at Seville, the gassings at Auschwitz, and China's Great Leap Forward (perhaps 30 million deaths) all involved convergence for 'the greater good'.  God bless them for their reticence to be god themselves.  I am hopeful that they can check the ambitions of others--as these seek to be the sole dispensary of what is existential to others.  Once existential allocations are concentrated, we will be at the mercy of the allocators and the tendency will be to a tyranny of one.

On Prepping

Are you prepared?  For every conceivable contingency?  Are you ready?  For every inconceivable contingency?  Would you survive a riot, war, nuclear disaster, fire, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, virus, comet, or solar storm?  Or live through a confluence of all of these events?  Are you prepared?!?!

It is insatiable--our striving for security.  Once our belly is full, we fill our shelves.  It will not suffice to provide for today.  We must lay up stores for tomorrows--exquisite tomorrows--for distant heirs.  Once we have insured against disability, we might insure ourselves against a pet’s death.  But there is no mass-market insurance for what is truly hazardous--things like divorce, mental illness, long-term un- and under-employment, or incarceration.  However mightily we strive, perfect security eludes us--because we are human.  Of this striving, I suppose I am guilty as any--because I am human.

To some degree, our striving is prudent—the conduct of a sentient and insecure being.  But, at some point, isn’t it absurd?  For example, why are the top 20% of Americans still striving for something that cannot make them secure--when they already control more than 80% of America’s net worth?  Can their wealth ensure them against a solar storm?  And isn’t this vast disparity in the distribution of wealth fraught with peril for both the possessed and the dispossessed--doesn’t it pit the fewer and richer against the more numerous and poorer?  And doesn’t arbitrary redistribution by government make the rich more stingy and the poor less contented?

What does our frenzied, American pursuit for possession (ie. prepping and now redistribution) say about our faith and trust in God?  Have we placed our trust in the creature--and not in the Creator?  Wouldn't this naturally detract from our faith and trust in God?  Perhaps we blame Him for the insecurity we have fueled?  Or have come to consider His conditions unsustainable—come to the conclusion of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor:  real faith is untenable and immaterial?  Perhaps, like the Inquisitor, some seek to correct God’s work, to give men bread first and then demand their abject obedience?

Jesus sought to prepare others for the future but He was no prepper.  His preparations involved faith in God, not substance.  He considered survival and security to be inferior to, subordinate to, and distractions from true salvation:  “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).  He put faith first—even before fulfillment, even before preparations for the future:  “take no thought for the morrow”, He counseled.  Though He anticipated calamities, rather than warn His disciples to prepare for every contingency, he instructed them to “seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind…..For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things” (Luke 12:29-31).  He offered the Bread of Life to those who sought miraculous provision.  He warned the rich to willingly abase and not to exalt themselves “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:13-21); “go and sell that thou has, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven” (Matthew 19:21).  He counselled us all to “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you” (John 6:27).  When we are alarmed or hear alarms, it might be best not to go to fetch or pen the golden goose but to turn to the God of Israel and his manna—Jesus Christ.

A Riddle

It is the currency that revolutionaries, zealots, mutineers, and demagogues offer the masses.  It is that of which they deprive them:  it obstructs progress--for good or ill.  It is goad and hold for Satan's fold.  To fearful mortals, it is insatiable.

What it is?  Mortal security.

On Apostasy

Apostasy is the condition that prevails when men refuse faith and trust in God for other things. 

We are all apostate to a degree:  Jeremiah described men as “brutish” in knowledge (Jeremiah 10:14); Paul observed that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and are generally “ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” (Romans 10:3); John warned “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8); many of the faithful have denounced the wickedness, hatred, pride, vanity, foolishness and hardheartedness of men who seek peace and security where it cannot be found—in possessions, in sin, and in oppressions.

Faith has a history of fits and starts.  History shows that the general condition of humanity has been apostasy.  For example, faith in the God of Israel has been anything but common in most civilizations (ie. in Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and etc.) and most places (even today).  It was fragile even among the children of Israel.  Often, they chose idols over God.  They had epochs of unbelief, captivity, and dispersion; and they had eras of faith, emancipation, and reunion.  Even to God’s most trusted servants, faith has seemed, at times, tenuous.  For example, our New Testament portrait of Peter, the "rock"--a self-deprecating portrait preserved at Peter’s behest-- is one of a man who was generally bewildered by the words, will, and works of God, a man who was often rebuked by Jesus (“thou savorest not the things that be of God”--Matthew 16:21-23).  Nothing, it seems, has been more tenuous than truth about God.  Nothing has been less secure.  The hands of men have been too ambitious, too cruel, too weak, too self-serving, to hold the truth and oracles of God long.   In fact, apostasy has been so common, it may seem that this is how God wanted the world to be.  I don’t think that it reveals God’s will that men have only had that portion of God’s word that they were prepared for and willing to receive and keep.  To me, it reveals God’s great mercy.

That apostasy has been prevalent is no marvel, as Paul observed, because “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).  John the Revelator beheld a whore representing the dominion of wickedness over all the earth, and among all nations and people.

Paul anticipated that the truth would be persistently imperiled.  He exhorted believers to “be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:2-4).  Paul anticipated that churches would fall into apostasy; he anticipated a day when the son of perdition would show himself to be God even in the holiest place(s).

I am encouraged by the examples of Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:21-39).  As they worshipped God, in a conquered, abject country, captive to an apostate empire, in a temple overseen by apostates (Pharisees), God rewarded them for their faith:  they saw and recognized the Christ child and rejoiced in His coming.  We can have confidence--in perilous times, in a fallen world--that God will reward our sincere faith and love of truth.

The Macroprudential Motive

America's founders distrusted pure democracy.  They feared it would devolve into a tyranny of the majority whereby majorities would act as dictators over minorities and individuals.  For this reason, they established a constitutional republic, a representative democracy, buttressed by a Bill of individual Rights.

We often hear demagogues propose what is big-picture best: policies that will minimize pain for a majority or maximize gain for the many.  Their arguments are compelling.  They seem to contemplate what is best for the most.  They express sympathy for what seems to be mainstream.  Often, they are propounded by experts.  Of course, we should always consent to such macro-prudence?

For example, some might assert that to save or stimulate the economy more extreme and extra-legal interventionism is prudent as dictated by the Federal Reserve.  After all, isn't resuscitating our economy worth every and any expense?

What is arguably macro-prudential may be adverse to what is micro-existential.  If pure democracy might devolve into a tyranny of the majority, macroprudential policy might become a tyranny of enforced opinions dictated by "experts" to "save" the rest of us dumb blokes from ourselves and our individual rights.  Recognize that, in crisis, macroprudential arguments are used to overcome restraints (ie. constitutional restraints, legal restraints, moral restraints, restraints on government).  The pursuit of what is prudent from a macro-perspective is good as long as it is restrained by the rule of law.  When it isn't, it is just the prudence of a pack as sensed by the olfactory of a fallible, hungry alpha male.

Police State

According to an article entitled "FBI Agents Say Rivals Encroach on Their Turf" the Wall Street Journal reports, "In the past year, 61% of the FBI's field offices have run into 'severe' or 'moderate' conflicts with other federal law-enforcement agencies, according to an internal (FBI) survey."  State and local law-enforcement agencies are persuaded that other federal agencies "are attempting to.....usurp the FBI's role in ongoing investigations" according to an internal FBI memo.  And most FBI special agents have experienced "mission creep" as a result of encroachment by other federal police.  But the FBI survey reflects the alarm of agents only, not the concerns of FBI leadership, according to an agency spokesperson.

It is notable that overlapping police jurisdictions are a defining characteristic of totalitarianism.  Overlap makes authority arbitrary and bureaucratic.  It has the effect of atomizing (Hannah Arendt's word) humanity.  This makes a policeman no more secure in his authority, purpose, jurisdiction, employment, and safety, no more certain of his certitude in execution, than is a lay person in her identity or innocence.  Everything, (ie. authority, identity, security) is an arbitrary grant in a totalitarian state--and subject to arbitrary seizure.

The Anti-Diversity Agenda

While many gay rights advocates consider themselves champions of diversity, there are elements of anti-diversity to gay marriage.  One is biological.  The emerging science of behavioral epigenetics asserts that environment determines, in part, the psychology and behavior of future generations.  In other words, what you are biologically is determined, in part, by the events and experiences of your father’s and grandmother’s life.  Environment imprints our forefathers and foremothers, activating some of our genes and deemphasizing others.  This imprint from environment is passed to one’s progeny biologically.  Notably, children raised in same-sex marriages are reared by a single sex.  They lack the heterogeneous influence of both--very different--sexes in parenting.  Their parents are homogeneous—not just physically--but psychologically and behaviorally.  Confrontations, conciliations, and compromises between gender heterogeneous, independent individuals are not observed by these children at home.  This homogeneity of behavior and psychology at home, this lack of diversity in their environment will be expressed epigenetically in them.  Their children and grandchildren will inherit it.  It may be amplified in their future relationships—homogenizing the psychology and behavior of their children and grandchildren.

For good or ill, homogeneity will induce conformity and collectivism—perhaps unconsciously enforced by epigenetics.  And conformity and collectivism has risks.  Under this prospective regime, the individual might be as discernable to the human eye as is a seal lying supine amid a sea of barking sames.  Such colonies might be attuned in the collective to some dangers but will they be alert to the dangers of conformity and collectivism?  Or, will homogeneity eliminate the discernment and discrimination that defined and preserved our species?  Also, will compromises between truly heterogeneous ideas and individuals become impossible?  Or, will divergent psychology and behavior, bifurcated by identity and reinforced by epigenetics, irreconcilably divide and ultimately destroy society?  Without more time and information, to the general satisfaction, we mortals can’t say for certain.  But while we retain the consciousness and discretion to discern the risks inherent in the homogeneity of homosexual unions, before diversity is pared and paired away epigenetically—shouldn’t we exercise caution, investigate the effects of homogeneous pairing across generations, and openly debate the merits and demerits of what is a draconian, unprecedented, unpopular, and unscientific shift in social policy?

It is unfortunate that this reasoned thesis might incense some.  They may accuse the author of ‘hate speech’—denounce him as a ‘hater’—because he advocates caution, discretion, study, debate, and time.  They may seek to censor or silence him as they have others.  Or, levy new economic and social sanctions against him for his opinions.  And they may succeed—if so nefarious a thing can be termed success.

Remarkably, anti-diversity in the form of censorship has flourished in America:  opposition to gay marriage has not really had a hearing recent years in any mass media outlet—including outlets as avowedly conservative as Fox News (ie. consider the Craig James firing).  The silencing of dissent about gay marriage in America coincides with America’s plunge in terms of relative press freedom:  Reporters Without Borders has demoted the United States in its international press freedom index from a ranking of number 17 in 2002, the first year the index was produced, to number 46 in 2014—to a position between its new peers, Romania and Haiti.  Perhaps the censorship of opposition to gay marriage in America arose much as it has emerged in Italy:  the Italian press, which reports from an overwhelmingly Catholic country, has recently been enjoined by a European decree to portray total societal acceptance of and to gag all opposition to homosexual relations and unions.  For a reporter to contradict such censorious edicts from supranational sovereigns may be to sacrifice one’s standing and career in media—such edicts may be enough to cow content providers.  Apparently, one of the risks of the homogeneity of homosexual unions is not just manifest but is, in fact, realized—conformity in the form of coercive political correctness already chills free speech and stamps out diversity of opinion in the American and international media.

Moreover, an incapacity for compromise appears already in America in the scorched earth strategies of those who promote, as a minority, homogenous marriages.  For example, many of these partisans refuse to buy the products (ie. chicken at Chick-Fil-A) of their political opposition.  For example, observe how the promotion and continued employment of Mozilla’s eminently qualified co-founder, the creator of JavaScript, from Chief Technology Officer to Chief Executive Officer was contemporaneously undermined by Mozilla employees and a Mozilla-affiliated company, OK Cupid, because he made a contribution to support Proposition 8.  Observe the contemporaneous departures by members of the Mozilla Board after he was promoted.  Apparently, he was rejected as unfit to lead not because he once opposed gay marriage (even Harry Reid and Barack Obama did this) but because he would not renounce his beliefs and affirm gay marriage. 

An un-diverse incapacity for compromise also appears in federal workplace policies promulgated by the Justice Department—the arm of the executive charged with establishing justice in America.  While the Constitution provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any public Trust under the United States”, the Attorney General has promulgated workplace policies that assay one’s affirmation of alternative lifestyles.  To comply, managers: “DON’T judge or remain silent….. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval”; “Attend LBGT events sponsored by DOJ Pride”; “display a symbol” (ie. a DOJ Pride sticker).  The persons promulgating these policies are not content to censor others, they require a pledge of allegiance to LGBT lifestyles.  For many, this is unconscionable.  It would require a renunciation of their faith—as a test of their compliance with unconstitutional workplace policy.

An incapacity for compromise advances in our courts.  Observe how judges have, by fiat, recently overturned statutes and amendments defining marriage in many states—including conservative states—contrary to the popular will.  In rejecting the popular will, the judiciary does not appear to be deliberative—but desperate, inflammatory, and uncompromising. 

For example, consider how Wisconsin and Indiana were given a pre-verdict bench whipping by "conservative" Illinois judge Richard Posner as they sought to defend their populist constitution and laws.  He interrupted their arguments early and often to lecture them and to observe:  "You don't have any empirical or even conjectural basis for your law.....funny."  Does Mr. Posner have any empirical or even conjectural basis against the laws--is that why he is altogether dismissing populist laws--at the risk of inflaming the majorities (ie. 3.3 million Wisconsin voters) who passed the laws on some basis whether empirical or conjectural?  In his book "Reflections on Judging" Mr. Posner observes:   "in many cases judges can't have any confidence in the soundness of their decisions if they do not have empirical data concerning the likely consequences of deciding the case one way or another" (never mind the rule of law) but apparently Mr. Posner will make this decision based on conjecture only and needs no empirical data--because empirical data about same sex marriage is virtually non-existent.  Same sex households only made their debut in U.S. Census Bureau data in 2010 (in the American Community Survey estimates)--representing 1% of the population.  Questions such as those that follow about same sex households cannot be answered empirically with data.  What is the duration of a typical same-sex union?  What fraction of the $250,000 cost to rear a child is incurred by a same-sex household?  If it is much lower than the fraction incurred by an average household, does this economic disadvantage deter other Americans from child-bearing?  What is the typical level of educational attainment, crime rate, divorce and separation rate, suicide rate, unemployment rate, median income, savings rate, and tax rate among same-sex households and among households comprised of children raised by same-sex households?  At present, these questions cannot be answered with data.  Even if Mr. Posner, the most cited legal scholar in America, omits to consider whether law or justice will be coherent without the Judeo-Christian moral objectivity of America's founders, without empirical data to support "the soundness of (his) decision"--which data does not exist--Mr. Posner's opinion, to redefine marriage by overturning populist laws, must be based solely and hypocritically on conjecture.  It must be arbitrary and make laws arbitrary.
 

If heterogeneous speech and acts continue to be repressed in America by an uncompromising, censorious, anti-diversity minority, we might anticipate at any day now the establishment of that most homogeneous regime of all, totalitarianism--a regime in which all expression and all thought yield--a regime which sacrifices humanity and humans--to homogenous ideology.

This trend leaves many of us wondering, what is the paradigm of this anti-diversity minority?  We recognize that censorship and political persecution—even censorship and persecution of ‘bigots’--is un-American.  Alarm about this trend is increased by observing that one of the declared goals of the Communist party (in 1963) was to “present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as ‘normal, natural, and healthy’”—a goal this censorious minority supports.  We recall it was communism and its isms like Stalinism and Maoism which dictated that some individuals, identities, and ideas were dispensable, and so, dispensed of them.  We remain incredulous that this is their ideal only because once speech is subdued, once folks are just factors, can these fellow Americans really expect not to be an eventual offering on their own anti-diversity altar?

For more on this topic, see the post entitled "Abraham Lincoln, Conspiracy Theorist".

On Cults of Personality and Social Capital

Even among social conservatives, some suggest that there are persons who are so good, so noble, so virtuous, and so unselfish that laws ought not to bind them--that such persons ought to be above liability.  In some state, somewhere in America, there is an executive, so secure in the trust of administrators and legislators that he enjoys an exemption by law or execution from law and liability.  In some church, somewhere in America, there is a shepherd, so secure in the trust of his sheep that he need not fear to disregard the law and reap the consequences:  his sheep know that he observes a higher law.  Above the law, these persons might slander, defraud, coerce, and oppress others without legal consequence.  But they won’t, some assure us, even though they are, actually or effectively, lifted above the law, because of their perceived virtue.  And if they ever do, it will only be for the good of all--including those who have been slandered, defrauded, coerced, and oppressed by them.

While some persons may exhibit supreme goodness, unless they are supreme in every way—a virtual and virtuous dictator—is there any security in license for them or others--even in their virtue?  So long as they are subject to higher authority and subject to less virtuous cults of personality, might they not be coerced, by their superiors, to use their license for evil--unless they are willing to sacrifice everything that they value (ie. life, liberty, health, wealth, reputation, family, community, and etc.) for any virtuous principle at any time?  In other words, is there any integrity to virtue when it is released from liability and law but still under authority less virtuous?

An example will illustrate this problem.  Suppose there was a judge so goodly and wise and virtuous that his people made him king--setting him above the laws of man.  His word and person became the very law of the kingdom itself.  His picture adorned every building in the kingdom.  And the people rejoiced.  But time passed, and the kingdom was annexed by a greater kingdom.  A stronger king arose who was not without virtue, but almost.  This king was shrewd.  He knew of the esteem enjoyed by the lesser king because of his virtue.  So, he did not dethrone him.  Instead, he put his words and ideas in the lesser king's mouth.  In loyalty (?), the lesser king spoke them.  And the subjects obeyed them.  But in time, it appeared that the words and ideas of the stronger king were not loyal to the first kingdom and its people.  In fact, they divided the kingdom against itself.  This caused the virtuous king to mourn.  Out of virtue (?), he avoided conflict, secretly (!) snubbing his superior and any who took sides.  But his head was on fire and his heart was at war:  to preserve his virtue, he must, out of loyalty to his kingdom and people, sacrifice himself for virtuous principles; but to keep the people generally secure beneath his better influence (?), he must betray the principles of the first kingdom and its people.  Would he trade individual virtue and conscience for general peace and security?  He grieved:  "if only", he thought:  "if only, our king were subject to just laws; if only I were subject to just laws--and not lifted above them by the esteem of others for my unbounded virtue."

Once above the law (by policy or practice) but still subject to less virtuous others, such persons will face unconscionable choices:  for example, what level of lawlessness will they tolerate in their masters, in others, and in themselves?  Will their license as an arbiter become the means of lawless pardon or condemnation as they obey authority and/or expediency?  What lengths will they go to uphold an order for others that they themselves are above?  Will they, for example, put themselves at hazard for laws that apply arbitrarily to others only?  What virtuous principles must never be compromised to license (ie. the license of one's superior)?  In other words, what level of lawlessness would cause one, lifted above the law, on principle, to reject higher authority and to sacrifice life or liberty, health or wealth, reputation, family, or community?  Also, will license, even in virtuous practice, necessitate cascading lawlessness out of fear that one's subordinate license will come to be prosecuted by higher authority?  Will the virtuous, perhaps overwrought by the demand for charismatic leadership, perhaps out of love toward family and friends, confer their license on others?  Who, then, will remain liable to the law except the obscure?  Will the just and lawful interests of the least ever trump the license of one acting on behalf of the many, influenced by the most, under his license of virtue?  License exercised within but acting outside a rule of law is deceit.  It is antithetical to integrity and to virtue.  When it lacks sovereignty, doesn't the license of virtue become just a wicked and corruptible law unto itself?

Anti-Semitism as Strategy

The Holocaust, the extermination of six million Jews and others, manifests how specious were claims, by the Nazis, of Jewish domination in pre-war German society.  If the Jews dominated, how did the Anti-Semitic Nazis rise meteorically—almost without opposition?

While some deny it even occurred, many have sought to understand this enigma of evil, the Holocaust.  After all, to understand it may be to avert future atrocities.  So, many ask:  how is it possible that such overt evil ever came into existence?!?

Often, this search for understanding pursues evidence of provocations—possible provocations by Jews from Germany's past or from Hitler's early life.  For example, to understand the Holocaust, some point to parts the Jews had in German politics (ie. communist revolution).  Others point to parts Jews played in Hitler's life--so as to identify possible provocations.  But while historic provocations may help us understand pre-war prejudices against Judaism, they cannot explain or excuse the enigma of Nazi atrocities.

Some blame the Holocaust on religion.  Hitler, they insist, was a Christian; and his avowals attest it!  They would have us take the Fuhrer at his word—spoken by a delusional megalomaniac to manipulate a Christian populace.  Efforts are afoot to revise Nazi history:  some seek to delete or discredit the many shockingly godless, atheistic, Social Darwinist statements once attributed to Hitler even as revisionists seek to conflate National Socialism and Christianity.  If Hitler can be connected to Christianity, atheist theories are vindicated:  the enigma of evil, the Holocaust, is explained—this conflict, like all others, is, at heart, religious; and outlawing religion, man might have peace.  While some might construe Hitler’s words to be a Christian’s; none can construe his works to be a Christian’s.  Christianity concerns itself with means; but Nazism never did.  It is hard to imagine anything more woeful than the fruits of Nazism--those gassed and gaping Jews.  And by their fruits, we know them.  No, National Socialism was not Christian; it was applied Social Darwinism: it was evolution engineered by the state—eugenics vulgarized, collectivized, fanaticized, and militarized.

Some have characterized Anti-Semitism as element of Nazism only—as an extreme, fringe element that was not elemental to Nazism.  But that was not Hitler’s view.  And it was not his policy.  He considered Anti-Semitism--not just an element of--but elemental to National Socialism.  It was integral.  It was not a tactic:  it was key strategy for National Socialism.

Remember, the Nazis sought to transform Germany.  They would usher in a millennium of Germanic governance—a Third Reich, the Reich of a Thousand Years.  It was their burden to conform the past and future to their world view—to make themselves heirs of the Holy Roman Empire and champions of a Third Reich.  Because Judaism offered an alternate, competing, compelling, ancient and future world view, the scapegoating of Jews was strategic for Nazis.  It eliminated an alternative world view.  And it cowed many Christians.