What mainly distinguishes the two major American political parties has varies tremendously within the course of my own lifetime. And, while I’m not ancient, my life so far is about 31% of the time since The Declaration of Independence. That’s not most of the time, but it is all of the most recent 31%. Of course, if you did pay much attention in American History and weren’t just spending time surreptitiously carving your initials, passing notes, or throwing spitballs, you likely remember that the US began as rather disunited States under the “Articles of Confederation.” It wasn’t until June 21st, 1788 that it was ratified. Thus, my life so far is roughly 1/3 of the time we’ve lived under that Constitution.
The first time I became consciously aware of politics was when Eisenhower won in 1952. The principal of our school arranged to have the radio broadcast of Eisenhower. I don’t really know whether it was his acceptance speech or his inaugural speech, but I suspect the latter. Anyway, I was leading the class in cheering through much of the speech. At some point, my teacher said maybe the people I was getting to cheer didn’t really know what they were cheering for. That was probably true. It was definitely true that I had no idea why I was cheering except for two things:
1. Eisenhower had been a general partly responsible for our winning the war. My dad & all my mom’s brothers fought in WWII.
2. Eisenhower was a Republican and they were the “good guys.” I don’t recall having much of a discussion about it before hand. But I had certainly picked up that vibe.
After the teacher’s comment though, I got to wondering why everyone in my family liked the Republicans rather than the Democrats. As I recall, the basic reason given was that Republicans believed more in personal responsibility.
Later, there were entirely different reasons for disliking the Democrats; viz., the Vietnam War and beating up the protestors in Chicago.
But now? What has happened to the “Grand Old Party”?
Forget politics for a moment. In what area of life is perpetual lying a good way for people to cooperate? If the scientists & engineers lied like the Trumputinists, we would still be shivering in caves. How would you like farmers to send you poisonous bulbs and call them onions?
The fish rots from the head. That was bad enough. But that rotten fish head has been out of power for two years. But the putrefaction continues.
No platform. No policies. No allegiance to the Constitution. No sense of fair play. No limit to cruelty. No allegiance to the rule of law.
Who benefits from all that lack of governing?
Who benefits from a weaker, less effective US government?
The manager of the hotel (or, “Stable Mighty Emperor Genius Maganificent Adiposity*” as he prefers to be called) called Kevin on his private, “Master Only Line.”
“Kevin? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Well, I … “
“Get down here. Now! I have a pipe I need you to unclog!”
“Are you serious? I’m in the fight of my political life here! And, anyway, I don’t know plumbing.”
“Get down here. Or, you’ll never get my endorsement again. Come clean my pipes and I’ll make sure you get the position you deserve.”
“I don’t know how to clean pipes!”
“Get down here. I’ll show you everything you need to know.”
A few hours later, at taxpayer’s expense, Kevin arrived and was ushered into SMEGMA’s anteroom to wait. After a few hours without any communication, a scantily clad model ushered Kevin into SMEGMA’s office which stank of rotting, overcooked Brussel sprouts, slug slime, and limburger cheese gone bad.
Kevin began extending his hand, but the odor nearly knocked him down. He jerked his hand back reflexively. He reeled from the Putrid smell and steadied himself by putting his hand on a nearby table. Unfortunately, it rested ever so briefly on a plate of cold catsup-covered French fries. The hand that was supposed to steady him instead slid violently off the table causing him to twist as he fell through the air and smacked hard into the rug. The thought flashed through his mind: “Thank God he’s got really large piles.” (Unlike his iPhone, Kevin’s brain had no autocorrect.)
One of the hard metal legs of an ergonomic chair nearly hit his skull. Kevin cried out in fear, pain, and outrage. The fall and twist and pain combined to disorient Kevin. The laugh disoriented him even more. “Whose (Unlike his iPhone, Kevin’s brain had no autocorrect.)
laughing? Why? I nearly broke my arm — and my head. And what is that smell?”
“That was great, Kevy. Do it again!”
“Do what again? Are you serious? I damn near killed myself!”
“So what? It gave me pleasure. Well, never mind. The moment is at lapsed.” (This brain was missing more than a spell-check app!).
“Look, Master, I have a fight to get back to. Can you just tell me where the pipes are you need cleaned. And, what is that smell?!”
“Just like everyone else who’se everyone held office held, I may have had people flush classified documents down the toilet. It’s the most beautiful golden toilet in the world, by the way, the universe, the galaxy, even the whole solar system!”
“Fine. Where are your tools?”
“Tools? Don’t you know? All you fools are my tools! You’re cleaning my pipes with your body. Some send me their rent money. Oh, it does make me laugh. Now, get in there and clean. And, I’ll just might make sure your Talker of the House.”
“It’s actually called…never mind. You want me to dive into the toilet in order to clean it? I mean, couldn’t I drown?”
“It doesn’t matter dear, so long as I am satisfied.”
Imagine someone being so rich and powerful and well-connected that they can summon world experts for advice on just about anything.
Imagine this someone is also motivated enough and smart enough that they beat out all sorts of rivals to get to the position they’re in — not purely by inheritance — but partly or even mainly by merit and luck.
And, then, given those overwhelming advantages, they make stupid decisions anyway.
For a recent example, go no further than Putin’s war on Ukraine. Or T-Rump’s recent call to subvert the US Constitution.
What’s going on? Chances are, both are suffering from D4 (Dictator’s Degenerative Delusional Disease).
What is it?
D4 is a very common affliction among dictators who are heads of state. But it’s not limited to those few. It can occur in the bully of the family, a narcissistic team leader, or a business executive. Anyone who has a degree of unchecked power is subject to contracting the disease.
Where does the name come from?
“Dictator’s” because it mainly strikes those with a degree of unchecked power.
“Degenerative” because, left to its own course, the disease will get worse and worse over time.
“Delusional” because, one of the most destructive systems of the disease is the dictator’s beliefs (and eventually even perceptions) are not moored to reality.
“Disease” because it is bad for the physical, mental, and spiritual health of the dictator, those around him, and the society as a whole.
Why is it bad?
For those around the dictator, the disease is bad because people close to the dictator are typically demeaned, demoted, fired, or, in the case of Putin, killed.
For the society as a whole, D4 is bad because intelligent actions rely on finding and communicating the truth. When the dictator instead subverts the truth and insists on people pretending lies are true so that the dictator “looks good”, innovation suffers; the economy suffers; and since energy goes to fighting imaginary enemies, real dangers receive fewer resources. Hitler’s dictatorial insanity caused 6 million Jews to be intentionally killed, but he also caused the death of 4.2 million non-Jewish Germans including soldiers and civilians. Stalin was responsible for the deaths of over 10 million Russians though how many more is in some dispute. Somewhere between 40 and 80 million Chinese died under Mao.
Dictatorship and the attendant D4 is even bad for the dictator. They might enjoy their ill-gotten gold or possibly enjoy the cruelty they are able to wreak. Ultimately, however, they miss out on the best parts of life. As they ignore the voices of reason around them, they become more and more disconnected from reality. Ultimately, even if their brains don’t fall prey to hardware destruction, they do fall prey to data degradation. They insist on an ever-more illusory view and ignore or destroy those who try to bring them back to reality.
How can we prevent Dictator’s Degenerative Disease?
Although, there are no panaceas, there are several known ways to help prevent D4.
Anonymous FB can be provided to the dictator or dictatorial boss. This can help them stay tethered to reality. However, the natural tendency of the dictator, when they get news they don’t like is to insist on finding the identity of the person who gave the honest, but unwanted feedback. Ex-President Trump, for instance, not only fired the whistleblower Alexander Vindman, but also Alexander’s brother.
The ruled need options. One of the major goals of any would-be dictator is to get rid of free and fair elections. Once they get in power and begin using the government to line their own pockets, people in a democracy would simply vote them out. So, instead, they either hold no elections or hold “show” elections. Free and fair elections are one of the best mechanisms for keeping rulers accountable.
The culture of a society can also help. If someone in a major political party in America showed obvious signs of wanting to become a dictator disconnected from reality and began lying about results of their programs, soon the other powers in the political party would gently push that person aside. Until recently.
Day in Court. Another check on D4 is to have an independent judiciary that does not feel “beholden” to the dictator. Once judges decide to give “special treatment” to a would-be dictator, D4 becomes much more rampant.
Checks and Balances The founders of America (and other democracies) realized that some people are quite susceptible to D4 and therefore arranged a system of Checks and Balances. This method only works if the the other parts of the government perform their duty. Everyone in the judiciary and the legislature swears to uphold and defend the Constitution. But if people take this oath and then thumb their noses at that oath by not, say, convicting an obvious breach of faith on the part of the would-be dictator, then the function of Checks and Balances stops working.
The Rule of Law requires that no-one is above the Rule of Law. If even one person, such as a dictator or would-be dictator is treated as being above the Rule of Law, then, in effect, the Rule of Law means nothing. The dictator can essentially “overrule” any court by means legal or illegal.
Turnabout is Fair Play. Conceivably, a lottery system could be used to choose some of the people in government. Or, people could find themselves in any position in the society.
Independent Judiciary. Judges could not be “sponsored” by the same wealthy people who have an outsized influenced on electing officials in the legislative and executive branches.
Conclusion:
To support a dictator means nothing more or less than putting yourself in chains and then handing the keys to the dictator along with a lash in return for a promise that they’ll be good to you.
Saturday is for satire. I enjoy writing satire, particularly when it is aimed at helping us see the kinds of absurdities we can talk ourselves into. Political satire I find especially satisfying.
But now? Satire, at least political satire, is dead. And, I know the people responsible. Not personally, but I know who they are in general, and in some cases, I know quite specifically. I mourn the passing of the genre, as do we all. We had barely recovered from mourning the passing of the Queen when the news hit about the death of political satire. Sad.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t by any stretch, imagine that my difficulties in satirizing the Mango Mussolini, match up to his more serious crimes such as — you know — treason; fraud; trying to isolate us from our allies; trying to become dick-tater; trying to destroy the rule of law; trying to divide America; waging a never-ending crusade against truth; replacing patriotic experts throughout government with inept sycophants; destroying one of the two major political parties; killing off (according to Lancet) at least 200,000 innocent Americans through his lies about COVID and bad modeling of the proper reactions — compared with these — oh, and did I mention compromising our national security during and after his “Pee-Residency” in the “Whites Only House”? None of these compare with making it virtually impossible to write political satire.
Possible replacement for the elephant: Greedy, indolent, & filthy. Photo by Samira on Pexels.com
But I still mourn the loss.
In the last few weeks alone, the Hairless Hitler has:
*Asserted that because he once worked at the White House, he was allowed to take anything from there when he left and take it to his own home.
*Asserted that there doesn’t have to be a process for declassifying Top Secret documents but rather he can declassify them simply by thinking about it.
*Fully embraced the Q-anon conspiracy theories and they now salute him just as the Hairy Hitler had his mindless minions salute except that instead of putting up their whole hand, they put up one finger. No. Not that finger. Not the sensible one. Their index finger. The same finger poised to launch nuclear war by the man who got TFG Putin office in the first place. The same finger used to guide a sharpie pen over a few hundred miles of weather map to show a possible hurricane track to hide the fact that Putin’s Puppet misspoke. {Shudder! Horror!} Remember that? Instead of saying, “Oh, I misspoke” and thereby fix the error, the “Stable Genius” thought it better to mislead thousands of Americans about the path of a hurricane.
Normally, any of these would be sufficient for involuntary incarceration in a mental hospital. Instead, he uses these actions to raise money to line his pockets by claiming he’ll use the funds to aid his defense.
That’s what’s actually happening.
How do I satirize that?
I have to come up with something even stupider and more ridiculous. Hopefully, the even stupider and more absurd exaggeration will help people realize that the original and actual actions are also stupid and ridiculous. But what? What is stupider and more absurd than the actions of the 45th Toddler-in-Chief?
I’ll have to settle for something that’s actually less stupid and less absurd, but hopefully something people might relate to.
Most people, at some point in their lives, visit someone else’s house, go to a workplace, or stay in a hotel. I realize that doesn’t cover everyone, but it covers most adults. Now, let’s suppose that you come over to my house for dinner. Let’s even suppose I invited you over. Then, you leave. I’m cleaning up and notice that a bunch of my silverware is missing. Surely, I think, surely my guest didn’t come over and steal silverware. I wouldn’t expect anyone to do that and if they spent the entire evening bragging about how rich they were, it would seem even more incredible. But then, let’s suppose that I heard from a mutual acquaintance that my recent guest has my silverware at home; that he’s bragging about having it. I go over and see that indeed, he’s stolen some of my silverware! I confront him. “You’re a thief!”I say.
I can think of many excuses and I’m sure you can too. Here are a few that come to my mind.
1. “Yes, I did. I’m sorry. I have this weird kleptomania thing and I thought I was over it, but I’m not. Sure, you can have your silverware back. I guess it’s time for me to return to therapy. I’ll be glad to reimburse you for any inconvenience I may have caused.”
2. “I really loved your silverware. I wanted to show my wife and see whether she loved it too. I thought I had asked you if I could borrow some to show her. I’m so sorry if I forgot to ask you. My memory is not so good any more.”
3. “I loved the buffet you set out, but I didn’t have enough hands to carry everything, so I put some silverware in my pocket and must have forgotten it was there because there was another set right by my place.”
But let’s move on from the weak excuses to the silly excuse.
4. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I felt like I had dirtied up so much silverware at your excellent dinner that I felt the least I could do was bring it home and wash it for you before returning it.”
5. “I had such a wonderful dinner at your house! I know you’re of more modest means than I am so I thought I would take your “silverware” to a place where they will be able to copy the pattern and replace your iron flatware stuff with pure silver cutlery.”
And, there are plenty more, but yet more silly and more absurd than any offered by fantasy would be to say:
“Your silverware? What do you mean your silverware? You invited me over! Once I’m there, everything in your house automatically becomes mine. Your lucky I left you your TV, your fridge, and your spouse! And, anyway, besides the fact that it’s mine, you came over with your silverware in your pockets and planted in my house to make it look like I stole it! It’s a witch hunt! You were probably not actually looking for silverware at all; you were looking for your lost shaker of salt! There’s a woman to blame! And, anyway, why come over? Why not just ask me and I would have given you your silverware. I mean my silverware.”
Or
Let’s suppose you worked for a time at a car repair shop. You couldn’t get along with your boss so they replaced you after a few years with someone more competent and harder working. You decided you’d start your own car repair shop. But before you left, you stole your boss’s rolodex. You were too stupid to simply make copies; you stole the actual rolodex. Your boss noticed. He asked you for it back. You sent him a few business cards. He noticed that it wasn’t actually a rolodex. The police show up. They ask for the rolodex. You say:
“Hey, I worked there! I’m entitled to the rolodex! Because when you work someplace, you own everything there. Anyway, I didn’t take it. It isn’t here! And, the one that is here isn’t yours! And you planted it! And, you weren’t really looking for the rolodex at all! You were looking for the answer to who killed cock robin! Or where they buried Jimmy Hoffa. Or, who really assassinated JFK!”
It’s true that people often overestimate how much the world revolves around them.
But to imagine that your thoughts alone impact the real world — that is quintessential insanity. Adults, even cruel demented ones, must be held responsible for their actions. There also can’t be any doubt that bad parenting is at least partly responsible for an adult growing up so out of touch with reality that they believe in mythical psychokinetic powers. Plenty of responsibility also accrues to the so-called fans of the T-Rump who believe any absurdity he spouts. Further, if the Republican Party had held T-Rump to even the lowest possible standard of accountability and reality, TFG might not be certifiable today. But no-one did that. Instead, a new standard of cowardliness has emerged on the planet.
Braver than 90% of GOP in Congress.
People all over the world, every day, risk their lives to escape dictatorships. In Russia, people risk their lives and long prison terms to protest Putin’s War of Stupid Aggression. In Iran, women risk their lives and long prison terms to protest the killing of an innocent woman by the so-called “Morality Police.” In the Ukraine, people are enduring extreme hardships & danger to avoid falling under the dictatorship of a man gone insane with greed. I read today, he replaced another general. It’s always someone else’s fault in a dictatorship, no matter how stupid the leaders are.
Meanwhile, in America, the enablers of the Mango Mussolini are presented with mountain ranges of evidence about the scope of TFG’s lies, cruelty, criminality, and his utter failure as a businessman who grew rich providing value and the response — ?
“Oh, well, that’s just Trump”
Or,
“It’s all fake news!”
Or,
“Trump never lies! He told us so!”
Or,
“He must be successful at business because he told us so!”
Or,
“It’s a conspiracy of the FBI, CIA, DOJ, Wall Street Journal, NYTimes, NBC, CNN, DOD, Army, Navy, Marines, FORBES, Vanity Fair, FORTUNE, Liberals, POC, Asian Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Women, Homosexuals, Jews, Muslims, Chinese, Intellectuals, School Teachers, Science, Math, Readers, Writers, Wine Drinkers, CBS, ABC, Popes, New Yorkers, Californians, City-Dwellers, and Artists who are all out to get Trump & make him look bad!”
In the same way that people who “give an addict a break” by supplying cheap drugs “just to tide them over” are partly responsible for the eventual lethal overdose, so too, fans of Putin’s Puppet are partly responsible for the level of absurdity he now evidences.
Nonetheless, adults must be held accountable for their behavior. That includes dictators and would-be dictators. It includes their enablers. It includes “election deniers” and those who promise to overturn elections if their owner-in-chief tells them to.
Meanwhile, since my days of political satire are over for the foreseeable future, I’ll go take a picture of that which remains beautiful.
Poetic Commentary: I’m trying Sonnets and variations on Sonnets on Sunday. Here, I used the traditional iambic pentameter but slightly changed up the Shakespearean rhyme scheme ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG to ABBB, ACCC, CDDD, EE The idea of rhyming lines one and five is to reflect some unity among those five which deal with fairly direct perception of the here and now. In line six, I begin to move into “conceptual” shadows. Line nine rhymes with the previous three because this is meant to unify those lines more. But line 10 begins a contrasting thought. Though the couplet introduces a new rhyme, it is also a restatement of lines 10, 11, & 12 so the long “e” is kept and repeated internally as well (“me”, “thee”, “De-“, “sweet”, “de-“).
Political Commentary: In the photo above, you will see shadows of leaves and shadows of birds, though without movement, it may hard to tell which is which. But birds and olive trees are not the only shadows here. We are here at this particular spot partly because of our puppy Sadie. But how did Sadie come to be? Dogs were bred over thousands of years and while Sadie is still a puppy and very uncivilized as yet, she’s learning and a lot easier to deal with than her wolf ancestors. It isn’t just our training that helps Sadie live with us. It also depends on thousands of our ancestors taking the time to train and breed dogs to be our companions. There is a slab of concrete. Where did that come from? When did people invent that and perfect it? There is also a railroad tie. Railroad? Without early scientists and engineers and mathematicians, how would that have happened? And, of course, there are the builders who put this here and did not “cheat” so that the concrete was improperly made. Some other hundreds of folks arranged systems of commerce and government so that all this was possible. And how did you come to be looking at this photo and reading these words? Wait did I mention reading? You & I can read or write because someone took the time to teach us. And seeing it across time and space? Taking a picture with my iPhone? These depend on millions of people working in tech. But how could people spend so much time working on tech unless farmers made the food and truckers brought the food to a convenient place? But none of that system would work without government and police and armed services.
There are many shadows here and most of them are thousands of years old. The truth is that we are vastly interconnected. We have what we have and can achieve what we achieve because of countless others alive and long dead. Setting citizen against citizen is a ploy so that a very small number of people can end up controlling everyone. It’s an old, old cancer of society, but that makes it no less deadly.
We’re all in it together.
Those who would tear us all apart do not admit to their outsized greed. Instead, they wear camouflage of “patriotism” or “religion” to try to fool others into helping them steal. The plane hijackers who wreaked destruction were convinced they were doing it for “God” not for their pocketbooks. To be radicalized into killing others is to be blinded. At first, people are told to tell a little lie for the good of God. And, a little later, they are taught to believe a slightly bigger lie. Until, in the end, they are willing to kill hundreds of innocent people and give up their own life as well. It’s all based on lies. One way you can tell they are lies is that the lies must never be questioned. Not to believe the lie is to be punished or even kicked out of the club.
The Founding Fathers — yes, they were cool in many ways. Some were excellent writers; most were well educated. But even apart from the fact that they were all white males and many were slave holders — putting that aside, no matter how wonderful they may have been, they were vastly ignorant of a great number of things that educated people know about today.
Here are just a few of the things that they did not know about.
They did not know about evolution. They did not know about DNA. These are not mere details in modern day biology. They are foundational. Not only was their knowledge of the basic science of biology woefully lacking; they were also ignorant of many of the practical implications. They did not see people who had hip joint replacements or knee replacements or organ transplants. They had no idea that life began 4 billion years ago. They did not know about how to prevent or treat many diseases that we have now conquered. They did not know about proper maternal or prenatal care. They did not even know that a woman’s brains is just as good as a man’s. They did not know that the mitochondrial DNA is passed on only from the mother. They did not know what mitochondria were. They did not know much at all about the “family tree” of humanity. They did not know how to use DNA analysis in solving crimes or predicting susceptibility to disease.
Their ignorance was not just about biological sciences. They knew very little about physics or chemistry. They only knew of twenty-three elements! Now, we know 118. They did not know about electron shells and types of bonds. There were huge fields of human knowledge such as physical chemistry and biochemistry that did not even exist. Again, it was not just theoretical chemistry and physics that they didn’t know about. They didn’t have cured rubber or any plastics whatsoever. There were no gasoline engines.
They did not know about atomic energy or the theory of relativity. They had no idea how large the universe was; the existence of planets orbiting around distant stars. These distant planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets were completely unknown. Today we have confirmed the existence of over 5000 of these exoplanets. They did not know how our own sun generated its power.
They did not know about the destructive potential of an atomic bomb. They did not know that atomic energy existed or that it could be used in practical ways such as killing cancerous tumors, or generating electricity. There were no atomic submarines — or indeed, any submarines at all.
Their ignorance was not limited to science. Since these events had not yet occurred, they obviously knew nothing about the First World War and nothing about The Second World War in which at least 50 million people were killed. They did not know about Hitler or the Holocaust. They did not know about Stalin or Mao killing tens of millions of their own people in order to stay in power.
The did not know about automobiles or airplanes. Traveling across the (much smaller) fledgling nation or America would take days or weeks, not hours. They did not know about the telephone or the telegraph. They had no idea about computers, the web, or the Internet.
Their ignorance of the physical sciences and of many of the lessons of history is overmatched by their profound ignorance about what has been learned in the social sciences in the last few hundred years. They had never heard of Freud, or Skinner, or Chomsky, or Herbert Simon. They did not even realize that social science was possible to study empirically. They did not know how important early childhood stimulation was. Typical practices of education were to have people learn by rote. They did not teach people the scientific method because they themselves did not really know it.
So, however much you may respect their courage or their foresight or ethics, the fact is that, by today’s standards, they were colossally ignorant. That is not a “put down.” That is just a fact. Humanity collectively knows thousands of times as much as they did. Being ignorant doesn’t mean stupid. And, because they were not stupid, they realized that however hard they worked to forge a new nation’s foundation in law, there had to be a way to update that foundation.
There are today, a group of folks who want to keep all the wealth and power in the hands of the few and steal wealth and power from the many. In order to do this, however, they don’t come right out and say, “Hey, we’re better than you and we want all your stuff and we want you to all do what we say.” No.
Instead, they try to make you think that what they want for their own selfish reasons, just so happens to be what the founding fathers wanted as well.
What balderdash!
For two reasons:
First, because you and I can’t even reliably read the mind of the person sitting across the card table from you. Reading the mind of someone who lived over 200 years ago is absurd. Sure, you can look at their writings and gain some clues. But any adult who’s done a fair amount of writing has changed their opinions over time; has sometimes said things that are ambiguous or vague or mistaken. The attempt to infer the intentions and thoughts of the “Founding Fathers” is often just a fishing expedition to find the pieces of the writing of some Founding Fathers that can be framed so as to rationalize the viewpoint you happen to have. In the case of the Ultra-Greedy, the nuggets of writing chosen are used to rationalize taking from others. instead of owning up to the out-sized greed, the originalists are saying in effect, “Hey, it’s not me. It’s these guys who lived a few centuries ago.”
Second, even if you could read the minds of all the Founding Fathers, so what? They were profoundly ignorant. We know a lot more now. Moreover, the world we live in is vastly different. We are vastly more interconnected and independent than was the case 200 years ago. In 1776, the population of America was 2.1 million. Today, it is over 330 million. Not only that, despite our much more extensive size, we can physically traverse the space much more quickly. And we can traverse it electronically as well — and do it almost instantaneously! Our destructive power is also much larger. We can kill our fellow human beings with chemical, atomic, and biological weapons and even our “conventional” weapons are much more deadly.
I understand it could be somewhat comforting to think that all the answers to today’s issues and problems can be found in the invisible inner workings of the minds of the Founding Fathers. But at some point, you have to understand (Spoiler Alert!) that it was indeed your parents and not the Tooth Fairy who put money under your pillow in exchange for your baby teeth.
Similarly, the answers to today’s problems require that we modern humans use our knowledge to propose ideas and come to reasonable ideas to try out and honestly look at the outcomes. Of course, there are some important things that remain constant: It’s a bad idea to steal or to kill people. But when it comes to how to govern a nation of 330 million people in today’s world, we need today’s people to use today’s knowledge to figure out the best methods. Sure, our laws are founded on The Constitution and it has mainly served us well. It was made to be amended, not to be worshipped as a golden idol whose meaning is divined by people, some of whom still want to burn witches at the stake. The reason the Constitution has served us well is precisely that we’ve changed it as we’ve learned more.
As I’ve said, although by today’s standards, the Founding Fathers were ignorant, they were not stupid; they knew that the world would change; that the nation would change; and they themselves did not say: “Our Constitution is perfect for all time and should never be changed!” No. Not at all. They said: “Our Constitution is the best we can do right now. But we know things will change. So, we include a way to change the Constitution when necessary.”
We can best honor that good sense they displayed; that humility; that foresight; by continuing to question and change the Constitution, not by trying to insist that we know what they intended and those intentions should never be questioned in the light of current knowledge and conditions.
As a ploy to prod productivity, I often write with a different “theme” or “genre” for every day of the week. Today is “Sonnet Sunday.” The basic idea is to write a sonnet every Sunday. Lately, in light of the Extreme Court ruling that states cannot enact laws that abridge the rights of guns but they are free to enact laws to abridge the rights of women, I decided that instead of the traditional five feet in every line of the sonnet, I would put an extra foot everywhere it doesn’t belong — just like the Extreme Court. So, instead of writing in iambic pentameter, I’m going for iambic hexameter.
————
Fertilized human egg above. Having trouble seeing it? Look more carefully! It’s a person, a person with more rights than you have. Unless, you’re a guy, of course.
You ever see Alito’s photograph with egg?
I speak of human egg of course: unscrambled dot.
Or, even posed with toddler twins who peed his leg?
Horrors! People! No more pooping!! In a single day, a person may destroy 10**11 epithelial cells from the intestines! I’m talking about living human cells! This dwarfs the abortion epidemic by many many orders of magnitude! Just to understand the scope of this crime, remember that there are fewer than 10 billion people on earth. Ten billion is only 10**10th. So every day, you are murdering TEN TIMES the population of the entire earth!
Now, some people will argue that these cells are not really human beings, or that such cells cannot viably exist on their own and that there is a medical benefit to shedding these cells. To which I reply: “So what!!?” Each has the *potential* to become a fully functioning human being!”
From now on, each of these cells must be rescued from your poop. Then, from each cell, the nucleus must be extracted. This nucleus shall then be put into a human egg cell and implanted in a baby incubator device (sometimes jokingly referred to as a “woman”). Wait nine months and *voila!* a new and precious human baby will be born. Best of all, during that time, most rich, old, white, males won’t be the least bit inconvenienced.
I realize that some people will argue that such a procedure would be absurdly expensive and inconvenient. So what?! We cannot allow abortions simply because having a baby might be beyond the economic capabilities of a family or that it would disrupt their lives or reduce their ability to care for their other children or endanger the life of the mother. It certainly doesn’t matter that saving these babies lives would hasten the destruction of the ecosystem all humanity needs in order to survive. Well, it’s the same thing with all those babies-that-could-be in your bowel. Who knows? One of them could be the next Einstein or Saint Teresa.
Please save these unborn babies out of your poop! Don’t let them be wantonly destroyed!! Write your Senators and Representatives today! And whatever you do, stop pooping until the proper procedures and mechanisms can be set up to save all these potential babies! Until then, simply hold it. Of course, it isn’t merely your own poop that you must be concerned with. You must do your part to make sure your neighbors also hold it till we’re ready to save the babies. Needless to say, what applies to your right to control your neighbors bodily functions goes doubly for your own family. So make sure your kids don’t poop either. No-one’s ever too young to avoid becoming a parent.
Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that the Bible agrees with me 100%. Well, not really the Bible, per se, of course, but the Bible as interpreted by a small number of people. You’ll also be happy to know that the US Constitution also agrees with me. Well, not really the Constitution, per se, but what the founders meant by what’s in Constitution as magically divined by the Extreme Court.
By the way, you may want to lay off the grains & greens until everything’s set to make sure we save the babies!
petersironwood 