An unexpected 'Paper Chase' begins on January 6th - a rant

Over the weekend eleven more senators, including Senators Cruz, Johnson, Lankford, Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, declared their intention to join with members of the House of Representatives during the Electoral College certification process on January 6th, "...in forcing votes in both houses on whether to accept the presidential electors being challenged...", concluding with:

"...Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given' and ‘lawfully certified' (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.

"We are not naïve. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise. But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue. A fair and credible audit-conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20-would dramatically improve Americans' faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.

"These are matters worthy of the Congress, and entrusted to us to defend. We do not take this action lightly. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it. And every one of us should act together to ensure that the election was lawfully conducted under the Constitution and to do everything we can to restore faith in our Democracy."

These senators were immediately met with heavy criticism from the editors of National Review, some charged them with not only taking unconstitutional actions, but even of being opposed to the 'electoral process' and the Constitution itself, and of risking the 'legitimacy of the election' (psst! Half of America already questions its legitimacy, the question now is how to resolve that). And that was just what came from the Right. The Left went bananas. Then there was the rest of 'the Right', who've been positively jubilant over the news and are confident that 'it will work'. Here's a question for you: What happens if this electoral challenge does 'work' (an exceedingly small possibility)? What do you suppose happens with those who've been hoping for that and it doesn't work? What about everyone else who've been blindsided by this and are now shaking their heads and saying 'WTH is this all about?!?' Sounds chaotic, doesn't it? Wow, go figure, who could've seen this coming... oh, that's right, anyone who was willing to look! 

On seeing the senator's statement, I posted the following:

"So. The results of November's Presidential Election, which so many have so carelessly been proclaiming to be a 'settled issue', a 'sure thing', is beginning to look somewhat less so. Surprise. Multiple Representatives, and now at least two Senators, are going to challenge it on January 6th. To be sure, that may not change a thing, or it may reverse it, and/or it may lead to complete chaos. I've said all along that I've absolutely no clue how a contested presidential election will turn out, but one thing I do know, those who've been leading so many to think it was 'a done deal', will bear more than a little responsibility for the intensity of what may follow from their surprise at learning that it never was. Happy New Year, 2020 + 1."

Someone I know who is an accomplished and highly respected constitutional lawyer, has argued cases before the supreme court, and is one of the few who has actually won an election fraud cases, soon replied to my post, commenting that:

"This is false. There is no lawful, constitutional path by which Donald Trump can be declared the winner of the November election. So in that sense, the result of the election is indeed a settled issue. The question is whether a sufficient number of Republicans will choose to act unlawfully and unconstitutionally in order to nullify the result of the election. A distressing number of Republicans are lining up to do so. That they are willing to abandon the Constitution and the rule of law in hopes of preventing a Biden presidency (or perhaps just casting a pall of illegitimacy over Biden's presidency) says horrible, horrible things about those engaged in this charade."

Respectfully, he missed my point. When he states that "There is no lawful, constitutional path by which Donald Trump can be declared the winner of the November election.", three points which spring to mind:

1. Whether or not Trump can be declared the winner of the election has never been my point, my point has always been - stated repeatedly and repeatedly ignored by those I've been arguing it with - that there is the potential in our laws for great turmoil ahead which should be acknowledged and discussed and debated, and it shouldn't be pretended as if it's a done deal with nothing but smooth sailing ahead into inauguration day.
2. "There is no lawful, constitutional path..." As accomplished as my friend is, Sen. Cruz, who has also argued cases before the Supreme Court, and served as solicitor general of Texas, is no slouch on the Constitution either, and he clearly has a different interpretation than my friend's interpretation. It would be swell if they could argue this out in court, but guess what: If that ever happens, it will only come well after the actual incident which is now certain to take place, beginning on January 6th.
3. This is an active legislative and political process operating within the bounds of the constitution and some poorly defined laws written under it, and as the SCOTUS has never ruled on any part of it, differences of opinion on what is and is not lawful are going to be playing out in real time before us, beginning this week. Poorly written laws lead to differing interpretations of how to apply that law, and one of the purposes of the Supreme Court, under our Rule of Law, is to examine and render judgement on such actions - once that has happened, there will there begin to be a benchmark for saying which approach was, or wasn't, found to be constitutional, but at this point in time, it's all opinion and conjecture.

The laws that've been written to 'fix' our electoral process, are not clear laws, and no one reading them can be certain of having a clear understanding of what most other people will think they mean, and no one knows or can know how others in power will act upon these laws, or how still others will react to those actions, and no one can know for certain how events will play out this week, now that these laws actually have in fact been triggered. 

That much is and should have been obvious to anyone reading them. Yet the editors of the National Review, and many others on the Right and Left, and especially in the media, are expressing how shocked they are over the senator's statement. In their view, representatives were simply not expected to object to the Electoral Count, and no Senators - let alone twelve - were expected to declare their support for such an objection (never mind that twice in the past a senator has joined with House Members to object to the electoral count). This is an incredibly serious matter, and not just for this election, but for all of these people who expected the process to go rolling smoothly on, simply because they wanted it to.

[Pardon a brief aside - if you haven't read or seen the movie or tv series "The Paper Chase", there are two scenes from it that come to mind today. The first is when a student in the fearsome Professor Kingsfield's law class, makes a foolish assumption on the first day of class and is 'shrouded' by the professor, symbolically made dead to the class, and he's advised by all to drop out of the professor's class. The student, Mr. Hart, who idolizes Kingsfield, figures out how to get the professor to physically remove his shroud, and becomes a living part of the professor's class once again (that scene from the tv series can be found here). My point is not to cast my friend as Professor Kingsfield, or myself as anything like Mr. Hart, but only to point out that The Law can make us all feel as if we have no part in it, and that we should not meddle in its matters. or question what its 'experts' say it means. That is an illusion, and one which the founders of this nation rejected wholeheartedly, and we should as well. Our Constitution was written, and its laws were intended for, We The People to understand them and in some sense, to oversee their management. That we've let ourselves be intimidated by it, or mystified by it, and worse have let ourselves become governed by bad laws, is something that must be put to an end, and it has to be done so by us. Particularly at this moment in time, we should be taking notes on just what a mess some of our most important laws - such as those governing our elections - have become, and insist that they be revised so that they can be understood and understood to be constitutional, or be repealed. It is time for us to stop leaving our laws to lawyers and legislators. It won't be easy, but it must be done. Ok, back the real life paper chase before us].

Those who'd like us to ignore that this election has been contested since the day after election day, would have us believe that the Constitution, and particularly it's 12th Amendment, are all that's in play at the moment, but as noted, that is not the case. The problem is that after the last major electoral disruption, Congress wrote The Electoral Count Act of 1887, primarily to handle competing slates of electors being sent to Congress by the states (BTW, no matter how official they may or may not be, we do now have seven states 'submitting' competing slates of electors) but the Electoral Count Act goes further than that and gets muddier than simply selecting the slate of electors to be counted, and it does so with a notable lack of clarity, a lack which has not yet been tested in any court, and that lack of clarity was and is a clear opening for the unexpected to stroll into one of the most volatile moments of our collective lives, that being in the midst of the transfer of presidential power from one administration to the next (the process of electoral counts has since been objected to in 1969, and in 2001 (possibly more than you want to know about the interpretation at that time), and 2005, and against Trump in 2017). I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone with any knowledge of the process, hasn't been raising red flags about it. It doesn't require a person to support these challenges, to see them coming and to warn people that they are in fact there, that there is in fact a potentially dangerous pothole in the road to the inauguration before us. That is something that we should have been doing everything possible to make people aware of, and we should have all been intently discussing and debating this matter, rather than deriding others for mentioning even the possibility of it, and pretending it 'won't ever happen'.

Please note that I'm not making a claim about the validity of the charges of fraud (I definitely have my suspicions, but I'm also curious about why when a Wisconsin judge gave Trump's team an opportunity to argue their case in court, they passed?), I'm only saying that where our laws are unclear, actions are likely to be taken whose results cannot be predicted, and we should have been aware of and preparing for that. And unclear laws are exactly what we're dealing with here, numerous experts have been saying so for decades, in statements such as this one noted in the National Constitution Center's post on electoral disputes:

"...Election scholar Edward Foley wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in early December about the act’s language issues. “I have spent much of my academic career trying to parse its meaning, and I still find it impenetrable or, at the very least, indeterminate,” he admitted. Various problems Foley pointed to included unclear roles of state governors and other state officials as “certifiers” and what role the vice president can play in the process..."

That the wording of the law invites impressions such as that, practically screams out an invitation for the unexpected to occur. I don't know what's going to happen, and I'm unconvinced that anyone else does either - people, highly competent & informed people believe that they have very good reasons for what they think it means, and for what they say should happen, but that's not the nearly the same thing as knowing what will actually happen. For those just now beginning to try figuring this process out, here's the Congressional Research Center's interpretation of The Electoral Count Act of 1887.

The plain fact is that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (see also 'Counting electoral votes in Congress' 1948) has been in place for over a century, supposedly responsible leaders in congress have been well aware that it is an unclear and horribly written law that entire time which almost ensures a disaster of misinterpretations and calculated uses & misuses if ever fully triggered, and it's seemed fairly obvious since early November that it would likely be triggered. What are we doing?!

The Electoral College is not a stand alone process, it is a feature of the Constitution which operates within it, and within those laws written under it, and contesting it does not make you opposed to the Constitution. The Constitution itself, in certain circumstances, gives final say not to the Electoral College, but to Congress. Congress has itself written further laws, such as in the Electoral Count Act, which further define how the Electoral College votes are to be received, and or called into question. Unfortunately, those laws are not models of clarity, which means and has clearly meant for over a century, that if an election were ever contested, no one can say for certain how it will turn out when it comes time for those laws to be triggered.

What are we doing allowing such important issues to go unaddressed? Pretending as if it simply wouldn't be acted upon because it seems (and possibly is) unconstitutional, is not going to keep it from being acted upon by those with their own opinions and best of intentions for how it can and should be used. I've tried my best to point this out almost since the day after the election to point this out. I think it's been a tragically missed opportunity that it was brushed aside, the issue should have been the center of popular discussion and debate for the last month, and if it had it might've headed off, or at least reduced, the turmoil which may be coming our way in the coming weeks. Instead, far too many informed people chose to mock and ignore the possibility of it, and I can find no sense in that.

I am in no 'camp' on this but that of the concepts and principles that our Constitution was derived from, and the laws written under it. The only position I have taken on this, is that of one with eyes to see the problem that was plainly laying in wait for us. I'm not arguing the soundness or legality of the allegations of fraud. I'm of course still hoping that Biden will lose, and I know that affidavits of fraud have been filed, charges have been made, irregularities have been alleged and in at least one case, clearly identified (PA Lawmakers: Numbers Don’t Add Up, Certification of Presidential Results Premature and In Error), but my hopes have no standing in the matter, and neither I nor anyone else have seen evidence of fraud being presented, tested and determined to be publicly proven (or disproven) in a court of law - I would very much like to see that process carried out, but at this point that is no longer the point. 

One point that should be considered, is what powers do our courts have to do anything about it, if they do discover proof of massive voter fraud? What's the plan? What laws have been written to address that dangerous possibility? Almost none. People have been hiding their heads for a very long time. The point is, that our laws - which We The People are responsible for - have put this situation in our path, and those who were in a position to make Americans aware of it, and to face that fact (media, academics, political leaders on all sides), have not only failed to do so, but have actively sought to deny the possibility of it. We should have been facing and debating that, and letting our representatives know that we were aware of that and had expectations for how they should handle the situation, and those representatives should have been busily informing their constituents about it, and/or alternatives to it. Instead, we've received smarmy and snide comments about any thoughts that the election wasn't yet a 'done deal'.

The fact is that once this election became a contested election, we were no longer on the track of 'the same old thing', and I think it was foolish for anyone to deny that,  it was foolish and reckless to go along with childish notions of a 'Office of the President Elect', when the electoral process was still very much in question, and it was and is beyond foolish to tell people 'it's over, deal with it', when a plain reading of the 12th Amendment, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (and related laws passed since - there are even some claiming that the 20th & 25th Amendments could somehow be brought to bear) make it obvious that when contested, there's no way to know - not guess, know - how it will turn out. And I'm not referring only to who will be sworn in on January 20th, but to what response Americans will continue to have to the full process that leads up to that. That is what I've been saying all along, but people who preferred to let their feelings and partisanship cloud their eyes, have refused to see beyond what they've wanted to see. We could have, and should have, been discussing and debating the obvious problems ahead, but now that 'never going to happen' is absolutely going to happen this week on January 6th.

Keep in mind that it's very possible that the representatives' objections will be raised, argued, and dismissed within a few hours on January 6th, with no further surprises for us on through to inauguration day. 

We'll see. But either way, it's better to be prepared for the unexpected, than to be completely surprised by it. I don't know how this is going to turn out, but unlike others, at least I can say that I actually knew that much to begin with.

The person who is sworn in (hopefully) on January 20th will be President of the United States, and that fact doesn't need or depend upon something so silly as whether or not I 'support them'. Whether or not I think that they and their policies & actions should be supported or opposed, or even warrant impeachment (please, that door's wide open), is a very different matter from who the president will be, and some of the responses that people will have will be more pointed because of what 'unexpectedly' happens this week. Who will be POTUS after what happens between the 6th & 20th, and beyond, I won't hazard to guess.

See ya on the 7th.

/rant

How would Secessionists secede from themselves?

Just in time to celebrate the 229th birthday of our Bill of Rights, we have talk of 'secession' making the rounds again, coming this election season from the Right, just as last election it came from the Left (with bonus points to the Left for 4 years of '#resistance!' - sheesh). While then as now it's a (dangerous) bi-partisan foolishness, as it has been brought up, it's worth taking a bit of a different perspective on the matter for those who think it a good idea, which this very worthwhile article has brought to mind. So if you think that secession would be a good idea, I've got a quick two part question for you to consider:

• With which state(s), and with who?

What I mean by the first part of that, is that presumably you want some states to secede so as to distance yourselves from your fellow un-American states, and avoid being sucked into a civil war (...um...), right? So there must be one or more states you have in mind whose populations aren't as bitterly divided by 40%-60% of their own people fighting with each other over the very same issues that've prompted this secession talk, so that... you know... your seceding state(s) won't fall into their own internal civil wars... right? So for these state's whose populations are solidly 70% or more 'likeminded' with you on all of today's most divisive issues - I assume you have more of a basis for believing that than they all like the flag and stand for the Star Spangled Banner, right? What makes you think that these likeminded Americans of yours will have a better understanding of what America once was and should now be - did its people somehow avoid public schools? No? Huh. And as for the second part of that question: What will you do with that 30% or more of their populations who don't support your secessionary notions? And what if they would rather that your state went with their group of states?

Maybe you've got all of that covered, which would be fantastic news, but for you and your likeminded fellows who think they're up to the task of renewing America, I've got an even quicker question for you (see the opening of the article just mentioned), which, I should probably apologize in advance for, as I suspect it will likely decimate the ranks of your 70%. Brace yourself, it's a doozy - ready? Here we go:

• What is the name 'Cincinnati' derived from, and what is its relevance to America and being an American?

What? Do you know? You do?! That is fantastic! Now, go ahead and ask it of your selected likeminded fellow Americans. I'll wait. It's ok, I don't think I'll have to wait for too long, because I, like the author of this article, have found that most people, and probably especially most of those with college educations who will imagine themselves to be your new leaders, have no clue whatsoever that 'Cincinnati' refers to anything other than the name of a city in Ohio.

So what, you say? So what, is that this is more than just a trivia question, it's a leading indicator of the kind of knowledge that is tragically absent from the minds and character of those living in America today. That little question is a reminder that the problems that we're facing today involve more than just what that 'other' political party, or parties, thinks or does, it has more to do with what we are no longer thinking of, or with, at all. I won't give away the answer (go read it, I'll wait), but I agree with the author, that,

"...Not that long ago, just about any American knew as much or, even more, probably could even have named a few of the most famous Cincinnati. Today, not so much. But our forgetting is not limited to interesting historical facts. What has been forgotten includes the purpose of essential elements of the Founders’ design...."

That is not a trivial matter, and it is of the utmost significance to anyone who'd rather help than harm America. Our nation was first and foremost founded from and upon an understanding of an ideal that was supported and made possible through a set of knowledge and beliefs which fired the varied peoples of those thirteen individual colonies into forming themselves up and into a new nation. We The People today, do not have that set of knowledge and beliefs - and so more pointedly the question becomes, with whom are you going to secede and reform America?!

IMHO we don't 'get America back' without a population that understands and believes in what made America possible in the first place. Having a population who've simply been born here and grew up watching many of the same TV shows and sporting events, isn't going to cut it. If you disagree, if you think that your birth certificate is all it takes to make you an 'American' (look around you), I'm sorry to tell you that the 'blood & soil' thoughts you've been thinking with have far more in common with ideas of tribalism, monarchism & fascism, than with what first made America possible and exceptional.

The problem here is that America isn't something that can be established by a physical fight alone, in the way that an ethnic nationality or kingly bloodline could just fight over land and then... be themselves. America began as a set of ideas that were known and understood first, and only then were they able to create the tangible 'thing' of America which could then be physically fought for.

John Adams described the moment when the idea of America was lit in the soon to be revolutionaries hearts and minds, which was during an assembly in 1761, when James Otis rose to speak out against King George's 'Writs of Assistance' , when, as Adams recalled it,

"...Otis was a flame of fire! With a promptitude of Classical Allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events & dates, a profusion of Legal Authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous Eloquence he hurried away all before him. American Independence was then & there born. The seeds of Patriots & Heroes to defend the Non sine Diis Animosus Infans; to defend the Vigorous Youth were then & there sown. Every Man of an immense crouded Audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take Arms against Writs of Assistants. Then and there was the first scene of the first Act of opposition to the Arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the Child Independence was born. In fifteen years i.e. in 1776. he grew up to Manhood, & declared himself free..."[emphasis mine]

We no longer even recognize the relevance of 'a promptitude of Classical Allusions' which Otis fired his listeners with, let alone an eloquence that could stir men's souls with the firm goodness required to stand and fight for that understanding of liberty which meant more than simply doing whatever you felt like at the moment. We don't have that understanding in enough numbers today to be able to confidently recognize each other as being worthy of rallying around. The question isn't whether or not we have enough people with patriotic feelings, it's are there enough patriots who know and understand what they'd actually be fighting for, to the point that they wouldn't soon fall to fighting amongst themselves soon after? As you've guessed, IMHO the answer is 'no'.

Voting Away America
And here's another very non-trivial question, for those of you who are (rightly) up in arms about the latest election:

• When did America first consciously take constitutional steps to distance itself from its Founding?

The answer to that is in 1913, when, before the two party system was fully cemented into our body politic (it was a big part of the final preparations for it), in that year We The People we took two very large steps backwards, first with the 16th Amendment, which established the federal income tax & federal reserve - and was tragic - but even more critical to our problems today, was the 17th Amendment. This same article notes how the 17th Amdt has had a great deal to do with the weakened state of our federal system and the sickly nature of 'the vote' as we know it today, and of how its power is now being used so very differently than it once was:

"...Many of us do not know that senators were originally chosen by the state legislatures—and this change was made not that long ago. In 1913, around the beginning of the Progressive Era, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution tossed aside this critical feature of the Framers’ design, replacing it with the direct election of senators we have today.

The Founders would certainly have opposed the 17th Amendment because they would have understood that it would throw the system they gave us completely out of balance, as it, in fact, has done. It was perhaps the single change that would do the most to undo what the Founders had accomplished by means of the Constitution.

Americans in 1913 showed by their votes they had forgotten the purpose of the Framers’ design for the Senate. We today, by and large, have even forgotten that generation’s forgetting.

The consequences of this change to America’s constitutional order have been many and profound. Probably the most obvious has been the inevitable erosion of the independence of the states and of their ability to counterbalance federal power.

The Senate was once a barrier to the passage of federal laws infringing on the powers reserved to state governments, but the Senate has abandoned that responsibility under the incentives of the new system of election. Because the state governments no longer have a powerful standing body representing their interests within the federal government, the power of the federal government has rapidly grown at the expense of the states. State governments increasingly are relegated to functioning as administrative units of today’s gargantuan central government...."

How we elect our elected officials - particularly Senators and the President - is an extremely important and non-trivial issue, and in much the same way that the 'Cincinnati' question is not a trivial question, what the relation of 'the Vote' is to Representative Government, are not trivial issues, and our treating them as if they are, is the very means by which our once vaunted sense of American Exceptionalism, has been trivialized to the point that it has been today.

We got to this point slowly, 'progressively', and I think it'll take a long stretch of time to get back out of it. Our slide began in the schools with an evermore corrupting form of 'education' (even by respectable Founder's such as Noah Webster, who devised the educational poison of modern 'Textbooks' so as to help steer students away from learning a 'promptitude of Classical Allusions'), and it'll take a return to an actual education, to correct it. If you'd like some advice on how we might begin our journey back from this pro-regressive nightmare, here's a couple steps that I think would actually be useful:

• Step 1 - get your kids out of the schools, and get your friends & family to get their kids the hell out of the schools, and talk - a lot - about what needs to be known to become an American.
• Step 2 - establish a consistent, verifiable voting system where paper votes can be securely cast by legitimately registered (and breathing) citizens who - except in isolated instances - cast their votes in person, and establishes a secure audit trail.
• Step 3 - spread steps 1 & 2 and... wait.

The bottom line is that if you want to fix America, we should each of us first start with ourselves so that we can at least be certain that the population of actual Americans living in America will have been increased by at least 1. The good news is that you can begin doing so together with friends & family and so increase the population by several persons all at once.

That 2020 Vision
I still am not willing to guess at who'll be sworn in as president at the end of January, because I know it would be nothing more than a guess (keep your eyes on Jan 6th though), and that says more about the chaotic nature of our voting systems and of what We The People know of our own laws, than about the bizarre nature of 2020. There is one thing I do know has led us into this mayhem, and that's that the election laws we currently have - while they may enable charging particular individuals with having committed electoral crimes, they are pitifully inadequate for applying to broader organized electoral fraud, and they are entirely unable to do anything at all, once a ballot (or a pallet of them) have been added to the 'ballot box'. At that point, a legitimate ballot and one stuffed in, cannot be distinguished, and the final count of votes is something we are then left with taking on faith.

That's a problem.

What's an even more disturbing problem, to me, is that it's beginning to seem that the nature of the 'Secret Ballot' - a 19th century innovation which I've never questioned the value of before - essentially ensures an unaccountable system which invites corruption and the suspicion of it. 

Could our voting systems be made more effective, secure and auditable, by replacing the 'secret ballot' with a 'private ballot' - where ballots are cast in person (on paper) by an identified, legitimate, and registered voter, so that each ballot could ultimately be traced back to having been legitimately cast? Could that be done without actually identifying that individual voter? And if not, would applying even more legal penalties for unauthorized 'peeking' at a citizen's voting history than is incurred for doing so with tax returns, keep that history private? 

Those who've had their Tax Records leaked or mysteriously 'audited' by the IRS are probably shaking their heads No.

That too, is a problem. Nevertheless, looking around me today, I'm thinking that our current unaccountable system needs to come to an end. Fast.

In short: The system is the way it is, because of the way it is - if we want a change, we'll have to make significant changes to the way it's set up, and that'll likely mean doing so on the federal level (repeal the 17th Amendment!), and also state by state, locality by locality, and person by person.

But to begin with, let's try taking Step 1, Step 2 & Step 3, and rinse and repeat... and please, lets try doing so as Americans, together - the alternative can be nothing but worse.

In 2020 we're so busy counting votes that we risk missing the Gorilla amongst us

You've heard that we had an election. You're probably aware that popular opinion says that the guy I wanted to lose might not have. You're probably aware that some people claim that they see evidence of election fraud. People are even so focused upon what they think they know, that otherwise sensible people are almost routinely coming to conclusions about about hundreds of allegations of electoral fraud, while having no idea of what's contained in those allegations. Are the allegations legitimate? I have no idea, but at least I realize that.

I didn’t realize Neil had left Fox to join the federal bench in Pennsylvania and already reviewed our 105-page lawsuit filed less than an hour ago.

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) November 9, 2020

I've already posted on why it's unwise to celebrate anyone as 'President Elect' at this point, so I'm not going to focus on those points again, and that really is no longer what we need to be most aware of right now. The biggest issue we face right now is that everyone is focusing so intently on who will win the election, that they are distracting themselves from seeing the changed nature of the situation we find ourselves in, and that is what I want to redirect people's attention to.

There's an old awareness experiment that you may have been shown in school, or have heard being discussed (Jordan Peterson makes some interesting observations on it here ), about people being asked to very carefully watch a short video of people with white shirts on who are passing basketballs around with people in black shirts, and the viewers were asked to see if they could accurately count the number of times a basketball changes hands.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen this yet, watch it now, it's less than two minutes long, and see if you can accurately count how many times the basketball is passed, and then read on.

Ok, here's the spoiler: some people are able to accurately count the number of times the people in white shirts pass the basketball around (I don't remember if I did or not), but a great many people are entirely unable to answer the next question that were asked, which is this:

• Did you spot the Gorilla?

Most people laugh at that, thinking it's a joke. It isn't. A large person wearing a gorilla suit wanders into the scene, walks right through the midst of the people passing the basketball around, beats his chest, and walks out. I remember that I noticed the gorilla (walking out, I missed his entrance and the chest beating). However, there were a couple of other key details that I completely missed.

The point being, that when we are intently focused on observing one thing, we are in danger of being unaware of other significant issues occurring right in front of our faces. And so my question to you who are focused upon projections of electoral counts that have still not yet been counted, and those of you who are focused on celebrating your 'President Elect', and also those of you who are so sure that your guy didn't lose, is this:

Do you know what it means when a major candidate has not conceded the election, and has collected sworn affidavits at the penalty of perjury of attesting to electoral fraud, and has filed lawsuits in several states, on that?

What it means, is that we are no longer in the midst of a normal election that is centered around counting the votes to see who won. What we are in the midst of now, is a contested election, and unless every single one of those charges and affidavits are determined by proper means to be without merit in a very short period of time, there are numerous federal and state laws and procedures which normally aren't felt in an election, and those unfamiliar laws and procedures will take affect, and they don't give a damn about what either CNN or the GOP have predicted about the election. H/T to the Freedom Center of Missouri (one of a very few firms to win electoral challenges) for this flowchart, taken from this NYT article:

"...If lawsuits and recounts persist — and if vote margins are razor thin in key states — it could be weeks before President Trump or Joseph R. Biden Jr. is named the winner. In some scenarios, the contest could drag into 2021...."

We're no longer on the smooth bottom path

My position is not and has not been about whether the accusations of electoral fraud are warranted or not, but only on the obvious fact that they have been officially filed, which moves us beyond the familiar smooth process (bottom of the flowchart) of simply counting votes, and into the differing processes that kick into gear in a contested election, and those processes are not necessarily concerned with how many ballots were cast for who in the popular vote - the measures being triggered right now could even (unlikely but very possible) result in those ballots being cast off by the various state legislatures, discarding their state's popular vote altogether (BTW, our Constitution makes no mention of a Popular Vote, only State laws do, and personally, I wish neither did), and those state legislatures could have their chosen electors cast the votes themselves, or they could decide to have new electors be appointed, or the votes might end up not being certified at all, or any number of other entirely unpredictable twists and turns could come into play in each contested state. And after all of that, even more could come into play as the newly sworn in federal congress becomes involved, and all talk about transition teams is incredibly premature and reckless. 

IOW: Polls and projections are even less meaningful now, than they were before the election. It's possible that all of the states will resolve the allegations in time, getting back on track, but how prepared are you for the other possibility?

There's an interesting three part series on what is involved in the Electoral Process, and how it actually works when the unexpected happens, written before the election on the Lawfare blog (which is generally hostile to Trump). Part one, covers where we are in the process right now, on the several possibilities for how the processes may proceed in the states, Part Two covers Congress's role in counting the electoral votes, and Part Three goes into what happens when no candidate secures a majority of electors.

People who have taken my caution and opposition to calling Biden 'President Elect', as not wanting to face reality (I'm far more focused on what is really happening than on what I might have wished to happen) are, I suspect, so focused upon their candidate winning, and especially on the Orange Man Bad losing, that they are missing the large gorilla of contention that's right in front of their faces, beating its chest and getting ready to punch them in the nose. I'm very much aware that who I want to lose, may not (and I'll be fine with that, once it's actually officially run its course) - but that process is defined by numerous state and federal laws, and not by media predictions, and it has a strong potential for unfolding in wildly unexpected twists & turns, and my concern is that people's foolish celebrations are going to send their tender psyche's into a head-on collision with reality.

The Gorilla of a Contested Election is wandering through our electoral process right now, and those people who are so intent on counting or predicting votes that they are oblivious to the changed nature of this now contested election, are running the risk of being blindsided by reality in a very big way, and I suspect that there are some people who are very much counting on that, and looking forward to the chaos that would result from it.

I have no idea whether the election will ultimately go 'my way', or not, and neither does anyone else. The process we've entered into is unpredictable. You ignore that at not only your own risk, but your negligence contributes towards putting everyone else at risk as well. 

Please, stop doing that.

Disenfranchising 'We The People' by failing to follow the formal and organized process of an election

Every four years, on the Tuesday after the 1st Monday of November, We The People after much discussion and debate, come together to hold an election to determine who will be the President of the United States of America. Most people at least have some idea of why they want an election - even if it's just to get your guy in, and get the other guy out - but few seem to give much thought to what an Election actually is. One decent definition to start the thought rolling with, is:

election -[əˈlekSH(ə)n] NOUN: "a formal and organized process of electing or being elected, especially of members of a political body."

It seems obvious that "formal and organized process" indicates laws, rules & steps to be followed, right? Such formal and organized processes provide detailed, mostly mandatory, instructions that cover everything from determining who or what is being voted upon in that election, to how the voting is to occur, how it is to be conducted, and counted, and certified to the satisfaction of all, and it happens to be one area of our Constitution that has undergone the most changes through constitutional amendments, and legislation at the state and local level. Why? So that those processes would comply with how We The People have thought it was important to define, and redefine, and improve those processes over the years.

I personally don't think that many of the intended 'improvements' were actually improvements, but that's neither here nor there - those rules are what do define our electoral system, and my thoughts and feelings about them, do not. Do you feel that your preferences and feelings should have that power over our laws? I hope not.

Does it seem reasonable to you that such 'a formal and organized process' as established by We The People to manage those in power over us, should be abandoned mid-way through, because a partial tally plucked out of an ongoing process, suits the designs and desires of one faction of We The People, as having told them all they wanted to hear? Would you put up with calling a baseball game after the 7th inning, or a Super Bowl without knowing the ref's call on the chaotic last second touchdown? Should we really treat an election as something less than a game? Should we permit some of We The People to ignore our formal and organized processes, and essentially say:

"Hey! Hold up! No need to finish, some of us like how things appear right now, so there's no need to continue, how about we just stop and run with that, ok?! Huh? Whatcha think? Some of you like it? Ok, cool, we're done here then, congratulations to the person we wanted to win! The rest of you can suck it."

I'm a hard 'No' on that, as it would mean disenfranchising those voters (all of them, actually) not yet counted or resolved. So what do we mean by that word 'disenfranchised'?:

disenfranchise[ dis-en-fran-chahyz ] verb - to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.

We The People have gone through a great deal of discussion, debate and effort in order to formally organize our electoral system in such a way so as to ensure that all valid voters can participate in the electoral process, and so that no one will be 'disenfranchised' from the process of casting their vote and having it counted in that election.

So let me ask you: If you declare one candidate to be a winner, congratulate that candidate for winning, before the process of counting and certifying votes in a disputed election is completed, and if you assert that 'The election is over!', when it's not, aren't you effectively disenfranchising those voters whose votes are yet to be counted or resolved?

It's a serious question. Do you have an answer?

I'm asking because nowhere in our formal and organized processes for handling an election, is there any mention made that any consideration should be given, let alone given leave to alter or halt our electoral processes, because of the predictions of popular pollsters or the projections of various news media and pundits. Neither are there provisions made for the feelings of those who're prematurely and jubilantly celebrating what they do not yet have a reason to celebrate - such external considerations are nowhere factored into that formal and organized process which We The People have established, for determining the results of our presidential elections.

Do you know what is factored into those formal and organized processes? Formal methods for lodging complaints, charges, and investigations into what are perceived to be questionable or fraudulent behaviors within that formally defined and organized process.

Those are legitimate concerns.

Your desire for it to be over with, is not!

Those who are ignoring the electoral process, those who are loudly and publicly congratulating a fictional 'President Elect' and congratulating them for that fiction, those who are demanding that we all behave as if the election is over, are actively serving to disenfranchise their fellow citizens, and to overthrow the will of We The People as a sacrifice to their premature and immature feelings.

Depriving anyone of the civil right to vote which is derived from the nature of being a citizen - whether by preventing their voting, or by discarding their vote, or simply by declaring a 'conclusion' without bothering to count all legitimate votes - those are all actions which effectively serve to disenfranchise We The People of our civil rights as citizens of this nation.

That's should be a big deal. Shouldn't it?

In every presidential election, the entire electoral process is formally carried out and followed through to the end, every time. Even in those elections where the initial numbers seem so obvious to all involved that one candidate has won, and their chief rival calls the winner to concede the election and congratulate the winner, that is but a polite formality which allows all involved to either mope or celebrate and quickly get on with the rest of their daily lives. But even during those niceties, the formal process of carefully counting and certifying the votes, of processing any challenges to the election, from the local level on up to the state level, is all methodically carried out, and only once it has all been determined to have been properly concluded, does the electoral process come to an end - months later - with an official recording of the fact of who won the election.

All of our comfortable TV News elections, from 1960 to 1996, which we sometimes stayed up late to watch, or maybe woke up the next day to find out which candidate had called the other candidate to concede and congratulate his former opponent on winning & promised his support - every single one of those elections, still ran on outside the media, to complete the full electoral process.

Because there were little or no disputes in those elections, many complacent Americans were at some point surprised to discover that those elections were not actually decided on their evening news after they'd voted, but by the electoral college in mid December, and even then were still not officially called and recorded until the incoming congress did so in the coming January. Most people had no clue about that process until things didn't go so smoothly, and a candidate had not conceded (or had conceded, and then reneged on their concession, ala algore in 2000), and only then did so many of us begin to realize how not only inappropriate, but improper, and divisive it was, for someone to have declared one candidate to be the winner, when in fact that had not yet been determined. Doing so would publicly be dismissing the legitimate questions and complaints - not proven, mind you, only legitimately lodged - and inflame still more hostile passions across and throughout the nation.

That was, and is, a bad, and even a dangerous thing to do, doesn't it?

The process of lodging complaints is an important part of the electoral process, to ignore or dismiss them, is playing with the power of political fire.

Our formal and organized process of voting, allows for those citizens involved to monitor the process and if they detect misbehavior, they can and should, call a halt - by law - and have the process investigated. When that happens, it is not only technically wrong to behave as if a winner has been agreed upon and declared, it is an insult and an affront to ALL of the citizenry, both those whose vote has been counted, and those who're being told that their concerns and votes are of no concern to anyone else. To deliberately ignore or inflame the concerns of people who have a legitimate interest in the legitimacy of an election for major political power over their lives, and to refuse to address those legal options that are formally established and organized for the remedying of such issues, is an insanely dangerous tactic to take, and especially so when cities are still in flames over widespread social unrest.

Insane, at best, and something more akin to criminal negligence, is more like it, endangering the peace, property, and lives of all Americans, by sowing the poisonous seeds of discord, leading both the unwary and unwise to believe that all is over and their guy won (a result which is still very possible, and perhaps even probable, but only by adhering to the formal and organized processes of the election), and offering the cruelest of insults to the valid concerns of those who can only see themselves as being disenfranchised by the 'other side', bad blood, and very possibly violence, even rioting, might follow.

And finally, I hope you'll notice that I have not once raised the specific concerns or candidates in this election - these concerns are true and apply across every presidential election.

Those of you - Left, Right & Center - who persist in ignoring our electoral process, who are shouting 'Congratulations!' as if the formal and organized process of our election had run its course, you are not behaving 'in line with a desire to unify and restore trust in the election process', you are not being magnanimous, you aren't even being clever, or 'getting what's yours!' (though you soon may), by celebrating what has not yet been determined. What you are being, is short sighted, rude, negligent fools, foolishly playing with political fires which actively threaten your fellow citizens and communities and ensure that your nation, your people, and very possibly yourselves, will experience extended turmoil, unrest, and very probably even violence.

Shame on you. And in the year of 2020, I feel fairly confident in saying that your presumptuousness and thoughtlessness is going to lead to disastrous consequences for you, and for us all.

Biden: Antifa is 'Just an idea', yes Joe, but of what - Liberty or Tyranny?

What is most alarming about Joe Biden saying in last week's debate that antifa is just an idea, is that he seems to think that makes it harmless. Just an idea... hey Joe, what do you suppose that organizations are organized around? What do you think it is that motivates people, to organize organizations, to begin with?

Just an idea, yes, but of what?

For example, here's a couple other things that Joe might pass off as being... '...you know, the thing...', that've spawned some exceedingly real and substantial organizations:

• all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
• the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
• All within the state, nothing outside the state

Each one of those catchy phrases, though 'just an idea', led to some momentous movements and organizations, one of which became the United States of America. The other two ideas, unfortunately, though they too were 'just an idea', led to the deadliest and most destructive states in all of human history - from the Terror, to Communism, Fascism, Nazism.

That antifa is 'just an idea', is hardly a meaningless statement. The Tea Party was 'just an idea' without formal or uniform organization, yet millions of people were able to rally behind it and alter the well laid plans of government. The question to ask is, what kind of idea is it? Is the 'just an idea' in question, one that, like the Tea Party, values human life, does it stand for people living in an expectation of liberty and justice? Does it recognize the fundamentals of the American system, such as this mere idea of from John Adams':

"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist."?

, or does Antifa & BLM use simple ideas to intimidate people, such as 'check your privilege', and to undermine the basis of their lives with 'It's only property!', does it lead the people who have 'just an idea' in their heads, to force people to obey and to conform and to submit to the power of those massed in the streets, does it endorse accosting and intimidating people, demanding that they bow and 'say their name!,' proving that they accept the new revolutionary social standards. This too was 'just an idea' of Rousseau's,

"whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free"

, but that idea in the head of Robespierre is what drove the French Revolution's Terror and sowed fertile ground for the deadly weeds of the 20th Century. Just an idea. Here's a collary of these ideas, which history demonstrates over and over again, that ' by tolerating property being destroyed, innocent men are and will continue to be killed'.

I have some good friends, and virtual friends, who think Antifa & BLM are swell, that they are 'doing good' and that while they destroy property, it's warranted and excusable. The fact that the actual fascists intimidated people in the streets, destroyed property, and caused injury and even death, doesn't cause them to check the premises of their ideas in the least, they seem comforted by the fact that antifa and fascist are different names. When I point out that it doesn't matter if the names are different, when, where it counts, they are the same, they laugh 'Antifa aren't fascists, they fight against fascists!'. Try and pin them down to what they mean by that, and they refuse to say what, if anything, they think it means. They're not, you know, gonna be pinned down by me and my terms of truth & liberty, they reply, in so many words, that they have,

"...contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth..."

, they are for relativist concepts, that 'my truth' isn't 'their truth', or as Joe Biden might've put it, 'Ya know... the thing...', which doesn't surprise me at all, because another fellow who expressed much the same frustrations, and expressed an admiration for relative truths, unconcerned with how they might be practiced in one place or another, said:

“... relativism is simply a fact.... Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth … then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable...."

Unfortunately, for the meaning of the name 'antifa', that fellow was Benito Mussolini describing ('Diuturna', 1921 (pg 374-377) what was 'just an idea' of Fascism.

And you know what? It doesn't matter much whether you put a name to it or not. It is easiest to understand an idea by seeing the results of it being put into practice, and though it is hard to believe it needs to be said, it does: The disregard & denial of Individual Rights is the defining nature of Tyranny, and whether you name its practice as being Antifa, Alt-Right, Fascists, Nazis, Communists, KKK, Black Panthers, etc, each by any other name would reek as foul. Whether the tyrant prefers to tyrannize by race, class, religion, economics-are but fashion choices -Tyrants they are, and those of you who won't 'say their name' will be their target.

Or are you one of those saying

"No hold on, no one's advising fascism, we just think you should be more pragmatic about these matters with antifa"

Funnily enough, both Mussolini and his ghost-author and intellectual guru, Giovanni Gentile, were also deep admirers of the Pragmatism of William James & John Dewey, you know, no 'dogmatic principles or ideals', just doing what works - that was what they saw Fascism as being - taking action to do what works. The problem is, that despite the efforts of tyrants to peddle their notions as 'just an idea', those ideas, when men attempt to organize around them, the nature of those ideas tend to organize men into unprincipled, undependable, passionate forces of despotic violence and destruction.

Here's 'Just an idea' attacking a police station

Let's be clear: If you think that roving gangs of ideological zealots, masked and armed to intimidate and injure, should be the arbiters of public speech, then you are a fascist. If that gang calls themselves 'anti-fascists', the only fascists they oppose are the other competing brands.

One of the best reasons for not voting for Joe Biden, is the fact that he brushes off a group of people who've self organized around passionately tyrannical ideals, as 'just an idea', without the least inkling that that idea is the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares.

Idiot.

What the Democrats didn't debate: Bloomberg's opinion of Farmers

Watching the Democrat debate last night, was like watching Vanilla, Rocky Road, Mint Chip & Caramel Swirl, claiming that their differing flavors made them into something other than ice cream. They don't. But it was interesting to me that out of all of Mike Bloomberg's many despicable (and revealing) comments they chose to attack him on and argue over, none of them brought up the outrageous comment of his that most recently came to light over the last week, in saying that farmers & blue collar workers don't have enough grey-matter to follow the dots & do the calculations that Tech Workers do. Perhaps, as with battling over flavors to avoid noticing that they're all just ice cream, they didn't argue over that point because that's one thing that they're all agreed upon? If that's so, and I'm pretty sure it is, then looking closer at what they didn't argue about, might be more worthwhile than the worthless arguments they mostly wasted our time with making.

In case you missed it, what came out over the last few days, was a talk that Bloomberg gave a couple years ago, where he'd spoken about how 'the economy' has evolved over time, and how it will soon leave farmers & manual workers behind:

“...The agrarian society lasted 3,000 years and we could teach processes. I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer, It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn. You could learn that. Then we had 300 years of the industrial society. You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in the direction of the arrow and you can have a job. And we created a lot of jobs. At one point 98% of the world, worked in agriculture, today it's 2% in the United States. Now comes the information economy and the information economy is fundamentally different because it's built around replacing people with technology and the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and analyze, and that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a different skill set, you have to have a lot more gray matter. It's not clear the teachers can teach or the students can learn, and so the challenge of society of finding jobs for these people, who we can take care of giving them a roof over their head and a meal in their stomach and a cell phone and a car and that sort of thing. But the thing that is the most important, that will stop them from setting up a guillotine someday, is the dignity of a job...."(WTH?)

While I get the angry reactions from people to Bloomberg's comments, most of the responses that I've seen, seem to either have missed the point, or are actually making the very same point that Bloomberg made, except that they're putting the farmers on the 'smarter' side of the equation, as along the lines of:

"Oh yeah! Wow you're soOo wrong! Farmers don't follow just simple dots, they follow complicated dots! And lots more dots than billionaires & tech people do!"

Now just think about that for a moment... what sort of questions were people asking themselves, to lead them to those replies? And aren't those replies essentially saying that they are better people than Bloomberg & his ideal Techies, because Farmers really do make oodles of sooper-dee-duper calculations - isn't that agreeing with the 'principle' of what Bloomberg was saying? That connecting and calculating the dots is the measure of man's mind & value? And doesn't that mean that their only disagreement with Bloomberg is over who it is, that are the better people?

I'm not saying so to call anyone right or wrong here, but to draw your attention to the fact that that is what our 'educational system' has been teaching us for over a century now, in a myriad number of ways, such as stressing how important it is to go to college and get a 'good job', so that you don't get 'stuck' in one of those embarrassing non-professional dead end jobs that involve getting your hands dirty. Your ears should be practically ringing with he echoes here.

For myself, I seriously disagree with all of the flavors of these arguments. But most of all, I want to point out that to confuse Education, with training people to perform certain technical steps - basic or advanced - comes from a materialistic, slave oriented perspective, which ultimately has tyrannical ends aimed at the subjugation of man, even when it is done for 'the greater good!'. But... that's another post.

The better responses that many people did make to Bloomberg's foolishness, BTW, were those that tended towards Paul Harvey's "So God Made A Farmer", which is much closer to the mark that we should be aiming at, and it's well worth noting how the points it focuses on, are points which Bloomberg and all elitists (which includes any who think that their pursuits or positions puts them above other people) of all walks of life, entirely miss.

"So God Made A Farmer: The Mike Bloomberg Edition"

A person's ability to follow steps and perform calculations, is not the measure of a man, but measuring men by that scale does typify the perspective of tyrants.

Those who believe that their ends justify any means they deem necessary to use in achieving them, need a means of measuring the usefulness of people in order to more efficiently fit them into being another brick in their wall; they need cookie cutter systems and standardized tests (and scythes to cut the tall poppies down), to efficiently quantify, weigh and measure their 'human capital' with.

What the tyrannically minded have little need for, are answers to less quantifiable questions, such as are you a person of character? Are you dependable? Capable? Are you moral? Are you concerned with what is real, good & true? Are you both willing to learn new steps and processes, and also willing and able to be counted upon to care for your fellows? Are you kind to pets? Are you considerate to people you don't need to be kind to, and are you respectful towards your other personal & business responsibilities?

Those are the kinds of questions and measures of intelligence that are worth asking from a Human perspective, in taking the measure of a person, and answering them requires the use of slow and inefficient human observation, reasoning & judgement, rather than the speedy and well defined answers that abound from ranks of follow-the-dots calculations. Those who're in pursuit of their ends without much concern for the means used in reaching them, have little use for such questions, because those people who're likely to be identified by them, are poorly suited to being stamped out in cookie-cutter molds, and are typically resistant to being formed into bricks that'll fit snugly into your wall.

Not so coincidentally, those in pursuit of ends which justify their means, are interested in teaching people to forget about asking larger questions such as those, preferring instead that they habituate themselves to asking an entirely different kind of questions. Questions that are easily measured & quantified and fit into useful positions, such as those that closely resemble most of the responses that Bloomberg received to his statement. It might be worthwhile to ask yourself, what sorts of questions have worked their way into your own thinking? I understand that you might resent being characterized in that way, I sure do, but how aware are you that our public education system was explicitly designed to, as the man who'd latter become the 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, once explained to a meeting of the Federation of High School teachers, that:

"...We want one class of persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks..."

Sure, you probably don't often find yourself consciously reducing your fellow man to the status of tools and 'human capital'... not outright at any rate, but you've certainly been taught to think of the world in that way. And while you may be sure that such thoughts haven't found their way into your thinking... have you checked? Do you... for instance... want your kids to get a 'good education' in order to get a 'good job'? Do you think of getting a good education, and schools teaching classes that'll be 'good for the economy', as being the same thing? Do you want to see more STEM classes in school? Do you vote for politicians who promise to 'fix' members of our society? To regulate (mandate) how people live their lives and do their jobs? No...? Not in healthcare? Not in prescription drugs? Not in Education? ... Insurance? ...Entertainment? ...Big Tech? ...Wall Street?

If not, congratulations, well done. I still find hints of such things popping up in the back of my mind now & then... they don't often get a step further than that, but they are there, and I know a great number of folks on 'The Right' who habitually take more than a few steps down one of those roads. Often. That's not something to deny, but to be very much aware of, because it's less than a small step from there, to Bloomberg & the Emperors of Ice Cream's way of seeing your fellow man as 'human capital'. It takes only a slight turn of mind, from reasoning upon history, to 'critical thinking' about STEM subjects for instance (oh, do you often call for more 'Critical Thinking' in our schools? Have you ever wondered when and where (and Why?) that term came from (Hint: 'Critical Thinking' originated in the 1940's... do you think that our Founding Fathers suffered from a lack of those 'critical thinking skills'?)? You really should think some about that, as monsters do lurk in the shadows, ya know), to begin evaluating people by their economic function (job), and by their wealth and status (no doubt you don't look down on poor people, but... do you ever look down on 'the rich'?).

Sure, you're unlikely to begin advising the terminating of elderly people's lives based upon an expected ROI from their medical procedures, or even to outright change the rules you originally agreed to play by, like Mike 'lets run for three-terms anyway' Bloomberg, did. But, as with the differences between being a Democrat, a Democratic Socialist, and a Communist... those are only differences in degree, not in kind.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we do have problems in the United States of America. But how detailed the processes of your job are, or how much 'grey matter' some fool thinks you have, or worse, actually tested & calculated you to have, isn't our real problem. Our problems have much more to do with not realizing that that type of thinking, which we've been taught for over a century to thoughtlessly think of and accept as being normal, is our real problem.

Again, did you respond to Bloomberg's put-down of farmers & laborers for not having enough grey matter skills, by saying they have more such skills than he does? I'll admit it, that was my first thought. But did you have any second thoughts, about your first thought? Don't let the truth fall prey to your first answers (which is another thing that automated testing teaches you to do without thinking), keep on questioning the answers you come up with.

Dr. Jordan Peterson has rightly noted that there's zero correlation between being smart, and being wise. You may be an extremely smart person, but if your thoughts aren't rooted in what is real and true, then your cleverness won't take you up to being intelligent. Not even if you're one of those who're able to call out other people's logical fallacies at the drop of a meme, you can't claim to be logical, as you've broken Aristotle's 1st rule of Logic (your premises must be true, before you can attempt to use them logically), and wisdom will remain beyond your reach. The calculations that follow upon such clever thoughts cease to be intelligent. They may be impressive, they may even make you appear to be stunningly smart, dazzling even, but such thoughts cease to be Intelligent, from the outset.

To take matters a step further, if you value the attention getting skills of smartness, over the more subtle and humble plodding of wisdom, not only are you part of the problem, but you're making yourself into another brick in the wall. And remember, however comfortable you may or may not be with that, just keep in mind that the Democrat candidates for President of the United States, don't think it's worth debating.