A-woke in a World Turned Upside Down

Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown

John Trumbull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It seems like everytime I look at a news there is some sort of proposed bill to give parents more say in the classroom or to curb the continued march of “wokism” in schools throughout the nation. One state in particularly is leading the way: Florida. And one possible presidential candidate is the white knight leading this charge: Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, who boldly proclaims Florida is where woke goes to die.

DeSantis has gained political traction with a sprawling “anti-woke agenda that includes preventing the teaching of AP African American Studies and what legislators deem critical race theory in Florida public school classrooms. A bill currently before the Florida Legislature would prevent the state’s colleges and universities from teaching “American history contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”

Sheryll Cashin Politico

I was employed in 2005 in the Palm Beach School District. Later, I worked in the Alachua County School District. For almost 15 years in both school districts I was either a substitute teacher, a paraprofessional or middle school social studies teacher. I spent a lot of time in my own classroom and in others. I cannot ever recall teaching or witnessing some of the topics that some are trying to legislate today. I never had to shoo a kid out of a class because they were some sort of domesticated animal. I did see some kids come dressed to the hilt in Gothic attire. I will say my “gaydar” pinged loudly with some kids. But the attitude was more President Clinton’s don’t ask. We never discussed sex changes or what bathroom someone wanted to use or what sports teams someone wanted to play on. But maybe times have drastically turned upside down in the last three or so years since I have been out of a classroom.

Granted, there are some weird concepts and theories on gender identity floating around today that don’t make a lot of sense. We need a gender guidebook just to know what pronoun to use. It seems logical that some of these ideas would manifest themselves in schools and need to be addressed. Ideas in a school of 1,000 can go viral like the flu. I, on the other hand, went to a Catholic elementary school where stepping out of line, or thought, was dealt with quickly with stinging results. So yes, times have changed and they will continue to.

My guess to all of these changes were simmering well before I stepped out of the classroom. This call to wokism and cultural wars was jump started in 2008 with the election of Barack Obama as president. America’s first non-white president. His election is historically on par with the British army furling their flags, laying down their arms and marching out of Yorktown to the tune The World Turned Upside Down. (This may have started a British tradition. When the end is near, let the band strike up an appropriate dirge. It is believed the band onboard the Titanic “played on” ending their final set with Nearer, My God to Thee as the mighty boat slipped under to its watery resting place.)

Obama’s election brought out what James Madison writes in Federalist Number 10 the “latent causes of faction(s)…and we see them everywhere brought forth into different degrees of activity.” (Culminating with the storming of the Capitol.) The Federalist Papers were written to convince a skeptical 1787 public that a new United States Constitution was needed to replace the old loose association of states under the Articles of Confederation.

To many Obama’s election was as if the Earth’s poles swapped places and the core’s iron-nickel alloys started to melt. Madison continued, “human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.” Just catch a few minutes of Fox News or MSNBC. The only thing the two media outlets cooperate on is twisting news stories either to the right or to the left with the middle completely rung out. Sometimes it makes me wonder if the two networks are broadcasting from the same planet.

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote: It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the constitution.

James Madison Federalist Papers Number 10

If Obama’s election intensified smoldering discontent among a certain portion of the population, it was Donald Trump’s election that brought in the oxygen needed to create a public blast furnace. Madison hit human nature on the head when he wrote, “we see them (factions) everywhere (to the right and to the left) brought into different degrees of activity…A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government and many other points.” Today’s other points like wokism, culture wars and gender identification bring discontent to the forefront. No matter how irrelevant these points can be, thrown into the furnace they keep everybody liberal, conservative, woke or sleeping in flames. Or as Charlie Daniels once sang that people are running around “like their heads were on fire and their asses was catchin’.”

The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. 

James Madison Federalist Papers Number 10

What Trump turned loose, among other things, is a belief in populist democracy. This has created a lot of faulty understanding about government and motivated people to believe in their opinion as fact, alternate or not. All of this was aggravated by lack of substantive leadership. As Madison writes, “It is in vain to say, that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” Today it is hard to determine who is running the looney bin, the mobocracy or mutton-headed elected officials.

While our government derives its powers from the people the country needs a steady hand at the helm. The preamble of the Constitution is explicit on just what our government is set up to do. However, our government is not a democracy. It is a representative form of government. For instance, at the local level some parents attest that they know best how and what to teach their children. This form of populism on first glance seems equitable. However, it is more likely to do more harm to education. The education system needs community and parental input. With that said it would be impossible to run a classroom with 20-to-30 co-teachers. Airlines do not fly their planes based on popular opinion or untried aviation concepts and theories. Nobody wants to crash and burn.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Preamble to the Constitution

This populist belief has created a “mutual animosity” which has exploded into targeted violence in church shootings, demonstrations that turn into riots and a former president preaching that without him sinister forces will destroy the country. In most cases it is plain simple stupid-ass theories that have disrupted government. It has turned village idiots lose everywhere. Their suppositional beliefs have turned the common wall-sitting simpletons into shamans. Their prophecies have created “instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into public councils.” Creating what Madison called “a mortal diseased under which popular governments have perished.” County commissions and local school boards are inundated with populists cultural tenets and beliefs. Usually by those using bully tactics to get their way.

Trying to pin down what “woke ideology”is can turn into a bootless errand. According to Mother Jones, during a reinstatement trail for suspended Democratic Florida State Attorney Andrew Warren, fired by DeSantis for Warren’s contrary beliefs on abortion, “Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’ Communications Director said, ‘woke’ was a ‘slang term for activism…progressive activism’ and a general belief in systemic injustices in the country.”

Desantis’ General Counsel Ryan Newman said, “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” Newman added that “DeSantis doesn’t believe there are systemic injustices in the U.S.” Using that logic it could be believed that everybody is just making shit up as they go along.

Using DeSantis’ base line for education based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence can be tricky. For instance, could the Civil War be considered an act of “progressive activism” or an attempt at correcting a “systemic injustice?” Afterall it did upend the status quo socially and economically, particularly in the South. Old conservative concepts on race relations had to be rethought. A 155 years later we are still rethinking possible progressive activism like voting, Plessy v Ferguson, and Brown v Board of Education of Topeka.

Florida’s forgotten past–flickr

I lived in Florida most of my life. I went to junior high and high school in Florida, graduated from the University of Florida and first learned about the Rosewood Massacre in Florida from a historical road sign along State Road 24 while driving to Cedar Key. The Rosewood story is a Zombie Apocalypse compared To Kill a Mockingbird. I am not trying to make light of destroying an entire town when rampaging whites, backed up by 500 hundred Klansmen, took apart a small town of 200 people, mostly African Americans. Six black and two white people were killed but some believe the death toll was much higher. How does the Rosewood story fit in with universal principles of the Declaration of Independence? Could it euphemistically be overlooked because it could be construed as “conservative activism” or was it just sustaining a systemic socio-economic system that was overlooked and just not taught in Florida’s history classrooms?

What people assume is that history is a dead subject chiseled in stone. And in some ways that is true. It is more than just memorizing dates and names. What people tend to overlook is that history is the road from the past that leads to the present. It is how we got to where we are. Interpreting history gives meaning to the present. And sometimes history does not lend itself to principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.

https://mises.org/power-market/useless-legal-standard-i-know-it-when-i-see-it

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/woke-meaning-word-history-b1790787.html

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/woke-what-mean-meaning-origins-term-definition-culture-387962

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/06/what-is-behind-ron-desantis-stop-woke-act

https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/rosewood-massacre

Heads, You Lose!

America has a fascination for some reason with the English monarchy. One possible reason is that the Father of our country, George Washington, had no children of his own to pass the presidency down to. Even before he became president some framers of the Constitution advocated for some sort of monarchy. The concept never got any real traction and lost out to the republican faction that believed elected executive was much more democratic. Besides, the main cause of the Revolution was King George III’s intransigent position on Colonial taxation and rights.

This love-hate relationship with the King and his rule was knocked around by various colonials from time-to-time. But it was not until Thomas Jefferson explicitly laid out 27 specific grievances in the Declaration of Independence that the Continental Congress expressed its true feelings and dissatisfaction with the King’s rule. At least 16 of those grievances were directed at King George III. Any of which could have been determined treasonous. Ben Franklin must have certainly understood the ramifications of sending the King a nasty document when he said,” We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. ”

At one time the relationship between England and her colonies was described as paternal. England was the “Mother Country” and the colonies her loving children. An interesting concept. However, from a psychological point of view, if England was the Mother Country, then the King was the father. I am not sure where Parliament fits into this analogy; but the argument could be made that the colonies had real “daddy issues” with George III.

It is estimated that at anywhere from 15 to 20 percent of the colonial population, some say closer to a third, were loyalist. It is believed that anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 loyalists split the scene during the war and headed for jolly ole England or Canada rather than live under patriot or rebel rule.

And here, almost 250 years later, despite Jefferson’s “long train of abuses and usurpations” against the monarchy, we find ourselves still obsessed with the the trials and tribulations of English royalty. In March of 2021 we (the Colonists) opened our hearts to a prince with real daddy issues: Prince Harry, who claims his daddy, King Charles III, referred to him as a “spare.” There is a lot going on between Harry, his wife Megan and the Royal Family. Anybody who has watched The Crown on Netflix can tell you Buckingham Palace could double for some sort of halfway therapy house for dysfunctional family members–a place with real mommy and daddy issues.

I guess Harry had had enough and decided to leave the looney bin and live in LaLa land instead. In a loyalist turned rebel move he washed up here in the USA, a royal now a colonist. In a recent interview with NBC News’ TODAY co-anchor, Hoda Kotb, the now defrocked prince said: “You know, home – home for me, now, is you know, for the time being, is in the States.”

 The British, however, did not take kindly to his bolting for the Colonies. The Daily Mail called Harry “the Duke of Delusion.” Some called for the His Royal Highness and wife “to be thrown over the balcony”–more of a Putin move and not fitting in with English tradition. With all the ill will coming at Harry, you cannot really blame him for skedaddling across the pond. I am sure Harry is not the Frankenstein monster some in the British press are making him out to be. But in reality it seems like he has made a good choice considering some of the monarchs’ antics of the past.

King Charles I
_{Follower of Anthony van Dyck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}

Americans trying to keep track of the English monarchy have to wade through various houses of royalty like Tudors, Yorks, Stuarts and Windsors. And in those houses there is a subset of Henrys, Georges, Jameses, Charleses and Elizabeths. There are so many of them it takes a score card and numbers to figure out which Charles was beheaded and which one went into exile. For the record Charles I was beheaded January 30, 1649 forcing the future King Charles (II) to flee to France. And, now we have Charles III on the throne with one of his sons basically in self exile.

For centuries people have been trying to keep track of the six wives of Henry the VIII and their fate. Whether you need to know this for a test or just want to become familiar with a historically significant bit of information, there are several well-known tricks to keeping Henry’s queens straight in your head: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. (Are we starting to see a pattern)*

wikiHow

Oliver Cromwell bids the beheaded King Charles I a fond farewell into the afterlife.

Bridgmanart (Public Domain)

There is a lot to historically unpack in England at this time. But to keep it simple Charles I believed in the divine right of kings. He had his clashes with Parliament and religious Puritans, namely Oliver Cromwell. Ironically, some of Jefferson’s “long train of abuses and usurpations” hurled at George III 130 years or so later were levied against Charles I causing an English civil war. The ensuing civil war found Charles and his Royalists on the losing side.

After his defeat, the Puritans took the radical and unprecedented approach that a sitting King could be put on trial. Cromwell’s New Model Army purged Parliament of members who supported Charles. A new Parliament, derisively referred to as the “Rump Parliament,” was ushered in to try the King for treason. Cromwell and his “Rumpers” found the king guilty. They made quick work of the verdict and three days later they had Charles beheaded. Even Lord Haw-Haw, the Englishman turned German propagandist during WWII, was given a longer shrift in his treason conviction in 1946. Despite being hung, he was able to keep his head on his shoulders and off a pike. After Charles’ execution Cromwell becomes Lord Protectorate of England, a fancy title for head Protestant-in-charge. This opened up a whole new can of conflict for English monarchy.

Oliver Cromwell is an interesting case in history. In 1658 he falls ill from malaria, and maybe comorbidities. He becomes what we would call today an anti-vaxer. Being a staunch Protestant and Puritan he refuses the only known treatment at the time, quinine. Because it was discovered by Catholic Jesuit missionaries, he decides not to partake of the holy water. According to the National Library of Medicine, quinine “was referred to as the ‘Jesuits’ bark,’ ‘cardinal’s bark,’ or ‘sacred bark.’ These names stem from its use in 1630 by Jesuit missionaries in South America, though a legend suggests earlier use by the native population.”

As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot to unpack with English history and it is not for the faint of heart. When Cromwell died he was given a fine state funeral and was buried in Westminster Abbey. But not for long. Like the the French Revolution, when the French mob turned in on itself it ended up guillotining 10,000 people. Once hailed as conquering hero, Cromwell’s image was popped like a Chinese weather balloon over the Atlantic. The mobs hit the bricks.

When the Rumpers lost power, Parliament brought back the monarchy with Charles II. According to historycollection.com, after Charles II was restored to power he “pardoned everyone except those who had played a direct role in the execution of his father.” English public opinion, or mob mentality, turned on the deceased Cromwell. Like dogs looking for a lost bone in the backyard, the a mob, armed with pickaxes and shovels dug up Cromwell’s remains. He was then treated to a treasonous posthumus execution: hung and later decapitated. I am not sure if beheading is just for the living. According to wikidiff.com, the difference “is that beheaded is to have had your head cut off while decapitated is with the head removed.”

In any case, the end result was that Cromwell’s head was placed on a pike and hung atop Westminster Hall. But it wouldn’t stay there forever. And what would be a good story like this if there were not some juicy conspiracy, theories like the remains were not actually Cromwell’s. Some believe the remains could have been Charles’ I. A 17th Century version of where is JFK’s brain.

On 30 January (the date being chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the execution of Charles I) the bodies (Cromwell and two associates) were symbolically hanged at Tyburn, and, for good measure, then decapitated. This was insufficient to sate the desire of the mob for vengeance: the heads were subsequently displayed on poles outside Parliament and the bodies deposited without ceremony in an unmarked grave.

The Exhumation and Posthumous Execution of Oliver Cromwell: worldhistory.us

Cromwell’s skull remained on Westminster Hall until the late 1680s when the English equivalent of a Nor’easter snapped the pike and brought Cromwell’s’ head back down earth. It was picked up by a guard who stashed the head inside his chimney. For some reason the government was “eager to see the head returned to its pike.”

A drawing of Oliver Cromwell’s head from the late 18th century. _{author unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The Wilkinson Head of Oliver Cromwell and Its Relationship to Busts, Masks and Painted Portraits, Biometrika}

The head, however, bounced around from hand-to-hand. A French collector once put it on display; two brothers bought the head for what in today’s money would be close seven thousand pounds; and in 1815 it ended up hands of the Wilkinson family. According to historycollection.com, “The Wilkinson family kept the skull in their home and were happy to show it as a curiosity to any prominent guests who came to visit. The skull remained in their possession for over a century, stored inside a simple oak box and passed down through the generations. Finally, in 1960, Horace Wilkinson decided that his rather grim family heirloom deserved a proper burial and contacted Sidney Sussex College, which agreed to bury the head on the campus. And in 1962, a few of the living Wilkinsons gathered with representatives of the college for a small ceremony where the head was finally laid to rest.”

We have become more civilized today. This is not 1594 Shakespeare’s Richard III when Lord Hastings finds out he is sentenced to be beheaded and told: “Make a short Shrift, as he longs to see your Head.” It is obvious that citizen Harry does not have to worry about losing his head today over marriage vows, family squabbles and “daddy issues.” Today’s monarchical antics are mere slap fights compared to the political head rolling and religious affairs of the past.

By Hans Holbein the Younger – WQEnBYMfBeoSdg — Google Arts & Culture, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13466190

*Also joining this headless list is Thomas More, Lord Chancellor, “a devout Catholic, he refused to acknowledge the divorce of King Henry VIII from Queen Catherine, (of Aragon Henry’s first wife) thereby refusing to acknowledge the King’s religious supremacy. He was charged with treason, found guilty and beheaded in 1535, with his head then displayed from Tower Bridge.”

historyplace.com

https://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/declaration/section2/

https://www.ushistory.org/us/11b.asp

https://www.royal.uk/charles-i

https://www.worldhistory.org/Oliver_Cromwell/

ttps://historycollection.com/strange-story-oliver-cromwells-head/3/

It All Started with the Magi

Brooklyn Museum – The Magi Journeying – James Tissot wikimedia commons

T’is the season to be jolly, unless one perceives that there is a war on Christmas. In today’s times, and maybe true of all times, people have been at war with someone or something. It could be a real hot war with bombs or a cold war of words. We have had a war on poverty, drugs, and terror. But just maybe, there is some truth to the belief that there is a “war on Christmas.” A war that goes beyond one of symbols and simply saying “Happy Holidays” as if it were a question about Happy Hour at the corner bar. Maybe it goes beyond putting up a Nativity scene in the public square or classroom.

When you think about it, we really have to go back at least two centuries when Jesus was born in Bethlehem to determine if there could be a War on Christmas. Most of us are familiar with the birth of Christ. The Scriptures prophesied the coming of a messiah in the Old Testament Isaiah 60:1-6. The arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem gets prophecies going and only re-enforces the mysticism of Christmas. The Bible also makes a reference to the Magi, or as in Psalms 72:11 “May all Kings fall down before him.” And hence a 2,000 year tradition is started.

The Bible, however is vague on details when it comes to the Magi. The first verse of Matthew Chapter 2 says: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.” No names are given and we are not sure how many wise men there actually were. Some say that there were just three because the Bible only mentions three gifts given to the babe in swaddling. Others think there could be as many as 12. For having a big part in the Christmas culture, they do not get any cast crediting.

One clue that Biblical scholars can use to decipher where the Magi came from is by the gifts that they brought. This may indicate where they came from. Take frankincense for instance. Frankincense grew and was widely traded on the Horn of Africa for 5,000 years, making its way as far as the Silk Road. The ancient Egyptians used frankincense in their mummification process. Myrrh, a herb also grown throughout the region in countries like Somalia, Oman, Yemen, and Eritrea could give an indication where the wise men started out from. Even knowing where these aromatic herbs were grown is no sure bet. These herbs had to be long-established trading items that could be picked up at the local herb shop for the right price–more if pre-rolled. And of course gold, the currency of the realm.

So the Magi could have come from anywhere. Some speculation believes they could have come from modern day Iraq or Iran. Maybe Turkey or as far away as Saudi Arabia. We are not sure if they met on the road or came collectively. If they had to travel several months, no doubt by camel and donkey, it might be safe to say these saddle sore Orientals were looking for a place to stay when they hit the outskirts of Jerusalem. And considering that all of Roman-controlled Galilee was on the move because of Caesar Augustus’ census, an obvious stop was King Herod’s palace for a kingly stop over.

We also have to applaud the Magi’s navigational skills in finding the Christ child. According to the historyofthecompass.com the Chinese were fidgeting around with the compass around the Second Century BCE. It is probably safe to say that the Magi did not have a hand-held compass. There is the possibility that they had some early form of an astrolabe. As as far we know their only GPS was the bright star in the east. This also brings up a host of questions. Astronomers have tried to back track the skies to determine what astronomical phenomenon could have lead the Magi to that manger off the beaten path.

In 12 BCE Halley’s comet made its appearance. However, the timing of Jesus’ birth and the comet is off by a couple of years. But surely learned persons of the times could tell the difference between a comet and a star. Speculation from ancient manuscripts dating back to 6 BCE indicate that there could have been a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. This would not have formed a single point of light in the sky, but could have been used as a navigational aid.

The Bible does tell us that when Magi got to Jerusalem they stopped off and sought out Herod for directions. In Matthew they are pretty specific about the star when they tell Herod “For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” The Bible does not go into great detail but it could be safe to assume that if a king was being born the locals would have an idea as to where. Traveling from afar they had to be excited and curious when they asked Herod, “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?”

Herod’s scholars had to be familiar with the prophecies and would have seen this new-born king as a threat. In Matthew 2:13 King Herod, sucking up to the Magi, tells them he is not sure, but that he too wants to meet the baby Jesus. Maybe it was the look of insincerity on Herod’s face that puzzled the Magi. We are not sure what information the Magi shared with Herod. Email, Twitter and Instagram were several centuries away. So Herod had to cool his jets waiting for the return of the Magi to Jerusalem.

While the Bible has some great stories it can be vague on the politics of the times. After all, it is a religious tome and not The Times of Israel or The Jerusalem Post. There was no headline proclaiming, Messiah Born in Bethlehem. What makes Herod interesting is that he is like a modern day strong man propped up by a foreign super power. He could be put in with the Shah of Iran or East German president Erich Honecker around the time the Berlin Wall came down. History has a recurring theme in which lesser powers, for the lack of a better term, get swallowed up in the business of the prevailing super powers of the times. Herod was caught in the geopolitics of the times. He faced the Romans to the west, the Parthians (the old Persian Empire) to the east and a highly suspicious and disgruntled Jewish population at home. This messiah stuff could be bad news.

Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of (East) Germany. Honecker found himself on the wrong side of reform after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Anti communist government protests forced him to flee Germany to Russia in 1990. The Russians didn’t want anything to do with him and sent him back to Germany to stand trial for crimes against humanity. He eventually was exiled to Chile where he died in the custody of his family in 1994.

In the Hellenic World the Greeks had mixed it up several times with the Persians. Once Rome conquered Greece around 150 BCE it was now their turn with Persians–now the Parthians and the neo-Persian Empire. The Romans never did subdue the Parthians. Julius Caesar planned an invasion to avenge the death of his friend and fellow ruler, Marcus Licinius Crassus, but the Roman Senate had other plans for Julius, plans that makes an impeachment look like a picnic with plastic dinnerware. Crassus, at the time, was one of the richest men in Rome. However, his Parthian invasion didn’t go off so well for him–the Roman version of rich guy biting off too much–like Elon Musk buying Twitter. The Parthians defeated Crassus at the battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE. Roman and Parthian lore has it that the Parthians poured liquid gold down Crassus’s mouth to mock his riches. They also made sport of his decapitated head using it as a prop in Greek plays. No doubt a tragedy for him but comic relief for the Parthians.

It was around this time that Rome proclaimed Herod King of the Jews. The problem however, was there was already a king in Judea, Antigonus. Herod had managed to overthrow Antigonus around 34 BCE. And to make a long complicated story short, it was around this time the Parthians were making a run on the Roman province of Syria. Antigonus, looking over the possibilities, decided this might be a good time to cut a deal with the Parthians to regain his kingdom. A little cash in the right pocket and Antigonus was back on the throne. The Parthians chased Herod out of Jerusalem and Antigonus was riding high again. The Romans, however, had other ideas. Marc Antony, who stepped in for assassinated Julius Caesar, sends an army to Judea. The Romans shove the Parthians out of what would become the Holy Land, and Antigonus, unfortunately finds himself on the wrong side of Herod and Rome.

Once the Parthians were gone, Herod turned Antigonus over to the Romans. Some ancient historians say that Antigonus was either beheaded or crucified. In either situation Herod was left in control of Galilee under the watchful eyes of Rome. It is in this geopolitical landscape that Jesus is born–and would die. This is when the Christmas story begins, with Herod’s malignant fear of being overthrown. His Jewish minions were never really pleased with his rule. He had to keep the peace and Rome happy at the same time. And now the possibility of another king put Herod on high alert.

According to the Bible both the Magi and Joseph had forewarning dreams. The Magi were told not to tell Herod about the Christ child. They headed back East avoiding Herod. Joseph’s dream told him he needed to head for Egypt and set up shop there until it was safe to return.

Massacre of the Innocents by Matteo di Giovanni – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155056

Herod, in his frustration for being duped the by the Magi, retaliates. In Matthew 2: 16 Herod was furious, he gave orders “to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” This was the “Massacre of the Innocents” or the “Slaughter of the Innocents.”

Since that time we have had all sorts of religious wars, none specifically fought over Christmas. There was an Easter Uprising in 1916 in Ireland. Irish Republicans (no affiliation to Republicans who stormed the US Capitol on January 6th) decide that they had enough of British rule. The rebellion was crushed in English fashion–unconditional surrender and execution.

Today, if there is a war on Christmas it is a fear of heretics, secular progressives and plain old liberals storming the cultural gates, an attack on perceived cultural norms. We can trace this phobia to 1959. A geopolitical time of Communism and atheism when the UN was seen as the boogie man or men. The John Birch Society believed the “assault on Christmas” was being carried out by “UN fanatics.” The battle was being waged in department stores throughout the country utilizing “UN symbols as Christmas decorations.” They may be giving the UN way too much credit as an organization that can get anything done.

As Christmas became more commercialized the only battles being fought were consumer skirmishes, department store fist fights over who gets the last Cabbage Patch Doll; people getting trampled on Black Friday when Walmart stores opened their doors to the hoards of shoppers. And parades with more secular floats featuring modern day cartoon characters. Hardly a war. And where do flying reindeers come into all of this?

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/war-on-christmas-short-history-101222/

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/main-articles/herod-the-great

The National Regime Media and an Obvious Agenda–to Turn a Profit

In the midst of a national disaster Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had to take a shot at the news media when he told Florida’s Voice, “You have national regime media, that they wanted to see Tampa [get hit], because they thought that would be worse for Florida.”

First off the word “they” is almost always vague and all encompassing. It can be specific in the sense of pointing out a certain group. What “they” does, is takes the individuality out of the group and assumes that all of “they” or them think the same. Or, have the same agenda. But a red flag should always be waved when anybody uses the word “they,” particularly in what follows. 

The group identity can be variously based–on skin color, on religion, on ethnic origin. But it is always contrasted with a perceived other against whom the nation is to be defined. Fascist nationalism creates a dangerous “them” to guard against…”

Jason Stanley “How Fascism Works The Politics of Us and Them”

Pronouns are useful little words but they can be dangerous little mines in today’s grammar. For instance Seventeen.com says beware of third person pronouns. “These words carry meaning and impact, and are a crucial marker of one’s identity, especially for nonbinary, gender non-conforming, and transgender folks.” 

Having a vague idea of nonbinary political affairs in Florida, I doubt seriously if that was where DeSantis was going with “they.” According to Newsweek, DeSantis continued by professing his deeper understanding of the national media, and not their sexual identification, by saying, “That’s how these (again they) people think. I mean, they don’t care about the people of this state. They don’t care about the people of this community. They want to use storms and destruction from storms as a way to advance their agenda.”

“Were it left to me to decide if we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Thomas Jefferson

This says a lot, particularly about DeSantis and his perception of a national news media agenda concerning an impending national disaster. What is interesting is how DeSantis takes the national media, as “they,” a group, which is really a mass media conglomeration of individual news organizations. He then boils them down into a singular group with a single agenda, sort of groupthink.

Groupthink refers to the tendency for certain types of groups to reach decisions that are extreme and which tend to be unwise or unrealistic. Groupthink occurs when individuals in cohesive groups fail to consider alternative perspectives because they are motivated to reach a consensus which typically results in making less than desirable decisions.

By Derek Schaedig, SimplyPsychology.org published March 25, 2022

DeSantis is making the assumption that the “national regime media” is a monolithic block. It could be argued, within any industry, news gathers included, that there are best business practices to be followed. Individual political ideology may be different, though. Let’s get realistic newspapers and politicians are symbiotic creatures that always have had an agenda. From the very beginning the two have swam in the same ink barrel. Some newspapers may have been started to push a particular political agenda, politician or business. One of the first real political papers with an agenda was the Gazette of the United States. Talk about regime media. The name drips with all inclusiveness and one-sidedness. John Fenno founded the Alexander Hamilton backed-paper in April of 1789 with a motto: “he that is not for us, is against us.” 

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

Benjamin Franklin

Of course the main target of this gazette was Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic Republican Party, which clashed with the Hamilton backed Federalists–on the agenda for the new country. As the political animosity between Hamilton and Jefferson grew, Jefferson felt the need to respond in like. He oversaw the founding of a rival paper in October of 1791. And not to be outdone he named it The National Gazette.

Before long, Jefferson’s affair with, and fathering children, with Sally Hemings was exposed. Hamilton’s political-career ending affair with Maria Reynolds came under public scrutiny, too.  The whole Hamilton/Jefferson print war is an agenda onto itself.

Caught in the cross hairs of these agendas was the thin-skinned President John Adams. Adams found himself in clashing foreign affairs agendas between France and Britain, which ended up with the United States in a Quasi War with France. This time there was no Washington around to keep America out of the foreign fray and tamp down domestic differences.

Federalist took a pro British position while the Democratic Republicans backed France. In fact, Hamilton wrote in the Gazette of the United States that Jeffersonians were “more ‘Frenchman than American’ and claimed that they were prepared ‘to immolate the independence and welfare of their country at the shrine of France.’” Today we hear the same sort of claims concerning the U.S. being rolled over with socialism, fascism, critical race theory and wokeism.

But a lot has happened since those founding days. The evening news paper is a thing of the past and many local newspapers have folded–an agenda just to stay in business. The press, like a lot of industries, has gone from private ownership to corporate control through the decades. Just look at the airline industry. It has gone through all sorts of mergers. American Airlines has merged with Eastern Airlines, Trans World Airlines and US Airways–which operated Trump Shuttle. Banking and investments companies have gone through several iterations of bankruptcies and mergers to where the corner bank has had multiple signs coming down and going up. Take the recent 2008 real estate meltdown, I am sure most every real estate, construction and finance company prior to the bubble bursting had an agenda: cash in now while the market is hot. Some were able to get in and get out. Others, not so quick, it has given us the economic concept of “too big to fail.” 

The news gathering industry, like all other businesses, is not immune from economic downturns, corporate buyouts and consolidations. Take the media company Comcast for instance. According to Investopidia, Comcast is a $200 billion dollar company that owns NBC and “controls the news media outlets NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, and UK’s Sky News.”

Then there is News Corp, a $10 billion market company which includes famous brands such as “The Times, Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, The Sun, Herald Sun, and HarperCollins Publishers. News Corp formerly owned FOX News properties before they were spun off.” 

The list goes on with Disney owning ABC; Paramount owning CBS; and IAC/Interactive Corp which owns The Daily Beast. IAC/Interactive Corp owns “online news and information providers such as People Magazine, The Balance, Entertainment Weekly, Better Homes & Gardens, Food + Wine,” –and Investopdia.

And then there are companies, like Sinclair Broadcasting which operates in multiple markets. As of December 31, 2019 Sinclair “operated and/or provided services to 191 stations in 89 markets.”

Governor DeSantis should be a little more specific in “they.” If the national regime media has an agenda against Florida and DeSantis, it has to be a corporate agenda. And that agenda, like all businesses, is to make a profit. Take Air America, the progressive talk radio network launched in March of 2004. Its agenda was to counter conservative talking heads like Rush Limbaugh. It went through several bouts of economic upheaval before it finally crashed and burned. What seemed as a winning format (agenda) was a financial bust, going off the air in January of 2010. An agenda is great but if there is no bucks there is no agenda.

If anything can be true about “they” or “them” it can be said about politicians. “They,” politicians, all have an agenda. And if it is one thing they know, it is how easily they can spread their agenda through the “national regime media.” Framed in an “us versus them agenda” it can merge right into any event or news cycle. Best of all, it’s the “free” press. There is no economic cost to spouting off an agenda. Just a political cost.

https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/021815/worlds-top-ten-news-companies-nws-gci-trco-nyt.aspx

Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1794-1795 | Library of Congress

https://nypost.com/2020/07/03/alexander-hamilton-founded-americas-oldest-daily-newspaper/

https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/alien-and-sedition-acts

By Delbert Tran. Yale Law School, Media Freedom Access Clinic

Russia Denies Sending Millions of Dollars to Meddle in Free elections but Still Demands Tribute

_{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Communist_Party_USA_Flag.svg}
^{RootOfAllLight, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

_{by Beau Jukka Reality News Network International}

Russia has denied allegations from the US State Department that they have covertly spent more than $300 million influencing United States elections since 2014. The Russian denial was issued from an Iranian source with close connections to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The Iranian source said that there is no truth that Russia is trying to influence infidels, politicians, government officials or even Saudi-backed golf course moguls in an effort to destabilize Western democracies and the PGA Tour. He said Southern governors need little urging in undermining elections and are capable of doing it with very little foreign aid. He did say that he had it on good authority from information garnered from recently leaked (semi)classified US government documents that Russia was using the money to assist Special Counsel John Durham’s dying FBI Russian hoax investigation. Durham’s investigation is looking into the FBI and “Deep State” efforts to harass, subvert and upend conservative actions to make America great again, and to ensure fair elections from clandestine but legal foreign input and influence.

An oligarch, who wished to remain anonymous because of his close ties to Putin was asked about Russian meddling in and funding US elections. Speaking from the comfort of his Gulfstream G650 jet parked at Palm Beach International Airport, he said that the Soviet Union has not funded Communist candidates or any candidates in foreign elections since the closing of the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) during the De-Stalinization era under Nikita Khrushchev. When asked if such funding could have come from the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance he said, “No, I doubt it. Maybe Gus Hall a couple of times. We did fund a Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013 that had promising results. Besides, there are many Russian banks more than capable of funding foreign aid projects in America than a defunct inept Soviet era organization.”

Gus Hall, born Arvo Kustaa Halberg, was four-time Communist Party presidential candidate running in 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984. The Communist party never received more than 60,000 votes in any election.

When asked about Russian efforts to hack into political party computers to disrupt elections he said the use of “intense advanced technical information gathering is more of an economic investment than disruption. There is no such thing as a free election.” He said, “It is similar to no free lunch. You get what you pay for and we did not pay for Joe Biden. Therefore there was no Russian interference.”

He vehemently denied any close ties to any former presidents. And he specifically pointed out that reports of his Fincantieri yacht being boarded and seized by FBI agents while docked at the Town of Palm Beach Marina because it was believed to be a floating archive for pilfered US government documents is totally fake news. He added any such documents would be declassified. Although he has not met Hunter Biden, he did say he once was at a party with Hunter Biden in Kiev. At first he thought he was a Russian saying, “Man, that guy can drink. If he is not careful somebody is going to spike his Vodka with polonium-210.”

During the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit meeting in Uzbekistan this month, Vladimir Putin refused to comment on what he called the wildly absurd accusations that the Russian government was actively involved in American or European elections. Individual Russians are free to spend their money and computer time any way they choose. If they wish to invest in overseas elections there is no Russian law to stop them. He did say that Russia would resist all forms of Clinton Fascism and extreme Nazism where ever it existed and that that NATO represented the war mongering spirit of Western Democracies that threatens the legitimate rule of legitimate autocratic rule throughout the world.

Xi Jinping, agreed saying that China would cut the head off of American hegemony and Japanese aggression in their efforts to recreate the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This aggression in the Pacific Rim is just a continuation of Japan’s efforts prior to World War II control Asian resources. It is now under the domination of the imperialistic stooge Joe Biden and his Taiwanese lackeys.

Both leaders expressed regrets that former President Donald Trump could not join them in their plans to create economic stability that could not only make America great again but could be the backbone of peace and progress around the world. A trimunative for the future is how one spokesman for Xi described the possibilities.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-spent-300-million-to-influence-world-politics-us-state-department-says/

https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2022/20220920?cmpid=ema:bundle:20220920:1150071:toc&sfmc_sub=171038101#1150071

https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/15/russia-talks-a-great-risk-for-china-as-xi-and-putin-meet-in-samarkand

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/15/xi-putin-meeting-russia-china-relations-ukraine-war/

Only Documents in the Basement: The Boxset Edition

The news the last couple of months of what I am going to call “The Trump Papers” is moving from reality TV to a comedy show being playing out in the News and Social Media. The dilemma is the News is playing it out as a crime story. This is what makes it so confusing. It is a political/dramatic comedy that falls into being a farce at times. The News and Social Media should turn it over to Warner Bros, the Coen Brothers or Netflix as an episodic show that streams weekly.

The problem is there needs to be a comic hero. I am not sure in this political dramedy, who the comic hero is. A comic hero is a prerequisite for a dramatic comedy. The obvious choice is Donald Trump. However, I do not see him experiencing any sort of change. A catharsis in character is not in his disposition to make current matters better, a condition required in a dramedy. It can’t be Joe Biden–there is just no drama there and very little humor. Robert De Niro already did War with Grandpa.

Although I have never been involved in any sort of theatrical production–I did see Oliver! at a community theater–I am going to take a stab at pitching a series. It is a series that writes itself but with a team of good writers and literary license this could be a Game of Thrones without dragons. The new show begins at the end of January, the last days of the Trump Administration. Boxed up documents are being loaded up for Trump’s Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago. For dramatic effect the first episode, A Box Full of Docs, opens with boxes being carted out the back door of the White House onto a UHaul under the watchful eyes of two Russians guards. Meanwhile, in the Rose Garden, staffers are burning documents in 50 gallon drums, as if the Red Army was descending on gates of Berlin in 1945. The fire lights up the night sending embers out over the National Mall and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Insided, others are flushing documents down toilets as quickly as they can unclog the drains. The episode ends with the credits rolling over water swirling down the drain.

Episode Two follows the activities of the National Archives and Records Administration. The NARA is tipped off to 15 missing boxes stashed in the basement of Mar-a-Lago. A possible mole in the Trump Organization? (A teaser for future episodes.) J.K. Simmons plays the role of the chief of the NARA, a role similar to the one he played in the Coen Brothers’ movie Burn After Reading. His lead inspector on the case is Tom Hanks channeling Detective Columbo. When given the assignment to check out the basement of Mar-a-Lago he tells the chief he is not sure there is a basement. Most houses in South Florida do not have basements because of a high water table. Plus Mar-a-Lago sits between the Lake Worth Lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean. Digging deep is not really an option. But for theatrical effect, picture a damp dungeon with wet-glazed walls oozing with the moldy smell of damp underwear. A place where heretics were tortured during the Inquisition.

The dedicated men and women of the NARA are not Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible or Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry. But they are just as tenacious when it comes to government documents. They may have the appearances of mild mannered librarians and archivists but deep down they are like terriers, Jack Russells or Rat Terriers. Small but fierce. They will track down, and go underground if need be to hunt down vermin. Soon, they have their nose on Trump’s stashed cache of documents. Episode Three is, as Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson: The Game is Afoot.

By Episode Four however, the NARA terriers are getting frisky. They send Detective Columbo to Florida in Fishing for the Great White. Columbo knocks on the gilded gates of Mar-a-Lago and is stiff-armed by security guards who hustle him from one supervisor to another. But the terrier he is, despite being told several times to vacate the premises, is undaunted. Columbo is telling them, “I know. That’s what the other three guards told me, but I’d like to look around.”

Finally, Trump, played by John Malkovich, comes down. He gives Columbo a brief tour of the grounds as they make their way to the room where the documents are stored. The light flicks on and cockroaches race around the room like kids playing musical chairs. A rat scurries into crevice to god knows where. Columbo inspects the room.

When they are finished Trump escorts Columbo to the Gate and the conversation turns away from the documents to the estate itself. “This is a lovely place my wife would love to spend a day at that spa I saw.” To which Trump replies, “That is no problem. It is $2,000 a night. But for you detective I’ll wave the $200,000 initiation fee and the $15,000 annual dues.” Columbo stops and rubs his forehead. “Whew. And I thought the $260 we spent at the Grand Hotel Ocean City using Bookings. com last year was expensive. With what you charge here I think you can afford a dehumidifier for the storage room. Oh, and a couple boxes of Roach Motels. And another thing. I couldn’t help but notice those boxes are marked Top Secret.”

But Trump is not your ordinary suspect. His disposition is like a Great White needing a root canal. So prying the boxes away from him is like taking a pair of pliers to a highly agitated Carcharodon Carcharias–Carcharodon from the Greek word karcharos which means sharp, and odous which means tooth. And like in the movie Jaws, the NARA needs a bigger boat.

The NARA calls for the big dogs to get off the front porch and help in the hunt. Enter the Justice Department and Episode Five: “Got a tip they’re gonna kick the door in again…But if you got a warrant, I guess you’re gonna come in.” The dazed and somewhat confused looking Attorney General, Merrick Garland played by David Strathairn (League of the Own, We are Marsharshall) sends in the FBI. Under the command of Denzel Washington. Agents force their way through the front gate while the Rock leads a group of agents landing by helicopter on the croquet court. To cut off any possible removal of the documents via the Lake Worth Lagoon, Chris Pratt storms ashore in Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats with more agents.

Finally, the NARA gets the boxes. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the stressed-out overworked archivist in charge of the team going through the boxes. The Justice Department is breathing down her neck. This is when the subpoenas started flying around like blood sucking mosquitoes on a hot, humid Florida night. News organizations the MAGA universe want to know what is in those boxes. Rumors have it that there is definitive proof that the Moon landings were faked and that aliens abducted Jimmy Hoffa.

Episode 6: The Feeding Frenzy. There is blood in the water and the sharks begin to circle. Soon the water is a froth. Christopher Lloyd makes a brief appearance as the totally befuddled Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. At a press conference with Senator Ron Johnson, played by Chevy Chase they describe how the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was similar to the US Navy Seal Team 6 assault on Bin Laden’s Pakistani compound. All that was lacking where the stealth, black-painted Blackhawk helicopters.

The media chimes in. Pundits and experts are pouring out of cars like clowns to give their expert opinons at FOX News, MSNBC and CNN. Steve Carell as Hannity forcefully proclaims the President has a legal right to the documents–as well as all of NASA’s electronic communications with Aliens outside our galaxy. Amy Schumer is the frustrated and unbelieving Lora Ingram on how stupid the President’s lawyers are. Did they go to the same law school as Saul Goodman? Jack Black is the unbelieving confused Tucker Carlson expressing the belief that these documents could be anything, maybe documents from 1917 declassified 10 years ago. Bill Burr, goes on a Morning Joe rant about the lies–how many? A dozen already. But tune in because the count is going up and so are the ratings.

Because this is a TV show we have literary license to skew the story line a bit. The season’s finale is Tina Fey totally immersed portraying Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. She interviews Lewis Black, Bill O’Reilly, who says that Trump needs the documents for a new book. Together, with the former president, they are writing a book: Killing NATO. The interview quickly turns sour. O’Reilly has had enough of Terry’s badgering questions and lunges for her. Mike Tyson, the show’s floor manager, steps in to restrain the enraged O’Reilly.

Season Two: Is Forty-Five being fitted for an orange jumpsuit or does the defunded FBI fall under the control of the Fifth Service, Russia’s FSB? Stay tuned to the never ending Trump Saga. The show that writes itself and cannot be canceled.

Meanwhile, from the Arconia in New York, Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez are broadcasting their new podcast: Only Documents in the Basement.

Nazis and the black hole of historical analogies

“Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

Walter Sobchak from the movie “The Big Lebowski“

I think anytime anyone starts to use the words Nazis and Hitler as some sort of reference point in any situation they should stop. Disengage mouth. Whatever you where about to say, make as some sort of observation or association to, compare and contrast to, or make a general opinion, or bloviate on about the Naizs and Hitler it should be swallowed and properly evacuated from your mind and body. Do not regurgitate or cogitate on it or even think about mentioning it because it is going to get you in trouble. Particularly, if you are about to make some sort of comparison and contrasting about Nazis to the present day. It will never work. There tenets or ethos do not fit anything. Nazis do not have a place in the modern world any more than a buggy whip has a use in rush hour traffic.

There is this huge fascination with Hitler and Nazis. Walter Sobchak is probably right that the Nazis had an ethos. American Heritage Dictionary says that an ethos is “the disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement.” By that definition Hitler and his fellow fascists have created continual character-cultural upheaval in historical interpretation.

It is always perplexing, but not surprising, how easily people fall into the Nazi abyss. Numerous politicians and celebrities have jumped into this historical black hole. It is a place where intellect and understanding go to die. That is as far as I am going to go in my Nazi comparing and contrasting. It is way too easy to get sucked into the void. And there never is a good explanation as to why you decided to go there. In most cases it ends up as half-witted apology for being historically challenged and somewhat ignorant.

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.

Because no light can get out, people can’t see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.

NASA.com

We are fortunate not to have to deal with black holes at this time in our human existence. It is, unfortunate however, that we still have to deal with Nazi ideology and its ability to squeeze intelligence into a tiny space. A good example is former President Trump’s take on Hitler and his relations with his officers. In their book, The Divider, published online by The New Yorker, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser recount how, Trump brought up a comparison to Hitler and his generals. According to The New York Times, “The excerpt depicts Mr. Trump as deeply frustrated by his top military officials, whom he saw as insufficiently loyal or obedient to him.”

The Times of Israel reported that the “Former US president Donald Trump clashed repeatedly with his generals over his desire to hold a huge military parade in Washington, DC, lamenting that they weren’t showing the same devotion that he claimed Hitler enjoyed.”

“I swear to God this holy oath
that I shall render unconditional obedience
to the Leader of the German Reich and people,
Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces,
and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared
to give my life for this oath.”

Wehrmacht Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler

Trump was after a Fourth of July grand spectacle on the lines of Roman Triumph that would make France’s Bastille Day look like a Little League opening-day parade. According to excerpts, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Paul Selva suggested it was not such a good idea to have a grand military review: “it’s what dictators do.”

According to The Israel Times, “Trump grew “frustrated.” He felt “the generals were not exhibiting blind loyalty to him.” He asked his Chief of Staff, retired Marine Corps general John Kelly: You fucking generals why can’t you be like the German generals?” A reference to Hitler’s Wehrmacht generals of World War II.

Trump should have stopped his comparison and stepped back from the abyss. It was too late. The Nazi black hole was now sucking all of the light, intelligence out of the room, and in particularly Trump’s brain. Nobody is immune. It does not matter if you are an Ivy League graduate or a plumber’s helper, there is no vaccine for this sort of absurdity. Kelly’s response reveals just how little Trump knew about the Nazis when, Kelly told Trump, “You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?”

This sort of imbecility is not constrained to one party or even one continent. Politicians from both parties have said stupid stuff interpreting current events and then comparing them with Nazi ethos and imagery. Politicians have compared border detention facilities to concentration camps, vaccines to the identifying yellow star worn by German Jews. Others have said “while I don’t agree with Hitler, you have to admit what he accomplished in his lifetime is impressive.” There is so much wrong with that statement I cannot begin to comment except: the black hole. One Tennessee state politician saw Hitler as a rags to riches success story of true inspiration. Hitler, rising from homelessness to greatness. The brainless politician did not stop there but continued on saying that living on the street “it’s not a dead end.” That homeless people can draw inspiration from the life-and-times of an Austrian vagabond. “They can come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life.” I am not sure how productive Hitler’s life was but then I guess it is how you view a productive life and “impressive” accomplishments.

And then there are people who have handlers like the British monarchy. For instance in 2005 The Sun reported, along with a photo, that Prince Harry was at a party dressed in a Nazi “uniform… under the headline ‘Harry the Nazi.'”

“The Duke was later photographed wearing the uniform at a party causing public outrage, according to royal biographer Robert Lacey.” You think?

“Many observers, however, missed the point: obviously the 20-year-old Harry wasn’t really a neo-Nazi, as one Labour MP alleged….The lad was naughty, not a Nazi.” There is no point to be made. Stupid is a better description. I do not think it was gravity that squeezed the gray matter between his ears to a point of “what was I thinking?” He wasn’t. And I do not think anybody, even the Brits, considers the House of Windsor a citadel of intellect.

What people tend to forget is the death struggle taking place between Britain and the Nazis in World War II. Winston Churchill spurred on the his country telling them that they would fight on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields, streets and hills:. To paraphrase Churchill we shall never surrender…into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule.

There really is no comparison or contrasting National Socialism ethos. It’s a warped understanding of Social Darwinism: racial superiority, ethnic cleansing and biologically improving the human race with selective beliefs on human existence. It has a complete contempt for democratic principles based on the rule of law.

National Socialism and Hitler stand alone in history. And, yes, they need to be studied and understood not compared to. Unless it is to Stalinism.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-trump-demanded-his-generals-be-loyal-like-german-generals-were-to-hitler/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/inside-the-war-between-trump-and-his-generals

The Ever Shifting Political Winds of Original Intent

Signing of the United States Constitution with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton left to right in the foreground.
_{Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Howard Chandler Christy.}

Whenever a big issue comes before The Supreme Court, the phrase “original intent” gets smacked around like an air hockey puck in an arcade. I am always perplexed as to what that actually means. There were 70 men appointed to revise the Articles of Confederation in 1787. Of those 70, 55 really showed up–most of the time– and of the 55 only 39 actually signed onto the new Constitution. Of the 55, none were whisked into the future or clairvoyant enough to say, “what a minute guys I think we may have to rethink this privacy issue. And while we are at it we might want to rethink the gun thing.”

My guess is we would be lucky if most Americans could name more than five or six men from 12 states that gathered to amend the Articles of Confederation for a new Constitution. I would guess that most Americans would be able to name James Madison. He is a no brainer. Most of us learned in history class he was the father of the Constitution. Then there was the 81 year-old Ben Franklin. Most people probably associate him with flying a kite in a lightning storm but he was there. George Washington was the president of the convention as was one of his surrogate sons, Alexander Hamilton.

After that I would say most Americans are going to start guessing. If you were to guess two of the more prominent men of the times: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams you would be wrong. Jefferson was ambassador to France and Adams was in England. Patrick Henry of “give me liberty or give me death” fame was a no show. He stayed in Virginia, saying he smelled a rat.

For those that really paid attention in their history classes they might be able come up with Roger Sherman or William Patterson. Both of these men proposed plans to counter Madison and George Mason’s idea on representation called the Virginia Plan. Sherman from Connecticut, proposed the bicameral compromise we see today in Congress. According to the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Library Services Sherman’s compromise “prevented a stalemate between states during the creation of the United States Constitution.” The stalemate was between the more populous state and the less populated states on how to determine representation in the new Congress. In the unicameral Congress of the Articles of Confederation each state had one vote. Interestingly today, people are questioning how two states like North and South Dakota have four Senators while California has just two. Go ask Roger Sherman. It was his idea.

But what do we really about the other members of the convention. What was the intent of William Few of Georgia or Luther Martin of Maryland? Few signed off on the Constitution while Martin left Philadelphia and went back to Baltimore distressed with the proposed governments powers over “states’ rights.” Several other delegates left over the same concerns. Others because there was no bill of rights.

A shallow dive into the internet on the Constitution will lead us to the premise that there were plenty of rats in the walls–and disagreements from the beginning, particularly how to determine representation in the Congress. It took a long hot summer but those who roughed it out came up with a bunch of compromises some call “original intent.”

One thing the Framers could agree upon was the financial shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation. Government spending and revenues is an issue for any government and the states struggled individually and collectively to fund a central government. Plus, private business and commercial transactions suffered under 13 different interests, particularly those commercial dealings between states and foreign trade. The states didn’t need an Articles of Confederation upgrade 2.0. What was needed was a complete new application. Basically, the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution was to come up with workable form of government that they all could agree on–something that we lack today–to replace a cumbersome confederation. It would be safe to say that not all of them got all of what they wanted. Hence, compromise all the way up and down the process.

What is interesting about “original intent” is that it took less than 20 years after the Constitution was approved before men like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson separated the country into factions–or what we would call political parties. George Washington was not even in his grave before these two, and their followers, began feuding over original intent of the Constitution, and what the new government was to be. Hamilton wanted a bank and Jefferson wanted to buy the Louisiana Territory from France. Neither desire was a power expressly delineated in the 4,543 word Constitution. Both used original intent to get what they wanted.

“Signing of the Constitution. At the desk sits Washington watching Gouverneur Morris sign; behind Morris are Roger Sherman, Ben Franklin, Robert Morris, Madison and others, and at right Alexander Hamilton and Edmund Randolph. Sherman and Robert Morris were the only two framers that signed the Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.
_{Foundation of the American Government by John Henry Hintermeister by Published by the Osborne company, Newark, N.J. From the painting’s copyright description}:

We can surmise that the framers intended the Congress to be the real seat of power in the new government. The first Article in the Constitution deals with the legislature–Congress. Afterall it was the King’s unchecked executive power that got them all up in arms in 1776. And remember, The Articles of Confederation was a government that had no executive authority (Article II of the Constitution).

The one place that original intent gets thrown around the most concerns Supreme Court decisions, and rightly so. Take the recent overturning of Roe v Wade and repealing of a half century old the New York gun control law. The Framers did not put a whole lot of intent into Article III (the Judicial Branch) except to say “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

Although the Constitution provided important details for the legislative and executive branches, it did not flesh out the judicial branch of the new national government. For example, no one knew whether there would be any federal courts other than the “one Supreme Court” mandated by the Constitution, or how many judges would sit on the Supreme Court, or what sorts of jurisdiction any lower federal court might have. So, one of the First Congress’s first and most important duties was to establish the federal judiciary.

Encyclopedia.Com

Article III is about 500 or so words. When it came to dealing with the courts, the Framers either took a knee or punted the ball to the future Congress. In 1789 Congress approved the Bill of Rights and passed the Judiciary Act of 1789. It created the position of Attorney General and the beginnings of a court structure. From the time the first Congress met, there have been at least 10 Judiciary Acts passed and one in 1802 which repealed some provisions of the act passed in 1801.

The Judiciary Act of 1801 makes Senator Mitch McConnell’s yo-yo approval of justices during an election year look minor league. It was a last gasp grasp to hold onto judicial power. The Federalists could see which way the power was flowing on the Potomac. Thomas Jefferson’s presidential victory over John Adams was the beginning of the end of the Federalist Party. However, in their dying days, just before Jefferson was sworn in, they passed an act that was referred to as the Midnight Judges’ Act. It reduced the number of Supreme Court justices from six to five. It also increased the number of federal judgeships to 16, all filled by Federalists. Original intent or power politics?

Currently there is a proposal in Congress that would expand the Supreme Court from nine judges to 13. So what is “original intent” but the ever shifting political winds. In this case the political winds coming from the Senate in deciding when to approve Supreme Court justices to control the political aims of a particular party. Is this advice and consent?

It becomes difficult to determine what the Framers intended. The Constitution is a broadly written document. For instance Article II, Sec. 2 gives the president power to appoint government officials, like judges with “the advice and consent of the Senate.” That’s it. The Second Amendment is another example of broad reading with the first phrase of “a well regulated Militia” getting read out of the equation. Modern warfare, like so many other aspects of our lives today, has changed drastically since 1700 that men forming up with arms on the town’s Common Green is as anachronistic as a Knight of the realm defending a damsel in distress. Under the auspices of the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” original protects a 17 year-old boy to cross state lines with an automatic weapon to participate in a civil disturbance. A far cry from those who mustered on Lexington to meet the British in 1776.

The Battle of Lexington
_{William Barnes Wollen National Army Museum Wikimedia Commons}

Which brings us to the Fourth Amendment which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” Let’s keep this context of the time. The Constitution was written in the time of hand press printing machines. It was not until 1843 when newspapers could print out a million pages using the steam-powered rotary press. We now have satellite technology, digital mail and instant electronic communications. We have witnessed the extinction of the evening newspaper; the disappearance of local newspapers and the slow disintegration of the Postal Service. These are 19th, 20th and 21st Century difficulties, events and advancements unforseen by the 18th Century Framers.

“All printing was still done on hand presses, the output of which remained 200-250 copies per hour, a rate essentially unchanged since the invention of printing in the second half of the 15th century.”

HistoryofInformation.com

The genius in the Framers’ original intent were the compromises, being specific enough to establish a workable government but yet vague enough to allow Hamilton to establish the Bank of United States and for Jefferson to double the size of the United States and kick off Manifest Destiny. What makes the Constitution one of the greatest documents written is its flexibility to adapt to the times the Framers could not have intended or foreseen.

https://www.jud.ct.gov/lawlib/History/Sherman.htm

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11887&context=journal_articles

Click to access R45129.pdf

A Broken Social Contract

There is something fundamentally wrong in this country when a school, or a place of worship, a hospital, or a grocery store becomes the hill to die on. These are not the places in which we should make our last stand as if we were manning the parapets of the Alamo. The children in the Uvalde, Texas elementary school did not volunteer to be on the front lines of a mass shooting. 

There is something fundamentally wrong when we even think about hardening schools and other places to protect ourselves from assaults that should never happen. It seems as if our right to assemble is being infringed upon by the a belief in a right to bear arms anywhere one please. 

Our government is based upon a social contract between the people and its government. Congress is failing to uphold its end of our social contract. Its do nothing attitude only exacerbates the situation. 

In order to protect ourselves and our property, we may not know it but we agree to a social contract. It is not the sort of contract one would sign in a business deal or for a home mortgage loan. And probably for the most part, this contract can be as fuzzy as the terms and conditions every time we click agree to download an app—we have a vague idea of what we are agreeing to, despite it being written down.

A social contract is something handed down. As long as humans have huddled together going as far back as hunters and gatherers; or associated in more formal settings in villages. We agree to some sort of social structure that holds the community, and eventually a country together. At first it was understood. Later it was a formally written social contract. 

Our Declaration Of Independence is based on the Enlightenment reasoning of a social contract between, in this case, a king and his colonies. The Declaration of Independence presents many ideas from the Enlightenment, particularly the concept that the founding principle of a government shall be to effect the “safety and happiness” of the people. And the people, have a natural right to life, liberty and property.

For those that have forgotten their middle school civics, a social contract is pact between the government and the governed. It is a concept developed from Enlightenment thinkers. The individual gives up some of their personal freedoms to the government so that the government can protect and maintain social order. This concept, when you think about it, was contentious and dubious to those in power. Look at how King George the III balked at being told how to run his empire, particularly by a bunch of upstart colonials. 

It ancient times it was probably very hard to establish an equitable social contract when pharaohs were considered gods; and kings, who may not have been gods, were authorized to rule in a belief of some sort heavenly “divine right” of kings. Crossing the king, after all, could lead to earthly vengeance, which was nothing compared to eternal damnation from a god and a king. A lethal combination in the hands of a tyrant.

Hammurabi’s seven foot basalt stele at the Louvre with his famous codes chiseled in stone.
_{Hammurabi, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

The establishing of some sort of rule of law began around 1750 BCE. Babylonian King Hammurabi chiseled 282 laws into a stele column known as Hammurabi’s code. The code began to establish a rule of law over business, family, property and commercial activities. The dos and don’ts of the civilized man were starting to be cast in stone. The Old Testament tells of Moses coming down Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments binding the Israelites to a religious/social code. 

Around 450 BCE the Romans would codify the beginnings of Western law with the Twelve Tables. According to World History Encyclopedia “the Twelve Tables was a first step which would allow the protection of the rights of all citizens and permit wrongs to be redressed through precisely-worded written laws known to everybody.” 

At times it appears as if our social contract is vague with ever changing attitudes and opinions shifting like the sands of a desert. These brings new meaning to old beliefs.  What is unique about our social contract is that it can be examined with reason forcing us to critically evaluate simple phrases and beliefs like: “separate but equal.” It is also flexible enough to move with the times and can be amended for those times.

For example, in June of 1215, in the midst of a civil war, English barons wanted the king to shift his attitudes in respect to certain rights and privileges the barons felt needed addressing. Without knowing it these barons expanded the concept of a social contract. The barons, tired of King John’s divine rule, forced him to accept the idea that fealty needs to run both ways. King John signed the Articles of the Barons later known as the Magna Carta. 

King John being showed where to sign the Magna Carta.
_{unknown, held by The Granger Collection, New York}

According to history.com, “Of its 63 clauses, many concerned the various property rights of barons and other powerful citizens, suggesting the limited intentions of the framers. The benefits of the charter were for centuries reserved for only the elite classes, while the majority of English citizens still lacked a voice in government.” For the “lower classes” of English society the concept was most of us are so far “under the law” it does not even apply to us. Pity the poor farmer who killed a baron’s stag for dinner. 

Beginning in the 1600s a period of  Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, an era of reason took hold in Western Europe. Old beliefs like the solar system revolving around the earth were spiked through observation, moving thinkers of the time away from religious and Medieval mysticism. From this reasoning came a belief that man had natural rights that could not be taken from him. This reasoning developed new ideas on economics that helped to stimulate trade and industry. It birthed new ideas on the relationship between the governed and those doing the governing.

History.com says,  “There was no single, unified Enlightenment. Instead, it is possible to speak of the French Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment and the English, German, Swiss or American Enlightenment. Individual Enlightenment thinkers often had very different approaches. John Locke differed from David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau from Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson from Fredrick the Great. Their differences and disagreements, though, emerged out of the common Enlightenment themes of rational questioning and belief in progress through dialogue.” 

Today we lack that type of dialogue where rational reasoned thought can create an environment of accomplishment. Instead, we look at winning and losing as the only acceptable dialogue. And then, we still dispute the results. Fox News commentators spew their comments and opinions out during the day to be taken up later on by late night talk show hosts, who then roast these comments over the open pit of comedy. This is not reasoned dialogue. It does not promote “the general welfare or secures the blessings of liberty to ourselves” or anybody else. 

Politicians and pundits from the left and the right throw out all sorts of reasons —and conspiracies theories, modern mysticism—for the cause of what is going on in our governments, communities and generally our day-to-day lives. Social Media then reenforces and puts everything on hyperdrive. These opinions and jokes become facts. Most of these opinions are unsubstantiated beliefs and go beyond jokes to the ridiculous. Some pontificate and dream about the way things use to be (but never really were).  And how they should be now. These opinionated misconceptions have shaken the social contract that holds our country together. 

Our social contract is our Constitution. It established a system of government that enacts laws and enables that government to operate with the consent of the people. But as of late we have too many elected officials, urged on by the lunatic fringe, reevaluating how to use the Constitution to twist what the social contract means to their specific beliefs. It is about winning and owning the other side that reenforce their beliefs and what our social contract means. Winning allows them to control who should be judges and how election results are counted. Our social contract is not a belief to the victors go the spoils.

When is reasonable behavior, logical and justifiable for an 18 year-old boy to cross state lines with an assault weapon to confront demonstrators. We get bogged down in what one or two clauses in an Amendment. We pull it, play with it and stretch it around like a ball of Silly Putty as to what we want it to mean. We completely disregard the Preamble of the Constitution, our country’s mission statement. 

 …establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…

Preamble to the Constitution

The recent mass shootings is probably the most obvious breach in the social contract. Today people cannot go out in public without the possibility of being in the middle of a shoot out that makes the O.K. Corral gun fight look like a tea party. The social contract works best when a majority of the people agree to the contract and the government responds to that agreement. 

To often the contract is tacitly understood. But in reality we know what is right and what to expect.  This is a mark of civilized country when people have a basic understanding of what is right for the majority. When we refuse to surrender a small portion of our individual freedoms for the greater good, and believe it is more important of have political victory instead of reasoned thought we subvert the concepts espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. When we feel that “the right to bear arms”—assault weapons— is a Constitutional and natural right, and non-negotiable we refuse to look at the greater good of “promoting the general welfare” of our nation, and the social contract that allows our government to ensure that welfare. Nothing is cast in stone.

Our Constitution’s Second Amendment “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” was penned more than 230 years ago. A time before metallic cartridges and breech loading rifles let alone machine guns and assault rifles. Killing 20 people with a muzzle loading rifle took the work of more than one man. An 18th Century musket cold be reloaded in about 15 seconds. A trained soldier could accomplish the task in five-to-eight seconds. This was the reality of constitutional original intent.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Second Amendment

Logic and reason would tell us that individuals do not need assault weapons for security any more than one would need a flamethrower or Claymore mines to protect their home. The Second Amendment becomes a black hole of debate that pulls in states’ rights, militia, National Guard, deep state paranoia and what Congress can and cannot “infringe” upon.

It is interesting that we do not have any debate about the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment”clause. Our social contract forced the Bush Administration to stop using what was called “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists. There was some debate as to what was “cruel and unusual.” But eventually there was a consensus.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Eighth Amendment

Our government regulates and outlaws a variety of activities, products and goods. We do not have a Constitutional right to get stoned. The federal government, however, has made first-time possession of small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor that can land you in jail for up to a year with a $1,000 fine. Attitudes and beliefs about marijuana have changed drastically. The same may be said about guns.  Most Americans would agree that we have the right to own guns.  The social contract looks to the government to protect that right.  However, the social contract also protects our right to assemble safely. Therefore reason would dictate it is also a part of the social contract to control what kinds of arms the citizenry should have; who can own them; and where those guns can be carried. 

Dark Horse Candidates and the Odds a Florida Man will be President

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debating 1858 Illinois Senate race.
_{Cool10191, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}

It was in May of 1859 in Chicago that the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, a one-term Congressman to be their presidential candidate. He was just the second Republican to run for president, the first was John C. Fremont. Lincoln snagged the nomination from several more promanitanely known candidates like New York governor William Seward. As a dark horse candidate, he ended up beating his long-time Illinois Democrat adversary, Stephen Douglas and a host of other presidential contenders to become the 16th president.

Back in August of 2018 I wrote: It’s 20/20 Trump in 2020. Now that he is a Floridian it adds a whole new dimension to the headline: “Florida Man…” I have never been one to make predictions, particular political outcomes involving the intelligence or intent of the voting American. But with Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis as possible candidates we have just added another joker into the presidential political deck. It was only a matter of time. Florida is too large a state for its lunacy to be contained to a peninsula dangling off the southeast coast.

I am not the gambling type to run out and place a bet on any sort of game of chance. The reason I would never go beyond speculation, particularly on a political outcome, is because there are so many unsuspecting people ready to hit on any colorful looking bait put in front of them. Particularly with DeSantis starting to chum up the social waters with one-sided issues. Baseless conspiracy theories have always been around but they are now the creed of the day. As P.T. Barnum said so “many people are gullible, and we can expect this to continue.” DeSantis is like Orson Welles in War of the Worlds. Only he is creating a “woke” Armageddon invasion instead of Martians from outer space. DeSantis is spewing social frenzy instead of some alien death ray. He has produced political panic and has both sides running from the end of the world as they perceive it. It is like two dogs chasing the same tail in different directions.

“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions.”

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

Although I did not wager any money on the 2020 election, it did appear to many that Trump was the odds on favorite against Joe Biden. Unlike, Trump who looked like he would go from wire-to-wire, Kentucky Derby winner, Rich Strike, came from way in the back as an 80-1 odds on favorite to win. It was an amazing race. Watching Rich Strike move up through the pack, a dark horse running down the leaders. Unfortunately for the country, Trump and his followers could not invision “45” being run down. To many, it was obvious that the only way Old Slow Joe could win was if the election was rigged–or just outright stolen.

I don’t think the election was stolen. The reason has more to do with the theory of large numbers, which in my non-mathematical mind explains several events. The theory, according to learning-theories.com, “states that the greater number of times an event is carried out in real life (in this case people going to the polls to vote) the closer the real-life results will compare to the statistical or mathematically proven results.” Simply put, when 150 million plus people vote, we realize that there are more Democrats or non-Republicans voters than there are Republicans. The GOP comes up short. Hence, the great unequalizer: The Electoral College to the GOP rescue.

The 2020 election was a real wake up call for the GOP. Since 2000 they have lost all but one of the popular vote in Presidential elections. They do however, manage to squeak out Electoral College victories. When nearly 67 percent of eligible voters vote, we realize that the theory of large numbers dooms them. Hence, the cry of stolen election: the need to control the judiciary branch, Gerrymandering, and enacting voting laws to control and restrict voter turn out to around 45 percent. This evens out supposedly left-leaning the playing field.

When scientists complete research studies, they make decisions about how many people will be in the study. This is an important decision because small sample sizes can greatly skew results due to the presence of anomalies. The larger the sample size, the more the results will reflect the true nature of the population that is being studied.

learning-theories.com

But every now and then a dark horse, a candidate, like Derby winner Rich Strike comes a long, a horse that runs the field to win it all. It is strange how in sports we can accept the “Cinderella” team the underdog, the dark horse that comes in and takes it all. In the 1980 Winter Olympics America, and the world, watched as a group of college kids and amatures beat a professional Soviet Union hockey team in a game that was later called “The Miracle on Ice.” The Soviet hockey team had won four Olympic Gold Medals beginning in 1964. The last time this team lost an Olympic hockey game was in 1968. To many it was a miracle; but sometimes the longshot pays off big. Despite the game being played in America, nobody claimed the USA’s 4-3 victory was rigged.

We always have had long-shot presidential candidates, too. Every election has at least one or two. Most never make it out of the primaries and past the clubhouse turn. However, there have been several dark horse candidates that won the presidency. The first was James K. Polk who upset The Great Compromiser, Henry Clay, in the 1844 election. There have been others.

Dark Horse Presidents

• James K. Polk 1844
• Franklin Pierce 1852
• Abraham Lincoln 1860
• Rutherford B Hayes 1876
• James Garfield 1880
• Warren G. Harding 1920
• Harry S Truman 1948
• Jimmy Carter 1976
• Barack Obama 2008
• Donald Trump. 2016

Franklin Pierce, the 14th President defeated James Buchanan and Sam Houston for the Democratic nomination for president in 1852.
_{Wikimedia Commons}

A side note to the list, and not a real pleasant one is that two of the dark horses were assassinated: Lincoln and Garfield and a third, Harding, died in office from a heart attack. Another was impeached–twice. And as of now, Polk, Pierce, Hayes, Carter and Trump were all one-term presidents.

It would seem to me that it is even money that both Trump and Biden will both be one-term presidents simply because of their ages. Trump is 75 and Biden is 79. Both of these old over-the-hill Plugs are way past their prime racing years. Granted, the issue of either of them running is not settled. It could become, literally and figuratively, a question of them simply making the walk to the starting gate let alone actually run in a race.

In 2016 there were crowded fields in both parties primaries. According to an ESPN article from August 2016, Hillary Clinton was coming off at 1-1, Jeb Bush 7-2, Bernie Sanders at 12-1 and Ben Carson as the long shot at 100-1. At the time Joe Biden was a 14-1 odds on favorite to win the 2016 election. Trump was considered a long shot. However, some may argue Donald Trump is never a long shot despite coming in at 14-1, like Old Slow Joe in the 2016 election.

There is a possibility that the 2024 election could be a repeat of the 2016 primary elections–a crowded field loaded with dark horses. And it could be a messy, muddy race. The 2016 primaries, particularly the Republican party’s looked more like some sort televised professional wrestling match with candidates smashing each other over the head with folding chairs and then being tossed over the top rope like somebody emptying a garbage can over their fence and into their neighbor’s backyard: in broad daylight.

A real GOP donnybrook primary could pit, Trump ensconced in his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago citadel against two other Floridians: Governor Ron DeSantis and a real dark horse, one who is so dark he is dark matter, Senator Rick Scott.

If we look to P.T. Barnum for wit and wisdom we can find some possible descriptions for their campaigns. Trump’s could be that “More persons, on the whole are humbugged (that is bombarded with deception, deceived for the advantage of others) by believing nothing than by believing too much.”

P.T. Barnum: “The common man, no matter how sharp and tough, actually enjoys having the wool pulled over his eyes, and makes it easier for the puller.”
_{Harvard Library.Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}

Trump is all about the humbug. Trump has a lot to say. But what he says is like drinking a Diet Coke with a bag of Doritos and a Snickers bar for breakfast. It tastes good and will fill you up–with empty calories. There is plenty there but nothing of any nutritional value. It certainly is not the “Breakfast of Champions.” As long as Trump is around our intake of empty rhetoric will just bloat our minds with empty ideas: sweet to the brain but void of substance. The more he dishes out the more America wants. Trump’s rhetoric keeps America on some sort of sweet and sour sugar high. He fogs the brain. It is like when Moe of The Three Stooges asked Curly what was the matter and Curly replies, “I am trying to think but nothing is happening.”

There’s no way to sugarcoat the truth–Americans are eating more sugar than ever before. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined that, on average, Americans are consuming 83 more calories per day from caloric sweeteners than they did in 1977. And those extra 83 calories a day turn into a whopping 2,490 calories per month.

NorishWebMD.com

DeSantis on the other hand is more like “without promotion something terrible happens, nothing.” For the longest time the GOP was the party of limited government. It took Thoreau’s concept “that government is best which governs least.” DeSantis legislative self-promotion style proves that a lot of ideas go from debatable to terrible. He is in some sort of pre-presidential race with the master self-promoter, Trump and Governor Greg Abbott of Texas. DeSantis’ is in a right-wing downwind race with Abbott. It is a promotional campaign gone goony. They both seem to be at their best pushing vindictive policies. One clogs the border crossing with trucks backed up for miles causing Texas, businesses and the country billions of dollars. DeSantis meanwhile is chasing Tinkerbell around the Magic Kingdom. Both states probably would be better off if their governors just did nothing. Basically they prove what Thoreau said that “it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse.”

Then there is Rick Scott. He is the real Flori-duh man. A dark horse. He falls into the category: “You know, I had rather be laughed at than not noticed at all.” Somehow he keeps getting re-elected in Florida. He is a curious political phenomenon and proves what Barnum said that “Nobody ever lost a dollar (or an election) by underestimating the taste of the American public.” In this case the Florida voter.

Scott is like dark matter. Scientist really do not know what it is. And I am not sure Florida voters know what Scott really is either. According to spaceplace.nasa.gov, “Dark matter is stuff in space that has gravity, but it is unlike anything scientists have ever seen before.” That sort of explains Scott’s rise to power in Florida. He is an unknowing political game of 20 Questions: Is he corporate billionaire; a possible CEO Medicare fraudster; a sentient being; or leader of the growing lunatic fringe?

Astronomy.com says that “most astronomers say the majority of the cosmos consists of dark matter and dark energy… Dark matter works like an attractive force.” This may explain how Scott keeps getting re-elected. The dark energy of the universe pulls in unsuspecting voters. Conversely, Scott, like dark matter, “doesn’t reflect, absorb or emit light” so it might be tough to notice him. Until he becomes president.

Forget about a dark horse winning the next presidential election. Without a doubt we will probably elect somebody who is more dark matter than dark hours. Especially if we have two, possibly three, Floridia men running for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2024. We will then learn that there is a deeper meaning to the headline: Florida man…

https://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/13386269/donald-trump-odds-improve-12-1-win-us-presidential-race-2016-chalk

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-hockey-team-makes-miracle-on-ice

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/sen-rick-scotts-agenda-seen-challenge-mcconnell-gop-rcna17435

https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/beware-empty-calories