United States – SCOTUS

The federal courts began a journey years ago that troubled many, both lawyers and laypeople. Recognizing that Blacks had been mistreated for years, they thought it would be inadequate to simply make things equal and fire a new starting gun. They permitted various forms of racial favoritism to allow a period of catching up. Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that this would not be permanent but was needed temporarily. Some of these “temporary” measures have been in place for more than fifty years.

Justices Thomas and Alito have been leaders in calling for an end to this. 2026 is the year SCOTUS is making the change. One measure was affirmative action in college admissions. The court ruled in favor of students who sued Harvard to stop this.

Another area was an interpretation of the Voting Rights Act requiring the creation of “majority minority” districts to ensure that minorities are elected. Democrats and the NAACP brought suits to force states to add more of this type of Congressional district. U.S. District Court orders did that in Louisiana and Alabama. Another suit was pending from North Carolina. Both legislatures took the issue to the Supreme Court. In Louisiana v. Callais, SCOTUS struck down a plan to create a district specifically shaped to ensure the election of a second Black representative.

District six was majority Black. District two was redrawn as a second majority-Black district following a lower-court order. That was the subject of this lawsuit.

After that ruling, SCOTUS vacated a lower court ruling ordering Alabama to add that kind of district. A similar suit seeking a court order to redraw lines in North Carolina was withdrawn.

This will not necessarily be an overwhelming loss for the Democrats. If you take a district that is overwhelmingly Black and Democratic and move some of its voters, you are adding Democratic voters to other districts. The Republicans must be careful how they do it.

Virginia – SCOVA

Virginia had a constitutional amendment controlling its redistricting. A bipartisan commission drew the lines with fairness in mind. It worked. The eleven-seat Virginia delegation had six Democrats and five Republicans. That split matched the 2024 Presidential and U. S. Senate vote percentages.

In 2025, the Democrats made the state elections about Donald Trump. Don’t ask what we’ll do, just talk about him. When they got in, they weren’t the typical blue to purple Virginia party people expected. They went all-out woke, including genetic males in women’s locker rooms and sports, and an anti-ICE, anti-law enforcement attitude.

They argued that the need to stop Donald Trump meant they had to help the national party get control of the House of Representatives by any means necessary. They scheduled a referendum to allow a new redistricting to replace the balanced one the people had just voted for.

There was some doubt about the legality of the timing on this. The state constitution requires an election between the proposal of an amendment and its vote. The legality turned on the definition of an election. Those who wanted to have the referendum argued that “election” meant just election day. The opponents noted that more than a million votes had been cast by early voters in the 2025 elections when the amendment was proposed. That meant an election was happening, and no amendment could be put before the voters until 2027.

Plaintiffs sought to block the referendum, but the Virginia Supreme Court wouldn’t hear the case before the vote occurred. I have seen courts refuse to hear cases and permit unfair and questionable voting changes. In a previous article, I didn’t understand why the court allowed the referendum to proceed.

During oral arguments, a question was raised about whether the court would consider the voters’ approval of the referendum in its deliberations. They said that did not matter. That is true in one sense, but not another.

In a YouTube video, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli explained that the court does not rule on legislation until the governor acts. They don’t waste their time on a bill that might be vetoed. They viewed the referendum the same way. The voters could have “vetoed” the legislature’s action by voting down the amendment. The 51.5 to 48.5 was close, but it did pass. That meant there was a law to consider, and the court did so.

Various ideas are being considered now. Most of them are poisonous. The current 5-6 districting plan could be replaced by a new amendment. One proposal would fire all the justices and replace them with people more accommodating to the legislature.

The courts will always be seen to be involved in redistricting. Even if a court refuses to hear a case, the would-be plaintiffs will think that the court has taken the other side.

Thomas discusses the Declaration and the statement that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” as the underlying principle of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He assumes governments and laws are created to protect those rights.

The Bill of Rights was not written as a list of services the government was to provide for citizens. Rights were understood as freedoms that the citizens had, which the state could not abuse. The Constitution limited the government’s actions.

That was the way the law was understood until the Progressive movement early in the Twentieth century. The Progressives believed they were smarter than the Founders and that the Constitution should no longer be viewed as a limiter constraining imperfect human beings. They had evolved beyond the timid understanding of the founders.

Hillsdale College produced an almost eight-hundred-page collection of American historical source documents called The U.S. Constitution: A Hillsdale College Reader. Chapter ten is “The Progressive Rejection of the Founding.” It shows the views of the progressives in the first quarter of the twentieth century. They believed in a different source of rights. It is an excellent way to understand the differences.

Frank Goodnow was President of Johns Hopkins and the first president of the American Political Science Association. His 1915 paper, The American Conception of Liberty, explains why the founders built what they did when he says:

The political philosophy of the eighteenth century was formulated before the announcement and acceptance of the theory of evolutionary development.

Then he notes the post-Darwinian attitude when he explains:

Rousseau in his “Social Contract” treated man as primarily an individual and only secondarily as a member of human society. ...
In a word, man is regarded now throughout Europe, contrary to the view expressed by Rousseau, as primarily a member of society and secondarily as an individual. The rights which he possesses are, it is believed, conferred upon him, not by his Creator, but rather by the society to which he belongs.

PBS picked up a series James Burke produced for the BBC about the impact of science on society. Chapter 9 of The Day the Universe Changed is aptly named; Fit to Rule. Burke discusses Darwin, evolution, and how various groups used it to justify putting themselves over others with varying degrees of severity. Capitalists, Aryans, hereditary upper classes, and various ethnic and racial groups pointed to The Origin of the Species as proof that they should rule and hold others down.

Justice Thomas understood that the version of that the movement in the United States had its own moral problems and was part of something bigger that had even worse problems worldwide. The U.S. Supreme Court had its own infamous “Three generations of imbeciles is enough” ruling, allowing sterilization as part of the “improving the race” movement by the progressives. Much of it occurred in minority communities or among people who had no voice. It was reduced, but not eliminated, after the public heard about the Nazi atrocities.

The Justice went on to link the progressives to the moral disasters of the Nazis and Communists.

Matt Ford of the National Review opined that the Justice “Can’t Get … History Right.” He objected to the Justice’s view that progressivism was part of the cause of those disasters. He seemed especially annoyed at the idea that Nazism, “National Socialism,” was in fact, socialism of any sort. For some reason, leftists think they’re better than Hitler if they can prove that “left” and “right” look like this:

That is, of course, meaningless if you are dead because you are an egg and the leader “had to break eggs to make an omelet!” Hannah Arendt has a better term: Totalitarian

I don’t understand why those on the left are more offended by Hitler’s crimes than Stalin’s and Mao’s. Not that Hitler didn’t want to do more harm, but the other two each killed many more people than he did.

Burke has a quote to show another part of Darwin’s impact:

Darwin was to have one last major success in perhaps the most unexpected of quarters. When he read Origin, Marx wrote to Engels: ‘Origin is the natural history foundation for our views.’
…
Marx was impressed by Darwin’s thesis that the struggle for existence was at the root of improvement. For Marx, the social equivalent lay in the class struggle towards revolution.

Justice Thomas is right. Darwin has been used as a justification for all who want arbitrary power over others. As Friedrich Hayek has warned, socialism is simply The Road to Serfdom.

Virginia and New Jersey elect Governors the year after the Presidential elections, and often the state winners are from the parties that lost the Presidency. That happened in both states this year. Abigail Spanberger ran as a “don’t ask me what I’ll do” candidate. That is the winning Democratic tactic in any area remotely moderate.

The Democrats also gained a large legislative majority. Their announced agenda is anything but moderate. [Having] taken power in Virginia, [they] are now proposing more than fifty tax increases in the state legislature — including taxes on dog walking, gym memberships, dry cleaning, and parcel delivery.

Spanberger is also anti-ICE, pro-open borders, open to both sexes in women’s locker rooms and sports. Her attempt to understand perpetrators rather than victims is causing problems, as multiple innocents are dying due to a lack of criminal enforcement, especially in Northern Virginia.

But the real hardball is being played when it comes to changing the rules for national elections. Virginia had a constitutional provision governing congressional districting. It called for a neutral method to be used that would do a fair job. They produced a 6-5 Democratic delegation, which corresponds to the Presidential vote, which Harris won 52-46.

But that is not good enough for this regime. Claiming the need to be “fair,” they managed to get the Supreme Court of Virginia (SCOVA) to let them “bend” a few clearly written rules in the state constitution and hold a referendum on April 21 to change the constitution so they can redistrict. The referendum was also advertised as an emergency, temporary measure. Right! The referendum passed by three percent, 51.5 to 48.5.

SCOVA could still enforce the actual laws and overrule this, but I’m not holding my breath. It will be harder because the vote is a fait accompli.

Now look at a proposed map.

Understand what this means. Fewer than 3% of voters used a questionable referendum to shift four seats from one party to the other. Those four seats represented relatively rural areas of the state and views that coincided with the people they elected. This dubious process is going to have largely urban candidates who are part of the Democratic majority in Congress representing people who don’t agree with that.

In addition to going after Congress, they are going after the Presidency. The legislature passed, and the Governor signed a bill adding Virginia to the National Popular Vote (NPV) Compact. This is a mechanism to invalidate the Electoral College without amending the Constitution. Given that most of the support for it is from Democrats, you can assume they believe it will help them.

The winner lost the popular vote in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. Democrats won the popular vote in 2000 and 2016. In 2024, they lost both. They usually win the popular vote. Large states like California, New York, and Illinois can return large pluralities that don’t fully benefit the candidate when only the electoral votes matter.

There are 435 members of the House of Representatives, one hundred Senators, and three votes for the District of Columbia. This means there are 538 members of the Electoral College, and 270 are needed for a win. Although we all think we have the right to vote for electors, that is not true. That has developed into a custom. All the states have just done it that way.

The Constitution says:

All states currently allow voters to choose a slate of electors by voting for a candidate. Whichever candidate wins, their slate is the group of electors for that state. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Nothing will change nationally until enough states sign on so they have at least 270 votes and can be sure to win the election. Even then, nothing happens if a candidate wins both votes.

If the two kinds of votes differ, a state’s voters will have their choice represented if they are not part of the compact or if they voted along with the popular vote.

The difference occurs once the compact is in place, a state is part of it, and the state’s choice lost the popular vote and would win the electoral vote without the compact. That state would not send the electors whom its citizens voted for. The slate of the national popular vote winner would be seated instead. Why did the people of that state bother to vote?

This mechanism gives every less-than-perfectly honest vote counter an incentive to pad the vote count. A few hundred thousand added Democratic votes in city after city don’t matter all that much in the current system. They might flip one state’s result. Adding these false numbers to a national tally to decide the election is dramatically different.

Also, whoever counts last has a controlling position. They are in the best position to fudge the numbers. They know how much bending is needed. The three West Coast states will make this whole thing so untrustworthy that I can see an almost immediate pressure on states to bail out.

The “National Popular Vote Compact” mechanism is virtually guaranteed to destroy whatever faith remains in elections. “If you can’t win, change the rules,” is not the appropriate attitude in a free and open society. It does make sense in a “Win today – Tomorrow be damned!” world.

The role of the “Good Samaritan” is a short-term role aiding a limited number of people. Before the welfare state, churches, and synagogues, often ethnically based, or social groups would care for families dealing with tough times. Sometimes help was in the form of clothing or food. Immigrants would be helped in getting acclimated. Translations, help with forms and assistance maneuvering through government red tape were provided within these groups.

The newcomers and their children would settle in, stop needing help, and start helping others. They would continue to be proud of their heritage and certain that their foods were best but also be happy and grateful to be Americans.

There is a classic story about Sunday School and “Loving Your Neighbor.” Suzy was a nice 8‑year‑old whose 5‑year‑old brother, Johnny, was causing her lots of trouble. When she was told that she was supposed to love her neighbor, she agreed that it was the right thing to do if she did not have to love Johnny. There is a lesson here that Crawford discusses.

We are commanded to love our personal enemies. We are also commanded to love our neighbors. Conveniently, these are often the same people. The neighbor, like the personal enemy, is someone specific and concrete, someone known. He is therefore someone one could love. But for the same reason, he is someone who is difficult to love. … [My brother Johnny] are you kidding me?!

We can easily love, or say we love, people who we know only as an abstraction and at a distance. It is cheap virtue to display lawn signs and bumper stickers about your love for a group you have never encountered. It leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who have been or continue to be harmed by that group.

Parents teach their children the difference between safe and dangerous. That applies to people as well as stoves. That task also falls to political and religious leadership in different realms. We expect parents to train and warn their children that certain actions and people are not what they seem to be and must be avoided.

Crawford talks about two Greek words for enemy. Our leaders are making things murky to serve their goals. The simplest parallel is the Trojan Horse. When people arrive in these numbers with large percentages of young unattached men it feels like a military landing.

There is a major difference between our obligation to treat the individuals we meet with due concern and allowing or encouraging a massive migration of people who will immediately put our societies at risk. That is not charity, it is stupidity. I am not going to cut our leaders slack. They are not naive. There is financial and organizational benefit involved here. These leaders are misusing the teachings to support their purposes.

The most insane part of it is so-called birthright citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment was written at the end of the Civil War to make sure Blacks would be citizens as they should be.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

There are two methods for assigning citizenship: by blood and by soil, The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was intended to exclude non-residents or non-citizens and create “by blood” citizenship. It referred to the Blacks born in slavery or purchased into here as “born or naturalized.” The text assumed they had no foreign allegiance.

Obviously, children of diplomats, or foreign officers in training here, or embassy staff would be citizens of their parent’s country. Children of American officials and military born overseas are Americans at birth. These children have their citizenship by their bloodline.

Birthright citizenship grants citizenship by soil depending on the land where the baby lets out its first scream. Sometimes, the mother comes into the country illegally and without the resources to pay for the medical care needed for childbirth. This is not a gracious way to start a bloodline connection to your fellow citizens.

There is another way to start that leads us to believe the child will never have loyalty to the nation. Assume an enemy county called Eland wants to plan for the long term. They routinely take women late in their pregnancies and fly them to the United States. They have children who are U.S. citizens and mothers and children fly home to Eland. They spend years being indoctrinated in favor of Eland and against America. They have created a bloodline of American citizens who are enemies of America.

But they are also given excellent academic training in English and kept current on matters of fashion and slang. Then Eland arranges for them to be accepted by excellent universities in the USA. Eland now has an active force of educated English-speaking American citizens completely loyal to another country.

When Lincoln violated habeas corpus to keep Maryland in the Union, he argued that the Constitution is not a “suicide pact.” The question for the courts is simple: Does the 14th Amendment absolutely mandate national suicide, or is the court going to keep birthright citizenship just because Donald Trump does not want it?

But in another sense, mountains are indeed more complex than they seem. They are made of molecules, which are, in turn, made of atoms. When we see a big block of rock, it is easy to think that it was simple to build. When you understand the amazing complexity of its components, its simple existence is startling.

The simplest material in a waterfall is water, and a water molecule is amazingly dynamic. We can see that it is in motion and are not surprised that it is made of dynamic components. It is astonishing to consider that the rock-solid material in the mountain consists of equally dynamic atoms and molecules. Everything in and around us follows the same rules. Our solid bones and our sweat are both made of molecules containing rotating atoms.

Those who insist on using evolution to explain everything must start with the absence of living things on Earth. Mountains and water, but no life forms. A Greek named Parmenides described the problem with this argument centuries ago. Whether you are considering the beginning of the universe or the development of life on Earth,

“Nothing comes from nothing” (Latin: ex nihilo nihil fit) is a philosophical concept first argued by Parmenides and intertwined with ancient Greek cosmology. This concept suggests that there is no transition from a non-existent world to an existent one, as creation cannot originate from nothingness.

I spent my career in the computer industry studying how they work, so I could develop tools to manage tasks and make life easier for people to use them. Everything in computers, and now cell phones, is the result of sophisticated development, cooperation, and standardization. There had to be agreement on the bit pattern for the letter “A” before it could be sent out on one company’s computer and read in by someone else.

I participated in stage plays as a child and saw what was needed to put on a play. That was also more complicated than it looks.

I go through all that to say that nothing is easy to produce or happens accidentally. Even if we ignore that everything consists of atoms and molecules, there is still significant effort, planning, and coordination required to produce even the simplest things.

I get to brag here about a brand-new granddaughter. There’s the old spiritual that says, “Every time I hear a newborn baby cry, I believe.” We tracked the miracle of a baby’s development. When my daughter first told us the news, she was talking about a sonogram picture of a creature the size of a peanut. That was our name for the child for a while. We asked, “How’s Peanut doing?” Now she has all the pieces she needs.

Many years ago, I studied how a computer went from empty and doing nothing to fully capable and operational. That was exciting. It is trivial compared to what is needed to go from one cell to an infant ready for the world.

To take one part of it, look at the diagram of the spine.

Each vertebra has a bone, a cushioning disc, and space for nerves to pass through, connecting the brain to parts of the body. The structure grows and changes through our lives. It also differs between a chimpanzee and a giraffe.

This complex system is amazing, but it supports connections to other things that are even more amazing. It allows communication between the brain and your eyes, heart, lungs, arms, digestive system, legs, and even your little toe. All those systems have their own complexities, and the dialogue between each of them and the brain is a system that had to be developed.

There are times when we are working on a technical problem, and it seems to solve itself. When that happens, we joke that sometimes “dumb luck beats pure skill.” But when you start to understand the development of a human being from a single cell, the sophisticated systems and the interactions of those systems, and the fact that the creatures and the environment fit together, it isn’t “dumb luck.”

Complex systems like IBM’s System 360, Microsoft Windows, Boeing aircraft, grocery store chains, people, animals, and universes don’t just happen. They are the result of development, planning, and continuous hard work.

Those who don’t understand it, or don’t want to, will refuse to credit the designers and builders who created what benefits them, but that doesn’t change the facts. It just didn’t happen. It was planned and designed.

After World War II and its experiences with Weimar and Hitler, Germany was determined to be fiscally conservative and politically moderate. The Germans were noted for diligence and their mechanical skills. The positive aspect of having their country destroyed was that they had to rebuild from scratch. They knew how to do things. The replacement factories were clean, fresh, and efficient.

Immigration

Germans shared a worldview and a way of being. They agreed on how to take care of their homes and yards. The homogeneity of society and its shared experiences let people get along naturally.

For fifteen years, from 1991 to 2005, Germany’s foreign-born population stayed in the 6.5 to 7.5 million range. During Merkel’s sixteen years in office, the foreign-born population increased to 11.82 million. In 2015 alone, more than one million migrants entered Germany.

Worse than the sheer numbers were the way the newcomers were treated. They were not held to the same behavioral standards as the German citizens. This was especially true when it came to the way immigrant men were treated. New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne was the night that made it impossible to ignore the problem.

Deutsche Welle is a major news organization in Germany. They explained:

Nearly 1,000 men of North African and Arab origin are reported to have divided themselves into smaller groups and robbed and sexually harassed women at Cologne’s central station on New Year’s Eve. Similar incidents occurred on a far smaller scale in Hamburg and Stuttgart.

Five years after the event, Ralf Bosen wrote a long piece in that paper describing the event and the consequences.

Because what happened in Cologne brought fundamental sociopolitical issues to the fore, it triggered a worldwide media response.
During his US presidential election campaign, Donald Trump portrayed the attacks as a cautionary tale from a misguided refugee policy.
In Germany itself, the long-running debate about migration policy and how to live together in a pluralistic society flared up.

He also noted that the media and the police “were accused of being too hesitant to report on the foreign citizenship of the suspects.”

Energy

Her energy policies were even more disastrous. There are many YouTube videos on the subject, but I’ll recommend this one. The video starts by showing how Germany was a leading industrial power at the start of the century. It had skilled, industrious people. But it also had cheap, plentiful energy. Vast amounts of energy are required to produce steel, chemicals, automobiles, and other products. Energy moves people to and from work, powers farm equipment, and keeps hospitals running. When Germany was strong, it had ample, comparatively inexpensive energy from multiple sources, including nuclear.

In 2011, Germany adopted a plan called the Energiewende or Energy transition. They were going to spend five hundred billion Euros to move to completely clean, renewable power. Solar and wind would replace nuclear and petrochemical energy. The video explained:

Solar panels produce no electricity at night and very little on cloudy days. Wind turbines produce no electricity when the wind is not blowing. Germany has a word for periods of low wind and low sunlight. Dunkelflaute, dark doldrums.

When the country is in the “dark doldrums,” other energy sources are needed. That means wind and solar can’t replace anything. The traditional sources must be maintained and ready to operate when the renewable sources can’t do the job. But Merkel and Germany failed to do that. The Energiewende called for the elimination of all nuclear power. To make things worse, Merkel rushed the closing for political reasons.

When the Fukushima nuclear disaster happened in Japan in March 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a decision that will be studied in economics and policy schools for generations. Within 4 days of Fukushima, she announced that Germany would shut down all of its nuclear power plants. Not gradually, not carefully, not after building replacement capacity. Shut them all down by 2022.

Without nuclear, coal and natural gas were the backups in the doldrums. Coal is a major pollutant. Russia was their primary source of natural gas. Many people, including American President Donald Trump, warned them that this would make them vulnerable to Vladimir Putin. They scoffed and closed the nuclear plants. They cooperated with Russia to build the Nord Stream pipeline to receive more natural gas from Putin.

Parliamentary government can give a small but significant party a role in successive governments by joining whichever party needs a few more members to form a majority. Germany’s Green Party has used its size to make up part of the majority for years. It has been the driving force behind the major party in the governing coalition in adopting stricter environmental policies. There has also been pressure from the European headquarters in Brussels.

Even so, Merkel’s failure to protect Germany from insane energy policies has been disastrous. Major companies are moving production out of Germany because they can’t compete when their energy inputs are four times more expensive than their competitors’. BASF, the world’s largest chemical company and one of Germany’s most important employers, began shifting investment out of Germany in 2022. Volkswagen had its first plant closure in the company’s 87-year history.

Even worse, the cost of auto fuel and heating a living space in wintry weather has also risen fourfold. The German people are suffering. The most basic thing German Chancellor Friedrich Merz could do would be to work to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the related sanctions and get Russian natural gas flowing back into Germany. He is not doing that. He wants to punish Russia at any cost, no matter the harm to his own people.

Time for a change?

Given the dreadful changes in German life in the last twenty years or so, the public is ready to try something different. A political party has risen, calling itself an alternative for Germany. (Alternative für Deutschland - AfD) You would think the leadership would understand the public’s reaction, but they don’t. Instead of reading this as a need for change, they are trying to ban the AfD by labeling it as extremists.

Harry Truman

Harry Truman is one of my favorite presidents. He never sought the office or expected it. He was on the ballot to replace Henry A. Wallace, who was too liberal for many of the party leaders. Roosevelt told him nothing, and FDR’s people treated him as a usurper. Yet he made decisions that shaped the next fifty or more years. Overall, he did an excellent job.

Of those decisions, I will cover his actions in Israel’s first days. I had a good sense of it, but an excellent YouTube video on the subject was very helpful in reminding me of the details.

In May 1948, Truman was running for a full term as President. Many people saw him as a small man who was not big enough to fill the shoes of the giant he replaced. All the polls indicated he would lose.

Israel looked to be another losing proposition. They planned to declare independence on May 14^th. Because it was surrounded by enemies who had oil and friends, nobody expected the fledgling state to survive for a month. Britain made its lack of support for Israel obvious.

The most respected man in America, George C Marshall, was Secretary of State. His department was completely opposed to recognizing Israel. They correctly foresaw problems that persist today. The Arab world hated the idea of a Jewish presence in the area, let alone a state. Israel could not match the oil reserves or the sheer numbers of the Arabs. The “logical” thing to do was to simply not recognize the declaration of the new state, not support it militarily, and let the Arab world destroy it and end the problem.

Marshall strongly presented his department’s position in a White House meeting on May 12^th, two days before Israel’s declaration. Although Marshall never voted, he told Truman that if he recognized Israel and Marshall were a voter, he would not vote for Truman.

I will refer you to the YouTube piece for more details. Truman not only recognized Israel within minutes of their declaration, but he also supported them unofficially, both diplomatically and by not enforcing policies that would have prevented them from receiving military equipment.

His actions made an essential difference. Without them, Israel would not have survived.

Ronald Reagan

When Ronald Reagan took office, the nation was suffering through what Keynesian economists had thought impossible. “Stagflation” was a combination of a stagnant economy and inflation. Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson wrote about Reagan’s role in this and listed some of the numbers. “Inflation was 13.3 percent in 1979.” “From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, there were four recessions.”

Samuelson’s column was a response to a column by Paul Krugman, which gave Reagan no credit for the actions in the early 1980’s that helped end the inflation cycle.

Samuelson’s column was titled “Volcker, Reagan and History.” The column explained that Reagan had the understanding and political courage his predecessors lacked. That changed everything and enabled Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to implement the policy tightening needed to end inflation.

Even now, President Trump is complaining that Jerome Powell is keeping interest rates too high. Most Presidents want rates lower because it is easier for people to borrow and spend. Throughout the chaos of the seventies, every attempt to raise rates to fight inflation caused pain; people complained, and presidents and other politicians yelled at the Fed to back off and lower rates. The standard political view was “fix the problem after the next election.”

Reagan majored in economics and sociology in college. He studied economics before Keynesian theory reigned. He believed in hard money. The pain of ending inflation was real. Samuelson wrote that Reagan had the courage to provide protection.

It’s doubtful that any other … candidate … would have been so forbearing …
What Volcker and Reagan accomplished was an economic and political triumph. Economically, ending double-digit inflation set the stage for a quarter-century of near-automatic expansion (indeed, so automatic that it bred the complacency that led to the 2008-2009 financial crisis — but that’s another story). Politically, Reagan and Volcker showed that leaders can take actions that, though initially painful and unpopular, served the country’s long-term interests
…
Volcker later said of Reagan: “Unlike some of his predecessors, he had a strong visceral aversion to inflation.”

But that move cost Reagan deeply in the 1982 midterm elections. The nature of the Congress changed, making his life more difficult.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump left the worlds of entertainment and business because he believed certain things needed to change. One of those was the threat to world safety caused by the existence of the regime in Iran. In 1980, he had an interview with Rona Barrett. He spoke about the hostages then being held in Iran and was obviously frustrated by the Carter administration’s timid response. He spoke about the way nations could and did disrespect the United States. He and Barrett also discussed why many capable people don’t enter politics.

Trump’s highest priority today is avoiding nuclear war and World War III. That may sound overly dramatic, but I am not kidding.

Trump takes the Iranian mullahs seriously. They have said they want to be able to destroy the “little Satan” – Israel, and the “Big Satan” – the United States. They have missiles with a 2,500-mile range and nuclear material.

The hostages were released the day Reagan was inaugurated. Reagan dealt with the economy and ended the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Since then, Presidents have wavered and waffled on the Iranian issue and, at most, dealt with terrorism and other problems the Mullahs created instead of dealing with the primary issue. Even though this is a midterm year, Trump decided he had to make sure Iran’s government had neither the capacity to make nuclear weapons nor the desire to do so.

On another front. Trump recognizes the risks in pushing Russia too far in Ukraine. This deserves more room than I have here. Put simply, Russia has not ruled out nuclear weapons, and European rulers seem trigger-happy. Even at the risk of being called “Putin’s Puppet,” he is determined to make sure Russia does not feel even close to being desperate enough to “go nuclear.”

There are risks to both issues regarding the 2026 midterms. European leaders are using Russia as an external “bad guy” to move the discussion away from their bad policies. Trump is taking a major risk to make the world safer, even at political risk.

The 2000 election was the Bush – Gore race with loads of controversy. The Florida Supreme Court hated Florida Governor Jeb Bush and kept prolonging the count. “Hanging chads” was the phrase of the day. The U.S. Supreme Court ended the whole exercise, and Bush became President. To this day, many Democrats refuse to acknowledge Bush’s win as honest.

After that election, a Commission on Election Reform was established. Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter and prominent Republican James Baker were co-chairs. In 2005, they issued a report entitled “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections.”

Ironically, the report works two ways. Those who want to build confidence in elections can follow its recommendations. Those who want to win at any cost have a guide to make elections easier to bend in their favor.

There are excellent discussions on many issues. Sometimes they leave a balanced partial answer when that is appropriate. One case is the restoration of voting rights for felons who have served all their time, including parole and any restitution. On page 49, the report favors this except in cases of capital crimes or sex offenses. They also suggest that the state tell a felon who is again eligible how to register.

On one side, they deal with administration and vote tabulation. They recommend:

Voting machines that tabulate voter preferences accurately and transparently, minimize under- and over-votes, and allow for verifiability and full recounts; and

Fair, impartial and effective election administration

Some states are banning paper trails of ballots. That will make it harder to verify counts.

The report spends a lot of time on voter registration and voter identification. They want a “complete, accurate, and valid list of citizens who are eligible to vote.” Note, they specify “citizens,” not “voters.” It is assumed that only citizens can vote.

A major issue is voter ID. There is a bill in the Senate, the SAVE Act, dealing with that. The Democrats oppose it. The Commission on Election Reform strongly supported Voter ID to help build public trust in elections. This is what they said:

[W]e propose that all states require a valid photo ID card, which would be a slightly modified REAL ID or a photo ID that is based on an EAC [Election Assistance Commission] template (which is equivalent to the REAL ID without the driver’s license). However, instead of allowing the ID to be a new barrier to voting, we propose using it to enfranchise new and more voters than ever before. The states would play a much more affirmative role of reaching out to the underserved communities by providing them more offices, including mobile ones, to register them and provide photo ID’s free of charge. In addition, we offer procedural and institutional safeguards to make sure that the card is not abused and that voters will not be disenfranchised because of the need for an ID.

[W]e propose measures that will increase voting participation by connecting registration and the ID process, making voting more convenient, diminishing irregularities, and offering more information on voting.

This is what the modern Voter ID bills aim for.

Democrats and their mouthpieces in the media claim that Voter ID is simply a new form of “Jim Crow” laws designed to limit minority voting. That is both absurd and insulting. The word we should never use about Blacks has the meaning of ignorance and incompetence. The argument that minorities can’t manage to get an ID is an argument that they are ignorant and incompetent. Polls show that minorities favor Voter ID.

I live in North Carolina, which, for now, has a Voter ID law. In early March, there was a primary election. I showed my driver’s license to vote. I will be eighty on my next birthday, have a large bald spot on the top of my head, and the remaining hair is white. Even so, some stores insist I show my driver’s license as an Alcohol ID when I buy wine or beer at a grocery store.

The list of places that require an ID is endless, and everyone, of every color, must comply. If voting is the exception, it might relate to a cynical story we often hear:

My uncle always voted Republican, but he’ll be voting for the Democrats from now on because he died last week.

The Carter-Baker Commission aimed to restore confidence in elections. They sought to set things up so that every citizen could vote and know their vote wouldn’t be cancelled by an improper ballot.

The Democrats and their allies, such as the ACLU, claim they are ensuring everyone can vote. They appear to want to be able to stuff any ballot box they need so they can win “by any means necessary.”

Appearance here is important. It is the issue of “Caesar’s wife.” If it looks like you are working to leave yourself a way to cheat, people naturally assume you intend to cheat. The Commission on Election Reform understood this. They were trying to set procedures in place to assure the public that cheating would be difficult.

There are many elections in history in which the losing side never accepted the results. Sometimes their claims were false, but in many cases, they were right. I am not going to get bogged down in various cases because the views on each case are held with a religious fervor. If we do all we can to lock down the process, we can increase trust in the system.

Money, in all its forms, represents some kind of value and worth. It replaces goods or effort. Before there was money, barter was the only form of exchange. Everything had a value. Land, buildings, animals, crops, slaves, and even women as wives. What was the cost of a certain amount of food for my family for a specific mix of items I had?

With coins, exchange was simpler. A person didn’t need specific items that the other person wanted. Money could be exchanged for the desired item. Money was the stand-in for worth, worth of any kind.

Governments produced money in various formats to represent the wealth in their domains. In the beginning, it was in the form of coins of assorted sizes and weights made of precious metals. The value of the coins was guaranteed by their content.

Paper money eventually became the standard. In theory, anyone could print it. In fact, governments usually retained the exclusive right. The value of a government’s money and the trust in it were signs of trust in that government. In 1865, Confederate money was not very trustworthy, and people were less willing to accept it as payment.

When a country has its own currency, it has some control over its economy. It may do a bad job, but it is impacting its own economy. Some countries have decided to use the U.S. dollar as their currency. They are small countries that never had their own currency.

Most, if not all, of the countries in the Eurozone gave up their own currencies to adopt the Euro. Many of them had gone through dramatic reevaluations or hyperinflations.

Perhaps the most dramatic was the hyperinflation of the German Mark under the Weimar Republic in the 1920’s. Facing huge reparations debts after World War I, the government just printed massive amounts of money.

Before World War I, one US dollar could buy about four Reichsmarks, but by late 1923, the exchange rate had skyrocketed to four trillion Reichsmarks.

Paper Marks were so worthless that children played with them as stacking toys.

Because the Germans were certain that the Weimar chaos played a role in Hitler’s rise, they were determined to avoid a repeat of that kind of inflation after World War II. With an industrious workforce, excellent industrial capacity, and inexpensive energy, Germany could produce high-quality products for export and compete on price.

Southern European nations, such as Spain, Italy, and Greece, routinely inflated their currencies. They have massive government overheads before anything could happen. The workforce of these countries was not competitive. The delays involved before anything could be done meant investors went elsewhere. Pensions and government wages were denominated in the local currencies. Reducing the amounts would be difficult. It was politically easier to devalue the currency than to reduce pension payments.

Before joining the Euro, each country controlled its own currency. Their decisions did not directly impact the others. It is true that one country could devalue its currency to gain a competitive trade advantage, and others would respond. But if a country had inflationary issues, it didn’t harm other currencies.

Lenders evaluated each nation’s currency separately. The German Mark was stable and trustworthy. The same could not be said about the Greek Drachma or the Italian Lira. If loans to a nation were denominated in that country’s currency, it could determine the value of the loan by devaluing its currency. Lenders knew that and set interest rates accordingly.

After the Euro, loans to countries were made in Euros. A crisis occurred when Greece couldn’t pay its Euro-denominated loans. The lenders had counted on other Euro countries bailing out Greece. They did. But their voters realized the trap the Euro was.

It was possible because Greece is small. The next crisis will be in a bigger country. Also, the Greek problem happened while the Eurozone had some viable economic powers. It doesn’t anymore. That sounds harsh, but it’s true.

YouTube producer The Wealth Records does an excellent job creating short videos (about 20 minutes) on economic and international subjects. They have a “Table of Contents” page showing their videos.

They have a great video on why the Euro was built to fail. There are also shows that will surprise people who aren’t following the news about Europe closely. They describe the disastrous situations in various European countries. This information explains why the Euro will come under pressure and why there is no strength left to hold it up.

France is locked into promises it can’t afford and has a dysfunctional political system. It is far bigger than Greece. There is no way its financial collapse can happen without severely impacting the Euro.

Germany was the tent-pole holding up the Euro for decades. It had everything investors wanted when they sought a safe place to put their money. As the center of the Euro, Germany’s rating reflected well on the other Euro countries. That is no longer true. Germany is in economic and political crisis.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz leads a marginal coalition government and has managed to push through a change allowing the government to spend more than it takes in. Regardless of the reason, Germany’s deficit spending means no Euro country even pretends to want a balanced budget.

All the nations in the Euro are facing financial and political chaos. Why would anyone put any faith in a currency when every part of it could pull it apart in a different direction?

Mardi Gras was February 17^th, and Lent began on February 18^th. Easter will be on April 5^th. The Eastern Orthodox churches have a slightly different calendar. For them, Lent begins on Monday, February 23rd, and Pascha, their Easter, is on April 12^th.

Jesus gives Christians a command on how to act during any period of fasting. These rules apply at any time of difficulty or effort.

Matthew 6: 16-18 - Christian Standard Bible
¹⁶ “Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they disfigure their faces so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward. ¹⁷ But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Members of the Roman Catholic Church mark the start of Lent with Ash Wednesday. I am not criticizing that symbolism. It is a one-day action. Smiling and joy are allowed. His guidance here is for fasting in general.

The fasting guidelines apply to any difficulty, including matters unrelated to religion. We all have commitments, causes, and concerns. Short-term issues include Lent, a cold, or studying for an entrance or professional exam. Long-term concerns include child-rearing, chronic health issues, family concerns, and commitments to social or political causes. Some issues in our lives are involuntary. The offers we make for Lent are voluntary. In either case, we can view them as a burden or as an offering to God.

What am I thinking and feeling about this issue? How am I acting toward others? What do I want them to know and what do I want them to do? Do you know someone who raises the same issue every time you see them and talk about nothing else? On the other hand, do you know someone who has serious difficulties but rarely mentions them?

The time we give to these matters in our minds and our speech is important. If we dwell on them, we magnify them. We are also tempted to judge others if we think they should be as diligent about an action or issue as we are.

Lewis’s Screwtape urges his nephew to get his target to judge other church members on their piety during the service. Lent is a time when many are tempted to determine whether others are observing the season as faithfully as they should. In the secular world, there are many ways to judge others as mean, selfish, or otherwise cruel. The epithets are endless: racist, bigot, sexist, deniers, and a basket of “phobes.” People who label others with these tags consider themselves morally pure because others aren’t as resolute.

H. L. Mencken was a famous Baltimore newspaperman of mixed moral values. But he devised very pointed comments. He described Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” That is the choice we have when we are dealing with any issue or concern. Do we want to insist that the rest of the world join us in our misery? Or do we “put oil on our heads and wash our faces” and let the world deal with its own joys and sorrows?

We can let the appropriate people know about the problem. If you know a professional or specialist, ask for advice. Ask friends for prayers. Someone who will lend you an ear or shoulder for a time gives you a wonderful gift. But bleeding over everybody you meet is different. Sharing good news is great. Sharing troubles is different.

I saw this in my family. We had relatives who were hypochondriacs and spoke of almost nothing but their ailments. We joked that their headstones would read, “See! I told you I was sick!”

On the other hand, my mother had a combination of serious and excruciatingly painful problems that the doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital were having trouble diagnosing. They were calling it hypochondria, and it infuriated her. She talked about the visits but didn’t dwell on them. We could see the pain on her face, but she didn’t talk about it. Sometimes she would comment that she was having a “bad day,” but that was all. The doctors finally diagnosed it as an actual problem. She was suffering massive pain in her neck area, which drove up her blood pressure. They planned surgery, but she died of a stroke first.’

My father could easily have spent his life talking about his problems to everyone. Every so often, he would briefly mention some incident in his childhood and how difficult it had been for his family. It was a statement. He didn’t dwell on it.

Dad used humor to deal with life. He made everyone laugh instead of talking about his problems. When he was in his mid-seventies, he developed cancer. Dad always had a great head of hair. He said he was going to be the best-looking corpse in the cemetery.

There is a simple point to remember when you are around others. They have their own lives and priorities. They don’t want to spend their days listening to your complaints when they can’t do anything about them. A straightforward request is fine. That is something they can agree to, decline, or offer an alternative. The Yiddish word kvetch describes a permanent, industrial-strength complainer. No one wants to be around someone like that.

Besides, if you listen rather than complain, you might find out that your troubles aren’t as bad as the other person’s.

For at least sixty years, the Democratic Party leadership has tried to understand the difficult life of the criminal rather than the harm suffered by the victims. They have looked out for the outcast and don’t care about the burdens imposed on the typical diligent, self-disciplined American serfs. The self-anointed saviors of the world care for those who can’t care for themselves.

There has been no limit to this scheme, and it is not without a political payoff. Large numbers of foreigners who have only allegiance to the Democratic Party are added to the population. All the social workers and organizations that received funding to care for these individuals know which party should get their money and votes.

Churches benefit. In some cases, they recruit new members to offset losses among prior members. They also collect funds and provide social services for new arrivals. That money comes from the taxes of the existing citizens.

We never stop hearing about the deaths of self-appointed guardians of illegal aliens who interfere with law enforcement. But let me remind you about two cases in North Carolina where the failure of state and local government to protect the public led to the death of innocents. I am doing this because the same media and Democrats (I repeat myself) who want you to cry rivers over those who interfered in Minneapolis didn’t stop talking about these cases fast enough.

Ironically, the first case involved the death of a legal immigrant. Iryna Zarutska was a Ukrainian immigrant riding on mass transit in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was murdered in a random attack. Her assailant was someone who court records show:

had a lengthy criminal history spanning nearly two decades, including repeated failures to appear in court and multiple charges that were ultimately dismissed …

The current Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate is former Attorney General and Governor Roy Cooper, who held those positions while the assailant was racking up this record. He and his successor as Governor, Josh Stein, are more concerned with addressing the “root causes” of crime than with protecting the public.

In another North Carolina case, an illegal immigrant was driving drunk, crossed over into oncoming traffic, and caused the death of two young people.

The young man, Fletcher Harris, was a junior at Catawba College, where he was double-majoring in environmental sustainability and biology, and made the dean’s list every semester while also serving as a goalkeeper for the school’s soccer team. The young lady, Skylar Provenza, was about to start her career at Datre Hair Co., her family said. She had been on the softball and cheer teams in high school.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noam noted that ICE has lodged a detainer against the drunk driver, seeking custody of him should he be released from Rowan County Jail at any time. Democratic leaders in the state have boasted that they will not cooperate with those detainers. Will Rowan County officials honor the detainer? I wonder how the parents and friends of the two young people feel about state law enforcement protecting someone whose illegal actions contributed to the death of a loved one or friend.

Some Democrats and members of the media try to argue that they are acting in response to unusually harsh actions by President Trump. The reverse is true. Trump is a reaction to a “soft on crime” approach by leadership not only in the United States but throughout the West. It has been going on for a long time.

In 1988, the older George Bush was running against Michael Dukakis and arguing that, as governor of Massachusetts, Dukakis had been soft on crime and released a dangerous criminal from jail. In a debate, Dukakis was asked what he would do if his wife were threatened or harmed. His response was meek, confused, and ambiguous. It cemented in the voters’ minds the idea that he would not be serious about protecting women from violent criminals.

Trump talks about “angel” parents who have lost children to violent deaths due to the presence of people here illegally. When media and politicians ignore the suffering of those people, another layer of pain is added.

The same thing is happening in Europe and causing an intense reaction. When the current British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was the lead prosecutor, many British girls were kidnapped, raped, and groomed as prostitutes by recent immigrants, and officials did nothing to stop it.

European and American women have extraordinarily little protection. This will not continue. A day will come when relatives will have had enough, and those in charge will pay a price. It will forever be remembered and marked on calendars like Bastille Day or July 4^th. But it is coming.

The writers studied public attitudes and monitored changes over time. Their statistical work seems fine, but their analysis of the cause is amazingly inadequate. By refusing to consider the possibility that the Gay community contributed in any way to the decline in support, they were left with a very hollow explanation.

They end up blaming the change on a public dealing with social instability and anti-establishment sentiment. I won’t completely rule these out as contributory, but they are not the main drivers.

There was always an understanding that a live-and-let-live attitude would work. Civil unions would provide the equivalent of the marital rights enjoyed by childless couples. But that was never going to be enough. Live-and-let-live wasn’t enough. Full approval was the goal, or even the idea that, in an overcrowded world, it might even be better.

Same-sex marriage was not accepted. It was imposed. When state referenda rejected it or specifically said no, courts decided the public wasn’t wise enough to know what was best. People who donated funds against it lost their jobs.

In the end, some berobed people on our Supreme Court decided that all the sages of the ages were simpletons and imposed their profound wisdom on our nation. In a colloquy, the possibility was raised that every religious institution teaching the wisdom of the ages might lose funding or accreditation if it failed to bow to the new wisdom. A group of voters who were aware of the court’s actions voted for an imperfect man as President in the next election.

Having won in the courts, the time had come for a choice. They could relax and enjoy their victory or keep pushing and rub it in. The former choice would have let the victory mellow in society. They chose the latter and, by being sore winners, set the course for the loss of support.

First, they muscled everybody everywhere. Churches, bakeries, wedding reception venues, photographers, and anyone else who might be uncomfortable dealing with same-sex events became targets. All ten bakeries in town would sell a cake off the shelf to same-sex couples. Nine would make a custom cake for their marriage. One wouldn’t. That was unacceptable. That was grounds for a federal case with the full involvement of the state politicians.

Major religious denominations, Christian and Jewish, split over LGBT issues. Fights over property, funds, and hierarchies continued for decades. In some cases, they involved international churches, and the divisions are still working themselves out.

Sore winners are self-centered. Everything is about them. They don’t understand that others are willing to let them do their thing, but it is not the only subject in the world. They are not the center of my universe. I am. I may focus on my faith, my family, my life’s work, or something else. But their lifestyle is not my primary concern.

Yet LGBT concerns constantly appeared everywhere I turned for recreation. Every excuse to talk about it was sought and used. Newspaper articles constantly covered it. TV shows of all types — news, talk, scripted, unscripted, and even sports — constantly brought up the topic. The public eventually had enough.

There’s an old saying about sex. Do what you want, but don’t startle the horses or the children. That was the red line the movement leaders should have known not to cross. But their arrogance was unlimited. When parents realized that their children were being taught that LGBT was normal or even preferred, a battle erupted.

Charlesworth and Finkel missed the point completely when they wrote:

… research shows no evidence of spikes in grooming discourse … that are meaningfully correlated with subsequent spikes in anti-gay bias.

I’m not sure how they’re defining “grooming.” It has various meanings. English girls in the UK are being raped and forced into prostitution. In the U.S., it refers to young children being given sexually explicit material and material that favors LGBT material. Parents are showing their anger at school board meetings and by pulling their students out of public schools.

The other issue driving down support is allowing males in women’s bathrooms and locker rooms and letting them compete in “women’s sports.” The “alpha males” of any primate group are expected to protect the females of the group. When society’s leaders don’t do that, something feels very wrong.

Support for “Gay Rights” is dropping for a simple reason. Americans who are more than willing to live-and-let-live expect others to do the same. When those who make a point about fair treatment become the biggest bullies on the block, sympathy is replaced by anger. We won’t let you bully us and ours. Decades of bullying have changed public attitudes. Bullying has produced antagonism.

Have you ever been in an argument with someone who’s completely wrong, but absolutely certain they’re right?

This is known as

the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The idea that stupid people don’t know they’re stupid. That incompetence prevents people from recognizing their own incompetence. But what most people don’t know is this. Arthur Schopenhauer figured this out two hundred years before Dunning and Krueger ever proved it scientifically.

The video runs for 25 minutes and is worth every minute. The narrator focuses on Schopenhauer’s writings on the subject, and the video is full of delightful, quotable phrases.

On the positive side, this effect gives us a way of finding the right people to evaluate certain skills. Only those who are skilled or knowledgeable in an area can truly evaluate the skills of others in that field. “Monday morning quarterbacks” fund football and other sports, but most of them have no real idea of the demands of the game.

Dunning-Kruger shows that only someone skilled or informed in an activity can evaluate the performance of others in that field. Sport scouts are often former athletes who reached elevated levels in their game. They got to see and understand the difference between their skills and those of the more successful players. As scouts, they look for that kind of difference.

You have seen it in your own life. People at work or in your community range from the barely competent to the truly skilled. You have lists in your head of who to talk to on different subjects. The “blowhards” are the ones who know nothing and think they’re experts.

On the other end are the real experts. I’ve had a variety of medical problems in my life, and I’ve been fortunate to be treated by some of the most renowned doctors in their fields. They’ve always talked about trade-offs, “might be,” and “probably.” They know about risks and uncertainties. As it turns out, some of the treatments they used in the 1950s and 60s are no longer used and are now considered dangerous. It was the best they knew at the time.

I started my career in the computer field in 1968. I’ve worked with some truly brilliant people. I’ve also studied some elegant technology implemented in the early days, which is still essential today. I am furious when I hear politicians say we can take all kinds of displaced workers and make them programmers. Coal mining and farming are distinct kinds of work, but those skills have no connection to computer work. Politicians who don’t know which end of a bull to milk or a punch card from a USB cable think the jobs are interchangeable. They’re not. I know you don’t milk a bull, but that’s not enough to make me a farmer.

But there is a downside to the correlation between low information and high certainty. If political leaders can create many of these people, they have a political force they can manipulate and, if useful, turn into a violent force. They become convinced of their moral purity and the need to protect society from opposition. They stop acting like members of a democracy. A democracy is a contest between moral equals. When you fight evil, you must win by any means necessary.

The solution to this would be to have them hear other ideas. George Orwell addressed this in 1984. The party created Newspeak. A language designed to make it impossible to have an unapproved idea. Today, there is a concept called the Overton Window.

The “Overton Window” describes or delimits the range of ideas that can be considered. In one sense, it is used to provide the politicians with a framework of the ideas the public is currently dealing with. For those looking to understand the anger and tension in a society, it would be useful to examine the extent to which simple, narrow-mindedness, and a lack of understanding of the other side of the issue are fanning the anger and venom.

“Hate speech” and “misinformation” are terms being used to block attempts to provide alternate views on certain subjects. European governments are using restrictions on social media and “hate speech” to block opposition. Konstantin Kisin was born in the Soviet Union and is now a British citizen. He noted that in a recent year, there were 400 arrests in Russia for social media posts and 3,300 in Britain. The Trump administration has intervened on behalf of American internet providers facing European countries that are trying to limit the speech of American customers.

Blocking any information that would give people reason to doubt a one-sided view of events creates Dunning-Kruger fanatics willing to support extreme actions. It will lead to the end of civility and a democratic society.

Again, the video is –

In the Ten Commandments movie, the Pharaoh repeatedly says, “So let it be written, so let it be done!” California’s government thinks it can make the world perfect by writing a law, and there will never be any negative consequences. They are also certain that, being the moral center of the universe, they can set themselves up as a “sanctuary state” and ignore any federal law that doesn’t meet their higher moral guidelines.

California has taken many recent steps that have put the trucking industry in turmoil. If the harm were limited to that state, it would be bad enough. It isn’t. A YouTube producer called Inspector James produced a video on the subject and noted that, in Los Angeles,

the San Pedro Bay Port Complex stands as the largest gateway for trade in North America. Each year, more than $500 billion in goods pass through these docks, feeding supply chains that reach every corner of the country. One out of every three containerized imports to the United States arrives here, supporting three million jobs across warehousing, retail, and manufacturing. The sheer scale of this operation means even small disruptions can ripple far beyond state lines.

There are three levels of movement to consider: drayage, in-state, and interstate. Drayage is the term for moving a container from the docks to either local storage or to a location outside the harbor area. If there aren’t enough drayage vehicles, the ships back up in port because they can’t be unloaded. The difference between in-state and interstate is clear, but it creates different issues in certain respects.

There are three immediate issues causing trouble.

On January 1, 2026, AB 692 took effect, blocking “stay or pay” provisions. Employers felt it was reasonable to protect themselves when they paid to train a new employee. They included a provision in the contract that required repayment of some of the training costs if the employee quits before a certain date. I don’t know if the provisions were abusive. I know the U.S. service academies have this arrangement for students once they stay into their third year.

I read a discussion of AB692 that mentioned a 2-year window with pro rata charges. I’m not sure if that applies to training or when the clock starts. The trucking companies need to figure out how to get trained drivers, or they’ll end up training people who walk away as soon as they get their license.

The biggest problem, and the one with the most potential nationwide impact, was signed in 2019 and tied up in the courts. AB5 is designed to prevent companies from treating people as contractors when, in practice, they are employees. Yet there are professions where this is common, and those fields have been given an exemption. Trucking has many owner-operators who want to choose assignments. They may always work with one company, but they have more control.

The bill was passed in 2019, and the court action ended in 2022. No fines were imposed for a while. In his video, Inspector James notes:

On October 30th, 2025, a citation from the California Labor Commissioner landed like a shockwave across the state’s freight corridors. Three companies, Mega Nice Trucking, Rider Last Mile, and Costco, received a combined penalty of $868,128.00 for misclassifying fifty-eight delivery drivers in San Diego.

An excellent internet article discusses the history and impact of AB5. It is too complicated to repeat here. It will be the end of the owner-operator model for interstate freight from California ports. The distance from San Pedro to Nevada is more than 240 miles or almost five hundred miles round-trip. Moving goods from California ports to the eastern edge of the state will have to be done by trucks that meet the new rules. It will increase the cost of those goods for everyone everywhere in the country.

Another problem stems from California’s Sanctuary State status. They were sloppy or indifferent about the licensing of non-citizens.

In late 2025, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration launched a nationwide audit targeting commercial driver’s licenses held by non-citizens.
…
Immigrant drivers make up about 20% of California’s trucking workforce, many playing vital roles in port drayage and regional freight.

These issues will raise the cost of imported items in California and wherever they go. Perfection is a wonderful idea. If you’re rich enough, it is a fine way to live. The rest of us always balance priorities.

Thomas Sowell explained it when he said:

One difference is that they want to live in a world with problems to be solved. That sounds crazy at first, but I mean it. Who needs political leaders to solve our problems if there are no problems? It also applies to journalists. No awards are given to people who write articles about births, weddings, and funerals. There is no excitement there.

The old saying about TV news is “If it bleeds, it leads!’ Excitement, conflict, turmoil, and uncertainty draw people’s attention. Heroes and villains get people to pay attention.

Politicians need a way to justify hiring people and spending money. That is done by identifying a problem that can only be solved through government action.

There are two ways of dealing with it. If they want to make it go away, they form a committee. Prominent people are named and show up at a press conference. They may or may not do any actual work on a report that may or may not be produced. If there is a report, the recommendations can be ignored, followed, or even used as a guide for what not to do.

After the chaos of the 2000 election between George Bush and Al Gore, a committee was established, headed by Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter and prominent Republican James Baker. In 2005, they released their “Report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform.”

Their very first recommendation, in the opening Letter from the Co-Chairs, is one that Democrats, journalists, and the ACLU constantly argue is simply a racist voter suppression maneuver by the Republicans.

The report also includes many other recommendations that those groups use as warnings about what to block if you want honest elections.

A bureaucracy is an even better tool for politicians. It is a way to endlessly pour money into solving a problem. You can prove you care about a problem by showing that you are willing to spend money to solve it. You also make your opponent seem heartless if they want to do anything sensible, like stop spending money we don’t have.

Jerry Pournelle had a background in operations research and space policy and became a very popular Science Fiction writer. He co-authored several outstanding books with Larry Niven. One was a modern take on Dante’s Inferno. Pournelle obviously disliked bureaucracies. One level of Hell in their novel was to spend eternity trying to get a form filled out correctly to satisfy a clerk.

He also had what he called his “Iron Law of Bureaucracy.”

Thomas Sowell did a summer internship at the Department of Labor in Washington near the end of his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago. His experience is a case study of whether politicians or agency leaders worry about whether their agencies help the people they were set up to help.

Sowell had gained employment as an unskilled young black man at a time when the minimum wage hadn’t caught up with inflation. He studied minimum wages in Puerto Rico and decided they didn’t help. It was something the people he worked with didn’t want to hear.

Which leads to another, even more poisonous, way to “help.” Over-regulation and price-setting smother an economy. I don’t have the space here to describe all the possibilities. Rent control prevents people from buying or building properties to rent.

There is currently a significant push to raise the minimum wage nationwide. Sowell has noted that the actual minimum wage is zero. Investors have no reason to open a business if they won’t make money. Labor costs are a factor in that analysis. Stores and restaurants may also be closed if labor costs exceed returns.

Just because money is being spent to “solve a problem” doesn’t mean that anyone wants the problem solved. In fact, by constantly redefining the problem, an agency can go on forever. Politicians have a cause. Agencies are filled with people who vote for them. Recipients and suppliers form a voting bloc committed to maintaining the flow of funds.

When historians describe revolutions, they discuss the events leading up to them and precisely define the significant dates and events. Some who are living through those times may sense that things are unstable; some want change, while others want everything to remain as it is. No one knows the triggering events or dates, or what the future will look like.

Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu led his country for more than twenty years. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice often recounted the sudden, unexpected, and violent end of his rule. In 1989, amid all the revolutions in the Warsaw Pact countries, he was giving a speech to

Rice explains the lesson from this:

[In a] system [where] people have no peaceful way to change their government … every authoritarian fears … the Ceaușescu moment. … the moment when their people lose their fear of them, and when all that stands between them and their people is a ragtag effort to mobilize that last measure of force to quiet the voices of their people, and it rarely really works.

John F. Kennedy said something similar when talking about the civil rights movement: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Rice and JFK described the need to ensure that the rights to expression and change were available to socially approved groups. Those are not the groups whose expression is currently being suppressed. But the truth still applies.

This principle is not limited to states that are formally autocratic or dictatorial. The leaders of European and Anglosphere nations are concerned with maintaining power at all costs. They are destroying anything and everything for a temporary gain, with no regard for the long-term damage to institutions and trust.

The courts and “intelligence reports” help overturn election results and block the path to power of those who won’t go along.

In Germany, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) is gaining support for its positions against open immigration and in favor of ending sanctions on Russian fuel. So far, the other parties have refused to join them to form a ruling coalition. There is also talk of outlawing them as a “Nazi” party under the German constitution.

The French government and economy are in chaos. President Emmanuel Macron is unpopular and continues to seek a prime minister who can form a government that will last over the weekend. Macron could call parliamentary elections, but the establishment doesn’t want to see the results. Marine Le Pen is the most popular politician in France, but she has been convicted of a campaign-fund violation and banned from running for office. Her party might win anyhow.

In the same Romania where Ceaușescu was overthrown, the voice of the people was ignored. Calin Georgescu won the most votes in the first round of the 2024 presidential election. He favored closer ties with Russia to secure cheaper natural gas and cutting aid to Ukraine. He was ready to advance to the runoff. Instead, the sitting president released intelligence reports alleging a Russian interference campaign. Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of voting. The whole mess wasn’t settled until May. Eventually, the pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine faction achieved its objectives.

In 2022, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his followers had reason to be concerned about the honesty of the election he had lost. A Britannica article noted that:

They added, sardonically,

Konstantin Kisin was born in the Soviet Union. He moved to and became a citizen of the United Kingdom. He was a comedian and became a social commentator. He is genuinely concerned about the treatment of speech in the UK. In a conversation with former Australian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, he discussed the issue of individuals being arrested for statements made on social media. Kisin noted that there had been four hundred arrests in Russia and 3,300 in Britain.

The United States government had complained about attacks on U.S.-based social media companies for posts the British government didn’t like, but which were well within our free speech limits. UK Prime Minister Starmer is very unpopular and is trying to limit the expression of that fact.

I don’t know when it will happen. The word “comeuppance” refers to the moment when what is due is meted out. The so-called establishment is ruling for its own agenda and in the short term. That can’t continue. I don’t know what the spark will be. I don’t know when it will be. Too many people are on the short end of the stick and ready to shout, “Liar!”

It is bound to happen.

My sister wouldn’t give up. My father was patiently trying to satisfy her, but it wasn’t working. Finally, she said, “Daddy, I know God always was. What I want to know is – when did he start always Wasing?”

There is a concept akin to infinity that people struggle to grasp, and many famous people have resisted an answer because they don’t want it to be true. To copy my sister’s question: How did the universe start Wasing? Before the galaxies were, what was? Or, to put it the other way, what was there before there was anything?

Stephen Meyer has a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge. He has a YouTube video covering the history of resistance and acceptance of the “big-bang” theory” of the origin of the universe.

He starts by covering how Darwinism gave rise to:

The prevailing view of the universe was that it had a fixed size. Einstein was concerned that his theory of gravity would cause all objects to collapse into a massive black hole. To counter this, he defined a cosmological constant whose value meant that the universe would neither expand nor contract.

Edwin Hubble, an astronomer, began using the great-dome telescopes at Mount Wilson in Southern California. He saw that what we thought were smudges were galaxies, and they were moving away from us. In every direction, they were moving away. Those further away were moving faster. Meyer describes it as “a kind of spherical expansion like a balloon being blown up. “

Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and physicist, was working on Einstein’s field equations and showed serious problems with the mathematics. They were in a taxi together on the way to the conference, and Lemaître confronted Einstein with this. Einstein said:

Meyer gives another example:

Meyer summarizes, “Well, this alternate theory in psychology is known as denial.

In a prior article, I explained how writing computer code inside a mainframe operating system led me to reject random evolution. I am a science fiction fan and willing to accept parallel universes in fiction, but I am still firmly settled in the belief that the creator, or “unsourced source, “ created the universe.

We can’t call it a moment because nothing was there. But at time t-1 nothing existed, then…

For those of us who accept Genesis 1:1, the idea is fantastic. There is something so incredible: the entire universe exists by choice, and we are allowed to be part of it.

On Christmas Day, the idea moves from fantastic to incredible. For many people, the idea of any connection between a baby in a stable and whatever could produce the Big Bang is, indeed, not credible.

Sometimes, the idea that the creator of the Big Bang came to us as a baby to live a life as one of us, suffer horribly for us, and open a door to everlasting life is a message of love, joy, and hope that we have trouble fully comprehending and living in. We really have trouble remembering that and keeping its depth in front of us when the troubles of the day bother us.

But it is true!

Harry Truman, the little shopkeeper from Missouri, was thrust into leadership at the end of World War II. He knew he had to let others take credit, but that was OK. He also knew the true nature of Joseph Stalin and what that meant. With measures such as the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift, he kept Europe democratic and out of Stalin’s control. He also recognized MacArthur’s talent in administering Japan and guiding it to democracy.

I yield to no one in my admiration for Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II for their role in the endgame of the Cold War. But I am sure they will agree that the handling of the early years was critical to the path and eventual outcome.

What happened after the end of the Cold War is a combination of arrogance, hubris, and absolute refusal to consider the concerns of the other side. The price is being paid now. Ironically, the unsophisticated Truman will go down in history as doing a far better job than the Ivy League-trained and well-connected Bushes and Bill Clinton.

By the middle of 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was clear. He was the leader of Russia. The Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were gone. NATO had been created to defend the West against two entities that no longer existed. On the other hand, Russia is a country with a history of being attacked and invaded from the West. It ain’t paranoia if you have a legitimate fear.

The United States has the Monroe Doctrine and acted when the Soviets put missiles in Cuba. Russia’s position was simple. NATO is a military alliance. It would not accept countries bordering it as members of an opposing military alliance.

I will now describe two cases in which there is ample evidence of deception by the United States. The links point to articles describing the deceit. Dozens of descriptions and links to additional supporting documents follow a substantial block of text.

James Baker and others in the Bush administration assured Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” beyond the newly combined German border. Sadly, this became the first of many “pinky swears” the Russians would be given.

In the first year of the Clinton Presidency, ambiguity was used again. Yeltsin led Russia. His drinking is helpful as an excuse, but the documents support the conclusion that the misleading was deliberate.

George Kennan was renowned as the leading expert on the Russians. His famous “X” paper in Foreign Affairs magazine in the late 1940s helped shape U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. In a New York Times Op-ed on February 5, 1997, he wrote, “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.”

A quote from someone in the Biden administration, many years later, shows the degree of arrogance the Russians are dealing with:

Ukraine is another set of lies. Angela Merkel admitted that the two Minsk agreements were solely designed to give the West time to build up anti-Russian forces in Ukraine. The United States was openly involved in deposing a Ukrainian leader who was trying to be neutral. John McCain and other senators traveled to Kyiv during the crisis. USAID money was involved. The Russians had a deal for access to a warm-water port at Sevastopol in Crimea. That agreement died after all the shenanigans. To get access to the port, Putin took Crimea.

When NATO countries sanctioned Russia, they ruined their economies. They were competitive because Russian natural gas was inexpensive. Without it, Germany is deindustrializing. Automobile and chemical plants are closing and moving overseas. France and Britain face similar problems.

Europe froze Russian sovereign assets, and now they are setting things up to steal them. Nations are not going to put funds in European banks or Euros anymore. America has done the same thing, and nations are reducing their exposure to the dollar.

Russia is not trying to conquer all of Ukraine. It only wants to “rule” the parts of Ukraine populated by Russian speakers. That is the Eastern part, known as the Donbas, and the southern stretches extending to the port of Odesa. The remainder of the area is inhabited by people who speak Ukrainian. In that area, Russia’s interest is to make sure it is not part of NATO and no missiles can be placed there and aimed at Russia.

Russia is winning on the ground and winning allies. Europe is going broke and alienating former commercial partners.

Kennan warned against expanding NATO. We should have listened.

In a recent City Journal article, Charles Fain Lehman described the most prominent sociologist of the last 100 years as follows:

Lehman discusses Wilson’s 1975 book Thinking About Crime, but the ideas apply to all forms of behavior. The prevailing theories of crime, then and now, sought reasons or excuses to place responsibility on society rather than on the individual who committed the act.

Note that this makes the community responsible yet unable to act. Criticizing offenders or imposing harsh punishment is seen as insensitive. It isn’t their fault. These problems have “root causes” that cannot be solved.

An opposing view is that of the “social control” theorists, who saw crime not as something caused but as something to be prevented. Our social bonds, or systems of “social control,” constrain us.

Here is the key definition of community and social organization as Lehmen describes it:

This explains two significant issues. Heather MacDonald, in her book The War on Cops, talks about how the Black people in poor neighborhoods want more police so they can have a peaceful, even dull, lifestyle. Additionally, one of the major disruptions caused by massive immigration is the change in the community’s character within a neighborhood.

In 1982, Wilson and George Kelling published a seminal article in The Atlantic Magazine proposing the “Broken Windows” theory.

Kelling had shadowed a foot patrol officer and sought to understand the officer’s perspective on his job.

Here is the problem with American law and society in the last sixty years. John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is inadequate to the government of any other.” This assumes a group in which the vast majority is law-abiding and exercises self-control. They are also expected to and allowed to exert social pressure on those who are not.

Once politicians and lawyers began catering to offenders and explaining away their transgressions, healthy social constraints were not expected; they became taboo. Suddenly, transgressors and those who “cared for” them were more important than the healthy contributors to society.

Lehmen deals with another of Wilson’s concepts – “civil peace.” He notes that this dates to Roman times and is reflected in Western Law. There are terms such as “Disturbing the Peace” and “Disorderly Conduct.” Various governments, or “The People” are often the plaintiffs in criminal cases: The United States vs., The State of ... vs.”

Crimes are not victimless. Homeless people make cities unlivable. When business property values collapse, real people lose real money. When subways aren’t safe, many city entities are affected. Judges and politicians who think they are showing concern are destroying the kind of community needed to hold a society together.

Much of this article is drawn from Charles Fain Lehman’s excellent article; I would be guilty of plagiarism if I didn’t acknowledge that this is an “article review.” His article is about twice as long, and I urge you to take the time to review it.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/james-q-wilson-thinking-about-crime-50

He concludes with this important idea from Wilson. This point demonstrates the harm the courts have inflicted not only in criminal law but across the entire spectrum of morality and law.

I have dealt with the history of the region and NATO’s role in prompting Putin’s actions in Ukraine. Europe’s political leadership is committed to Ukraine’s victory over Russia and making sure Russia gains no ground from its invasion. That’s not going to happen. Russia controls significant territory in the Donbass area, and it is getting stronger daily vis-à-vis the Ukrainians.

Europe’s elite and the military-industrial complex in the United States think Russia and Putin are the epitome of evil. They are determined to “win” in Ukraine by any means necessary. Now they are willing to destroy their advantages in international finance by breaking the critical rules that made everyone willing to park money with them.

Normal people and companies hold assets in banks, bonds, and other investments. Nation-states do the same thing. Their funds are called Sovereign Reserves since they are the property of a national entity. It has been understood that these funds are not tools and playthings. A nation holding them has certain obligations of neutrality in dealing with them. It is a fundamental rule that Sovereign Reserves are untouchable regardless of conflict or political enmity.

Countries that follow those rules benefit because other nations use their currency and buy their bonds. But the current leadership in Europe and some in the United States have already bent the rules and are about to break them completely.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered banks to freeze accounts of truckers protesting COVID-19 regulations. It worked in Canada.

When the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began in February 2022, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) ‘s assets around the world were “frozen.” This was one of the measures designed to harm the Russian economy and force Russia to withdraw. Russia is a nation. It didn’t work against them. They are still fighting, going on four years later.

Even countries that might disapprove of Russia’s conduct are concerned about this action. That concern led them to consider changing their procedures to protect themselves against the West’s indifference to established rules and norms.

A group of countries, led by five (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), known as BRICS, accelerated efforts to develop an alternative to the U.S.–European financial system. There are now 10 countries in the BRICS, and they are working on other options for the International Monetary Fund and on different ways to store sovereign wealth.

For many reasons, including fraud, Ukraine is desperate for money. The sanctions on Russia have backfired in Europe and ruined their economies. Between that, the costs of open migration, and the money they’ve already sent to Ukraine, their budgets are in chaos. They have no funds to spare. Being desperate, they are looking for a way to justify using Russia’s money to help Russia’s opponent without being accused of stealing the money Russia entrusted to them.

Members of the European Parliamentary Research Service provided one analysis. It is what would be expected from support staff on one side of the issue. It lists the options and excuses they produced.

Columbia Professor Jeffrey Sachs’s 22-minute YouTube talk covers the problem from both sides and explains its severity. He notes the core problem is the central principle that is being broken: Sovereign Reserves are untouchable regardless of conflict or political enmity.

The European leaders don’t have the money to keep Ukraine afloat, so they are going to use Russia’s money as collateral for a loan. When Russia loses the war and must pay reparations, that money will repay the loan, and the collateral will be covered. But Russia doesn’t plan to fail. In fact, they now have every incentive to keep going.

In the meantime, there are almost a trillion dollars’ worth of Western companies’ assets in Russia, and they will be subject to quite different new rules. Russia will get its money back through them.

A factor holding up this scheme is the possible liability of the nations and banks holding the CBR’s funds. Most of the funds in Europe are held by Euroclear, a global provider of Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI) services, headquartered in Belgium. Both Euroclear and the Belgian government are worried that any attempt to use Russian assets will prompt immediate legal action by Russia. Alexander Mercouris has a video discussing the delay in this action and the opposition to the idea.

The use of currency and banking as political tools is dangerous. After the United States froze Russia’s access to the dollar, Saudi Arabia refused to renew its longstanding rule requiring all oil purchases to be made in dollars. Playing games with Russia’s Sovereign Assets, no matter how righteous you think you are, will have a significant adverse effect on the position of all the countries involved in terms of both their currency and their status as trustworthy places to hold wealth.