American History and the Trump Question

 Fair warning - If you are a true believer in the MAGA movement and believe that President Trump is doing what is necessary to preserve America, then you probably will not like at least some of the thing I am going to write. Your agreement is not necessary or even expected. I would urge you to consider what is written here and present a cogent, reasonable refutation. I will respond, in the same vein, to tell you why I think you are wrong or agree whole-heartedly if I believe you to be correct. I promise.

First, let me explain what I think is going on. Donald Trump is the perfect front man for a group of small people who want to be gigantic. Stephen Miller is now, and from what I can read, always has been a fascist. But he is the man behind the movement, as far as I can tell. He might be a fascist, but he ain't stupid. He is using every tool at his disposal to manipulate people, events and history. (Have you read Orwell's 1984?) He is using governmental powers and prerogatives to undermine virtually every other institution in American society - not that these institutions hadn't pretty much shot themselves in the foot. The church has become a weapon of white nationalism. The media has become more about a news anchors or influencers opinion than the facts - forget the truth. The current administration spews lies like fountains spew water and there is no credible nay-sayer. 

But when the President blows boats out of the water in international waters because he can, when troops are illegally deployed in American cities, and only those cities that are overwhelmingly Democrat, and then looks straight at the camera and lies about why - When people are wholesale manhandled into unmarked vans by masked "agents' and sorted out later to determine if they can further be deprived of their rights and humanity - When the President, the only convicted felon to ever hold the office, deploys military troops to "control crime" - When the President publicly instructs the Attorney General to prosecute his political enemies and she does, we get to the heart of the matter, control. 

None of these actions have any purpose other than to instill fear and assert control over the people most likely to disagree with the current political regime - at least for now. I will state plainly what I have always believed - If you let someone or something take away rights from anybody, you are in line to lose them yourself. If you take away Jimmy Kimmel's right to criticize the President, then you stand to lose your right to criticize anyone or anything that the people you have just granted that right to decide what you should or shouldn't be able to criticize. It starts with Jimmy Kimmel - it ends with everybody having to tow the party line, tovarisch. Hitler was freely elected as Chancellor of Germany - look it up.

I despise what is happening to America. I do not blame Trump. I have some modicum of blame for Congress, who decided a long time ago that their job was not to represent their districts, it was to tow the party line and get re-elected so they could keep paying themselves with insider information, a super retirement plan and all those unused campaign funds. No, the ones to blame are us. The American people are the ones that didn't show up to the polls, didn't raise our voices when we should and could have, we didn't hold our Congresspersons accountable to our demands or even their own promises. We got ourselves here, where fear and force are the methods of politics.

Fortunately, if the courts will continue to do their job, we can change it again. Raise your voice, call your representatives in Congress and demand they do their job. Write letters, text, post TikTok videos, shout it from the rooftops that we will NOT BE AFRAID. And most importantly, VOTE! Register and VOTE! We got ourselves into this mess, we can get ourselves out. But only if we use the tools given to us, our voices and our votes. 

Change the political market, demand your representatives represent you and the rest of the constituency, hold their feet to the fire. When MTG starts speaking truth to power, something is changing, the wind is shifting. Be a part of that change.

Stop! Just F***ing Stop!

 Another shooting at a church today. 3 people, so far, have died including the shooter. One is still in critical condition. Oh, dear God...

Let me first say that I do not care what the shooter's motives were. They do not and cannot change the outcome. I do not blame the left or the right, I do not blame the Internet and I do not blame his childhood, no matter what the might have been like. At the end of the day, a 40 year old man decided that he, and he alone, had the right and the capability to shoot church goers at church on a Sunday morning.

So the 4th Amendment give every citizen the right to keep and bear arms as a vehicle to keep the government in check. Let me further state that I am from Texas. I own guns. I grew up with guns. I have used them for sport and keep them in my home for protection for people that would use their guns outside of Constitutional intent. I also believe that "outside of Constitutional intent" is the way guns are being used in our society all the time - as evidenced by the incredible number of blind, stupid murders occurring everyday across our country. Your guns are intended to discourage government overreach, not to punish or assassinate people you don't agree with about something, anything. How many children have to be shot before we realize that our rights are abridging theirs? Don't children and their parents have the right to be safe in their schools, their homes and their persons? Well, dammit, don't they? Where does their right end and your right to keep and bear arms begin? Where is the line? How do we balance their right to feel safe (which to me is fundamental to the 'pursuit of happiness') with our right to keep and bear arms?

I do not know the answer to that question. But I have some thoughts - As a gun owner, I have no problem proving to my community that I am a safe and responsible owner. I'm not talking registration of guns, I'm thinking more along the lines of gun user testing, sorta like a driver's license for being able to possess a firearm. You would be able to get one, even if you don't own a weapon, it would just be a basic security to show that you understand that guns have EXTREMELY limited, legitimate uses. Not because the government says so, because of what firearms are. 

Firearms have one basic function: to kill. That's what they were invented for, throughout history that's what they have been used for, and, literally cannot be defined as having any other purpose. Sure, you can shoot targets and clay pigeons, but that's a sporting corollary to their real function, designed to sharpen your ability to carry out that main function. 

Think of it this way: How comfortable would you be knowing your neighbor had a nuclear weapon in his home? He's a great guy! Attends all the PTA meetings, takes his kids to church every Sunday, and shows up for the HOA meeting to complain about the trash piling up at the edges of the community garden. But a nuclear weapon? How confident are you that you can trust that he won't get mad enough at someone, anyone, to set it off? What if he's a physicist and has the right to have a small nuclear weapon in his possession. Does that make you feel safer? Wouldn't you feel better knowing, by some tangible evidence, that he would not even consider this as a possibility?

So guns are the nuclear weapons of modern American. They kill or injure thousands of Americans every year. And Americans are doing the shooting. How do we stop that? I don't know. I don't have answers that will make everybody happy. But we damn sure need to start talking options. 

This must stop. Just fucking stop.

On Censorship and Corporate Courage

 As of this writing, Nexstar and Sinclair have decided to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel upon his return to ABC in his late night slot. Let me first state that it is their absolute right to do so. Their right to free speech through their media companies is as valid and protected as anyone else's. They do not have to air any content they deem will be unacceptable. But that's not why they are doing it. They're scared.

Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission chairman, publicly threatened these companies in his capacity as chair. He is welcome to his personal opinion, but he may not exercise that opinion in his official capacity. The FCC has no authority to censor content outside of content very carefully defined by law and precedent (you can't air porn, for example, on a public network). Instead of telling the bully, who is definitively censoring, to go fly a kite until the court date arrives, they chose to capitulate to yet another Trump appointee. 

Nexstar and Sinclair, who own the affiliates that are pre-empting Jimmy Kimmel, both have business before the FCC that requires the approval of the FCC to complete. Nexstar is trying to merge with or acquire another affiliate to increase its share of the ABC audience beyond the current restrictions allowed by regulation. Currently, no privately or publicly owned broadcaster can broadcast to more than 39% of the American audience. Nexstar already does that. It is seeking to further expand it broadcast empire which requires the FCC to change the regulations. Sinclair is seeking pretty much the same thing, though on a smaller scale. 

Brendan Carr specifically told all ABC affiliates that the FCC will block any efforts to keep affiliates on the air if the do not remove, again specifically, Jimmy Kimmel from their broadcasts. This includes all methods at the FCC's disposal, including, but not limited to, blocking acquisitions and mergers, withholding licenses, and any other tool they can use to enforce the will of the present administration on these companies.

This action is beyond the authority of the FCC, its censorship at its most obvious and its illegal. Nexstar and Sinclair should both thumb their noses at Brendan Carr, then sue the FCC if their deals fall apart because of these actions. But they won't. Corporate courage is an oxymoron. Corporations are not brave. They are profit machines. They exist only to make money and will do what their directors and CEO's believe is the most efficient way to do that. If that means capitulating to illegal and dangerous government demands, that's what they'll do. Courage and "doing the right thing" do not enter in to their equations unless it positively affects the bottom line. ABC reinstated Jimmy Kimmel because their bottom line was tanking due to public reaction, not because they thought it was the thing that needed to be done. The American consumers dictated to Disney, who owns ABC, what fight they have to fight to protect their bottom line. And it ain't banning Jimmy Kimmel.

Here's how affiliates make money; they buy shows from the networks and air them at pre-scheduled times. The networks pay to produce these shows and put them out to their affiliated broadcasters in local markets. The affiliates hope these shows are fantastically popular, because the larger an audience is for a show, the more they can charge for advertising. The more advertising they sell on air, the more money they make...and here's a kicker: we're entering campaign season where candidates buy a TON of local air time to try and get votes. That's big money for affiliates. And the larger the audience for a given show, the more money they make. But if a show has a smaller or no audience?  No money. Nobody buys expensive advertising so that it won't be seen.

So what if an affiliate had no audience? Heh. No money. The affiliate would change the programming pronto. Hint, hint. Ultimately, as proved with Disney, the consumer dictates what is aired on TV. So, if your community has a Nexstar or Sinclair ABC station - don't watch it! Switch to CBS or Netflix, take a walk, set that time to have coffee (or the beverage of your choice) with your neighbors and plan on how you can insert planks into the party platforms in the next elections, read a book. Anything but give audience to that affiliate. Use your power to force these affiliates to air the shows you want to see, because, ultimately, you're paying for it. It worked on Disney in 5 days. My opinion is it will take a little longer with local affiliates because their numbers and decision makers don't have the administrative structure that Disney has. They won't see the downturn as quickly or be able to change their minds as rapidly, but when the dollars start to disappear, change their tune they will.

And if the FCC plays dirty and illegally - take 'em to court! The Trump administration has lost every single court battle brought against them. Every single one. Corporations should consider that when threatened. The bully just kicked sand in your face - punch 'em in the nose with a summons. For just once, consider where your money comes from - and it ain't the federal government. Serve your consumers first and, generally, that bottom line is safe. Otherwise, prepare to suffer the consequences of pissing off your clientele. And as one that has been in retail for a very long time, the worst thing you can do is alienate your customers. A lot of times, they don't come back. Ever.

On Charlie Kirk and Free Speech

 On September 10th, 2025 Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a lone gunman from a safe vantage point.

Permit me to enumerate at least some of the reasons this is morally abhorrent.

Political assassination , even the attempt, is the pinnacle of moral cowardice. How much courage does it take to hide on a rooftop and pull a trigger, then run away? How does one person have the right to make moral and final judgements on another? It is purely and simply cowardice at the grandest possible scale.

Free speech is a guaranteed right of every person in this nation.  A right I have stated may times I would die to protect as hundreds of thousands of people already have. Anybody and everybody has the right to express their opinion openly and without threat of physical retribution. Dissent is part of the process. Disagreement and reasoned discourse -persuasion- is the way it works. To remove a conversation from the arena cheats the whole society. Cheating means you don't believe you can win, so you don't even try. Again, cowardice.

The logical corollary to free speech, the right to state your opinion openly and without threat, is the choice not to listen. You have every right to say whatever you want. I have every right not to hear you. On April 14, 1984, the Ku Klux Klan marched up Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas to the State Capital. They procured a permit from the city to do so and followed all the legal niceties that were required for them to march, as was their constitutional right. The editor of the Austin American-Statesman at the time (who was Jewish) wrote an op-ed piece defending their right to march. He also encouraged everyone NOT to attend. He postulated that if the Klan marched up an empty avenue, if they could not upset anyone, they would not further invest their time and money in marching on the state capital. As a resident of Austin at the time, I am proud to say that this advise was largely followed. The Klan marched up an avenue lined by Austin police and maybe a dozen rabble-rousers from other groups attempting to get publicity. While the Klan was afforded their rights, the citizens of Texas exercised their corollary rights of not paying attention. The Klan has never made that march since then.

Charlie Kirk made his living, supported his family and his community by exercising his right to speak. I most vehemently disagreed with his suppositions, but would not dream of denying his right to have and speak them in the public sphere. I chose to exercise my corollary rights. I did not hear him. As with the Klan in Austin, if enough people exercise the right not to listen, Charlie would have been out of a job. The other avenue open to every citizen was to engage Charlie in reasoned discourse - argue with him- and persuade his audience that, if enacted in policy, his opinions had consequences that would be unpopular if not catastrophic. 

Persuasion, not violence, is the American way. Reason and logic are the sole tools of every social endeavor. Violence can only achieve chaos. Political violence must be anathema to the society writ large. You don't have to agree, you don't have to listen, but you must allow the freedom to speak. If you take away Charlie's right to speak, you ultimately remove your own.

On Conservatism and Progressivism in America

I have recently been studying modern political philosophy as has, in the past, not been my desire. I have spent countless hours absorbing American Revolutionary history and the people and thought that went into framing the social and political experiment called American Democracy. But had not spent anywhere nearly as long studying how that history had carried forward into today's political sphere. In recent weeks, I have attempted to remedy that. 

What I have found is, that since the late 19th century, political thought in America could be divided into two schools of thought; progressivism and conservatism. Both terms bring preconceived and unstudied reactions to most modern Americans. Let me over-simplify the differences for ease of discussion: 

Progressivism is the school of thought that government should be the purveyors of well-being to the governed. It should strive to make laws, provide examples and educate the governed to provide "Happiness" to the largest possible segment of the governed, even if the outliers remain unhappy. I will discuss the fallacies of this and conservatism later in this writing.

Conservatism espouses to conserve individual liberties through small(ish) government and individual choice; a person-by person pursuit of "Happiness". Again, there are logical fallacies to a strict adherence to this policy as well.

The Founders were highly educated and highly experienced thinkers who had all read Plato's Republic and John Locke's Two Treatises of Government. They had also fought a war and waded through the (at the time) failing Articles of Confederation. They built a Constitution that defined not what a government could do, but what it could NOT do. They, very ruthlessly, limited the powers of government and built in checks and balances to keep it limited. They believed that nature granted to the individual inalienable right as you and I believe the sun will rise in the West. And foresaw the evils of government trying to usurp those rights. They also believed that the ultimate safeguard against that occurrence was the governed themselves. So they gave the governed the power over government and hemmed in the government by limiting its powers to govern and dividing those powers among co-equal branches that would, over time, serve to keep governmental usurpation of rights in check. 

Conservatism seeks to keep government small and its interference in the day-to-day life minimal. The aforementioned John Locke postulated that the ability to trust your government was inversely proportional to your distance from it. As I previously stated, Locke had a profound effect on liberal (meaning in the vernacular of the period - non-monarchal) governments across the Western world. His influence can be seen in the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, as well as other places. So the Founders sought to balance individual liberty with the absolute need of societies to be governed, with a strong bias towards individual liberties. To a true Conservative, nature gives inalienable right to the individual, not the community. Thus, in order to ultimately protect those rights, government should be kept small, its powers clearly delineated, and held in check by those same individuals. 

The pros of conservatism are the protection of minority rights, protection of individual choice, and the oversight and ultimate responsibility of the governed for that oversight of the government. However, it pre-supposes a willing and educated individual or collection of individuals that maintain at least some interest in that oversight. Its philosophy rests on nature and the place of individuals within that nature, It does not adequately address the largest social sin of the 20th, and so far, the 21st centuries: apathy.

Progressivism is the anthesis of conservatism. It holds that individual rights must give way to the majority. That social happiness outweighs individual happiness. To quote Spock, "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one". The role of government, in a progressive society, is to guarantee social "happiness" even if individual rights are usurped. It demands a large government to oversee virtually every aspect of social intercourse and legislate how it should be conducted. Work, play, and in extreme instances, speech become regulated to a social "norm". Individual rights are sacrificed to the majority so everyone can achieve "happiness".

The pros of progressivism are that no individual falls below a defined level of prosperity and education. Expectations, thus regulation of behavior, are universal across the body of the governed, and the life of the governed is simple, as long as they stay within the bounds of majority rule. However, progressivism depends on the majority ideals as being the basis for individual happiness. To paraphrase Jefferson, "There is no tyranny as that of the majority". No ideal in human political existence is universal. There is no universal path to happiness. Happiness is, ipso facto, an individual aspiration. What your grandparents told you is true, "you can't make everybody happy". 

There is, in the opinion of this less than perfect and all-seeing author, a happy medium (if you'll excuse the expression) that should and could exist between rugged individualism and the collective good. But that state must be considered on a case by case basis. Should everyone have guaranteed health care? Does an individual have autonomy over their own body? Etc., etc. ad nauseum. There is no universal approach to societal issues simply because society is composed of very different individuals who have individual pursuits of happiness. No single individual wants a life or can have one exactly like any other individual. So the differences must be addressed and respected while still maintaining a healthy, happy society. That means that  reasoned deliberation and discussion should occur and a balance or compromise reached that at least approaches the "happy medium".

It is the opinion of the writer that three things have happened in modern American history that have upset the governing apple cart; 1) progressivism has taught the American political body that the government is there to "take care of them", 2) Congress has slowly but oh so surely has ceded its powers to the Executive Branch and 3) the governed have become apathetic. All of these things are extremely dangerous to liberty and democracy.  The federal government is the least capable institution on the face of the planet of taking care of any individual. It simply has no mechanisms with which to do so and no process exists or will exist to give it those mechanisms. Congress  has had an extremely black history when it comes to guarding its powers and performing its function. Put plainly, Congress has not done its job since before the Civil War. It is aware of this, but instead of doing its job, its members collect large contributions and pass their job over to the President. I have a complete and lengthy diatribe about Congress, but that's for another post.

Now, the most dangerous of the three - apathy. Less than half of the registered voters in this country vote. Put another way, less than half of those who hold the ultimate power in this country exercise that power. The old adage of "use it or lose it" is apropos here. Hitler rose to power legitimately through the German election process where less than half of voters cast their ballots. And after that, casting a ballot was no longer an issue. If you think that cannot happen in America, think again. All it takes is for people not to care enough to use their power. This creates a power vacuum in the American body politic and nature abhors a vacuum. Someone will use that power if its not otherwise used.

The good new is that all of the problems I have outlined can be addressed by simply addressing the last. The Founders believed that the citizens would know that they had a vested and crucial role in government and would jealously guard that role. So, damn it, guard it! Educate yourself on the issues and the candidates and vote in your own self-interest. That's the way its designed to work. But American government cannot work at all if the ultimate brokers of power do not do their job. VOTE! Replace the Congressmen and Senators that would rather collect contributions from mega-corporations and billionaires than represent your interest. Does your Congressman listen when you call or write? Does your representative respond? Do they respond and address your concerns in a way that suits you? If the answer is no, then vote them out! If there is no one on the ballot you would vote for, then run yourself. Use your power!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVV2Zk88beY

Copy and paste this in your browser and watch it!

Your Turn...

     For the exact number of posts on this blog, I have bored the readers with my opinions. I have stated my core beliefs politically, socially and religiously. I have received, in return, exactly one comment. 

    So - Your Turn. I have all but begged for responses and discussion, And received none. Please take a few minutes, order your thoughts, and tell me what you think about just about anything. Respond toa post. Post your own. Agreement with my opinion is by no means required or even expected. I would relish honest, open conversation. There's a ton of stuff worth open discourse. I'm from Texas. That should be an ice breaker...