AI, or Artificial Intelligence

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein story was not created out of thin air.  Indeed, her novel’s subtitle is The Modern Prometheus.  Prometheus, a Titan of Greek mythology, brought fire to humanity and enraged the gods who knew that humans would eventually challenge their supremacy.  Dr. Frankenstein creates a creature from human body parts, and the creature demands his right to be treated as a human.  In Blade Runner (1982), replicants (bioengineered humanoids) demand their rights to be treated as humans.  In Short Circuit (1986), a military robot convinces the film’s humans that he has human consciousness (or a soul) when he laughs at a joke.  We have always thought that consciousness was a peculiarly human trait not shared by our animal cousins (despite the fact that science has no clear and agreed upon definition of “consciousness”); we have wised up lately.  Lest I forget, the origin story of all these stories is Genesis’s Garden of Eden, where our ancestors are told not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (KJV, Genesis 3:5).

The Problems with 21st Century American Democracy

There are two, only two, major problems with 21st century American democracy.  The first is the abject ignorance of the average American voter, and the second is the influence of corporate and big donor money, on elections and - even more importantly - on legislation.  The first reason is supreme, however, because if the people were not so ignorant, they would take care of the second problem in a New York minute.  Proof of the public's ignorance is blaming President Biden and Democrats for problems, many of which are only matters of perception, for legislation that is driven by Big Money, and then installing a piece of New York City tra$h, and his craven loyalists, to fix it.   I would write a proof of what I just wrote if I thought that any of my readers needed any proof; they don't.

Alexei Navalny

R.I.P. Alexei Navalny, 4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024

Liberals and Conservatives

Just like biological organisms, words evolve.  That is, they change their meanings over time.  Part of this evolution is natural, reacting to a new environment; and part is artificial, where some alter the use of words for partisan purposes.  So it is with these most important and most maligned political words, liberal and conservative.  In this essay, I will attempt to demonstrate the evolution of these words’ meanings.

The goto place for a discussion of word origins is the Oxford English Dictionary (the OED to scholars) (work began on the OED in 1857 and is ongoing).  Unhappily, access to the online OED is by subscription only, at $100 / year.  So, I chose the second-best online option: the Online Etymology Dictionary.

So, let’s get to work and examine these two most consequential words in all of politics, liberal and conservative.  Indented paragraphs are lifted without editing from the Online Etymology Dictionary.

A Civics Class

If you did not suffer through a Civics class while you attended high school, you would be forgiven if you did not know:

• That the birthday of the United States of America is July 4^th, 1776
• That our national flag has 50 stars, that they are white on a blue background, and that there are 50 stars because there are currently 50 states in the union
• That our national flag has 13 stripes, that they alternate white and red, and that 13 is the number of the original colonies

A Plea to Republican Voters

You hate us more than we hate you!

Paul Pelosi was attacked early Friday morning and is lucky to be alive, hospitalized, and on the mend.  But what was the grievance of this (un-named) perpetrator against Paul Pelosi?  That he was the husband of Nancy Pelosi?  What had Mrs. Pelosi ever done to him?  What had we Americans done to those who ransacked the Capitol building on January 6th?  Why, nothing really, except to have won an election, one that Republicans wanted to win, badly.

A Constitutional Right to Privacy

In my recent blog post, The Leak, I wrote about Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. ___, the SCOTUS case that overturned Roe v. Wade.  While this unhappy decision did not rest solely on the controversial notion that there is no Constitutional right to privacy, Justice Clarence Thomas did go out of his way to suggest that other SCOTUS decisions that relied on privacy could be rolled back based on that interpretation of the law.  That is what I want to talk about in this essay: the Constitutional right to privacy, does it exist in the law?

Money in Politics

How important is money – particularly BIG Money – in politics?  Really!

Well, the truth is: it is very important!  But at the same time, it is also pretty unimportant!

The promise of Big Money to help a candidate for high office win his next election is hard to resist.  The threat of Big Money to hurt a candidate’s chances to win his next election is also hard to resist.   Indeed, even more important than impacting election outcomes is the power that Big Money purchases to influence – or even write – legislation that favors its own interests.  Even if YOUR candidate refuses Big Money, enough other legislators will go along with Big Money’s demands that it won’t matter if YOUR guy is incorruptible.

But how can it be true at the same time that Big Money is not really important?

A Common Sense Party

This got me going! 

It’s not like I got upset with their stealing the name of the party that I envision, “Common Sense” belongs to no man or at least it belongs to my great godfather, Thomas Paine, who wrote the immortal 47-page pamphlet called Common Sense and put it in the hands of Americans in January of 1776.  Rather, my idea of a Common Sense Party is no way MODERATE!  Thomas Paine was no moderate and neither am I!  Paine was an extremist in his day, preaching separation from Great Britain, while all the people – and especially the aristocrats who met in Philadelphia at the Second Continental Congress – really wanted was to be treated like full-class British citizens.  Paine convinced a nation to take the radical step of independence.

Insurrection

click to view APNEWS Photo Essay

As only the Left calls January 6^th, 2021, in Washington, DC an Insurrection or Sedition, I will refrain from using either of those words, I will not begin my essay with a partisan conclusion.

I want to talk facts – incontrovertible facts, facts that we all agree on – not conclusions.  Only if the facts demand a specific conclusion will I travel that road.

So, here goes.

The Perils of Democracy

Republicans are 100% correct: our revered Founding Fathers did not intend that America should be a democracy (where “the people” rule).  Most of the so-called evidence that our Founding Fathers did not favor a democracy can be found on conservative websites with an anti-democratic agenda (it is only recently that Republicans or conservatives seem to be drifting away from the ideal of democracy).  But consider – from the gitgo, from the ratification of the U.S. Constitution – who had the right to vote was up to individual states.  Most states had a land-owning requirement, only one state allowed women or African Americans to vote, and only a few gave the vote to Catholics or Jews (atheists were not even a “thing” back then).  Everyone who sat in on the Constitutional Convention were white men of means, the aristocrats of their day.  And they did not intend that the “people” (as we see the word today) should rule themselves.  So, partisan Republicans are quite right.

However, …

Doomsday Democracy

What is a Democracy?

The word “democracy” derives from the Greek “demos” (the people) and “kratia” (rule).  Even though WE honor the expression “the people,” the Greeks meant “the common people” or a “mob.”  Our Founding Fathers meant “the people” to rule, but they meant people like themselves, aristocrats in today’s vernacular.  When WE ask who are “the people” –  who should rule – we mean ALL of us (over 18 years of age).

The Greek philosopher, Plato, was not a fan of democracy as the Athenian democracy had sentenced his mentor, Socrates, to death.  But those who made up the "democracy" of Plato’s day were aristocrats of their time, not the common people.  Plato favored a “philosopher king,” an extraordinarily knowledgeable man who would never – from his own ambition – seek to rule others.  We Americans, on the other hand, elevate ONLY those who would seek to rule others!  Plato would not have approved.

The Value of Civic Literacy

In May and June of 1959, the Supreme Court heard and decided Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections. Louise Lassiter, a Black citizen of North Carolina, argued that the law that denied her the right to vote was unconstitutional.  That law required that the prospective voter "be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of North Carolina in the English language.”  The Court that heard her case was the Warren Court, arguably the most liberal Supreme Court in American history.  This Court had ruled 9-0, just a few years before, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in favor of Brown.  One might have expected Lassiter to prevail.  But the Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional and not discriminatory, because it tested everyone regardless of race (laws that did discriminate, and were thereby unconstitutional, had grandfather clauses that exempted those <whites> who already had a voting history).  Justice William O. Douglas, arguably the most liberal justice ever to serve on the Court, wrote the majority opinion.  That majority was 9-0.  Congress subsequently prohibited literacy tests as part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Such civic literacy laws were constitutional – but they were rendered illegal by Congress.

Showing Up

Democracy

Winston Churchill famously spoke: “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”

What is a “democracy”?  Nothing more or less than “the people rule.”

For my part, any other form of government – monarchy or aristocracy – is a form of tyranny, no matter how well-meaning.  Which is not to say there is no good argument for them – they may have their place – but they are still tyranny.

"One person, one vote" democracy, a failure

However, democracy – our brand of democracy, our Constitutionally limited representative democratic republic – has utterly failed us.  If you don’t see this, don’t waste your time reading Ben Paine.  The self-evident reason behind its failure is democracy’s easy corruption by the influence of money.  I have written about this at great length.  The other problem is: the people in "We the People” are clearly not up to the task.

Qualifications

It was back in early 2015 and early 2016 that I wrote about the responsibilities of suffrage – that voting is not just a right, it is a privilege, it must be a responsibility too, you should earn it.  You need to be literate – able to read – and politically literate too – able to pass the same Citizenship Test that an immigrant must pass to become a (voting) citizen.  I expanded on that idea by suggesting that persons who know lots and lots about our history, our laws and institutions, and our founding documents ought to have their vote count as two or three average (ignorant) American citizen’s single votes.  Honestly, do you really believe that you should have an equal say in choosing our leaders as an American History professor, or someone who knows as much as he does about our history, etc.?  Yes, I surely believe in “one person, one vote.”  But, perhaps we should give some extra credit to those who devote their lives to being exemplary American citizens.  I stand by both notions today.

Power and Hierarchy

in process...

Campaign Finance Reform

Campaign Finance Reform is bullshit!  If you disagree, give me a few minutes.

1. Everyone (well, political junkies!) knows that incumbency is the single most important factor in determining who will win most elections.  The people prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t.  Mostly because most people don’t spend a lot of time following political news, but at least they know the name of their incumbent.  In addition, Americans routinely trust Congress overall somewhere beneath bank robbers, while at the same time praising their own Congress person.  How can this be?  Americans are not typically rational creatures with a command of relevant facts, that’s how.

Antifa

On July 4th, at a celebration of our nation’s birthday under the shadow of Mount Rushmore, the president of the United States threatened to register Antifa as a terrorist organization.  Of course, he will do no such thing.  The first reason is that this president makes promises (“throws red meat”) to his base to get them all excited, but he rarely follows through; and they seem to have short memories.  The second reason is: Antifa is not an “organization” at all, so it can hardly be made an object of law.

A Republic, Not a Democracy

Many Americans say “The United States is a republic, not a democracy.”  But it is not true.  It seems to imply that the right to vote is not built in to our Constitutional system, but 43,782 American citizens cast their vote for George Washington in 1788.  So I wonder what they mean when they say “The United States is a republic, not a democracy.”

Does Big Money Always Win Elections?

Of course not, as incumbency typically trumps big money campaigning. Many voters prefer the devil they know! 

Nevertheless, one of the legs of the Democracy Movement is that money is not a form of speech that is protected by the First Amendment’s free speech clause (“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”).