I Disagree With Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

I listened to most of "This American Life" on public radio today, and the whole show was taken up with 9/11 and the people held at Guantanamo.  To make a long story short, most of the people originally held there were frankly not suspected of anything (certainly not charged with anything), and the five remaining inmates are suspects.  They have all been subjected to torture (they're suspects, not convicts), there are legal-like activities going on, but not one of these suspects has been tried.  After these many years, it looks increasingly like none of them will be tried.  They're in solitary confinement, deprived of all Constitutional guarantees, and never even charged.  They're just living out what's left of their lives in indefinite sentences.  And this happens because the Constitution and the rights it guarantees (to you, me, and the rest of us) is set aside, and some parallel, if perverted, form of military law is allowed to take its place.

Even victims' families want justice, including the possibility of plea deals, or anything that could end this endless perversion in a way that befits what this country was supposed to be.  So Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM"), who is considered a central suspect, and talking about this gross perversion of the "justice" for which this country is supposed to be famous, said he thinks this disturbed process will turn Americans against their own country, and the Constitutional democracy which supposedly characterizes it.  As if we ourselves would adopt the contempt for this country that the 9/11 perpetrators had.  KSM thinks of this as a baton the 9/11 perpetrators have handed to the rest of us.  (It should be noted that one of the unanswered questions in this "This American Life" piece was why the 9/11 perpetrators committed 9/11.  No one knows, and no one is making any effort to find out.)

But turning Americans against the United States was already under way, even before innocent, or even suspected, Arabs were tortured and endlessly incarcerated in Guantanamo.  (We of course take a very public and very dim view of other countries that do what we're doing.  Inventing wars, torture, endless punishment for no confirmed crime...)

We were unabashedly horrible to the Native Americans, whose land, system of management, and lives we took.  Because they were here.  We treated Africans at least as badly.  But we tried, at least in part, to do better.  We've continued to make our mistakes (let our antisocial leanings get manifested), with one not so good president or another, or one disruptive Congress or another.  But we sort of try to recover.  Ideally that should include an open admission of error, but we tend not to do that.

Although we made some breathtakingly boneheaded choices when it came to supporting anyone, no matter how terrible they were, to lead other countries, as long as they said they weren't Communists.

It's hard to tell when things began to deteriorate in a more unretractable way.  LBJ, for whatever social and "Great Society" good he did, prosecuted a Vietnam war he never made a real effort to "win."  Or end.  And he was a very manipulative, if not obnoxious, person.  But the American avalanche wasn't obvious at that point.  It became somewhat clearer with Nixon, who was on the verge of being impeached, because he didn't care about the Constitution.  Although as far as I can tell, he had seemingly significant, if not severe, personal problems, including a dangerous level of paranoia.  But the country, under the reassurance of a Congress that was still functional, pulled together, made it clear to Nixon that his behavior was criminal, and he resigned, because he had the sense and perspective, at least, to know he would be impeached.  By members of both major parties, who cared more about propriety than they did about party.

Ford called an end to this, by pardoning Nixon.  There were many people then, and possibly many people now, who agree that the country should not have been dragged through the mud of a Nixon impeachment.  But there's an increasingly nagging sense that this was a dangerous concession that allowed people not to expect a proper course of action when wrong is done.  Especially when wrong is done by people in power.

Ford's term was otherwise uneventful, if empty and aimless, and Carter was, as best I can tell, the best human being ever to inhabit the White House.  But he was a good and nice guy, and apart from negotiating peace between Egypt and Israel, he doesn't seem to have inspired many people.

And then came Reagan.  For me, this is where things started to fall apart.  Reagan was dishonest and manipulative (money does not "trickle down;" it trickles up, and when you let that happen, and lower taxes, you're going to get a deficit, as we later learned, after Reagan and his sleight of hand were gone), but he was an actor and had ways to charm people.  But he had a slogan: "government is the problem."  I wonder what it would be like if he could have been transported back in time, so he could tell the Revolutionaries, who fought and died to create this country and its generally revered Constitution, and who were in part represented by Benjamin Franklin, who said the Founding Fathers were "giving [us] a republic, if[we] could keep it," that the republic they established was the problem.  They gave us a Constitutional republic, which we spent almost 200 more years improving and perfecting, and Reagan declared that republic to be the problem.  In fact, the whole Republican Party seems to have adopted that view.  Ah, to be a fly on the wall, when they explain to the Founders how completely wrong they got it.

The Clinton years were relatively quiet, with Clinton's trademark cheerleading, and his personal/marital mess, but he replaced the large deficit with which Reagan left us with a surplus.

I still say Reagan was the start of the avalanche, but if anyone thinks he wasn't, then Cheney/W most certainly were.  (Please watch Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11.")  As I said no one really knows what 9/11 was about (if you think you do, then call "This American Life," and tell them; they very much want to know), but it created an opportunity that fell into the laps of Cheney and W.  They totally invented a war against a country that was in way involved, got loads of Iraqis and Americans killed, created nice contracts for Cheney's former company, paralyzed Congress so that few members were willing to point out that the Emperor wasn't wearing any clothes, and got Cheney and W re-elected.  And Cheney and W hit upon a scheme that had never occurred to any other country in the history of civilization: start a war, and lower taxes.  There was nothing rational going on in this country any more.  And of course, the table was set when W got himself elected in the first place by cheating, with the help of his cousin, his brother, and a sympathetic Supreme Court.  Cheating has of course now become the byword of a certain faction, who either cheat to win, or if they don't win, they accuse, with zero evidence, the other side of cheating.

And then came Obama, whose term was feel-good for some (he got elected twice, so I guess a lot of people felt good), but he didn't do what he should have done.  He didn't do a proper job of creating universal health care, or a few other things, because -- and he admits this -- he was trying to be conciliatory to people who were never going to like him no matter what he did.  And although everyone complained about the Cheney/W deficit, which was attributed to Obama from the first day he got into office, he did not raise taxes, as he should have done.  So, whoever wanted to feel good about Obama felt good for as long as they could, while the invented war continued, the deficit grew, and too many Americans still didn't have adequate access to "health care."

Hillary Clinton would probably not have been a great president, but she mishandled her campaign, and thanks to the distortion created by the Electoral College, Trump won, as W had in his first election.  There's a quote from H.L.Mencken that goes "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents more and more closely the inner soul of the people.  On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts' desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."  I would have said that "great and glorious day," which lasted eight years, was the Cheney/W years.  Nope.  It is without any question Trump.  Although most voters didn't want him in 2016, an even higher proportion didn't want him in 2020.  But bizarrely, and unspeakably, he got more votes in 2020, when he had spent four years making unmistakably clear that he was an inveterate liar, a moron, and interested only in himself, than he got in 2016, when he only gave us abundant reason to suspect it.

Biden has been a bit of a mess, doing some things right (mostly reversing some of Trump's policies) and way too many things wrong.  His biggest asset is that he's not Trump.  Helluva resume.

So, as I said, I think KSM was giving 9/11 too much credit for turning Americans against America.  We had already abandoned our spirit and our mission, and we've given ourselves many more, and more glaring, reasons to take an increasingly dim view of ourselves.  Reagan and Republicans are very direct about it: "[American] government is the problem."  (I really do wish I could hear them explain that to Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and many others.  I know people who won't eat beef or pork, but they'll eat fish and fowl.  I say the same thing to them: I want to be there when they explain to the fish and the chickens why cows and pigs are meat, and they -- the fish and chickens -- aren't.  I want to know how convincing that sounds.)

Oh, Just Like SERMO.

As you know very well, I spend a lot of my time going to cultural events.  I went to one two days ago, four days ago, and five days ago.  The weekend before that, I went to one Saturday, Friday, and Thursday.  The Thursday one was "The Moth."  If you listen to public radio, you know all about "The Moth."  It's story telling.  You can sign up to tell a story about the topic identified in advance, there's a time limit, the story has to be true, and it has to be "your story" (about you).  The topic resonated, and I told a story.  I didn't win, but I made some nice friends.  One -- the woman who did win -- was a writer who had told "Moth" stories several times before, this was her first time winning, and she gave me some tips.

Anyway, the story I told was about my experience with a doctor's website called SERMO, the people who involve themselves in it (by writing posts or commenting on other people's posts), and specifically, a woman (as it turned out) I met on SERMO.  (I've met a few people on SERMO.  Some are local.  One became a patient.  Now, his wife is.)  Most people use aliases, so you can't tell anything about them (gender, where -- in the world -- they live, or anything).  You just read what they write, even if it's a comment to someone else's post, and at least you get an idea if their comments are intelligent.  (If you suppose doctors' comments are all intelligent, you're badly kidding yourself.)

Once it became clear that most SERMO members used aliases, and wrote stupid comments, I wrote a post about why SERMO members -- medical doctors -- would hide behind aliases.  And that post got more comments than any other post I ever wrote.  One doctor made the most important comment of all: s/he said that if s/he had to use her or his real name, s/he wouldn't leave a comment.  This commenter wouldn't go public if anyone could know who s/he really was.  S/he was hiding behind an alias in order to say things s/he wouldn't publicly say if s/he could be identified.  I replied to this comment, and I said that if this doctor would be too embarrassed or ashamed to make a comment if s/he could be identified, then s/he shouldn't make the comment at all.

Well, if you're wondering if I ever, even once, got a proposed blog comment from "Anonymous," now that we're in the new regime where I get to monitor all comments in advance, and won't publish one from someone who is unacceptably anonymous, no, I did not.  If "Anonymous" can't be anonymous, then s/he doesn't want to run her or his mouth.  It's just like SERMO.  It's the same stupid garbage cracks, made only on condition that the child who makes them doesn't have to take responsibility.

I take responsibility.  You know who I am.  You probably know me.  You might well know precisely where I live.  You can agree with me, disagree with me, think I'm an idiot, or whatever you want.  That's the risk I take, the risk I'm willing to take, and the risk I owe you, if I want to express my opinion about something.  If I'm not willing to take that risk, then I have to keep my opinions to myself.  And when "Anonymous" found out the risk-free party was over, s/he realized that she or he had to keep her or his opinions to her- or himself.   Works for me.

Now, to be entirely fair to "Anonymous," one of my BP friends told me yesterday he actually sort of misses the idiotic circus of "Anonymous'" dumb cracks.  He wanted to know if I had, in fact, any idea who "Anonymous" is.  No, I don't.  Nor do I care, now that I, this blog, and you, are relieved of the nonsense, weirdly entertaining as it may have been for the occasional BPer.

It Would Be An Easier Argument If It Was Just About the General Public.

Some/several months ago, I published a post about the "Second Amendment."  The post was simple and straightforward, and I showed that 1) the "Second Amendment" has nothing to do with guns in civilian hands (it's about the security of the states and the federal government, as effected by militias), and 2) that the "Second Amendment" was indirectly and informally repealed a long time ago, when we made illegal for civilian possession almost all the "Arms" that would be necessary for a civilian to be an effective member of a militia.  (I'm setting aside that in the modern United States, we do not tolerate militias -- so the whole concept has become spurious -- and we have defeated every one that has arisen).  As I said, that argument, was simple and straightforward.  If I was "tech savvy" enough, I would offer this paper again as a link, but since I'm not tech savvy, I don't know how to do that.  What I did before was copy and paste a 17 page paper I wrote some years ago, and I'm not going to do that to you again.  The bottom line is that in modern American life, and according to modern American laws, there is no more "Second Amendment," and civilians should really stop inventing the idea that there is one, and that it allows them to "keep and bear Arms."

But there's another class of Americans who carry guns openly in public, and it turns out there are very big problems with this practice, too.  I'm talking here about the police.

You won't watch many videos of police responding to calls before you quickly realize they're VERY hopped up on their own anxiety, presumed or imagined need to control situations, and tendency to address many situations by trying to overpower whoever else is involved in the situation.  I'm afraid the saying "shoot first, and ask questions later" was way too often never truer than it is with the police.

And to be bizarrely "fair" to the police, they don't only shoot people.  They didn't shoot Errol Garner or George Floyd.  Frankly, they didn't have to.  Both were handcuffed, despite having done little wrong, and in both cases, police officers simply choked them to death by kneeling on their necks, while the victims pleaded that they couldn't breathe.  It appears that the police tune out complaints like that.

But they do shoot way more than their share of innocent people.  They shot and killed Philando Castile, who was trying to de-escalate an obviously escalating police officer.  They shot that woman who was sleeping in her bed.  And they shot Roger Fortson, a young African American armed forces veteran who was doing nothing wrong.  Do Not Let Media Ignore the Tragic Police Killing of U.S. Airman Roger Fortson (substack.com)

Sometimes, the police get so hopped up that they go to wrong addresses.  The case of Philando Castile's murder was tragically not unique, in the sense that the cop who killed him claimed as a defense that he had not had enough "training."  Not enough training for what?  Not to murder innocent civilians?  Not to murder African Americans?  Not to murder people with a tail light out, and who are trying to reassure you and cooperate in every possible way?  And these cops, who don't have enough training to know how to manage in a respectful and adaptive way whatever situation they think they're in, and to make sure they have the right address, and not to murder civilians, carry guns?

I remember when I was young, and it was always said that British police -- "bobbies" -- didn't carry guns.  I think they do now, because I read some of the same tragic stories of their killing innocent people.

But it would be a wonderful and very civilized (what a word, huh?) thing if no one carried a gun.  We could leave the phenomenon of being gun-toting in the most specialized hands, with properly trained and supervised people who are called upon in the most unique circumstances.

The fact is that Americans can't handle access to guns.  Watch Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine."  Read about Kristi Noem (she adopted a dog that was said to have had behavior problems or aggression, then killed it because it had behavior problems and aggression; and the voters of South Dakota elected this thing Governor?).  It's just not a good idea, and it doesn't work out well.  You know what's the commonest outcome of gun ownership in this country?  Nothing.   The gun stays stowed away, and no one touches it.  So why have it?  So a kid can find it?  Or it can get stolen, and wind up on the street in some crime?  Gun are, by the way, the commonest cause of death in minors and in suicides.  For which of those kinds of deaths do we want to advocate?

I live here with you in BP.  I'm going to make a request of you.  If you have a gun, please turn it in to the BP police, and ask them to destroy it for you.  It's better for you, better for your family, better for me, and better for everyone.

If This Is What You've Been Trying For, "Anonymous," Congratulations.

I have finally changed the "Comments" setting on this blog.  All proposed comments come to me first.  I can approve publication of them, or not.

Any comment signed "Anonymous" will not be published, unless I get a separate e-mail from the author of it, letting me know who the author is, and giving me a very good reason that that person should be left unnamed.  I doubt anything will persuade me, but I'm leaving that door open.

Proposed comments will be entered on the blog, by the prospective author, as if they were to be published on the blog.  But blogspot has my e-mail address, and will route it to me for approval first.

I would say you really do need help, "Anonymous," but I doubt you're helpable*.  I think the best possibility is that you're no longer the problem of readers of this blog.  You're your own problem, and the problem of anyone burdened with the possibility of being your family.

*Do you know the joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a lightbulb?  Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.  You are very clearly not looking to change.

Good News. And Bad News.

I have heard (not from the child who calls him- or herself "Anonymous," but from an actual source) that Luis Cabrera is on a time-out or something.  It was not clear to me if he is on a suspension or has been fired.  I didn't ask.

I like Luis personally.  He's a friendly guy.  He's also somewhat shifty, and I have a clear sense that he's controlling and manipulative.  And worse than that, for as many years as he's been the police Chief, he has refused to deploy our officers to provide constant patrolling on 6th Avenue.  This failure has cost a number of people quite a bit, including some people their lives.  So, Luis is out, at least for a while?  Good.  Luis had a career with the County or the City of Miami, has a nice pension, and was using us to juice his lifestyle.  I am not concerned about Luis, certainly not any more than he is concerned about the people who live, walk, and drive in BP.  Maybe someone else will do what Luis couldn't be bothered to do.  It's good news for us that someone else is in that position, and better news for us if they actually do the right job.

I was out walking this morning, and when I got to Griffing and 115th, one of our unmarked SUV-type cruisers had stopped someone.  I got to the car to make sure the driver was OK, and not injured.  Yes, she was OK, and no, she was not injured.  If you want to know what race she was, "I'll wait," as the late Gilbert Gottfried used to say, or "Take all the time you need with that," as Brian Tyler Cohen now says.  I don't know what she did.  Maybe something, or maybe nothing.  But she didn't seem afraid or angry, and since she said she was OK, I kept walking.  I waved at the officer, too, but the glass being tinted as dark as it was (you know, illegal, as you and I are not allowed to have our car glass tinted), I couldn't tell if he or she saw me or waved back.

And when I crossed 6th Avenue, it was clearly still not being patrolled.

So, the good news is that Luis, who assigns officers, and doesn't assign them to do the main job we need them to do, is not in place.  The bad news is that neither did the manager tell Luis, or his replacement, to do this essential job, nor did Luis' replacement think of it him- or herself.

We can't win for losing.

I Still Don't Understand "Libertarians."

Yesterday, I was walking in the neighborhood, and I encountered one of our neighbors whom I know.  I have a friendly relationship with him, and I like him, and he and his wife have been here for some time and are friendly with other BP residents I know and like.  I don't know him well, but enough that he and I recognize each other, greet each other, and enjoy talking together, for the short intervals that present themselves.

The last time I saw him, he happened to mention that his sociopolitical leanings and identification are "libertarian."  I tried to keep it in mind to stop by his house one day, to ask more about this, but I got busy.  I never got around to it until we encountered each other yesterday.  I told him I wanted to ask him at some point about libertarians (by which I intended to mean he and I should meet up some time -- over coffee, wine, dinner, or whatever --- but we wound up having a substantial piece of our conversation right there.  I ran out of time to finish my walk, because I had appointments, and he continued on with his.  But we talked about a number of things, and he took my e-mail address to send me some things he thought I might be interested to consider.  He's opposed to the government, and especially to agencies whose initials are three letters, as he put it.  He dislikes the FDA more than most or all.  We got to talking about COVID, which he believes is not real, and he asked me what I thought of ivermectin as a treatment (for a condition he doesn't think is real anyway?).  I'm not in favor, but he mentioned studies that have been done.  We talked about other drug studies, and I told him that meta-analyses have special value.  He said he would send me an e-mail about a meta-analysis of ivermectin. 

I really do like this guy.  I appreciate him, and I respect his opinions.  As he and I said, that doesn't mean we have to agree with each other.  So he did, in fact, send me several e-mails that came from youtube.  They were about various things.

So, back to libertarians.  As I said, I don't really understand their theory.  I told that to my friend, and he explained it as he himself understood it.  I know libertarians are generally opposed to the government, and that they caucus with Republicans.  This is a curiosity, because Republicans, who say they, too, are opposed to the government, are really in favor of very big government.  They like a government that can tell you if you have to have children, whom you can marry, who can vote, who can't live in this country (now that they live here), and they invent the idea that Americans are free to own guns.  They want a government big enough to invent that idea.  They want a government that likes to execute Americans, often under extremely questionable circumstances.  My friend and I were standing in the street, pausing our neighborhood walks, which were in different directions, so we didn't get a chance to talk about these areas.

But my friend did say that libertarians do not think the government should make the rules it does.  I asked him if that would mean, for example, that people should not have to honor setbacks when they build on their properties.  This, according to my friend, would be an exception.  Oh, so it's a matter of degree.  I wonder who libertarians think should decide which issues are exceptions.  The same, apparently, is true of speed limits, traffic lights, and STOP signs.  Yes, of course someone -- the government -- has to make those assessments and rules.

But not necessarily many more.  According to my friend, the government should not control health and safety aspects regarding private businesses.  For example, according to my friend, suppose he wants to open a restaurant.  The public can choose if they like the meals he serves.  And if they don't, they don't have to come back.  But I asked what if it's not that they don't like the taste of the food, or if they get a stomach ache -- an example my friend gave of a reason not to choose to come back.  What if his restaurant is unsanitary enough that patrons die?  It will be little comfort to the survivors and family of diners who died just not to eat there any more.  (We were getting into the dreaded FDA territory.)

I also explained that the public -- consumers -- cannot evaluate the "health care" system, because they are not trained to know enough about it.  I agreed that the system we use, which includes the FDA and CDC, is imperfect, but it's better than no system, or pretending to educate yourself by watching TV advertising, or looking things up online, and if we took out the private money that corrupts politics, we'd have a good system.

It was a few hours later that I received some e-mailed videos.  I watched about three or four of them, which was almost all of them.  One was an Australian woman who had been a conventional medical doctor for about 20 years, until she traded in her medical career for a youtube channel, and was explaining that polio is not caused by a virus, but by DDT, and the whole polio virus scam was the product of the Rockefellers.  She showed graphed timelines.  She said everything the Rockefellers, and the American health care industry, said was wrong.  It was all lies.  But she seemed to be confusing viruses with bacteria, and dismissed the idea of a virus as the cause of polio because you can't see viruses.  (True.  They're extremely small, and require an electron microscope to be seen.  So, since they're hard to see, and are not bacteria, which are also too small to be seen without a microscope, then they can't cause illness?)  It turns out that this woman, and featured people in the other videos, were all conspiracy theorists.  As is always the case, they counter commonly accepted beliefs with something else.  You either believe them -- about polio really being caused by DDT, or HIV not really being the cause of AIDS (that was another video) -- or you don't.  The guy who won a Nobel Prize for possibly/reportedly discovering polymerase chain reaction, and who believed in astrology and the paranormal, but who didn't believe HIV caused AIDS, and who used his Nobel Prize acceptance speech to complain that his girlfriend broke up with him, was another video.  And then, there was a British guy, who talked like he might have been a medical doctor, and who presented the promised meta-analysis about ivermectin.  Actually, he sort of presented three or four of them.  The one on which he spent the most time had a lot of flaws in it, and he wasn't sure how valid it was.  Another was dismissed as "rubbish."  Two others, from the NIH and WHO (right, two organizations, one from the US government, that have three letter initials) took a very dim view.

So, the question still is what fuels the libertarian movement.  Mistrust of government, for sure.  And frankly, I don't disagree, in large part.  As I told our neighbor, the problem with government is that electeds get bought off with lobbying and campaign contributions, and their constituents are the donors, not the public.  But once you dismiss the government, what do you have left?  People who run for office campaign (not in BP any more, but generally).  You can know about them.  They find themselves in debates with other people, and you can judge who comes across better, and makes more sense.  But for the tiny sample of libertarians I know (one), that gets displaced by people who are either unknown, or they're one or another form of crackpot.  And of course, the endless world of conspiracy theories.

I think I lost an acquaintance/friend yesterday in an unrelated discussion.  He is enraged at Hamas, because of a video he sent me talking about Hamas' shocking sexual and physical abuse, and mutilation and murder, of Israeli women starting on October 7, and it's perfectly fine with him if all Palestinians are annihilated.  The video was very disturbing, although not for the reason you might think.  The video was centered on a woman who was the moderator, and she was interviewing a number of Israelis, some of whom were women who themselves had been abused on or after October 7, and some of whom were a version of first responders.  The degree of composure was beyond creepy.  And at one point, one of the first responder-type men showed the moderator photographs taken on his phone, of Israeli women mutilated and murdered in various ways.  (He took photographs?)  The moderator, still largely disturbingly composed, said "oh, my 'god'" a couple of times.  But the photographs were never shown on camera to people watching this documentary.  The guy who reportedly took the photographs saw them.  The moderator saw them.  Why not show them to the people you want to inform, influence, recruit?  When I told my apparently former acquaintance/friend that the documentary looked staged, he became enraged, and said he never again wanted to talk to me about this.  He dismissed me as "delusional."  (Interestingly, toward the end of the video -- it's possible my erstwhile friend missed this -- they said that 1) over 100 hostages held by Hamas were released at the end of November, during a ceasefire, and 2) that according to the women who told their stories in this documentary, the women who were not released were more mistreated than the ones who were released.  My erstwhile friend asked me what I would do.  I said that if I could get back over 100 hostages by having a ceasefire, and if I should worry even more about the hostages I didn't get back, and if my real goal wasn't simply to annihilate all Palestinians, and if I didn't want to sacrifice any more hostages, I would have extended the ceasefire, or immediately begun another one, or have one now.  He didn't respond.)

It's not a lot different, it seems, about things like libertarianism, or the MAGA cult.  You attach yourself to something fringy and fragile, and disqualify everything else.

The Supreme Court Has Found the Rock and the Hard Place.

All indications are that the Justices will either invent the idea that Trump has sweeping immunity, or they'll send it back to a lower court.  Either decision creates a problem for Trump.  And for the Court.

The analogy that has been floated in this case is whether or not Trump would have immunity if he had political rivals killed.  His lawyer says he would, but this immunity would be retracted if Trump was then impeached and convicted.

Keeping in mind how enraged are most Americans over the Supreme Court's removal of their rights to abortion, and considering how much further enraged they would be if the Supreme Court told them King Donnie can do whatever he wants, it becomes more or less unfathomable that Donnie gets elected this coming November, if it's not unfathomable already.

But let's say, for purpose of discussion, he does.  But Congress becomes more Democratic.  Donnie not only gets impeached immediately, but the Senate, unlike the one headed by Mitch McConnell, who said he didn't care what the House did about impeachment, because the Republican Senate wouldn't convict him anyway, does in fact convict him.  Immunity gone.

Or Donnie somehow, unimaginably, gets elected, and Congress shifts right, too.  At that point, 250 years after we detached ourselves from King George III, we're under the autocracy of King Donnie and his yes-people (if he needs them, and doesn't just discharge them), and the "democratic experiment" is over.  We lost.  We failed.

Or, if the Supreme Court says a president has immunity, and can have rivals assassinated, why can't Biden have Trump assassinated?  Biden wouldn't, because he's not like that, but if the SCOTUS says he could, and if he does it now, the House will impeach him, and the Senate, if it was as amoral as the one McConnell led, wouldn't convict him.

But the fact is that Donnie himself knows he's not immune.  The last time he lost an election, he did the right thing, at first.  He brought the matter to the courts.  Sixty or sixty-one times.  Sure, there was the famous call to Raffensperger in Georgia, and the denied request of Pence, but he didn't take matters in hand, and declare himself the winner, as if he was immune.  (Or have Biden and Harris assassinated.)  He knows he's not immune.

And the SCOTUS doesn't have to send this matter back to a lower court.  It's already been there.  The Supreme Court of Colorado already ruled against Donnie.  It said he was guilty, had violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and couldn't hold any office.  The Colorado Supreme Court simply suspended its decision for a little while, because Donnie wanted to appeal to the SCOTUS.

So, what's the SCOTUS to do?  They shouldn't have agreed to hear this case, and it's going to be more or less impossible for them (the right wing supermajority) to get themselves out of it without making fools of themselves more than they've been doing.

Nobody Saw That Coming.

Well, it's been a helluva week or so.  Last week Saturday, I went to South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, and saw a magnificent dance show ("Ballet X").  Monday, I went to musimelange and heard a gorgeous baroque music concert.  Last night, I saw a very captivating exhibit (and had wine, Barbancourt Haitian rum drinks, a beer, and finger foods) at MOCA.  Tonight, I went to Sandrell Rivers Theater to see a play ("Bourbon at the Border").  Tomorrow and Saturday, I'm going back to South Miami-Dade.  Sunday, I'm going to an Indian music concert.

But I want to talk about the play I saw tonight.  It was put on by the M Ensemble, which is an African American theater company, and essentially all of their plays are about African Americans.  I almost always go on opening night.  It's more expensive --  well, when I say "expensive..." (it was $41) -- but after the opening night performance, there's food, drinks, socializing, and the actors come out after they've gotten cleaned up.  So you can meet them, and tell them if you think they did a great job.  There were four characters in the play tonight.  Rosa had a new boyfriend -- Tyrone -- so their relationship was part of the play.  And May is married to Charlie, who had gotten out of a psychiatric hospital for one of a succession of admissions for depression.  Charlie also had a limp from a fracture he sustained at some point.  Rosa and May were best friends, although Rosa was very fun-loving and was either libidinous or knew how to work men, and May was plain and seemed comparatively exhausted, likely, it seemed, because Charlie was so unstable and prone to depression.

Charlie seemed much better after this most recent hospitalization, and he was eager to get a job.  Tyrone worked for a trucking company that was hiring.  So maybe Charlie could get a job driving trucks.  Tyrone was going to put in a good word with Neil, who was the boss.

As May and Charlie reviewed their relationship, or May talked to Rosa about it, because they had come across some old photographs, it was revealed that May and Charlie had gone down to Mississippi in the 1960s to encourage black people to register to vote.  The setting of the play was during or shortly after the Vietnam war, so the background music from the radio was from that period.  So we're talking about something like a 12 year difference.

The geographic setting of this play is Detroit, which also influenced the choices of music.  The couple sitting behind me were singing along, even though I thought they looked too young to remember that music.  I told them so.  The woman was, shockingly, two years older than I am -- she could easily pass for 50-55 -- and her male companion was two years older than she was, and also looked much younger than he was.

I have to admit I wasn't sure where this play was going.  The write-up about the playwright was such that I expected something very interesting, but I couldn't figure out to what interesting place it was going to go.

And I'm not going to tell you how it ended.  The play runs until April 28 -- not every night, so you have to contact them at 305-705-3218 or tgcooper@aol.com to find out their schedule -- and I strongly suggest you go.  If you care, the regular ticket price for shows other than opening night is somewhere around $35.  Parking is free.  Staff are wonderfully friendly.  Pat and Shirley operate the M Ensemble.  They have very nice staff who take tickets, if you have them, or sell them, if you don't.  Sandrell Rivers Theater is at the corner of NW 62nd St and 7th Ave.  It's reasonably close to here.

You don't know how this play ends, but I do.  When the actors arrived at the post-play reception, I told them they did a great job, and I asked each of them if they saw the end coming as they were reading the play.  Not one of them did.  Nobody did.  I'm reluctant to be hyperbolic about this, but it's kind of brilliant.

Do yourselves a favor.

"Me, Too."

One of our neighbors sent me a frankly painful e-mail.  The e-mail said "Regarding the 'Anonymous' comments on your blog post regarding Ryan Huntington, I'm truly scared about the population and future of BP and our country."  I didn't ask for permission to reprint this, because I can keep the author confidential, and it doesn't matter who it is.  It's one of our neighbors, and someone I know.  I responded "Me, too," and I suggested that our neighbor could have entered this as a comment, instead of a private e-mail to me.  I also said the blog is ours, not mine.  It's true that because of the way blogspot is set up, I have unique proprietary discretion and control no one else has, but I try to minimize that.  I could block comments, or condition them on my approval, and I don't do either of those things.  I invite guest authors -- it's my pleasure to have their input, with which I most certainly don't always agree -- and those guest authors have as much control over the blog as I do.  In the past, I regularly offered guest authorship to people running for Commission, even if I was running against them.  I figured it was a good way for them to make their presentations, or cases, and we could have a nice discussion, or even debate, about their campaigns.  But few candidates took me up on it, and now, no one, frankly, seems to have an agenda.  Nor do they do their neighbors the common courtesy even of campaigning.  So I don't bother to do the legwork to go find the candidates, and offer them space and a circulation.

Which brings us back to our neighbor's lament, certainly about the Village, and also about the country.  Anyone who reads these posts, and the comments (which means the reader has to keep checking back every day or every few days, to see if there are any new comments), has seen the profusion of comments from someone who calls him- or herself "Anonymous."  And I will tell you that "Anonymous'" first comment under the last post came so soon after the post was published that it led me to wonder if "Anonymous" is in fact one of the people on the new post circulation I have compiled.  Either that, or it was a coincidence that "Anonymous" just happened to check the blog right after a new post was published.

"Anonymous'" comments are rambling, often incoherent, filled with misspellings, grammar mistakes, and what are probably the results of someone who has poor verbal ability trying to dictate, commonly enough have nothing to do with the topic of the post, are very often nasty and insulting, and seem to be the products of someone with frankly serious problems.  One of "Anonymous'" common refrains is hope or confidence that Donnie Trump will get re-elected this year, which I guess is part of the reason that our neighbor who e-mailed me expressed concern not only about the Village, but also about the country.  It does appear increasingly glaring that people who are in favor of Trump have in common noteworthy dimness of wit, to put it in a certain way.  Even increasing numbers of people who have been staunch Republicans and "conservatives" (it's still unclear to me what they think they're trying to conserve) are falling away from Trump.  But not "Anonymous."  S/he is still claiming to be a stalwart.  Clearly, that's part of what feels frightening and deflating to our neighbor who e-mailed me.

One of the critically important things about "Anonymous" is that "Anonymous" is anonymous.  So, when "Anonymous" talks, for example, about Village matters, in favor of or opposed to anyone or anything, it's not possible to know who "Anonymous" is, how "Anonymous" thinks s/he knows what s/he says, or if any of these ramblings are worth taking seriously.  So, if I, for example, can't tell, then the sensible choice is to ignore the content.  But if "Anonymous" is a Village resident, then s/he still gets a vote.  Hence, part of our neighbor's concern.  A complete moron with a vote can use that vote any way s/he wants, which imperils the Village.  And because, to take the example "Anonymous" keeps giving us, whether or not it's germane to anything, if the same complete moron is a remaining stalwart devotee of Donnie Trump (it's still impossible for me to believe the polls showing Donnie's considerable support among whoever agrees to respond to these polls), that person (benefit of the doubt here) can imperil the country, just as our neighbor feared.

Back in 2015 and 2016, when Donnie was first running, every available piece of evidence strongly suggested that Donnie was intellectually impaired, completely dishonest, and 100% self-centered.  Although Donnie did not get the support of the majority of the voters, he won because of the distortion created by the technicality known as the Electoral College.  Four years later, after he proved beyond any doubt that he was most definitely stupid, a total and inveterate liar, and had no thought for anyone but himself, he got even more votes than he did when we just strongly suspected it.  So the voters aren't very smart.  It's clear, although faulty and unnecessary, I hope, why our neighbor is as "scared" as s/he is, at least about the country.

Regarding the Village, we have crashed.  We've had the occasional dysfunctional and failed oddball on the Commission from time to time over the decades.  We've worked around them.  But starting in 2016 (yeah, I know: hmm), Commission candidates have stopped campaigning, commonly aren't properly "seasoned" for being Commissioners, and have no agendas.  Which certainly explains why Commissions since then haven't accomplished anything.  We've had 2 1/2 good Commissioners since 2016.  Dan Samaria started out surprisingly very well, until he went in some weird direction, Roxy Ross filled in for Betsy Wise or someone, who ran for the hills when the Commission problems got increasingly bad, and there's been Mac Kennedy.  I'm giving Mac full credit, Roxy full credit, even though it was just to fulfill the end of a term that had been vacated, and Dan half credit because he lost his bearings and didn't have to.

So I totally, totally understand our neighbor's concern, and I share it.  It's sort of heartbreaking to see what's happened to the Village, and to the country.  I even had a brief e-mail conversation with whoever is our current manager, and I suggested he fire police chief Luis Cabrera, because Luis isn't interested in safety on 6th Ave.  The manager said it was the Commission's job to manage the police chief.  So our manager presumably hasn't read our Charter, he doesn't know whose job is what, and which bucks stop at his desk.

Yup, I very much get it.  The straits are most definitely dire.  Whoever can be bothered to vote in the Village this coming Tuesday will have zero good choices out of three options.  In November, apart from the Village election -- again -- among others, we'll have the choice of Joe Biden, who is too old for this, and whose best accomplishments have been to undo some of Donnie Trump's damage, and then get out of the way (although he continues to help the Israelis annihilate innocent Palestinians), or Donnie Trump, who is the stupidest and worst past president this country has ever seen.  Great, huh?

I'm Guessing Ryan Huntington Hasn't Seen "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror."

Early in that movie (one of the old ones starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes), Holmes is invited to join the British High Command to figure out who's behind the German recordings of attacks against England.  One member of the Council is very opposed to bringing in Holmes, a civilian.  But Holmes has already been invited, and he arrives as the Council members are debating the fact that he was invited.  Holmes shows off some of his stuff, and he notes that one particular admiral clearly objected to his being invited to help.  The Council members are very surprised that Holmes could have known this, and Holmes points out that the Admiral in question had been leaning against a table, and left heel impressions dug into the rug, clearly signifying resistance.

So yesterday, I went to the Village event before the Commission meeting.  Daniela Levine-Cava was there, I had met her before, and I wanted to talk to her for a while.  But while I was there, Ryan Huntington, clearly at the urging of Mac Kennedy, introduced himself to me.  He said he knew about this blog (hmm, he didn't ask me to include him in new post announcements from now on), and that I had mentioned him.  I confirmed I did, twice.  So he wanted to make an introduction, and he apologized for having missed meeting me while he was campaigning.  He said he had been in a hurry to distribute his materials, knocked on doors, and probably knocked on mine when I wasn't home.  Nope.  He distributed a door tag to my house when I was home, and he didn't knock.

Anyway, Ryan and I had a nice chat, under the circumstances (he's running for office, and I'm not supportive), and I told him Mac thinks highly of him, and notes that he comes to Commission meetings prepared with good questions.  (Ryan revealed he's lived in the Village for 13 years, so apparently, coming to Commission meetings is a new thing for him.)  But I told Ryan that he was at a disadvantage, and he was proposing to put his neighbors at a disadvantage, because he hasn't given himself an adequate opportunity to understand how the Village works, what our problems are, how we've addressed some, why we didn't address others, etc.

Ryan mentioned one thing he considers a problem: speeding.  I agreed with him, and I told him our biggest speeding problem by far is and always has been on 6th Ave, and we're not doing anything about that.  But that's not the speeding Ryan had in mind.  He's fixated on our interior streets, and how we should have speed bumps and rotaries.  I told him we already have speed bumps, and they're faulty.  I don't know if Ryan didn't hear me, or if he was just lost in his own thought process.  So I tried again to explain.  We have speed bumps/tables, and they're so high that no one can negotiate them at the accepted speed limit without damaging their car.  As it happens, one of my friends, who's lived here longer than I have, and was standing there, told Ryan the same thing.  Ryan thinks the answer to this is to drive slower (than the speed limit).  I asked Ryan if what he really thought is that 25 mph is too fast, and we should lower the speed limit, again.  (He can't know that we already lowered from 30 to 25, for no reason, or about the traffic studies we've already had.)  He didn't answer.  The purpose of traffic calming devices is to make sure people drive the speed limit, not to make it impossible to drive the speed limit.

Ryan did what Mac escorted him to do: he met me.  He is interested in his own thought process, not in anyone else's (despite his claim to want to include his neighbors more), and he still thinks it's reasonable and not disrespectful to his neighbors to imagine he can dope this all out while in office.  Heel prints are noted.

Have a nice day next Tuesday.  Give my regards.

The Problem With Opposing DEI.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is the subject of lots of opinion (for and against) these days.  DEI is criticized (by its critics) for deliberately and seemingly unfairly giving an advantage to some groups of people.  The most extreme objection goes by the slogan "The Great Replacement Theory."  As if making room for some groups of people to be here, exist, and thrive was a "zero sum game," which meant that other groups of people were displaced or deprived.

And the critics are partially right about their understanding of DEI.  In earlier days, we called it Affirmative Action, and it most definitely does give an advantage to some groups of people.  To the extent that it smooths the way for some of those people to enter this country, settle and stay here, and become citizens, it does make room that was selfishly hoarded before.  Whether or not it "replaces" anyone is much more a matter for interpretation.

But here's the problem.  If we say, for the sake of convenience, that the groups advantaged by DEI are guaranteed a right to be here, and common advantages, about which the critics complain, those critics didn't complain when they themselves had all the advantage.  They complained about Rosa Parks sitting at the front of the bus, but they didn't complain when she was relegated to the back seat.  They don't mind if some people are winners, as long as they're the winners.

When the Pilgrims came here in the 1600s, there were already people here.  Today, we call them Native Americans.  The Pilgrims didn't feel unentitled to impose themselves, and their religion, and their diseases, on the Native Americans.  And they violently mistreated those Native Americans in ways worse than they claim to think current immigrant hopefuls would mistreat them.  And took most of their land.

What's curious (and infuriating, frankly) is that in the past 60+ years, we've welcomed immigrants from Cuba, and many of those Cuban immigrants now claim to object to our welcoming other immigrants.  They fear, or claim, presumably, that they think the immigrant hopefuls to whom they object would behave in ways, and occupy this country, that the rest of us didn't fear when we opened the doors to them.

We've settled on various bogeymen over time.  The same things are alleged about every immigrant group: Germans, Irish, Italians, Middle Easterners, Chinese, Japanese (shocking mistreatment during WWII), and others.  During WWII, we turned away some ships carrying Jewish immigrant hopefuls, because we didn't want any more of "those" people here.  And over time (at most one generation), they all adopt American styles and values.  Well, all except the Native Americans, whom we appear to be unable to stop abusing, and the African Americans, who never came here looking for a better life, and whom we also appear to be unable to stop abusing.

Yesterday, a large ship rammed and took down a bridge in Maryland.  The bridge is a total loss, and although traffic alerts were broadcast to warn drivers, the people working on the bridge were not alerted.  Six of them died.  As far as I know, all six were from Central America.  Those are the people some of us keep trying to keep out, imagining it would be terrible to have them here.  They were working, on the bridge, had been here for years, had families, paid taxes, and were at least as creditable citizens as the people who don't want them to be here.

When we're not in some sort of hysteria over immigrants, we call (or at least used to call) this country a "melting pot."  And it is.  That's one of our great strengths, as long as we don't pick nonsensical fights with each other.  More or less no one who rails at DEI is a descendant of the Pilgrims, and even if they were, their forebears were unwelcome intruders.  DEI is what this country, when it functions rationally, is about.  African Americans can vote, except where the backward "Americans" are still trying to suppress them.  Women can vote.  Few but the most lost are distracted by miscegenation.

If you've never seen Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," you'll see that Americans tend to be a terrified people.  And for no reason, other, perhaps, than some self-consciousness and guilt.  We're entitled to feel that way, and the best way to keep ourselves self-conscious and guilt-ridden is to follow people like Ronnie DeSantis, and pretend we don't have to know about our mistakes, and the things we did wrong.  DeSantis, huh?  Sounds like maybe a French name.

The G.O.A.T.

I've been back and forth about following sports.  I finally gave up years ago, because the teams aren't devoted to the players, the players aren't devoted to the teams, the salaries are ridiculous (ridiculously high now*, although many decades ago, they were ridiculously low), protections often not good enough, and way too many players seem to want to hurt or damage other players.  To put it in a certain way, I don't follow basketball for the same reasons I don't follow boxing.

*I always remember when Mo Vaughn was a beloved player for the Boston Red Sox, but he left to go to the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Red Sox were offering him $6.2M a year, and he said he had to worry about supporting his family, so he went to the Dodgers, who offered more.  Anyone who can't have a perfectly wonderful life, and provide luxurious support for their family, making $6.2M a year, has problems that more money won't solve.

And it's less likely to decide on a Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) in baseball than in something like basketball, because there are more people on a baseball team.  But there has been talk about Shohei Otani, who is a remarkable pitcher and a remarkable hitter.  These disciplines are commonly thought of as opposite of each other, in the sense that expertise at one undermines quality at the other.  But Otani is sort of off the charts at both at the same time.  Babe Ruth started as a pitcher, too, but when his hitting became pre-eminent, he stopped pitching, to save his arm for hitting.

There's a population of people who say Tom Brady is the G.O.A.T. in football, which has even more players than does a baseball team, but Brady was not great in college, and he wouldn't have been great in the pros without a very protective offensive line, and excellent rushers and pass-catchers.  It would even be hard to say that Brady was the greatest quarterback of all time, because the game has changed, and many quarterbacks these days, most certainly including Brady, don't scramble as they did decades ago.  They just get protected.

Soccer fans seem generally to consider Lionel Messi the G.O.A.T.  He's great, and a great member of a team.  For me, it's Ronaldinho.  But perfectly solid arguments get made for Pele and Maradona.  Thierri Henri is on various people's list, too.

But there's an ongoing and entrenched idea of deciding which player is the G.O.A.T.  Or there's an ongoing and entrenched idea that there could be something like a G.O.A.T.  In team sports, there really couldn't.  With a rare possible exception which we'll explore.  In team sports, everyone depends on everyone else, and even if, let's say in basketball, one player scores more points, or logs more assists, or pulls down more rebounds, it's a team effort, in which plays are concocted, so that a player in a certain position will get more points, assists, or rebounds, and no one could use the stark statistics to decide someone was the G.O.A.T..

And not only that, but various conditions change.  When Wilt Chamberlain played, he was, as far as I know, the only seven foot tall player.  Now, there are several or many.  But Chamberlain had a unique advantage at the time.  And the rules change, favoring rushing, or passing, in football, or, in basketball, a more physical game or a less physical game.  The fans like scoring, so the rules are changed to allow for more points.  That's why in basketball, a three point line was instituted, so that a successful shot from far enough back to earn two points, now earns three points.  What would the earlier point producers have accomplished if a percentage of their shots had produced 50% more points?  Were they not considered the G.O.A.T. then, but they would be if they were playing now?  And what about a shorter player like Steph Curry, who is considered a master of the three point shot?  If that shot doesn't exist, and he has to come to the basket, is he a lesser player?

In basketball, it's fairly common that Michael Jordan, most of whose career was in Chicago, is considered the G.O.A.T.  But let's also not forget that whole teams are constructed around a good or great player, so that player looks better, and the team wins more.  It wasn't Jordan who won six championships.  It was the Bulls team.  And there's an argument that Jordan and the Bulls would not have been as successful without Scottie Pippen.

One of my all time favorites, for a number of reasons, is Larry Bird.  He is very widely acclaimed for his "basketball IQ" and his work ethic.  He started turning the then losing Celtics around as soon as he got there.  But Kevin McHale was then brought in, as was Robert Parish, and Dennis Johnson, and Danny Ainge, and Bird had a short career, due to injuries.  The Celtics of which he was a member for about 12 years won three championships.  How many would they have won if he hadn't gotten so injured because of his fearless play?  Bird was rookie of the year when he started, almost always an all-star, a two time "Dream Team" member, a three point championship winner three times, and after he stopped playing, went back to Indiana (the Pacers) and became coach of the year, and later manager of the year.  One story I heard about him, from one of his Indianapolis players, was that the team was stretching, and Bird, injured and after his playing days, in his suit and leather shoes, got up to leave, and started shooting three-pointers.  The team were flabbergasted that a retired player, not dressed for the court, could, without practice, still put them up like that.  And Bird's influence on the Celtics was to make them all better than they would have been without him.

There are frankly several or many choices for G.O.A.T.  People talk about the late Kobe Bryant, and now Luka Doncic.  And Oscar Robertson, and the immensely successful Bill Russell.  And they're all dependent on their teams, the times, and the rules.  Except for one player.

LeBron James grew up in Ohio, and he didn't go to college.  He didn't have the advantage of extra years of experience and coaching.  He went from high school to the Cleveland Cavaliers.  The team was not built around him, and it did not have great success when he first joined.  He was then traded to the Miami Heat, which won two championships with him.  He then went back to Cleveland, which also won a championship with him.  He then went to Los Angeles, where he still is, and they won at least one championship with him.  James is still playing, now at age 38, after 20 or 21 years.  He makes an impact, and many active and past players are in awe of his talent.  He owns the record for most NBA points at over 40K.  (Although there's a Brazilian guy -- not NBA -- who had over 49K points, and is rooting for James to break his record, because he considers James a "perfect player.")

So, I still say there is no basketball G.O.A.T., or a G.O.A.T. of any team sport, and there can't really be one.  But Larry Bird and LeBron James seem as close as it gets.

So, Ryan Huntington Has Stepped Up His Campaigning. Sort Of.

When I went to get the mail from the box immediately outside my front door today, I also found a door tag from Ryan.  No one knocked on my door today, so someone blew by my house for the purpose only of leaving the door tag.

The tag was completed on both sides of a glossy card.  On the "Vote Ryan Huntington" side, there was a photograph of Ryan (and one of him, presumably, in a group of firefighters), and his "Mission" statement.  Ryan aims to "review, interpret, and understand the culture and history of our Village, so we can create healthy, sustainable and tangible change for residents now.  Which can lead to growth opportunities for the future, while staying true to the integrity and beauty of our Village."  At the end of this side of the card was Ryan's suggestion that we "Vote for Change."

There are several issues here.  First, as I mentioned, someone just wanted to leave the card, but not get, you know, bogged down or waylaid by the time-wasting possibility of a conversation with the people whose votes Ryan wants.  Second, I'm still assuming that Ryan spoke to Chester Morris.  Chester is on the new post announcement circulation for this blog, and if Chester reads the posts, I would have thought he would have given Ryan a heads up to be sure to meet me.  The fact is not only that I did a post about Ryan, but I always offer candidates guest authorship, so they can use the blog to say what they want.  It would have been to my advantage and to Ryan's advantage if he met me.

Third, Ryan wants to become a Commissioner so he can "review, interpret, and understand the culture and history of our Village," etc?  Isn't that backwards?  Hasn't someone who would be a useful and meaningful Commissioner already reviewed, interpreted, and come to understand the culture and history of our Village?  I realize that there are always people who think they can be effective electeds with no prior knowledge, but I haven't seen any evidence that they're right.  I still don't know how long Ryan's lived here, or if he's indoctrinated himself or served the Village in any way.  His door tag seems to make clear he hasn't.  So, he imagines he's going to get elected, then waste time finding out about the Village and how it works, what we've done, what we haven't done, and why we haven't done what we haven't done, on the job?  I don't know anything about firefighters, but I would strongly suspect that firefighters have more sophisticated training than just being children or unrelated civilians who are overtaken by a sudden idea that they should join the FD, then figure out about fires and how to fight them later.

The other side of the door tag has a photograph of Ryan's family.  They're a nice-looking group.  If they wanted to be models, I'd encourage them.  The "About" section talks about how Ryan is a firefighter, paramedic, husband, father, and BP resident (right; he couldn't run if he wasn't a BP resident, for at least a year).  He also notes that he "care[s] deeply" about the Park.

Below that, he lists four goals.  They're essentially the usual boilerplate campaign platitudes, but #3 is curious, because Ryan says he wants to "Renew a culture of collaboration between elected officials and residents, where we seek resident input prior to any project."  So, Ryan doesn't have time to meet his neighbors when he wants their votes, but he wants to collaborate with them about projects once he's in office?  Must be that new math.

If I felt compelled to vote in this election, I'd have a problem.  Dan Samaria was already a Commissioner, and has given me reasons not to vote for him.  Ryan Huntington has a level of visibility that is more frustrating and insulting than it is enlightening and reassuring.  And I don't even know who the other candidates are.  I think there are some, but they're totally invisible.  If I'm wrong, and it's only Dan and Ryan, I won't bother to vote.  Dan won't make a good Commissioner (as if we cared any more, apparently), and Ryan is a "pig in a poke."  If my house catches fire, or I collapse in the street, I hope he helps me.  As a Commissioner?  I'm just not seeing it.

Jim Young, Conservative Republican From Oklahoma, and Christian (Whatever That Has to Do With Anything), Wants You to Know Something.

I voted for Trump – twice. Liz Cheney's book and DOJ's Jan. 6 indictment changed my mind (msn.com)

Young takes a very dim view of Biden, whom he strategically mischaracterizes, or to whom he misattributes problems*, so it's unclear what Young expects to do with his vote.  But he's made very clear what he's not going to do with it.  Although with two very dominant candidates, a vote not for one is a vote for the other.

I have my own complaints about Biden, but I will have no trouble holding my nose, and voting for him.  I won't really be voting for Biden.  I'll be voting against the person Jim Young now finally understands is an antidemocratic and antiAmerican criminal.  (How he managed to take this long to figure this out is a mystery he explains only by saying he read three things that all seemed entirely credible and were precisely in line with each other.  But the fact is that most voters could clearly see this in 2016 and 2020.  And those were the two years Young couldn't see the problem.  Well, he sees it now.  Maybe he was just mindlessly voting against any Democrat.  I didn't much favor Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.  But against the alternative?  Not even close.)

*One issue Young misattributes to Biden is the imagined problem of immigration, or the "southern border."  Young does not mention that Biden agreed to strong shoring up of the southern border, only to have Republicans, on Trump's orders, then refuse to institute that shoring up, so that the imagined problem would still be there at election time, and it could be blamed on Biden.

Anyone who somehow still doesn't recognize how entirely self-focused Trump is, to the detriment of anyone or anything except himself (although his mindless crusades are even damaging him now) has his or her head even further in the sand, or up his or her ass, than Young did.  Until he finally, somehow, "got religion."

I don't know if it's reassuring to see that some people finally get it, or it's further demoralizing to see how many people take forever, or never get it.  It really, really ain't subtle.  Most of us could always see it, and increasing numbers of people eventually do.  If it's not clear to you, even yet, I just don't know what to tell you.  I don't even understand what your problem is.  I just know you very clearly have one.

"Vote Ryan Huntington?"

I was finishing my neighborhood "exercise" walk this morning, and I encountered about a half dozen campaign signs that said "Vote Ryan Huntington."  They were all on 119th St between 6th and 8th Avenues.  They had one of those square symbols in the upper right corner, and if you focus your smart phone camera on it, you get more information.  But not much more.  I have no idea where Ryan Huntington lives, except I'm guessing it's in the Village.  His wife is Danielle, and he has three sons, all of whose first names start with H.  He's a firefighter.

If you want to know more, you have to enter his Instagram page, and since I'm opposed to social media (a discussion for another time), I'm not going to do it.  Oh, what happened to old fashioned BP campaigning, where candidates actually walked the Village, knocked on doors, met you, told you about themselves, and answered questions?  One of the cluster of signs I saw was in front of Chester and Sandi Morris' house, and Chester wouldn't allow someone to put a sign there if he hadn't met them.  So Ryan (is it OK if I call you Ryan?) must at least have met Chester, and probably Sandi.

There have already been a lot of Dan Samaria's reused signs around.  And I know Dan is running for the term that ends this coming November.  But Ryan (I'm going to assume it's OK) had signs made, which he would not have done if he had no ambitions past this coming November.  Frankly, the first thing that struck me about Ryan's signs was the darkish green color, and the upside down triangle outline (the BP outline) in the middle.  It was as if they had something to do with Vermont.  Maybe Ryan comes from Vermont.  Or not.

If I'm being honest and uninhibited (not like my usual inhibited self), I have to say BP politics have fallen apart.  In the past, it was the occasional dysfunctional oddball Commissioner.  Now, it's almost all of them.  It's been years since anyone except Mac Kennedy and I has actually campaigned -- you know, knocked on all the doors, and had sometimes lengthy conversations, and left flyers, and stuff -- and almost as many years since we've had a BP Commissioner who knew anything about the Park, and cared.  (And you know these people wouldn't get elected if we didn't vote for them.  So the lack of ambition and expectation is not just theirs.)  For a short time in the past eight years, Roxy Ross did the Village a favor.  Now, it's just Mac.  (I was hoping John Holland would decide he wanted more than to keep a seat warm for a month or so, but I haven't heard that he does.

This is why it's also been years since we had a competent and remotely interested manager.  And if we don't have a competent and remotely interested manager, then we have a police Chief whose main interests are being a big dog and collecting a nice check.  Actual improvements in the Village?  Um, not remotely.

I don't know if I should wish Ryan good luck.  Good luck with what?  He's got a day job, a nice family (I'll assume), and he probably makes enough as a firefighter that he doesn't need the $2000.  As I said, I have not the slightest idea where in the Village he lives, how long he's lived there, what he knows about the Village (its strengths and problems), and what is his vision, apart from getting elected, which I assume he wants, because he paid for the signs.  Should I imagine the no longer expectable possibility that he'll knock on my door, and campaign like a BP candidate?  Or am I supposed to find out everything I want to know from Instagram?  That's not gonna happen.  The Village is a tiny place.  If things have become that impersonal now, I'll just vote for Dan Samaria, or not bother voting at all.

Should They Look in the Mirror? Should They Just Get New Glasses?

As much as the majority of this country was mobilized against Communism, it's fair to say that Republicans were most virulent, aggressive, and sometimes mindless about combatting Communism.  Setting aside Joe McCarthy's moronic and destructive antics, we propped up a collection of pretty horrible dictators, just because they said they opposed Communism.

But Communism finally fell in most of the places where it dominated.  Its functional birthplace was in what became known as the Soviet Union, and it had other outgrowths, like in China and Cuba.  It also had an outgrowth in Vietnam, because North Vietnam won a war, sort of, and it failed to spread from North Korea to South Korea, because North Korea lost a war.  A number of other countries were absorbed into the Communist regime, but that's because of Soviet imperialism.  Cuba's largely hanging on, China sort of is, and the erstwhile Soviet Union, now Russia and other independents, have had an interesting and troubling journey. 

Two years ago, Russia staged a military invasion of the Ukraine, having earlier taken over Crimea.  Well, it wasn't really Russia.  It was Vladimir Putin.  He invented some nonsensical allegations, and he began expanding his empire.

Vladimir Putin was born into Communism in the Soviet Union.  He was a devoted Communist, and he worked his way up the hierarchy.  Eventually, after the Soviet Union disbanded, he became president of...Russia.  He did it the old fashioned Soviet way, which was all he knew.  He cheated, and anyone who got in his way got killed.  The last one was last week.  Putin is today's Stalin.

So, the United States, still telling itself it "exports democracy," even though it doesn't exactly have democracy to export, came to the aid of the Ukraine.  Until recently.  Now, the Republicans are niggling about supporting the Ukraine adequately, and some of them (famously and idiotically Tucker Carlson, who claims Russia is nicer and better than the US, but who inexplicably doesn't want to move there) are cozying up to Putin.  It's probably important to note that Donnie Trump also cozied up to Putin, because Putin, and a number of other world leaders, know that Donnie is shallow enough and stupid enough to let his head be turned by anyone who says nice things to him.  In fact, Donnie will tell you that.  He'll tell you how wonderful someone is, because they told him how wonderful he is.  If this sounds to you like mutual masturbation, it sounds like that to me, too.

But the point is that the Ukraine's enemy is Vladimir Putin, who is a typical Communist dictator and, as Donnie would put it, if it wasn't about his boyfriend, Vlad, a "thug."  Vlad is doing precisely what the original Soviets did: he's invading and destroying other countries to make them part of his empire.

If there's anyone on earth who should be reliable to challenge that, it's American Republicans.  They should be able to do this in their sleep.  This is a Soviet dictator, once again trying to build himself an empire.  But they can't now.  They have two problems.  Maybe three.  One is that Democrats want to support the Ukraine, and Republicans today are incapable of doing anything in concert with Democrats, no matter how much they would otherwise be inclined to do it.  The second is that the Republican Party is broken and in such shambles that it can't really decide to do much of anything.  Certainly nothing adaptive.  The possible third problem is that Donnie just loves his boyfriend, whom he acknowledges trusting more than anyone, and it's extremely possible he has let his Republican stooges know not to get in his boyfriend's way.  One of Donnie's other psychotic fantasies, assuming he believes it, or cares, is that he will be elected president again, and having retaken the office (oops, sorry, Donnie, I forgot you were arguing that POTUS is not an office.  Well, it is to the rest of us.), he will ask lover boy Vlad to knock it off, which, he would tell himself, Vlad would, because Donnie always believes this nonsense about other dictators falling all over themselves to please him.

It's hard -- impossible, really -- to fathom how today's American Republicans aren't painfully aware of the comically ridiculous, and antithetical to everything they normally believe, corner into which they have painted themselves.  It's as if they no longer even know who they are.

Or, To Look At It In a Different Way, We Can Consider Placebos.

You Know It’s a Placebo. So Why Does It Still Work? | WIRED

It's certainly noteworthy that this article is about both the medical use of placebo, and about politics.  As, frankly, it should be.

Let's start out talking about placebo.  The article mentions that this intervention is ancient.  It mentions that the vast, vast majority of doctors use it (for various reasons, under various circumstances, and with various styles).  I have.  Placebos have a number of kinds of meanings, including becoming what we call "transitional objects."  The article talks about one reportedly very imperfect study that showed placebo benefit in most of the patients in that very imperfect study.  The fact is that in much more careful, rigorous, and proper study conditions, placebo is reliably effective about 1/3 of the time.  I count that as impressively effective.  Interestingly, it turns out not to matter whether the prescriber does or doesn't admit the prescribed substance is a placebo.  When I was in high school, and I worked for a pharmacist, we used to dispense something called "Cebo-Caps."  My uncle, who was an internist, used to prescribe Obecalp (placebo spelled backwards).  In my internship, I did an emergency room evaluation of a man who had what we used to call "cardiac neurosis."  He reported constant chest pain, was nonfunctional, and always thought he was at death's door.  During the history, I asked him about his medications.  There was a very long list.  At some point, he said he was taking "placebo."  I asked him the dose, and he told me.  He didn't seem to recognize that placebo was an inert add-on, so the doctor could give him yet something else without causing drug interactions or exposing him to more side effects.  And setting aside the purely intentional prescribing of placebo, there's the prescribing of various things (medications, surgery, psychotherapy) that the doctor thinks have clinical value, but they don't.  (I just read an article about 18th or 19th C Americans who "reasoned" that tuberculosis was caused by vampires, so they exhumed the bodies of people who died of TB -- and were therefore vampires -- and removed their hearts and burned them, so they wouldn't come out of their graves and give others TB.   Sometimes, it's even proven that the interventions don't have clinical value, but the doctor institutes them anyway, either to be able to offer something, instead of nothing, or to create a basis to charge a fee.

But you don't need me to tell you any of the secrets of medical practice.  If you read the linked article, some of them aren't so secret any more anyway.  This is about more than that. 

If, for example, you look at the "Fortunately" paragraph, you will see that a doctor might prescribe an antibiotic for a condition that is not treatable with antibiotics, or vitamins when there is no deficiency.  The doctor knows s/he is not doing anything active.  But s/he 1) has been consulted, and does not want to feel like a useless disappointment who can't improve the patient's situation, and 2) the doctor has been consulted by a patient who commonly wants something done.  The patient neither knows nor cares that what the doctor is doing isn't going to affect/improve the patient's health.  The patient just has symptoms, and wants something done.  And the doctor gets to pretend to be useful, and gets to charge for the intervention.  So it's really a collusion.

"In a deepfake world where AIs masquerade as people, where marketing calls itself wellness...there's probably nothing so refreshing as a tiny step in the opposite direction: prescribing a pill of nothing, and calling it out as such."  It's a nervy thing to do -- openly admitting you're not doing anything -- and many doctors can't bring themselves to do it.  But as I said, it doesn't change the (1/3 positive) outcome if you do.

"The resulting study" paragraph illustrates how improbably doctors can get away with open label placebo prescribing.  They have the patients to help them, by the patients' in effect inventing their own excuses why something that can't chemically work works.  It turns out to be essential that the patient provides a good deal of the fantasy that inert materials are somehow effective.  In a related setting, voodoo curses "work," because the cursed person believes they work.

"The researcher's bedside manner is crucial...Maybe we start to feel better when someone listens to us, shows respect for our views, and makes common cause with us."  Or even pretends to.  I left off "against our ailments" because it's unclear what the ailments are, or if there have to be any.

"Perhaps OLPs [open label placebos] are a sort of meta-placebo, a testament to how much we believe in our power of belief...A patient may find relief from an open label placebo, the sugar pill that we know is a sugar pill gives us something that its deceptive counterpart doesn't[!!].  It tells us we aren't dupes who can be fooled by lab-coated experts[!!]."  You really have to give those statements careful consideration.  Belief is as good as education, training, and knowledge.  It may be better.  And it allows us not to feel somehow inferior to people who have more education, training, and knowledge than we do.  The table is entirely turned.  The "lab-coated experts" aren't the experts.  The believers are the experts.

"When you venture outside the scientific literature into the world of contemporary consumer marketing, most of the placebos you'll find are still the deceptive kind...Placebos also haunt what the political scientist Murray Edelman famously termed the 'symbolic uses of politics.'  In voters' 'anxious search for direction,'  --[an 'anxious search for direction;' that tells you something you should keep in mind] -- Edelman argued, they might be drawn to leaders who can dramatize confidence 'in a world many of them find alien' -- regardless of whether that performance achieves anything for the voter.  'In place of impersonal threatening forces, followers are reassured by a dramaturgy of personal coping,' Edelman wrote.  That was in the 1960s, but it could just as well have been describing any number of modern politicians."  Or snake oil salesmen.  (If you just became incontinent of urine, you're paying attention, and you get the point.)

"Increasingly, though, cultural (as opposed to clinical) placebos are becoming open label, too."  If you've ever watched Jordan Klepper talk to Trump supporters, and point out their inconsistencies, and the entirely invented, and not remotely true, positions they take, because the "doctor" told them what was the problem, and what was the cure, and they either can't continue the conversation, or they just keep riding the same inane position, you see how the placebo has completely taken hold.  You see how the belief trumps (excuse the pun) all evidence of reality, and how the fact of adhering to a belief is somehow treated as an adequate reason to disqualify experts.  The ability to form, or adopt, an opinion is more compelling than careful and lengthy education.

"So why, when we know the sham treatment is a sham, does it work?  My best bet is that whether we're in a medical setting or casting a vote, we want to feel like someone's taking care of us."  If that sounds like the description of a helpless child, dismissing it that way fails to take into account animal behavior, which is reflected in human nature.  Many animals, including human ones, rely on a pack mentality and social structure.  And it's well known that some non-human animals, and human ones, have a kind of "personal" nature that leads them to lead, and most have a nature that leads them to follow.  Ideally, "leaders" who are doctors are interested in their patients' well-being, as Hypocrates suggested they should be.  The same cannot remotely be said of people who lead politically, or in business.

There are various kinds of toxic "placebos" foisted on people.  Some "leaders" order their followers to take poison, or bully, harm or kill someone else.  Others tell their followers that there are barbarians at the gate, and that gate is, for example, the southern border of this country, which vile, greedy, rapacious, criminals want to breech.

It's tragic that they don't just give out sugar pills instead.

We Came in Second? To California?

America’s Most Racist States in 2024 (RANKED) (msn.com)

This article is someone's way of ranking the racism of states in this wonderful country of ours.  They used two indicators: the number of registered hate groups (hate groups register themselves?), and the number of racist post-election tweets.  It's not made clear how they count racist post-election tweets.  Most commonly, the number of racist post-election tweets is listed as a fraction.  I don't know what 1.4 racist post-election tweets means, unless it's 1.4 per thousand or per hundred thousand or something.  But they don't tell you.

It's a curious thing that Alaska is the least racist state, according to the indicators chosen.  They're said to have one registered hate group, and no racist post-election tweets.  Interestingly, there's been some noise lately about Alaska's wanting to secede from the Union.  It appears they don't think they belong in this group of racist people/Americans.

If you're interested, you can look for yourselves at this list. 

Massachusetts (#32), for example, was much higher than I would have thought.  They were a good deal more racist than Oklahoma (#21), and not nearly as racist as Texas (#49).  Texas and Oklahoma abut each other.  I thought they were the same in terms of racism.  Someone just released a movie about greed and racism in Oklahoma.  Well, maybe Oklahomans are less angry because someone else made a musical about them (it's not particularly great, but at least it's a musical), and Texans are more angry because they're saddled (sorry for the pun) with Greg Abbott, "Lyin'" Ted Cruz (that's what Donnie Trump calls him when he's insulting Ted, Ted's wife, and Ted's father, and Ted is, um, how can put this, performing fellatio on Donnie), and Ken Paxton.

We in "sunny" Florida were the second most racist state.  Apparently, we have 53 registered hate groups and 1.3 racist post-election tweets.

Yeah, OK, California has way more people than we do here, but how do they have 65 registered hate groups, and 0.5 racist post-election tweets?  It's as if Californians were angry enough to have a lot of hate groups, but not angry enough to send out racist post-election tweets.  Californians are so mellow that they're racist, but they can't be bothered to do much about it.

If you're wondering how California and Florida were more racist than Texas, and Texas was #49, it's because they also included DC.  So there were 51 entries, not 50.

Who's Your Daddy? (Who Are Your Daddies?)

Yet again, Donnie Trump is getting donations to pay his lawyers (whom he isn't going to pay).  Now, the tits he's sucking are on "megadonors," not just the small contributors.

Donnie started his life this way.  His biological daddy, Fred Sr, had amassed an impressive (depressing, if you were one of his tenants) portfolio of real estate, and he didn't want to leave it to Fred Jr, Donnie's older brother, who reportedly had a drinking problem.  (Are we, in Donnie and Rep/con fashion, to write off Germans as rigid and unempathic, even about their own offspring?)  So, Fred Sr left his wealth to Donnie, who began squandering and mismanaging it.  I don't know anything about Fred Sr and his wife, but apart from one daughter who became a judge, they seem to have spawned troubled boys.

Why Fred Sr underwrote his loser son, Donnie, is a mystery to me.  But he did, and Donnie lost money hand over fist.  Fred Sr kept underwriting Donnie and his losses.  Maybe Fred Sr was just a superficial and meaningless person, and as long as he could see the Drumpf/Trump name in lights, he was satisfied.  The result, though, is that Donnie's adulthood, failure that it was (bankruptcies, chronic marital failures, etc) was enabled by Fred Sr, because Donnie couldn't do anything except fuck up.  (Except at least he wasn't an alcoholic, like Fred Jr, and he held on to daddy's leg, and made fun of Fred Jr.  That was his big accomplishment.  And it led him to realize that phony images are everything, so creating them became his specialty.)

Fred Sr was Donnie's daddy.  But Fred Sr is dead now, so Donnie has found a collection of other daddies.  He predictably gets himself in various kinds of trouble, and he either stiffs the people he "hires" to bail him out of it, or he gets other suckers to give him their money, so he can...  You know, I don't know what he does with the money.  I don't know if he pays the people he "hires," or he just uses it to support his phony upkeep.  Why should you pay overpriced lawyers to get you out of the trouble you make for yourself, if you can stiff them, like you stiff everyone else, and buy a gold toilet for your 30K sq ft (or is it 11K sq ft?) apartment instead?  And that apartment is worth... Oh, that's right, I read yesterday that anything burdened with the Trump name (anything that hasn't gone out of business already) is dropping in value.

But still, those donors keep coughing up their money.  Why?  Assuming they think Donnie will pull a victory out of his ass (well, our asses), The Guardian says this: "while many donor concerns remain -- not least following Trump's comments about abandoning NATO members -- for some donors they appear subordinate to their support of policies including low taxes and environmental deregulation."  Although The Guardian adds that tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman won't donate again.  It wasn't explained why people with way more money than they can possible figure out what to do with would turn away from someone who will advocate to give them more, and allow them to finish trashing the planet.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe there really is a religion to get.  (Although to be fair to myself, I never said there wasn't religion.  I just said it's based on fairy tales.)  But the point is that although Donnie doesn't approve of addiction to alcohol, he does approve of addiction to money, and he doesn't care how much damage is done in the pursuit of it.  And the same is true of the vast majority of the suckers who donate their money to him.  It's a curious thing that someone with so many daddies has so many people whose uncle he is.

So, we'll see.  Some perseverative idiot who calls himself "Anonymous" always, regardless of the topic of the posts in this blog, enters comments about Trump's winning this year.  I have not the slightest doubt s/he will do it again under this post.  I wonder if s/he is one of Trump's mindless donors, too.  Likely so.

"Secession?" I Think That's the Wrong Word.

So, 36% of Alaskans want to secede from the Union.  Alaska was the last or next to last state to be admitted, and now, they want out.  Alaska Secession Calls Grow as More Than a Third Want State to Leave US (msn.com)  And a proportion of Alaskans is only the largest proportion from any state.  The national average of state residents who want their states to secede is 23%.  Call it a quarter.  Twenty-nine percent of Republicans have given up, and 21% of Democrats are done.

Thirty-one percent of Texans, 29% of Californians, and 28% of New Yorkers and Oklahomans have had enough.  "Just" 13% of Minnesotans, and 14% of Ohioans, Massachusettsites, and Rhode Islanders don't want to do this any more.

New Hampshire is interesting here.  The linked article says New Hampshire citizens are put off by the size of the deficit, but Carla Gericke, "acting president of the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence, 'described secession from the United States as 'an idea whose time has come and a reflection of the frustration everyone on the political spectrum [emphasis mine] is feeling.'"

Earlier this morning, I was reading an article that I can't find again, and it listed someone's view of the 10 worst presidents.  On the list was Calvin Coolidge, who was dramatically hands off of many things, and who shifted fiscal burdens away from the rich, badly aggravating the wealth disparity.  And a couple of them were reportedly personally opposed to slavery, but they did nothing to inhibit it.  Just those two things sound like indicators of the kinds of things that might lead to frustration among today's Americans.  Warren Harding, who made the list I saw, was too busy playing golf and carrying on with his mistresses.

But in my opinion, none of those things are most likely to lead to the level of pessimism and defeat felt by so many Americans, even in the original Commonwealth of Massachusetts and States of New York and Rhode Island.  The biggest problem we have now is that the public are irrelevant.  People are in office because they run for office, and running for office costs more money than the vast majority of people have, and candidates get the money it takes from donors.  It is those donors, not the public/voters, who are the electeds' constituents.  And if government is not in the public's/voters' interest, but rather at their expense, because they have to follow rules and pay taxes, and the rich/donors don't, then why would the public want to be part of the USA any more?  Because we develop and make things here?  They develop things everywhere, and they make them cheaper in other places.

And we've been sold another bill of goods, too.  The First Amendment to the Constitution promises/guarantees us that the Union will not impose a state religion, but many of the states do just that.  There are Americans who insist this is a Christian country, even though the First Amendment says it isn't, and they demand that everyone follow their interpretation of what they think Christian rules are.

Likewise, the "Second Amendment" (I put it in quotes because there is no "Second Amendment."  It has been indirectly repealed.) is about militias.  Many Americans insist it's about guns.  It's not at all.

The 13th Amendment freed the slaves.  This included that they -- African Americans -- had rights equal to everyone else's.  Tell that to African Americans.  Be prepared for an earful in return.

Donnie Trump rejects the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, declaring himself the winner, no matter how badly he lost.  He doesn't believe in democracy or a representative Republic.  And as of the last presidential election, he had a lot of support.  Tens of millions of voters favored him, and after he -- I'm sorry to say this, Donnie -- lost, he still had a significant contingent of Americans who agreed that he didn't.  He just couldn't have.  They attacked the seat of government, and sent all the legislators scurrying.  If many of them were unclear why they were scurrying, Mike Pence was clear: his life was directly threatened, by members of his own party, because he followed the law.

Donnie also rejects Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says that anyone guilty of insurrection cannot hold "any" federal or state office, civil or military.  And again, he appears to have some support for his position, although frankly, that support seems to be waning.  Colorado has found him guilty and will not put him on the ballot.  Maine seems to be following suit.   Constitutional expert Lawrence Tribe interprets that Donnie knows he is disqualified, and is relying on the SCOTUS to say that Colorado and Maine are wrong (based on who knows what, apart from the far right leanings of the majority of SCOTUS Justices), and this is why Donnie wants a wider ranging decision, and the trials he hasn't lost yet postponed until after the election.  He thinks he can still win it, in spite of all his disabilities.  By the way, if you watch Donnie ramble more or less incoherently, you see Donnie, and you see the sign-holders behind him.  What you do not see is the audience, which, by all other inferences, is most likely minimal.  Yes, I know about the polls, but poll results are a matter of how many people are polled, who those people are, and how many people who are asked for their opinions choose to give one.  I'm setting aside whether or not the opinions expressed are true representations of what respondents think.  If you're a fan of Jordan Klepper, and you watch enough of his videos, you'll catch one in NYC on a day Donnie was called into court, and he let it be known this was a time for support.  Almost no one was there.  We're talking about Manhattan, and Donnie couldn't stimulate tens of thousands of people, or a thousand people, or a hundred people, or more than maybe 5-10 people.

No, the word is not "secession.  It's dissolution.  It was Benjamin Franklin who said the Founding Fathers were giving us a democracy/Republic, "if [we could] keep it."  It appears we couldn't.  Or we didn't want to.  We exchanged it for a plutocracy.  And we rely for our choice of representatives on a collection of breathtaking dimwits, most of whom are voters who are mostly influenced by how much exposure candidates buy with money they got from their donors/constituents, and some of whom are the electeds themselves, who have no idea what they're doing, and seem delighted to spout nonsense.

Of course, maybe it doesn't matter if we dissolve or destroy this "experiment in democracy."  If our money-hungry and single-minded focus on continuing to burn fossil fuels finishes destroying the planet, then it's not a further loss if we destroy each country on it, either.