Charleston

What, really, has to be said about the cold-blooded murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina by a screwed-up white kid (I say “kid” because 21 years is not always enough to be called a ”man”).

http://www.charismanews.com/us/50183-this-pastor-pulling-no-punches-about-demonic-south-carolina-massacre

Why does it still happen here?  Were not 250 years of slavery enough?  Were not 150 years of Jim Crow enough?  Were not 100 years of lynching enough?  Were not 100 years of segregation enough?  If the history of race relations in this country prove nothing else, it is that whites are surely NOT the superiors of blacks.  By any measure.  Especially morally.

Beautiful -- but Provocative and Shameful

Three governors (and counting) have decided to outlaw the Confederate flag from license plates.  The governor of South Carolina has ordered the removal of Confederate flags from state grounds.  This is proper and long overdue.  Indeed, the flag of the Confederacy should be removed from any and all official Southern displays.  Imagine the Nazi flag being displayed in modern Germany, it would provoke a riot (and if it did not, that would be worse).  The Confederate flag is not merely the flag of the Confederate South, it is the flag of the slave-holding South.  We fought that war, the Union won that war, and while mercy and forgiveness were routinely granted to officers and soldiers who fought for the Confederacy, neither mercy nor forgiveness were offered to the institution of slavery or to white supremacy.

On the other hand, YOU may love the Confederate flag, you may own the Confederate flag, it is probably legal for YOU to display that flag on your own property as surely as it is legal for you display the Nazi flag (this being America and not Germany).  The 1st amendment protects your right to free thought and free speech and free expression.  But it does NOT allow a governing body the same "freedoms."  This is not splitting hairs, as it is legal for you to pray in a public school, but it is not legal for the school authorities to conduct a prayer.  You may discriminate, no governmental body may do the same.

The Irony of Democracy

One of the great ironies of contemporary American life is that the greatest democracy the world has ever known (that would be us, the United States of America) and the land that spends half of its annual tax receipts exporting democracy around the world, is not a democracy itself.  A democracy is a nation-state where the people rule.  All we are is a nation-state where the people VOTE, but the people do not rule.  You don’t need me telling you this, you know it.

This sorry state of affairs is the single reason why I wrote my book and why I write my blog, that we are not a democratic land where the people rule and what we must do to become a true democracy once again (well, that and I like to write and I like seeing my ideas and words in print).

What ARE we then, if not a democracy?  Lawrence Lessig thinks we are Lesterland, a nation-state where the Lesters rule.  Greg Palast thinks we are "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."  Maybe we are an oligarchy, where a few rule the nation-state.  Or a corporatocracy, where corporations rule.  Or a plutocracy, where the rich rule.  Or a kleptocracy, where the thieves rule.  Or fascism where big businesses have taken the reins of democratic power for their own purposes.  All these apply, all except democracy, because the people clearly do NOT rule.

Freedom

What is freedom?  Who is free and who not?

I think that when we think of freedom we must first think of what it means to be without it.  We must think first of freedom from foreign domination: Nazi domination, Soviet domination, pre-Revolutionary British domination.  After that, we must think of forms of physical incarceration: prison, official governmental coercion (house arrest, parole), or even non-governmental confinement (kidnapping).

The Flat Tax, Again

Today's Washington Post's headline reads: Rand Paul the latest GOP presidential contender to catch flat-tax fever.  Now, Rand Paul is no moron, and I like a lot of what he stands for, but the Flat Tax can best be characterized as …  a bad idea (in place of "a bad idea," I had originally used the highly expressive term "moronic" before; but in deference to a friendly reader, I have changed my language, if not my judgment).

http://www.prosebeforehos.com/political-ironing/12/22/the-flat-tax-visualized/

I have an essay in my book, To My Countrymen, which is titled Flat Tax, Fair Tax (pp. 110-113) and it analyzes both tax schemes and finds them … wanting.  The conclusions are simple to state: 1) however much these two tax schemes might reduce taxes, the middle-class ends up paying a bigger slice of the total tax pie than they did before, and the wealthy end up paying a smaller slice of the total tax pie than they did before.  Terrific, just what we need, another re-distribution of wealth … UP!  Then, 2) the more that tax rates and tax collections are reduced, the bigger the deficit (and the National Debt) that results.

Zombies in Congress

What, exactly, is a zombie?  No, really, what is a zombie, not a movie zombie, but a “real” zombie??  A zombie is a dead human being who refuses to be dead.  Just like those guys in Congress with their inability to take the Constitution for an answer.

The (Republican) House yesterday (May 13th, 2015) passed, by a solid 242-184 vote, H.R. 36, The “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”  This bill, among other things, makes it illegal nationally for a physician to perform an abortion on a 20 week old fetus.  The only problem with this bill being made law is: it is illegal!

Putting aside whether the Senate will pass it (the threat of a filibuster will kill it), putting aside whether the President will sign it into law (he has promised a veto), putting these obstacles aside and pretending that it gets passed by the Senate and signed into law by the president, it is illegal because it runs afoul of the Constitution.

Unintended Consequences

As I have an essay in To My Countrymen called by this name, I had thought to name it something else, like "Be Careful What You Wish For…”

But here we are with this stale but tried and true, title.

Imagine that you are an extreme libertarian and do not believe in any government-sponsored safety nets, like welfare, food stamps, CHIP programs, etc.  They don’t exist.  “If you want to eat, you work!” is your motto.

Greenhouse gas benchmark reached

I am not a climate scientist, not even a garden-variety generic scientist, so what I am about to say is all speculative horseshit.

NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said today (May 6th, 2015): “Global carbon dioxide concentrations surpass 400 parts per million for the first month since measurements began.”

Obergefell v. Hodges

Obergefell v. Hodges is the name of the same-sex marriage case heard by SCOTUS today, April 28th, 2015.

On this, the day that the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments about the “right” of Same-Sex Marriage, I thought two new thoughts.  But before I speak them, I want you, my reader, to be crystal clear where I stand.  One, I am 100% with the proponents of the right to same-sex marriage who want to be treated the same as traditional marriage couples in civil law, as it does no harm to anyone to allow them to share this “right” with opposite-sex couples.  And, two, this issue does not seek gay access to religious marriages; churches or congregations may continue to do as they want – let them marry gay couples or let them not marry gay couples – let them have their own internal struggles with this issue, and I am sure that many churches and surely many more congregations will fracture over this “right.”  So be it.  There you have it, FOR same-sex marriage in its CIVIL sense only, and FOR the freedom of religious institutions and religious practitioners to continue to discriminate (is this really a Christian thing to do?) against gays at the same time.  I am not threading the needle, I am NOT having it both ways, but no one is asking for private non-discrimination, only governmental non-discrimination.  If you, dear reader, think I am wrong, prove it; show me with a citation of a legal action to compel a church to officiate and/or to recognize a same-sex marriage.

SETI – The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

OK, this short blog post is a reality check.  “Are we really alone?”  Is Earth-based humanity the only intelligent species in the whole universe?  OK, we are pretty sure that we will find life – elemental life, single-celled life – pretty nearby and soon, on Mars, on one or more of Jupiter's or Saturn's moons.  But how about intelligent life, more intelligent than us – from whom we might learn SO much that would solve SO many human problems – how about really intelligent life?

A Modest Proposal

The genus Homo appeared on planet Earth about 2.5 million years ago, the species Homo Sapiens appeared roughly 800,000 years ago, and the subspecies Homo Sapiens Sapiens (double-wise?  Hah!) (that’s US, modern humans) about 200,000 years ago (as I am no paleoanthropologist, I can be excused for mis-stating the dates, but that does not affect my argument).  We modern humans traded hunting and gathering for the domestication of animals and agriculture a mere 12,000 years ago.  The Industrial Revolution (beginning with steam power) began less than 300 years ago, and the wide-spread use of electricity took place over decades from the late 1880’s through the Great Depression (still on-going in many places in the world).  Before that transformative transition, all of your ancestors knew what the Milky Way* was (they could see it, even if they didn't know what it was!) and they could see it every night.  And the stars that they could see with the naked eye!  Not hundreds, not thousands, more like 100,000 - uncountable.  The advent of Cell Phone technology in the 1990’s and of “Smart Phones” (Blackberry, iPhone and Android) in the last fifteen years signified the last nail in the coffin of our being able to differentiate work from play and rest, and our entire dependency on Industry, Electricity and Technology.  When you go on vacation today, even if you spend it on Tahiti; do you really go on vacation, are you really isolated in any real sense from your workaday world?  Even there, a real night sky overhead, do you ever look UP?  What is the difference between you and a robot that mimics you?  Today, we "know" the difference, but the tomorrow when we won't see the difference is not that far in the future.