Lest We Forget

No one in the US is immune from the affects of the Corona Virus Pandemic, one way or the other. So for the Democrats and the Biden campaign to target the Pandemic and expose the many flaws Trump and his administration have applied to its defense is understandable. However, I find their focus too narrow, dwelling excessively on the disease and its impact, both on the national health and economy.

We knew before the Pandemic that Trump was a failed human being, let alone President, and needed to be removed from office. It didn’t take a pandemic to understand that.

So much is not being said. Entire books, for example, will be written about the inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants on our southern border, with the callous separating of children from their families, some never to be reunited, or the indifference given to the American Citizens in Puerto Rico, resulting in over 3000 dead. Were those actions of Trump’s even mentioned at the DNC?

I understand his ineptitude (call it “covfefe”) is not being pursued, but what about his general disregard for the job? He played golf 236 times during his first three years, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars (Forbes puts it at over $350 million), much going into his own pocket at the clubs he owns.

He has held 97 (ego) “rallies” since his election victory, again the taxpayers picking up millions in transportation and security expenses. He has tweeted and re-tweeted over 17,000 times during his first 3 years in office. He has tweeted so often on some weekends, it’s difficult to do the math and not conclude he has done nothing else. He watches television constantly, apparently whenever he’s not tweeting or playing golf. He virtually allows Fox News pundits to direct his policy or rage. He doesn’t start his work day until 11am and reads virtually nothing.

Current counters have shown his lies, misstatements, and untruths to now exceed 20,000! 

During his first year in office 34% if the entire White House Administration was either fired or resigned (the average for the previous four Presidents was 8%). He is surrounded by cronies, with enough corruption and indictments to be rivaling the Nixon Administration, always shielded by the Republican Senate. This, of course, includes his own corruptions, one of which led to his impeachment.

There is so much to shine a light on beyond the Pandemic. I have compiled a partial list for my own edification, which I share with you. Please read through and remember, and add any that I missed, which are likely numerous.  They are in a rough chronological order:

-          Inaugural crowd delusion

-          Missing millions from inaugural fund

-          FBI discloses Russia connection

-          Comey fired, Russians in the Oval Office

-          Flynn resigns, later arrested and convicted

-          Manafort arrested, later convicted

-          Gates arrested, later convicted

-          Puerto Rico ignored, 3000 dead

-          Stormy Daniel bribe uncovered

-          Playmate affair exposed

-          NFL slammed

-          Charlottesville and his “fine people” aka Nazis

-          Defends guns after Las Vegas

-          Backs child abuser for Senate

-          Signs Republican tax cut for wealthy

-          “Falls in love” with Kim Jong Un

-          Announces he is a “stable genius”

-          Gives credibility to North Korea

-          Trade wars initiated

-          Trashes Christine Blasey Ford

-          Violates International Iran Nuclear Treaty

-          Attacks Muller

-          Withdraws US from Paris Climate Accords

-          Attacks John McCain

-          Abandons the Kurds

-          His lawyer arrested, later convicted for Trump's crime

-          Holds refugees in detention cages

-          Separates children from families

-          Sides with Putin against CIA/FBI

-          Shuts down Government for 35 days

-          Money illegally diverted for “wall”

-          Withdraws US from Russian Nuclear Treaty

-          Vetos Yemen withdrawal

-          Trump Foundation shut, pays $2MM fine

-          Directs military planes to his Irish golf club

-          Sues to eliminate Affordable Care Act

-          Withholds military aid from Ukraine

-          Pressures Zelenski to investigate Biden

-          Is impeached, with no dispute of facts

-          Orders assassination of Iranian General

If the Covid Pandemic had never reached our shores and the economy, created during the Obama years, had remained intact, there was always a deep well of reason to get rid of this narcissistic clown.

My dream now is to lay down to sleep at night and suddenly realize for the first time in years that I hadn’t heard the name "Trump" once all day.

President Pence, POTUS 46

When President Pence is sworn in we can feel confident there will be no debate over the size of the crowd.  That’s a relief all by itself.

This week Donald Trump Tweeted his suggestion that the 2020 elections on November 3^rd be postponed and it turned the American news streams into various levels of dither. Fox News et al, along with most Republican legislators, just tried to dodge the comment or “laugh” it off. This is something they’ve learned to be quite good at.

Some respected Republicans took issue with it publicly. Democrats, left and center, went ballistic, calling out terms like dictator, autocrat, or destroyer of the Constitution…something they’ve learned to be quite good at.

I think they all may be missing the point.

Since 2016 I have been writing in this blog several times my conclusions that Donald Trump suffers from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and that this condition explains all his actions, short of those he has felt compelled to act on to protect himself. Not to argue this point further, my opinion is leading me inescapably to a final speculation:

Donald Trump will likely resign the Presidency before the November election.

The importance of his Tweet is not the suggestion of a postponed election, something he has no power to do. It is with his reasoning…points he has repeatedly raised. Attaching those points to his absurd suggestion magnifies their importance in his mind.

He has proclaimed that this election will (not might or could) be “the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history”. He neither reflects on the fact there has previously been no inaccurate and fraudulent election in US history or that he assigns all the fraud and inaccuracies to benefit only his opponent. He really doesn’t care a fig about how the election is run.

If Trump truly has a NPD, a major loss would painfully conflict with his self-perception. Intuitively his knowing that a post-election analysis would later deem the contest accurate may be a bridge he is unwilling to cross.  His only out would be to resign. In his mind, the “fraud” in the election makes it impossible for him to win, and that the resulting landslide loss (the election cannot be stopped) will be primarily due to his resignation.

Someone with an NPD faces an imperfect world with subjective perfection. It’s as if he lives his life on reality TV.  His niece, a PhD psychologist, in her book “Too Much and Never Enough” discounts the idea that her uncle has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, even as she admits that every characteristic of that disorder applies to him. She essentially claims he is too complex to be labeled in that fashion. Having read her book I can understand how she would find it difficult to not include the impact of such a dysfunctional family. However for the rest of us, he is simply a dysfunctional President and NPD fits the bill.

Sure, it’s not inevitable. After all, Trump has to deal with his cowardice and there is no telling for sure in the end. He also could delude himself into thinking he could magically win, delusion and paranoia are later characteristics of NPD. Of course it didn’t work well for him in figuring the Corona Virus was just going to suddenly disappear, and that memory may linger.

I’d give better than even money that come late September or early October Trump will throw up his arms in “disgust” and walk off the set, not waiting to hear the words you’re fired. Ol’Mikey will become the shortest office holder in US history, beating out the previous record holder, Warren Harding, by 27 months. I’m sure they’ll get his picture up in at least one little Post Office in Indianapolis.

Don't Know Modern Monetary Theory? Buckle Your Seat Belt.

When I was born in 1950 the National Debt was $257 billion. Adjusted for inflation that amount in today’s dollars would be about $2.7 Trillion. Today that debt is nearly $27 Trillion (watch it run at Debt Clock ) almost exactly ten times the size.

I’ve spent nearly my entire life listening to politicians extol the value of balanced budgets, warn against debt passed onto future generations, and condemn social expenses deemed “welfare”.  Usually these efforts came from those considered “fiscally conservative” and they were a mantra for the Republican Party.

Liberal leaning Democrats have fumed over unpaid wars, special interest pork, and reductions in taxes for the very wealthy.

We have learned, and should know, that it’s never made a difference which political party had power in Washington. Only in 5 of my 70 years have there been budget surpluses (all under Democratic Administrations). Dealing with the “Great Recession” in 2009 the Obama Administration almost doubled the National Debt during his 8 years in office. Trump is getting ready to nearly double it again in his first 4 years, even though he and the Republicans were given a relatively healthy economy.

Given the erratic, embarrassing, upside down world of the Trump Administration, the Covid19 Pandemic, and the explosion of racial awareness you might think enough news is on your plate, and you’d generally be right. Still, have you stopped to think for a second that the trillions of dollars thrown at every problem that has surfaced seem a little different…a little unusual?

Your familiar Republicans, a’la Paul Ryan, who would rail against excess spending and fight to reduce revenues have been deafening in their silence, have they not? If you weren’t paying attention, this disappearing act has been going on since Obama left office, not just since the Pandemic hit. They’ll attack Democratic proposals for spending, which seem endless in their presentation, but go mute regarding the spin of the Debt Clock.

Actually the whole gang, Republicans and Democrats, have quietly entered us into a new era. They have for some time now adopted a new economic reality that embraces a new discipline known as Modern Monetary Theory. Our economic dingy has been launch on to virgin waters and there’s no telling where it’s going to end up.

To give a detailed explanation Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) would be no easier for the average citizen then to explain Keynes’ General Theory (1930s-70s) which focused on Government spending or the Monetarist Theories of Milton Friedman (free market determination of money supply) that followed Keynes. It is easiest just to present the practical application of MMT.

Both Keynes and Friedman argued that excessive increases in money relative to the supply of goods and services ultimately produced inflation.  MMT takes a different tact. MMT argues that there is no limit to the increase in money into the economy as long as the economy has excess capacity and inflation is at bay. Excess capacity is often referred as unemployment.

MMT claims taxes are not used to pay for government expenses; rather they are a tool for government to regulate the money supply.

The supply of money, as you may have been noticing, certainly since 2008 or before, is simply accomplished by the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) creating instruments of debt (bonds). It is simply the way we have for decades printed up money without the necessity of paper. The accounting for this increase in money is what we fondly call the National Debt.

Andrew Yang knew this when he proposed his $1000 a month for every American. The left side of the Democratic Party (Bernie Sanders et al) have also embraced MMT with all their proposals. In neither case was the Theory presented along with their plans.  The Republicans have been no better with unfettered military spending and reductions in revenue.

Bottom line is that there is now no real ceiling to the National Debt nor any reason to reduce it. Perhaps when it is more than twice the Nation’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), in another $20 Trillion or so, they might start to take a look at it.  As long as inflation is cool the spending in Washington will remain hot.

There is good thinking behind MMT, and in an economic petri dish it offers Government extraordinary fiscal power.  Fix the infrastructure, provide health care, or educate the populous, on the short list. However, there are so many variables (foreign currency markets, corruption, natural and manmade disasters, international conflicts and competition, and shortages to name a few) that our Economy seems to resemble the Starship Enterprise now that we’ve been freed from what we thought was gravity.

The takeaway I always come back to from my Econ education is that Economics is not an exact science, it’s a social science. Therefore, it is subject to the behavior of the people that lead and inhabit it. Science can eventually provide reasonable predictability about things like Pandemics and Climate Change, but Economic Theory can take us on a wild ride. I have some suspicion we’re one right now. All Economic theories work…until they don’t. Buckle up.

Sorry “Patriots”, the World Is About To Change…Again

Maybe I shouldn’t think what I do when I see a “Don’t Tread on Me” license plate or flag… probably not healthy…mentally speaking.

It’s not the historical misuse of the Gadsten Flag of 1775 that bothers me, given that flag had nothing to do with individualism or civil liberty. Not even that the symbol and phrase glorify aggression as a means to deal with irrational fears of insecurity, inferiority, and impotence (among others).

That it’s embraced nearly exclusively by Conservative, white men in America is somewhat troubling since it has been picked up, in many parts of the Country, like a baton from those who have had to let go of their “Stars and Bars”. The sound of dog whistles is deafening.

No, what truly bothers me the most when I see that license plate or the little flags attached to automobile side windows, or the banner proudly hanging from a front porch are my thoughts of the children of these “patriots” who are encouraged to have a world view of intractable inertia.

Hopefully, with a dollop of education, a spoonful of experience, and a squirt of empathy those children might live long enough to chuckle at their father’s paranoid antagonism, while simultaneously shaking their heads, possibly uttering the words “poor mom”.

65 percent of Americans today are under the age of 44. None of them have any idea what the world is like without packaging that has one or more levels of security and, I believe, don’t think anything of it. I, on the other hand, occasionally muse over those days when I could just unscrew a bottle of ketchup and pour it out, instead of surgically removing a band of hard plastic around the neck and then ever so slowly pry a sticky tag off the mouth of the bottle.

How long ago did that change take place…the 1960s, 1950s? No, it was actually in the 1980s, beginning September 1982 to be exact. One event, the unsolved “Tylenol Murders”, led to changes that impact every person in this Country, maybe the world.  Seven people died as a result of intentional product tampering. So do you think your Conservative-Libertarian lives are not going to be involuntarily adjusted after the deaths of more than a quarter-million people?

Everyone can speculate on what those changes will be, from access to healthcare to chest bumps, however let me suggest one thing that isn’t going away.

From now on you will never be able to enter a hospital without a face covering. That will probably also be true of clinics, doctor’s offices, physical therapy workplaces, and maybe even dental offices. Essentially anyplace that deals with health services. No telling where else masks might be mandatory, movie theaters, pharmacies, indoor school events…who knows?

Hopefully, it will become common practice for anyone who knows they are sick with a communicable illness, albeit minor (a cold, e.g.), to wear a mask where ever they go, as is already being done in much of the world.

So if you think that wearing a face covering labels you as a Socialist Liberal and violates your inalienable civil liberties…get over it, and get used to it. Just get ready to be carrying a mask around with you 24/7. Your fidelity to “individual patriotism” doesn’t work in a world that includes other people.

Your children or grandchildren will probably never think twice about putting on a face covering when and where appropriate, anymore than they question the security of their food or medicine. They may also never know how uninformed and thoughtless members of a free society could be. Now wouldn’t that be nice.

The War May Finally Be Over...Let's Not Start Another One

As a small child growing up in the 1950s I loved war. The romanticizing of military conflict had exploded after WWII. I was particularly fond of the American Revolution and the Civil War, what little I knew. When I played Civil War, often by myself with make-believe solders, I usually favored the Rebels, despite growing up an hour north of New York City. After all, they were the scrappy underdogs. I didn’t have the slightest concept of what slavery was or had been.

My love of history taught me much more over the decades with a clearer understanding of the conflict we know as the Civil War, but often referred to by Southerners as The War Between the States. The difference in title is telling. Civil War implies a conflict between citizens of the same country while the other is more simply geographic affiliation, e.g. Nationalism

When I moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1981 as an educated, employed, white male I recall being impressed with the displayed (almost) reverence to the Civil War and the allegiances that had supported the Southern cause. After all, north of Gettysburg the Civil War has a fairly small footprint across village greens. It was like going back in time.

I was also keenly aware of the results of discrimination in the South, resulting in the socio-economic deficits experienced by African-Americans. However, it was relatively easy – way too easy – not to associate the plight of poor, less educated Blacks with the conflict that had ended 160 years earlier and its foundational discrimination.

As the years past and we experience life in the South, my wife and I slowly at first and then almost constantly reacted to a societal reality. As “Yankees” we were able to objectively observe how those native to the region had embraced their heritage like a religion. Unfortunately, from our perspective, that “religion” included underlying hostilities, fears, and insecurities. Casting  African-Americans as a single lot (the essence of racism), viewing Northerners as foreigners, extolling Nationalism but with Confederate Flags were all too obvious.

Gun ownership clearly had long expanded beyond practical use and become symbolic of defiance to anything that wasn’t consistent with the Dukes of Hazard.

With a growing family, we found ourselves loving the area, the congenial nature and honesty of Virginians, economic opportunity, and friendship warmly afforded to a young family. Still, when we’d see what was happening around us, the “stars and bars” snapping in the wind everywhere, war reenactments, and what was on the news daily, we’d often say to each other, “when in the hell is this damned Civil War going to end?”

That day may have arrived. Let’s hope so.

The BLM demonstrations have been supported by a wide spectrum of individuals and organizations. As part of it they have shined a stark light on the affection given to a conflict where the origins and motivations have been so removed as to allow those that extolled the conflict to act like small boys playing with make-believe soldiers. Despite any historical reference, the removal of tributes to the Conflict (statues, flags etc) is not only appropriate, but also carries the weight of morality.

Let the Civil War surrender itself to former battlefields and cemeteries. However, I find myself conflicted with the apparent attempt to erase slavery as an historical reality, most recently in the attacking of a rash of monuments that have no representation to the Confederacy, but some connection to slavery (Washington, Jefferson, Keyes, Grant etc.). I’m afraid in doing so they are missing the point and playing into the hands of White Supremacists.

We live in an enlightened world. The immorality of slavery is no more in question, regardless that it was morally acceptable as an institution for 95% of recorded history. Embedded pseudo-slavery, as with indentured servitude, imprisoned individuals, and women generally has existed even longer, and we also know it’s wrong, though in many areas of the world it still survives.

The real crime to consider for Black Americans and ethnic minorities generally is not slavery, it’s what happened after slavery ended: the subjugation of an entire population based on race to keep them as a viable economic resource while simultaneously denying them access to the opportunities of a free society, social and economic. This was true in two essential and critical aspects: education and real property ownership and it was done through legal policy that let discrimination flourish.

The BLM movement needs to pivot from the emotional backlash against history to supporting policies that fundamentally compliment the new understanding of morality we’re experiencing today. Get rid of the Trumplicans and place in office people at all levels of Government that understand how to get policy done.  Protest those that are trying to suppress the vote, and then get out and vote the right people in. It is the issue that transcends race or ethnicity.

It's STILL About Politics

White America: get one thing straight. The demonstrations taking place in the US and around the World are not only proper but are steeped in moral authority. The only questions that come to my mind are why this social response is unlike those for similar incidents and will it make a difference?

It is certainly different in scope.

Six years ago Tamir Rice, an innocent 12 year old boy, was arbitrarily shot to death by a policeman in Cleveland. I say arbitrarily because no effort was made to assess or mitigate the situation before ending Tamir’s life. Instead of rendering aid, the only thing the two policemen did after shooting the boy was to tackle his 14 year old sister running to his side, handcuff her, and put her in the patrol car. Nether police officer was charged or even fired as a result of the incident.

The human tragedy that befell a child and his family, by any reasonable gauge of compassion, certainly equals or (in my opinion) exceeds that which was inflicted on George Floyd. So what made Floyd’s death set the world off while the crime of Tamir’s death was thrown on the 155 year heap of racial injustice and essentially forgotten?  I believe the answer can be summed up in one word: reality.

There was grainy distant video of Tamir’s death, but the vivid video of Floyd’s homicide has taken the plight of African Americans beyond the abstraction lodged in the heads of most white Americans. His death was no different than if he had been hanged, with all of America watching as his feet slowly left the ground. Add to that the methodical and apparent indifference of his “executioner” (dear God, the cop had his hands in his pockets) and there was no wall for the viewer to hide behind.

This may explain the open floodgate of revulsion coalescing a movement that could possibly have legs. I also believe the tension and disillusion created by Western Democracies mishandling of the Corona Pandemic has instilled a degree of empowerment to populations wanting change. But what would that change look like and how could it happen?

The “Greatest Generation” (those Americans born 1900-1925) had, like most generations, several characteristics that were less than great. That generation was the last to live their formative years in an America where racial discrimination was not only prevalent and tolerated, but was also considered ethically correct. There was virtually no moral imperative for the vast majority of white American to combat racism or most ethnic discrimination. Nationalism trumped post-Civil War inequality. It was how things were and, as most white people felt, how they were supposed to be. The success of WWII was used as justification.

The white Baby Boom Generation grew up in a transitional period regarding discrimination, experiencing both the clash of civil liberties against moral injustice, but also the carryover of their parents world view. As adults enjoying material growth, boomers along with their parents didn’t (or wouldn’t) comprehend the painfully slow cadence of social change.

A relentless surge of economic inequality separated the two worlds of those landed and educated, and those who were not. The police, in a very real sense, evolved into a domestic army “defending” one against the other.

However, an important transformation took place since 1960 and it accents the significance of the demonstrations we are seeing today. There are no corners left in this Country where racial, ethnic, or sexual discrimination is considered morally and ethically correct. Opposition to the necessary changes or bravado that supports White Supremacy is now only founded in contrived fear; fear of losing power, property, lifestyle, and hubris.

I have great faith that as the ethics of Millennials and their children drive the social structure in the US, real decline in ethnic, racial, and sexual discrimination (including immigration) will occur. However, systemic inequality needs help and protesting by itself won’t do it.

Economic inequality, veiled white supremacy, and even response to natural disaster (e.g. pandemics) exhibit real flaws in representative democracy. We can’t avoid the System and we shouldn’t, given its merits and history. However, a real political tsunami is needed and it can be done within the System.

The Republican Party, at all levels, needs to be voted into insignificance, where it rightfully belongs. The Republican Party has totally lost its moral compass and has become bonded only by limited special interests and the type of self-aggrandizement personified in Donald Trump. It survives primarily through disinformation, which is consistent with a Party that truly represents a precious few.

Special interests by definition are not bad. The Democratic Party is diverse enough to corral large numbers of interests into a coherent set of policies. It could actually enhance the possibility of a viable new ethically based major party.  My hope is that Biden chooses his VP and Cabinet based on their proven ability to get things done…to compliment the emotions of the times, not wallow in them.

Searching for Empathy

Never in my lifetime has public leadership been so needed or so lacking. We are living in a paradox where a pandemic, a crisis if you’d prefer, is impacting a vast majority and at the same time only impacting a thin minority.

We easily know how we’re impacted; businesses closed, jobs lost, jobs furloughed, massive debt, economic restructuring (online way up, bricks and mortar way down), restricted mobility, families split, savings exhausted, and so on. But what about the sickness and death, or the overworked, endangered healthcare workers? Not so much impact there.

Take my home state of Virginia as an example. As reported in the New York Times May 22, Virginia has reported a total of 34,137 confirmed cases of Corona infection which has resulted in 1,099 deaths. Put another way, 1 out of every 250 Virginians has been diagnosed with the Corona virus and 1 out of every 7,700 had died from COVID19. 

The chances that any given uninfected Virginian knows someone who has been infected is remote. Knowing someone who gets seriously ill even more so. Knowing someone who has died from it becomes minute. If you skew those numbers by removing those sickened or died in nursing homes and prisons, populations which Americans have a shameful way of discounting by easily forgoing compassion, it is no wonder why people cannot “feel” the effect of the actual disease in a personal way. In most other states it is even more so.

Nationally, there are about 300,000 nurses working in critical care, or about 1 out of every 1000 Americans. Doctors number far less. The number of those nurses who get infected amounts to 1 out of about 22,000 Americans. Exact numbers are not known, but these are reasonable estimates.

The bottom line is this: of those Americans rebelling against economic restrictions, mobility restrictions, and behavioral directions, the vast majority has had no direct, personal experiences with the disease itself…devastation for a few, a news stream for the rest.

Initially the prospect of getting terribly sick and even dying generated enough fear to curb the behavior of most people. Living a confined lifestyle felt more like participation in a greater effort. Then communications from the Federal Government became disjointed, rambling, contradictory, or even bombastic.

In time there became an almost carnival believability to the predictions and estimates. With no plan for everyone, we began to watch fifty different plans evolve, mostly piecemeal in States that were being infected at different rates and at different times. Now we're seeing it again as restrictions are removed.

Only three weapons were disbursed to fight this invisible enemy and late at that; keep distance between yourself and others, wash your hands, and don’t touch your face. The importance greatly depended on what television network a person watched. It was good advice, but for many it did not feel commensurate with the social upheaval.

If you were deemed a person at risk for COVID19 mortality then the dire nature of the messages (or at least some of the messages) made the sequestered times seem even more uncertain. If you were a person considered not at risk, the sacrifices (liberty, mobility, economic security e.g.) began to appear excessive as one’s individual situation was weighed against amorphous predictions.

The incompetence of Trump only widened our already polar political and social divisions. Medical directions or even the entire Pandemic itself has become attached to political conspiracies or infringements of “patriotic” liberties.  Liberal obsession with the past and future dire consequences of Trump’s ineptitude only exasperated the disconnect between what is and what should be.

Real leadership finds a middle ground between fear and blind trust. For example, we have known since December that an airborne, person to person virus was loose in the world. If an American President had only prepared the nation to make the initial, simple sacrifice of wearing masks in confined public spaces and other large gathering the consequences of the virus would have been substantially reduced, both health and economic.

Now today wearing or not wearing a mask has political considerations. How crazy is that?

Leadership can help people understand something they can’t feel, to empathize when experience provides no basis for empathy. It’s done with honesty, humility, responsibility, and by example. It could have made small but critical sacrifices not a restriction of individual liberty, but an enhancement to it.

What Is Religious Freedom in America...Really?

Well before the end of 2019 I received a large 8x11 flyer in the mail. When opened to its full size it showed a 2020 Congressional candidate’s face filling the page, hands together on a table and eyes closed in deep, contemplative prayer…nicely backlit. Next to her, appallingly, was her adorable daughter, maybe 4 or 5 years old, in an identical pose.

This was a political flyer, of course. The copy throughout contained a single message. The candidate, Tina Ramirez, was seeking political office to primarily protect my “religious freedom”. I’m uncertain as to what her daughter was there for. My guess it was for the treat she’d receive after the photo shoot.

Most of the copy in the flyer focused on the claimed efforts Ms. Ramirez has made regarding the violation of religious freedom internationally through organizational affiliations or employment. Religious conflict and discrimination in various countries around the world, while often tragic, is not an eye opener. However, at the top of her brief resume on international religious freedom were in big, bold, and red letters: FIGHTING FOR OUR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.  

“Our” religious freedom? Just what is being sold…and to whom?

When I tried to research what religious freedom in America means to a self-described “Christian Conservative” like Tina, I found it frustrating. I wanted either a definition or some description of the violations to religious freedom that needed thwarting.  What I found instead was constant references to just how important religious freedom was. I mean…religion…freedom…need they say more? I guess not. It’s like fighting for MOM and DAD.  No point wallowing in the detail.

For example, the respected opus magnum of Conservative literary thought, The Heritage Foundation, waxes on about how religious freedom is “one of the most pressing issues in America today”. They also say it has nothing to do with…well…religion. Like other proponents of religious freedom they point out the obvious ability to worship your faith in America is not inhibited in any way.

What they claim is that certain laws can conflict with certain ethics that are part of one’s religious faith. Interestingly, they include agnostics and atheists in this conflict, so you’re left with wondering what religion has to do with it at all.

So I go looking for examples of how the oversight of society (i.e., governmental laws) has violated the ethics of Christian Conservatives so as to make them have to behave in a way that violates their faith.  I look and I look and I look. I find a handful of references to restricting Christian scripture on governmental property or public schools, or “Merry Christmas” vs. “Happy Holidays”, but it is hard to see how such issues restrict a Christian to “live their faith” independently. I could really only find one reference which made that claim and it revolved around homosexuality.

It seems that as sexual orientation has become a protected class (in order to stop the associated discrimination) it has butted up against Christian sensibilities. It actually appears that, figuratively, the whole defense of religious freedom in America focuses on wedding cakes for gay marriages. The implied argument is that this ominous hook, forcing Christian Conservative bakers to sell cakes to gay couples getting married, is the slippery slope to religious oppression. Thank goodness we have Tina Ramirez fighting to make this not happen.

Here’s the reality. We live in a marvelously free country that is constantly fending off special interests trying to undermine that freedom. Tina Ramirez may not want to protect religious freedom at all. It can’t be just about cakes and gay weddings. What is certain is that Ms. Ramirez wants to be elected to Congress and she is willing and enthusiastic about using faith and fear to garner votes, and she is flat out not interested in non-Christian support.

We have religious freedom in America because our Government is secular. Our Constitution is just words on paper. What gives it strength is a strong and independent Judiciary and the blanket willingness of the electorate to accept the conclusions of that Judiciary.

If Ramirez were elected to Congress I am lost as to what Tina would do to promote religious freedom. If her efforts, in some vague and ethereal way, would be to bring more Christian ethics to Government, especially by seating bias judges, then the word “freedom” shouldn’t be part of her handle.

However, I’m cynical enough to believe that “religious freedom”, like abortion, immigration, and health care, e.g. are just marketing tools. Once a Congresswoman she would join the rest of her Party to fight against the great unwashed, the fake free-press, and the looming Deep State…primarily by cutting taxes for the wealthy.

When Good People Go Wrong

In a (properly distanced outside) discussion with good friends about the COVID19 pandemic, one person mentioned how he had gone to Lowes recently and that it was quite busy. He continued that many of the patrons weren’t wearing masks. I find myself in some awe at that reality, which I have seen in other places as well.

I then volunteered that if I were an employer, for the sake of my employees, I wouldn’t allow customers in without a mask. One who is a fine and caring person (and a very good friend), looked at me and said “are you some kind of Nazi?” I was taken aback. Defensively (I hope calmly) I told her she’s been watching too much Fox News. She retorted that I hadn’t been watching enough. Exchange fini.

What troubled me as I left, without malice, was the fact that I had been watching plenty of Fox Cable News, probably too much, in my attempt to understand the sources and motivations behind the manipulative messages they convey. I also find it informative since our POTUS puts into action and policy much of what he watches on Fox, since he feels it reflects his so called “base”. That in itself is extraordinarily sad testimony.

Most masks, especially the homemade t-shirt variety, don’t do squat for keeping micro monsters from sneaking in, but they help immensely from keeping wet splatter from flying out. The fact is much of the general population doesn’t understand that the purpose of wearing masks during a mostly airborne viral pandemic is to cover the mouths of infected individuals who don’t know they're infectious. The metaphor on the (obviously facetious) Nazi comment was more about perceived (via Government) social intrusion into personal “liberty”. That a mask somehow inhibits my liberty is (pardon me) on its face…ridiculous.

This whole encounter, like others, drew me back to 2003-2006.

My son, graduating from high school, had been recruited to join the Virginia National Guard, which he (and I) thought an opportunity for the limited service and benefits. At the time we had no idea that Bush/Chaney would decide to use National Guards across the country as a backdoor draft to carry out their plans in Iraq. My son ended up spending two years in Iraq, risking his life to varying degrees every day (I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it literally).

Less than one percent of the American population was directly impacted by that War, as he and our family was. He was wounded in year one. No one even had to pay for the conflict, it being totally financed by borrowing. I knew it was ill-conceived before it started and a fiasco soon after. Yet I had to listen to the clap trap Conservative echo-sphere go on continuously about the honorable mission, the patriotism, the American retribution for 9/11, the heroic sacrifice to Flag and Country, and, of course, the despicable nature of those that dissented the actions of that Republican Administration, the Liberal Deep State conspiracy.

Conservatives no longer defend the Iraq war given the waste, the tragedy, the devastation, and futility of that meaningless and contrived adventure. You never saw any retractions on Fox News. They also don’t remember it much either, which is easy when it’s lived as a passive news feed.  I haven’t forgotten it. I never will.

Now that same son is a nurse, working long hours in a COVID19 bio-containment floor at the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore. He and his co-workers are the bottom line dealing with the impact of this pandemic. As this disease plays out either over time or by vaccination, many Americans will never have to face much more than inconvenience and their fears. Many will not care to understand that by acting collectively we could reduce the need for medical intervention. They will not bother to question why, adjusted for population, our death rate for COVID19 is 35 times higher than South Korea’s, which was on an identical timeline.

Too many good people will immerse themselves in Fox & Friends, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity, e.g.  They will not listen to other sources of information (nearly all other sources) of which they have been convinced are “fake”. There is currently a drumbeat in the Conservative echo-sphere promoting behavior in this pandemic to compliment a dangerous and erratic President on the hope that enough ‘good times’ will emerge before November. So fearful are they that “Liberals” are coming to take their money, kill babies, ban their religions, and confiscate their weapons.

I suspect that a year or three from now the 100,000 or 200,000 American dead will be forgotten, possibly considered just as a cycle of life by some of those who considered collective behavior as antithetical to perceived American “Freedom”. It will fade, just as Iraq has turned virtually invisible.

Those that are currently knee deep in the crisis working to save lives will not have forgotten. Perhaps they will have the courage to wear masks in the future when they are ill and out in public, as is already done in many parts of the world. They may just think of that as kind, and the right thing to do.

Pessimism or Realism?

It is beginning to appear obvious that the United States is heading down a road to defeat the Corona Virus and CoVid-19 through Herd Immunity. If true, it will not likely be a pleasant road to travel and the end of the road will not lead to a past which we lament as “normal”.

Perhaps the US is just too big. Maybe it is our current lack of central leadership. It could possibly be the independent nature of our citizenry or the divisiveness that feeds off that independence. Perhaps the dissemination of information is too compromised or we’re too mobile or we’re too selfish or too ignorant or too fearful. Maybe it is all those things…and more.

So it appears we can’t do what has been done in South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Iceland, France, Norway, and many other countries we categorize as “free”, and other countries, like China, which are not.

The United States, undirected by our Federal Government, has decided to ride out this virus and the disease it causes with an attitude something along the lines of let the chips fall where they may. Our “curve” will not look like the countries who have decided to limit the infection as a means of curtailing both the mortality and the stress on medical services.

Our “curve” will be long and drawn out, more like a bumpy, gradual slope. The major effort will be to apply treatment to the disease once contracted as a means of reducing mortality rates. However, the strain on our health care system will be enormous. It will become the unstated position that (figuratively) all Americans will catch the virus eventually, barring a vaccination which seems unlikely for years.

We can already see and hear in the Conservative outpouring of dissatisfaction that sickness and death are simply a cost factor in the quest for maintaining a lifestyle. Freedom from disease seems to not come under the general heading of Freedom.  Much of it is wrapped in politics and Fox News profits, buffered with Conservative conspiracy promoters (at rallies to end shut downs there are more professionally made Trump 2020 signs than any other). It may not matter at this point.

Those that have gone along with the concept of reducing the contagion through seclusion and distancing to a point where the virus can be managed through testing and tracking are increasingly being compromised by authority. Staying at home, faithfully washing, and maintaining distance are going to start feeling like just delaying the inevitable. If enough of the population is encouraged to defy the science, the futility will become manifest.

The great irony, of course, is that the beloved lifestyle that the dissenters want to go back to will not be anything like it was before. Likely it will be at best disheartening and at worst disastrous.

Death rates could be socially debilitating, especially as more and more of those advocating “back to normal” become directly affected.  Health care costs will be catastrophic. If Trump and Republicans are removed from power in November, the fight for central control of medical costs will reach a new level. The need for such controls will be bordering on economic survival. If Trump is re-elected I believe our health care system will collapse for a majority of the population. Americans attempting to travel may become international pariah, requiring testing wherever they go and/or being quarantined.

The easiest place where pessimism can fade into realism is the understanding that a protracted impact of the Pandemic will have a greater overall negative impact on the economy then the short term constriction we’re currently experiencing. We will learn to live with the disease, but good economic times rely on reasonable predictability by an influential majority. Under the shadow of a lingering pandemic, the future will hold precious little assurance in its outlook.

Those that are at high risk have the uncomfortable prospect that as isolated as they might try to be, they most likely will catch the disease from those that have abandoned collective solutions. Ultimately they may die because of it. They will be the chips fallen where they may.

The herd will survive, of course, we always knew it would. Just be aware that the herd, and the fields it roams, will not resemble the Nation before 2020. That’s not even the pessimistic part. The real pessimistic view is that because of our discord and lack of leadership we will not end up any better for the experience.